The long roster of the Medical Faculty has included many distinguished names, of which but a few can be mentioned, and none with the detail their services to their profession and to science deserve. The first Faculty consisted of the two recruits from the Literary Department, Dr. Sager, who became Professor of Obstetrics and Diseases of Women and Children, and Dr. Douglas, who assumed the chair of Chemistry, Pharmacy, and Medical Jurisprudence in the new school; as well as four other members, Moses Gunn, who was a graduate of Geneva Medical College, 1846, Professor of Anatomy and Surgery; Samuel Denton, Castleton Medical College (Vermont), '25, a former Regent, who became Professor of the Theory and Practice of Medicine and Pathology; J. Adams Allen, Middlebury, '45, Professor of Therapeutics, Materia Medica, and Physiology; and R.C. Kedzie, '51_m_, demonstrator of anatomy, who later was for nearly forty years Professor of Chemistry at the Michigan Agricultural College.
Dr. Sager, the first Dean of the Department, was one of its most learned and versatile members; so thoroughly possessed of the scientific spirit that his abilities were not always appreciated by his students, or, it must be confessed, by his colleagues. Of his ability as a practitioner "a few of the older residents of Ann Arbor speak reverently and lovingly." Dr. Gunn, who had charge of the Anatomical Laboratory, the first laboratory to be established in the University, deserves, in the opinion of Dr. Vaughan, the present Dean of the School, to be called the founder of the Department. This honor, however, might properly be divided with Dr. Zina Pitcher of Detroit, who, as a member of the first Board of Regents, was responsible for the early introduction of the teaching of medicine in the University. But Dr. Gunn was on the ground as early as 1849, and from the first he labored earnestly and effectively in the organization of the new Department, which was beset by many difficulties, particularly in his own field, where the problem of finding adequate material for the study of anatomy was almost insuperable for many years. Many are the hints given in the reminiscences of the older men of the practical ways this difficulty was met, but for the most part the matter is shrouded in a discreet silence. Dr. Gunn was of a commanding character and presence and his "trained hand dared to do many operations, the landmarks of which were not then described in the works on surgery." He soon gave up his work in Anatomy and was succeeded in 1854 by Dr. Corydon La Ford, Geneva, '42, a sensitive and earnest teacher, who had a way of "making dry bones and anatomical tissues of absorbing interest." It is said of him that in his day he probably taught more students than any other teacher of anatomy. Occupying hardly a lesser place than Dr. Ford in the memories of the older medical graduates was his factotum, Gregor Nagele, better known as "Doc" Nagele. As an immigrant just landed, he helped in the construction of the old Medical Building and remained to become for years the presiding genius of the Department, and, through his long association with Dr. Ford, an unofficial demonstrator of anatomy to the "boys."