^tembeSK'}    Beginnings  of  Pharmacy  in  America.  407 
A  careful  review  of  the  minute  book  itself  does  not  give  any  further 
information  than  the  bare  record  that  such  application  had  been 
received  and  that  the  request  had  been  granted.  Where,  when  and 
to  whom  the  lectures  were  given,  remains  a  mystery  to  be  solved  at 
some  future  date.  It  is  probable,  however,  that  the  lectures  were 
continued  after  1 817,  as  in  the  fourth  edition  of  the  American  New 
Dispensatory,  published  in  1 82 1,  there  is  a  letter  signed  James 
Mease,  Lecturer  on  Pharmacy,  dated  1 81 8. 
Of  Dr.  Mease  himself  comparatively  little  is  known,  apart  from 
the  fact  that  he  was  the  author  or  editor  of  a  number  of  books  and 
pamphlets,  mostly  relating  to  local  history  or  to  agriculture,  and 
that  he  was  an  active  member  of  a  number  of  societies,  among  them 
the  Philosophical  Society,  the  Agricultural  Society,  the  Franklin 
Institute,  the  Athenaeum,  and  the  Horticultural  Society. 
Dr.  Mease  is  frequently  quoted  in  connection  with  the  last  years 
and  the  death  of  Dr.  Benjamin  Rush,  he  having  attended  that 
eminent  person  in  his  last  illness. 
Dr.  James  Mease  died  in  Philadelphia,  May  15,  1846,  in  the 
seventy-fifth  year  of  his  age. 
In  the  same  year  that  Dr.  Mease  appears  to  have  inaugurated  his 
lectures  on  pharmacy,  1 8 16,  Judge  Cooper  advertised  "  A  Course 
of  Chymical  Lectures,  to  be  given  in  the  old  Masonick  Hall,  in  Filbert 
Street,  on  Tuesday,  Wednesday  and  Friday  evenings  of  each  week, 
at  Seven  O'clock.    Tickets,  £15.00  for  the  course." 
In  addition  to  these  lectures  on  pharmacy  and  chemistry,  given 
outside  of  the  University  at  that  time,  students  of  pharmacy  and 
others  could  also  attend  the  winter  lectures  on  botany  by  Dr. 
Barton  ;  so  that,  practically  at  least,  the  apothecary's  apprentice 
of  that  period  could,  if  he  chose,  secure  a  considerable  amount  of 
theoretical  information  without  unduly  encroaching  on  his  employer's 
time.  These  possible  advantages  were  still  further  increased,  in 
1 81 7,  by  the  institution,  in  the  University  of  Pennsylvania,  of  a 
natural  science  course,  consisting  of  lectures  on  natural  history, 
botany  and  chemistry.  In  this  department  Judge  Thomas  Cooper 
was  one  of  the  first  professors. 
Thomas  Cooper  was  born  in  England,  where  he  achieved  some 
prominence  before  coming  to  this  country  with  Joseph  Priestley,  in 
1794.  From  1 8 1 1  to  1815  he  was  professor  of  chemistry  in  Dick- 
inson College.    Desirous  of  having  a  wider  field  for  work,  he  came 
