KUHN
79
KUHN
June. His thesis, on "Do Lavatione
Frigida," was dedicated to his friend
Linneus. He visited France, Holland
and Germany but whether before or after
Edinburgh is not very clear. In 1768,
after his return to Philadelphia, he be-
came professor of materia medica and
botany in the University of Pennsyl-
vania and helped in 1774 in vaccinating a
population considerably decimated by
small-pox. As a lecturer, in his five or
six professorships held, "he was faithful
and clear in the description of diseases
and in the mode of applying their appro-
priate remedies, avoiding theoretical dis-
cussions." It would be pleasant to know
more of Kuhn, but the short-length long-
adjectived pompous biographies in old
medical journals do not give much. A
discreet young physician, "not remark-
able for powers of imagination but his
talent for observation profound; a lover
of music, abstemious in diet, neat in per-
son," says one biographer.
He did not marry until he was thirty- nine, after which it is gratifying to learn "he had two sons, respectable characters," by his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Isaac Hartman of St. Croix.
When seventy-three he "grieved" his patients by giving up practice, and in June, 1817, began to feel conscious that
life was ending. After a short confine-
ment of three weeks to the house, but
suffering no pain, Adam Kuhn passed
away on July 5, in full serenity of mind
and heart.
His other appointments included: Phy- sician to the Pennsylvania Hospital, con- sulting physician, Philadelphia Dis- pensary, 1786; one of the founders and in 1808 president of the College of Phy- sicians of Philadelphia; professor of the theory and practice of medicine. Univer- sity of Pennsylvania, 1789, and on the junction of the two medical schools of the College and University, was chosen professor of the practice of physic, 1792-1797.
Of his writings, with the exception of the thesis mentioned, nothing can he traced save a short letter addressed to Dr. Lettsom on "Diseases Succeeding Transplantation of Teeth." He op- posed Rush's "Treatment of Yellow Fever" by publishing his own, over initials, in the "General Advertizer" of September 11, 1793.(?) D. W.
Eclectic Repertory, Phila., ISIS, Dr. S.
Powell Griffiths.
Stoever'a Life of Linneua.
Autobiography of Charles Caldwell, Phila.,
1S55.
The Botanists of Philadelphia, Harshberger,
Phila., 1S99.
