Notes suggested by the Franklin-Heberden pamphlet of 1759 / by Henry K. Cushing.

  • Cushing, Henry K. (Henry Kirke), 1827-1910
Date:
[1904]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Notes suggested by the Franklin-Heberden pamphlet of 1759 / by Henry K. Cushing. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    [877] The Rev. Dr. Holmes, of the Mass. Hist. Soc, was the Rev. Abiel Holmes, long minister of the First Church in Cam- bridge, author of the History of America from the discovery in 1492 to 1806, and father of Oliver Wendell Holmes. Thus 57 years after the issue of the pamphlet from the press in London, and eighty-eight years ago, a copy was sent for publication in Franklin's natal town as a rarity and subject of historical interest. Paul Leicester Ford, in his useful Bibliography of Ben- jamin Franklin, quotes the pamphlet but ascribes the In- structions to Dr. Archer, instead of Dr. Heberden. Dr. Archer was physician to the London Small pox hospital at the time, and was mentioned by name in the Instructions, from whence probably arose Ford's misconception. Dr. Packard * reproduces Franklin's portion of the pamph- let with this approval . . . Which is of such interest and presents such a common sense view of the status of the prac- tice of inoculation at that time that I reprint it in its entirety. The Surgeon General's Library, Washington, that of the Academy of Medicine, New York, of the Mass. Hist. Soc, Boston, and of the College of Physicians, Philadelphia, are fortunate owners each of a copy, making, with the subject of these notes, six, and all I have been able to locate. How many copies of this brochure were printed by Dr. Heberden I do not know, but presumably but a few hundred, and these, like New England Primers, and Poor Richard's Almanacs, published for years by tens of thousands, have few known survivors. Franklin does state that Heberden printed a very large impression of them, but 500 would seem to me a large im- pression for those days. Dr. Packard informs me that he has 5000 in mind as the true number, but cannot recall his authority. One would like to know how they were disseminated, of their reception and their influence. Primarily would they not have come into the hands of preachers, many of whom were 7 History of Medicine in the United States, 1901, p. 108.