Dr. Edward Cutbush

Edward Cutbush
Dr. Edward Cutbush - c. 1835
Born	1772 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Died	July 23, 1843 (aged 71) Geneva, New York
Nationality	American
Education	University of Pennsylvania 1794
Medical career
Profession	Physician and Educator
Field	United States Navy

Edward Cutbush (1772 – July 23, 1843) was born in Philadelphia. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1794, where he was resident physician of the Pennsylvania Hospital from 1790 to 1794. Cutbush was surgeon general of the Pennsylvania militia during the 1794 Whiskey Rebellion.

He was an officer and a surgeon in the United States Navy and was commissioned into office in 1799. Cutbush has been called the father of American naval medicine. He resigned from the Navy in 1829, after 30 years of service. During 1826, he was a professor of chemistry at Columbian College in the District of Columbia. In 1834, he relocated to Geneva, New York, where he founded Geneva Medical College. During his tenure there, he served as the first dean and professor of chemistry.

Cutbush was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1772. He was the son of Edward Cutbush (1745–1790) and Anne Marriat (died 1789) who married on September 3, 1770. His father, a British immigrant, was a stonecutter or carver. Philadelphian, William Rush (1756–1833), a famous woodworking artist and carver of ship models, was an apprentice of the senior Cutbush. Rush began carving ship figureheads as early as 1790 and gained much notoriety for his distinguished artwork.

Cutbush was a student at Philadelphia College by age 12. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1794, where he was resident physician of the Pennsylvania Hospital from 1790 to 1794. During his time there, he worked under Dr. William Shippen. While still a student, he was honored by the city of Philadelphia for his services during the 1793 yellow fever epidemic.

Edward Cutbush was the eldest of four children. His siblings were Ann Cutbush (1792–1798), William Cutbush (born 1785), who graduated from West Point in 1812 and attained eminence as an engineer, and James Cutbush (1788–1823), a renowned chemist, who worked as a chemistry teacher, assistant surgeon and medical officer and died on December 15, 1823.