1825

Formal opening of University of Virginia, of which Thomas Jefferson was principal founder and designer. The university included a chair of medicine held by English-born Robley Dunglison, who shared Jefferson’s affinity for rational scientific inquiry and antipathy for heroic medicine. Dunglison, who became Jefferson’s personal physician for the final year of his life, held the chair of “anatomy, surgery, the history of the progress and theories of medicine, physiology, material medica, and pharmacy” ( Abrams, 222-223).