64 Proceedings of the Newport Natural History Society. 
As constantly be was engaged, at every moment of leisure, 
in searching out the other secrets of nature. In 1821, he 
was appointed Physician Extraordinary to the King of 
Great Britain (George IV), 
Upon January 26, 1823, he died, from apoplexy, and 
was buried in his native Berkeley. Only one son survived 
him. Though appreciated, to a certain extent, at home, it 
was chiefly from foreign nations that both during his life 
and after, he received the fullest honors. There are one 
or two of them that will more particularly interest us, as 
Americans. 
In 1802 he was elected a Fellow of the American Acad¬ 
emy of Arts and Sciences, at Boston, his diploma being 
signed by John Adams as its President, and John Quincy 
Adams as one of its Secretaries. 
In 1803 he was granted the honorary degree of LL. D. 
by Harvard University, This was signed, among other 
officers, by a relative of my own, and great-grandfather 
of Mrs. Hobart Williams, of this city, Ebenezer Storer, 
then Treasurer of the College. 
The 14th of May was long made an annual festival in 
Berlin, in remembrance of the discovery and its beneficence. 
It were well should our three Societies decide to inaugu¬ 
rate a similar custom in this country. The community 
cannot too often be reminded of the importance and even of 
the necessity of vaccination. Newport would thus, as taking 
the lead in this matter, become to the world at large, to 
the medical profession, and to the American people, the 
object of profound respect. 
It is a strange commentary upon the fickleness of the 
human mind that, despite the indisputable proofs of* the 
absolute value of vaccination in preventing small-pox, and 
of the ever present readiness of that hydra-headed monster 
to reassert itself in all its former virulence, whenever and 
wherever permitted to do so, persons should be found in 
this enlightened age who wish to go back, and to force 
all others back, to the days of general death and disfig- 
