Jacobi, Abraham

Jacobi, Abraham (jəkō`bē), 1830–1919, American pediatrician, founder of pediatrics in the United States, b. Westphalia, Germany, M.D. Bonn, 1851. He was imprisoned for participating in the Revolution of 1848, but he escaped and in 1853 came to the United States. He was renowned as a lecturer on pediatrics and as professor of children's diseases at New York Medical College (where in 1860 he opened the first children's clinic in the country) and at Columbia (1870–1902). He was a founder and editor of the American Journal of Obstetrics and author of numerous works. Mary Putnam Jacobi, a physician and the first woman student at L'École de Médicine, Paris, was his wife.

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Jacobi, Abraham (1830–1919) pediatrician; born in Westphalia, Germany. After taking his M.D. from the University of Bonn (1851) he was imprisoned for treason in the German Revolution of 1848. He escaped (1853) and eventually made his way to New York City, where he established a famous pediatrics practice. The first professor of diseases of children in America (1860, New York Medical College), he opened the first free clinic for children. From 1870–1902 he was a professor of pediatrics at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York. In 1873 he married the equally admired physician, Mary Putnam. He had published many articles and books but a fire at his summer home (1919) destroyed valuable documents and notes and hastened his own death.