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In 1820 an Act was passed by the
legislature, establishing a Medical School, to be connected with Bowdoin
College, and also making an annual grant of $1,000, during the pleasure
of the legislature, for the promotion of the objects designed in its
establishment. Doctor Nathan Smith, a member of several societies, both
in this country and in Europe, founder of the Medical School of New
Hampshire, and an eminent physician and surgeon, was appointed Professor
of the Theory and Practice of Medicine. He also assumed the duties of
instructor in anatomy and surgery. He was assisted in the latter
branches by Doctor John D. Wells, who had just taken his medical degree
at Cambridge. At the close of the first course of lectures, Doctor Wells
was chosen to fill the Chair of Anatomy, and immediately sailed for
Europe, where he spent nearly two years, preparing himself for the
discharge of the duties of his office. After a short but brilliant
career as a lecturer at this college, at the Berkshire Medical
Institution, and at Baltimore, he died, and was succeeded in 1831 by
Doctor Reuben D. Mussey.
In 1825 the Chair of Obstetrics
was founded, and doctor James McKeen was appointed
professor. Doctor McKeen prepared himself for the duties of his office
by a preliminary study in the lying-in hospitals of Europe, and served
acceptably until 1839, when he resigned, and was succeeded by Ebenezer
Wells, M. D., as lecturer.
In 1846 the Chair of Materia
Medica and Therapeutics was founded, and Doctor Charles A. Lee was
chosen as lecturer, and in 1854 as professor. He resigned in 1859, and
was succeeded by Doctor Israel T. Dana as lecturer and afterwards as
professor in full. Doctor Thorndike resigned in 1861, and was succeeded
by Doctor William C. Robinson.
In 1849 the Chair of Medical
Jurisprudence was founded, and Hon-orable John S. Tenney was chosen as
lecturer.
In 1857 the Chair of Anatomy was
separated from that of Surgery and joined to that of Physiology, and
Doctor David S. Conant was elected, at first as lecturer, and afterwards
as professor. He was succeeded in 1863 by Doctor Corydon L. Ford. Edmund
R. Peaslee, M. D., who had been chosen as Lecturer on Anatomy and
Surgery in 1843, and as a professor in these branches in 1845, was in
1857 appointed Professor of Surgery.
From 1820 until his death in 1858,
Professor Parker Cleveland gave an annual course of lectures on
chemistry to the medical students.
This school, during the
fifty-seven years of its existence, has graduated one thousand one
hundred and seventy-four pupils, of whom seventy have been alumni of
Bowdoin College. The last class numbered ninety members, and the present
number of instructors is ten. The following is a list of the professors
and lecturers not already mentioned:-
Of Chemistry, Professors Paul A.
Chadbourne, Cyrus F. Brackett, and Henry Carmichael; of Theory and
Practice, Henry H. Childs, Daniel Oliver, Professor John De La Mater, Pofessor William Sweetzer,
William Perry, James McKeen, Israel T. Dana, Professor Alonzo B. Palmer,
and Alfred Mitchell, Adjunct Professor; of Anatomy and Surgery, Jedediah
Cobb, and Joseph Roby; of Anatomy and Physiology, Professors Thomas T.
Sabine and Thomas Dwight; of Anatomy, Professors Thomas Dwight and
Stephen H. Weeks; of Physiology, Professors Robert Amory and Burt G.
Wilder; of Surgery, Professors Timothy Childs, David S. Conant, and
William W. Green; Lecturers, Alpheus B. Crosby and Thomas T. Sabine; of
Obstetrics, Benjamin F. Barker, Professor Amos Nourse, Theodore H.
Jewett, Professors William C. Robinson, Edward W. Jenks, and Alfred
Mitchell; of Materia Medica and Therapeutics, Professors Dana, William
C. Robinson, George L. Goodale, and Frederic H. Gerrish; of Medical
Jurisprudence, Cyrus F. Brackett, John Appleton, and Professor Charles
W. Goddard.
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