Page:A Discourse upon the Institution of Medical Schools in America - John Morgan.djvu/70

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.

[ 34 ]

The scheme of establishing medical lectures, which I now subject with all deference to your consideration, has been communicated to some very competent and unbiassed judges in England, who not only deem it practicable, but a laudable and useful enterprize. The great and well known Dr. Fothergill, the justly celebrated Dr. Hunter, and the learned Dr. Watson, men distinguished for their superior knowledge in literature, and particularly eminent in every thing which relates to medical science, have esteemed the improvement of such knowledge amongst us worthy of notice, and the institution of lectures in every branch of Medicine as deserving the patronage of all who wish well to arts and sciences. It would therefore argue great inattention in us to neglect the first opportunity that offers, of giving effect and stability to the design. Nor can we defer the execution of it at this time, without risquing the loss of the noble prospect which it affords, not easily to be retrieved.

It is with the highest satisfaction I am informed from Dr. Shippen, junior, that in an address to the public as introductory to his first anatomical course, he proposed some hints of a plan for giving medical lectures amongst us. But I do not learn that he recommended at all a collegiate undertaking of this kind. What led me to it was the obvious