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A Farming Physician
Trained at the University of Pennsylvania, the oldest medical school in the country, William Palmer became a doctor at age twenty-three. He treated locals ranging from wealthy slave owners to free blacks. Palmer became farming to earn more money, taking to heart the advice of one of his former professors, Dr. Benjamin Rush, who noted, "The resources of a farm will prevent your cherishing, even for a moment, an impious wish for the prevalence of sickness in the neighborhood."
"[William Palmer was] peculiarly fitted for a country pioneer physician, with a sound mind in a sound body. He had a quick and vigorous intellect, an iron constitution with great energy and will power. He always made visits on horse back, and never knew any distinction between those who paid him and those he called 'God Almighty's patients.'"
-- John Thomas Scharf, History of Western Maryland, 1882 |