Biographical / Historical
James Ewing Mears (1838-1919) was an American surgeon and author. He was born on October 17, 1838 in Indianapolis, Indiana. He completed his premedical education at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, graduating in 1858 with A.B. and B.S. degrees. Three years later, in 1861, he obtained a M.S. degree from the same college. Mears then enrolled at Jefferson Medical College, his father’s alma mater. The beginning of the Civil War interrupted his medical education, and he left school to serve first as a medical cadet and later as an executive officer in the military hospitals. After the war, he returned to Jefferson and completed his medical degree, graduating in 1865.
Mears held teaching positions at Jefferson Medical College, where he lectured in gynecology, and at the Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery, where he served as Chair of Anatomy and Surgery from 1870-1898. Additionally, he was a surgeon at St. Mary’s and St. Agnes’s Hospitals. Mears was an early advocate of antiseptic procedures in the operating room. He was also known for his improvements to certain surgical techniques, including surgery on the jaw. Mears was active in professional organizations, serving as a charter member and later President of the American Surgical Association. He was also a founding member and later President of the Philadelphia Academy of Surgery.
In addition to his teaching and surgical practice, Mears was a noted advocate of eugenics. He proposed surgical sterilization of people he viewed as detrimental to society, including those convicted of crimes, people with intellectual disabilities, and people who demonstrated sexual behavior considered inappropriate by the standards of the time. He outlined his views in a 1909 article and in his book, The Problem of Race Betterment, published in 1910. By the time of his death, Mears had become a popular figure in the American eugenics movement.
J. Ewing Mears died on May 28, 1919, at the age of 80. In his will, he left money to friends and employees, along with $60,000 to charitable organizations and institutions. He left the remainder of his estate as a trust for the support of his sister, Sarah Mears Hall. After her death, the rest of the money would go to Harvard University, to be used for establishing a course of study in eugenics. When Sarah Mears Hall died in 1924, Harvard received $56,000 from the Mears bequest. However, the university declined the gift, citing a disagreement with specific theories and conclusions advocated by Mears.
After Harvard rejected Mears’s bequest, the issue went to the Orphans’ Court of Philadelphia County. Relatives of Mears filed petitions as next-of-kin. Four organizations also argued that they should receive the money. They were the American Eugenics Society, the American Birth Control League, Battle Creek College in Michigan, and Jefferson Medical College. The judge ruled that the bequest was intended as a charitable gift, and should thus be disbursed in a manner aligning with Mears’s original wishes. Ultimately, the judge awarded the bequest to Mears’s alma mater, Jefferson Medical College. Jefferson used the money to establish the J. Ewing Mears Teaching and Research Fellowship.