American Medical Biographies/Blackburn, Isaac Wright
Blackburn, Isaac Wright (1851–1911)
Isaac Wright Blackburn was born in Bedford County, Pa., May 27, 1851. His father was Abraham Moore Blackburn, and his mother's maiden name was Barbara Harris Wright. The families were of English descent originally, but emigrated to this country during the 17th century, and are, therefore, American. The families were among the early settlers of Pennsylvania, and were of Quaker stock, and many of their descendants yet continue in the faith of the Society of Friends.
I. W. Blackburn received his early education in the public schools, supplemented by private instruction. In 1872 he took up the study of painting, hoping to become a portrait painter, and with this in view, became a pupil of Prof. C. Schussele, principal of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, in his private art school. Subsequently he became a student at the academy under Schussele, Eakins, and Bailey. While pursuing his art studies at the academy he attended the lectures and demonstrations of Prof. W. W. Keen, on artistic anatomy, and becoming deeply interested in the study of anatomy, decided to study medicine. As a preparation for this study he entered the office of a preceptor, S. F. Lytle, M. D., of Philadelphia, Pa., and remained under his instruction while preparing to enter the University of Pennsylvania. This course of study and a course in the Auxiliary Department of Medicine in the University of Pennsylvania prepared him to enter the Medical School of the University in 1879. In 1882 he graduated with honors and received the Morbid Anatomy Prize offered by Prof. Tyson, for his thesis on the "Microscopic Diagnosis of Lymphoid Structures." Deciding to adopt pathology as his life work he remained two years for a post-graduate course in pathology under Dr. Henry F. Formad, demonstrator of pathology in the University of Pennsylvania.
On July 1, 1884, he was appointed special pathologist to the Government Hospital for the Insane, Washington D. C. In 1885 he was appointed to the position of lecturer in the Medical School of Georgetown University, and in 1886 was given the chair of pathology. In 1889 the laboratory work and lectures on histology were given in charge of Dr. Blackburn, together with the chair of pathology. In 1898, owing to increased work, the chair was divided, and Dr. Blackburn was elected professor of morbid anatomy and special pathology, a position he occupied at the time of his death. In 1906 he was given the chair of morbid anatomy in the Medical Department of the George Washington University, of Washington, D. C.
Dr. Blackburn was a member of the American Medico-Psychological Association; American Association for the Advancement of Science; Philadelphia Pathological Society; and other medical and scientific societies.
A list of Dr. Blackburn's publications includes "Intracranial Tumors Among the Insane, 1902, Govt. Print. Office, 95 pp." and "Gross Morbid Anatomy of the Brain, 1908. Govt. Print. Office, 156 pp." Although the list comprises twenty-two captions, in which are included three books, it gives but a very faint idea of the amount of work and the activity displayed by the author during his life. At the time of his death he had performed considerably over two thousand autopsies, each one of which had been recorded with scrupulous care, and furnished material always valuable for reference. He had accumulated an immense amount of this material, a great deal of which he had studied over and had made extensive notes on, so that it might have been published had he lived. In this position, however, the Doctor was so modest and retiring that a great deal of his most excellent work never saw the press for that very reason.
Although Dr. Blackburn specialized in the gross pathology of the brain, he was unusually well-grounded in general pathology. He died June 18, 1911, in the Government Hospital for the Insane, which he had served so long, of pancreatic disease, his health having been undermined by a severe autopsy wound received sometime previously.