Potter, Nathaniel; Smith, Nathan R.; DeButts, Elisha; McDowell, Maxwell

1829 UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND (BALTIMORE) MEDICAL DIPLOMA [Signed]

1829. Early American medical diploma issued by the University of Maryland (Latin: Academia Caesarea Maria) in Baltimore, dated 1829, conferring the degree of Medicinae Doctor (Doctor of Medicine) upon Georgius Shriver. This large-format document is beautifully executed in Latin with elaborate calligraphic flourishes and retains its original large red wax seal and ribbon (though detached from diploma). The diploma is signed by a distinguished faculty of early American physicians, including Nathaniel Potter (founding professor of medicine), Nathan R. Smith (renowned surgeon and medical educator), Elisha DeButts (chemist and physician), Richard Wilmot Hall (obstetrics), and Maxwell McDowell (anatomy). In Very Good condition overall (for its age), with expected fold lines, scattered foxing, and minor staining consistent with early 19th-century documents. Stored folded. Shelved at Rockville Room E (MW Box).

1410412

Special Collections - Upstairs

Price: $925

NOTES

The University of Maryland medical faculty of this period was among the most important in the United States, rivaling the leading Philadelphia institutions, and this diploma reflects the formative era of professional medical training in America. The diploma is signed by an extraordinary group of early 19th-century physicians who collectively represent the foundational generation of American medical education, particularly at the University of Maryland, one of the nation’s leading schools at the time. Figures such as Nathaniel Potter and Nathan R. Smith were instrumental in establishing formal medical training in the United States, helping shift the profession from apprenticeship to structured academic instruction. Alongside them, specialists like Elisha DeButts (chemistry), Richard Wilmot Hall (obstetrics), and Maxwell McDowell (anatomy) reflect the early emergence of distinct medical disciplines within university curricula. Together, this faculty cohort not only trained a generation of physicians but also helped professionalize American medicine during a formative period, making a diploma bearing all of their signatures a tangible artifact of the moment when U.S. medical education began to take its modern institutional form.