Chapter IV.
Origin of the Medical Department.
Though the college of Philadelphia was later in its origin than some similar institutions in the older settlements, it may nevertheless boast the honour of having established a medical school, the first in point of time, as it has always been the greatest in merit and success of all upon this continent. It does not come within the design of the present sketch, to give even a very general account of the rise, progress, and ultimate prosperity of this department of the college, which of itself affords a subject so distinct and copious, as well to deserve a separate and minute consideration. We may, however, be allowed to notice a few circumstances, connected with the earliest period of its history.[1]
- ↑ The following extract of a letter from James Logan to Colonel Hunter, Governor of New York, dated 5th month 1st, 1717-18, contains the earliest account we have seen of a proposition to deliver medical lectures in Philadelphia. The individual referred to was Dr. Colden. "All I know of that bill is only this. He came to me one day, to desire my opinion of a proposal to get an Act of Assembly for an allowance to him as physician for the poor of this place. I told him I thought very well of the thing, but doubted whether it could be brought to bear in the house. Not long after, K. Hill showed me a bill for this purpose, put into his hands by the governor, with two farther provisions in it, which were, that a public physical lecture should be held in Philadelphia, to the support of which every unmarried man, above the age of twenty-one years, should pay six shillings and eight-pence or an English crown yearly, and that the corpses of all persons whatever that died here, should be visited by an appointed physician who should receive for his trouble three shillings and four-pence. These things I owned were very commendable, but doubted our Assembly would never go into them, that of the lecture especially."
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