Ruschenberger.] Lrt'x: [April 1, 



and a name, and proved him to be an eligible candidate, and, after an 

 unusual trial of his aptitude for the office, fairly secured his preferment. 



A brief notice of his predecessors in the same Chair is submitted to show 

 in what respects he resembled them. 



The medical department of the University of Pennsylvania has always 

 been happy in selecting men of marked ability and acquirements to fill its 

 professorships. At the start the Trustees elected (September, 1765) two 

 professors. Dr. John Morgan, to whom the credit of founding the Medi- 

 cal School of the University belongs, was appointed Professor of Medicine, 

 Miiich embraced the practice of physic, materia medica and pharma- 

 ceutical chemistry, and Dr. William Sliippen, Jr., Professor of Anatomy 

 and Surgery, when he was twenty- nine years of age. He also taught 

 midwifery. Their first courses of lectures began in November, 1765. He 

 was an eminent general practitioner of medicine and a surgeon of the 

 Pennsylvania Hospital during nearly twelve years. 



Dr. Caspar Wistar, at the age of thirty-one years, was appointed, Janu- 

 ary, 1792, adjunct, and after the death of Dr. Shippeu, July 11, 1808, 

 Professor of Anatomy, 



Desirous to improve the method of teaching anatomy. Dr. Wistar had 

 made gigantic models, exactly proportioned, of several minute and intri- 

 cate structures — of the internal ear, for instance — which he used as objec- 

 tive illustrations of his lectures. 



His collection of numerous models and anatomical preparations was 

 presented, after his death, by his family to the University, and by resolu- 

 tion of the Trustees, styled "The Wistar Museum." 



Dr. Wistar published, in 1811, A System of Anatomy, which was a text- 

 book during many years. He was versed in botany, mineralogy and 

 chemistry. He was a surgeon of the Pennsylvania Hospital more than 

 sixteen years, and always among the most eminent and beloved practi- 

 tioners of medicine in the community. 



On the death of Dr. Wistar, January 22, 1818, Dr. .John Syng Dorsey 

 was appointed, but died November 13, 1818, a week after the delivery of 

 his introductory lecture. The course on anatomy for 1818-19 was com- 

 pleted by Dr. Physick,with the assistance of Dr. William E. Horner. 



Dr. Philip Syng Physick, an eminent surgeon, who had been Professor 

 of Surgery from June 4, 1805, was elected Professor of Anatomy July 13, 

 1819, and resigned in 1831. He was a surgeon of the Pennsylvania Hos- 

 pital for twenty-two years, and rendered important services to the public 

 during the epidemics of yellow fever in 1793 and 1798. 



Dr. William E. Horner was elected adjunct in 1820 and Professor of 

 Anatomy in 1G31. He, a native of Virginia, had been a surgeon's mate in 

 the Army of the United States from 1813 to March, 1815, and served on the 

 Niagara frontier in the war of that period. 



Dr. Wistar appointed him, March, 1816, his prosector, at an annual salary 

 of $500. 



From 1820 he was a surgeon of the Philadelphia Almshouse dating 



