Historica Botanica : 19th Century Class Tickets

The modern day practice of registration for medical courses did not exist as such in the nineteenth century. Rather than a registrar, the professor at a medical school issued each of his students an admission ticket for his class upon payment of the fee. The more popular professors commanded higher tuitions. As can be seen, this was the practice on both sides of the Atlantic. Because botany was of such importance to materia medica and therapeutics, many botanists had been trained as physicians and often taught at medical schools. Some of their tickets survive to remind us of their academic careers. They often bear the professor's signature as well as the name of the student - occasionally a young scholar destined to achieve future prominence in his own right. Here is a sampling of such tickets which I have been able to acquire. Professor Hadley's ticket is included for two reasons. Hadley, who was at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of the Western District of the State of New York in Fairfield, was Asa Gray's mentor and is credited with having promoted Gray's development in natural history during his early years as a medical student at Fairfield. This ticket was issued by Hadley to Gray's close chum, botanizing companion and medical school classmate (one year Gray's junior), Nathan Wright Folwell of Ovid, New York.