Drexel University College of Medicine - Medic Yearbook (Philadelphia, PA)

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I2 I-IAI-INENIANN 1891 Hahnemann College, recognizing Dr. Weaver's scientific attainments, conferred on him the honorary degree of Doctor of Medicine. In l907 the Pennsylvania College at Gettysburg, for the same reasons, made him a Doctor of Science. The Weaver Museum at I-lahnemann College is the most complete collection of Anatomical, Surgical and Pathological specimens for teaching purposes in the world, and is the life work of Dr. Weaver and a monument that will last as long as our college continues as a School of Medicine. It is an endless collection of thousands of speci- mens, both dry and wet, prepared for teaching in every department of the college. It represents fifty-six years of unceasing, unwearying effortg a labor of love and infinite patience. The greatest achievement of all, is the dissection and mounting of the entire cerebro-spinal nervous system in a single specimen, in I888g a work that has brought the recognition of the world to the skill of our Anatomist. It had been classed among the impossibilities. It is a dissection never before accomplished or since duplicated. Dr. Rufus B. Vveaver, the best friend the students of I-lahnemann ever had, be- longs undoubtedly to the medical and scientific worldg but we, his boysn of Old l-lahnemannf' in our selfish love for him, think of him as Gur Dr. Weaver, Our Grand, Good, Old Man, the friend of every one of us and the idol and pride of our institution. ISAAC G. SI-IALLCROSS, lVI.D., '87.

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CLASS OF1921 ll because of his professional accomplishments, but we recognize the man in him. We see his sterling worth, his strict integrity, his pure and unsullied life, his close and constant devotion to duty. Contact with Dr. Weaver, a handshake from him, is an inspiration to go forth in God's name to live better lives and do better work than we have ever done in the past. Rufus Benjamin Weaver, the youngest child of Samuel and Elizabeth A. Wea- ver, was born in Gettysburg, Pa., Jan. l0th, I84I. l-le received his academic education at the Pennsylvania College in Gettysburg, graduating from the same with the degree of Bachelor of Arts in l862 and receiving from his Alma Mater, three years later, the degree of Master of Arts. During his school days he became interested in anatomy, and this interest swayed his future career, and as he entered manhood took such firm hold on him, that he studied medicineg it offering the only opportunity of accomplishing his object in studying the one subject that had become paramount in his life. Accordingly he matriculated in the Penn Medical University of Philadelphia and obtained the degree of Doctor of Medicine in l865. ln the spring of the same year, he took a course of Anatomical Instruction, as a special student under Dr. David Hayes Agnew, and for him developed the highest regard. ln IB67-68, he took a full course of lectures in the University of Pennsylvania and there met Dr. Joseph Leidy, and again a strong attachment sprung up between teacher and student. ln l868-69 he took a clinical course at Jefferson Medical College, for the purpose of studying and contrasting methods of teaching. In I864, While a student in the Penn Medical College, he made the acquaintance of Dr, Amos Russell Thomas, who was Professor of Anatomy at that institution. A friendship, such as is seldom witnessed, sprung up between these two great men and was only severed by the death of Dr. Thomas in l895. ln 1869, Dr. Thomas, having changed his school of medicine and become the Professor of Anatomy at l-lahnemann College, offered his demonstratorship to Dr. Weaver. This was accepted, but not until the advice of Dr. D. Hayes Agnew was sought. l-lad there been an opportunity at the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Agnew would not have advised Dr. Weaver to come to l-lahnemann, but having no opening in his own department, he urged Dr. Vveaver to accept Dr. Thomas' offer, saying, This will give you your own laboratoryu and prophetically adding, It may be the oppor- tunity of a life-time. Dr. Weaver's coming to l-lahnemann, at the time he did, and in the manner he did, was of the greatest import to our schoolg in him we obtained a young enthusiastic anatomical student, an educated accomplished teacher, and with it all, thanks to the influence of his friend, Dr. Agnew, the means of obtaining a sufficiency of material for the work, which could have come in no other way. ln l879 Dr. Weaver was appointed Lecturer on Surgical Anatomy, which posi- tion he filled until l896, when he was made Professor of Applied Anatomy. ln 1910 Dr. Weaver was made an honorary member of the Executive Faculty of l-lahnemann and his name was given precedence to all others, even to that of Dean Van Lennep, at the latter's personal request. ln 1920 he was prevailed upon to accept the position of l-lead of the Department of Anatomy, which he had refused many times before. ln

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