Philadelphia

“ . . . leading figures of the southern medical establishment . . . most of whom had been trained in Philadelphia, were not threatened by that city’s preeminence – quite the contrary” (Kilbride, 707) . . . “Philadelphia’s schools [Jefferson & Penn] were respected as the finest the nation could offer. . . . William Penn’s city . . . initiated students into a genteel culture, where they absorbed the elements of medical thought and practice and became part of a national community of professional gentlemen” (708) . . . “most informed medical men considered the city’s greatest advantage to be the availability of hands-on instruction in clinics and hospitals” (709) . . . Philadelphians aversion to radical reform “was rooted in the close ties between Phila. bluebloods and their southern peers, a relationship that gave the city a decidedly southern and conservative cast that reinforced its allure in the eyes of prospective southern physicians” (710. 714-15) . . . The city was not a center of abolitionist sedition. In fact southern men were heartened by the obvious disdain with which Philadelphians viewed antislavery activists” (711, 712-13 ) . . . 244 southern students left Penn and Jefferson after execution of John Brown (717); in 1858-60, 60% of Jefferson students was from the South; “Despite the vituperation of southern medical educators, the young men returned and were not alone in choosing a Philadelphia medical school: the next year 34% of the University of Pennsylvania’s class was southern, and 48 percent of Jefferson’s. Though the latter signaled a significant decrease from 69 percent the year before – the high point for southerners in Phila. schools – their numbers were remarkably strong given the publicity generated by their withdrawal. Phila’s conservatives had good cause to feel they had preserved the trust of the South” (719).