The Midwest pioneer, his ills, cures, & doctors - University Library ...

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in medical education. According to the contemporary
newspapers the lectures "commenced" and were "well attended."
Financial difficulties which beset the University
at the time make it highly probable that this initial session
of the medical school was also its final one.
In 1838 it was "Enacted by the General Assembly of the
State of Indiana, That there shall be and hereby is created
and established a university adjacent to the town of Bloomington,
in the county of Monroe, for the education of youth
in the American, learned and foreign languages, the useful
arts, sciences (including law and medicine), and literature."
The operation of the medical department in this
school did not become effective, however, until many years
later.
Actual medical-college education in Indiana was begun
in the winter of 1 840-41, when a charter was obtained from
the legislature through the exertions of John H. Bradley,
member from LaPorte, for "a school of high rank, to
be called the LaPorte University." This charter, drawn by
William Andrews, provided for an institution that should
have a Hterary, a medical, and a law department. The
medical department, organized in 1842, had a faculty of
five, which included Dr. Daniel ("Old Death") Meeker, to
whom it owed its existence. The school progressed with a
fair degree of success. Its enrollment for the spring terms
1845-46, 1846-47, and 1847-48 was sixty, ninety, and one
hundred one, respectively. The spring course of 1848 was
given at Lafayette, at the insistence of Dr. Deming, in the
hope of the eventual removal of the school to that place.
Thirty students were graduated in 1849. During the eight
years of the school's existence it enrolled a total of five
hundred sixty-five students, of whom one hundred twentyseven
were graduated.
Apparently prospective students were not too much impressed
by the promises of Professor Moses L. Knapp in his
commencement address of 1847:
"If you are adapted to the people, and the place is growing
rapidly— requisities I have insisted on—and you pur-