David Hosack - Teaching Career

Teaching Career

Hosack was appointed professor of natural history at Columbia College in 1795, and in 1797 succeeded to the chair of materia medica. By 1801 he was a Professor of Botany at Columbia University. In 1807 he was named professor of midwifery and surgery in the College of Physicians and Surgeons, later occupying the chairs of the “Theory and Practice of Medicine” and of “Obstetrics and the Diseases of Women and Children.” In 1821, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. He helped organize the short-lived medical department of Rutgers College in 1826 (later associated with Geneva Medical College from 1827–1830, and even offered his own private medical school as a course in training. One of his most distinguished students was the celebrated New York City physician, John Franklin Gray, who later became the first practitioner of homoeopathy in the United States. His adoption of homeopathy resulted in the loss of his friendship with him.