Page:A History of the Medical Department of the University of Pennsylvania.djvu/28

 position, there are duties and obligations imposed upon them which must be responded to in the readiest spirit. To act up to the demand of their noble avocation, they must either be leaders or associates in enterprises that are calculated to expand the domain of true learning and information, or that, originating in benevolence, will conduce to an amelioration of the social, moral, or physical condition of the community. It can, without fear of contradiction, be asserted that such a course has been pursued by the medical profession from the very foundation of the Colonies to the present time of their development into wealthy and prosperous commonwealths. It does not enter into the design of this history to trace out all the manifold channels of exertion into which intelligence and philanthropy were directed in connection with the medical profession; yet, when adverting to occurrences which preceded the establishment of the School of Medicine, it would be an omission if we were to take no notice of some of them which have had an influence upon its rise and progress. We may, then, pertinently refer to the origin of two institutions in which medical men took part, and to whose success they have largely contributed their share of labor. The first of these was founded with the design of reciprocal culture and the advancement of science and philosophy; the second was a benevolent and philanthropic undertaking.

The history of the American Philosophical Society has been particularly detailed in an interesting and elaborately prepared discourse by the Vice-President, Dr. Robert M. Patterson, delivered on the occasion of celebrating the Hundredth Anniversary, May 25, 1843. It is our purpose now to exhibit the part taken in its concerns by the members of the medical profession.

The originator of this Society was Franklin, who, finding that the time had come for a more extensive combination than that which for many years had borne the name of the Junto, on May 14, 1743, corresponding in the Gregorian Calendar to May 25, issued a “Proposal for promoting useful knowledge among the British Plantations in America.” The enumeration of the subjects on which it was designed that the