Jacob Bigelow (1787–1879), physician, scientist, and educator, was born in Sudbury, Massachusetts. After receiving an A.B. degree from Harvard University in 1806 and an M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1810, he moved to Boston and set up a medical practice. A few years later he returned to Harvard, where he served as professor of materia medica, 1815–55, Rumford professor and lecturer of the application of science to the useful arts, 1816–27, and overseer, 1846–54. During his long academic career Bigelow wrote extensively on a wide range of topics, including New England flora, medicinal botany, and the inappropriateness of copious bloodletting and aggressive drug treatments. He also opposed urban cemeteries, which he believed spread disease, and, on utilitarian grounds, what he regarded as an overemphasis in education on the study of ancient languages. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences from 1812 and the American Philosophical Society from 1818, he held various offices in the former organization, including vice president, 1839–46, and president, 1846–63. Bigelow died in Boston (ANB description begins John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes, eds., American National Biography, 1999, 24 vols. description ends ; DAB description begins Allen Johnson and Dumas Malone, eds., Dictionary of American Biography, 1928–36, 20 vols. description ends ; George E. Ellis, Memoir of Jacob Bigelow, M.D., LL.D. [1880]; MBCo: Bigelow Papers; Harvard Catalogue description begins Harvard University Quinquennial Catalogue of the Officers and Graduates, 1636–1925, 1925 description ends , 41, 185; University of Pennsylvania Catalogue description begins Will J. Maxwell, comp., General Alumni Catalogue of the University of Pennsylvania, 1917 description ends , 570; Poor, Jefferson’s Library description begins Nathaniel P. Poor, Catalogue. President Jefferson’s Library, 1829 description ends , 5, 7 [nos. 173, 303]; APS description begins American Philosophical Society description ends , Minutes, 17 Apr. 1818 [MS in PPAmP]; American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Proceedings 14 [1879]: 332–42, and Memoirs 11 [1888]: 39, 64–5; Boston Post, 11 Jan. 1879; gravestone inscription in Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, Mass.).

Bigelow had sent TJ his short work based on the flowering of trees, Facts serving to shew the comparative forwardness of the spring in different parts of the United States (Cambridge, Mass., 1818; reprinted from American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Memoirs 4 [1818]: 77–85; Poor, Jefferson’s Library description begins Nathaniel P. Poor, Catalogue. President Jefferson’s Library, 1829 description ends , 7 [no. 303]; TJ’s copy in MBPLi, inscribed [trimmed]: “Hon Thomas Jeffe[. . .] from the [. . .]”).