378 
Dr.  Lyman  Spalding. 
Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
June,  1919. 
by  this  time  and  cannot  be  prepared  for  the  ensuing  course.  I  have  no 
objection  to  this  man,  but  must  for  want  of  room  decline  saying  anything 
about  your  successor  until  I  hear  from  you  again.    Your  friend, 
Lyman  Spalding. 
Shattuck,  after  serving  two  terms  as  professor  of  medicine, 
relinquished  the  position,  but  Spalding,  in  181 3,  was  made  president 
of  the  Fairfield  College,  and  filled  most  of  the  chairs  in  1814-1815 
and  181 6.  The  number  of  students  seems  to  have  varied  between 
fifty  and  seventy.  Spalding  seems  to  have  done  very  faithful,  con- 
scientious work,  for  which  he  received  somewhat  irregular  pay,  and 
often  more  pay  in  promises  than  in  actual  money.  The  school  re- 
mained in  active  operation  until  1839,  when  it  went  to  pieces  in 
consequence  of  squabbles  among  the  faculties  as  to  the  division  of 
fees  from  medical  students.  The  fees  seem  to  have  been  very 
small. 
In  1814,  Spalding  went  to  New  York  to  reside,  and  had  an  office 
on  Broadway,  for  which  he  was  paying  about  $200  per  year.  His 
fees  from  his  patients  during  the  first  year  amounted  to  a  little  more 
than  $1,000.  At  this  time,  Spalding  seems  to  have  attempted  to 
write  a  book  entitled  the  "  Institutes  of  Medicine  "  which,  as  far  as 
I  can  learn,  was  never  published  in  book  form,  but  was  circulated  in 
pamphlets,  each  chapter  furnishing  a  pamphlet.  It  was  praised  by 
Shattuck  and  Waterhouse,  and  the  reception  of  a  sample  pamphlet 
was  certainly  acknowledged  even  by  Dr.  Caldwell,  but  the  book 
seems  to  have  made  little  impression. 
The  following  letter  is  from  Governor  Plumer,  of  New  Hamp- 
shire, a  friend  of  Spalding's  : 
Epping,  N.  H.,  Oct.  24,  1818. 
Dear  Sir:  This  week  I  received  your  letter  with  your  "  Reflections  on 
Fever,"  and  Report  of  the  Trustees  of  the  Free  Schools,  for  which  you  will 
please  accept  my  grateful  acknowledgments.  I  have  read  your  pamphlet 
with  attention  and  pleasure,  but  it  is  on  a  subject  with  which  I  am  not  suffi- 
ciently acquainted  to  decide  with  precision.  You  know  the  low  state  of  the 
Faculty  in  New  Hampshire.  We  have  scarcely  any  who  write  on  the  subject 
of  medicine,  and  of  the  great  body  of  our  country  physicians  but  few  who 
have  any  books,  to  read  those  few  that  they  have,  or  to  investigate  the  com- 
plex and  intricate  subjects  of  their  profession.  These  facts  have  long  in- 
duced me  to  believe  that,  in  many  cases,  the  patient  has  more  to  apprehend 
from  the  ignorance  of  the  physician  than  from  the  disease  and  that  it  is  safer 
to  trust  to  nature  for  a  cure  than  to  rely  on  the  prescriptions  of  those  whose 
knowledge  is  limited  to  a  few  hard  technical  terms.    With  us  the  Gentlemen 
