John Milton Bigelow

John Milton Bigelow (June 23, 1804 – July 18, 1878) was an American medical doctor and botanist. He had a successful medical practice, and also, a keen interest in botany - especially native plants with medical applications. He participated as a botanist and surgeon on two important expeditions through the American Southwest—the Mexican Boundary Survey and the 35th Parallel Expedition for the Pacific Railroad Surveys. He also amassed a significant collection of California plants that yielded many new species. He communicated his botanical results with the three top American botanists of the day, John Torrey, Asa Gray, and George Engelmann. Many of his botanical discoveries were named after or by him. He contributed to the botanical and medical literature of his day.

Early life He was a 7th generation descendant of English immigrant John Biglo, who settled in Watertown, Massachusetts ca. 1632. Soon after his birth in Peru, Vermont, his family moved to central Ohio, where he was schooled. He took up teaching to gain the funds to attend the Medical College of Ohio in Cincinnati, from which he graduated with an MD degree in 1832. has been suggested, A daughter became Sister Blanche of the Sisters of the Holy Cross, of Notre Dame, Indiana.

In those days and later, Bigelow often championed, among his fellow medical practitioners, the usage of medicinal plants. This was in the spirit of Materia Medica and Herbalism, practices going back many centuries. (A contemporary movement is documented by an Elsevier peer-reviewed journal: Phytomedicine.) In an 1841 presentation to the Medical Convention of Ohio (see Works, 1841) he stated that Botany was the most important science "collateral to medicine", but that most members of the profession were "careless" or "indifferent" regarding it. He later prepared, at the request of his colleagues, a list of the medicinal plants of Ohio, which appeared in 1849 (see Works).

Surgeon botanist on Western US Survey expeditions The United States and Mexican Boundary Survey In 1850 (following some early confusion One of Bigelow's most notable plant discoveries was Parthenium argentatum, a rubber-yielding plant known as 'guayule'.

The 35th Parallel Pacific Railroad Survey Sclerocactus polyancistrus (Engelm. & J.M.Bigelow) Britton & Rose, first collected by J.M.Bigelow March 15, 1854, while with the Whipple Survey near Cajon Pass, CA Bigelow joined the Pacific Railroad Survey which explored along the 35th parallel, led by Lt. Amiel Weeks Whipple. The expedition got under way in 1853, with Bigelow serving as surgeon and botanist. Balduin Möllhausen served as naturalist and artist for the group. Bigelow and Möllhausen often explored the countryside together. In his diary of the expedition (including a preface by his mentor Alexander von Humboldt), Möllhausen records many of their exploits. Möllhausen described Bigelow as a congenial colleague in the field, "a general favourite and by far the oldest of the party. ... [with] a pattern of gentleness and patience ... not only a zealous botanist, but also an enthusiastic sportsman. ... To his patients he was most kind and attentive, and of his mule, Billy, he made an absolute spoiled child." Torrey stated that Bigelow's collections were "brought home in perfect order" affording "abundant proof of the zeal and success with which he labored. A number of new genera, and more than sixty new species, have been discovered by Dr. Bigelow, and he has added much valuable information upon many heretofore imperfectly known plants."

Back to Ohio After the report had been completed and the authors dispersed, Möllhausen wrote in his diary In 1869, Bigelow, then a member of the Michigan State Medical Society, was one of eight medical practitioners who founded the Detroit Academy of Medicine. He served as "surgeon in charge" of the Detroit Marine Hospital, 1869–1873.

Crude preparations of opium, highly variable in effect, were widely used in Bigelow's time. In his later years in Detroit he partnered with a chemist to work out a method of making a more consistent preparation, which they called Svapnia (see Works, 1869). It was marketed as "Svapnia--Bigelow's Purified Opium".

After retirement, he moved to a farm outside Detroit. While there he suffered an injury which led to his death on July 18, 1878. He was survived by his wife and family. "He always impressed me by his singular modesty, never permitting his attainments to obtrude themselves in a pretentious way, while his uprightness and meekness of manner gave to him that attractiveness which arrested the attention of those who were at all acquainted with him."; "The modesty that graced his every act, the tender and delicate feeling that smoothed and made delightful his intercourse with his professional brethren, shall ever endear him in our memory." A tribute to the eight founding members of the Detroit Academy of Medicine pictures seven of the founders, but not Bigelow. )

Works

Bigelow, J. M. 1856. Volume IV, Part V, No. 1. General Description of the Botanical Character of the Country, No. 2. Description of Forest Trees, and No 3 (co-authored with Engelmann, George). Description of the Cactaceae. IN Reports of Explorations and Surveys [35th parallel, Director Lt. A. W. Whipple, 1853 and 1854]. pp. 1–58. U. S. War Department, Washington, D. C.