Josiah C. Nott

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Josiah Clark Nott

Dr. Nott, taken during the 1860s
Born 31 March 1804
South Carolina
Died 31 March 1873
Mobile, Alabama

Josiah Clark Nott was an American physician and surgeon. He was also an author of surgical, yellow fever, and race theories.

Contents

[edit] Biography

Josiah Nott was born in South Carolina, son of the Federalist politician and judge Abraham Nott. He received his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1827 and completed his post-graduate training in Paris.[1] He moved to Mobile, Alabama in 1833 and began a surgical practice.[1]

He took up theories that the mosquito was a vector for malaria, held by John Crawford and his contemporary Lewis Daniel Beauperthy. He is credited as being the first to apply the insect vector theory to yellow fever, then a serious health problem of the American South.[1] In his 1850 Yellow Fever Contrasted with Bilious Fever he attacked the prevailing miasma theory.

Nott's racial theories were put forth in a book of essays, from 1854, written with George Robins Gliddon, an Egyptologist and follower of Samuel George Morton. Entitled Types of Mankind or Ethnological Research, it successfully popularized the polygenist theory, of separate origins of races of humans. Its arguments were cited by Charles Darwin in his 1871 The Descent of Man as an example of those classing the races of man as separate species, before Darwin concluded that humanity was one species.[2]

He was a founder of the Medical College of Alabama, established in Mobile in 1858, and served as its Professor of Surgery. In 1860 he successfully appealed to the state legislature for a monetary appropriation and a state charter for the school. During the American Civil War he served as a Confederate surgeon, staff officer, and hospital inspector. He lost both of his sons in that conflict.[1]

[edit] Works

  • Nott, Josiah Clark. Sketch of the Epidemic of Yellow Fever of 1847, in Mobile. (1848)
  • Nott, Josiah Clark. Two Lectures on the Connection between the Biblical and Physical History of Man, Delivered by Invitation, from the Chair of Political Economy, Etc., of the Louisiana University, in December, 1848. (1848)
  • Nott, Josiah Clark, and Ralph Hermon Major. Yellow Fever Contrasted with Bilious Fever: Reasons for Believing It a Disease Sui Generis - Its Mode of Propagation - Remote Cause - Probable Insect or Animalcular Origin. Oxford: Blackwell Scientific (1850)
  • Nott, Josiah Clark. An Essay on the Natural History of Mankind, Viewed in Connection with Negro Slavery Delivered Before the Southern Rights Association, 14th December, 1850. (1851)
  • Nott, Josiah Clark, George R. Gliddon, Samuel George Morton, Louis Agassiz, William Usher, and Henry S. Patterson. Types of Mankind: Or, Ethnological Researches : Based Upon the Ancient Monuments, Paintings, Sculptures, and Crania of Races, and Upon Their Natural, Geographical, Philological and Biblical History, Illustrated by Selections from the Inedited Papers of Samuel George Morton and by Additional Contributions from L. Agassiz, W. Usher, and H.S. Patterson. (1854)
  • Nott, Josiah Clark, George Robins Gliddon, and Louis Ferdinand Alfred Maury. Indigenous Races of the Earth; Or, New Chapters of Ethnological Inquiry; Including Monographs on Special Departments. (1857)

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c d "Josiah Clark Nott, M.D. (1804-1873) ". "Alabama Healthcare Hall of Fame". Retrieved on 2008-02-20.
  2. ^ Darwin, Charles (1871), The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (1st ed.), London: John Murray  p. 217
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