tions, prevailed extensively in 1812 and 1813. Treatises on this pestilence were given to the public by North, Hosack, Hudson, Arnell, and several other contributors to the New York Medical Repository, and to other periodical journals.

The appearance of the cholera asphyxia, in 1832, at New York and at Albany, and shortly afterward its extensive ravages in other parts of this state and the United States, awakened medical ardor, and the new enemy was encountered with energy and with clinical acumen. It numbered four thousand victims in New York, and was proportionably not less fatal in Albany. Francis, Paine, M'Naughton, and Reese, were distinguished by their examinations into the origin and nature of the disease. It is deeply to be regretted that we are still without a direct and perfect history of this, and the various other epidemics which have prevailed at different periods. The influenza spread over our territory in 1807, in 1811, and in several subsequent years. The scarletfever and measles have, during the last twelve years, been unusually rife, and the varioloid, or modified small-pox, has again and again intruded, and sometimes with great malignity. Have the two former diseases acquired more power with their increasing virulence? Has the frequent recurrence of the varioloid a tendency to impair confidence in the efficacy of vaccination? These are inquiries in which the happiness of mankind is deeply interested.

Previously to the Revolution, and for some time afterward, the art of surgery was neglected. The United States furnished no schools, and chirurgical knowledge was confined to those who had received a foreign education. A post-mortem anatomical examination is recorded as early as 1691. The subject was the body of Governor Sloughter, who had suddenly died under circumstances creating a suspicion of poison. The account of the dissection was sufficiently minute and satisfactory to do away the imputation, and the pathological conclusions of the surgeons concerning the cause of death corresponded with the received doctrines of that age. The earliest anatomical dissection, for the purpose of imparting knowledge, was performed in 1750, by Doctors John Bard and Peter Middleton; the subject was a convicted felon.

John Jones, already mentioned as one of the faculty of King's College, first performed the operation of lithotomy in the city

of New York. He produced, in 1775, "Plain Remarks upon Wounds and Fractures," which was the first surgical treatise printed in America, and became a text-book. Dr. Bayley, in 1782, successfully performed the operation of amputating the arm at the shoulder-joint, which had not before been attempted in this country. Dr. M'Knight, in 1790, accomplished a bold and difficult operation in obstetrics, until then unattempted here, except in a case thirty years before, when it was performed by Dr. John Bard.

Surgery is now taught in all our medical schools, and facilities are afforded in them all for the study of practical anatomy. Yet there is a deficiency of advantages for imparting that perfect clinical instruction that can only be given in an infirmary, where the various surgical operations are performed for the relief of patients. The New York Hospital is the only institution in the state possessing such advantages. This institution was founded in 1770, at the suggestion of Dr. Bard; but the war prevented its being open for the reception of patients until 1791. The students of the medical schools in New York enjoy the advantages it affords. Among the surgeons who have acquired reputation since the Revolution, we may name Dr. Wright Post, who has the merit of having, in 1817, first performed successfully the operation of tying the subclavian artery. In 1818, Dr. Mott tied the arteria innominata, in the person of a patient who had a subclavian aneurism, an operation never before attempted. The difficulty of performing this operation, without fatal consequences, results from its effects to stop almost the whole direct supply of blood from one side of the head, and from one arm. The patient died twenty-six days after the operation, in consequence of secondary hemorrhage; but it satisfactorily appeared that the ligature had not prevented a necessary supply of blood, and thus one source of apprehension concerning this operation was removed. It has been repeated once by Graefe, of Berlin. His patient died sixty-seven days after the operation. Dr. Mott, in 1827, applied a ligature to the common iliac artery, to cure an aneurism, an operation never before attempted for that purpose; and in 1828, he exscinded the clavicle in a case of osteosarcoma of that bone, an operation, until that time, unknown in surgery.

VOL. II.-4

Pomeroy White, of Hudson, was the first surgeon in this country who tied the internal iliac artery. We can not leave these notices of chirurgery, without mentioning the high merits in that department of Alexander H. Stevens, John C. Cheesman, and J. K. Rodgers.

Physiology has only recently engaged attention in this state. A young Canadian received a musket-shot in the side, which carried away a portion of the walls of the thorax, and perforated the stomach. He recovered from the effects of this injury under the care of Dr. Beaumont, a surgeon in the army, residing in this state; but a fistulous opening in the stomach remained, through which articles of food might be introduced or withdrawn, and the aperture permitted visual observations of the organ. The case was rare, and almost unique in the annals of medical science, and certainly in no other instance had such an one been made so profitable to physiology. By a series of observations and experiments, continued for a long time, Beaumont arrived at these results 1st. The existence of a gastric juice secreted by the stomach, and exciting a solvent action on food. 2d. This gastric juice is found in the stomach only when it is excited by the presence of food or other irritants. 3d. The period required by the stomach for digesting different substances, the effects of various agents and the phenomena attending the different stages of digestion. These observations were made at intervals from 1825 to 1833, and were published in the latter year at Plattsburgh. The government of the United States made a marked acknowledgment of this eminent contribution to medical science.

Dr. Dyckman's dissertation on the pathology of fluids is held in high estimation. In the same class of publications may be noted "An Essay on Poisons," by Henry W. Ducachet; and "Experiments on the Blood," by Dr. Macneven. Investigations, to considerable extent, have been made by Dr. Francis, on the hydrostatic test of Hunter, to ascertain the viability of fetile and infantile life.

Independently of the connection of physiology with the medical art, the science has recently acquired interest as a part of general education in our colleges and academies, and forms the subject of a popular treatise written by Dr. Lee, of New York, and introduced into the school district library. The diffusion of such knowledge throughout the country reacts upon the pro

fession, and encourages its members to more careful and accurate investigation of the physical constitution.

Dr. Stringham of Columbia College, and of the College of Physicians and Surgeons in the city of New York, delivered very interesting lectures upon medical jurisprudence. The course of instruction upon the same science has been continued in that institution by John W. Francis, and John B. Beck. Dr. Francis has published several essays on subjects falling within that department; and has dwelt upon its relations to the science of obstetrics in his edition of the work of Dr. Denman. Dr. Blatchford of Troy, in 1817, published an essay on feigned diseases, which contains the results of much curious observation. T. Romeyn Beck and John B. Beck have given us, under the name of the former, a volume on the science of medical jurispru dence, which has contributed to modify, in many important features, our code of criminal law; and which is admitted in Europe to be the best work on the subject written in our language, and to display more discriminating and patient research, free from ostentation of learning, than any work in the same department now extant.

The periodical medical journals merit at least a passing notice. The Medical Repository was begun by Drs. Smith, Mitchill, and Miller, in 1797, and continued through twenty-three annual volumes. The American Medical and Philosophical Register appeared in 1810, and was conducted by Dr. Hosack and Dr. Francis. The New York Medical and Philosophical Journal was published in 1809, and the two succeeding years, under the superintendence of Dr. Smith, Dr. De Witt, and Dr. Macneven. The New York Medical and Physical Journal was commenced in 1822, and continued several years, by Drs. Francis, Beck, and Dyckman. The New York Medical and Surgical Journal, extending to four volumes, was published anonymously in 1840 and 1841. The New York Medical Gazette is a contemporaneous work.*

So intimate has been the connection between political science and jurisprudence, and so much have the members of the legal profession been identified with the patriots and statesmen who have overthrown a system incompatible with the development *Notes concerning Surgery and Physiology were furnished by Thomas Hun, M. D.

of the state, and perfected a republican government in its place, that we shall not assign to the bar a distinct place in these notes, but shall occasionally advert to its condition and progress in a brief sketch of the political history of the state.

As we have seen, the germ of New York was a shoot from a commercial aristocracy. The Dutch, who had no popular liberty nor representative legislation at home, bestowed no thought on colonial representation. The company by whom the colony was founded had an absolute power over its government.*

The form of government established was essentially feudal. Charters were given to patroons, conveying large grants of land to be occupied by a tenantry, over whom the proprietor exercised military and judicial authority, personally presiding in his courts of justice; but in important cases appeals were reserved to the governor.† Such jurisprudence, as was then known in the colony, was derived from the civil law. The institution of human slavery was contemporaneous with the foundation of the colony, "the company pledging itself to furnish the colonial manors with negroes, if the traffic should prove lucrative." No legal provision was made for the diffusion of religion or knowledge. The jealous spirit of commercial monopoly in Holland forbade the colonies to make any woolen, linen, or cotton fabric, on penalty of exile; and to impair the monopoly was punishable as a perjury. The first fruits of such a charter were seen in the venality of the directors and agents of the company, who soon appropriated to themselves, under pretence of founding settlements, all the important points where the natives came to traffic, and jars and dissensions between the feudal possessors and the government necessarily followed. Nor did the inhabitants of the province immediately gain political advantages from the conquest by the English. Nichols, by whom the reduction of the colony was effected, and who was the first English governor, during his short stay in New York, enriched himself as did many of his successors, by making new grants of land and exacting compensation for confirming those previously made. The governor chose his own council, and exercised executive and legislative powers. A court of assize was constituted, but the justices were appointed by the governor and dependent on him, and served only to increase his importance while diminish+ Kent. | Bancroft.

* Bancroft.

Barnard's Discourse.