Note 81 — TRANSYLVANIA UNIVERSITY (continued 2)

Letter of Doctor Mitchell to Benjamin Gratz, February 7, 1838: " ... I graduated in 1812. In 1813 was appointed by the Governor of Pa. to the office of Lazaretto Physician of the Port of Phila, which post I held until 1816, when indisposition compelled me to resign. I then had opportunity of becoming acquainted with the Southern fevers, particularly the yellow fever of N. Orleans and the West Indies. For 17 years after I was actively engaged in practice, and may refer to Eberle's Therapeutics for his opinion of me as a medical man, at a time when I was not personally acquainted with him. The journals of those times contain many medical papers furnished by me, as examination will show. In 1831 my name was before the Trustees of Jefferson Medical College for the chair of Materia Medica vacated by the resignation of Dr. Eberle, and I would have been appointed, as I have since been informed by Gen. Duncan, one of the Trustees, if I had not agreed to join with Dr. Eberle a new faculty at Cincinnati. If any object that a Prof'r of Chemistry can not make a good Prof'r of Theory and Practice, I have only to refer to the case of the celebrated Dr. Rush, who passed directly from Chemistry to Theory and Practice, as the published records of the University of Penna. will show."