INTRODUCTION. 37 



Dr. Samuel Miller, in 1807, published letters on the constitution and order of the 

 christian ministry, which engaged him in a controversy concerning that important 

 doctrine with Thomas Y. How, the reverend Dr. Bowden of Columbia College, 

 the reverend Dr. Kemp of Maryland, and Dr. Hobart, afterwards bishop. Dr. 

 Miller's portion of this controversy is held in high estimation by that portion of 

 the church whose views accord with his own. The " Triangle," by the reverend 

 Mr. Samuel Whelpley, is still remembered as a masterly performance. 



In pulpit eloquence, the reverend Dr. Mason's discourse upon the death of 

 Hamilton, and baccalaureate addresses by the reverend Eliphalet Nott, D.D., 

 president of Union College, are productions of a high order.* 



A colonial writer, to whom we have before referred, describes the medical 

 profession as worthy of very little respect, and declares " that pretenders have 

 recommended themselves to a full practice and profitable subsistence. This," 

 he adds, " is the less to be wondered at, as the profession is under no kind of 

 regulation. Loud as the call is, they have no law to protect the lives of the 

 king's subjects. Any man at his pleasure sets up for a physician, apothecary and 

 chirurgeon. Candidates are neither examined nor licensed, nor are they even 

 sworn to fair practice." 



Nevertheless, we find occasional notices of medical prescribers who had enjoyed 

 the advantages of sound education at foreign universities, and who dispensed the 

 benefits of their knowledge in this, their adopted country. Megapolensis, Dupie, 

 Dubois, Beekman, Magrath, John Bard, Middleton, Clossy, and Farquhar were 

 justly conspicuous. Dr. Cadwallader Colden, who was surveyor-general, and 

 subsequently lieutenant-governor of the province, was eminent not only as a 

 philosopher and a naturalist, but as a physician and medical writer. We are 

 indebted to him for the first scientific account which we have of the climate and 

 diseases of the city of New- York. We have in this work satisfactory evidence, 

 that owing to the " clearness " and purity of the atmosphere, and its vigor in the 

 spring season, consumption of the lungs is not an endemical disease, and hence 



* Notes concerning the clergy were received from the reverend Dr. J. N. Campbell and the reverend T. C. Reed. 



