Medical school to open at Yale College

Three years after Yale College joined with the Connecticut Medical Society to establish the Medical Institution of Yale College by an Act of the Legislature, thirty-seven Students are soon arriving in New-Haven from all corners of New England to commence studies in Medicine, Anatomy, Chemistry, and Materia Medica at the new school. Seventeen members of the class come from Connecticut; the rest come from Vermont, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts.

The Students, whose names, towns, and places of residence in New-Haven are listed here, met the requirement for admission, to “produce satisfactory evidence of a blameless life and conversation.”

The new Medical Institution has a most illustrious and accomplished faculty, assembled by Dr. Timothy Dwight, the President of Yale College.

Dr. Nathan Smith, late of Hanover, New Hampshire, where he founded the Medical School at Dartmouth College, is known throughout New England as one of our finest doctors and surgeons. Dr. Smith has a medical degree from Harvard College, and has engaged in additional study in Edinburgh, Glasgow, and London.

Dr. Benjamin Silliman is professor of chemistry and of natural history at Yale College, where he has outfitted and equipped a most remarkable Laboratory. Dr. Silliman’s Laboratory includes the famous Cabinet of Minerals donated to Yale College by Col. George Gibbs of Newport, Rhode Island, which has placed the College in the forefront of studies of Geology and Mineralogy. Dr. Silliman studied Chemistry for several years in Philadelphia and abroad and also attended medical lectures.

Dr. Eneas Munson is well known to all New-Haveners for his successful practice of Medicine and prominence in the government of the town. In 1784, Dr. Munson cofounded the Medical Society of New Haven County and served as its second president. Dr. Munson has played a major role in the formation of the Connecticut Medical Society and was vice president of that organization when it was founded in 1792. He later served as president of the Society from 1794 to 1801.

Dr. Munson will be assisted in his teaching by Dr. Eli Ives, a master of Botany and of the system of Materia Medica propounded by Dr. John Murray of Edinburgh. Dr. Ives has an especially keen knowledge of our local plants, and he has discovered several new plant species, including species of milkweed and balsamweed, His garden and conservatory at the Medical Institution are filled with plants that he uses to prepare his efficacious Medicines.

Dr, Jonathan Knight, who graduated from Yale College five years ago, studied Medicine in Philadelphia, and his practice in Medicine and Surgery is familiar to many in the town. Dr. Knight will instruct the new Students in Anatomy.

The cost to the Students for the full course of Lectures, described further in the Advertisement placed on this page by Dr. Dwight, will be fifty dollars. The course will last six months, with no vacation, and will be given to all thirty-seven Students. During this time, the Medical Professors will perform Surgical Operations, gratis, upon such patients as will consent to be operated upon in presence of the Students of Medicine.

Students at the Medical Institution may also attend Lectures at Yale College on Natural Philosophy, Mineralogy, and Geology, and they will enjoy access to the Library of the Academical as well as of the Medical Institution. There is a respectable Anatomical Museum, and every demonstration which is needed in that department will be given.

By the Articles of Union Act of the Legislature passed in 1810, to be examined for a license to practice Medicine in Connecticut, a candidate must be 21 years of age, and must have completed three years of apprenticeship with a practitioner of “respectable standing,” as well as attend one course of lectures at the Medical Institution. Each candidate for Medical Licensing must also pass an oral examination administered by a board made up of professors from the Medical Institution and members of the Connecticut Medical Society. Students wishing to obtain the M.D. Degree must fulfill those same requirements but must attend two courses of lectures, one of which must be completed at the Medical Institution of Yale College.

Most Students have taken rooms in the large stone house at the head of College-street that has been taken by the Medical Institution. Others are lodging elsewhere around the town, including in Mr. Munson’s, in the Lyceum—which also houses Dr. Silliman’s Chemistry Laboratory—in Mr. Gorham’s, and also in Dr. Skinner’s.