18 Medicine, [Chap. IV. 



much value at the present day ; 3"et, considered as 

 indications of a growing taste for medical inquiries, 

 and as among the means of exciting, in a young 

 country, a thirst for knowledge, and an ambition 

 for the attainment of medical fame (as examples of 

 which alone they are mentioned), they doubtless 

 deserve respectful notice in this sketch. They con- 

 tributed to bring the American practitioners of the 

 healing art, scattered over an immense territory, 

 better accjiiainted with each other, and doubtless 

 concurred with other circumstances to forvrard the 

 plans of association and instruction which soon be- 

 gan to take place. 



About the year 1762 Dr. William Shippen and 

 Dr. John Morgan, both natives of Pennsylvania, 

 and youthful friends, who had gone to the univer- 

 sity of Edinburgh to complete their medical edu- 

 cation, and who had received its honours, met in 

 London, wiiither they had repaired for the purpose 

 of receiving instruction from the large hospitals 

 and excellent teachers of that city. They .there 

 agreed to attempt the establishment of a medical 

 school in Piiiladelphia. Accordingly, in the year 

 1 76 i, Dr. Shippen gave the first course of lectures 

 upon Anafomy that ever" was delivered in America. 

 In 176.5 Dr. Morgan laid before the trustees of the 

 college of Philadelphia a plan for teaching all the 

 branches of medicine, and conferrino: medical de- 

 grees. This plan w^as adopted ; Dr. Shippen vras 

 recognised as professo^r 0^ Jnatomy ; and Dr. Mor- 

 gan was appointed 'professor of the Institutes of 

 Medicine, and soon afterwards began to teach 

 them. In the year I768 Dr. Adam Kuhn, who 

 had studied under the celebrated Linnaeus, was ap- 



