Lyman Spalding papers

Lyman Spalding (1775-1821), M.B., honorary M.D., Harvard College, Cambridge, Massachusetts, practiced medicine in New Hampshire and New York. He was noted by contemporaries for his work in smallpox vaccination, treatment of yellow fever, and study of anatomy. Spalding taught chemistry at Dartmouth Medical School, Hanover, New Hampshire and Fairfield Medical College, Fairfield, New York for several years. He also founded the Pharmacopoeia of the United States of America.

Lyman Spalding was born on June 5, 1775, in Cornish, New Hampshire, to Elizabeth (1734-1816) and Dyer Spalding (1732-1814). He was educated at Charlestown Academy in Charlestown, New Hampshire, and thereafter enrolled in medical lectures at Harvard, where he studied under John Warren (1753-1815), Benjamin Waterhouse (1754-1846), and Aaron Dexter (1750-1829). He was the twenty-second graduate of the Harvard Medical School in 1797. Physician Nathan Smith (1762-1829) was a mentor to Spalding in his youth, and after graduating Harvard, Spalding moved back to New Hampshire to help Smith found Dartmouth Medical School in 1797. He was a lecturer there in chemistry, and he also established a medical practice in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

In 1800, Spalding resigned from his full-time lectureship at Dartmouth to focus on his medical practice, although he continued to teach part time until 1802. He received cowpox matter from Harvard Medical School Professor Benjamin Waterhouse (1754-1846), who introduced smallpox vaccination in the United States, and in 1800, Spalding became the first physician in New Hampshire to vaccinate patients against smallpox. He also initiated an annual bill of mortality for the Portsmouth population.

Spalding was elected to the New Hampshire Medical Society in 1801, and in 1811 he served as its vice president. He extended his education in surgery and dissection while attending lectures held by the College of Physicians in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the winter of 1809-1810. Spalding moved his practice and his family to New York City in 1816 and began giving lectures at Fairfield Medical College. In 1817, at meeting of the New York County Medical Society, Spalding proposed that a national pharmacopoeia, a collection of national prescription and materia medica (pharmacy) standards, be assembled. The United States Pharmacopoeia was published in 1820.

Spalding married Elizabeth Coues (1779-1838) in 1802, and they had five children: Elizabeth Spalding (1803-1878); Adelaide Spalding Foster (1805-1898); Lyman Dyer (1810-1892); Alfred Peter (1815-1844); and Edward Jenner (1819-1833). Spalding was injured by falling building debris while walking in New York in 1821. He never regained full health, and after traveling to Portsmouth on October 17, 1821, he fell ill and died on October 21, 1821.