Page:Early History of Medicine in Philadelphia - George W Norris.djvu/18

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The Early History of Medicine in Philadelphia.

country, but took an active part in State affairs, and was made first Deputy Governor of Pennsylvania.

Thomas Wynne, who is said to have been a practitioner in London, also entered into public life, and was elected Speaker of the first Provincial Assembly. He is spoken of by Proud as a "person of note and character." He died in March, 1691.

Griffith Owen was highly esteemed as a preacher among the Friends, and his merit and abilities raised him to several offices of trust; but his practice as a physician, says Proud, "in which he was very knowing and eminent, rendered him of still greater value and importance in the place where he lived." He died in 1717, aged about seventy, universally respected for his professional knowledge as well as for his integrity and public spirit; and though for many years he had the principal practice in Philadelphia, has left no observations concerning the diseases which he met with, or his modes of treatment. The following account of an amputation performed by him is recorded by Thomas Story, and is curious, as well from its being, probably, the first operation of the kind done in the Province, as from its giving some idea of the state of surgery in those days among us. In the firing of a salute, in

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