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Origins of the Wistar Institute
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1761 - Grandson Caspar Wistar the Younger, born.
1777 - Caspar Wistar the Younger develops an interest in medicine after helping wounded troops during the Battle of Germantown, PA in the Revolutionary War
He studied medicine, first at the University of Pennsylvania (receiving his Bachelor of Medicine degree in 1782), and then at the University of Edinburgh (receiving his Doctor of Medicine degree in 1786). While in Scotland he was, for two successive years, president of the Royal Medical Society of Edinburgh, and also president of a society for the further investigation of natural history.
He was an early promoter of vaccination. During the yellow fever epidemic of 1793, he suffered an attack of the disease contracted while caring for his patients.
It was his habit to throw open his house once every week in the winter, and at these gatherings students, citizens, scientists, and travelers met and discussed subjects of interest. These assemblies, celebrated in the annals of Philadelphia under the title of Wistar parties, were continued long after his death by other residents of that city.[4]
The American College of Physicians elected him a fellow in 1787, and he was appointed one of its censors in 1794, which place he retained until his death. In 1787 he was elected to membership of the American Philosophical Society, was chosen its vice-president in 1795, and on the resignation of Thomas Jefferson, in 1815, served as president until his death. He also served as president of the Society for the Abolition of Slavery, succeeding Benjamin Rush.
The botanist Thomas Nuttall named the genus Wisteria in his honour (some call it Wistaria but the misspelling is conserved under the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature). The Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology at the University of Pennsylvania, founded in 1892 by his great-nephew, Isaac Jones Wistar, is also named for Caspar Wistar.
Wistar was a friend of Thomas Jefferson, with whom he worked to identify bones of the megalonyx[5] and through whom he sent Meriwether Lewis some recommendations for scientific inquiry on the Lewis and Clark expedition.[5]
1892 - The Wistar Institute founded as a independent, nonprofit research institution in biomedical science, with special expertise in oncology, immunology, infectious disease and vaccine research. Located in the University City section of Philadelphia, Wistar was founded in 1892 as America's first nonprofit institution solely focused on biomedical research and training. Named after Caspar Wistar, M.D., a well-respected Philadelphia physician, The Wistar Institute is the nation's first independent medical research facility, founded in 1892 by Isaac Jones Wistar , great-nephew of Dr. Wistar and a prominent lawyer and Civil War Brigadier General who made a long-lasting contribution to the city of Philadelphia and to biomedical science.