Account Books, 1847 - 1860

This collection consists of a loose set of travel diaries and account books kept by Dr. Jonathan Plimpton Green describing his journey to and from Valparaiso, Chile, and documenting the medical work he did while living there in the mid-nineteenth century. Dr. Green was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, to a prominent family of doctors and lawyers in 1819 and earned his medical degree from the Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1841. He practiced in New York for two years before sailing to China to practice there in 1843. Several pages of one of the account books gives some detail of his time there in 1845 and 1846. Dr. Green returned to the United States briefly but then sailed to continue his practice in Chile in April 1848. The majority of the first diary chronicles his first year and a half after his arrival in Chile. It demonstrates the difficulties of practicing medicine, or indeed following any profession, in an unfamiliar country—isolation, poor pay, ignorance of local customs, resistance from local doctors, and other problems. He nevertheless found some enjoyment in local culture and activities and must have found some satisfaction in his career there as he remained in Chile for the most part almost until his death in 1892. The accompanying account books provide details of his practice in La Serena and Copiapo from 1848 to 1860, including lists of patients, payments received, medicines ordered, books bought and sold, and other financial notes. There is also a description of a return to the United States that Green made in 1861 in a short journal of diary notes. He went back to Chile in the same year, and the collection includes a handwritten copy of his will drafted before his departure.