8'i NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 



NOTE D. 



The science of medicine is prosecuted with distinguished success in this country ; 

 aud the contributions which it has received from its cultivators in different parts of the 

 United States are numerous and highly important. To enter into a detail of those cir- 

 cumstances which modify the character of the diseases of America, and to state the 

 different methods of treatment which appears to be indicated upon the difference of type in 

 our disorders when compared with diseases of the like nature prevailing in other latitudes, 

 would lead to an extent of remark altogether beyond the limits prescribed on this occa- 

 sion. The present note is intended to embrace only some of the leading circumstances 

 connected with the origin, progress, and present condition of medical science in this 

 state. 



The first essay made in the United States for the purpose of imparting anatomical know- 

 ledge by means of dissection, was made in New- York, by Doctors John Bard and Peter 

 Middleton, two of the most distinguished practitioners of this city. The first attempt 

 towards the promotion of a medical school in the State of New-York was made in the 

 year 1767, during the administration of Sir Henry Moore and Lieutenant Governor 

 Colden. In the following year the medical school was organized, under the direction and 

 government of the college of the province, then called King's College, and a body of able 

 professors appointed to teach the several branches of medical science. Among the pro- 

 fessors we find Samuel Bard, Peter Middleton, and Samuel Clossey, names familiarly 

 known to those acquainted with the medical annals of North America. In 1769, in 

 consequence of a public address delivered by Dr. Samuel Bard, a very important addi- 

 tion was made to the means of medical education then afforded, by the establishment of 

 the New-York Hospital. The great advantages which the medical school of New York 

 thus possessed were, however, but of temporary duration : the revolutionary war occa- 

 sioned a suspension of the salutary labours of the professors connected with the school ; 

 the teachers and students were scattered, and the college converted by the enemy into 

 a military hospital. After the peace of 1783 the former medical professors were never 

 as a body reinstated in their situation in the college, they having been separated either 

 by accident or death. An attempt to revive the medical school in the following year 

 proving ineffectual, the design was relinquished until 1792. In this year Columbia Col- 

 lege was made to embrace two faculties: a faculty of arts, and another of physic; over 

 the former piesided William Samuel Johnson, LL. D., a geutleman in every respect 



