an experimenter, to any one he had seen either in England or France.[1] His enthusiasm was unbounded, and his style of speaking of his subject sentimentally impressive. He introduced to his juvenile auditors the science by the term of “Miss Chemistry,” and strenuously urged fidelity and devotion to her as a chaste and eminently attractive mistress. Dr. Woodhouse adhered to the doctrine of Priestley, and may be said to have been the last of the American chemical philosophers entertaining the belief in Phlogiston. His published contributions to chemical science were numerous.
Dr. Woodhouse was succeeded by Dr. John Redman Coxe, who for two years previously had been a member of the Board of Trustees. The date of his election was July 10. 1809.
While the election of a successor to Dr. Woodhouse was pending, the Medical Faculty took decided ground with reference to the qualifications needed in the Professor of Chemistry of a Medical School. Their views are thus presented in a letter to Chief Justice McKeen, one of the Trustees, at his request.
“It is particularly expedient that the Professor of Chemistry should have a full and extensive knowledge of Medicine, because very many valuable articles of the Materia Medica are derived from Chemistry; and the nature of these articles can only be understood by a person who has a competent knowledge both of Chemistry and Medicine. The students of Medicine, who almost exclusively support the Professorship of Chemistry, are induced to do so in consequence of its application to Pharmacy and the different branches of Medicine, viz., Physiology, Pathology, Therapeutics, Materia Medica, and the Practice of Physic. No man can teach Pharmacy unless he has had some knowledge of the Practice of Medicine, and the application of Chemistry to Physiology; and the other branches of medical science above mentioned can only be taught by a chemist who understands them.
“The teaching of Chemistry in this University has hitherto been confined to the Professors of Medicine; and the success
- ↑ Autobiography of Dr. Charles Caldwell.
