1891.] [Ruschenberger. 



might be so made as to reward political and partisan services without re- 

 gard to fitness of the candidate. 



Mr. William Binder and Dr. Emerson were sent toHarrisburg to point 

 out the effect of the amendment, and at the end of four days' work they 

 secured its rejection and the enactment of the original bill. A copy of 

 the act was duly delivered to the Board of Health, April 7, 1824. 



His work as a member of the Board of Health, and his communica- 

 tions to the newspapers pointing out the risk of permitting those affected 

 with smallpox to freely mingle with citizens, bear witness to Dr. Emer- 

 son's disinterested benevolence. 



During 1824, deaths from smallpox in the city numbered 325. They 

 were reduced to six in 1825, and to three in 1826. But these facts are not 

 conclusive that the measures taken by the Board of Health during this 

 period contributed to abate the prevalence of the disease, because, both 

 prior and subsequent to this time, the rate of mortality from smallpox in 

 the city, between 1807 and 1840, fluctuated in the same striking manner, 

 as Dr. Emerson shows in his papers on Medical and Vital Statistics, pub - 

 lished in " The American Journal of the Medical Sciences," November, 

 1827, November, 1831, and July, 1848.* 



Dr. Emerson published in "The Journal of the Medical and Physical 

 Sciences," February, 1823, a brief and interesting memoir of Dr. James 

 Sykes, who was his first preceptor in medicine ; and a charming biographi- 

 cal memoir of Dr. Samuel Powel Griffitts, in the "North American 

 Medical and Surgical Journal," in 1827. 



July 6, 1832, Dr. Emerson, accompanied by Dr. Isaac Hays, visited the 

 first case of " spasmodic cholera " that occurred in the city, his original 

 description of which is in his commonplace book. 



The disease became epidemic. Deaths from it numbered 1021. Dr. 

 Emerson had charge of the Hospital for Orphans. As a token of appre- 

 ciation of his service during the epidemic, a silver pitcher was presented 

 to him, upon which is inscribed : 



To 



GOUVERNEUR EMERSON, M. D., 



The City of Philadelphia, 



Grateful for his disinterested and intrepid exertions, 

 In a period of public calamity. 



Transeat in exeinplum. 



He lectured in the Franklin Institute of Pennsylvania in 1833, on 

 meteorology, and in 1834, he delivered another course on heat, electricity 

 and galvanism, in connection with the subject. 



Mr. Pliny E. Chase reported at a meeting of the American Philosophical Society, 

 February 5, 1869, and subsequently published, his Comparative Statement of Mortality in 

 the Society of Friends and that of the General Population of the City of Philadelphia from 

 1800 to 1869, which, he states, was compiled largely from Dr. Emerson's papers. 



