Ebook History of Medicine

The history of the progressive steps in the development of medicine, embraced in these pages, is an embodiment of the course of lectures delivered by my father at the University of Virginia many years since. The arduous duties devolved upon him in that institution covered a much more comprehensive field than would be possible or practicable at the present day. The labor now usually allotted to almost an entire faculty of professors was there assigned to him alone; for, according to the terms of his appointment, he was expected "to teach to the best of his ability, and with due diligence, Anatomy, Surgery, The History of the Progress and Theories of Medicine, Physiology, Materia Medica, and Pharmacy." Such an aggregation of branches of instruction must have severely taxed the energies, while it doubtless stimulated the ambition, of the then young professor.

It seemed to be the desire of Thomas Jefferson, at that time Rector of the University, and of those associated with that illustrious personage in its government, that the student should learn something of the earlier progress of the science and the art, while he was at the same time pursuing a course of instruction in the usual technical details of a collegiate medical education.