14
doc • Summer 2014
Kentucky
Making History
Samuel David Gross:
From Farmer’s Son to Prominent American Surgeon
By Frank Kourt, Staff Writer
Samuel D. Gross was born to a
farmer and his wife, Philip and
Johanna, in 1805, just outside
Easton, Pennsylvania. Philip died
when Samuel was only nine years of
age, so he was raised by his mother.
Samuel’s rural lifestyle may have had an early influence on his interest in medicine, sin