He began the study of medicine with Dr. William Ingalls of Boston and graduated from the Harvard Medical School in 1811, with the first class to receive the degree of M. D. With the practical certainty of a second war with Britain, Congress passed an act on January 11, 1812 (2 Stat.

During the latter part of the war his longest service was in the hospital at Williamsville, New York, which received the casualties for the operations along the Niagara River.

In 1817, Lovell, then chief medical officer of the Northern Department, addressed to Major General Jacob Brown, the department commander, a letter dealing with the Sick Report of the Northern Division for the Year ending June 30, 1817, in which he discussed not only the cause of disease in the army, but also gave his views upon the duties of medical officers and their responsibility for the sickness occurring among the troops.

All of the former chiefs had been appointed to meet the emergency of war, real or expected, with an organization to serve the forces in the field.

An important addition was a paragraph calling for the examination by a board of three medical officers of all applicants for the position of assistant surgeon.

A dangerous crisis developed in 1830, when, in the midst of agitation for retrenchments, Secretary of War Eaton suggested the abolition of the office of Surgeon General.

During the 1820s, Lovell was a member of the prestigious society, Columbian Institute for the Promotion of Arts and Sciences, who counted among their members former presidents Andrew Jackson and John Quincy Adams and many prominent men of the day, including well-known representatives of the military, government service, medical and other professions.

[1] During Lovell's term of office occurred the Black Hawk War and the beginning of the long continued struggle with the Seminoles of Florida.

In 1832, incident to the trouble with the Sacs and Foxes in Illinois and Wisconsin, troops were sent to that section by way of Buffalo and the Great Lakes.

The Seminole War began on December 28, 1835, when the Indians, under Osceola, ambushed and destroyed two companies of the 4th Infantry under command of Major Dade.

The anxieties incident to furnishing medical service for the troops collecting for the punitive campaign weighed heavily upon Lovell.

A son, Mansfield Lovell, graduated from West Point and became a major general and corps commander in the Confederate army during the Civil War.

One of his first acts as Surgeon General was to require from all army posts quarterly reports by the medical officers on weather conditions and on the incidence and causes of diseases.

A notable service by Lovell was the encouragement and official assistance which he gave to Surgeon William Beaumont in the study of gastric physiology.

In 1842, the officers of the medical corps testified to their appreciation of Lovell's services to them and to their personal esteem for him by the erection of a handsome monument over his grave in the Congressional Cemetery in Washington.