
          undertaking such a work. I ended however with an expression of the difference, which I most heartily felt in your judgment & opinion; & expressed my readings to submit to your inspection specimens of such performances, and I should be able to furnish, if you wanto name one or two, or more topics, that you might better judge of the experiences of attempting such a work. My reply was something like this,-- at least as near as I can now recollect.

Since I came to New Haven, I have never had any enjoyment in my profession. The whole practice of medicine in New Haven is monopolized by a combination on clique of brothers in love, & their sons, who know how to keep everything in their own hands, - if not by any other means, at least by the disparagement, & even [illegible] of everyone at all in their way. [While?] connected with the College, I received only about $212 or $220 a year from it. Indeed, the maximum sum that I ever got from the Medical Institutions was only $300 a year, while the minimum was $200. After I got there, I found that I had been selected for the purpose of keeping another man out, whome they would otherwise have been obliged to [that fee?], & who would have been much more in the way, than I was likely to be. The first moment there was any chance of getting a man of their own clique, into the place, that I occupied I was pretty much shoved off; but, their man failed of getting the appointment. They were finally obliged to accept a former private pupil of mine, who was ambitious of the distinction of the place, but whome they have succeeded in keeping intirely out of business. In the meantime, I have been obliged to obtain my support, but a kind of [schoolmasterization?], since the length of time, that I have resided in New Haven, without any productive employment, & with such a large amount of ill health, and indeed severe sickness, in my family, has exhausted my provisions resources. Now, I instruct a few pupils, in anything, in which instruction is required- Latin & Greek, English, Grammar, Chemistry, Botany, etc. My botanical [added: pupils] are not such as yours. All that they desire, (or at least all they they will undertake) is to acquire just so much knowledge of the subject, as to be able to ascertain the name, by which authors treat of such plants, as happens to fall in their way, that they may learn from books, what powers such plants are known to possess, & to what uses, they may have been put in the various arts, etc. My pupils are either a few young ladies- florists perhaps- who desire a mere smattering of botany to enable them to ascertain the names of the plants that they cultivate; or they are medical students, who have just left the plough, or some are chemical employment, &, without any previous education, except such as has been obtained in a common free school, in some county district, & who will never know anything more of medicine, than can be acquired, by attending lectures, about twelve weeks for two years in [succession?] at an institution perhaps, where they are told almost daily, "gentlemen, there are no principles in medicine; you must learn to guess well." Now, it is quite an accomplishment, in such a man, to be able to determine the names, by which a given indigenous plant may be mentioned in the books of Materia medica; & on the other hand to be able to determine  
        