Dr. Jonathan Potts

A Patriot of the American Revolution for PENNSYLVANIA. DAR Ancestor # A091849

https://mdharrismd.com/2013/06/07/jonathan-potts-american-revolutio...

Dr. Jonathan Potts is a medical officer worth studying. He was born in Popodickon, Pennsylvania in 1747 and, with Dr. Benjamin Rush, attended the famous medical school in Edinburgh, Scotland. He returned to the colonies on learning of the illness of his fiancé, Miss Grace Richardson. Potts married her in May 1767 and completed his Doctor of Medicine at the College of Philadelphia, the first institution to grant medical degrees in America, in 1771. He began a private practice in Reading, PA, but responded to the call of independence, seeking assignment with the Continental Hospital Department, comprised of Northern, Middle and Eastern Departments.

Dr. John Morgan became Director General (DG) of the Continental Hospital Department on 17 Oct 1775, and was immediately embroiled in the controversy on the relationship between the hospital department and the regimental medical system and on the DG’s authority over the Northern Department Hospital Director, Dr. Samuel Stringer. Potts, hired in June 1776 as “physician and surgeon” for the Northern Department, steered clear of the imbroglio. He was busy at Fort George, at the south end of Lake George, supporting the army retreating from Canada. Morgan and Stringer were relieved in January 1777.

Traveling with the new commander, BG Horatio Gates, Potts brought not only himself but medicine and supplies for the hospital at Fort George. On arrival he found 1000 patients with smallpox and dysentery, a number that retreating forces swelled to 3000 by mid July. Patients were “without clothing, without bedding, or a shelter sufficient to screen them from the weather.” Medicine was in short supply. Nonetheless, Potts used variolation, a technique whereby scabs from infected smallpox patients was used to expose uninfected people to small amounts of the virus, to combat the epidemic. By 28 August Gates wrote Washington that “the smallpox is now perfectly removed from the army”.