An Asclepiad family - The Chamberlens and DeLaunes, 1569-1792: Five generations of surgeons, physicians, accoucheurs and apothecaries.

When in 1747 Dr Peter Chamberlen wrote in his apologia, 'A Voice in Rhama', that he was nursed up (as from the Cradle) to all Parts of Physick, and that in Asclepiad-Families, he was not referring simply to his father and uncle, the Peters (Younger and Elder) Chamberlen of obstetric forceps' fame. They were surgeons and accoucheurs; his mother's family counted clergymen as well as physicians and apothecaries among their number and the young Peter must indeed have grown up in a family steeped in both medical practice and religious study. Both families were refugees from the religious terrors of sixteenth century France, arriving in England in the second half of the reign of Elizabeth l. Both were to find fortune and royal patronage as they became established in their new lives. One was to found a medical dynasty that lasted through five generations, the other to produce a generation whose varied accomplishments died as the eldest son outlived all his siblings, only one of whose children became an apothecary - and he was to predecease his uncle. This is a brief biography of these two families, bound together by the ties of marriage, profession, faith and nationality.
(© The Author(s) 2014.)