EDWARD STEVENS : GASTRIC PHYSIOLOGIST, PHYSICIAN, and AMERICAN STATEMAN
Subtitle: With A Complete Translation Of His Inaugural Thesis "De Alimentorum Concoctione" And Interpretive Notes On Gastric Digestion Along With Certain Other Selected Diplomatic Papers
By: Translation of the Latin Thesis submitted to the University of Edinburgh, 1777, in absolution of the M.D. Degree
Contributors: Latin Thesis, Letters, and Some Diplomatic Papers of Dr Edward Stevens, Formerly Consul General of the United States in Santo Domingo
Edition: Copyright As An Unpublished Work 1968  (Canada)
Publisher: Cultural and Educational Productions, Montreal, Quebec
Published: 1969
Place of publication: Montreal, Quebec
Language: eng
Format: Library Bound
Number of pages: 179
Subjects: Stevens, Edward  ca. 1755-1834.; Gastric Digestion; Consular Despatches - United States; Yellow Fever
Genres: History of Medicine; Letters - American, Department of State; American Political History; Haiti; American Physicians
Work titles: Presents many important letters from/to distinguished Americans including John Adams, George Washington, Timothy Pickering et al.
First sentence: From Introduction: Ten years ago when I first read the Dissertatio Inauguralis de Alimentorum Concoctione, written at Edinburgh in 1777, I could find little information about either the manuscript or the author. Indeed one authority, for whom I have very high regard, wrote me that he did "not think it possible for anyone to furnish any substantial account of (Edward Stevens)". It was clear to me that over the years this most interesting text had received casual mention but it was equally clear that it had never engaged the considered attention of any investigator devoted to the subject of gastric digestion.
Description: The life and background of Dr Edward Stevens had not previously excited curiousity or interest. The Yale historian Dr Fulton referred to him as "an obscure physician of Edinburgh". In fact Stevens' researches laid the keystone to the correct understanding of the process of gastric digestion and Edward Stevens can fairly be claimed as one of the earliest American Physicians of note. In this book Dr Stacey Day presents for the first time Stevens' relationship with such eminently great Americans as Hamilton, Washington, Adams, Jefferson and others. Stevens played a role in the growth of the infant American Republic. His work on Yellow Fever in Philadelphia brought him into professional conflict with Benjamin Rush. There is suggestive evidence in the Pickering Manuscripts in Boston that there may have been some form of kinship between Stevens and Alexander Hamilton (page 35-37). In any case Hamilton was instrumental in Stevens becoming Consul General in Santo Domingo. This area of American History vis a vis Stevens, Toussaint of Haiti, and the United States needs further considered study and interpretation.
Notes: Facsimile signature of Edward Stevens on the Dust Jacket cover, front. Facsimile letter, addressed from Philadelphia, October 16th,1803 (Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston) signed by Edward Stevens on back of Dust Jacket cover.Illustrations include page from Catalogus Dissertationum Medicarum (Edinburgh) describing Stevens as "Ex Ind. Occid."  from which author traced Stevens to St Croix, then British West Indies. Portrait of author, Dr Stacey Day on page 179. Letters to Timothy Pickering, Secretary of State relating to Toussaint L'Ouverture and regional affairs in that part of Caribbean. Medical interest also centres on exchanges between Benjamin Rush and Edward Stevens on how to treat Yellow Fever during that plague in Philadelphia. The experimental studies of Stevens, undertaken at the University of Edinburgh, and as was customary then, presented in Latin, are translated and presented in full by the author with commentary.