Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 26.djvu/504

 1864. They sent a communication to the Board of Trustees of Willamette University asking that body to organize a medical department. This communication also asked that the department be located at Portland, and that certain gentlemen be elected as officers and professors of the same. On February 15, 1865, the Board voted to establish such a department in Portland, to be called the Oregon Medical College, with certain provisions, including appointment of members of the faculty by the Board of Trustees. A faculty was appointed, but difficulties arose which made it impracticable to carry out the plan of locating the school in Portland. At a meeting of the Board on November 14, 1866, it was voted to establish the department in connection with the other divisions of the university at Salem. A new faculty was elected as follows: H. Carpenter, M. D., professor of civil and military surgery; E. R. Fiske, A. M. M. D., professor of pathology and practice of medicine; John Boswell, M. D., professor of obstetrics and diseases of women and children; J. H. Wythe, A. M., M. D., professor of physiology, hygiene and microscopy; D. Peyton, M. D., professor of materia medica and therapeutics; J. W. McAfee, M. D., professor of chemistry and toxicology; A. Sharpies, M. D., professor of descriptive and surgical anatomy; W. C. Worimer, M. D., demonstrator of anatomy; Hon. J. S. Smith, professor of medical jurisprudence. This was the first faculty to give medical instruction in the Pacific Northwest.

The part which Dr. Wythe played in reviving the idea of a medical department and in establishing it at Salem, since it had not begun to function in Portland, is not altogether clear. It appears safe to state, however, that his previous connection on the faculty of the Philadelphia Medical College, together with his reputation as a surgeon and his position at the head of the uni-