Description:

19th Century Surgery
[Philadelphia, PA], ca. November 1856
Super Rare Dr. Joseph Pancoast Signed 1856 Jefferson Medical College Anatomy Lecture Admissions Ticket Issued to Future HBCU "Black Princeton" Faculty Member
Signed admissions ticket
A super rare admissions ticket to a Practical Anatomy lecture delivered by Dr. Joseph Pancoast (1805-1882), the preeminent professor of surgical anatomy, signed and inscribed by him verso as "Session 1856 - 7 / J. Pancoast." Ca. November 1856. Jefferson Medical College (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania). The admissions ticket is printed "Jefferson Medical College / Practical Anatomy / By Joseph Pancoast, M.D. / Admit -." The ticket was issued to "Mr. J. Willis Houston," a medical student who later served as a Civil War surgeon and became a lecturing faculty member at Lincoln University, known as the "Black Princeton." The printed purple card features a vignette at top depicting a skull resting atop a textbook, with a Latin motto roughly translating to "The dead are our best advisers." A few isolated areas of lightening or water stains recto, with a few smears and minor foxing verso. Else near fine. 5" x 3.75." Accompanied by a Jefferson Alumni Hall brochure showing one of the most famous artworks associated with Jefferson Medical College, Thomas Eakins's painting, "The Gross Clinic" (1875).

The few other instances of Jefferson Medical College admissions tickets that we have seen indicate that different colored cards were produced for different lecture sessions. Such admissions tickets are purple, like in our case, but also white, yellow, rose, and blue. Similarly, the cards are signed and dated by Dr. Pancoast verso.

The Jefferson Medical College (now part of Thomas Jefferson University) trained American doctors between 1838-1969 (its antecedent medical school was established under a different name in 1825.) Faculty at Jefferson Medical College included leading nineteenth-century anatomists and surgeons, such as Dr. Joseph Pancoast, who is listed in the 1855-1856 Jefferson Medical College catalogue as a professor of "General, Descriptive, and Surgical Anatomy." An 1828 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Dr. Pancoast published his authoritative "A Treatise on Operative Surgery" in 1844. His specialties included cosmetic surgery (facial reconstruction, cataracts), the treatment of nerve pain, and also advanced orthopedic surgeries like amputations. Dr. Pancoast served as the Chairman of the Department of Anatomy at Jefferson Medical College between 1841-1874. Dr. Pancoast's tenure at Jefferson Medical College overlapped with that of Dr. Samuel Gross (1805-1884), the subject of Thomas Eakins's heroic 8' x 6' oil painting. In the work, Dr. Gross explains the steps of a live thigh surgery performed in the medical school's amphitheater.

The admissions ticket was issued to Dr. Joseph Willis Houston (1834-1920), a medical student from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, listed as one of the students of the medical class session at Jefferson Medical College in 1855-1856. Dr. Houston later served in the Civil War, first as an assistant surgeon attached to the 72nd Regiment of Pennsylvania Volunteers in 1862, and then as the Chief Surgeon of the 43rd Pennsylvania Emergency Troops in 1863. By the mid-1860s, Dr. Houston was a lecturing faculty member ("Lecturer on Anatomy and Physiology") at Lincoln University (Oxford, Pennsylvania.) Established in 1854 as the Ashmun Institute, the school officially changed names in 1866. Lincoln University was the first degree-granting Historically Black College and University in the United States and is sometimes referred to as the "Black Princeton." During its first 100 years of operation, Lincoln University produced an estimated 20% of Black physicians in the United States.

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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  • Dimensions: 5" x 3.75"
  • Medium: Signed admissions ticket

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