Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Inoculation in Pennsylvania / by J.M. Toner. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)
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![the settlers. In the same vessel which brought William Penn, when he came to plant a colony in the wilderness, came also this unwelcome At the regular commencement of the college, which took place on the 30th and 31st of May, 1765, Dr. Morgan delivered A Discourse upon the Institution of Medical Schools in America, hefore the trustees and the public, with a sketch of the proposed plan for teaching the different branches of medical education, and pointing out the advantages to accrue from the enterprise, which had the effect of interesting many in its favor. His discourse occupied part of two days. It was written in Paris, and exhibited there to his friend Powell. Dr. Shippen was elected, at a special meeting of the trustees, to the Chair of Anatomy and Surgery in the same college, on the 23d of September, nearly five months after the election of Prof. Morgan. His letter of application to the trustees was dated Philadelphia, September 17, 1765. The medical college may, from this period, be considered regularly organized. Systematic lectures in all the branches of a medical education were announced by advertisement in the public papers to begin on the 4th and 18th of November, 1765, and did so begin. Dr. Shippen took the lead, and embraced in his lectures anatomy, surgery, and midwifery. Dr. Morgan included all that was essential in the other branches in his lectures. Each professor delivered three lectures a week, averaging from three to four hours in length. These lectures were for many years delivered in a small building on Sixth Street, near the present office of the Board of Health. Dr. Thomas Bond, a native of the State of Maryland, studied medicine partly at home with the learned Dr. Hamilton, though he completed his studies at the Hotel Dieu, in Paris. Upon his return to America he located, to practise his profession, in the city of Philadelphia, in 1734. His eminent talent and devotion to his profession soon brought him into great repute as a practitioner of the healing art. To him belongs the honor of originating the movement, in 1751, which finally led to the establishment of the Pennsylvania Hospital; and he remained for many years one of its active managers. [See Franklin's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 128.] Dr. Bond was an influential promoter of the project of teaching the science of medicine in Philadelphia ; for we find that, as early as the year 1766, he pro- posed to the managers of the Pennsylvania Hospital to deliver there a course of clinical lectures to all students who might procure admittance to the same from the managers. The funds thus raised were, by an arrangement between the doctor and the managers of the hospital, devoted to collecting a medical library to be controlled by the latter, and to be at the service of the students subscrib- ing and attending the clinical lectures at the hospital. Thus was begun, through the liberality and forethought of Dr. Bond, the formation of a medical library which has become the richest treasury of its kind on this continent. His pro- posal being approved by the managers, he delivered his first lecture on the 3d of December, 1766. This discourse was so highly appreciated by the Board of Managers that they ordered it to be copied upon the journal or minute book of the hospital ; and thus has been preserved the first formal clinical lecture ever delivered in America. This lecture was copied by Dr. Paul F. Eve, while a student of medicine, and published in the fourth volume, p. 164, of the North American Medical and Surgical Journal.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21159841_0010.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
