JOHN WILLIAM DRAPER. 



expositions of the applications of science to medicine to be found 

 in the language. These, as well as his valedictory lectures, were 

 generally printed by the classes to which they were severally ad- 

 dressed. According to competent authority they were " clear in 

 statement, fresh and striking in their views, and lively, poetic, and 

 witty, as well as instructive, well fitted to awaken the students' en- 

 thusiasm." Those on the relations of chemistry to medicine, on the 

 history of chemistry, on atmospheric air, on water, on oxygen, and 

 on phosphorus are spoken of as having been exceptionally sugges- 

 tive and brilliant. 



Dr. Draper appeared but rarely upon the platform of the public 

 lecturer. In 1853 he made an address before the Alumni Associa- 

 tion upon "The Indebtedness of the City of New York to its Uni- 

 versity," which was a strong plea for science in education. In 1863 

 he gave the anniversary discourse before the New York Academy 

 of Medicine, the subject of which was " The Historical Influence of 

 the Medical Profession." His lectures before the Historical Society 

 in 1864 have already been mentioned. As president he addressed 

 the American Union Academy at its first annual meeting in 1870. 

 His felicitous address at the farewell dinner to Professor Tyndall, 

 given in New York in February, 1873, and his inaugural address 

 as president of the American Chemical Society on "Science in 

 America," delivered in 1876, are among his happiest efforts. One 

 of the most noteworthy of his public addresses was that upon Evo- 

 lution, delivered before the Unitarian Institute, in Springfield, in 

 October, 1877. 



Besides the work which Dr. Draper did in pure science he was 

 closely connected with the development of two of the most impor- 

 tant inventions ever made. One of these was the electro-magnetic 

 telegraph of Morse, the other was the art of photography. In one 

 of his addresses to the alumni (1853) he gives the following account of 

 the evolution of the telegraph: "Fourteen years ago there stood 

 upon the floor of the chemical laboratory of our University a pair of 

 old-fashioned galvanic batteries. Like the cradle of a baby, they 

 worked upon rockers, that so the acid might be turned on or off. 

 A gray-haired gentleman had been using them for many years to 

 see whether he could produce enough magnetism in a piece of iron 

 at a distance, to move a pencil and make marks upon paper. He 

 had contrived a brass instrument that had keys something like a 

 piano in miniature, only there was engraven on each a letter of the 



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