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SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XIV. No. 349. 



nary fulfilment which you have achieved 

 in all the other work you have undertaken 

 in the development of your state, and with 

 that wish and with thanks on behalf of our 

 Association I would close with an invita- 

 tion to you all to attend our meetings ; and 

 I would express particularly the hope that 

 all of you who are interested in broad dis- 

 cussions and deep- thought views of scientific 

 problems will take advantage of the oppor- 

 tunity to hear the address of our retiring 

 President, which will be the central and 

 most interesting event of our proceedings. 

 With thanks, therefore, for your courtesy 

 and kindness, and expression of pleasure 

 on behalf of all the members of the Asso- 

 ciation who are here, I will now close my 

 reply to the hospitable welcomes which 

 have been made us. 



SOME POINTS IN THE EARLY HISTORY AND 



PRESENT CONDITION OF THE TEACHING 



OF CHEMISTRY IN THE MEDICAL 



SCHOOLS OF THE UNITED 



STATES.* 



In the scientific awakening of the latter 

 part of the eighteenth century medicine was 

 not the last of the great departments of 

 human learning to take on new vigor. As 

 in earlier years it drew largely from alchem- 

 ical philosophy for the enrichment of its 

 materia medica, and for the justification of 

 a crude therapy, so now the great teachers 

 of physic stood ready to accept the rapidly 

 developing facts and generalizations of the 

 new chemistry, and to apply them in the 

 noble task of elevating a dogmatic empir- 

 icism to the plane of a scientific system. 

 From the time of Paracelsus, alchemy, and 

 its offspring, chemistry, had been but the 

 handmaids of medicine, and much of the 

 skill of the workers in these fields was de- 

 voted to the preparation of remedies for 



* Address of the Vice-president and Chairman of 

 Section C, Chemistry, at the Denver meeting of the 

 American Association for the Advancement of Science. 



various diseases. But, from the labors of 

 Priestley, Scheele, Watt, Cavendish and 

 Lavoisier, the relations were reversed, and 

 the chemists and the apothecaries, the 

 cooks in the kitchen of the doctor, seemed 

 ready to usurp the proud positions of their 

 former masters. The nature of oxidation 

 and the phenomena of respiration changes 

 explained, it was clear that medicine must 

 now depend largely on the development of 

 chemistry for its rational groundwork. 



After the downfall of the old iatro-chemis- 

 try with its empiricism and evident hollow- 

 ness, our science had fallen into disrepute 

 in the great European centers of medical 

 learning, and physicians were somewhat 

 slow in taking up the new ideas. But, the 

 way once opened, the development spread 

 rapidly, almost too rapidly in fact, because 

 of the danger always attending hasty 

 generalization. 



The educational influences at work in the 

 American colonies in those days were al- 

 most wholly English, and the earliest medi- 

 cal schools established here were modeled 

 after those of Great Britain. We find, 

 therefore, that in each one of the medical 

 schools founded in the pioneer days of 

 attempt in professional education a chair of 

 chemistry was provided for as furnishing a 

 necessary part of the medical student's 

 education. Indeed, the first chair of 

 chemistry of any kind to be filled in this 

 country was that in the medical school of 

 the University of Pennsylvania, and the oc- 

 cupant was Dr. Benjamin Rush, a man 

 justly famous in the early history of Amer- 

 ican medicine, but not known on account 

 of any chemical writings. This was in 1769, 

 and the position was held by him until 

 1789. In the autumn of that year Dr. 

 Eush was transferred to another depart- 

 ment, and Dr. James Hutchinson was 

 elected to fill the place. The latter died in 

 1793, and Dr. John Carson was appointed 

 his successor in January, 1794, but died 



