Six Introductory Lectures..With Contemporary Notes

Six Introductory Lectures upon the Institutes and Practice of Medicine Delivered to the University of Pennsylvania. (1801)

Bound With: Three Lectures Upon Animal Life (1799)

Bound With: “Manuscript Notes of Rice W. Hood (RWH), a private student of Rush’s who continued correspondance with Rush for several years afterwards. (2 letters from Hood to Rush in Libreary Company of PA) “Useful Hints collected from Doctor Rush’s Lectures on the Institutes of Medicine & Animal Practice and Doctor Wistar and Doctor Shippen on Anatomy, Surgery, and Obstetricy, Doctor Woodhouse on Chemistry, Dr. Physic on Chirugial practice and care, Doctor Delbees on Obstetricy, also from the attenand physicians to the Hospital, Bettering HOuse, Prison and Dispensary in Philadelphia with hints taken from different authors read there in the fall, winter and spring - commencing in Novermber 1801 and ending in April 1802”- a fascinating and unique multi-page manuscript filled with the authors lecture notes, self-pontifications, poetry, and other medical tidbits.

From Catalog II

A student's hand running alongside Rush's printed text, annotating, questioning, and occasionally pushing back. Among the most intimate documents of Rush's pedagogy in the collection: the lecturer's voice and the student's response on the same page. The introductory lectures themselves are Rush at his most programmatic: the physician must read widely, observe carefully, think independently, and never defer to European authority simply because it is European. Where the annotations align with Rush's text, they confirm the lectures' persuasive power. Where they push back, they document the independent thinking Rush claimed to be cultivating.