14 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTOT*r. 



lior naturalists should be medical professors, and the active inves- 

 tigators, outside of medical science, w^ere not numerous. Rush, 

 however, was one of the earliest American writers upon eth- 

 nology, and a pathologist of the highest rank. He is generally 

 referred to as the earliest professor of chemistry, having been 

 appointed to the chair of chemistry in the College of Philadel- 

 phia in 1769; it seems certain, however, that Dr. John Morgan 

 lectured on chemistry as early as 1765.* 



Dr. Shippen [b. 1735^ cb 180S], the founder of the first 

 medical school [1765] ;md its professor of anatomy for forty- 

 three years, was still in his prime, and so ^vas Dr. Morgan 

 [b. 1735, d. 17S9], a Fellow of the Royal Society, a co-founder 

 of the medical school, and a frequent contributor to the Philo- 

 sophical Transactions. Morgan was an eminent pathologist, 

 and is said to have been the one to originate the theory of the 

 formation of pus by the secretory action of the vessels of the 

 part.f He appears to have been the first who attempted to 

 form a museum of anatomy, having learned the methods of 

 preparation from the Hunters and from Siie in Paris. The 

 beginning was still earlier known, for a collection of anatomical 

 models in wax, obtained by Dr. Abraham Chovet in Paris, was 

 in use by Philadelphia medical students before the Revolution. J 



Anotlier of the physicians of colonial days who lived until 

 after the i-evolution was Dr. Thomas Cadwallader [b. 1707, 

 d. 1779], whose dissections are said to have been among the 

 earliest made in America, and whose " Essay on the West 

 India Dry Gripes," 1775, was one of the earliest medical trea- 

 tises in America. 



Dr. Caspar Wistar [b. 1761, d. 1818] was also a leader, 



* Barton's Memoirs of Rittenhouse, p. 614. 

 IThacher. American Medical Biography, i. p. 408. 

 X This eventually became the property of the University. See Barton's 

 Rittenhouse, p. 377. Trans. Amer. Phil. Soc, ii, p. 36S. 



