After attending lectures at the New York College of Pharmacy and then the nearby College of Physicians and Surgeons, Joseph Warren Worcester (1860 to 1926) earned his M.D. in 1888 from another College of Physicians and Surgeons, the one in Baltimore, Maryland. He returned that same year to New York to marry and live with Ella Hallock, a lifelong Middletown resident. According to this now peach-framed trade card from the Wood Library-Museum’s Ben Z. Swanson Collection, Doctor Worcester was “prepared / to administer Nitrous Oxide Gas for surgical operations / wherever desired.” Branding himself a “Specialist in use of nitrous oxide gas for dental and general surgery,” this physician and dental surgeon cited his professional “change of address” to Manhattan’s “141 West 34th Street.” Using that clue, a diligent historical researcher can comb city directories and newspapers and date this card to c. 1892. By that year, this versatile physician had successfully bred the fruit brand for which he would become nationally renowned, the “Dr. Worcester Peach.” (Copyright © the American Society of Anesthesiologists’ Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology.)
After attending lectures at the New York College of Pharmacy and then the nearby College of Physicians and Surgeons, Joseph Warren Worcester (1860 to 1926) earned his M.D. in 1888 from another College of Physicians and Surgeons, the one in Baltimore, Maryland. He returned that same year to New York to marry and live with Ella Hallock, a lifelong Middletown resident. According to this now peach-framed trade card from the Wood Library-Museum’s Ben Z. Swanson Collection, Doctor Worcester was “prepared / to administer Nitrous Oxide Gas for surgical operations / wherever desired.” Branding himself a “Specialist in use of nitrous oxide gas for dental and general surgery,” this physician and dental surgeon cited his professional “change of address” to Manhattan’s “141 West 34th Street.” Using that clue, a diligent historical researcher can comb city directories and newspapers and date this card to c. 1892. By that year, this versatile physician had successfully bred the fruit brand for which he would become nationally renowned, the “Dr. Worcester Peach.” (Copyright © the American Society of Anesthesiologists’ Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology.)
George S. Bause, M.D., M.P.H., Honorary Curator and Laureate of the History of Anesthesia, Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology, Schaumburg, Illinois, and Clinical Associate Professor, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio. UJYC@aol.com.
