Additional Notes, 403 



thus honourably employed their talents, it is proper to place 

 the name of Dr. Rush, whose devotedness to science, and whose 

 ardour, eloquence, and perseverance, in the dissemination of it, 

 ivill cause the period of his public instruction to be always 

 hereafter considered as an interesting epoch in the history of 

 medicine in this country. In truth it may be asserted that this 

 gentleman, for a long period after the commencement of his 

 course of public instruction, did more in his capacity of teacher 

 than all the other physicians in the United States collectively, 

 to diffuse a taste for medical inquiries, and to excite a spirit of 

 observation, and of laudable ambition, among the students of 

 medicine in our country. The inquiries of Dr. Mitchill, with 

 respect to pestilential diseases, the subject of quarantine, &c., 

 are likewise deeply connected with that mass of investigations 

 iii this country which commenced in throwing off the yoke of 

 European authority, and asserting the rights of free and inde- 

 pendent judgment. Nor is less praise due to Dr. Barton for 

 his enlightened efforts to enrich the Materia Medica of the 

 United States, by his researches into the virtues of their vegeta- 

 ble treasures. — Many other names might also be inserted in 

 this place, were not the task of making a selection difficult and 

 invidious. 



Note (GG), page 83. — When it is asserted that the last age 

 is remarkable for a great increase in the dimensions of ships, it 

 is meant that this may be considered as a general truth. The 

 vessels which, at the beginning of the century, were sent on 

 long voyages of discovery, or other important enterprises, were, 

 in many instances, as small as those which are now considered 

 fit only for coasters. 



*' The trading vessels of the ancients were in general much 

 inferior in size to those of the moderns. Cicero mentions a 

 number of ships of burden, none of which was below '2(XX) 

 ampkorce (quarum minor nulla erat duum jnillium amphorumj, 

 I. e. about 56 tons, which he seems to have thought a large 

 ship. (Cic. Fam. xii, 15. J There were, however^ some ships of 

 enormous bulk. One built by Ptolemy is said to have been 

 2 D 2 



