10 
John  Morgan. 
/Am.  Jour.  Ph-arm. 
X     January.  1904. 
Jones  removed  to  Philadelphia  in  1779,  and  in  the  following  year 
he  was  elected  as  one  of  the  surgeons  of  the  Pennsylvania  Hospital. 
On  inquiry,  he  was  so  much  impressed  with  the  advantages  of 
Dr.  Morgan's  plan  of  writing  prescriptions  that  he  decided  to  follow 
his  example. 
Dr.  George  W.  Norris  in  his  "  Early  History  of  Medicine  in  Phil- 
adelphia," says  that  these  three  men,  Morgan,  Chovet  and  Jones, 
were  the  first  to  adhere  closely  to  the  practice  of  writing  prescrip- 
tions. They  rapidly  came  into  public  esteem,  and,  other  physicians 
seeing  the  manifest  advantages  enjoyed  by  these  men,  soon  fell  into 
the  same  practice.  Once  in  vogue,  the  custom  spread  rapidly,  so 
that  by  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century  the  writing  of  prescriptions 
was  quite  a  common  practice  in  all  of  the  larger  cities  of  the  United 
States. 
The  story  of  the  founding  of  the  first  medical  school  in  America 
might  well  be  repeated  here,  particularly  as  in  all  popular  accounts 
Dr.  Morgan  is  not  given  the  credit  that  is  rightfully  due  him.  It  is 
true  that  Norris,  Ruschenberger  and  Packard  give  Morgan  due 
credit.  Many  other  writers,  however,  content  themselves  by  quot- 
ing the  statement  made  by  Rush,  in  his  introductory  lecture, 
November  2,  1789,  in  which  he  said,  "  It  was  during  his  absence 
from  home  that  he  concerted  with  Dr.  Shippen  the  plan  of  establish- 
ing a  medical  school  in  this  city." 
It  is  true  that  Dr.  Shippen  on  his  return  from  England  opened  a 
course  of  lectures  on  anatomy,  and  continued  the  same  for  at  least 
three  years.  This  plan  of  private  lectures  appears  to  have  been 
inaugurated  at  the  suggestion  of  the  celebrated  Dr.  John  Fothergill, 
who,  as  noted  before,  had  always  taken  a  deep  interest  in  all  matters 
relating  to  the  advancement  of  the  practice  of  medicine  in  the  Ameri- 
can Colonies.  But  even  in  this  venture,  Shippen  could  not  claim  to 
have  really  been  the  first.  As  early  as  1752,  William  Hunter,  a 
native  of  Scotland,  and  a  pupil  of  the  elder  Monro,  settled  in  Rhode 
Island  and  gave  lectures  on  anatomy  and  comparative  anatomy  at 
Newport,  in  1754,  1755  and  1756. 
Thomas  Cadwalader,  as  early  as  1742,  made  dissections  and  gave 
demonstrations  for  the  benefit  of  his  contemporaries  who  had  not 
had  an  opportunity  of  going  abroad.  There  is  also  a  record  that 
sometime  before  1647,  Giles  Firmin  "  made  an  anatomy  and  read 
on  it  very  well  "  in  Boston. 
