Dr. John S. Sappington

http://shs.umsystem.edu/famousmissourians/doctors/sappington/index....

Dr. John Sappington was a prominent pioneer physician of Saline County, Missouri. Sappington was famous for his use of quinine to treat malaria fevers.

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Dr. John Sappington, author of the first medical book published west of the Mississippi River, was born May 15, 1776 at Havre De Grace, Maryland. He studied and practiced medicine under his father for several years at Nashville, later moving to Franklin, Tennessee. In 1814 Sappington set out on horseback for the Philadelphia medical college where he received his degree. He returned to the South and in 1817 joined westward bound caravans to Missouri. Two years later he settled on a farm west of Arrow Rock in Saline County.

Sappington's field of practice extended from Jefferson City west to Lexington and all over adjoining counties. His forte lay in a remedy for fever, the main agency of which was Peruvian bark or quinine. Although this drug had been known since 1600, it had won recognition slowly, especially in America. To Sappington is due credit for its widespread and successful use in the Mississippi Valley as a treatment for malarial fevers. He attacked such practices as bloodletting, and his success and frankness to brother physicians contributed much to the acceptance of new treatment.

Tiring of his strenuous practice, Dr. Sappington devoted his attention after 1832 to the manufacture and exploitation of his "Dr. John Sappington's Anti-Fever Pills." Their large sale throughout the Mississippi Valley brought exceptional financial returns, which were wisely invested. His sense of public duty induced him to give to the world his theories, and there appeared in 1844 The Theory and Treatment of Fevers, by Dr. John Sappington, Saline County, Missouri. Thus voluntarily relinquishing a fortune, he set forth all his formulae, including that of his proprietary anti-fever pills.

To ameliorate the lot of indigent children of Saline County he left $20,000 in trust. During the first fifty years of its service thousands of boys and girls were its beneficiaries. Owing to the establishment of the free public school system, the interest was directed to the higher education of young men and women of Saline County. In August 1938 the fund amounted to $80,000 and almost 12,000 students had been aided with nearly $200,000 in tuitions having been paid. Sappington died September 7, 1856.