Edward Augustus Holyoke

Edward Augustus Holyoke was an American educator and physician.

Biography

Edward Augustus was born in Marblehead, Province of Massachusetts Bay, on 1 August 1728. His father was the Reverend Edward Holyoke, a former president of Harvard. Edward Augustus himself graduated from Harvard in 1746. He opened a medical practice in 1748 and practiced for 73 more years until retiring in 1821. In 1768 he was elected to the American [Philosophical Society] as a member. He died in Salem, Massachusetts in 1829 at the age of 100, surpassing the average life expectancy at the time by fifty years.
Holyoke was a charter member of the American [Academy of Arts and Sciences] and the president of the organization from 1814 to 1820. He was also a founder of the Massachusetts Medical Society. He served as the president of the society from 1782 to 1784 and from 1786 to 1788. The length of his service to the medical practice and his pioneering work in the advancement of smallpox vaccinations have been acknowledged.