To understand this influence, scholars can peruse cases transcribed by Boston physician James Lloyd in a London hospital in the mids as well as the notebook of Benjamin Waterhouse , a founding member of Harvard Medical School, which he filled while attending medical lectures at the University of Edinburgh. The term doctor was first used in the colonies in When washing in warm water was desired, water had to be heated in the fireplace. Practicing Medicine and Being a Patient Colonial physicians served as important medical and intellectual authorities in frontier communities. Skeptics argued that such powerful drugs could only weaken a sick person.