James Tilton (331)

James Tilton (1 June 1745–14 May 1822) was a physician, politician, agriculturalist, and a member of the American Philosophical Society, elected in 1773. Born the son of a farmer in Kent Country, Delaware, Tilton studied under a Presbyterian reverend before studying medicine under a local physician. He graduated from the College of Philadelphia in 1768, earned his M.D. in 1771 and opened a practice in Dover, Delaware the following year. When the Revolutionary War broke out, he joined the militia and took the post of regimental surgeon and later hospital surgeon. The state of military hospitals shocked Tilton: he responded by designing a hospital hut that emphasized sanitation and the separation of the infected from the injured. Tilton resumed his medical practice after the war while also turning his attention to politics: he began by joining the Continental Congress in 1783 and 1784 and the following year served in the upper house of the Delaware legislature. Perhaps seeking greener pastures, Tilton moved to a farm near Wilmington in 1790. Throughout his life he wrote about agriculture all while remaining active in the medical community: he was president of the Medical Society of Delaware (1789) and an associate of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia (1790). In 1813, President James Madison appointed Tilton Surgeon General of the U.S., and he is considered the founder of the army’s medical department. He died on his farm near Wilmington. (ANB)