EDWARD STEVENS : GASTRIC PHYSIOLOGIST, PHYSICIAN, and AMERICAN STATEMAN

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.

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