published his views with respect to the mode of practice which he thought should be pursued by the physician, enforcing them with arguments derived from the advantages which he believed would be secured by such procedure.
Having been appointed professor in the college, there was another reason, having reference to this position, which must be admitted as valid. It is thus given: “As far as I can learn everybody approves of my plan for instituting medical schools, and I have the honor of being appointed a public professor for teaching physic in the college here. Can any man, the least acquainted with the nature of that arduous task, once imagine it possible for me to acquit myself in that station in an honorable or useful manner, and yet be engaged in one continued round of practice in surgery and pharmacy as well as physic?”
“To prepare for a course of lectures every year requires some leisure, and a mind undisturbed with too great variety of pursuits. So that my usefulness as a professor makes it absolutely necessary for me to follow that method of practice which alone appears to be calculated to answer that end.”[1]
Although the opinions of Dr. Morgan were not at the time adopted, nor was his example immediately followed, still, in connection with the history of the profession they are important, from the fact that he was the first practitioner in the city of Philadelphia who placed himself upon the highest ground, by separating himself from the handicraft which requires distinct skill, and so long a training, as to constitute in itself an occupation. He insisted upon the distinction being made
- ↑ Preface to his Discourse.
their Fellows and Licentiates from taking upon themselves to use the employment of an apothecary, or to have or keep an apothecary shop. In 1765, in order, as they conceived, “to support that character and esteem which they had all along maintained, and to keep up that distinction which ought to be made between the members of the College and the practitioners of those branches of the healing art which have always been esteemed the least reputable,” they resolved “that for the future they would admit no person to be one of their Fellows whose common business it was either to practise Surgery in general, or Midwifery, Lithotomy, Inoculation, or any other branch of it in particular.”—Life of Cullen, vol. ii. p. 87, by Dr. Craigie. A continuation of Thompson’s Life.
