Edward Stevens, gastric physiologist, physician, and American Statesman

About this book

Ten years ago when I first read the Dissertatio Inauguralis de Alimentorum Concoctione, written at Edinburgh in 1777, I could find little information about either the manuscript or the author. Indeed one authority, for whom I have very high regard, wrote me that he did "NOT THINK IT POSSIBLE FOR ANYONE TO FURNISH ANY SUBSTANTIAL ACCOUNT OF (Edward Stevens)". It was clear to me that over the years this most interesting text had received casual mention but it was equally clear that it had never engaged the considered attention of any investigator devoted to the subject of gastric digestion. Stevens himself had not excited interest and no formal historian seems to have investigated the strange and fascinating lifelong accord and circumstances that relate the lives of the distinguished American Statesman Alexander Hamilton and Edward Stevens.