Notable Health Care Givers: Physicians & Nurses: “R...-”
for health classrooms, homeschoolers and professional offices.

Notable physicians and nurses ~

Francois Rabelais
b. ca. 1493; France
d. 4-9-1553

The Renaissance era physician Francois Rabelais became better known for what he did in his spare time - as a writer he used bawdy jokes and songs to make commentary on the social and political events unfolding during the first half of the sixteenth century.

• Gargantua and Pantagruel: The Histories of Gargantua and Pantagruel, Francois Rabelais

Rabelais quotes ~
• “Science without conscience is the death of the soul.”
• “There are more old drunkards than old physicians.”

Walter Reed
b. 9-13-1851; Virginia
d. 11-23-1902; Washington, DC (appendix ruptured)

Walter Reed, a U.S. Army physician, lead the team which “... confirmed the theory that yellow fever is transmitted by mosquitoes”. Control of yellow fever allowed the resumption of work on the Panama Canal by the U.S.

Reed credited Dr. Carlos Juan Finlay, a Cuban physician, with first recognizing the role of the mosquito in the spread of yellow fever.

The U.S. Army named its Medical Center after Major Reed.

Rhazes, also Al-Razi
b. 8-28-865; present day Iran
d. 10-6-925

Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariya Razi, known as Rhazes in the West, was a polymath, practicing as an alchemist, chemist, physician, philosopher and scholar. Rhazes is considered the father of pediatrics: he gave the first known description of smallpox and measles and recognized the natural defense mechanism of a fever.

Ellen Richards
b. 12-3-1842; Dunstable, MA
d. 3-30-1911

Ellen Richards was a chemist and is consided a founder of the science of ecology.

Poster Text: “The quality of life depends upon the ability of society to teach its members how to live in harmony with their environment – defined first as family, then the community, then the world and its resources.” Ellen S. Richards

Among the first women to formally work as a scientist, Ellen Swallow Richards profoundly impacted people's daily lives. A pioneer in the field of sanitary engineering, she also applied scientific principles to domestic life in creating the field of home economics.

• Ellen Swallow: The Woman Who Founded Ecology
• Women in Science poster
• food safety posters
• Heroes of Science & Technology posters

Linda Richards
née Malinda Ann Judson Richards
b. 7-27-1841; West Potsdam, NY
d. 3-30-1911

Linda Richards, the first American professionally trained as a nurse, went to England for further training and met Florence Nightingale.

On Richards' return to the U.S. she established nursing programs nationwide and then in Japan as well. She also creating a medical records system to follow individual hospitalized patients.

Benjamin Rush
b. 12-24-1745; Philadelphia, PA
d. 4-19-1813

Benjamin Rush was a physician, author, teacher, humanitarian and signer of the Declaration of Independence. He was opposed to General George Washington as the Commander-In-Chief of the Continental Army, and was an early opponent of slavery and capital punishment. Rush was appointed by Thomas Jefferson to train and equip Merriwether Lewis for the Lewis and Clark Expedition. He is also called the “Father of American Psychiatry”, writing a text book on mental illness, establishing a mental ward at the Pennsylvania hospital (1792), calling for a therapeutic approach to alcoholism, and pioneering occupational therapy.

FYI- Rush, who was responsible to mending the rift between Jefferson and John Adams, also successfully sued William Cobbett, “Prickly Porcupine”, for libel. Cobbett wrote that Rush's theraputic bloodletting killed more patients than had saved.