John Gorham (physician)


John Gorham was an American physician and educator.

Biography

He graduated from Harvard in 1801, with a B.A., and later received two medical degrees there. Between his medical degrees, he studied chemistry privately in London with Friedrich Accum, and then with Thomas Hope at the University of Edinburgh. He opened a medical practice in Boston in 1806, and maintained it throughout his academic career. In 1809 he was appointed adjunct professor of chemistry and materia medica in Harvard, and in 1816 was made professor of chemistry and mineralogy. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1810.
Gorham resigned his academic position in 1827 to give more attention to his thriving medical practice. He was librarian, treasurer and recording secretary, for the Massachusetts Medical Society.

Works

He was a founder, and for 15 years an editor, of The New England Journal of Medicine and Surgery, where he published several papers.