practice of medicine, then represented by a rapidly increasing number of medical men. Those who passed its examination were made licentiates, or men announced by the society as fit to practise medicine.[1] When later the Medical Department of Harvard University was founded a conflict arose as to the right of the university to grant diplomas. This, however, was soon adjusted but the full degree of doctor of medicine was not bestowed by Harvard to medical students until 1811. John Warren, however, received an honorary M. D. from Harvard in 1786. Bachelor of Medicine was the only degree at first regularly given in course. Provision was, however, made that the corporation be empowered to grant the M. D. degree to men who had received the degree of M. D. seven years or more before from Harvard. The first candidate to receive an M. D. under these conditions was Dr. Fleet (q.v.) in 1795 and several others later received the full degree under similar conditions.
While Dr. Warren was endeavoring to establish himself in practice political events were developing rapidly. On December 18, 1773, the tea was thrown overboard in Boston harbor and tradition has it that Warren took an active part in this demonstration. About this time he joined a militia regiment in Salem, commanded by Colonel Pickering, and became its surgeon. The following year we find him addressing the mechanics of New York in his capacity as chairman of a committee of Boston mechanics, urging them to take no part in the construction of the fortifications of Boston. Towards the close of the battle of Lexington on June 19, 1775, Col. Pickering's regiment arrived at Winter Hill, Somerville, but took no active part in the engagement. Warren was present on that occasion. Encamping for the night his regiment returned to Salem the next day. After the battle of Bunker Hill he left Salem at two o'clock the following morning and at Medford received the news of his brother Joseph's death. While seeking on the battlefield for his brother's body, he received a thrust from the bayonet of a sentinel, the scar of which he bore through life. After learning the fate of his brother he volunteered as a private in the ranks of the American Army. He was, however, assigned to the care of the wounded. On July 3 Washington arrived at Cambridge and the organization of the army was begun. After passing an examination before a medical board, Warren received the appointment of senior surgeon to the hospital established at Cambridge. Here he remained during the siege of Boston. After the evacuation he was one of the first surgeons to enter the city and made a report on the discovery of arsenic mixed with medicines left by the enemy. When the army left Cambridge the general hospital was transferred to New York, for which city he departed on May 11, 1776, when he was appointed senior surgeon of the hospital established at Long Island. He remained in the army until July, 1777, and during this year gained much experience in dealing with dysentery and what was probably typhoid fever. He was with the army at Trenton and narrowly escaped capture after the battle of Princeton.
Many changes having taken place in the meantime in the organization of the medical staff of the army and Warren having suffered from illness brought on by the hardships of the campaign, he applied for and received permission to return to Boston in April, 1777. At the time extensive military preparations were going on in Massachusetts. A hospital was therefore needed in the city itself and one was accordingly established at the corner of Milton and Spring Streets near the site of the present Massachusetts General Hospital, and on July 1, 1777, Warren was established as senior surgeon of the General Hospital in Boston, a position he held until the close of the war. This was the turning point in Warren's career. Many of the older generation of practitioners had left the city and the field was open to a younger man representing the patriotic element in the community.
On November 4, 1777, he married Abigail Collins, daughter of John Collins, afterwards governor of Rhode Island. He first met his future wife in the family of Colonel Mifflin, Washington's aide-de-camp, at Cambridge, and later in Philadelphia while the army was stationed there. His first residence in Boston was in a house at the corner of Avon Place and Central Court, and here he once more began to practise his profession in civil life. About this time we find him entering into a partnership with Isaac Rand (q.v.) and Lemuel Hayward for the formation of a hospital at Sewall's Point, Brookline, for the inoculation for smallpox and the treatment of patients attacked with that disease. He also volunteered for the Rhode Island expedition and after that campaign returned to his hospital duties and family in Boston.
As we have seen, Warren had. while in college, developed a strong taste for the study of anatomy. He now appreciated the importance
- ↑ Medical Societies; their organization and the nature of their work. J. C. Warren, 1881.
