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Shortly after the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy was founded, in 1821, Dr. Wood was invited to become its Professor of Chemistry. He accepted the position, and held it, with success and popularity, from 1822 to 1831, when he was transferred to the Chair of Materia Medica in the same institution.
In 1835, when the Chair of Materia Medica in the University of Pennsylvania (before held by Dr. John Redman Coxe) became vacant, Dr. Wood was elected to occupy it. I have had before me a letter addressed by him, during the canvass, to James S. Smith, one of the Trustees of the University, at the request of the latter, in which, with modesty and yet with distinctness, he sets forth some of the reasons, growing out of his abundant preparation, for his claim of eligibility to the chair. He mentions in this letter the fact, that during the year 1829 he devoted all his leisure for nine months, in conjunction with Drs. Hewson and Bache, acting as a Committee of the College of Physicians, to the revisal of the Pharmacopœia of the United States. So many alterations were found to be required, that it was necessary to rewrite almost the whole work. Before the Committee was satisfied, Dr. Wood states that he had written all of the manuscript copy at least twice over with his own hand. Through its subsequent adoption by a National Convention at Washington in 1830, this Pharmacopœia became the standard authority for the preparation of officinal medicines throughout the United States; and it
