Page:A History of the Medical Department of the University of Pennsylvania.djvu/178

 reaction upon other branches, his mode of teaching materially aided the exertions of his associates. His career was of short duration; after his fourth course of lectures it was closed, with the regrets of all who had been connected with him.

He was succeeded by his brother, Dr. Robert E. Rogers, August, 1852.

By the decease of Dr. Horner, in the spring of 1853, the Chair of Anatomy became vacant.

Dr. William Edmonds Horner was a native of Virginia, and was educated first at the academy of Mr. Charles O’Neill, at Warrenton, and afterwards at Dumfries. Upon the completion of his academic studies, in 1809, he commenced to study medicine under the direction of Dr. John Spence, a Scotch physician, educated at Edinburgh. He continued the pupil of Dr. Spence until 1812, and during this period attended two sessions of the University of Pennsylvania. Anatomy was the branch that more particularly interested him, and for which he manifested the most decided partiality.

In July, 1813, while an under-graduate, he entered the United States army as a surgeon’s-mate, and performed his first military duty upon the northern frontier. In this subordinate capacity he continued to serve until the conclusion of peace with Great Britain, in 1815, when he resigned. Of his adventures during this campaign he kept an interesting record, and published a series of papers, detailing his observations and experience, in the Medical Examiner of Philadelphia, as late as 1852, the year before his death. During the winter of 1813-14, having obtained a furlough, he attended the lectures in the University preparatory to his graduation, which took place in April, 1814. The thesis written by him was on “Gunshot Wounds.”

Upon resigning from the Army in 1815, after a brief sojourn in the village of Warrenton, his native place, Dr. Horner settled in Philadelphia; and here located, as we are informed by his biographer, “his enthusiasm for anatomy, his earnest