Academic affairs related to the teaching program during the third Annual Session
of the Department (November 1860-march 1861) are summarized. The Session goes
smoothly and M.D. degrees are awarded to six students at Commencement Exercises
"before a large audience in Tucker's Hall."
The fourth Annual Session is memorable for two additions to the faculty: (1) Levi Cooper Lane who had just returned from postdoctoral studies in Europe to receive appointment as Professor of Physiology; (2) Henry Gibbons, Sr., who replaced Dr. Carman as Professor of Materia Medica. Except for the leadership of these two professors in the years ahead, the Medical Department of the University of the Pacific would not have long survived the death of Elias Cooper.
In spite of Cooper's efforts to preserve the California State Medical Society, it becomes disorganized by internal dissension. The Sixth Annual Meeting of the Society in February 1861 was its last. The beginning of the Civil War on 12 April 1861 doubtless contributes to a general disinterest in medical societies.
Cooper continues to feud with Wooster whom he characterizes as bearing "the reputation of a cattle thief in Yuba Country (his former residence);" and as being "an unmitigated perjurer for which he was indicted through not convicted." Wooster leaves the editorship of the Pacific Medical and Surgical Journal in December 1861, answering the call to duty in the union army. Thus concludes the most notorious episode of medical duplicity and professional treachery in California history.