John Warren (1753-1815) was born in Boston, Massachusetts on July 27, 1753, to Mary and Joseph Warren. He attended Harvard College, where he received an A.B. in 1771, and subsequently studied medicine with his brother, Joseph. He would receive an honorary M.D. degree from Harvard in 1786. Warren moved to Salem, Massachusetts, in 1774 and practiced medicine there until 1775, when he returned to Boston and served as hospital surgeon during the siege of Boston and then in the New York-New Jersey campaign of the Revolutionary War. He married Abigail Collins in 1777; they would have seventeen children together. From 1777 to to 1782, Warren was in charge of the Continental Army hospital in Boston; during that time he also delivered anatomical lectures to the Boston Medical Society, which he had helped found in 1780. From 1783 until his death in 1815, Warren also served on the faculty of the Harvard Medical School, which he was also instrumental in founding; he was its first Hersey Professor of Anatomy and Surgery. He continued to practice medicine and surgery, in addition to his teaching and administrative responsibilities, throughout his career. His son, John Collins Warren (1778-1856), replaced him as Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School upon his death. John Warren died in Boston on April 4, 1815.
The Boston Medical Society is believed to have been founded in April or May 1780 and was active until at least 1785; John Warren was one of its founders. Little is known about the Society, as few of its records remain, but several scholars have written about its establishment of a fee structure for medical services and its series of public anatomical lectures, delivered by Warren in in 1781 and 1782.
From the description of Votes of the Boston Medical Society, May 3, 1784. (Harvard University). WorldCat record id: 664667430
