xxix DR. JOHN MORGAN 369 



felt that he was speaking to America and building for the 

 future. He laboured to convince his own city of the greatness 

 of their opportunity. He showed the manner of a college 

 that should teach medicine in its fulness, founded deep upon 

 its kindred sciences : Edinburgh was his model. He had 

 learned from the Academic Roy ale de Chirurgie, which had 

 elected him as a member, its reasoned enthusiasm for study. 

 He would have nothing narrow or meagre in this first medical 

 college in the new world : it should be an example to the 

 whole country, a continent " offering the richest mines of 

 natural knowledge yet unrifled." " The great and well 

 known Dr. Fothergill, the justly celebrated Dr. Hunter, and 

 the learned Dr. Watson " had approved his purpose. The 

 time was come to set up in the land the different orders of 

 physicians, surgeons and apothecaries, each in his own depart- 

 ment. Difficulties, as he told the students, they must regard 

 as left by others for them to master. " I appeal," he says, 

 " to the common-sense of mankind." 



He bore with him on his arrival a letter from the 

 Proprietary Thomas Penn, inspired, there is little doubt, 

 by Fothergill, commending Morgan's proposal for estab- 

 lishing a medical school. The Proprietary of the province, 

 however he had stood in the way of its liberties, gave a 

 cordial and even affectionate support to its scientific 

 advance . The young physician ' s well-laid plans prospered : 

 the college was duly opened in 1765 ; Morgan was elected 

 Professor of Physic the first medical professorship in 

 America and Shippen to the chair of Anatomy and 

 Surgery ; Thomas Bond began clinical lectures in the 

 year following. 



Morgan was the first -pure physician in America, 

 compounding no medicines, nor practising surgery. A 

 keen and independent observer, of literary and artistic 

 tastes, his professional and clinical work were of a high, 

 order. But when the war broke out he left his post at 

 the college to become medical director-general to the 

 army. Here he resolutely applied his powers to bring 

 order out of chaos, setting up entrance examinations for 

 army doctors, enforcing discipline, and toiling in the 

 face of short supplies and bad finance. He met the fate 

 of many reformers. Driven from his post a sensitive 



2B 



