I also attended the practice of physic and surgery at the almshouse, which then offered the only means of clinical instruction in this city; they were, however, very ample, the house being daily visited by Dr. Post, Dr. William Moore, Dr. Romayne, and Dr. Benjamin Kissam."
There was then no institution in New York empowered to grant the degree in medicine, the medical faculty of Columbia, formerly King's College, having been broken up by the Revolution. So, after a year of private study, Hosack proceeded to Philadelphia and enrolled at the medical school of the University of Pennsylvania, where Drs. Shippen, Rush, Kuhn, and Wistar were then among the professors, and in the summer of the succeeding year obtained his medical degree. In the same year he married at Princeton Miss Catharine Warner, a young lady of great worth, to whom he had become attached while pursuing his collegiate studies.
By the advice of Dr. Rush and others whom he consulted, Dr. Hosack settled first at Alexandria, Va., which place he believed was to be the capital of the United States. The practice that he acquired here, although considerable, was not satisfactory to him, and after a year's residence he returned to New York. He now determined to supplement his medical studies abroad. "Observing the distinction," to quote his own words, "which our citizens at that time made between those physicians who had been educated at home and those who had had additional instruction from the universities of Europe, and knowing how little property I had reason to expect from my parents, I found that my chief dependence was upon my own industry and increasing attention to the profession I had chosen as the means of my subsistence: my ambition to excel in my profession did not suffer me to remain insensible under such distinction. Although it was painful for me to think of leaving my family, consisting then of a wife and child, I accordingly suggested to my father the propriety of my making a visit to Europe, and of attending the medical schools of Edinburgh and London. He at once, with his characteristic liberality, acquiesced in my views and wishes. In August, 1792, leaving my family to the care of my parents, I took passage for Liverpool."
After spending a few days in Liverpool he proceeded to Edinburgh, where he attended the medical lectures at the university during the following winter. In the spring, after a visit to his father's birthplace, where he met two uncles and other relatives, and to some other places in Scotland, he repaired to the metropolis and entered as a pupil of St. Bartholomew's Hospital. He also frequently visited other hospitals when any important surgical operations were performed, surgery being the favorite subject of
