ABSTRACT
Jonathan Potts was an eighteenth-century American physician who had the finest education and training available to the medical profession in the North American colonies. One of the first medical graduates of the College of Philadelphia, Potts practiced in rural Pennsylvania, where he encountered diseases that plagued agrarian communities. He epitomizes the accomplishments of American doctors in military medicine during the Revolutionary War. He probably began his five-year apprenticeship with Phineas Bond in 1761, at the age of sixteen. He could have terminated his medical training when his apprenticeship was completed; his professional education was far superior to that of most American practitioners. Potts and Benjamin Rush sought a European university that offered a regular course of study in medicine, and one that would grant the diploma of M.D. to certify to their professional talents. They looked across the Atlantic to Edinburgh University.
