"Soon after its formation, the impression became general that the State Society, excellent as it was both in design and execution, did not fully answer the medical wants of New Hampshire. There were those who felt that the young men of the State should have systematic, didactic instruction, and that this could be accomplished only by the foundation of a regularly chartered medical college. This plan was eventually reduced to a demonstration through the energy and talents of one man. It is with profound veneration that I write the name of Nathan Smith. Himself a member of the society, I know not but he here gained inspiration and encouragement for the enterprise from his associates. At the annual meeting of the Board of Trustees of Dartmouth College, in August, 1796, being then a Bachelor of Medicine, not having received the degree of M.D., he made an application to the Board, asking their encouragement and approbation of a plan he had devised to establish a professorship of the Theory and Practice of Medicine in connection with Dartmouth College. After considerable discussion, the Board voted to postpone their final action upon the proposition for a year, but in the meantime a resolution was passed complimentary to the character and energy of Mr. Smith, and promising such encouragement and assistance in the future as the plan might merit and the circumstances of the college admit.
"The records of the college are extremely barren of details respecting the preliminary steps towards a medical establishment, and there are no means of knowing what the action of the Board was the following year. It is evident, however, that some measures must have been taken in relation to the future welfare of the school, for in the year 1798 we find that 'the fee for conferring the degree of Bachelor of Medicine pro meritis be twenty dollars.' The honorary degree of Master of Arts was the same year conferred on Mr. Smith, while it remained for a subsequent Board to discover that his professional attainments merited the rank and title of Doctor.
"Later in the same session it was voted 'That a professor be appointed, whose duty it shall be to deliver public lectures upon Anatomy, Surgery, Chemistry, Materia Medica, and the Theory and Practice of Physic, and that said professor be entitled to receive payment for instruction in those branches, as hereafter mentioned, as compensation for his services in that office.' Mr. Smith was at once chosen to fulfill the laborious, and to us almost incredible duties of this professorship, while the compensation alluded to was for a long time held in abeyance. We also find that in this year the Board adopted the following code of Medical Statutes:
"1. Lectures shall begin the first of October, annually, and continue ten weeks, during which the professor shall deliver three lectures daily, Saturday and Sunday excepted.
"2. In the lectures on the Theory and Practice of Physic, shall be explained the nature of diseases and method of cure.
"3. The lectures on Chemistry and Materia Medica shall be accompanied by actual experiments, tending to explain and demonstrate the principles of Chemistry, and an exhibition shall be made of the principal medicines used in curing disease, with an explanation of their medicinal qualities, and effect on the human body.
"4. In the lectures on Anatomy and Surgery, shall be demonstrated the parts of the human body by dissecting a recent subject, if such subject can be legally obtained; otherwise, by exhibiting anatomical preparations, which shall be attended by the performance of the principal capital operations in surgery. [The lower animals were used to some extent.]
"5. The medical professor shall be entitled to the use of the college library and apparatus gratis.
"6. The medical students shall be entitled to the use of the college library under the discretionary restrictions of the president.
"7. Medical students shall be subject to the same rules of morality and decorum as Bachelors in Art residing at the college.