Sect. V.] Materia Mcdlca, 15 



It was more common among them than in the 

 Eastern States, owing to the greater wealtli of the 

 former to send young gentlemen to complete their 

 medical education m foreign universities. A taste 

 for researches in natural history also appeared in 

 a number of instances, particularly in the states 

 of South Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and 

 New York, long before a similar taste was formed 

 to the Eastward ; and the tendency of such pur- 

 suits to enlighten the minds and extend the in- 

 quiries of physicians, is too obvious to require 

 elucidation. 



One of the earliest publications in America on 

 a medical subject, was an essay on the Iliac Pas- 

 sion, by Dr. Cadwallader, a respectable physician 

 of Philadelphia, printed about the year 1740*, in 

 which the author opposes, with considerable talents 

 and learning, the then common mode of treating 

 that disease |. About the same time Dr. Ten- 



* Before thiS;, William Bull, the first native of South Carolina, 

 and probably among the first natives of America who obtained a 

 degree in medicine, defended and published, in 1/34, at the 

 university of Leyden, his inaugural thesis, Dc Colica Picionutru 

 He was a pupil of the great Bocrhaave, and is quoted by Dr. van 

 Swieten in the following very-respectful terms : Here Colica in 

 regionibns A?ncric(£ meridionalihus tarn frequens est, ut fere pro 

 morho Endemio haheri possit ; uti ah eruditissimo tiro Guliehno 

 Bull, in his oris nato, et nunc feliciter ibi medicinam cxtrcente,^ 

 icipius audivi, qui et pidcliram dc hoc morho scripsit dis.sertationcm 

 inauguralem, qnnm in Academia Lugduno Batava defendit anna 

 1/34. — KzWcGerardi L.B. vanSwieten Commentaria, tom. iii, p. 35/. 



t For several of the names and facts here stated, respecting th« 

 early medical writers of America, the author is indebted to the 

 Revieiv of the Improz'emcnts of Medicine, by Dr. Ramsay, of 

 Charleston, before quoted. The learning and talents displayed 

 hy this gentleman, botli as an historian and medical philo->opher. 



