Alfred Stille, M.D.
(The following are the personal edited research
notes of Michael Echols, the source of which may or
may not be completely documented)
Professor
of the Theory and Practice of Medicine, 1864-1884
Dr. Stillé's first employment as a
physician came even before his graduation from Penn's Medical School, when
in 1835 he became a house physician at Philadelphia Hospital. After his
return from Europe, Stillé served as a resident physician at Pennsylvania
Hospital from 1839 to 1841; he also began building a respectable private
practice. His first teaching position came in 1845 with an appointment as a
lecturer on pathology and the practice of medicine at the Philadelphia
Association for Medical Instruction, a medical school offering courses only
in the summer. During the 1840s, he was also a leader of the movement
promoting reform in medical education which led to the establishment of the
American Medical Association in Philadelphia in 1847. As secretary of the
AMA's organizing committee and then of the AMA itself, Stillé played a
central role in gaining the support of Jefferson Medical College and the
University of Pennsylvania Medical School.
Stillé continued to build his
professional stature over the next few years. He gained appointments as
visiting physician at St. Joseph's Hospital in 1849 and then, from 1854 to
1859, as professor of the theory and practice of medicine at the medical
department of Pennsylvania Medical College; he also served during the Civil
War as a surgeon at the Satterlee Hospital in Philadelphia. His publications
during these decades included the first general pathology book in English,
Elements of General Pathology published in 1848, and
Therapeutics and Materia Medica, published in 1860. By 1859, Stillé was
named president of the Pathological Society of Philadelphia, and three years
later was named president of the Philadelphia County Medical Society.
Stillé's appointment as professor of
the theory and practice of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania
Medical School came in 1864, just as the school was about to embark on the
major reform and expansion that would reestablish
the medical school as a leader in American medical education. Stillé played
a role in the addition of sciences to the curriculum in 1865, the move to
the larger West Philadelphia campus in 1874, and in 1876, the increase of
the course of study from two to three years and the development of fixed
salaries for professors. During this years on the Penn medical faculty
before his 1884 retirement, Stillé became president of the AMA in 1871,
vice-president of the Centennial Medical Commission in 1876, and then
President of the College of Physicians in 1883. (Penn Biographies)
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