WE have the word of Dr. Corydon L. Ford for the fact that the first Professor of Surgery in the Medical School, Moses Gunn, foresaw the establishment of the Medical Department in the University and hurried to Ann Arbor on the day following his graduation from Geneva College in 1846 to be available for appointment. It is also stated, without substantiation, however, that he brought a cadaver with him in a trunk from Geneva, New York, by stagecoach through Canada and used this anatomical material for teaching anatomy and surgery, obviously in an extramural fashion, as soon as he arrived in Ann Arbor.
Moses Gunn (M.D. Geneva Medical College [N. Y.] '46, A.M. ibid. '56, LL.D. Chicago '67) was born in East Bloomfield, New York, in 1822. After completing his early education in the local academy he spent some years in the office of Dr. Edson Carr in Canandaigua studying medicine. In 1844, at the age of twenty-two, he enrolled as a member of the medical class in Geneva College, where he became an assistant in anatomy to Corydon L. Ford, his roommate and later his associate on the Michigan medical faculty. After coming to Ann Arbor, he seems to have established a busy general practice, especially among the Germans, for he could speak that language. He described the long, arduous drives through the country on poor dirt roads while making his calls, but he did not mention any teaching activities prior to his connection with the University (Jane Gunn, Memorial Sketches, pp. 23-60).
Abram Sager and Silas Hamilton Douglass were the first members of the medical faculty. They were appointed in 1848, and in July, 1849, Moses Gunn was appointed Professor of Anatomy, with the understanding that he would teach surgery as well. The Department of Medicine and Surgery did not open its doors to students, however, until October, 1850, the first class having the surprising number of ninety-one students. Before the school opened Gunn spent several months in New York, Philadelphia, and Boston preparing for his new duties. When it was decided to separate the chairs of anatomy and