Nathaniel Chapman

Nathaniel Chapman (28 May 1780 – 1 July 1853) was a well-known early American physician. He was the founding president of the American Medical Association in 1847. Chapman founded the American Journal of the Medical Sciences in 1820 and served as its editor for some years, and also served as President of both the Philadelphia Medical Society and the American Philosophical Society.

Chapman was born in Summer Hill, Fairfax County, Virginia. He received his early education in six years at the classical academy of Alexandria. He later attended two colleges for a short time, before moving to Philadelphia in 1797, where he began studying under Benjamin Rush and attending lectures at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. He earned his M.D. in 1800, with a thesis on hydrophobia.

In 1808, he married Rebekah Biddle (1782-1870) was the daughter of Clement Biddle and Rebekah Cornell of Philadelphia.

Upon his graduation, Chapman traveled to the United Kingdom in 1801, spending a year in London as a pupil of John Abernethy, and three in Edinburgh, where he attended lectures at the medical school of the University of Edinburgh. While in Edinburgh he became acquainted with a number of well-known people, including Dugald Stewart, the Earl of Buchan, and Henry Brougham.