Page:A Memoir of Thomas C. James, M. D. - Hodge.djvu/22

 that great attention was requisite to hear him during the lecture. He applied to the trustees for an assistant to his chair. In consequence of this suggestion, the following resolution was passed on the 18th of October, 1825.

"That an Adjunct Professor of Midwifery be appointed, who shall hold his appointment so long as Dr. James continues to be Professor of Midwifery: Provided that the expenses of the student shall be in no manner increased by such appointment, and that such an Adjunct Professor shall have no vote in the Faculty of Medicine, except in the absence of the Professor of Midwifery to whom he is adjunct."

On the 15th of November, 1825, Dr. William P. Dewees was unanimously elected adjunct professor under the foregoing resolution, and immediately entered on the duties of his new situation. Dr. Horner soon after retired from the performance of his duties as an assistant to the professors of midwifery.

With this valued reinforcement, Dr. James continued for some years longer to exercise his duties at the University and in private practice, but the annual increase of his nervous tremours seemed continually to diminish the strength of his voice and the activity of his body. Eventually, most of the lectures having been in the year 1833–34 delivered by Dewees, Dr. James in justice alike to his own character, to Dr. Dewees, and the University, resigned in the month of June, 1834, his professorship, of which he in a great measure, may be considered the founder, and the reputation of which he sustained for the long period of twenty-four years.

We have already intimated the manner in which those duties were discharged, with how much affability and dignity combined, with what purity of diction his instructive lectures were delivered, and how the love and veneration of the students were extended to one to whom the profession and the public were so much indebted.

During his professional career, he became engaged also with many private and public institutions as physician in ordinary, or as consulting physician; among others, with the Welsh Society, St. George's Society; also with the Philadelphia Dispensary, where for many years he was consulted by the attending physicians, many of whom, with much gratitude, bear testimony to the value of his assistance, and to the readiness and cheerfulness with which it was at all times rendered. As formerly remarked, he might be regarded as the founder of the "Lying-in department" of the Philadelphia Almshouse Infirmary, over which he presided until about the