14^1 



1SP2.] xtcx [Riischenberger. 



Robert Hare, Professor of Cheuiistry, during six weeks, and tlien entered 

 tliatofDr. James B. Rogers, lecturer on Cliemistry in the Medical In- 

 stitute of Philadelphia, from 1841, and remained there through the 

 summer course. On the retirement of Dr. Hare, in 1847, Dr. Rogers 

 succeeded him in the University.* 



He was now prepared to begin the practice of any brauch of medicine 

 he might prefer, but he had yet to learn how to make the profession of 

 commercial value to himself. No plan of proceeding was immediately 

 formed. In August, 1844, on foot with several companions, he visited 

 Harvey's lake, Bethlehem, Mauch Chunk ; also the Beaver Meadow and 

 Hazleton coal mines. In a letter to a sister he wrote : " Pedestrianated to 

 Wilkesbarre and arrived at Berwick yesterday, August 28, having walked 

 from the lake to this place, thirly-flve miles, the longest distance I 

 have ever walked in one da3\" 



In the autumn he opened an office, No. 211 North Sixth street, hoping 

 to obtain employment as a general practitioner. But the business which 

 came to him during two years' trial did not promise a satisfactory living, 

 and therefore he determined to devote himself exclusively to teaching. 

 Possibly his failure to obtain practice was ascribable in some degree to 

 lack of due attention to patients. Years after this time, to show how 

 intently attractive comparative anatomy was to him, he related to his 

 private class that on one occasion he was so absorbed in his oifice studying 

 the anatomy of a worm that he totally forgot that he had been called to 

 an obstetric case which he had engaged to attend. Later in life he would 

 have felt that unbridled eagerness to learn the structure of a worm is an 

 inadequate plea for forgetting a professional or other engagement. 



An unhappy experience, which occurred shortly after he began the 

 practice, tended to disgust him with it and may have been one reason 

 among others why he abandoned it. Ten years afterwards he narrated 

 substantially that, called to a child suffering "with all the symptoms of 

 tubercular meningitis," he informed the parents that medicine in such a 

 case is inefficacious. Nevertheless, they requested him to visit it. At 

 the end of a week a much older practitioner was called, and attended the 

 child till it died. He then "informed the parents that he could have 

 saved the life of the patient had he been called at the time of Dr. Leidy's 

 first visit." t 



In 1845, on the resignation of Dr. Goddard and the appointment of Dr. 

 John Neill, Demonstrator, in his place, the Professor of Anatomy, 



* Biographical Notice of Joseph Leidy, M.D. By the Editor. "The New Jersey 

 Medical Reporter and Transactions of the New Jersey Medical Society." Edited by 

 Joseph Parrish, M.D., Burlington, N. J. Published by S. W. Butler, M.D. Ninth month, 

 September 30, 1853, Vol. vi, No. 2. It is imderstood that this notice had the approval of 

 Dr. Leidy. 



+ See p. 16, Valedictory Address to the class of medical graduates of the University of 

 Pennsylvania, delivered at the public commencement, March 27, 1858. By Joseph 

 I^eidy, M.D., Professor of Anatomy. Published by the Graduating Class. Collins, 

 Printer, Philadelphia, 1858. 



