Page:A History of the Medical Department of the University of Pennsylvania.djvu/161

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THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA.
165
CHAPTER XIV.
Resignation of Dr. Hare—Sketch of his life—Election of Dr. James B. Rogers to the Chair of Chemistry—Change in the lecture term—Resignation of Dr. Chapman—Sketch of his life—Election of Dr. Wood to the Chair of Practice, and of Dr. Carson to that of Materia Medica and Pharmacy.


From the period last mentioned until the year 1847, no change took place in the Faculty. Dr. Hare then resigned the Professorship of Chemistry, to which he had been appointed in 1819. He had been in possession of the Chair twenty-seven years.

Dr. Robert Hare was born in the city of Philadelphia in 1781. After finishing his academic education, he devoted some time to the occupation of a brewer, in the establishment of his father, in which his active mind was engaged upon the chemistry of the manufacture of malt liquors, and of their preservation. While engaged in this business, a barrel was invented by him, partly of iron, for the purpose of resisting the pressure from an extra accumulation of carbonic acid gas. At the age of twenty he entered the Chemical School of the University of Pennsylvania, where, in association with Dr. Benjamin Silliman, he pursued his studies under the direction of Woodhouse.

With reference to that period, Dr. Silliman writes thus in 1809: "When I was appointed to the Chymical Chair of this College (Yale) I was allowed time and opportunities to qualify myself for a station, for which those who appointed me knew I was not at the time prepared. I went to Philadelphia, and was so fortunate as to board in the same house with Mr. Hare. My pursuits and his tastes led us to form a small laboratory, where we pursued Chymistry with much ardour. It is with pleasure that I say that I am greatly indebted to the able assistance and instruction which I received from Mr. Hare at that time, for any progress I made in the Science.

"He had already become, from a great deal of private re-