PHYSICK, fiz'nc, Philip Syng, American surgeon: b. Philadelphia, 7 1768; d. there, 15 Dec. 1837. His father, Edmund Physick, was an Englishman and, previous to the out break of the revolution, Keeper of the Great Seal of Pennsylvania. Philip Syng Physick was graduated from the College of the Uni versity of Pennsylvania in 1785, studied medi cine under Dr. Adam Kuhn, a well-known Philadelphia practitioner and pupil of Linnaeus and at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1789 he accompanied his father to England where he continued his medical studies under Drs. Hunter, Clark and Osborne. In January 1790 he was appointed for one year to the position of house surgeon at Saint George's Hospital, London. In January 1791, at the expiration of his term at the hospital, he received his diploma from the Royal College of Surgeons in London. Shortly after that he went to Edinburgh where he continued his medical studies until May 1792 when he received the degree of M.D. from the University of Edinburgh. He returned to Philadelphia in 1792 and began practice. In 1793 he did valuable service during a severe epidemic of yellow fever as the physician of a special hospital established by the board of health. He himself suffered a severe attack, but recovered. His fame as a highly skilled and suc cessful surgeon spread rapidly. As early as 1794
he was elected one of the surgeons of the Pennsylvania Hospital, Philadelphia, where he performed many hitherto more or less unknown operations. During his career he also developed a number of surgical instruments to such a point of perfection that some of them are still used to-day in accordance with his plans. During the repeated yellow fever epidemics of 1797, 1798 and 1799, he was again so active that he suffered a second attack from which he recovered only after a severe illness. In 1805 he was appointed professor of surgery at the University of Pennsylvania and in 1819 be came professor of anatomy there, which post he held till 1831. In 1824 he was elected president of the Philadelphia Medical Society, continuing as such until his death. In 1825 he was made a member of the Royal Academy of Medicine of France and in 1836 an honorary fellow of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society of London. He has been styled ache father of American Surgery.° Consult Bell, John, Syng Physick' (in