Daniel J. Swinney papers

This small collection of Daniel J. Swinney's student lecture notes and related papers, recipe book, daybook, and vaccination records, 1808-1827, documents the education and early medical career of an obscure country physician during the early 19th century.

The collection is divided into two series. Series 1 concerns Swinney's medical education at the University of Pennsylvania, 1808-1809, and includes a receipt for his 1808-1809 session fee; an 1809 copy of Benjamin Rush's table of fevers, a diagram and description of the causes of ordinary fever; and two volumes of notes on the lectures of Rush on the institutes of medicine, 1808-1809. The Rush lectures (nos. 1-55, 7 November 1808-11 January 1809, and 78-94, 7 February 1809-27 February 1809) concern the duties of the patient to the physician; physiology; pathology; therapeutics; and the diseases of the mind.

Series 2 documents Daniel J. Swinney's medical practice in Pennsylvania and, later, Ohio. The series includes Swinney's recipe book, 1809-1813, containing specifics against diseases such as cancer, dysentery, and rheumatism; four volumes of Swinney's records, follow up examinations, and observations on the vaccination of children for smallpox at Blockley and Haddington in Philadelphia County, 18111814, then at Moreland in Montgomery County, 1815-1816; and a daybook, containing a chronological account of Swinney's patients, their ailments, and charges, from his practice in Mansfield, Ohio, 1822-1827.