The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1910-05-03
TODAY IN HISTORY
Our First Medical School.
TUESDAY, MAY 3. 1910.

The first medical school In the United
| States WAS established on May 3. lIs5.
and Charitable Schools OF the Province
! OF Pennsylvania at Philadelphia on July
| 1S, 1853. out OF which organization the
University of Pennsylvania has grown.
| The usual school course OF studies were
| pursued and the first commence was
held on May II. 1857. Among its gradu-
stes were John Morgan. who. after
| spending five years in the study OF medi-
| cine in Europe. upon his return laid be-
| fore the trustees a plan for the establish
| Ing of a medical department. He was
practice of medicine at the age OF 30.
On June q, 1865, the degree OF bachelor
OF medicine was conferred upon ten gem
tlemen. the FIRST physicians graduated in
America.
Dr. William Shippen. who had privately
been instructins pupils I'm anatomy as
early as 1862, had suggested the depart
ment OF medicine. but 1t remained for
Dr. Morgan Ia carry our the project.
Previous to the establishment OF this
school, and from an early period. pubic
lectures on medical topics were gwen In
various parts OF the country. To Dr.
Cadwallader Golden Is ascribed the credit
OF the first attempt 10 establish a syste-
matte course on medicine in the colonies.
He tried TO have the assembly OF Penn
sylvania pass an act imposing tax upon
every unmarried man for the purpose of
supporting public physical lecture in
Philadelphia" His efforts were fruit
In 1850 DIR. Thomas Cadwaladcr lectured
on anatomy in Philadelphia, and in 175"
Dr. william Hunter cousin Of the
great John Hunter, lectured on anat tony
AT Newport. Il. I. DR.. Charles F. Wlssen-
thai Of Baltimore. delivered lectures ON
surgery In Baltimore prior to the Reyo-
lution. Shortly after the Philadelphia
school was organized. In 1867. a medical
department. was started in Kings College,
New York, the lneal ancestor of Column
bia University. Harvard University
ic11 dor ~ ont IN
and IN l19S a medical department was
tablished by DR.. Nathan Smith at Dart
mouth College.
Previous to the foundation OF medical
schools, the education OF physicians In
this country had been entirely by means
of the apprenticeship system, except
Whcn young man possessed sufficient
means 10 go abroad and study at the
medical schools OF Edinburgh. London or
the Continent.
1t has been estimated that at the out
set OF the war for independence there
were upward Of $500 practitioners In the
colonies, OF whom not more than 400 had
received medical degrees. At the pres
ent time there are 12l regular medical
schools in the United States. attended
by 22,I52 students. and ~ homeopathic
schools with 1909 students
The education Of women in the medi-
cal profession began with thc opening OF
the Boston Homeopathic School for Wo-
men In 1913, and two years later the Wo-
mans Medical college in Philadelphia was
opened IT was not until eighteen years
afterward that the Woman's Medical col
leee OF New York was started,
The earliest Institutions for the teach
Ing of medicine were situated in temples
and groves dedicated to the worship OF
the deities who were supposed 10 preside
over the health Of their worshipers Thus
In Egypt the god Osiris and his wife Isis
were the tutelary deities of the medical
arts. and in Greece the god OF health was
Aesculapius