John Jeffries (1796-1876) was an ophthalmic surgeon and co-founded the Massachusetts Charitable Eye and Ear Infirmary. John Jeffries John Jeffries (5 February 1745 – 16 September 1819) was a Boston physician, scientist, and a military surgeon with the British Army in Nova Scotia and New York during the American Revolution. He is best known for accompanying Jean-Pierre Blanchard on his 1785 balloon flight across the English Channel. Born in Boston, Jeffries graduated from Harvard College and obtained his medical degree at the University of Aberdeen. Dr. Jeffries played a large role in the trial for the Boston Massacre as a witness for
Berlin scientific balloon flights the Académie française a program for scientific aviation, that was eventually not realized. In Germany, it was Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, who first addressed the issue of research into the atmosphere in his writings on the use of balloons. The first balloon flight with the aim of making meteorological observations was undertaken on 30 November 1784 by the American medical doctor John Jeffries together with the professional balloonist Jean-Pierre Blanchard. Some of the first systematic investigations into the upper atmosphere was performed between 1862 and 1866 by the English meteorologist and important pioneer aerologist James Glaisher. On 28 balloon flights, he