Alexander Hodgdon Stevens
American surgeon (1789-1869)
Alexander Hodgdon Stevens (September 4, 1789 – March 30, 1869) was an American surgeon who served as the second President of the American Medical Association from 1848 to 1849.
Early life
Stevens was born in New York City on September 4, 1789. He was one of eleven children born to New York City merchant Ebenezer Stevens. His mother was Lucretia (née Ledyard) Sands Stevens. From his father's first marriage, he was a half-sibling to Horatio Gates Stevens and Rebecca Hodgden (née Stevens) Schermerhorn, wife of John Peter Schermerhorn (a brother of Abraham Schermerhorn). Among his full-siblings were Samuel Stevens; William Stevens; Henry Hewgill Stevens; Mary Lucretia (née Stevens) Rhinelander; John Austin Stevens, father of John A. Stevens Jr.; and Byam Kerby Stevens, who married Frances Gallatin (daughter of U.S. Secretary of the Treasury and Ambassador Albert Gallatin) and was the father of Byam K. Stevens Jr.
He graduated from Yale University in 1807, studied in the office of Edward Miller, attended medical lectures in the New York College of Physicians and Surgeons and at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, and received his M.D. from the latter institution in 1811. His thesis on “The Proximate Causes of Inflammation” was praised by medical men.
Career
After graduating from Medical School, Stevens traveled to France with the object of pursuing surgical studies, but, on being captured by an English cruiser and taken into Plymouth, he went to London and received instruction from John Abernethy and Astley Cooper for a year, and then studied for a year longer under Alexis Boyer and Baron Larrey in Paris.
On his return to the United States, he was appointed a surgeon in the United States Army.
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