Yale in its relation to medicine : An address delivered October 21, 1901, at the two hundredth anniversary of the founding of Yale College.

William Henry Welch

Date:: 1902

Credit: Yale in its relation to medicine : An address delivered October 21, 1901, at the two hundredth anniversary of the founding of Yale College. 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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$System, with the structure of the Heart & nobler Viscera, & the Harveian Circul^ of Blood. 3. The Muscles, Tendons & Nerves, & cloathing the whole with ilesh. 4. The structure of the pulmonary parts, the Elaboration of Chyle, the Secretions and operations of the abdominal Viscera. 5. The sound and regular State of a healthy Body. II. Pathology & Diseases or diseased affections of the human Body — chronical or acute. The Seat & Nature & Causes of Diseases, the parts affected internal or ex- ternal. III. The Methodus medendi. 1. The materia medica. 2. Chemistry. 3. The Composition of Medicines & their Powers. 4. Their judicious Application — eificacious Medicines but few. Other parts of the Study & Profession, as Surgery & Mid- wifery — Botany — Books &c. *For the period covered by Professor Dexter's two volumes of Biographical Sketches of the Graduates of Yale College —1701-1762 — I count 120 graduates who practised medicine, the records of three or four of these, however, being so incomplete that the propriety of their inclusion may be questioned. Professor Dexter has kindly informed me that he has counted 104 graduates of the classes from 1763 to 1800 inclusive who became physicians (over two thirds of whom I have identified without any very thorough or systematic search), but he adds, '' I have doubtless left out a number whose records I have never had occasion to fill out. Of these 224 physi- cians only 27 can be identified by a medi- cal degree (in all but two instances, hon- orary) in the triennial catalogue. 'Cotton Mather (op. cit., p. 151), in his life of the Rev. Thomas Thacher, says of him: He that for his lively ministry was justly reckoned among The Angels of the Churches might for his Medical Acquain- tances, Experiences and Performances be truly called a Raphael. *The authorities which I have found helpful ia tracing the records of early Yale physicians are, besides those already mentioned: S. W. WiUiams, American medical biography, Greenfield, Mass., 1845 ; the following papers in the Pro- ceedings of the Connecticut Medical So- ciety— G. Sumner, Address on the early physicians of Connecticut, 1851;R. Blake- man, Early physicians of Fairfield Co., 1853 ; A. Woodward, A historical account of the Connecticut Medical Society, 1859, and Brief sketches of the early physicians of Nor\vich, 1862; C. F. Sumner, The early physicians of Tolland Co., 1871 ; R. W. Mathewson, Biographical sketches of the original members of the Middlesex County Medical Society, 1877 ; Francis Bacon, '' The Connecticut Medical Society —A historical sketch of its first century, 1892 ; G. W. Russell, An account of early medicine and early medical men in Con- necticut, 1892.—Also, Henry Bronson, Medical History and Biography [From the Papers of the New Haven Colony His- torical Society, Vol. II] (These valuable papers, read between December 9,1872, and October 16, 1876, relate to the history of the Medical Society of New Haven County and the New Haven Medical Association); Francis Bacon, Some account of the medi- cal profession in New Haven, New York, 1887 (written for A history of the city of New Haven to the present time, by an association of writers) ; S. A. Green, History of medicine in Massachusetts. A centennial address delivered before the Massachusetts Medical Society in Cam- bridge, June 7, 1881, Boston, 1881; S. Wickes, History of medicine in New Jersey, and of its medical men, from the settlement of the province to A. D. 1800, Newark, 1879. Information is to be found also in The Literary Diary of Ezra Stiles, D.D., LL.D., President of Yale College. Edited by Franklin Bowditch Dexter, M.A., New York, 1901; and in the his- tories of towns and counties. The earliest account of a surgical opera-$