1 66 SOME AMERICAN MEDICAL BOTANISTS 



" I retain some vivid recollections, especially 

 those connected with the first use to which I was 

 put, the driving round the ring of the old horse 

 which turned the bark mill, and the supplying 

 the said mill with its grist of bark a lonely and 

 monotonous occupation." A young aunt of ten 

 escorted him, when three, to the village school, 

 where his genius seemed to lie in spelling, and 

 his chief occupation in " my omnivorous read- 

 ing I was a reader almost from my 



cradle There was a little subscription 



library at Sauquoit, the stockholders of which 

 met four times a year and distributed the books by 

 auction to the highest bidder, to have and to hold 

 for three months. One Sunday afternoon .... 

 I went into the public room of one of the two 

 village inns, where half a dozen of the villagers 

 were assembled and one was reading aloud 

 Quentin Durward .... this was my first 

 introduction to the Waverley novels." The com- 

 ing of seven more little Grays somewhat depre- 

 ciated the increased family prosperity, but Asa, 

 after some years at academies, was sent, without 

 any college education, to the Fairfield Medical 

 College, where he graduated in medicine in 1 83 1 , 

 with a thesis on Gastritis. The data for this 

 maiden medical lucubration may well have been 

 generated in the youthful stomach, sorely tried 

 by being " boarded out " by an uncle who sold 



