Page:A History of the Medical Department of the University of Pennsylvania.djvu/40

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MEDICAL DEPARTMENT OF

mained until 1866, when they were retransferred to the Hospital to be placed in its Pathological Museum.

The lectures upon Anatomy by Dr. William Shippen, Jr., were thus in full operation when, in 1765, Dr. Morgan arrived from Europe. As he and Dr. Shippen, Jr., must be regarded as the fathers of systematic medical teaching in this country, it will be proper to give an account of their previous training and qualifications to assume so important a duty.

Dr. John Morgan was born in Philadelphia, in 1736, and acquired his literary education at the college of this city, from which he received the degree of A. B. in 1757, with the first class which was graduated. He studied medicine with Dr. Redman, and upon the expiration of his indentures entered the Provincial army as a surgeon. This was at the conclusion of the French war, which terminated by the expulsion of that nation from Canada. In 1760, having resigned his commission in the army, he sailed for Europe with the view of perfecting his medical knowledge.

When speaking of himself with reference to this period, he states: “It is now more than fifteen years since I began the study of medicine in this city, which I have prosecuted ever since without interruption. During the first years I served an apprenticeship with Dr. Redman, who then did, and still continues to enjoy a most justly acquired reputation in this city for superior knowledge and extensive practice in physic. At the same time I had an opportunity of being acquainted with the practice of other eminent physicians in this place, particularly of all the physicians to the hospital, whose prescriptions I put up there above the space of one year. The term of my apprenticeship being expired, I devoted myself for four years to a military life, principally with a view to become more skilful in my profession, being engaged the whole of that time in a very extensive practice in the army amongst diseases of every kind. The last five years I have spent in Europe, under the most celebrated masters in every branch of medicine, and spared no labor or expense to store my mind with an extensive acquaintance in every science that related in any way to the duty of a physician; having in that time expended in this pursuit a sum of money of which the very in-