Account books of Thomas Cradock, 1786-1818 (inclusive)

Account books listing patients, medicines administered, and fees charged by Dr. Thomas Cradock (1752-1821), primarily in Maryland, from 1786 to 1818. In addition to recording names, Cradock occasionally noted demographic information, the patient's location, or their occupation: from 1813 to 1816, he treated Richard Gent, a free African-American man; in 1813, he attended to John Bell, who lived in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Cradock further noted if the patient was a slave and the name of his or her owner. He would also administer care on behalf of corporate entities, such as Powhatan Factory, which apparently refused him payment. He also sometimes included a diagnosis: in the cases of a Mr. Rowles and Mrs. Violet West, he administered unspecified medicines for gonorrhea at a cost of ten dollars. Commonly prescribed drugs included emetics, cathartics, and anodynes. Cradock also provided smallpox vaccination for his patients. He accepted both cash and payment-in-kind. Tipped into the first volume is an envelope containing a letter from the Medical and Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland to Mrs. Thomas Craddock in 1899 requesting a loan of portrait of Dr. Thomas Craddock [sic]. The three volumes also each contain an index to patient names.

Title devised by cataloger.

Account books of Thomas Cradock, 1786-1818 (inclusive). B MS b199.1. Boston Medical Library, Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Boston, Mass.

Thomas Cradock (1752-1821) was a physician in Baltimore, Maryland. He attended lectures at the College of Medicine in Philadelphia and was a student of Dr. Randall Hulse before he began practicing medicine in Baltimore County in 1768. He was a surgeon in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. Cradock also was a founding member of the Medical and Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland.