November 29, 1901.] 



SCIENCE. 



835 



which was the securing of the active interest 

 of the physicians of the State in the new 

 institution. In general the circumstances 

 connected with the foundation and conduct 

 of most medical schools in this country 

 have not been calculated to secure the 

 interest and sympathy of the great body of 

 the medical profession. 



No more competent testimony to the 

 benefits derived from the union which 

 existed here could be desired than that of 

 Dr. Jonathan Knight, who says, in his in- 

 troductory lecture in 1853 : "The result of 

 this arrangement has been eminently happy • 

 all unpleasant feeling was at once and for- 

 ever allayed ; the members of the Society 

 became interested in the School ; we have 

 at all times had the benefit of their council 

 and support, and it gives me pleasure to 

 state that no instance of disagreement has 

 ever arisen among the members of the 

 board, or between the School and State So- 

 ciety ; on the contrary, each has regarded 

 the other as a fellow laborer in the endeavor 

 to promote and advance the interest of 

 medical science." 



The relations continued harmonious 

 throughout the remaining period of ex- 

 istence of the agreement between the Society 

 and the Medical School, but with changed 

 conditions the union ceased to be useful 

 and in some ways had become embarrassing, 

 so that in 1884, by mutual consent, it was 

 annulled, and the entire control of the 

 School, the official name of which had 

 meantime been changed by the new charter 

 of 1879 to that of ' The Medical Depart- 

 ment of Yale College,' passed into the 

 hands of the University. 



The charter of 1810, by its limitation of 

 the number of professors and of the period 

 of undergraduate medical study and its 

 regulation of other matters better left to 

 the discretion of the College, was an ex- 

 tremely inelastic instrument, and it is not 

 surprising that repeated legislative changes 



were found necessar3^ There have been 

 not less than four distinct charters of incor- 

 poration of the Medical School, and in addi- 

 tion five or six amendatory acts. The 

 present charter, which seems to be free from 

 the defects of its predecessors, was enacted 

 in 1879. 



At the time of its incorporation in 1810 

 the Medical Institution of Yale College was 

 the sixth medical school in the United 

 States, the others being the medical depart- 

 ment of the University of Pennsylvania, 

 founded in 1765, the College of Physicians 

 and Surgeons in New York, founded in 

 1807, but a descendant of the medical de- 

 partment of Columbia University, eistab- 

 lished in 1768, and the medical departments 

 of Harvard (1783), of Dartmouth (1797), 

 and of the University of Maryland (1807). 



A commodious stone building on Grove 

 Street, erected by Mr. James Hillhouse, was 

 obtained for the useof the Medical School, and 

 in 1814 this with an adjacent plot of ground 

 was purchased by the aid of a generous do- 

 nation by the State of twenty thousand 

 dollars, obtained largely through the efforts 

 of Dr. Nathan Smith. This building, w bich 

 is now South Sheffield Hall, was the location 

 of the Medical School until its removal in 

 1859 to its present site on York Street. 



The members of the first faculty of the 

 Medical School, appointed in 1812, were, in 

 the order of arrangement of their names in 

 the College catalogue, Eneas Munson, pro- 

 fessor of materia medica and botany ; Na- 

 than Smith, professor of the theory and 

 practice of physic, surgery and obstetrics ; 

 Eli Ives, adjunct professor of materia medica 

 and botany ; Benjamin Silliman, professor 

 of chemistry and pharmacy', and Jonathan 

 Knight, professor of anatomy. 



Dr. Munson, to whom I have already re- 

 ferred, was an octogenarian at the time of 

 his appointment, which was, as was in- 

 tended, only an ornamental one. Dr. Ives, 

 the adjunct professor, his pupil and friend, 



