ing necessarily imposes upon the instructor, who duly regards the welfare of his pupils, and the honour of his profession, that in this respect also medical schools have led to numberless discoveries and improvements. In this view they have been, perhaps, of all others, without exception, the most faithful source of improvement in the healing art. To this source we are not only indebted for the inestimable writings of those celebrated teachers, Hippocrates, Galen, and others among the ancients, and for those of Hoffman, Haller, Whytte, Boerhaave, Albinus, Cullen, Fordyce, and the Gregories, among the moderns. But to the dis'coveries of Harvey, a teacher of anatomy in the university of Cambridge, of Asellius of the school of Paris, Rhuysch of that of Amsterdam, Morgagni of Padua, Walther and Meckel of Berlin, the Hunters, Hewson, and Cruikshank of London, Black, and the Monros of Edinburgh, who were all distinguished teachers in the several schools to which they were attached, our profession owes its most important improvements. But let us not confine our remarks to the eastern hemisphere: the light of science has also reached our shore, and we trust, has kindled a spirit of improvement which will not only reflect, but multiply the rays which have been borrowed. In this country medical schools are comparatively of recent date. Although the American colonies could boast of several medical characters distin guished for general literature as well as professional erudition, no attempt was made to establish a regularly organized school for the purpose of medical instruction until the year 1762. As early, however, as 1750 the body of Hermanus Carroll, executed for murder, was dissected in this city, by two of the most eminent physicians of that day, doctors John Bard and Peter Middleton, and the blood-vessels injected for the instruction of the youth then engaged in the study of medicine; and is the first essay made in the United States, for the purpose of imparting medical knowledge by the dissection of the human body of which we have any record. But notwithstanding this first laudable effort of individuals, a regularly constituted medical school was not completed in this city, until the year 1769. In the meantime, 'a few gentlemen who had been distinguished for their literary and professional attainments, undertook an establishment of this kind

in the city of Philadelphia. In 1762 Dr. William Shippen, the late eminent professor of anatomy of that city, returned from Europe, where he had finished his medical education, under the direction of that celebrated anatomist and physician, Dr. William Hunter of London. The pupil, fired with the spirit of his master, resolved to extend the benefits of his instruction to the youth of his native city, then engaged in medical study. His first class in 1764 consisted of ten pupils, but he lived to see that small beginning extend into an establishment, that annually educated between two and three hundred.

In 1765 Dr. Morgan met a few students, in like manner, unfolding to them the institutes or theory of medicine, including the materia medica and the principles of pharmaceutic chemistry.

Dr. Adam Kuhn who had been a pupil of the celebrated Linnæus, upon his return to his native country was also appointed in 1768 to the joint professorship of botany and materia medica in the college of that city. And in 1769 Dr. Benjamin Rush, the present distinguished professor of the theory and practice of physic in the university of Pennsylvania, and who had just completed his course of medical studies at the university of Edinburgh first became a teacher of chemistry in the then college of Philadelphia. Long may his useful labours be continued to the advantage of his numerous pupils, the benefit of the profession, and the honour of our country. While those gentlemen were all zealously occupied in the several departments of anatomy, surgery, the theory and practice of physic, materia medica and chemistry, the venerable Dr. Thomas Bond exhibited to the pupils, at the bed-side of the sick in the Pennsylvania Hospital, a practical illustration of those principles in which they had been instructed, and which were the first clinical lectures that had been delivered in this country. The meed of praise is certainly due to the trustees of the college of Philadelphia, and the distinguished president of that body Dr. Franklin, who at that early day established the first medical institution in this country. Newyork did not long remain an inactive spectator of the important example set before her by her sister colony; as early as 1768 a similar establishment for medical education was opened in this city, in which were united the learning and abilities of Drs. Clos

sey, Jones, Middleton, Smith, Tennent, and the present president of this college.

About the same time, in consequence of a public address delivered by Dr. Samuel Bard at the first medical graduation in 1769, a very important addition was made to the means then afforded of medical education, by the establishment of the Newyork Hospital. The necessity and utility of a public infirmary, to use the language of Dr. Middleton, " was so warmly and pathetically set forth in that memorable discourse," that upon the same day on which it was delivered, a subscription was commenced by his excellency sir Henry Moore, then governor of this province, and the sum of eight hundred pounds sterling collected for this establishment. The corporation of the city, animated by the same public spirit and active benevolence, in a short time added three thousand pounds sterling to the first subscription, when the united amount was employed in laying the foundation of that valuable institution, now the pride of our city, and alike devoted to the purposes of humanity, and the promotion of medical science. The medical school of Newyork thus provided with professors eminent for their abilities and learning, and an infirmary for the purpose of clinical instruction, promised to be productive of all those advantages which were reasonably contemplated at its first institution. But those prospects in common with those of every other literary institution in our land, were not only interrupted, but totally destroyed, by the revolutionary war.

Shortly after the peace of 1783 the regents of the university attempted to revive the medical school of this city, and created professors for that purpose. But this attempt, owing to circumstances which need not here be detailed, proved abortive. Although lectures upon many branches of medicine were afterwards delivered by several gentlemen in their private capacity, no public measures were adopted for reorganizing the medical school until the year 1791, when an act was passed by the le gislature, for the purpose of enabling the regents of the university to establish a College of Physicians and Surgeons within

* Dr. Samuel Bard.

this state.

But that power, thus vested in them by the state, the regents did not think it expedient to exercise until 1807.

In 1792 the trustees of Columbia College made another effort, by annexing a medical faculty to that institution. By this connection it was supposed by its friends and patrons, that the medical school thus restored, would at least have recovered the celebrity it had attained previous to the revolution. How far the liberal views of the trustees of that college, or the expectations of the public have been realized, is too well known to require a single remark on this occasion.* About the same period of time the present medical school of Pennsylvania was revived, and since that event has acquired so much celebrity, that in the number of its pupils it is probably not even surpassed by the university of Edinburgh. That institution has not only become a source of honour and emolument to its professors, and the means of advancing the literary reputation of the state of Pennsylvania, but has become no inconsiderable source of revenue to the city of Philadelphia. It is calculated that at least one hundred and fifty thousand dollars are annually expended in that city, by the students resorting to its medical school from the different parts of the United States.

Without dwelling upon the inquiry to what causes the comparative failure of the medical school of Columbia College and the unexampled success of that of Philadelphia are to be ascribed, I proceed to observe that the hon. the regents of the university of Newyork, after the most mature deliberation, after devoting the most serious attention to the respective rights and claims of the colleges of this state, as well as to a remonstrance which was presented to them by certain individuals of this city in the year 1807, did unanimously resolve immediately to grant a charter for the establishment of the present College of Physicians and Surgeons; as an institution, which, in their opinion, would be calculated to reflect honour upon our city, and in its advantages would be commensurate with the wealth and commercial importance of this great and growing state. The legislature actuated by the same spirit, and sensible of the benefits to be derived to the community at large, from such an establishment; in the follow

See observations on the establishment of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, &c. by David Hosack, M. D. Newyork, 1811.

VOL. VII.

ing year expressed their approbation of the proceedings of the regents, by liberally appropriating twenty thousand dollars to its support. During the first three years the success of this school exceeded the most sanguine expectations, and gave abundant evidence that the state of Newyork possesses the most ample resources for establishing a system of medical education, equal in all the means of instruction with any institution of this or any other country. Such too were the favourable impressions, which had been created upon the minds of the regents, its founders, that upon receiving information of the events which had lately occurred to produce a tempory check to the progress and usefulness of this hitherto promising institution, they immediately, and with the same activity and zeal that led them to the first organization of the college, adopted the most efficient means not only of removing out of the way every impediment to its prosperity, but at the same time of reorganizing the institution in such manner as they conceived calculated to insure its permanent success and usefulness. Such, young gentlemen, has been the solicitude manifested by the regents of the university and the legislature of the state, in providing for you the means of medical education. But to the liberality of the legislature, you are not only indebted for the appropriation which has been already noticed. By the purchase of the Botanic Garden, which has recently been placed by the regents under the direction of the professors and trustees of this college, you have also access to an additional source of instruction, which is enjoyed by no other medical seminary in the United States, and one highly necessary to every accomplished and well educated physician; nor are these the only advantages which are now presented to the student of medicine in the city of Newyork. In the College of Physicians and Surgeons, he has not only, by means of private dissection and an anatomical museum, the opportunity of obtaining a correct knowledge of the structure of the human body,--he not only enjoys the benefits of an extensive course of chemical experiments, and, under the direction of the learned professor of natural history, of becoming acquainted with the various subjects which are embraced in that very extensive and interesting department of human learning; but in the Newyork Hospital, which encloses within its walls nearly four hundred patients, he has ample op