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.
The Sixth Annual Session of the Department from November 1863 to March 1864 was uneventful and the School appeared to have made a successful transition to the post-Cooper era with ranks closed and Faculty strengthened. The following statistics show that the School had made slow but steady progress during its first six years:
Matriculates and Graduates 1859-1864 Medical Department, University of the Pacific
|
Session
|
Matriculates
|
Graduates
|
Year
|
|
1st May-Sept 1859
|
12
|
2
|
1859
|
|
2nd May-Sep 1860
|
13
|
1
|
1860
|
|
3rd Nov-Mar 1860-1861
|
17
|
5
|
1861
|
|
4th Nov-Mar 1861-1862
|
28
|
5
|
1862
|
|
5th Nov-Mar 1862-1863
|
23
|
8
|
1863
|
|
6th-Nov-Mar 1863-1864
|
23
|
7
|
1864
|
|
Total Graduates 1859-1864
|
28
|
As the summer of 1864 wore on, preparations for opening the Seventh Session of the Medical Department of the University of the Pacific continued. It was at this critical juncture that Dr. Hugh H. Toland, prominent and exceedingly prosperous San Francisco Surgeon, completed the construction of a new medical school building in downtown San Francisco and opened the Toland Medical College. The Toland building far overshadowed the modest facilities of the Medical Department of the University of the Pacific.
Under the circumstances, Drs. Lane, Gibbons and other key members of the Medical Department of the University of the Pacific decide to join the Toland school in the fall of 1864. They stay with the Toland Faculty for six Annual Sessions, departing in 1870 to re-open the Medical Department of the University of the Pacific. The last three-quarters of this Chapter consists of a detailed account of this stormy and critical period of transition, a period followed by many future repercussions.