American Medical Biographies/Phelps, Edward Elisha
Phelps, Edward Elisha (1803–1880)
Edward Elisha Phelps was born in Peacham, Vermont, April 24, 1803; his father was Dr. Elisha Phelps who moved to Windsor soon after the son's birth. The boy was educated at Norwich University; his first course of medical lectures being taken at the Dartmouth Medical School and his course completed under Professor Nathan Smith (q. v.), at New Haven, Connecticut, graduation in medicine following after this at Yale in 1825.
Dr. Phelps' health being poor, he spent some time in the South, assisting in a survey of the Dismal Swamp canals, and devoting himself incidentally to botanical studies. He seems always to have been a student of plant life.
In 1828 he commenced to practise at Windsor, making his home there throughout his life. He soon made a reputation for himself in the profession, and was elected professor of anatomy and surgery in the medical department of the University of Vermont, occupying the position for two years. In 1841 he was appointed lecturer on materia medica, medical botany and medical jurisprudence in Dartmouth Medical School, and held the chair of materia medica and therapeutics and lectured on botany until 1849, during this time collecting a very complete museum of medical botany for the college. In 1849 he was transferred to the chair of theory and practice of medicine which he occupied until 1871, when he retired from active college work and became professor emeritus. Afterwards, he collected for the college a museum of pathological anatomy with money furnished him by his friend, Hon. E. M. Stoughton, and 1851 and 1852 saw him traveling in Europe. The honorary A. M. was conferred on him by the University of Vermont in 1835 and that of LL. D. by the same institution in 1857.
During the Civil War he was a member of the State Board of Examining Surgeons and in this position earned a high reputation for strict and impartial judgment. In the fall of 1861 he was given active duty on the staff of the commander of the Vermont Brigade, serving during the spring and summer of 1862 in the Peninsula. On account of impaired health, he returned to Vermont and was put in charge of the Military Hospital and Camp at Brattleboro. This camp attained a wide reputation for the percentage of recoveries which took place there and the credit for this was chiefly due to Dr. Phelps. During the closing months of the war, he was transferred to a Kentucky hospital from which he returned to his home and practice at Windsor.
Dr. Phelps was one of the founders of the Connecticut Valley Medical Society and also its president. He was also a member of the Vermont State Medical Society. To both of these organizations he presented valuable papers. He was a genuine, sincere man, who hated hypocrisy and quackery of any form.
He married, in 1821, Phoebe Foxcroft Lynn, of Boston, and had one daughter. Phelps died November 26, 1880.