USA > Pennsylvania > Pennsylvania, colonial and federal : a history, 1608-1903, Volume Three > Part 10
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Soon after this there came upon the stage one of the most brilliant medical men of this country ; of whom at his death Dr. Hosack of New York said: "There are comparatively few of the physicians of our country, at this time in the practice of their pro- fession, who have not been indebted to him for their instruction in that department of medical education in which he so eminently excelled." This was Caspar Wistar, who continued the teach- ing of anatomy, so ably begun by Shippen, with rare ability as a teacher and singular inventive skill in methods of demonstration, whose models and anatomical preparations, supplemented by those of his distinguished successor in the chair, Dr. William E. Horner, formed for years the celebrated Wistar and Horner mu- seum of the university, and later the basis for that magnificent es- tablishment, endowed by his great-nephew, General Isaac Wistar, in 1892, which now forms a portion of the schools connected with the University of Pennsylvania. The practical work of Physick found an able literary representative in the "Elements of Sur- gery," published in 1812 by John Syng Dorsey, his nephew and assistant, whose untimely end cut short a career the brilliancy of which suggests that of the lamented Bichat in France. After these
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William Pepper Born, 1843; died. 1898; physician; educator; author; provost University of Pennsylvania, 1881-1894
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came William Gibson, also the author of a work on surgery and professor of surgery in the university, and Henry H. Smith, whose work as an author and as a practical surgeon ably seconded that of Gibson ; while later D. Hayes Agnew from 1871-1889 occupied this chair, loved as a man and honored as a surgeon.
To give any full idea of the attainments of those who for a hundred and fifty years added to the lustre of the department of medicine of the university would be to name almost the whole roll of its professors. But, besides those mentioned should be named Thomas Chalkley James, who, in 1810, was made the first pro- fessor of midwifery in this country, with his successors in this branch : William B. Dewees and Hugh L. Hodge, authors of valu- able books on the subject, and R. A. F. Penrose, who survives, a noble relic of the times when great men rose like mountain peaks above the general level. Mention should also be made of the bril- liant, the versatile, the facetious Nathanial Chapman, and of his successor, the profound and learned Dr. George B. Wood, and of Dr. David Jackson, whose personal attractions were as great as his intellectual attainments, the first incumbent, in 1853, of the chair of institutes of medicine, of William W. Gerhard, of Joseph Carson, of Robert E. Rogers, and of Alfred Stille-brilliant exemplars of what was accomplished by able minds before the science of medi- cine had the assistance of recently invented instruments of preci- sion and methods of experimental investigation; of Henry H. Smith, John Neill and John Ashhurst, jr., skillful and learned surgeons ; of Joseph Leidy, the patient, modest, profound student of anatomy and natural history, one of the greatest scientific investigators of the nineteenth century; of William Goodell, one of the pioneers in the specialty of gynecology, and of William Pepper, whose Napoleonic genius contributed so much to carrying forward the plans for developing the university set on foot by his predecessor in the provost's chair, Charles J. Stillé.
When John Morgan made his address at the opening of the Medical school in the College of Philadelphia he looked forward
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to the time when it might "give birth to other useful institutions of a similar nature." This prediction has been abundantly ful- filled. The second school of medicine in Philadelphia, and one which soon rose to a position of eminence which made it second in rank as well as in point of time, was organized by a graduate of the university, Dr. George McClellan, who, fired with an ex- traordinary ardor, in 1824 induced the trustees of Jefferson col- lege in Washington county, Pennsylvania, to establish a depart- ment in Philadelphia to be called The Jefferson Medical College. In 1838 the medical college was made an independent corpora- tion by the legislature "with the same powers and restrictions as the University of Pennsylvania." Unfortunately about this time there were dissensions in the faculty, which was dissolved by the trustees in June, 1839, and a new one was appointed which bore, in place of the name of Dr. George McClellan, the founder of the college, that of Dr. Joseph Pancoast, who was soon to succeed him as one of its greatest glories. Dr. McClellan's remarkable bold- ness and aggressiveness served well to establish the Jefferson col- lege, but seem to have been less suited than other qualities would have been to continue its career without disturbance. Per- sonally he was one of the most remarkable surgeons that this coun- try has ever known. The Jefferson college had a varying success until 1841, when there was a new crisis, and all the chairs were again vacated and a third faculty was appointed, made up of Dr. Robley Dunglison, professor of the institutes of medicine; Dr. J. K. Mitchell, professor of practice; Dr. Joseph Pancoast, professor of anatomy ; Dr. R. H. Huston, professor of materia medica; Dr. T. D. Mütter, professor of surgery; Dr. Charles D. Meigs, pro- fessor of obstetrics ; Dr. Franklin Bache, professor of chemistry. At this point the college entered upon a career of great activity and prosperity, its teachers being remarkable for their ability as prac- titioners and as instructors. It soon attracted to itself very large classes, many students coming from what was then the southwest- ern part of the country, and especially after Dr. Samuel D. Gross
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succeeded the brilliant Mütter as professor of surgery. Gross, who was a native of Pennsylvania and a graduate of Jefferson college in 1828, had been a popular professor in Cincinnati and Louisville, and now proved a tower of strength to his alma mater, and his learning, his skill as a writer, his abilities as a teacher, his com-
George Wolf
Member State legislature, 1814; congressman, 1824-1829; governor, 1829-1835; comptroller of United States Treasury, 1836-38
manding presence and his impressive manners, with the rare abili- ties of Pancoast as an anatomist and as a surgeon, and the suc- cess of Dunglison, Mitchell, Meigs and Bache in their various chairs, soon brought the Jefferson college to a very high position in the medical world. In 1872 the strength of the faculty was in- creased by the addition to it of Dr. J. M. Da Costa, whose teach- ings and writings soon secured for him a world-wide reputation. The Jefferson College was first opened in the "Tivoli Theatre," now No. 518 Locust street, which was altered to suit the purposes
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of the medical school. In 1828 this was moved to the new build- ing on Tenth street near Sansom, which it so long occupied and to which has been added only recently the very handsome and well- equipped edifice which stands upon the Northwest corner of Wal- nut and Tenth streets. The reputation of the Jefferson Medical college was largely due to the striking figures who made up what is known as the "Faculty of 1841." In this remarkable group of men was the learned Robley Dunglison, whose mind seemed able to embrace every department of knowledge that time permit- ted him to touch; Robert M. Huston, the patient and faithful teacher of therapeutics and for sixteen years dean of the faculty; Joseph Pancoast, that great practical anatomist and surgeon, whom none can appreciate who have never heard and seen him in his work; John K. Mitchell, who so brilliantly filled the chair of the practice of medicine; Charles D. Meigs, who, after a reluctant entrance upon the practice of midwifery, came to treat the subject with so much feeling that he made it almost poetic, but who held the singular notion that it was impious to attempt to prevent the pain of child-birth by the use of anaesthetics ; Franklin Bache, pro- fessor of chemistry, a learned teacher and collaborator with Dr. George B. Wood in the preparation of the everywhere-known United States Dispensatory, of whom his college bore witness that he was an example of all that is morally excellent, lovely and of good report in manhood ; and Thomas M. Mütter, whose bril- liant but brief career has been noted above. When to these was added Samuel D. Gross, whom his admirers would on one public occasion have clothed in royal purple-so much did they admire · and love him-there was a faculty that might well command suc- cess and carry the fame of the Jefferson college to the ends of the earth.
The restless spirit of Dr. George McClellan did not permit him to remain long in entirely private practice. After the term- ination of his connection with the Jefferson college he set to work promptly to establish another medical school; and, imitating his
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previous method, he now persuaded the trustees of the Pennsyl- vania college at Gettysburg to establish in Philadelphia a depart- ment of medicine, which began its work in a house on Filbert street above Eleventh. This institution was as unfortunate in the matter of dissension as that which he had before inaugurated. In 1843 all the members of the faculty resigned and McClellan re- tired to private practice. The wrangling between the university and the majority of the succeeding faculty had to be settled by an appeal to the courts and seriously affected the prosperity of the college, which, though it had a temporary success, and at one time a faculty containing men whose standing in the profession was high and whose success in other institutions was great, was finally discontinued in 1861.
The fourth school, the Philadelphia College of Medicine, was established in 1847 by Dr. James McClintock, who in 1838 had been at the head of a private school for medical teaching. In seven years this institution, which gave summer and winter courses, first in a building on Filbert street above Seventh, and in 1847 in one on Fifth street, west side, south of Walnut, graduated four hundred men; and in 1859, upon the resignation of the fac- ulty of the Pennsylvania Medical college, the professors in the former took the chairs of the latter, and merged its existence in that of the Pennsylvania Medical college, and removed to the building which this school had occupied on the west side of Ninth street below Locust. But the end came in 1861, when the enter- prise was finally abandoned.
In 1846 a fifth school was incorporated under the title of the Franklin Medical college, which occupied a building on Locust street above Eleventh. This school lasted only for two sessions, and then ceased to exist.
The sixth medical college established in Philadelphia was one which is not only interesting in itself, but which has exercised a very broad influence on medical education in the world. In 1850 a few persons who belonged to a distinctively advanced type of
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thought organized the Female Medical College of Pennsylvania, the first medical school for women in the world, which from a small beginning has increased until under its present name, the Woman's Medical college, it is one of the most useful medical in- stitutions in the world, at first occupying buildings in the rear of
Henry Marie Brackenridge
Son of Hugh Henry Brackenridge; author; General Jackson's private secretary in Florida 1821; United States judge Western Florida District 1821-1832; elected to Congress from Pittsburg, 1840, but accepted commissionership to negotiate treaty with Mexico. Engraved especially for this work from an original pho- tograph in the collection of the late John Tibby
what is now 627 Arch street and graduating eight women on De- cember 30, 1851, among them Ann Preston, a very distinguished and enterprising woman, who, in 1852, was elected professor of physiology and hygiene-the first woman to be a professor in a medical school in this country. In 1853, Dr. Preston became the
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ruling spirit in the institution and managed to free it from some of the unfortunate features which had hitherto characterized it and to raise its standard of proficiency to that of the best medical colleges-in fact in advance of most of the medical colleges in the country. In 1867 the title was changed to the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania, and it now has a large class and an im- portant corps of teachers, some of one sex and some of the other, and its graduates have carried the art of healing into the most re- mote corners of the world, in some cases their sex furnishing them with opportunities which could not possibly be shared by men. Fully equipped with a hospital and laboratory, it is not surprising that its members point with pride to the fact that the graduates of the Woman's Medical College are second to those of no other medical school in their success in meeting the requirements of pub- lic examining boards.
The seventh medical school established in Pennsylvania was the Medico-Chirurgical College. This was built upon a project, in 1848, which contemplated a society and not a teaching institu- tion, and which was incorporated in 1850. On April 10, 1867, it was changed from a medical society to a teaching body by an act conferring upon it rights similar to those of the University of Pennsylvania. Nothing came of this, however, until 1880, when the upper floors of a bank building on the southwest corner of Market street and West Penn square were secured for the pur- poses of the institution. Here it led a feeble existence for a num- ber of years, and in 1886 acquired the property on Cherry street east of Eighteenth, which before had been occupied by the "Home for Aged and Indigent Women." Here the Medico-Chirurgical college and the Philadelphia Dental college worked together un- til 1895, a period of ten years, when their union was dissolved, and the Dental college was removed to its own proper building. Since then the Medico-Chirurgical college has enlarged its work considerably and has seen its classes grow to large numbers, while it has enjoyed great liberality from the State legislature.
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The most recently established medical school in Pennsylvania is the department of medicine of the Temple college of Philadel- phia, which was opened in 1901 and has a curriculum covering a five years graded course, with five sessions of nine months each, the entire work being done in the evening, so as to accommodate persons desiring to study medicine whose daylight hours are other- wise occupied. It is carried on in connection with the Samaritan hospital, which furnishes opportunity for clinical instruction.
What is known as the "Eclectic School" of medicine had some followers in this country and in Pennsylvania more than a hun- dred years ago; but it had no representative school in this State until 1848, when there was established in Philadelphia the "Ec- lectic Medical College," which continued in existence until the time of the civil war, when it fell into the hands of men who brought the singular but sincere views of the founders of this sect into scorn and the name of the institution into disgrace. This came about when its franchises with those of the "Penn Medical University," which in 1853 undertook to furnish a medical edu- cation covering "all systems of practice" to persons of both sexes, came into the possession of the "Philadelphia University of Medi- cine and Surgery," an institution which went beyond both its predecessors in the peculiarities of its conduct. The seclusion of its chief officers at the expense of the State put an end to a period, following the civil war, when Philadelphia had an unenviable no- toriety through the operation of institutions, most of which took a name which might be confused with that of the University of Pennsylvania, and which issued fraudulent diplomas to persons who were willing to pay for that sort of thing.
Wherever the scientific standing of medical men excels there is, as a rule, not only the establishment of successful medical schools, but also achievements in the field of literature which sup- plement the skill and success which marks their practice. So in Pennsylvania the past has furnished examples of great success in letters : medical books and periodicals came from the presses of
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Philadelphia which had their full share in maintaining its reputa- tion as a medical centre. The greatest glory of American period- ical medical literature was undoubtedly the American Journal of the Medical Sciences, a quarterly which survived all of the foreign medical quarterlies with one exception ; and, like this one, is now issued as a monthly magazine. The American Journal of the Medical Sciences for many years contained all the serious medical productions of this country which could properly be called me- moirs, and its pages devoted to reviews were so admirably filled that it has been truly said that, were all the other productions of the press at the time of its existence destroyed, it would be possi- ble to reproduce from its files alone the best that had been con- tributed to medical science during that period. To this great work no man contributed as much as Dr. Isaac Hays, who for morethan fifty years was the wise and successful guide of its literary career. With characteristic wit the first editor, the brilliant Dr. Nathaniel Chapman, when it was started in 1820 under the title of the "Philadelphia Journal of the Medical and Physical Sciences," printed on its title page the malicious fling of Sydney Smith : "In the four quarters of the globe, who reads an American book? What does the world yet owe to an American physician or sur- geon?" And abundantly well has this great journal shown how false was the estimate of what America produced. Since that time various other journals have been published here. In 1842 a journal which had been first published in New Jersey was trans- ferred to this city and for years had a large following especially among practitioners of the country. This was the Medical and Surgical Reporter, which eventually succumbed before the fierce rivalry of journals of more modern style and supported by the cap- ital of large publishing houses. The most important journals issued to-day in Philadelphia-beside the American Journal of the Medical Sciences-are the "Philadelphia Medical Journal" and "American Medicine," which fully represent modern thought, modern enterprise and the present standards of medical ethics.
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Another important medical enterprise which is largely due to the activity of Pennsylvania medical men is the American Med- ical association. The history of this great national body is of in- tense interest, as it really reflects very thoroughly the progress of sentiment in this country in regard to what is best in medical prac-
Dunker Church and Interior, Blooming Grove, Lycoming County
Built 1828. Photographed especially for this work from original copies in possession of Joseph H. McMinn
tice and in medical life. Its birth was largely due to the dissatis- faction felt by a number of medical men, among whom those teaching medicine in Philadelphia were conspicuous by their per- sonal character and high professional standing, with the defects of the system of medical education due to the practical lawlessness with which it was conducted. Their great object was to bring the most representative men of the profession together so that
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they might unitedly set up a standard of excellence in public and private conduct to which all right-minded medical men might give their adherence. With this purpose the American Medical asso- ciation was organized in Philadelphia in May, 1847; and it is in- teresting to note that most of the aims of the men then and there gathered have been attained, some not so perfectly as might be wished, but quite as well as might have been expected, in view of the difficulties adherent in the political development and the social condition of the people of the United States. Another interest- ing episode in the history of medicine in Pennsylvania was when an International Medical Congress was held in Philadelphia in 1876, coincidently with the "Centennial Exhibition." This brought together a large number of distinguished medical men from this and other countries, and those who came saw with what equal dignity and lustre the leaders of American medical thought and practice compared with those who came here as guests. Our surgeons equalled them in boldness and in dexterity, and our prac- titioners of internal medicine needed to yield nothing to them in learning, in culture, in elegance of style and in success as healers of their fellow-men. Among the editors sat one whose fame since that day has reached world-wide proportions, Mr. Joseph Lister of Edinburgh, since then Sir Joseph Lister and Lord Lister, who explained and urged upon his hearers that method of "antiseptic surgery," which, with its various modifications, has revolutionized the practice of surgery and contributed probably more in the way of life and health to mankind than any curative measure which ever has been devised.
An indispensable adjunct of medical progress is the hospital. In this Pennsylvania has been always in the van. So early was this particular feature of civilization developed, that there has been a friendly contention between the great Pennsylvania hos- pital and what is now called the Philadelphia hospital, that is, the medical department of the alms house, or "Bettering House," as it was at first called, as to which was earliest in existence. In this
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matter there can be no question that the Pennsylvania hospital was first organized as a hospital, and the fact that the alms house be- fore that had its sick treated by physicians, and in one particular part of the building, furnishes for it no better claim to priority than could probably be advanced by the jail of that time.
The Pennsylvania hospital, which was established in 1751, is a monument to the benevolence and sagacity of Dr. Thomas Bond and Benjamin Franklin and their colleagues. Its history is ro- mantic; it was the first general hospital established in this coun- try, the New York hospital building being begun only in 1773 and the Massachusetts General hospital being opened only in 1821. and it has always been in certain respects the greatest hospital in the country, although happily there are now a number of institu- tions that deserve to be classed with it in every respect except that of age. Founded and governed principally by Quakers, it was supported by contributions of citizens of every class and aided by the generosity of the proprietaries. During the war of the revolution it went through the vicissitudes incident to the cap- ture and occupation of Philadelphia by the British from Septem- ber 26, 1777, to June 18, 1778, but its career has been one of almost uninterrupted prosperity. Its managers from the begin- ning have been men of the highest standing in the community and of a prudence leaving nothing to be desired. Its physicians have been the very best that Philadelphia could furnish ; and to be, or to have been, connected with this institution in an official capacity is a sort of patent of nobility, while its ministrations to the sick- always the chief object of its existence-have been of inestimable worth.
But the charitable work of caring for the sick who cannot be cared for in their homes has never been neglected in any part of this State. Every city contains its important hospital, and in many of them the work of benevolence has been accompanied by developments in medical science and surgical skill which are a part of the natural reward of such altruism. In Pittsburg an im-
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portant medical school has grown up with the progress of the hos- pitals in that city, and elsewhere physicians and surgeons have been developed who have contributed no small share to the high standard of the profession in general in this State. In Philadelphia each of the medical schools has a large and useful hospital, and almost every one of the principal religious denominations supports one which is a credit to it. In connection with each one of these there is a dispensary service-in many cases so large that it is sometimes thought the benevolence of the medical profession is sorely abused by those who in this way get its gratuitous services. All the dispensaries are followers of that interesting institution, the Philadelphia dispensary, enjoying that peculiar and, for Phila- delphians delightful, characteristic of age, without any abatement of its power and usefulness, which was established in 1786 through the efforts of Dr. Samuel P. Griffitts, beginning its exist- ence in a house in Strawberry alley and afterwards occupying the building constructed for its occupancy, still in use, on the east side of Fifth street, north of Walnut.
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