May 26, 1845

Surgeon and Confederate veteran John Allan Wyeth was born in Guntersville. Wyeth spent 16 months as a prisoner of war at Camp Morton in Indiana and, after the war, studied medicine in Kentucky and New York. He quickly became an expert in anatomy and began to submit award-winning articles on improving surgical procedures with life-saving innovations. In 1881, he opened the first post-graduate medical school in the United States, the New York Polyclinic Graduate Medical School and Hospital. He was inducted into the Alabama Hall of Fame in 1954 and a statue of Wyeth stands on the grounds of the Alabama State Capitol in Montgomery.

Read more at Encyclopedia of Alabama.

Statue of John Allan Wyeth, Confederate soldier, surgeon and author, on the grounds of the Alabama State Capitol in Montgomery. (The George F. Landegger Collection of Alabama Photographs in Carol M. Highsmith’s America, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division)

For more on Alabama’s Bicentennial, visit Alabama 200.