Page:A History of the Medical Department of the University of Pennsylvania.djvu/139

 was admitted to the Doctorate at the Commencement of 1802; the Trustees, upon application to them, having dispensed with the rule which prohibited the conferring of the degree of M. D. on any one who had not attained the age of twenty-one years. His thesis was upon “The Powers of the Gastric Juice as a Solvent for Urinary Calculi.” It was published in the series of Theses edited by Dr. Caldwell.

In 1803 Dr. Dorsey went to Europe, and after spending a year improving himself in medicine, and especially in surgery, returned to his native city in 1804. In 1807 he was chosen Adjunct to his uncle in the Chair of Surgery, and in that position continued until the decease of Dr. Barton, in 1815, when he was elected to the Professorship of Materia Medica. In this position he remained until the spring of 1818, when, by the death of Dr. Wistar, the Chair of Anatomy was left without an occupant. For this position he was well adapted by education and experience, and was elected to it with universal approbation.

At the time this new mark of confidence of the honorable Board of Trustees was conferred, sanctioned by the medical public, Dr. Dorsey was thirty-five years of age, and exhibited all the enthusiasm of a zealous, rightly inspired, ambitious candidate for reputation in the field of enterprise before him. The course was opened, and on the 2d of November he delivered his Introductory Lecture, which, from the portions published, was full of correct sentiments and elevated thought. It was the last delivered by him. In its preparation the seeds of disease were laid which soon terminated his mortal career. “On the evening of the same day that he pronounced his Introductory Lecture, and while the praises of it still resounded, he was attacked with a fever of such vehemence that in one short week it closed his existence, leaving us only his enviable name and his inestimable example.”

While performing the duties of the Chair of Materia Medica,