John Dix Fisher
Encyclopedia
John Dix Fisher, physician and founder of Perkins Institution for the Blind
in Boston, Massachusetts, was born in Needham, Massachusetts
, the youngest of the six sons of Aaron and Lucy (Stedman) Fisher. The Fisher family was descended from Anthony Fisher, one of the signers of the Dedham Covenant in 1636. All six sons were self made men who became successful merchants, traders and professional men in Dedham
and Boston, Massachusetts.
With the support of his older brothers, John Dix Fisher entered Brown University
, graduating in 1820. After receiving his M.D.
degree in 1825 from what was then called Massachusetts Medical College of Harvard University
, he immediately accompanied his brother, the artist Alvan Fisher
, on a trip to Europe. In Paris, he pursued his professional studies with such eminent physicians of the period as René Laënnec
, inventor of the stethoscope; Gabriel Andral
, distinguished pathologist; and Alfred Velpeau
, renowned for his knowledge of surgical anatomy. In medical school, Dr. Fisher had studied with Dr. James Jackson, Harvard's first professor of clinical medicine
and one of the "fathers" of Massachusetts General Hospital
. Dr. Jackson had touched on the difficulties of distinguishing smallpox
from other eruptive diseases and the need for a series of colored pictures which would illustrate the progress of the disease. Dr. Fisher undertook such a project while in Paris and wrote Description of the Distinct, Confluent, and Inoculated Small Pox, Varioloid Disease, Cow Pox, and Chicken Pox (1829) which included thirteen colored plates. The paintings from which the plates were made were executed under Dr. Fisher's direction by a French artist working at the bedside of the patients during 1825 and 1826 when smallpox was an epidemic in Paris.
Dr. Fisher also observed the methods of instructing the blind that were being practiced in Paris. He visited the world's first school for blind children, L'Institution Nationale des Jeunes Aveugles, founded by Valentin Haüy
in 1784. He was impressed with the manner in which students were taught to read from raised-type
books, to write, and to learn mathematics, geography, languages, music and manual arts. Inspired, he returned to Boston and spent the next three years persuading family and friends who had both the means and the conscience to help fund an American version of the Paris school. The Massachusetts legislature eventually signed an act incorporating the New England Asylum for the Blind on March 2, 1829, and soon after provided $6,000 of funding. The trustees searched for two years for a superintendent for the new school until, in 1831, Dr. Fisher recruited his friend, Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe
. The two men had studied together at Brown University and at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Howe opened the school in the summer of 1832 using an approach that gave students both the ability to think and the skills to support themselves with the goal of turning out independent, productive, well-educated members of society. Dr. Fisher continued as the school's doctor and vice president. The school's name was eventually changed to Perkins School for the Blind
and is now located in Watertown, Massachusetts
.
Dr. Fisher was a pioneer for medical reform in Boston. He is credited with introducing the stethoscope
into the United States and was an early advocate for the practice of mediate auscultation
- listening to the body through a stethoscope - using the techniques that he had learned during his studies in Paris with Laënnec. In July, 1832, while using auscultation to examine a child affected with chronic hydrocephalus
, he discovered what was called "cephalic bellows-sound" or "cerebral murmur
", a phenomenon related to cerebral circulation
which was thought to be a physical symptom of diseases of the brain. His findings were circulated in medical journals throughout the world. However, the phenomenon was dismissed in 1880 as being without pathological
significance. He was among those present in the Ether Dome
at Massachusetts General Hospital when ether
was first used in public for a surgical operation, described by many as the most significant event in American medical history. He was one of the first to use ether during childbirth. Although Antoine Jean Desormeaux, a French surgeon, first introduced the endoscope to a patient and is considered the Father of Endoscopy
, Dr. Fisher had several years earlier described an endoscope initially to inspect the vagina, but later modified it to examine the bladder and urethra. As one of a group of young American doctors influenced by the teachings of another French physician, Pierre Louis, Dr. Fisher was an advocate of the "numerical method" in the United States, where the emphasis on the collection of observable, detailed data and their statistical analysis became a guideline for medical research and the foundation for epidemiology
. He was present along with William Cogswell
, Richard Fletcher, Oliver Peabody and Lemuel Shattuck at a meeting held on November 17, 1839, in which the American Statistical Association
(ASA) was formed. These men were graduates of Brown, Dartmouth
, and Harvard and were trained in law, medicine, theology, literature and education. The constitution of the Society set out as its aims: "...to collect, preserve, and diffuse statistical information in the different departments of human knowledge." It was particularly instrumental in improving public health
and encouraging advances in preventive medicine
. He was also a member of the Massachusetts Medical Society
which, in concert with the ASA in 1842, led the effort to establish the first statewide system to collect and publish vital statistics
in the United States. In 1846, Dr. Fisher was elected attending physician
at Massachusetts General Hospital, a position he held until his death on March 3, 1850, at his home in Hayward Place, Boston. On March 17, 1850, the hospital's Board of Trustees expressed its deep regret for "...the loss of an officer who, to high scientific attainments, united amiable and unassuming manners and the greatest kindness of heart; one who has uniformly discharged in a most zealous, faithful, and acceptable manner his duties toward this institution." A white marble monument in his memory stands in Mount Auburn Cemetery
, Cambridge, Massachusetts
.
s in Boston. Her trance messages, characterized by the impersonation of the departed, were published weekly in The Banner. Mrs. Conant was known in Spiritualist circles as both an inspirational speaker and a platform healer. For her medical diagnosis, the medium relied on the spirit of Dr. John Dix Fisher, a famous old Boston physician.
Perkins School for the Blind
Perkins School for the Blind, located in Watertown, Massachusetts, is the oldest schools for the blind in the United States. It has also been known as the Perkins Institution for the Blind.-History:...
in Boston, Massachusetts, was born in Needham, Massachusetts
Needham, Massachusetts
Needham is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. A suburb of Boston, its population was 28,886 at the 2010 census.- History :...
, the youngest of the six sons of Aaron and Lucy (Stedman) Fisher. The Fisher family was descended from Anthony Fisher, one of the signers of the Dedham Covenant in 1636. All six sons were self made men who became successful merchants, traders and professional men in Dedham
Dedham, Massachusetts
Dedham is a town in and the county seat of Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 24,729 at the 2010 census. It is located on Boston's southwest border. On the northwest it is bordered by Needham, on the southwest by Westwood and on the southeast by...
and Boston, Massachusetts.
Brown University
Brown University is a private, Ivy League university located in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. Founded in 1764 prior to American independence from the British Empire as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations early in the reign of King George III ,...
, graduating in 1820. After receiving his M.D.
Doctor of Medicine
Doctor of Medicine is a doctoral degree for physicians. The degree is granted by medical schools...
degree in 1825 from what was then called Massachusetts Medical College of Harvard University
Harvard Medical School
Harvard Medical School is the graduate medical school of Harvard University. It is located in the Longwood Medical Area of the Mission Hill neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts....
, he immediately accompanied his brother, the artist Alvan Fisher
Alvan Fisher
Alvan Fisher was one of the United States's pioneers in landscape painting and genre works.-Early years:...
, on a trip to Europe. In Paris, he pursued his professional studies with such eminent physicians of the period as René Laënnec
René Laennec
René-Théophile-Hyacinthe Laennec was a French physician. He invented the stethoscope in 1816, while working at the Hôpital Necker and pioneered its use in diagnosing various chest conditions....
, inventor of the stethoscope; Gabriel Andral
Gabriel Andral
Gabriel Andral was a distinguished French pathologist and a professor at the University of Paris.In 1828 Andral was appointed professor of hygiene, and in 1839 succeeded François-Joseph-Victor Broussais as chairman of general pathology and therapy, a position he held for 27 years...
, distinguished pathologist; and Alfred Velpeau
Alfred-Armand-Louis-Marie Velpeau
Alfred-Armand-Louis-Marie Velpeau was a French anatomist and surgeon.-Biography:A native of Brèches, Indre-et-Loire, he was a student and assistant to Pierre Bretonneau. During his early medical career he was a surgeon in several hospitals in Paris...
, renowned for his knowledge of surgical anatomy. In medical school, Dr. Fisher had studied with Dr. James Jackson, Harvard's first professor of clinical medicine
Clinical Medicine
Clinical Medicine is a peer-reviewed medical journal published bimonthly by the Royal College of Physicians. It was established in 1966 as the Journal of the Royal College of Physicians of London. It was doubly named between 1998 and 2000, and since 2001 it has appeared as Clinical Medicine. Its...
and one of the "fathers" of Massachusetts General Hospital
Massachusetts General Hospital
Massachusetts General Hospital is a teaching hospital and biomedical research facility in the West End neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts...
. Dr. Jackson had touched on the difficulties of distinguishing smallpox
Smallpox
Smallpox was an infectious disease unique to humans, caused by either of two virus variants, Variola major and Variola minor. The disease is also known by the Latin names Variola or Variola vera, which is a derivative of the Latin varius, meaning "spotted", or varus, meaning "pimple"...
from other eruptive diseases and the need for a series of colored pictures which would illustrate the progress of the disease. Dr. Fisher undertook such a project while in Paris and wrote Description of the Distinct, Confluent, and Inoculated Small Pox, Varioloid Disease, Cow Pox, and Chicken Pox (1829) which included thirteen colored plates. The paintings from which the plates were made were executed under Dr. Fisher's direction by a French artist working at the bedside of the patients during 1825 and 1826 when smallpox was an epidemic in Paris.
Dr. Fisher also observed the methods of instructing the blind that were being practiced in Paris. He visited the world's first school for blind children, L'Institution Nationale des Jeunes Aveugles, founded by Valentin Haüy
Valentin Haüy
Valentin Haüy - 19 March 1822 in Paris) was the founder, in 1784, of the first school for the blind, the Royal Institution for the Young Blind in Paris . In 1819, Louis Braille entered this school....
in 1784. He was impressed with the manner in which students were taught to read from raised-type
Braille
The Braille system is a method that is widely used by blind people to read and write, and was the first digital form of writing.Braille was devised in 1825 by Louis Braille, a blind Frenchman. Each Braille character, or cell, is made up of six dot positions, arranged in a rectangle containing two...
books, to write, and to learn mathematics, geography, languages, music and manual arts. Inspired, he returned to Boston and spent the next three years persuading family and friends who had both the means and the conscience to help fund an American version of the Paris school. The Massachusetts legislature eventually signed an act incorporating the New England Asylum for the Blind on March 2, 1829, and soon after provided $6,000 of funding. The trustees searched for two years for a superintendent for the new school until, in 1831, Dr. Fisher recruited his friend, Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe
Samuel Gridley Howe
Samuel Gridley Howe was a nineteenth century United States physician, abolitionist, and an advocate of education for the blind.-Early life and education:...
. The two men had studied together at Brown University and at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Howe opened the school in the summer of 1832 using an approach that gave students both the ability to think and the skills to support themselves with the goal of turning out independent, productive, well-educated members of society. Dr. Fisher continued as the school's doctor and vice president. The school's name was eventually changed to Perkins School for the Blind
Perkins School for the Blind
Perkins School for the Blind, located in Watertown, Massachusetts, is the oldest schools for the blind in the United States. It has also been known as the Perkins Institution for the Blind.-History:...
and is now located in Watertown, Massachusetts
Watertown, Massachusetts
The Town of Watertown is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 31,915 at the 2010 census.- History :Archeological evidence suggests that Watertown was inhabited for thousands of years before the arrival of settlers from England...
.
Dr. Fisher was a pioneer for medical reform in Boston. He is credited with introducing the stethoscope
Stethoscope
The stethoscope is an acoustic medical device for auscultation, or listening to the internal sounds of an animal body. It is often used to listen to lung and heart sounds. It is also used to listen to intestines and blood flow in arteries and veins...
into the United States and was an early advocate for the practice of mediate auscultation
Auscultation
Auscultation is the term for listening to the internal sounds of the body, usually using a stethoscope...
- listening to the body through a stethoscope - using the techniques that he had learned during his studies in Paris with Laënnec. In July, 1832, while using auscultation to examine a child affected with chronic hydrocephalus
Hydrocephalus
Hydrocephalus , also known as "water in the brain," is a medical condition in which there is an abnormal accumulation of cerebrospinal fluid in the ventricles, or cavities, of the brain. This may cause increased intracranial pressure inside the skull and progressive enlargement of the head,...
, he discovered what was called "cephalic bellows-sound" or "cerebral murmur
Heart murmur
Murmurs are extra heart sounds that are produced as a result of turbulent blood flow that is sufficient to produce audible noise. Most murmurs can only be heard with the assistance of a stethoscope ....
", a phenomenon related to cerebral circulation
Cerebral circulation
Cerebral circulation refers to the movement of blood through the network of blood vessels supplying the brain. The arteries deliver oxygenated blood, glucose and other nutrients to the brain and the veins carry deoxygenated blood back to the heart, removing carbon dioxide, lactic acid, and other...
which was thought to be a physical symptom of diseases of the brain. His findings were circulated in medical journals throughout the world. However, the phenomenon was dismissed in 1880 as being without pathological
Pathology
Pathology is the precise study and diagnosis of disease. The word pathology is from Ancient Greek , pathos, "feeling, suffering"; and , -logia, "the study of". Pathologization, to pathologize, refers to the process of defining a condition or behavior as pathological, e.g. pathological gambling....
significance. He was among those present in the Ether Dome
Ether Dome
The Ether Dome is an amphitheater in the Bulfinch Building at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. It served as the hospital's operating room from its opening in 1821 until 1867. It was the site of the first use of inhaled ether as a surgical anesthetic on 16 October 1846. William Thomas...
at Massachusetts General Hospital when ether
Ether
Ethers are a class of organic compounds that contain an ether group — an oxygen atom connected to two alkyl or aryl groups — of general formula R–O–R'. A typical example is the solvent and anesthetic diethyl ether, commonly referred to simply as "ether"...
was first used in public for a surgical operation, described by many as the most significant event in American medical history. He was one of the first to use ether during childbirth. Although Antoine Jean Desormeaux, a French surgeon, first introduced the endoscope to a patient and is considered the Father of Endoscopy
Endoscopy
Endoscopy means looking inside and typically refers to looking inside the body for medical reasons using an endoscope , an instrument used to examine the interior of a hollow organ or cavity of the body. Unlike most other medical imaging devices, endoscopes are inserted directly into the organ...
, Dr. Fisher had several years earlier described an endoscope initially to inspect the vagina, but later modified it to examine the bladder and urethra. As one of a group of young American doctors influenced by the teachings of another French physician, Pierre Louis, Dr. Fisher was an advocate of the "numerical method" in the United States, where the emphasis on the collection of observable, detailed data and their statistical analysis became a guideline for medical research and the foundation for epidemiology
Epidemiology
Epidemiology is the study of health-event, health-characteristic, or health-determinant patterns in a population. It is the cornerstone method of public health research, and helps inform policy decisions and evidence-based medicine by identifying risk factors for disease and targets for preventive...
. He was present along with William Cogswell
William Cogswell
William Cogswell was a U.S. Representative from Massachusetts and a colonel in the Union Army during the American Civil War who was awarded the honorary grade of brevet brigadier general, U.S. Volunteers.-Biography:...
, Richard Fletcher, Oliver Peabody and Lemuel Shattuck at a meeting held on November 17, 1839, in which the American Statistical Association
American Statistical Association
The American Statistical Association , is the main professional US organization for statisticians and related professions. It was founded in Boston, Massachusetts on November 27, 1839, and is the second oldest, continuously operating professional society in the United States...
(ASA) was formed. These men were graduates of Brown, Dartmouth
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...
, and Harvard and were trained in law, medicine, theology, literature and education. The constitution of the Society set out as its aims: "...to collect, preserve, and diffuse statistical information in the different departments of human knowledge." It was particularly instrumental in improving public health
Public health
Public health is "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals" . It is concerned with threats to health based on population health...
and encouraging advances in preventive medicine
Preventive medicine
Preventive medicine or preventive care refers to measures taken to prevent diseases, rather than curing them or treating their symptoms...
. He was also a member of the Massachusetts Medical Society
Massachusetts Medical Society
The Massachusetts Medical Society is the oldest continuously-operating state medical society in the United States. Incorporated on November 1, 1781, by an act of the Massachusetts General Court, the MMS is a non-profit organization that consists of approximately 22,000 physicians, medical students...
which, in concert with the ASA in 1842, led the effort to establish the first statewide system to collect and publish vital statistics
Vital statistics
Vital statistics are the information maintained by a government, recording the birth and death of individuals within that government's jurisdiction. These data are used by public health programs to evaluate how effective their programs are...
in the United States. In 1846, Dr. Fisher was elected attending physician
Attending physician
In the United States, an attending physician is a physician who has completed residency and practices medicine in a clinic or hospital, in the specialty learned during residency. An attending physician can supervise fellows, residents, and medical students...
at Massachusetts General Hospital, a position he held until his death on March 3, 1850, at his home in Hayward Place, Boston. On March 17, 1850, the hospital's Board of Trustees expressed its deep regret for "...the loss of an officer who, to high scientific attainments, united amiable and unassuming manners and the greatest kindness of heart; one who has uniformly discharged in a most zealous, faithful, and acceptable manner his duties toward this institution." A white marble monument in his memory stands in Mount Auburn Cemetery
Mount Auburn Cemetery
Mount Auburn Cemetery was founded in 1831 as "America's first garden cemetery", or the first "rural cemetery", with classical monuments set in a rolling landscaped terrain...
, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Cambridge is home to two of the world's most prominent...
.
Trivia
According to an extract from Flashes of Light from the Spirit-Land compiled by Allen Putnam and published in 1872 by William White & Co., Boston, Mrs. J. H Conant was an American medium who, through the generosity of Luther Colby, editor of The Banner of Light, (a weekly subtitled "An Exponent of the Spiritual Philosophy of the Nineteenth Century," which had the largest circulation of any spiritualist paper in the world) gave, for the last 17 years of her life, free public séanceSéance
A séance is an attempt to communicate with spirits. The word "séance" comes from the French word for "seat," "session" or "sitting," from the Old French "seoir," "to sit." In French, the word's meaning is quite general: one may, for example, speak of "une séance de cinéma"...
s in Boston. Her trance messages, characterized by the impersonation of the departed, were published weekly in The Banner. Mrs. Conant was known in Spiritualist circles as both an inspirational speaker and a platform healer. For her medical diagnosis, the medium relied on the spirit of Dr. John Dix Fisher, a famous old Boston physician.