The licensed physicians of Rhode Island in the year 1895

A brief demographic profile of the 466 physicians applying for licensure in Rhode Island in the year 1895, is presented here. The typical Rhode Island physician of a century ago was a New England-born 39-year-old white male general practitioner who had little undergraduate education, received his medical diploma from an allopathic medical school within 180 miles of his place of birth, typically a small town, had little or no supervised hospital training, professed to no specialty and established his office, often sharing space with his practitioner-father, within the same community in which he was born.