1846-1850 – 19 tickets entitling a student to attend medical lectures and events given at the University of Pennsylvania, the premier medical school of the day by some of the most important physicians in the country
Philadelphia: 1846-1850. 19 tickets from the University of Pennsylvania Medical School in Philadelphia issued to Levi Rutherford between 1846 and 1850. All measure between 4.5” x 3” and 5” x 3.75”. Enclosed in leather card holder measuring 5.75” x 4”. In nice shape.
Two Medical Department Matriculation tickets for the years 1846-1847 and 1847-1848, featuring images of the school’s buildings. Signed by Dean, W. E. Horner, M.D.
One ticket, issued in 1847, entitled Rutherford to use the Pennsylvania Hospital and its Medical Library.
15 Medical lecture tickets for specific topics:
1846 – “Materia Medica and Pharmacy by George B. Wood. MD.” Signed by Wood on the reverse.
1846 – “Chemistry by Robert Hare M.D.” Signed by Hare.
1846 – “Institutes of Medicine, by Samuel Jackson, M.D.”
1846 – “Principles & Practices of Surgery by William Gibson, M.D.” Light thumbprint soiling at bottom edge.
1846-7 – “Anatomy [by] W. E. Horner, M.D.” Very light wear to bottom edge. Signed by Horner
1846-7 – “Obstetrics and Diseases of Women & Children by Hugh L. Hodge M.D,” Minor soiling along the edges. Signed by Hodge.
1846-7 – “Practical Anatomy and Recapitulatory Lectures [by} Wm. E. Horner, M.D., Professor [and] John Neill, M.D., Demonstrator.” Features an illustration of a skull sitting on top of a book.
1846-7 – “Theory & Practice of Medicine & Clinical Practices by N Chapman, Md”
1847 – “Chemistry by James B Rogers M.D.” Signed by Rogers.
1847 – “Pharmacy by George B. Wood, M.D.” Signed by Wood on the reverse.
1847 – “Surgery by William Gibson, M.D.”
1847 – “Institutes of Medicine by Samuel Jackson, M. D.”
1847 – “Medical Examination of the Lectures by Robert Dickey, M. D.”
1847-1848 – “Anatomy by W. E. Horner M.D. Prof.” Signed by Horner.
1847-1848 – “Theory & Practice of Medicine & Clinical Practices by N Chapman, Md”
1849-1850 – “Graduate’s Ticket . . . to the Lectures in the Medical Department of the Session 1849:50”
. Item #010831Medical lecture tickets were physical admission passes used during the 19th-centuru by students to prove they had paid individual professors their course fees. At the time, students paid fees directly to individual professors rather than a single lump sum to the university. In return, they received a card or ticket granting entry to that specific series of lectures. They serve as historical artifacts documenting early medical education milestones, student tracking, and the transition of medical specialties like obstetrics and anatomy into standard curricula. The University of Pennsylvania Medical school was internationally regarded as the premier medical school in the country. It featured an elite faculty that other medical schools could not equal, and its robust curriculum was twice as long and far more in depth than most. Regarded as the leading medical school in the country, curriculum was far more rigorous, broader, deeper and over twice as long as most other schools. Its elite faculty was composed of the most important physicians in the country, including those identified in these tickets.
Nathaniel Chapman, from Arlington, Virginia, was the founding president of the American Medical Association in 1847. He also founded the American Journal of the Medical Sciences in 1820 and served as President the American Philosophical Society.
William Edmonds Horner, from Warrenton, Virginia, a pioneer American physician, anatomist, and educator was an esteemed anatomy professor and wrote the first American treatise on pathological anatomy. He served as a surgeon's mate in the U.S. Army on the Niagara frontier during the War of 1812. He was the dean of the medical department at the University of Pennsylvania.
Robert Hare, from Philadelphia, was then one of the most important and innovative chemists of his time and highly regarded throughout the world. In the 1850s, after he became a devotee of Spiritualism, claimed to have conducted experiments proving it was possible to communicate with the dead, and designed a mechanical "spiritoscope” to help do so, he was ostracized by the scientific community.
George Bacon Wood, from Greenwich, New Jersey, was the premier American pharmacologist of his time. He published the first Dispensatory of the United States and two standard medical references: A Treatise on the Practice of Medicine, and A Treatise on Therapeutics and Pharmacology of Materia Medica.
Samuel Jackson, from Philadelphia, managed the Yellow Fever outbreak during 1820 as the President of the Philadelphia Board of Health. A founder and trustee of the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and taught materia medica and pharmacy, assisted Nathaniel Chapman in teaching physiology, and led the Institutes of Medicine.
James Blythe Rogers, although trained as a physician, became president of a large Baltimore chemical factory, while holding a life-long appointment as a professor of natural philosophy and mathematics at the College of William and Mary. He succeeded Hare as the University of Pennsylvania’s professor of chemistry.
William Gibson, from Baltimore was one of the most senior members of the faculty. He gained fame after extracting a bullet from General Winfield Scott’s shoulder, thus saving his life, following the Battle of Lundy Lane during the War of 1812. He developed many complex surgical procedures and authored the standard two-volume surgical reference of the 19th-century, the Institutes and Practice of Surgery.
Rutherford, unfortunately, never had time to put his medical education to work. Shortly after graduating in 1849 and opening a practice, he fell gravely ill, returned to his family farm, and died the following year.
An exceptional collection of these rare artifacts. At the time of listing, none are for sale in the trade. No other tickets from the elite faculty of this premier medical school have appeared at auction per the Rare Book Hub and ASBA, although some, mostly from the mid-to-late 1850s, from far less important Jefferson Medical College, have. OCLC shows that apart from the University of Pennsylvania’s medical lecture ticket collection, only a few are held by other institutions, and only one from the University of Pennsylvania’s Medical School.
Price: $5,000.00