The First Faculty - Medical University of South Carolina

“Our Word, Our Honor as Men”: The First Faculty

Medical Society of South Carolina Meeting Minutes; April 12, 1824

Once the Medical Society secured a charter from the state legislature in late 1823, it began to make plans to begin courses in November of 1824. The Committee on the Medical College, made up of Samuel Henry Dickson, Thomas Grimball Prioleau, James Moultrie, Jr., Henry Rutledge Frost, and Edmund Ravenel, proposed seven professorships: Anatomy, Surgery, Institutes & Practice of Physic, Materia Medica, Obstetrics & Diseases of Women and Infants, Chemistry & Pharmacy, as well as Natural History & Botany. The Medical College’s faculty were elected at a special meeting of the Medical Society on April 12, 1824. From its ranks, it selected Drs. J. M. Campbell, James Ramsay, Samuel Henry Dickson, Henry R. Frost, Thomas G. Prioleau, Edmund Ravenel, as well as renown botanist and president of the Literary and Philosophical Society, Stephen Elliott. Campbell ultimately turned down his appointment to the Chair of Anatomy, and he was replaced by John Edwards Holbrook at a special election on June 14. Pay ranged between $15 and $20 for the school year. As required by the Medical Society, all appointees signed the following obligation:

"We the undersigned, Elected by the Medical Society of S.C. to the several Professorships annexed to our Respective names, do solemnly pledge to each other, to the Society, and to the Public, our Word, our Honor as Men, that we will duly and at all times to the best of our ability, faithfully and diligently fulfill all the duties attached to the chairs to which we respectively have been appointed. We further agree that on failing to do so according to the litteral [sic] intent and meaning of this Obligation, the chair shall be considered vacant and the Society at liberty to fill the same."

Professors were expected to lecture for five months from November to April, although the topics within their respective subjects were entirely of their own choosing. That first year, all lectures commenced in November, with the exception of Stephen Elliott’s on natural history, which were offered beginning in January 1825. The Dean distributed dissertations and theses by topic to the faculty for grading the first week of March, and all faculty were expected to be present at the in-person defenses in the subsequent weeks. Professors also awarded the best dissertations in Greek and Latin, and the best theses in Greek, Latin, French, and English.

(Image description: Handwritten minutes from the special meeting of the Medical Society on April 12, 1824. Waring Historical Library, Medical Society of South Carolina Digital Collection,

Medical Society of South Carolina Meeting Minutes: 1810-1833.

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