Caspar Wistar Pennock, MD was born July 2, 1799 and died April 16,1867. He was born in Philadelphia and received his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1828. He studied and received clinical experience at the AlmsHouse and Hospital for poor, insane, destitute and orphans of Philadelphia. To further his education, he moved to Paris, France between 1831-1833 to study with Pierre C.P. Louis. At this time, Paris was considered the medical center of the world where there was unrivaled access to practical experience and clinical studies. Under the influence of the French scientists, he and fellow American graduate students William W. Gerhard and James Jackson, Jr. learned to use autopsy as a means to verify diagnoses, studied listening techniques for the heart, lungs and other organs by way of the developing stethoscope, and participated in clinical studies of cholera and typhus with Louis in the wards and autopsy room. Their exposure to French medical practices influenced American medicine in new ways. Upon the return of the young doctors to Philadelphia, C W Pennock, MD and W W Gerhard, MD were soon able to put Louis' approach to typhoid fever to work when an outbreak occurred in Philadelphia in 1836. Dr. Pennock had been appointed attending physician at the AlmsHouse and Hospital and Dr. Gerhard was appointed to the Pennsylvania Hospital. With the hundreds of patients in their care they were able to distinguish typhus from typhoid fever, which saved lives. For most of his career, Caspar Wistar Pennock focused on the study of the anatomy of the heart and authored several papers based on experiments of physiological actions and sounds of the heart and cardiac diseases. He retired from medicine earlier than planned due to the steady progress of a debilitating disease of the spinal marrow.

Physical description

56 items.

Early American History Note

Much of this collection deals with Caspar Wistar Pennock's medical practice and travel abroad, especially his time in Paris in the 1830s. There is one interesting letter from Andrew Comstock that references his attempt to foment a revolution (in elocution) in Philadelphia in 1830. There are a few letters in French.

• Manuscript Essays
• Receipts.
• Travel Narratives and Journals

• Philadelphia (Pa.) -- Social life and customs.

• Audubon, John James, 1785-1851
• Bache, Franklin, 1792-1864
• Comstock, Andrew
• Griscom, John, 1774-1852
• Harlan, Richard, 1796-1843
• Hays, Isaac,1796-1879.
• Michaux, Francois André, 1770-1855
• Morton, Samuel George, 1799-1851
• Pennock, C. W. (Caspar Wistar), 1799-1867
• Travers, Benjamin, 1783-1858
• Vaux, Roberts,1786-1836.

• Americans Abroad
• International Travel
• Medicine
• Medicine.