Royal College of Surgeons of London. It is stated that, at the conclusion of his studies in England, Mr. Hunter invited him to settle in London and to take a share in his professional business. In his Treatise upon the Blood, Mr. Hunter awards to Dr. Physick the credit of many of the experiments therein described.
The winter of 1791–92 was passed by him in Edinburgh, in attendance upon the lectures of the University, from which, at the conclusion of the course, he received the degree of M. D. His thesis, written in Latin, was entitled “De Apoplexia,” and dedicated to John Hunter.
There are two interesting facts in connection with his graduation as Doctor of Medicine, which may be noticed; the one, that it occurred at the time of the coalition between the two Faculties in Philadelphia, and the permanent establishment of the University of Pennsylvania, of which he was destined to become so conspicuous an ornament; the other, that he was placed upon an ad eundem standing with the University of Edinburgh, and permitted to graduate with attendance upon one course. We are told “that the Professors of the University of Edinburgh were very careful upon whom they conferred its honors, and have never deviated from the resolution they had taken that none should be promoted to the honorable degree of Doctor of Medicine without having studied medicine at least three years at this or some other University; at the same time producing certificates of having attended regularly the public lectures prescribed by the statute and submitted to be examined in the most solemn manner by the Faculty.”[1] We are not aware of an instance of a similar nature having previously occurred at Edinburgh in the case of an American student.
Upon his return home, Dr. Physick was soon called upon to exercise his knowledge and his skill in aid of his terror-stricken and afflicted fellow-citizens, during the fearful epidemics of yellow fever that prevailed from 1793 to 1798. In the latter year he filled the post of Resident Physician in the City Hospital (Bush Hill), where his post-mortem examinations still further confirmed him in the opinion he had previously entertained
- ↑ Bower, History of the University of Edinburgh.
