Robert Hare (1781–1858), chemist and educator, was a native of Philadelphia. He frequently helped his namesake father manage his brewery, where the younger Hare also performed chemical research. He studied chemistry under the prominent chemist James Woodhouse at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1801 Hare invented the oxyhydrogen blowpipe, which produced the highest temperature then obtainable and was the precursor to modern welding and metal-cutting torches and also led to limelight, a new form of illumination later used in lighthouses and stage lighting. In 1839 the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, which had made him an associate fellow in 1824, belatedly awarded him the Rumford Medal for devising his blowpipe. Hare also had a deep interest in electricity and invented the calorimotor in 1819, the deflagrator in 1821, and an electric furnace. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1803. Hare was professor of natural philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania, 1810–12, taught briefly at the College of William and Mary in 1818, and returned to the University of Pennsylvania as professor of chemistry from that year until his retirement in 1847. He published his own lectures and many articles and also edited William Henry’s The Elements of Experimental Chemistry, 2 vols. (Philadelphia, 1819) and Andrew Ure’s American edition of A Dictionary of Chemistry, 2 vols. (Philadelphia, 1821). Late in life Hare studied banking and currency, researched the formation of tornadoes, showed his belief in spiritualism by inventing a “spiritoscope,” an instrument for communication with the dead, and in 1850 published a novel entitled Standish the Puritan under the pseudonym “Eldred Grayson.” He died of pneumonia in Philadelphia (ANB; DAB; DSB; Edgar Fahs Smith, The Life of Robert Hare: An American Chemist (1781–1858) [1917]; APS, Minutes, 21 Jan. 1803 [MS in PPAmP]; William and Mary Provisional List, 49; American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Book of Members, 1780–2005 [2006], 176; Nathan Reingold, Marc Rothenberg, and others, eds., The Papers of Joseph Henry [1972–2008]; Philadelphia North American and United States Gazette, 17 May 1858).

Granville Sharp Pattison (1791–1851), surgeon and educator, was born in Glasgow, Scotland. He studied medicine at Glasgow University from 1806 to 1812. Pattison also procured cadavers for the private College Street medical school and soon worked there as a lecturer in anatomy, physiology, and the principles of operative surgery. In 1813 he was admitted to the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow. Pattison’s frequently turbulent career included duels, and in 1819 his affair with the wife of a colleague led to his resignation as professor of anatomy and surgery at Anderson’s Institution in Glasgow and departure for Philadelphia. There Pattison hoped to obtain a professorship at the University of Pennsylvania, but his dubious personal reputation followed him, and he instead briefly taught private courses on anatomy and surgery before moving to Baltimore as chair of surgery at the University of Maryland, 1820–26. Ill health then took him to London, where he held the chair of anatomy and morbid anatomy at the University of London by 1827 and was professor of surgery in 1830. Asked to resign in 1831 because his teaching had not kept up with newer French methods, Pattison returned to Philadelphia and from 1832 to 1841 was professor of anatomy at Jefferson Medical College. From 1833 to 1836 he also edited the Register and Library of Medical and Chirurgical Science. In his last decade Pattison was professor of anatomy at the University of the City of New York (later New York University). He died in New York City, but his body was later reinterred in Glasgow (ODNB; Frederick L. M. Pattison, Granville Sharp Pattison: Anatomist and Antagonist, 1791–1851 [1987]; Pattison’s naturalization record [DNA: RG 21, NPEDP, 19 Oct. 1819]; Philadelphia Poulson’s American Daily Advertiser, 20 Sept. 1819; Eugene F. Cordell, Historical Sketch of the University of Maryland School of Medicine (1807–1890) [1891], 39–53; New York Herald, 13 Nov. 1851).

Philip Syng Physick (1768–1837), surgeon and educator, was born in Philadelphia. He graduated from the University of the State of Pennsylvania (later the University of Pennsylvania) in 1785 and left for London three years later to study medicine under John Hunter, a renowned surgeon. Physick continued to develop his skills in that city for a year as house surgeon at Saint George’s Hospital before attending the University of Edinburgh, from which he received a medical degree in 1792 with a dissertation on apoplexy. He returned to Philadelphia by 1793 and helped treat its inhabitants during yellow fever epidemics of that year and 1798. Physick was on the staff of the Pennsylvania Hospital from 1794 to 1816, lectured on surgery at the University of Pennsylvania until a separate chair of surgery was created for him in 1805, then held that position until 1819, and continued until 1831 to lecture on anatomy. In 1802 Physick was elected to the American Philosophical Society. He was one of the first surgeons to use a stomach pump, introduced the use of tissue-absorbent animal ligatures in surgery, and invented and improved other surgical instruments and procedures. His fame as a surgeon prompted United States chief justice John Marshall to seek his care in 1831, when Physick removed a reported thousand stones from his bladder. After enduring poor health for much of his adult life, Physick died in Philadelphia (ANB; DAB; Samuel D. Gross, ed., Lives of Eminent American Physicians and Surgeons of the Nineteenth Century [1861], 351–459; University of Pennsylvania Catalogue, 22; APS, Minutes, 16 July 1802 [MS in PPAmP]; Marshall, Papers, 12:105–9; Philadelphia Poulson’s American Daily Advertiser, 16 Dec. 1837).