Lemuel Hopkins was a prominent physician and one of the group of poets known as the Connecticut Wits. Born in Waterbury, Connecticut, the son of Stephen and Dorothy Talmadge Hopkins, he studied medicine under two Connecticut physicians, Dr. Jared Potter of Wallingford and Dr. Seth Bird of Litchfield, and began his own practice in Litchfield in 1776. After serving briefly in the Revolutionary War, he moved to Hartford in 1784, where he practiced medicine for the remainder of his life.

Widely respected in Connecticut as an advocate of progressive medical techniques and as a leading specialist in the treatment of tuberculosis, Hopkins received an honorary M.A. from Yale in 1784 and was one of the founders of the Connecticut Medical Society.

Hopkins was as well known for his unusual appearance and eccentric manners as for his medical skill. His contemporaries described him to Samuel Goodrich as "long and lank, walking...