Jones, Joseph, 1833-1896

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Joseph Jones (6 Sept. 1833-17 Feb. 1896), physician and scientist, was born in Liberty County, Georgia, the son of Charles Colcock Jones, a major planter and prominent minister to the slaves, and his first cousin, Mary Sharpe Jones. Joseph Jones was educated at South Carolina College (now the University of South Carolina), Princeton College (now University, B.A., 1853), and the University of Pennsylvania (M.D., 1856). Jones developed a lifelong interest in scientific research during his college years and chose teaching over private practice in order to have time for his original investigations. Between 1856 and 1861 he taught chemistry at the Savannah Medical College, natural sciences at the University of Georgia, and medical chemistry and pharmacy at the Medical College of Georgia. Jones' reputation as a leading student of health conditions in the nineteenth-century South was launched during these years. In 1859 he married Caroline Smelt Davis of Augusta, Georgia. The couple had three children.

The Civil War interrupted Jones's budding scientific career. After six month's service with a local militia unit, he accepted a Confederate surgeon's commission. But Jones was a most unusual medical officer. Viewing the hostilities as an immense laboratory from which to learn valuable medical lessons, he prevailed upon Surgeon General Samuel P. Moore to allow him to investigate health conditions in the Confederacy's principal armies, hospitals, and prisons. He presented his findings to Moore in masterful reports; those on gangrene and Andersonville Prison are the best known.

Jones returned to the Medical College of Georgia in the fall of 1865. The following spring he was elected to the chair of physiology and pathology at the University of Nashville. The excavation of some pre-Columbian Indian mounds along the Cumberland River, in which he found convincing signs of syphilis, was the high point of his stay in Tennessee. In 1868 Jones moved to New Orleans to accept the chair of chemistry and clinical medicine in the medical department of the University of Louisiana (now Tulane University) and to become a visiting physician at Charity Hospital. He was to spend the rest of his life here. Jones's first wife died in 1868, and in 1870 he wed Susan Rayner Polk, of New Orleans, daughter of Episcopalian bishop and Confederate general Leonidas Polk. This union also produced three children.

Conditions in New Orleans--an elevated rate of morbidity and a large public hospital that offered easy access to patients and records--made it ideal for the study of disease, and Jones's career blossomed there. He was increasingly recognized as an authority on southern diseases, but it is for his work in public health that he is most remembered. The sickly image of New Orleans inexorably interested him in sanitary reform. Good health was thought in that era to depend upon sanitary precautions against pathogenic environmental factors and the battle against epidemic disease. Jones campaigned for a thorough cleansing of New Orleans and for sanitary reform. The most lethal epidemic disease was yellow fever. This historic scourge of the South slowly subsided in the region after the Civil War, with the only major visitations occurring in 1867 and 1878. The latter, however, was one of the most widespread and virulent in the nation's history. While Jones had first encountered this much-feared killer as early as the 1850s in the wards of the Savannah marine hospital, it was in New Orleans that he was introduced to epidemic yellow fever. By the great outbreak of 1878 he had become a yellow fever expert. Jones, like most of his contemporaries, erroneously attributed the disease to a specific poison of undetermined origin and called for preventive measures, mainly civic hygiene and a limited quarantine. Jones's tenure as president of the Louisiana State Board of Health was marred by a bitter conflict with the National Board of Health. Congress established this organization on 3 March 1879 in response to the demands for a national quarantine law and a central agency to administer it in the wake of the devastating yellow fever epidemic of 1878. From the outset there was strong opposition to the National Board of Health from those who saw it as federal interference in state health and quarantine policy. Jones, an ardent believer in states' rights, was its boldest opponent, loudly resisting the national agency's attempts to play a role in administering the quarantine along the Gulf Coast. The controversy lasted until the summer of 1882, when Congress slashed funding for the National Board of Health and drastically curtailed its functions.

Jones's retreat from public life the next year did not slacken his interest in health reform. He enthusiastically returned to teaching and research. Jones was a prolific writer and during his long career published over 100 papers on a wide range of medical and scientific topics in the best journals of the day. He is chiefly remembered for his Medical and Surgical Memoirs. Consisting of four massive volumes, which appeared between 1876 and 1890, this work was a compilation of a lifetime of investigation of disease and observations on the practice of medicine. Jones died at his New Orleans home.

American National Biography Online http://www.anb.org (Retrieved January 13, 2009)

From the description of Joseph Jones biographical papers, 1895. (University of Georgia). WorldCat record id: 310967676

Archival Resources
Role Title Holding Repository
creatorOf Jones, Joseph, 1833-1896. Joseph Jones biographical papers, 1895.
referencedIn Manigault, Louis, 1828-1899. Journal of Louis Manigault, 1861-1865. Library of Congress
creatorOf Louisiana. Board of Health. Louisiana Board of Health notice, 1883 Apr. 18. Louisiana State University, LSU Libraries
creatorOf Jones, Joseph, 1833-1896. Joseph Jones papers, 1820-1900. Tulane University, Howard-Tilton Memorial Library
creatorOf Jones, Charles Colcock, 1804-1863. Rev. Charles Colcock Jones family papers, [ca. 1749-1909]. Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library
creatorOf Papers, 1868-1888. New York State Historical Documents Inventory
creatorOf Jones, Joseph, 1833-1896. Joseph Jones collection of papers relating to Indians of Tennessee, 1846-1889 1867-1868. Cornell University Library
referencedIn Manigault family. Manigault family papers, 1824-1897. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
creatorOf Jones, Joseph, 1833-1896. Letter, 15 May 1866 to Francis Peyre Porcher / Joseph Jones. Medical University of South Carolina Libraries
creatorOf Jones, Joseph, 1833-1896. Joseph Jones papers, 1838-1919 (bulk 1860-1905). Louisiana State University, LSU Libraries
creatorOf Porcher, Francis Peyre, 1825-1895. Letters, 1866-1879 to Joseph Jones / Francis Peyre Porcher. Medical University of South Carolina Libraries
creatorOf Jones, Joseph, 1833-1896. Letter, 1885, July 3 : New Orleans, to David Pell Seen, Bridgeport, Conn. Duke University, Medical Center Library & Archives
referencedIn Austin, Benjamin W.,. Autograph collection, 1885-1894. College of Physicians of Philadelphia
referencedIn Jones, Charles Edgeworth. Dr. Joseph Jones biographical material, 1890 February 10-1896 February 27.
creatorOf Jones, Joseph, 1833-1896. Correspondence to James McKeen Cattell, 1895. University of Pennsylvania Library
referencedIn Merrick-Jones family papers, 1855-1962. Tulane University, Howard-Tilton Memorial Library
referencedIn Joseph Jones collection of papers relating to Indians of Tennessee, 1846-1889, 1867-1868. Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library.
creatorOf Davis, James, 1774-1838. James Davis papers, 1797 Oct. 16-1867. University of South Carolina, System Library Service, University Libraries
creatorOf Porcher, Francis Peyre, 1825-1895. Letter, 10 September 1874 to Joseph Jones / Francis Peyre Porcher. Medical University of South Carolina Libraries
Role Title Holding Repository
Relation Name
associatedWith Andersonville Prison. corporateBody
associatedWith Army Medical Museum corporateBody
associatedWith Austin, Benjamin W., person
correspondedWith Baird, Spencer F. person
correspondedWith Berlin, A. F. person
associatedWith Burnett, Edwin Kenneth. person
associatedWith Cabell, J. L. (James Lawrence), 1813-1889. person
associatedWith Cattell, James McKeen, 1860-1944, person
associatedWith Charity Hospital (New Orleans, La.) corporateBody
associatedWith Confederate States of America. Army corporateBody
associatedWith Cotton Planters Convention of Georgia. corporateBody
associatedWith Davis, James, 1774-1838. person
associatedWith Gibbs, George J. person
correspondedWith Henry, Joseph, 1797-1878 person
associatedWith Henry, William Alexander (Henry's Son) person
associatedWith Huntington Free Library. corporateBody
correspondedWith Hyatt, Alpheus person
associatedWith Hyatt, Alpheus, 1838-1902. person
correspondedWith Jackson, Samuel person
associatedWith Jones, Caroline Smelt Davis. person
correspondedWith Jones, C. C. person
correspondedWith Jones, Charles C., Jr. person
associatedWith Jones, Charles Colcock, 1804-1863. person
associatedWith Jones, Charles Edgeworth. person
associatedWith Jones family. family
correspondedWith Jones, Mary person
associatedWith Jones, Susan Raynor Polk. person
associatedWith Joseph, Jones 1833-1896. person
associatedWith Lehmann, Karl Gotthelf (Prof.) person
correspondedWith Leidy, Joseph person
associatedWith Louisiana. Board of Health. corporateBody
associatedWith Louisiana State Museum. corporateBody
correspondedWith Mallard, R. Q. (Robert Quarterman), 1830-1904 person
associatedWith Manigault family. family
associatedWith Manigault, Louis, 1828-1899. person
associatedWith Miles, William Porcher, 1822-1899. person
associatedWith Morton, S. G. person
associatedWith Nashville, Tennessee corporateBody
correspondedWith New Orleans Academy Of Sciences corporateBody
correspondedWith Ogilvie, John W. (Dr.) person
correspondedWith Otis, George Alexander person
associatedWith Porcher, Francis Peyre, 1825-1895. person
associatedWith Powell, John Wesley, 1834-1902. person
correspondedWith Rhees, William J. person
correspondedWith Smithsonian Institution corporateBody
correspondedWith Smithsonian Institution corporateBody
associatedWith Smithsonian Institution. Bureau of Ethnology. corporateBody
associatedWith Southern Express Company corporateBody
correspondedWith Stacy, James, 1830-1912 person
associatedWith United Confederate Veterans. corporateBody
associatedWith West Indies corporateBody
correspondedWith Winn, J. S. person
Place Name Admin Code Country
Louisiana
Confederate States of America
United States
Williamson County (Tenn.)
United States
Tennessee
Africa
Louisiana--New Orleans
North America
Harpeth River (Tenn.)
Georgia
Nashville (Tenn.)
Georgia
Georgia--Augusta
Cumberland River Valley (Ky. and Tenn.)
South America
Europe
Tennessee
Confederate States of America
Southern States
Asia
Subject
Calumets
Chemistry teachers
Cholera
Earthworks (Archaeology)
Medical education
French spoliation claims
Historians
Houma Indians
Indians of North America
Indians of North America
Indians of North America
Indians of North America
Leprosy
Medicine
Medicine History 19th century
Mound builders
Mounds
Natchez Indians
Physicians
Physicians
Physicians
Plantations
Prisoners
Public health
Sanitation
Smithsonian Publications
Yellow fever
Occupation
Anthropologists
Physicians
Activity

Person

Birth 1833-09-06

Death 1896-02-17

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