terest would prove no contemptible income. With what success this has been done, others are to judge, and not myself.”[1]
During Dr. Morgan’s residence in London he experienced the benefit of the instruction of the Hunters and of Hewson. With the latter, as appears from his correspondence, he was on intimate terms. He graduated as M. D. at Edinburgh in 1763, his thesis being written upon the formation of pus. It is entitled “Πυοποιεσις sive Tentamen Medicum de Puris Confectione.” This thesis, when published, was dedicated to the Medical Society of Edinburgh, in the following terms: “Societati Medicinae Studiosorum in Academia Edinburgena dudum institutæ.”
In this essay the doctrine is maintained that pus is a secretion from the vessels, and in this he anticipated Mr. Hunter. Dr. James Curry, Lecturer at Guy’s Hospital, gives the credit of priority in this statement to him, and says: “I could not avoid giving that merit to Dr. Morgan, who discussed the question with great ingenuity in his Inaugural Dissertation on taking his degree at Edinburgh in 1763; whilst I could find no proof that Mr. Hunter had taught or even adopted such an opinion until a considerably later period.”[2]
While in England Dr. Morgan became a proficient in the art of injecting organs with wax, and preparing them by subsequent corrosion.[3] Carrying with him to the continent the evidences of his skill, he acquired such a reputation as to procure his admission as a member to the Academy of Surgery of Paris. While there residing, and attending the lectures of the distinguished anatomist M. Sue, he prepared a kidney by
- ↑ Preface to the Discourse, etc.
- ↑ London Medical and Physical Journal, 1817. New England Journal of Medicine and Surgery, vol. vi. p. 404. Beck’s Historical Sketch.
- ↑ The method of making preparations by this process was communicated to the American Philosophical Society. It is published in the second volume of Transactions, and is entitled the “Art of making Anatomical Preparations by Corrosion, by John Morgan, M. D., Professor of the Theory and Practice of Physic in the University of Pennsylvania, Member of the Royal College of Physicians, Ed., F. R. S., London.” It must have been communicated some years prior to 1786, when the volume was printed. Dr. Morgan was an active member of the American Society, which he joined in 1766, and became a member of the Philosophical Society on its union with the former in 1768.
