page_title: John Evans (Colorado governor)
section_title: Medicine
hierarchical_section_title: John Evans (Colorado governor) / Career / Medicine
caption_attribution_description: A view of Attica, Indiana, looking east from Warren County across the Wabash River along the Paul Dresser Bridge.
context_page_description: John Evans was an American politician, physician, founder of various hospitals and medical associations, railroad promoter, Governor of the Territory of Colorado, and namesake of Evanston, Illinois; Evanston, Wyoming; Evans, Colorado; and Mount Evans, Colorado.
  He is most noted for being one of the founders of both Northwestern University and the University of Denver. The John Evans professorships, the highest honors bestowed on faculty members at both Northwestern University and the University of Denver, are named for him. By bringing railroad service to Denver from several directions, he was responsible for the growth of Denver from a settlement to a city.
  Evans was forced to resign the governorship in 1865 for his role in instigating the Sand Creek massacre, one of the worst massacres of Native Americans in U.S. history.
context_section_description: He married Hannah Canby (1813–1850) and moved to West Milton, Ohio in December 1838. He moved in July 1839 to Attica, Indiana, where he established a medical practice with Isaac Fisher. He practiced medicine and decided to build an asylum for the insane. The Evans family moved to Indianapolis in 1843 to better focus his lobbying efforts with the Indiana legislature. On January 15, 1844, a bill was passed that allowed for a state asylum to be established and Evans was named as one of the commissioners to have the asylum built. From his research of successful asylums, he determined that fresh food and water as well as a country setting were important. Beginning in 1846, he oversaw the construction and became the first superintendent of the Indiana Central State Hospital in 1845.
  He taught at Rush Medical College in Chicago and then moved there in 1848. He wrote about and developed a program for quarantine for cholera, which he spoke about to Congress. To reduce trauma that babies received through the use of forceps during birth, he invented an obstetrical extractor. He was owner and editor of a medical journal.
  He was a founder of Lakeside Hospital and brought the Sisters of Mercy to staff the hospital, later named Mercy Hospital. He founded the Illinois State Medical Society. To ease seasickness during travel, he patented a suspended bed for ships in 1872 in England, France, the United States, and Italy.
caption: Attica, Indiana, where Evans developed a successful medical practice, strategized about opening an asylum, and where his children were born.
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