Horatio Curtis Wood Jr.

Horatio Curtis Wood Jr. (January 13, 1841 – January 3, 1920) was an American physician and biologist. Born into a wealthy Pennsylvania family, he attended the Medical Department of the University of Pennsylvania, and after serving as a surgeon in the American Civil War, continued to teach at the university. A member of the National Academy of Sciences, he was known for his 1874 text Treatise on Therapeutics, which became a widely used medical textbook, and also for his botanical and zoological work: writing on freshwater algae, fossil plants, arachnids, and myriapods.

Family Horatio C. Wood was part of the Wood family of Pennsylvania. Many of his relatives share similar names, and there is some confusion over Wood's own middle name. Although reported in different sources as "Horatio Charles Wood" and "Horatio Curtis Wood", his son, Horatio Charles Wood Jr., has stated that his father's middle name was simply the letter C, without a period. This was a compromise between Wood's parents, his mother preferring the middle name Charles and his father, Horatio Curtis Wood, preferring Curtis.

After the Civil War, Wood supplemented his income by teaching privately at the medical school. He was awarded the chair of botany at the university, and was elected "Clinical Lecturer in Nervous Diseases" at the medical school in 1873, later rising to Clinical Professor.

Works

Wood's fame was established by his 1874 work Treatise on Therapeutics, which became the principal textbook in materia medica and therapeutics for 30 years. Wood published fourteen botanical papers between 1860 and 1877, including a 270-page monograph on freshwater algae. Species named by Wood include Scolopendra polymorpha, the giant desert centipede, and Harpaphe haydeniana, the yellow-spotted millipede. Wood's arachnological papers concerned whip scorpions and harvestmen.

Three of Wood's papers were awarded prizes. His 1869 paper Research upon American Hemp won him a special prize from the American Philosophical Society; the Warren Prize of the Massachusetts General Hospital was awarded for his Experimental Researches in the Physiological Action of Amyl Nitrite; in 1872, he won the Boylston Prize for his Thermic Fever or Sunstroke.

Wood was the editor of several scientific journals, including New Remedies (1870–1873), Philadelphia Medical Times (1873–1880), The Therapeutic Gazette (1884–1890) and the U. S. Dispensatory (1883–1907).

Books Thermic Fever, or Sunstroke. Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott Co. 128 pp. 1872 A Treatise on Therapeutics Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott Co. 578 pp. 1874 Brain-Work and Overwork. Philadelphia, P. Blakiston. 126 pp. 1880 The Dispensatory of the United States of America. With Joseph P. Remington and Samuel P. Sadtler. Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott Go. 15th ed. 1928 pp. 1883 Nervous Diseases and Their Diagnosis. Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott Co. 501 pp. 1887 Syphilis of the Nervous System (Physicians' Leisure Library, Ser. iv.). Detroit, G. S. Davis. 135 pp. 1890 The Practice of Medicine. With Reginald H. Fitz. Philadelphia, J. B.Lippincott Co. 1088 pp. 1896

Death Wood died of pneumonia on January 3, 1920, and was buried in Philadelphia at Woodlands Cemetery.