1731, after his return to America, "made dissections and demonstrations for the instruction of the elder Dr. Shippen and some others" (Quoted by C. W. Dulles, from an address by Caspar Wistar) . It is not impossible that similar instruction was given after this time by other young men fresh from the English and Scotch schools, but the next account of anatomical teaching in Philadelphia, of which we have a record, is that of Dr. William Shippen, Jr., son of the Dr. Shippen spoken of above. Dr. Shippen was a pupil of the Hunters in London, and in 1762, soon after his return to America, advertised in the "Pennsylvania Gazette" as follows:
"Dr. Shippen's anatomical lectures will begin tomorrow evening at 6 o'clock at his father's house in Fourth Street. Tickets for the course are to be had of the Doctor at five pistoles each, and any gentleman inclined to see the subject prepared for the lectures and to learn the art of dissection, injection, etc., is to pay five pistoles more."
About this period, in 1774, Dr. Abraham Chovet, a picturesque character, who had been a demonstrator of anatomy in the worshipful company of Barber-Surgeons at London and, after living in Barbadoes and Jamaica, had come to Philadelphia, established in the latter city a course of lectures on anatomy. Later he built an amphitheatre in which he continued for some years to give lectures and demonstrations. He built up a fine museum of anatomical specimens and models, considered one of the places to visit by strangers in Philadelphia. He died in 1790. (For an interesting biographical sketch of Chovet's life see W. S. Miller, Anatomical Record vol. v. 1911.)
William Shippen, Jr. , and John Morgan — likewise a pupil of the Hunters, a gifted man, whose publication on "The Art of Making Anatomical Prep- arations," led to his election to membership in the Royal Society of London — were active in the establishment in 1765 of a school of medicine as a department of Pennsylvania College, afterwards the University of Pennsylvania. Shippen was professor of anatomy, surgery and mid- wifery in this school for forty-three years and was an inspiring teacher, although he made no important contributions to the science of anatomy. In 1808 the professorship of anatomy was given to Caspar Wistar, who held the chair for ten years with distinguished success. Wistar wrote a good text-book of human anatomy and made a contribution to the knowledge of the structure of the ethmoid bone. He established the collection, afterwards greatly developed by Horner, which formed the nucleus of the collection now housed in the Museum of the Wistar Insti- tute of Anatomy, erected in 1892, through the generosity of the grandson of Caspar Wistar, Gen. Wistar. Caspar Wistar was followed at the Uni- versity of Pennsylvania by Philip S. Physick, who did little to distinguish himself in anatomy, although a surgeon of great worth and ability.
