John Redman Coxe

John Redman Coxe (September 16, 1773 – March 22, 1864) was a physician and professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Early life and education Born in Trenton, New Jersey, Coxe, was reportedly descended from a long line of medical and surgical ancestors, several of whom, at different periods, were physicians to the kings and queens of England. He was educated under the care of his European-educated grandfather, Dr. John Redman, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Redman seems to have liked English methods best, for he sent his grandson to English schools and on to the University of Edinburgh when Coxe was sixteen to begin classical studies under a chosen teacher. There the surgeon with whom he boarded induced him to attend the hospital lectures. In his autobiography Coxe wrote: "After fifteen months in Edinburgh I returned to London in 1789 and attended two courses of anatomy and chemistry at the London Hospital and in 1790 left England to more directly study medicine under Dr. Benjamin Rush, and stayed with him until I obtained my degree in the University of Pennsylvania of doctor of medicine in 1794". During the yellow fever in 1793 in Philadelphia so great was the number of patients that he fought the plague side by side with Dr. Rush and seldom saw fewer than thirty to fifty a day. For "his skill, fortitude, patience and perseverance, and humanity" during that hard time, Dr. Rush gave him a "Commentary on Boerhaave". In 1794 he returned to Europe, spending two years studying in the hospitals of London, Edinburgh and Paris. He then returned to Philadelphia in 1796 or 1797, to enter into practice.