Born and raised in Columbia, South Carolina, Josiah Nott graduated from South Carolina College in 1824. He attended the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City for one year before moving to Philadelphia, where he received his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1827. In 1829 he returned to Columbia, where he established a private practice. Six years later he moved to Mobile, Alabama. He aided in the establishment of the Mobile Medical Society in 1841 and helped enact a law regulating the practice of medicine in Alabama. He served as professor of anatomy at the University of Louisiana in 1857-1858, then returned to Mobile to help establish the Medical College of Alabama. Nott took the position of professor of surgery at the school.

Civil War and After.

When the Civil War broke out, Nott joined the Confederate army medical department as a...