Valedictory to the Graduating Class of the Philadelphia College of Medicine, Delivered in the Musical Fund Hall, February 28, 1852.

1852 Address by Dr. Thomas D. Mitchell here giving vocational guidance for those newly-installed in the medical profession

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Graduation address delivered by Dr. Thomas D. Mitchell (1791–1865), professor of the Theory and Practice of Medicine at the Philadelphia College of Medicine. In a key passage, he stresses professional responsibility in training apprentices: “But the most important item at which I have hinted, as related to the true dignity of the profession, is the reception and instruction of office pupils. Every village and rural district has its young men who aspire to Esculapian honors, and hence the certainty of applications to you, in this behalf. Let me express my deep, abiding conviction, that you can do more to elevate the profession, just at this point, than by all other expedients combined.” (p. 9)

The Philadelphia College of Medicine originated as the Philadelphia School of Anatomy, established by James McClintock in 1838. In 1847, McClintock secured a charter from the Pennsylvania Legislature to found the Philadelphia College of Medicine. The five-story building included two lecture rooms, an anatomical theater, museum, dissecting room, classrooms, and faculty rooms.

Mitchell graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1812. He later taught physiology at St. John’s Lutheran College; in 1831 organized and taught in the medical department of Miami University in Ohio; in 1835 became professor of materia medica at Transylvania University; then accepted the chair of the practice of medicine at the Philadelphia College of Medicine. In 1857 he became professor of materia medica at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia. He authored Medical Chemistry (1819), Elements of Chemical Philosophy (1832), and Materia Medica and Therapeutics (1850). He co-edited the Western Medical Gazette and edited the Journal of Medical and Associate Sciences.

OCLC locates copies at Harvard, Yale, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, and the Library Company of Philadelphia, with subject descriptors identifying the work as vocational guidance for newly admitted members of the medical profession.

Price: $75.00