Page:The History of the University of Pennsylvania, Wood.djvu/34

28 powerfully tended to advance the profession in knowledge, reputation, and usefulness.

In the following September, Dr. William Shippen, upon application to the board, was unanimously chosen professor of anatomy and surgery. Dr. Adam Kuhn was afterwards made professor of botany and materia medica, and Dr. Benjamin Rush, of chemistry. This last appointment was preceded by a letter from the proprietors to the trustees, written at the request of Dr. Fothergill, recommending Dr. Rush to their notice as an expert chemist, and requesting their acceptance of a suitable chemical apparatus. At the same time that instruction was given to the students by these gentlemen in their respective branches, a course of clinical lectures was delivered by Dr. Thomas Bond, in the Pennsylvania Hospital.

In the year 1767, a system of rules was adopted, necessary for the proper organization of this new school. Two grades of medical honours were established, corresponding with those in the department of the arts and sciences. The qualifications for the first degree, or that of bachelor in medicine, were a competent acquaintance with the Latin language, and with those branches of mathematics and natural philosophy which were deemed necessary prerequisites to a good medical education; the serving of a sufficient apprenticeship with some reputable practitioner of physic; a general knowledge of pharmacy; and finally, an attendance upon at least one complete course of lectures, and on the practice of the hospital for one year. To obtain the degree of doctor of medicine, it was necessary that the applicant should have been a bachelor of medicine for at least three years, should have attained the age of twenty-four, should write a thesis, and, except in cases of absence abroad, or in some distant part of the colonies, should defend this thesis publicly in the college.