HEWSON, Thomas Tickell, physician, was born in London, England, April 9, 1773; the second son of William (F.R.S) and Mary (Stevenson) Hewson and grandson of Addinell and Margaret (Rooks) Stevenson. His father, the celebrated anatomist and physiologist of the Windmill school, London, died in 1774, and he was taken by his mother to the United States in 1786. He was graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1789, studied medicine with Dr. John Foulke, 1789-94; was house surgeon in St. Bartholomew's hospital, London, England, 1794-95; continued his medical studies at the University of Edinburgh, 1795-96; was again in London, 1796-1800, and in July, 1800, he returned to Philadelphia, where he engaged in the practice of medicine. He was physician to the Walnut Street prison, 1806-18; to the Philadelphia hospital, 1811; to the Philadelphia Orphan society, 1817-37, and to the Pennsylvania hospital, 1818-35. He was censor and secretary of the College of Physicians, 1809-35; president of that institution, 1835-48, and held the chair of comparative anatomy in the department of natural science of the University of Pennsylvania, December, 1816. He founded in 1822 a private medical school in Library street, in which he was teacher of anatomy and practice. He was elected a member of the Edinburgh Medical society in 1796; of the American Philosophical society in 1801, and was one of its curators and its secretary; a fellow of the College of Physicians, Philadelphia, 1801, and was its president, 1835-48; a member of the Philadelphia Medical society, 1803, and a member of [p.236] the Massachusetts Medical society. He was a member of the national convention for the revision of the United States Pharmacopeia, and in 1828 was appointed by the College of Physicians one of a committee of three which prepared the draft of the Pharmacopeia for the press. Harvard college conferred upon him the degree of M.D., gratis causa, in 1822. He is the author of many important medical papers, prepared reports on meteorology and epidemics for the College of Physicians, and translated Swediaur's Syphilis (1815). He died in Philadelphia, Pa., Feb. 17, 1848.

From Biographies of Notable Americans, 1904 vol V, page 236