Philadelphia Reflections

The musings of a physician who has served the community for over six decades

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A Toast to Doctor Franklin

{Benjamin Franklin}
Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin's formal education ended with the second grade, but he must now be acknowledged as one of the most erudite men of his age. He liked to be called Doctor Franklin, although he had no medical training. He was given an honorary degree of Master of Arts by Harvard and Yale, and honorary doctorates by St.Andrew and Oxford. It is unfortunate that in our day, an honorary degree has degraded to something colleges give to wealthy alumni, or visiting politicians, or some celebrity who will fill the seats at an otherwise boring commencement ceremony. In Franklin's day, an honorary degree was awarded for significant achievements. It was far more prestigious than an earned degree, which merely signified adequate preparation for potential later achievement.

And then, there is another subtlety of academic jostling. Physicians generally want to be addressed as Doctor, as a way of emphasizing that theirs is the older of the two learned professions. A good many PhDs respond by rejecting the title, as a way of sniffing they have no need to be impostors. In England, moreover, surgeons deliberately renounce the title, for reasons they will have to explain themselves. Franklin turned this credential foolishness on its head. Having gone no further than the second grade, he invented bifocal glasses. He invented the rubber catheter. He founded the first hospital in the country, the Pennsylvania Hospital, and he donated the books for it to create the first medical library in the country. Until the Civil war, that particular library was the largest medical library in America. Franklin wrote extensively about gout, the causes of lead poisoning and the origins of the common cold. By inventing bar soap, it could be claimed he saved more lives from the infectious disease than antibiotics have. It would be hard to find anyone with either an M.D. degree or a Ph.D. degree, then or now, who displayed such impressive scientific medical credentials, without earning -- any credentials at all.

Originally published: Thursday, October 31, 1991; most-recently modified: Friday, September 20, 2019

Nice article! I agree that the honorary doctorate has become virtually worthless in most cases Franklin could have got a couple of PhDs if they had then existed He had done and contributed more than a dozen PhDs Having a PhD in zoology, myself, I think I am qualified to say that
Posted by: Mike   |   Aug 19, 2018 3:53 PM
Check out Jill Lepore's Book of Ages about Jane Franklin, Ben's sister.It is most likely that she invented bar soap if it had not been invented prior.She routinely sent him soap she had made.
Posted by: Diana Hulick   |   Mar 14, 2017 12:27 AM