Dr. Thomas Walmsley. " 163 



ges of medical: instruction, an opportunity of acquiring 

 a knowledge of the principles of Natural History 

 and Botany, sciences to which he had manifested a 

 strong and early predilection, and for the improvement 

 of which Nature had bestowed upon him, not only the 

 requisite talents, but also that ardent and ambitious zeal, 

 which is so necessary for the extension of these amiable 

 and important pursuits of the philosopher. 



In the month of June, 1803, he received the highest 

 medical honours of the University of Pennsylvania : the 

 degree of Doctor of Medicine. On this occasion, he 

 defended an admirable inaugural dissertation, On Glan- 

 dular Appetency^ or the Absorption of Medicines. 



This dissertation will long he referred to, as contain- 

 ing, an extensive body of original facts, the result of 

 many experiments, conducted with great labour, and 

 the most patient zeal. The author has endeavoured to 

 show, that some of those medicinal articles which have 

 been supposed, by many writers, to pass from the sto- 

 mach and intestines into the mass of blood, are never 

 carried into the course of the circulation, but produce 

 all their effects upon the solids. In this theory, he had, 

 it is true, been preceded by other writers, particularly 

 by Dr. Hodge, in his excellent inaugural dissertation, 

 published at Philadelphia, in 1801*. But the disserta- 

 tion of Walmsley is pregnant with new matter : the 

 facts which it contains will make an irresistible impres- 

 sion upon the mind of an ingenuous reader, even though 



* Experiments and Observations on the Absorption of Active 

 Medicines into the Circulation. By Benjamin G. Hodge. 



