Page:A History of the Medical Department of the University of Pennsylvania.djvu/101

 “It was agreed that Daniel Newcomb, who had attended one course of Medical Lectures in the University of Cambridge, Mass., and another course of ten weeks in the University of Dartmouth, N. H., and had also studied medicine under the care of a respectable practitioner two years, should be admitted to an examination as a candidate for the Degree of M. D., after the expiration of the present session, during which he has attended each of the Professors.”

In 1806, the subject of irregular practitioners was taken up by the Medical Faculty, and a petition laid before the Legislature in the following terms:—

“That many lives of the citizens of Pennsylvania are yearly lost by their being committed to the care of men, not qualified by education or talents to practise medicine.

“That this calamity has been very much lessened in several of our sister states by Laws to prevent any one exercising the profession of a Physician or Surgeon, who is not a graduate in some University or College, in which the branches of Medicine are taught by different professors, in an extensive manner, or who has not been approved after a previous examination by persons qualified for that purpose and appointed by the Government. Your memorialists therefore humbly solicit that a similar law be passed in Pennsylvania. They do not wish it to have a retrospective operation, but request that its obligations and penalties take place from the date of the law.”

This, like every subsequent effort on the part of the Profession to regulate its practice in accordance with enlightened legislation, had no influence with our political rulers. Indeed, the time has not yet arrived when restrictions upon assumptive claims to skill or wisdom can be tolerated by the community, the members of which must either suffer, or protect themselves by their own intelligence and discrimination between true and false claimants for public patronage.

The year 1808 was marked by the death of Dr. Shippen, whose career had been a distinguished one. Nature had been uncommonly lavish in his form and endowments. “His person was graceful, his manners polished, his conversation various, and the tones of his voice singularly sweet and conciliatory.