Page:A History of the Medical Department of the University of Pennsylvania.djvu/69

 the science, and could teach it with confidence and ease. I have attended Dr. Black for two years diligently, and have, I think, received from him a comprehensive and accurate view of the science, together with all his late improvements in chemistry, which are of so important a nature that no man, in my opinion, can understand or teach chemistry as a science without being acquainted with them.” “As to the experiments you speak of, there is scarcely one of them but what I have seen twice performed, either publickly or privately, by Dr. Black.” Again: “I would not, however, urge your interest too warmly in this affair; perhaps I may disappoint the expectations of the Trustees, and prevent a person better qualified from filling the chair. I should like to teach Chemistry as a Professor, because I think I could show its application to medicine and philosophy.” “I should likewise be able more fully, from having a seat in the College, to co-operate with you in advancing the Medical Sciences generally.”

Of the certainty of his election Dr. Rush must have received an intimation, as in October, 1768, he thus wrote from London to Dr. Morgan: “I am much obliged to you for continuing to read lectures upon Chemistry. I hope to be in Philadelphia in May or June next, so that I shall relieve you from the task the ensuing winter. Is it necessary for me to deliver publickly an Inaugural Oration? Something must be said in favor of the advantages of Chemistry to Medicine, and its usefulness to medical philosophy, as the people of our country in general are strangers to the nature and objects of the science.”

The language of Dr. Rush, in the extracts from his correspondence which have been presented, indicates that although conscious of his own acquirements, ambitious of advancement in connection with usefulness, animated almost by a prescience of the distinction to which he ultimately attained, and relying on a will and industry to secure success in the position he desired, he was still diffident in the expression of his fitness for the office.

The wishes of Dr. Rush were fully realized. At a meeting of the Board of Trustees, July 23, 1769, a letter was read