1776 - Medicine

Medicine

Karl Wilhelm Scheele discovers uric acid in a kidney stone (see 1774; Garrod, 1859).

Smallpox decimates the Continental Army in the north. By June, some 5,500 of the 10,000-man force are incapacitated, largely by the dread pox to which the British are generally immune as a result of having had mild bouts with the disease in childhood or in some cases by inoculation (see 1747). Continental Army physician-in-chief John Morgan writes a pamphlet under the title, "A Recommendation of Inoculation" (but see 1777).

New York Hospital opens its first facility, in Pearl Street (an earlier building was gutted February 28 of last year before it was quite finished; see 1771). The colonial assembly has granted £4,000 for construction of a new building. The first patients treated are two Continental Army soldiers who have been wounded July 12 in an engagement between shore batteries and two British men-of-war trying to force their way up the Hudson (see 1788).

Physician-scientist Cadwallader Colden dies on his Long Island, New York, estate September 28 at age 88.