NATIVE AND RESIDENT PHYSICIANS. 



BY GEORGE LINCOLN. 



In most of the older towns of eastern Massachusetts, the earlier 

 ministers were practising physicians as well as pastors. This 

 was undoubtedly the case in Hingham from the time Rev. Peter 

 Hobart and his company arrived, in September, 1635, until his de- 

 cease in 1679. He had received a liberal education at Magdalene 

 ■College, England, where he took his degree of Bachelor in 1625, 

 and of Master of Arts in 1629. He undoubtedly was qualified to 

 (ill a* v " professional position ; and after nine years of experience 

 as a preacher at old Hingham, came with his followers and settled 

 in our Hingham. During his active ministry here of nearly forty- 

 four years he kept a record, in chronological order, giving most of 

 the births, baptisms, marriages, and deaths which occurred in this 

 parish, and from which the two following entries are inserted 

 (surname omitted) as an illustration : — 



"January 19, 1670—71, Joshua \s son borne." 



"January 29, 1670-71, Peter, son of Joshua - — — , baptized." 



From the large number of births thus recorded in " Hobart's 

 Diary," it would seem that he must have been present in the ca- 

 pacity of physician to have been able to make the record chronologi- 

 cally and accurately. Moreover, it was not until after his decease 

 that the town or county records began to refer to any payments 

 made to physicians, or to their conveyances here as grantors or 

 grantees. In 1702 Cotton Mather wrote as follows : — 



" Ever since the days of Luke, the Evangelist, skill in physic has been 

 frequently professed and practised by persons whose most declared business 

 was the study of divinity." 



Referring to the Colonial period, a writer in the " New England 

 Historical and Genealogical Register " savs : — 



" The training received by young physicians was very irregular. De- 

 grees of Doctor of Medicine were possessed by only a few, who had studied 

 abroad. . . . The few eminent plivsicians trained in the Colonies were to 

 a irreat extent followers of a natural gift and tendency. Young men who 

 desired to become physicians practised under the instruction of the estab- 

 lished physicians down to the middle of the eighteenth century. After 

 college courses of medical lectures were organized, a license from the fac- 

 ulty was given, which served instead of the subsequent diploma," etc. 



