on comparative anatomy. For many years, Pope held the position of 
dean of the St. Louis Medical College. (Because of his considerable 
influence, many people referred to the school as ‘‘Pope’s College.’’) 
He gave the Academy numerous specimens and allowed the members 
to meet and to house their collections and library in one of the college’s 
buildings. 
Hiram A. Prout received his medical degree from Transylvania 
University in Kentucky in 1827 and came to St. Louis to teach medicine. 
He became an expert paleontologist, publishing fifteen articles on 
geology and paleontology between 1846 and 1868. Charles A. Stevens 
taught at the St. Louis Medical College for nineteen years before tak- 
ing over as superintendent of the St. Louis County Insane Asylum in 
1868. 
Another medical doctor, W.H. Tingley, enjoyed a good practice 
in St. Louis. He served as the Academy’s first corresponding secretary 
but left the city before the end of 1856. John Henry Watters came to 
St. Louis in 1854. He taught at the St. Louis Medical College and at 
the Missouri Medical College. '* 
Although medical study offered the best opportunity for learning 
the fundamentals of science during the first half of the nineteenth cen- 
tury, other wealthy professional men developed significant scientific 
interests as well. The three non-medical Academy members illustrate 
the point. 
James B. Eads, a self-taught engineer, chaired the Academy’s first 
committee on physics and later served as president of the organization. 
At various times, Eads salvaged sunken river boats, designed and built 
armored steamboats for the Union during the Civil War, and engineered 
a system of jetties that opened an unobstructed Mississippi River chan- 
nel to the Gulf of Mexico. His most celebrated accomplishment, 
however, was the St. Louis-Illinois bridge he built over the Mississip- 
pi at St. Louis. 
Another science enthusiast, lawyer Nathaniel Holmes, came to St. 
Louis from New England. He served for twelve years as the Academy’s 
corresponding secretary. He communicated with a myriad of science 
societies in the East and abroad and acquired large numbers of their 
publications for the use of Academy members. Charles P. Chouteau, 
the grandson of the pioneering Pierre Chouteau, also became a very 
active member of the Academy. Chouteau’s American Fur Trading Com- 
pany conducted business in the West, and Chouteau developed a fascina- 
tion for the region’s natural history. 
During the first years of its existence, the Academy gained many 
new members. In the first two years alone, 146 new associate members 
joined. Among those who enlisted as associate members were Albert 
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