Medicine and Mentorship highlights the diverse pathways that aspiring physicians and other healers in the United States have followed to learn the art and science of medicine.
Over the past 250 years, these healers turned to many sources for mentorship and guidance. Some learned as apprentices to other physicians while others attended private anatomy schools, and some healers learned at home, using printed guides that urged them to take control of their own health.
Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, Philadelphia doctor and civic leader, and co-founder of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia, is among those featured in the exhibition. You will find a letter from Rush to his mentor, John Morgan, about the quality of the medical lectures at The University of Edinburgh (image at right).
Conservation of this letter was supported by a grant from the Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission's Historical Archives and Records Care Grant, a program funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
Like his mentor, Rush also became a professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, the nation’s first medical school. The exhibition features student (image at top), which capture his faith in "depleting therapies," such as purging and bloodletting, as cures for many complaints.
This is the first time any of these unique items from the Historical Medical Library have ever been on display to the public. Visit Medicine and Mentorship on weekends in the Norris Reading Room.
This exhibition has been made possible by the generosity of the Groff Family Memorial Trust.