Jackson

ship of his brother Henry, and remained nearly
a year in London, during which time he served
as dresser at St. Thomas's Hospital, studying
anatomy there under Cline, and under Sir Ast-
ley Cooper at Guy's. From Woodville he learned
the technique of vaccination, which had been
introduced by Jenner only a few months before.
Returning to Boston in the autumn of 1800, he
"began business," as he says in his diary, on
Oct. i, and on Oct. n one finds him advertising
in the Columbian Centinel that he is prepared to
vaccinate. His knowledge of the new procedure
evidently attracted many patients, and he was
the first in America to investigate vaccination
in a scientific spirit. The results of his experi-
ences were published in reserved and guarded
terms in the Columbian Centinel (Feb. 14, and
Apr. 8, 1801). He was appointed physician to
the Boston Dispensary in 1802, and later iden-
tified himself with the movement for the reor-
ganization and rebuilding of the Harvard Medi-
cal School (1810). In 1812 he was appointed
to the Hersey Professorship of the Theory and
Practice of Physic in succession to Benjamin
Waterhouse, who had been the first to hold this
chair. He was largely responsible also for the
foundation of the Massachusetts General Hos-
pital, the plans for which were made in 1810, al-
though it was not actually opened until 1821.

As a physician Jackson exerted great influ-
ence both locally and in America at large. He
had been brought up during a period of tran-
sition; in his early years there were few phy-
sicians, superstition was widespread, and there
were almost no facilities for the education of
students in medicine. Having seen the older
schools of Europe, he was able to formulate
plans for the development of American medical
education. As a lecturer he was attractive and
in his teaching he was essentially a therapeutic
nihilist, believing firmly in the "vis medicatrix
naturae." Osier pointed out that Jackson gave
the first description of peripheral alcoholic neu-
ritis, in a three-page paper published in the New
England Journal of Medicine (1822). Jackson
also gave an excellent description of the symp-
toms of appendicitis without appreciating that
it was the appendix which was at fault. His
many case books show his remarkable alertness
and are filled with shrewd clinical observations.

On Oct 3, 1801, he married Elizabeth Cabot,
daughter of Andrew Cabot of Beverly, to whom
he had long been engaged. She died in Novem-
ber 1817, and he soon afterwards married her
sister Sarah. By his first wife he had nine
children; the eldest son, James Jackson junior
(1810-1834), had a remarkable career. After

Jackson

graduating from Harvard he studied in Paris
under Louis and while there made an important
study of an epidemic of cholera then raging.
This was published on his return (1832), but
unfortunately he died a year later of tuberculous
pericarditis. His father never recovered from
this overwhelming loss and he resigned his post
at the medical school in consequence. His mem-
oir of his son is an interesting psychological
document in that it is entirely objective and al-
most wholly devoid of any evidence of the deep
feeling which prompted him to write it. Jack-
son's Letters to a Young Physician (1855) are
filled with penetrating advice and are written in
an attractive literary style which has caused
them to remain one of the classics of American
medical literature. They were followed by a
sequel Another Letter to a Young Physician
(1861). He also published a useful syllabus,
On the Theory and Practice of Physic (1825).
[J. J. Putnam, A Memoir of Dr. James Jackson
(1905) ; H. A. Kelly and W. L. Burrage, Am. Medic.
Biogs. (1920); Boston Medic, and Surgic. Jour.f Sept.
5, 1867; Boston Post, Aug. 29, 1867; the Jackson case
books and other MSS. are in the Boston Medical Li-
brary.] J.F.F.
JACKSON, JAMES (Oct. 18, iSip-Jan. 13,
1887), jurist, member of Congress, was born in
Jefferson County, Ga. His father, William H.
Jackson, was the son of Gov, James Jackson
[g.z/.], who took a leading part in the early his-
tory of Georgia. His mother, Mildred Lewis
Cobb, was the aunt of Howell and Thomas
Reade Rootes Cobb Iqq.v.']. When James was
ten years old his parents moved to Athens,
where, after a few years' preparation in private
schools, he entered the state university. He was
graduated in 1837 and began the study of law in
the office of Howell Cobb. Upon his admission
to the bar in 1839, he moved to Monroe, Walton
County, and entered upon the practice of law.
Three years later he was made secretary of the
state Senate, and from that time until the end of
the Civil War he was, in one capacity or an-
other, continually in the public service, From
1845 to J849 he represented Walton County in
the General Assembly, for the next eight years
he was judge of the superior courts for the west-
ern circuit, and during the four years following,
a representative from Georgia in Congress.
When Georgia seceded he resigned from Con-
gress, and soon after the beginning of the war
he was made a judge-advocate, with the rank of
colonel, on the staff of "Stonewall" Jackson. At
the conclusion of the war he went to live in
Macon, where he practised law in partnership
with Howell Cobb and, after Cobb's death, with
Nisbet, Bacon, and Lyon. In 1875 he was chosen

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