INTRODUCTION. 
39 
of inquiry into the sciences tributary to the healing art. Middleton, Bard, Smith, 
Tennant, Clossy and Jones, the first professors, were eminent in their respective 
departments. Middleton exhibited research and learning in a comprehensive 
discourse on the history of medicine. Clossy had written with success on morbid 
anatomy. The first instance in which the degree of doctor of medicine was 
conferred in this state was in 1771, when Samuel Kissam received that honor. 
A copy of his inaugural dissertation on the anthelmintic virtue of the phaseolus 
zuratensis siliqua hirsuta, is preserved in the library of the New-York Historical 
Society. The medical school connected with King’s College was visited with 
the same misfortunes which befel that institution during the revolutionary war. 
Efforts made by the regents of the university, after the return of peace, to re¬ 
organize the medical faculty, were unsuccessful. In 1792, however, the trustees 
announced the reestablishment of the school, and doctors Bailey, Post, Ham- 
mersly, Rodgers, Mitchill, Hosack and Stringham labored assiduously as profes¬ 
sors during several years. The “ College of Physicians and Surgeons” in the 
city of New-York was founded under a charter granted by the regents of the 
university in 1807. Nicholas Romayne, as president of this new school, delivered 
an inaugural discourse, evincing varied knowledge and very original views on the 
physiology of the different races of the human species. Smith, Hosack, De 
Witt, Miller, Bruce and others, professors in this institution, gave it a high repu¬ 
tation, and secured popular approbation of its instructions ; but a rivalry between 
it and the medical school of Columbia College was justly regarded as a public 
misfortune, and in 1813 the two institutions were combined. In the new faculty, 
anatomy was assigned to Dr. Post, the practice of physic to Hosack, chemistry 
and pharmacy to Dr. Macneven, surgery to Dr. Mott, materia medica to Dr. 
Francis, obstetrics to Dr. Osborn, mineralogy to Dr. Mitchill, and medical juris¬ 
prudence to Stringham. The school flourished many years, but at length, in 
1826, professional rivalry, and the deaths of some of the professors, so embar¬ 
rassed the survivors that they resigned their chairs, and retired with the thanks 
of the regents for their eminent ability and assiduity. 
