American Medical Biographies/Harrison, John Pollard
Harrison, John Pollard (1796–1849).
John Pollard Harrison, physician, teacher and writer, of Cincinnati, Ohio, was born in Louisville, Kentucky, June 5, 1796, a son of Maj. John Harrison, of Virginia, an officer in the Revolutionary War; his mother, Mary Ann Johnson, a daughter of Benjamin Johnson, sixth and youngest son of Sir William Johnson, Bart.
He received his early education from the Rev. John Todd, a Presbyterian clergyman of Louisville. When about fifteen he began the study of medicine with Dr. John Crogan and in 1817 went to Philadelphia to attend the medical lectures of the University of Pennsylvania, and studied under Drs. Chapman and Dewees. In April, 1819, he received his M. D. from the university and began practice immediately in Louisville. In 1820 he married Miss Mary T. Warner of Philadelphia.
In 1820 the Louisville Hospital was founded. Dr. Harrison was one of the attending physicians, and there began his career as a teacher. In 1835 he removed to Philadelphia, where he published a volume of medical essays. During that year also he was elected professor of materia medica in the Cincinnati College, his associates being Daniel Drake, S. D. Gross, and others of note.
In 1841 he was elected professor of materia medica and lecturer on pathology in the Medical College of Ohio, and in 1847 was transferred to the chair of theory and practice of medicine, a chair he occupied until the time of his death.
Dr. Harrison acquired distinction as a writer for medical journals.
The "Proceedings" of the Medical Convention of Ohio for 1841 contain two articles from the pen of Dr. Harrison: "Diseases induced by Mercury" and the "Address on Medical Education." In 1844–5 he published his great work on "The Elements of Materia Medica and Therapeutics."
He was on the staff of the Commercial (later Cincinnati) Hospital and vice-president of the American Medical Association in 1849.
In 1847 Dr. Harrison became associate editor, with Dr. L. M. Lawson (q. v.), of the Western Lancet.
He died in Cincinnati, of cholera, September 2, 1849. His wife and six children survived him.