Page:Samuel F. Batchelder - Bits of Harvard History (1924).pdf/255

 the Revolution brought together, within six months, a very notable group of Harvard doctors. An overwhelming majority—a full score—of the original little band of hospital workers were present or past members of the College. True, they were not M.D.’s, for in those days a medical degree was almost unknown in this country; the budding medico then learned his business by private study and actual experience under some well-known practitioner. With the exception of Morgan, the sole member of the early hospital force who possessed such an adornment was one of the mates, Humphrey Fullerton of Salisbury, Pa., who had taken an M.B. at the Philadelphia school in 1768. But that so many of the surgical staff were college men, when a college education was a rare and hard-won distinction, shows that they were the pick of the profession. It was by no accident that in after life three of them became professors of medicine, and nine received honorary degrees, while almost all attained outstanding positions in medicine, letters, statesmanship, or local affairs. In short, that Harvard contributed so generously of her best to establish this all-important division of the American Army is something of which her sons may well be proud.

The good fortune of the Army Medical Department, in beginning its long and brilliant career with such a high grade of hospital personnel, is the more striking when we