Page:A History of the Medical Department of the University of Pennsylvania.djvu/167

 to discussion on his part, was the “Salt Radical Theory.” A number of his papers were contributed to the pages of the “American Journal of Pharmacy.” Some of these refer to the especial subjects to which that journal is devoted, and others were upon nomenclature and more general topics. Although Dr. Hare was not regularly bred to the medical profession, and belonged more especially to that class which may be termed philosophical chemists, yet his mind was directed by his associations to improvements in medicine and its several branches; hence it will be found that he endeavored by his experiments to promote the advance of medical science. The preparations of opium, the ethers, and other medicinal articles, were the subjects of investigation and of suggestions in their formation which were eminently useful. Pharmacy is indebted to him for the method of denarcotizing laudanum; and to Toxicology he gave the method of determining minute quantities of opium in solution. In the latter years of his life Meteorology occupied much of his attention.

The apparatus which Dr. Hare had collected, the greater part of which had been invented by himself, was given to the Smithsonian Institution, at Washington, when he resigned his professorship, and it is deeply to be regretted that the entire collection was destroyed by the fire which laid a portion of that noble structure in ruins.

Dr. Hare died on May 15, 1858, at the age of seventy-seven years. He was succeeded by Dr. James B. Rogers.

The session of 1847–48 was marked by an alteration in the lecture term. Until 1836, it had for a long period in the annals of the school been limited to four months; from that time it was gradually lengthened by the voluntary labors of a portion of the professors. The University is entitled to the credit of having taken the initiative step in this matter. At a meeting of the Faculty, December 31, 1835, it was “resolved that it was expedient to add another month to the Lectures of the Medical Department.” In 1836, at the commencement of the session, the proposition of the Faculty was acceded to by the class, and the lectures for a time were continued into March. At a subsequent date preliminary lectures were delivered in October. At the meeting of the National Medical Association in May,