Biographical Sketches

Joseph Warren (1741-1775), born in Roxbury, Mass., on June 11, 1741, was a physician and soldier who became a leader in the American Revolution. He graduated from Harvard in 1759 and began practicing medicine in 1764. A close friend of Samuel Adams, Warren was an outspoken opponent of naval impressment and the Stamp Act of 1765. He was a member of the Boston Committee of Safety and, with Samuel Adams and James Otis, helped to form the first Committee of Correspondence in November 1772. In 1774, Warren drafted the "Suffolk Resolves," which advocated forcible resistance to the British and placed the colony of Massachusetts in open rebellion against the British government. He delivered an important oration on March 5, 1775, commemorating the fifth anniversary of the Boston Massacre. On the night of April 18, 1775, he dispatched William Dawes and Paul Revere on their famous "Midnight Rides" to Lexington and Concord, and he fought alongside General Heath in the battle the following day. Warren was a member of the first, second and third Provincial Congresses between 1774 and 1775 and president of the third. On June 14, 1775, he was appointed second major-general of the Massachusetts forces. He was killed at the battle of Bunker Hill just three days later on June 17.

John Warren (1753-1815), brother of Joseph Warren, was born in Roxbury, Mass., in 1753. A 1771 graduate of Harvard, he became a leading surgeon in New England. He served in the Revolution and was a founder of the medical school at Harvard, where in 1782 he was appointed professor of anatomy and surgery.

John Collins Warren (1778-1856), son of John Warren, was born in Boston, Mass. The son and nephew of famous Boston doctors, he also became a surgeon. After graduating from Harvard, he studied surgery with his father, completed his education in Europe, and finally set up a practice in Boston in 1802. Warren was a member of the Harvard Medical School faculty for most of his career (1809-1847), serving as dean from 1816-1819. He was active in reforming medical education and practice in the U.S. and became one of the founders of Massachusetts General Hospital. On October 16, 1846, Warren performed the first operation using ether as an anesthesia (administered by dentist W.T.G. Morton), and he was the first American to operate on a strangulated hernia. He wrote an important book on his speciality, Surgical Observations on Tumours (1837).

Jonathan Mason Warren (1811-1867), son of John Collins Warren, was born on February 5, 1811. He received his medical degree from Harvard in 1832 and studied in Europe before returning to practice in Boston in 1835. In 1846, he was appointed visiting surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital. Warren specialized in plastic and reconstructive surgery and performed the earliest rhinoplastic operations in the U.S. He also worked with skin grafts and developed a procedure for closure of the cleft palate. Warren died on August 19, 1867.

John Collins Warren II (1842-1927), son of Jonathan Mason Warren, was born in Boston, Mass. He was a surgeon associated with Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital for most of his professional career. He studied for three years in Europe before returning to the U.S. in 1869 to begin practice in Boston. His most important book, based on his studies of infectious bacteria, was called Surgical Pathology and Therapeutics (1895).