Samuel Powel Griffitts

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Samuel Powel Griffitts (July 21, 1759 – May 12, 1826) was an American doctor from Philadelphia. He is often called the founder of the Philadelphia Dispensary, the city’s first free clinic for poor people, started in 1786. He was an early member of the American Philosophical Society, elected in 1785.

Griffitts was born into a Quaker family in Philadelphia, the third son of William and Abigail Powel Griffitts. He entered the College of Philadelphia in 1776 to study medicine with Adam Kuhn, who had learned from Linnaeus. The American Revolution interrupted his studies; after the Battle of Germantown, he and his classmate Caspar Wistar helped treat wounded soldiers. When Philadelphia was occupied by the British, he finished his degree at the University of the State of Pennsylvania in July 1781.

After graduation, Griffitts went to Europe for medical training. Benjamin Rush gave him many recommendations, including attending lectures, visiting hospitals, studying chemistry, keeping a library, and even taking dancing lessons for a short time. He studied in Paris and Montpellier, then moved to London. In 1783 he wrote that London was the center of practical medicine, but French hospitals had better nursing. He spent a year in Edinburgh in 1783–1784 studying with William Cullen before returning to Philadelphia in 1784.

Back home, Griffitts helped start the Philadelphia Dispensary. A visiting lecturer, Henry Moyes, had first suggested the idea in 1785. The project was funded by subscriptions from the public, and about 320 people signed up. The dispensary opened in early 1786. Griffitts led the group of doctors there and visited patients daily for more than 40 years. He later helped create two more dispensaries in the city and is often called the father of Philadelphia’s dispensaries.

Griffitts also joined the Humane Society and the Pennsylvania Abolitionist Society. In 1792 he was elected Professor of Materia Medica at the University of Pennsylvania, a position he held for four years before resigning to Benjamin Smith Barton. He continued practicing medicine and serving the community until he died suddenly in 1826.

He married Mary Fishbourne, and they had seven children. His maternal uncle, Samuel Powel, was Philadelphia’s mayor twice, and his great-grandson was Thomas Morgan Rotch.