Medical History on JULY 27

John Warren, physician and educator, was about to open his own medical practice in Boston when the Revolutionary War of Independence ( America ) began and he signed up with the Continental Army.Warren joined Colonel Pickering's Regiment in 1773 as an army surgeon. On June 17, 1775, he was in Cambridge tending to the wounded coming in from the Battle of Bunker Hill on Breed's Hill over four miles away. Worried about his brother, who had joined the fighting and died, Warren went to search for him after the battle was over. A British sentry told John he could not pass and then bayoneted him as a warning, forcing the depressed Warren to go back to Cambridge. After his brother's death, Warren volunteered for service and was made a senior surgeon at the hospital in Cambridge. He became surgeon of the general hospital on Long Island in 1776 during General Washington's defense there. He also served at the Battle of Trenton and the Battle of Princeton. Warren returned to Boston in 1777 to continue his medical practices while still serving as a military surgeon in the army hospital there. 

Warren became very successful in the years after the war, performing one of the first abdominal operations in America. In 1780 he began teaching a course on dissections . He was known as an excellent teacher, giving "eloquent" lectures.His lectures were so well received that he and Benjamin Waterhouse established the Harvard Medical School in 1782. They drew up a curriculum and served as the first two professors. Currently Harvard Medical School is ranked as the #1 medical school in the United States based for medical research.