Chapter 20

Suspension of Medical Department University of the Pacific and Founding of Toland Medical College 1864

• Chapter Summary
• Fifth Annual Session of the Medical Department
• Founding of Toland Medical College
• First Annual Session of Toland Medical College
• National Events
• Second Annual Session of Toland Medical College

The premature death of Elias Cooper, the Medical Department's founder and leader, occurred on the eve of the Fifth Annual Session of the Department. It was during this Session that Dr. Lane emerged as a major source of stability and continuity in school affairs, as will be apparent from the following account.

Several faculty changes occurred just before the opening of the Session. At its meeting on 12 September 1862, the Board of Trustees of the University of the Pacific accepted the resignation of Dr. James Merinos as Professor of Pathology and of the Principles and Practice of Medicine. At the same meeting Dr. A. J. Bowie, Cooper friend and loyal supporter, was appointed to fill the professorship vacated by Dr. Merinos whose outside activities left him insufficient time to continue in the post. Also at the same meeting Dr. Merinos resigned his membership on the Board of Trustees. Elias Cooper was unanimously chosen to succeed him on the Board but, after Cooper's death, Beverly Cole was elected to the seat. ^[1] 

Dr. Cooper died during the month of October in 1862 while the annual one-month gratuitous course of Preliminary Lectures was in progress. Dr. Lane promptly stepped in as Editor of the San Francisco Medical Press where he placed the following notice in the October number: ^[2] 

Lane also commented on the impact of Cooper's departure on the fortunes of the medical school: ^[3] 

The Fifth Session of Lectures concluded on 7 March 1863 and Commencement Exercises were held on 12 March. Twenty-three students were enrolled in the fifth class and eight students were awarded the M. D. degree. We have previously mentioned that Henry Gibbons, Jr., was one of the Fifth Session graduates and that he later served with distinction as Dean of the School.

Professor A. J. Bowie, who was appointed to the Faculty only two months before the opening of the Fifth Session, was chosen to deliver both the Introductory Lecture at the beginning of the Session and the Valedictory Address at its close. Dr. Bowie, an outstanding surgeon himself, was a great admirer of Elias Cooper and could be counted on to appropriately eulogize the Founder of the School. This mission he accomplished with his usual felicity in both the Lecture and the Address as is evident in the concluding words of the Valedictory: ^[4] 

At the close of the Fifth Session, the Faculty were satisfied with the condition of the School, as expressed by Lane in a long editorial in the April issue of the Medical Press. He pointed out that only two students graduated at the end of the First Session in 1859, whereas eight received the M. D. degree at the end of the Fifth. The size of the classes also increased. According to the Register of the Medical Department, twelve students matriculated for the First Session, whereas twenty-three signed the Register for the Fifth. ^{[5]  [6]} 

Lane was particularly pleased to report that further clinical experience had been made available to the students during the Fifth Session and would continue thereafter. In addition to the teaching program at St. Mary's Hospital discussed earlier, Dr. J. Hastiness of the Marine Hospital staff now kindly offered to show and clinically illustrate to the students, once a week, whatever was of interest in that hospital. The San Francisco City and County Hospital, about access to which Cooper had unsuccessfully petitioned the County Supervisors early in 1860, was opened by a member of the Hospital staff, Dr. F. A. Dolman. He invited the students to see his cases and provided them a course of lectures on Clinical Surgery. Another local physician who volunteered his services during this Session was Dr. F. H. Howard who gave the students a series of lectures on Ophthalmic Surgery embodying the result of his studies and researches during a protracted visit to Europe. At the end of the Session, the medical class unanimously adopted a resolution expressing their gratitude to these three newly-found clinical instructors and Lane published the students' letter of appreciation in the Medical Press. ^[7]  Thus it was that the local physicians' intuitive urge and moral obligation to teach, as epitomized in the Hippocratic Oath, opened the doors of San Francisco hospitals for clinical instruction to the students of Cooper's school. ^[8] 

Dr. Lane concluded his review of accomplishments of the School during the Fifth Session on a confident note: ^[9] 

Several additional faculty changes occurred prior to opening of the Sixth Session.

At the meeting of the Board of Trustees of the University of the Pacific on 12 March 1863, the vacancy created by the death of Dr. Cooper, Professor of Anatomy and Surgery, led to the following adjustments. Dr. Lane resigned as Professor of Physiology and was replaced in that position by Dr. J. P. Whitney. Dr. Lane was then appointed Professor of Anatomy. ^[10] 

The October 1863 issue of the Medical Press reported that Professor A. J. Bowie resigned from the chair of Theory and Practice of Medicine and Dr. John F. Morse of Sacramento was appointed to replace him. Dr. Bowie was then appointed as Professor of Surgery. At about the same time the title of Dr. Whitney was changed from Professor of Physiology to Professor of Institutes of Medicine. ^[11] 

As a result of the numerous changes during 1862-63, the Faculty of the Medical Department at the opening of the Sixth Session in November 1863 was composed of the following eight professors, two more than at the First Session of the School in 1859: ^[12] 

Isaac Rowell, M. D.
Professor of Chemistry

R. Beverly Cole, M. D., Dean
Professor of Obstetrics and
Diseases of Women and Children

L. C. Lane, M. D.
Professor of Anatomy

Henry Gibbons, M. D.
Professor of Materia Medica and Botany

A. J. Bowie, M. D.
Professor of Principles and Practice of Surgery

J. P. Whitney, M. D.
Professor of Institutes of Medicine

John F. Morse, M. D.
Professor of Theory and Practice of Medicine

Hon. George Barstow
Professor of Medical Jurisprudence

James Murphy, M. D.
Demonstrator of Anatomy

The Sixth Session was uneventful and the School appeared to have made a successful transition to the post-Cooper era with ranks closed and Faculty strengthened. We should comment here that the appointment of the highly-regarded Dr. John F. Morse of Sacramento brought into the Faculty a well-known and respected figure in California medical affairs.

Considering Dr. Morse's wide reputation for eloquence and charitable works, it is not surprising that he was elected by the Faculty to give the Introductory Lecture, delivered at the opening of the Sixth Session in November 1863. In his lengthy address to the students on that occasion he advised them not to be discouraged by the rampant imperfections in society and in the medical profession, but to have confidence that: ^[13] 

There was no hypocrisy in Dr. Morse's exhortations and inspirational rhetoric for, as everyone knew, he had already earned a reputation in the West as a practicing idealist - but not as a prophet. Upon accepting his professorial appointment he must have recalled with some embarrassment the negative report made in 1857 to the State Medical Society by his Committee on Medical Education: ^[14] 

(Until California provides adequate support for its public hospitals), it will be a useless thing to attempt the establishment of clinical schools of medicine. . . Hence the reason your Committee deemed it unnecessary to trouble you with a very lengthy report (on the subject).

As usual, the Regular Course of lectures began on the first Monday in November. Twenty-three students were registered , the same number as in the previous year. During the Session no news of it appeared in the Medical Press, but Dr. Lane did publish the following important "Notice to Medical Students" in the issue for January 1864: ^[15] 

L. C. Lane, M. D., Professor of Anatomy

Under these favorable arrangements, Dr. Lane would serve as the preceptor for two or three students thus greatly assisting them to fulfill the graduation requirement of having studied medicine for three years (the terms of attending Lectures included) under a respectable practitioner.

In the same issue of the journal, Dr. Lane announced that: ^[16] 

The Sixth Annual Commencement of the Medical Department of the University of the Pacific was held in Platt's Hall, San Francisco, on 18 March 1864. The degree of Doctor of Medicine was conferred on seven graduates by Reverend Banister, President of the University.

Dr. Lane's Valedictory Address had a scholarly theme. He impressed upon the graduates the importance of lifelong study of the science of Medicine, a field in a constant state of advancement. As examples of progress and harbingers of future discoveries he cited vaccination for small pox and etherization as triumphs of modern medicine and of incalculable benefit to mankind. Then, in conclusion: he said: ^[17] 

And what of the battlefield? In the East, the Civil War was entering its final, cataclysmic year. On 9 March 1864, as the Sixth Session of the Medical Department came to a close, President Lincoln appointed General Grant as Commander in Chief of the Union Army. Grant at once set out to engage General Lee and the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia in the most desperately fought and crucial campaign of the war.

After his graduation in 1863, Henry Gibbons, Jr., enlisted in the Medical Corps of the Union Army as an Acting Assistant Surgeon. In May 1864 he was posted to the Douglas Hospital in Washington, D. C., just north of the fighting front. Dr. Gibbons' letter from "The Inside of a Military Hospital," was published in the July 1864 issue of the Medical Press. He described the overwhelming flood of dreadful casualties from Grant's campaign in Virginia that descended on his hospital, bearing witness to the record of the Civil War as by far the nation's bloodiest conflict to that time. In proportion to the population, the casualties in the Civil war were greater even than those of the British and French in World War I. ^{[18]  [19]} 

We now conclude our reference to the graduation exercises of the Class of 1864 by providing the following summary of the matriculants and graduates of the Medical Department of the University of the Pacific during its first six sessions: ^{[20]  [21]} 

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