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WHIi an Appendix containing Dr. Bartlbtt's sketcli of Hippocrates. ■■^*1 * -J^ ELISHA BARTLETT, A Rhode Island Philosopher, AN ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE RHODE ISLAND MEDICAL SOCIETY, DEC. 7TH, 1899, BY William Osler, M. D., PROFESSOR OF MEDICINE, JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY. With an Appendix containing Dr. Bartlett's sketch of Hippocrates. i PROVIDENCE : Snow & Far.nham, rRi\TEKs, 1900. [ Reprinted from the Transactions of the Rhode Island Medical Society, for 1899. ] -aieuicai ELISHA BARTLETT, A RHODE ISLAND PHILOSOPHER. liical Rhode Island can boast of but one great philosopher, — one to whose flights in the empyrean neither Roger Williams nor any of her sons could soar, — tlie immortal Berkeley, who was a trmisient guest in this State, waiting quietly and hap- pily for the realization of his Eutopimi schemes. Still he lived long enough in Rhode Island to make his name part of her history ; long enougli in America to make her the in- spiration of his celebrated lines on the course of empire. Elisha Bartlett, teacher, philosopher, author, of whom I am about to speak, whom you may claim as the most distin- guished physician of this State, lias left no deep impression on your local history or institutions. Here he was born and ed- ucated, and to this, his home, he returned to die ; but his busy life Avas spent in other fields, where to-day his memory is cherished more warmly than in the land of his birth. I. Born at Smithfield in 1804, Bartlett was singularly for- birth akd tunate in his parents, who were members of the Society of ''ovhood. Friends, strong, earnest souls, well endowed with graces of the head and of the heart. Tlie gentle hfe, the zeal for practical righteousness and the simplicity of the faith of the followers of Fox, put a hall-mark on the sensitive youth which the rough usage of the world never obHterated. No account of Bartlett's early life and school-days exists — an index that they were happy and peaceful. We may read in his poem called "An Allegory," certain autobiographical de- tails, transferring the " 3Iead(>w and field, and forest, dale and hill ; Orchards, green hedgerows, gardens, stately trees," from the old England which he describes to the banks of Narragansett Bay. Paraphrasing other parts of tlie poem, we may say that auspicious stars slione over his cradle with the 4 kinclliost liglit nnd promise, and amid the j,'enial nirof a New England home, gooihiess, trnth and ht-antv were his portion. He tells of the wonder and delight stirred in his young soul by the thousand tales of » fairies and genii, giants, dwarfs and that redoubtable and valiant Jaek who slew the giants." Then, as the days lengthened, he came under the si)ell of " The Arabian Nights " and of " Hobinson Crusoe." Looking back in after years, he compared this hearty, wholesome life to some Ixmnteous spring that wells wp irum the deep heart ()f the earth. Addison, Goldsmith and Washington Irvhig filled his soul with freshness like the dawn, Medioal education and gradu. ation. Life in Paris. "And led by love and kindness, ran tlie liours Their merry round till boylnx.d ])assed away." In the ruder 'discipline and strife of school and college he grew to manhood with (as he expressed it) "a fine free healthfuhiess," imd with faculties self-])oised and balanced. At Sniithfield, at Uxbridge, and at a well-known Friends' institution in New York, IJartlett obtained a very thorough preliminary education. Details of his medical course are m^t • at hand, but after studying with Dr. Willard, of Uxbridge, Drs. Greene and Heywood, of Worcester, and Dr. Levi Wheaton, of Providence, and attending medical lectures at Boston and at Providence, he took his doctor's degree at Brown rniversity in 1820, a year before the untimely end of the medical department, i In June, 182t5, Bartlett sailed f..r Euroi)e, and the letters to his sisters, which, with other P.artlett papers, have been kindly sent me by his nephew, the Hon. Willard liartlett, of the New \ ork Court of Appeals, give a delightful account of his year as a student aljroad. Ihi remained in Paris until De- cember ; then,jn company with his fellow-student. Dr. South- > Parsons closi-s his y/,Von',v(/ Tract n„ the Brown nuvprsitv ^f('diral School ^vith tlie sentence. " W Ijotlier tl.is city, tlie second in New Knglaml simll I .T, „e n^ " of such a school (that is, a revive.l department of in(.(li,Tne must il m mV(1 vU v n,T on the zea , persistence and aliility of'its physicians.- May e pern t e dV.) i^e. k 3Ir. Presuleut that the existing conditions are singularly •f:iv,)rale for i si lUt^'rst' ela.-s school Uere are college laboratories of physics, cheniistrv !'i hf. ')iry TnH vehwr ,"■'■' •••"".'T'-'l I'"^l'itals, with some thVee hmwlred" Ms^ WI a is fi^kii? •' Neither zeal, )er.sistence nor ahility on the part of th.. physicians t t .neimw iK^come forsmall medical schools in uni>'^rstky"towi:r wUh ^^^od cUnical nicilf^ 5 wick, he visited the chief cities of Italy, roturning to Paris early in March. The month of May, 1827, was spent in London, and he sailed t'nun Liverpool Jiuie Hth. Unfortu- nately the letters to his sisters contain very few references to his medical studies, hut I have extracted a few memoranda from them. Writing Aug. 24, 182»), he says: " The celehrated Laennec died at his country residence on the 13th of the present month. The puhlieation in 1810 of a new method of ascer- taining diseases of the cliest forms an era in the history of medicine. M. Laennec fell a victim to one of those diseases the investigation of whicii hy himself has enriched the lield of science, contrihuted to the alleviation of human suffering, and giving his own name a high rank among the great and the good men of his age." He asked that this memorandum should appear in the Providence pai)ers. Writing Septemher 4th, he speaks of attending ever}' day at the Jardin des Plantes to hear the lectures of Cloquet and Cuvier. (^ne of the professors at the medical school, he says, looked more like a jolly stage driver or a good-natured, Iilustering hutcher than anything else. " He lectures sometimes stand- ing, and sometimes leaning against a post, or straddling over a high stool, flourishing a lancet in one hand and a snuif-hox in the other, on the contents of whicii he is continually laying the most inordinate contrilmtions. He wears during the time an old rnsty looking hlack cap. The familiarity of the dis- tinguished surgeons and physicians with their students struck me at first sight very forcihly, heing in such perfect contrast to the proud port and haughty carriage of some of our Xew England professors. I wish they might step into the Hotel Dieu and Ija Charity and take a lesson or two of lioj-er and Dupuytren, harons of the Empire, and t\vo of the most distin- guished surgeons in the world." In the letter of Octoi)er 10th, he says : "The pu!)lic lec- tures opened this week, and we are continually engaged from half past six in the moi'uing till bed time. Msits are made at all the hospitals hy candle liglit. and a lecture delivered at most of them inanediately after the visit." He speaks of attending the lectures of Geoft'rov St. Ilil- laire, wlio, he says, "lectures very liadly: his gestures, though he is a Frenchnuui, are exccedinglv awkwai'd, and he has a 6 8in^'-song tone like tlmt which one often liears in aMetliodist or l^uakcr itiviii her." J. ike Oliver Weiitlell Holmes, Hurtlett pvohahly iicqiiired in i'aris three i)rinciple8: " Not to take authority when I ean have facta ; not to guess when I can know ; not to think a man must take jHiysic herause he is sick." '^ Strangely enough I find no reference in these Paris letters to the man of all others who intivienced Hartlett most deeply. In Louis, even more than in Laennec, the young American students of that day found light and leading. The numeri- cal method, based on a painstaking study of all the phenomena of disease in the wards and in the dead-house, appealed with l)eculiar force to their practical minds, and Louis's hrilliant ohservations on phthisis and on fevers constituted, as IJart- lett remarked, a new and great era in the history of medical science. I cannot find any definite statement of Bartlett's rehitii»ns with Louis in 1820-27, at which period the latter was still working quietly at La Charity. His monograpii on phthisis had been published in 1825, and had at once given him a reputation as one of the great lights of the French school. He was at this time very busy collecting material for his still more important work on ty[)hoid fever, and it is scarcely possible that Bartlett could have frequented La Charity without meeting the grave, unobtrusive student, who, with note book in hand, literally lived in the wards and in the dead-house. Secluded from the world, living as a volun- tary assistant to Chomel in this quiet haven of observation, apart from the turbid seas of speculation which surged outr side, Louis for seven years pursued his remarkable career. Whether or not Bartlett came into personal contact with iiim at this time I do not know, but, however, this may be, sub- seciuently the great French clinician became his model and his master, and to him he dedicated his first edition of the "Fevers," and his "Essay on the Philosophy of Medical Science." For a young man of twenty-two, these letters — written off- liand — show an unusually good literary style, and many in- cidental references indicate that lie had received a general education much above the average. The strong Christian spirit which he felt all through life is already manifest, as may l»e gleaned from one or two expressions in the letters. - Morse's Life of Holmes, vol. i., p. 109. Writing' Sept. 4, 182(5, to liis sisters, he refers to the death of n (leiir tVieiid and her little sister: " There is a cheering eon- sohitioii in the rellectiim that » of such is the kingdom of heaven,' and that their si)irits Imve gone in ])erfeet and sin- less purity to their home of bliss, and we may believe that they in their turn have become guardian angels to those who cherished and protected them here : ' Tliey were their Ruanlian angels here, Tliey guardian angels now to them.' " In 1827, shortly after completing his twenty-third year, injn liartlett settled at Lowell, then a town of only 3,500 inhabi- tants, but growing rapidly, owing to the establisiiment of numerous mills. This was his home for nearly twenty years, and to it, and later to Woonsocket, lie returned in the inter- vals between his college work in different sections of the country. As Dr. I). C. Pattersim remarks, "He became at once the universal favorite, and began to take a deep interest in the physical welfare of the townsmen." In 1828 he de- livered lectures before the Lowell Lyceum on contagious diseases, and he gave frequent popular lectures on sanitation and hygiene. In 1828 he was the orator on the Fourth of July. In 1836 he delivered a course of popular lectures on physiology. Evidently Bartlett had the " grace of favor " in a remark- able degree. Bishop Clark pictures him in those days in the following words : " Some twenty-five years ago, I used to meet a young man in the town of Lowell, whose presence carried sunshine wherever he went ; whose tenderness and skill relieved the darkness of many a chamber of sickness, and whom all the conununity were fast learning to love and honor. Life lay before liim, full of promise ; the delicate temper of his soul fitting him to the most exquisite enjoy- ment of all the pure delights of nature, and his cheerful tem- perament giving a genial and geiu'rous glow to the refined circles of which he was one of the ehiefest ornaments." When only thirty-two, before he had been in Lowell ten years, he was elected by a respectable majority as the first mayor of the city, and he was re-elected the following year. A letter frt)m the Hon. Caleb Cushing, dated April 20, 1841, gives us an idea of the estimate which a clear headed layman ractice weU. 8 Defence of the " mill- girls." Visit of Dicliens. placed upou him. " Dr. Bartlett enjoys in the city of Lowell the unqualified respect oi" that community, and its affection- ate esteem, — respect and esteem due alike to his public re- lations to that city, as formerly its popular and useful chief magistrate, and at all times one of its most patriotic and valued citizens ; to his unblemished integrity of character and amenity of deportment ; to his eminence in his profes- sion ; to the endearments of private friendship ; and in gen- eral to his talents, accomplishments, manners and princi- ples." To two interesting episodes in his life at Lowell I may re- fer at greater length. The rapid growth of the industries in Lowell had brought in from the surrounding country a very large number of young girls as operatives in the mills, and their physical and moral condition had been seriously im- pugned by writers in certain leading Boston papers. These charges were investigated in a most thorough way by Bart- lett, who published in the Lowell Courier in 18B9, and re- published in pamphlet form (1841) his well-known "Vindi- cation of the Character and Condition of the Females Em- ployed in the Lowell Mills." This veiy strong paper, based on careful personal investigations, really proved to be what the title indicated. It did not, however, escape adverse criticism, and among the Bartlett papers there is a review cf the "Vindication" by a citizen of Lowell in 1842, which presents the other side of a picture, by no means a pleasant one, of the prolonged iiours of the opera- tives and their wretched life hi boarding-houses. One of the most interesting incidents of his life at this pe- riod was tlie reception to Dickens, whose visit to Lowell oc- curred during Dr. Bartlett*s mayoralty. In the "American Notes " Dickens speaks of tlie girls^is " healthy in appear- ance, many of tliem remarkably so, and had the manners and deportment of 3-oung women, not of degraded brutes of bur- den." Oliver Wendell Holmes says, referring to tliis occa- sion: "I liave been told a distinguished foreign visitor (Cliaj-les Dickens), wlio went through the wliole length and breadth of the land, said tliat of all the many welcomes he received from statesmen renowned as orators, from men whose profession is eloquence, not one was so impressive and felicitous as tliat which was spoken by Dr. Bartleti, then mayor of Lowell, our brotlier in tlie silent profession, which he graced \\ iih lliest unwonted accomplishments." 9 "i I Oliver Wendell Holmes' descrip- In 1840 he was elected to the Legislature of the State of INIassachiisetts and served two terms. In 1845 he was nomi- nated by the Governor a member of the Board of Education of the State in the place of Jared Sparks. Holmes, who was familiar with Bartlett in this period of his career, has left on record the following charming description : " It is easy to re- call his ever-welcome and gracious presence. On his ex- jj^g^,., panded forehead no one could fail to trace the impress of a t^n of large and calm intelligence. In liis most open aud beaming smile none could help feeling the warmth of a heart which was the seat of all generous and kindly affections. When he spoke his tones were of singular softness, his thoughts came in chosen Avords, scholarlike, 5'et unpretending, often playful, always full of lively expressions, giving the idea of one that could be dangerously keen in nis judgments, had he not kept his fastidiousness to himself, and his charity to sheathe the weakness of others. In familiar intercourse — and the wTiter of these paragraphs was once under the same roof with him for some months — no one could lie more companionable and winning in all his ways. The little trials of life he took kindly and cheerily, turning into pleasantly the petty incon- veniences which a less thoroughly good-natuied man would have fretted over." IT- For many years there was in this country a poup of peri- teacher. patetic teachers who like the So})liists of Greece, went from town to town, staying a year or two in each, or they divided their time between a winter session in a lavnt' citv school and a summer term in a small country one. Among them Daniel Drake takes the precedence, as he made eleven moves in the course of his stirring and eventful life. Bartlett comes an easy second, having taught in nine schools. Dunglison, T. K. Beck, AV ard Parker. Alonzo Clark, the elder (xross, Austin Flint, Frank IT. Hamilton, and many others wliom I could name, belonged to this group of wandering pro- fessors. The medical education of the day was almost ex- olusivel}- theoretical ; the tenchers lectured for a sliort four months" session, there was a litile dissection, a few major operations were witnessed, the fees were paid, examinations were iield — and all was over. No wonder, under such eon- JjBaHw«>. At PJttsfielcl. 10 clitions, that many of the most flourishing schools were found amid sylvan groves in small country towns. In New Eng- land there were five such schools, and in the State of New York the well-known schools at Fairfield and at Geneva. As there was not enougli practice in the small places to go round, the teachers for the most part stayed only for the session, at the end of which it was not unusual for the major part of the faculty, with the students to migrate to another institution, where the lectures were re- peated and the class graduated. T. II. Beck's hitroductory lecture, in 1824, at Fairfield, "On the Utility of Country Medical Institutions," pictures in glowing terms tlieir advan- tages. One sentence brought to my mind the picture of a fine old doctor, on the Niagara peninsula, a graduate of Fair- field, who possibly may have listened to this very address. Dr. Beck asks: "What is the clhiical instruction of the country student ? It is this — after attenfling a course of lectures on the several branches of medicine and becoming acquainted with their general bearing, he during the summer repairs to the office of a practitioner ; attends him in his visits to his patients ; views the diseases peculiar to the different districts ; observes the treatment that situation or habits of life indicate and from day to day verifies the lessons he has received. Here, then, is a direct preparation for tlie life he intends to pursue." And I may say that it was just this training that made of my old friend one of the best general practitioners it has ever been my pleasure to know. In the letters we can follow Bartlett's wanderings during the next twenty years, from the time of his appointment to one of the smallest of the schools to his final position as one of the chief ornaments of the leading school of New York. In 1832 he held his first teaching position, that of professor of pathological anatomy and of materia medica in the Berk- shire Medical Institute, at Pittsfield. The following is an extract from a letter to Dr. John Orne Green, dated Pitts- field, J^ovember 25, 1833: "The character of the class is said to be superior even to that of last year. We have a large numljer of excellent students. Parker is as i)opulav as ever, nnd Professor Childs has the credit of liaving improved very much in liis manner of teaching. Tlie members of the class are attentive to their studies, eager for knowledge, and regular in their attendance on the lectures. I have lectures, $ 11 ^ere found New Eng- State of [ aiid at the small art stayed was not 3 students s were I'e- roductory f Country eir advan- ture of a ;e of Fair- Y address. )n of the course of becoming 3 summer his visits different habits of IS he has le life he just this t general ;s during tnient to 11 as one nv York, professor the Berk- ng is an ed Pitts- 3 chiss is 3 have a 3pular as niproved rs of the idge, and lectures, I most of the time, twice a day, at 10 A. m. and at 2 p. M. I shall finish my course on materia medica by the middle of this week, and the remainder of my time will be occupied with lectures of medical jurisprudence and pathological an- atomy. The commencement will be on Wednesday of week after next." He held the chair at Pittsfield for eight sessions. Among his colleagues were Childs, Dewey and Willard Parker, who was a very special friend. In a letter of October 2, 1836, he says : " Parker, with his sunny face and his hearty welcome, was in a few minutes after my arrival. It does one good to meet such men." In 1839 he was appointed to the chair of practice in Dart- mouth College, Hanover, N. H., the school founded by Nathan Smith in 1798. In a letter to his friend, Green, dated September 8th, he gives brief sketches of some of his colleagues, among them a delightful account of Oliver Wen- dell llolmes, then a young mun of thirty. " Dr. Holmes you know sometliing of. As a teacher there is no doubt of his success, although lie will not sliow himself during tliis his first course. He has his anatomy — some of it at le 1). . M lUiam .1. ( alv.Tt, John. Uoi-kins Jlo.i.ital ItuUoti.., Aufi„st, s'n.t'mluT/i,s[)l^^ s I I red botli at -irposely ar- of the Ver- :isement of ncl Holmes iiuents. practice of ton, at that :he West. 3 liiladelphia, en, of Sep- of the men b to Balti- Nathan R. ihigton. I k me into He has a ink, a man to liis pro- eiy capital the school y." of his life ;•: "In the of a good er ¥2,000, fifty-eight vn success means of to say the great man L^h pleased ollo^vs, in rhe other n an anas- ouis. Day hid from for opera- atients, of lulage for il its Kaoiiltv, itciubi'r, IS'M. 18 everything almost in surgery — tart. ant. and starvation, or low diet, in most diseases. He had a pretty large property, ' a garden ' as he calls it, of 150 acres or so, a mile from the city. Richardson, in obstetrics, boards with me, a plain com- mon-sense man, wlio fought a duel in early life with Dudley; has made a pretty large fortune here m practice, and now lives in the country eight miles or so from here, on a farm of 500 acres. The style of lecturing here is quite different from what it is in the East — more emphatic, more vehement. It is quite necessary to fall somewhat mto the popular style. We stand, in the lecture room, on an open platform ^vith only a little movable desk or table, on which to lay our notes. On the whole I like it better than being seated in a desk, as they are hi Boston." (December 21, 1841.) In March, 1843, he writes to Green that his receipts for the session have been more than 12,000. " There are a few good families who send for me, and I get occasionally a con- sultation. We never make a charge less than a dollar ; and considtation visits in ordinary cases — the first visit — are •fS.OO. These few enable me situated as I am, to make even a small and easy business somewliat profitable. I have made one visit twenty-five miles distant, for which the fee was S#25 ; and I saw a second patient, at the same time, inci- dentally, for ''t'5.00 more. You see from all this, that my place gives me rather more money than I could earn in Low- ell, for a much smaller amount of responsibility and labor. I have hardly, indeed, been called out of bed during the win- ter. In a business point of view I feel quite content with my situation." From an interestuig account of a consultation in the country we can gather how the planters of those days did their own doctoring: "Col. Anderson belongs to a class of men, j)retty large, I think, in this KState, — rather rougli, with a limited school education, but intelligent, shrewd, clear- headed, and enterprising. He has a farm, entirely away from any travelled road, of 500 acres ; but his principal busi- ness is that cf bagging and soa]) manufacturing, his farm serving only to feed his family. This consists of about one liundred, eighty or more of "Inch are his negroes. He has no nhvsician, whom he is wili.i.;. io trust, nearer tlian Lexina*- ton; and in nearly all connaon acute diseases treats the pa- n i!i • At Baltimore. 14 tient himself. His duugliter, Mrs. Breck, was seized with acute pleunsy, soon after miscarriage, and her father had bled her twice, pretty freely, and given calomel and anti- mony, before any pliysician had seen her. He had followed tlie same course a year ago in the case of his wife." CFeb- ruary 18, 1844.) ^ In the same letter lie says : " Typhoid fever has been very Midely ])revalent in nniny parts of Kentucky for tlie past year. There were, it is said, 200 deaths in an adjacent county last summer and fall. It is evidently the common tever o± this country, u-ith all the features so familiar to us at the East."' In the autunm of 1844 he accepted the chair of the theory and practice of medicine at the University of Maryland Aniong the letters I find but one from Baltimore, and that is to Oliver VV eiidell Holmes about a review of his biok « The Philosophy of Medical Science," which had appeared that year. ^^ In 1844 he accepted the cliair of materia medica and ob- woodstock stetrics m the Vermont Medical College, the session of whicli began in .March and continued for thirteen weeks. Among his colleagues were Alonzo Clark, Palmer and Edward M. Moore, and later John C. Dalton. Bartlett's name occurs in the catalogues of the school until 1854, the year before his In May, 1845, lie and Mrs. Bartlett sailed for Europe. Ill a letter to Green, July 12th, there is an interesting reierence to Louis and James Jackson, Jr. ; " I Iiave seen a good deal of Louis, who has been very civil and attentive. I dmed with him soon after my arrival, and met there, amongst others, Leuset and Grisolle, two of his most intimate medical friends. I never see him that he does not speak of voung Jackson — ce pauvre Jackson, as he calls him. He told me with a great deal of feehng, that Jackson, the last night tliat he spent in Paris, wrote him a letter from his liotel, which was moistened with his tears, and tliat he tliouglit Jackson was almost as much attached to him as to liis father " In another letter he speaks, too, of his very cordial recei)tion bv Louis. '■ '' They spent the winter on the Continent, traveling about, chiefly in Ita y, and in the spring went to London. In a letter dated June 17, 1846, tliere is an interesthig sketcli ot a magnetic seance at the house of Professor Elhotson Second visit to Europe. 16 seized with V father had b1 and anti- ad foHowed ife." (Feb- as been veiy or tlie i)ast an adjacent he common iiiliar to us f the theory Marjhuid. and that is btok, "The xl that year. ca and ob- m of whicli s. Among 3d ward M. le occurs in before his or Europe. interesting lave seen a ttentive. I ■e, amongst ate medical : of young le told me, night tliat otel, which lit Jackson itlier.'" In iception by ing about, kIou. In ng sketch Elliotson, of University College, who subsequently came to such a grief over hypnotism. "And then he ran full tilt off upon his hobby, 'animal magnetism,' calUng it one of the most sacred and holy of all subjects, one of the greatest truths, and so on. Di-. Forbes, tlie editor, lie spoke of as ' a wretcli,' all because the doctor has shown up some of Elliot- son's magnetic operations. Dr. E. afterwards invited me to see some magnetic phenomena at his house. I went about 3 o'clock in tho afternoon, and found his spacious and elegant drawing-room quite fdled witli well-dressed gentlemen and ladies, assembled for the same purpose. The doctor had two sub- jects, one a young, delicate looking girl, and the other a dam- sel of a certain age, upon whom he performed the standard and stereotyped experiments — putting them into tlie mag- netic sleep, stiffening their liml)s, leading them round the room with a common magnet, exciting their phrenological organs, and so on. I can only say that I was not specially delighted with Elliotson's manner, and that if I was to choose a man by whom 1 should swear, without using my own eyes, certainly it would not be him." In the same letter he speaks of having seen a great deal of Forbes, editor of the Medlco-OhlunileaCRevieiv ; of Marshall Hall, of Walshe, " a young man and a good fellow ; " of Sir Henry Holland, and of tliat interesting American physician, who lived so long in England, Dr. Boott, and of Dr. South- wood Smith at the Fever Hospital. On liis return from Europe we find him during the session of 1846-47 in his old cliair at Lexington, whence he writes on March 18, 1847, to his friend Green, from wliich a para- grapli rehitiug to the second edition of liis book on " Fevers " may be quoted: " I liave been drudging away all winter at my second edition. I do not feel any great' interest in it, tliougli I hope and intend to make a good book of it. The first edition, for a monograph, has sold very well, mostly at the South and West ; so well at least that Lea & Blanehard propose pul)lisliing the second edition and paying also some- thing for the riglit to do so." The sessions of 1847-48-49 were spent at the Transyl- vania University. In tlie spring of 1848 there is a letter from Pliny Earle, dated April 16tli, saying that he had re- ceived a catalogue of the Medical Department of Transyl- vania University, from which he had received his first inti- At Lexington again. ,.^^ 16 At Louisville. At the t'niversity of New York. mation of Burtlett's resignation of the professorsliip. He asks Bartlett's advice as to the propriety of applying for the position. On March 13, 1849, he received the appointment as pro- fessor of the tlieory and practice of medicine in tlie Univer- sity of Louisville. At this time, in a letter from Dr. J. Cobb, we have the first intimation in the letters of ill health, as' there is the sentence : "Accept my best wishes for your comi)lete restoration to health." The University of Louis- ville had drawn heavily upon the classes of the other West- ern schools, chiefly at the expense of Lexington, mid the Fac- ulty when Bartlett joined it was very strong, comprising such well-known men as the elder Gi'oss, the elder Ymidell, Rogers, Benjamin Silliman, Jr., and Palmer. The condition of medical politics at that time in the town of Louisville was not satisfactory, and a new school had been started in opposition to the University, and among the Bartlett letters are a number from the elder Yandell which show a state of very high tension. Bartlett spent but one session in Louisville. He and Gross accepted chairs in the University of New York. The appointment of the for- mer to the chair ol^the institutes and practice of medicine is dated Sept. 19, 1850. From some remarks in a letter from Yandell it is evident that Bartlett did not find the position in New York very congenial. Gross found his still less so, and returned to Louisville the following year. J. W. Draper, the strong man of the University School, had secured Bart- lett iiiid hi a letter dated Aug. 12, 1850, he promised him a salary of at least 83,500. The same letter shows how thor- oiighly private were the medical schools of that day: "It perhaps may be proper to I'epeat what is the condition of the real estate. Tlie college Iiuilding is owned equally by the six professors. Its estimated value when Dr. Dickson left us in tlie si)ring was !!'78,600, and there is a mortgage upon it of 848,000, beaiiiig interest of six per cent. Excluding this mortgage the share of each professor is therefore 85,000, and a mutual covenant exists among us that on the retire- ment or decease of one of the Faculty his investment shall be restored to him or his heirs — the new-comer starting in all respects in the i)osition he occupied." During these years Bartlett seems to have lieen very busy at work at the microscope, and there is a letter from Alonzo f jsorsliip. He •lying tor the nient as pro- tlie Univer- i Dr. J. Cobb, ill health, as hes for your ty of Louis- 1 other West- , aiul tlie Fac- iiprisiug such -ler Ymidell, in tlie town iv scliool had '. among the uidell which ent but one id chairs in t of the for- medicine is L letter from the position still less so, W. Draper, cured Bart- lised him a s iiow thor- day: "It lition of the ally by the )icks()n left •tgage upon Excluding fore !?o,000, I the retire- tment sliall starting in I very busy om Alonzo 17 Clark, dated June 15, 1848, descriptive of a fine new Obcr- hauser (the Zeiss of that day), and in 1851 there is an inter- estuig letter from Jeffries Wynuui, g-lving a list of the most important Avorks on invertebrate zoology. Among liis colleagues in the University were Draper, Mar- tyn Paine and frranville Sharp Pattison. Things do not seem to have worked very smoothly. In the spi-ing of 1851 over- At the tures were made to him from the College of Physicimis and Sur- S'ltl^a^Js geons of New York, in which Faculty were his warm friends, surgeons. Alonzo Clark ai>d Willard Parker, and he was elected to tlie ^'""^ ^'''^ chair of materia medica and medical jurisprudence in the fol- lowing year, 1S52. Here he lectui'ed during the next two sessions until compelled by ill healtli to retire. I may fittingly conclude tliis section of my address Avith a sentence from a sketch of Bartlett's fife by Ids friend Elisiia Huntington : " Never was the professor's chair more gracefully filled than by Dr. Bartlett. His urbane and courteous man- ners. Ins native and simple eloquence, his remarkable power of illustration, the singular beauty and sweetness of his style, all combhied to render him one of the most popular ai-d atl tractive of lecturers. The driest and most barren subject, under his touch, became instinct with life and interest, and the path, in which the traveler looked to meet with briers and weeds only, he was surprised and delighted to find strewn Avitli flowers, beautiful and fragrant. There was a mao-ic about the man you could not withstand ; a fascination you could not resist." III. Bartlett began his career as a medical writer witli the aitthor. Month] ij Journal of Mcdieal Literature and American Medical The StudentH' Gazette, only three numbers of which were issued. Jounla?' He says in the introductory address, dated Oct. 15, 18:'.l, that there are plenty of practical journals of high character and extensive circulation, but lie wishes to see one devoted to " medical liistory, medical literature, accounts of medical institutions and hospitals, medical biographv, including sketches of the cliaracter, lives and writings of the chief mas- ters of our art, and of all such as have in any way influenced Its destinies and left the deep traces of their'labors on its his- tory. ... To tlie medical student and the young prac- i\< „sr*»t'' 18 titioner, to all those who aspire to any higher acquisitions than the knowledge that calomel purges and salivates, and that tartarized antimony occasions vomiting, who are not wiUing to rest supinely satisfied in a routhie familiarity with doses and symptoms — a familiarity which practice and habit render in the end almost mechanical — we cannot but think these matters must be interesting." And he adds: "The devotion of an occasional hour to such pursuits must have a tendency to enlarge and liberalize the mind. It will help to keep alive and stimulate in the yomig medical scholar the sometimes flagging energies of study. By calling his atten- tion and directing his desires to high standards of acquisition and excellence, it will urge him on towards their attainment. Delightful and fascinating, in many respects, as the study of his profession may be to him, there are many hours which must be occupied with mental and bodily drudgery. He must make what to others would be loathsomeness pleasure to himself. Amid the wear and tear, the toil and fatigue of such pursuits, he needs at times some intellectual recreation and stimulus, and where can he find one pleasanter or more appropriate than in surveying the career, and studying the characters of those who have trodden before him the same laborious path, and who have followed it on to its high and bright consummation ? If our profession ever vindicates its legitimate claim to the appellation of liberal, it must be cul- tivated with some other than the single aim of obtaining patients for the sole purpose of getting for services rendered an equivalent in fees." In the first number there is a statement that on a future occasion the Jbwrna? will give a "detailed consideration of the character of the old physician of Cos — the venerable fa^^^her of physic, and of the reform which he effected in med- ical science," a promise which was not fulfilled to the profes- sion for many years, as Bartlett's well-known lecture on Hip- pocrates, the last, indeed, of his professional writings, was not issued until 1852. The literature of science, its philoso- phy, its history, the history of the lives and labors of the founders and cultivatoi-s — these he believed it important for the student to cultivate. Among the articles in these three numbers there are some of special merit. One signed S. N., On the Claims of Med- icine to the Charader of Certainty, may have suggested to 19 i- acquisitions salivates, and , who are not imiliarity with ;tice and habit lot but think adds : " The i must have a [t will help to d scholar the ling his atten- I of acquisition sir attainment. IS the study of hours which Irudgery. He 3ness pleasure md fatigue of ual recreation anter or more studying the him the same I its high and vindicates its ; must be cul- 1 of obtaining vices rendered it on a future onsideration of -the venerable ffected in med- 1 to the profes- lecture on Hip- writings, was [ice, its philoso- 1 labors of the it important for there are some yiaims of Med- e suggested to Rartlett in his well-known essay, " On the Degree of Cer- tainty in Medicine." Tlie enterprise was not a success, and as liartlett had said in his introductory address, "of all weaklif things we moat heartily pity weakly periodicals," he had the good sense after three numbers haxl been issued to give up a publication wliich the profession did not sustain. In July, 1832, he became tussociated with A. L. Pierson and J. B. Flint in a much more pretentious and important journal, the Medical Mai/azine, a monthly publication which Tho„^^j continued for three years. It was a very well conducted Magazine, periodical, with excellent original articles and strongly writ- ten editorials. John D. Fisher's original paper on The Cephalic Brain Murviur occw^ in Volume II., and in the same one is an excellent paper by E. Hale, Jr., on TJie Typhoid Fever of this Climate, which is of special interest as contain- ing very accurate statements of the differences between the common New England autumnal fever and the t>i)hu8 as de- scribed by Armstrong and Smith. There are also reports of three autopsies giving an account of ulceration in the small intestine, among the first to be published in tliis country. There are in addition numerous well-written critical reviews. Among the latter is one of the most virulent productions of that most virulent of men, Dr. Charles Caldwell. It is entitled " Medical Language of Literature." I have heard it said in Philadelphia that Dr. Samuel Jackson never forgave the bit- terness of the attack in it upon his " Principles of Medi- cine." In Volume III. there was the interesting announcement that a dollar a page would be paid for all original communi- cations. In 1831 appeared a little work entitled, "Sketches of the {^^fl"* Character and Writings of Eminent Living Surgeons and fuysiciana Physicians of Paris," translated from the French of J. L. H. Peisse. Of the nine lives, those of Dupuytren and Brous- sais are still of interest to us, and there is no work in Eng- lish from which one can get a better insight into the history of medicine in Paris in the early part of this century. One little sentence in the translator s preface is worth quoting : "After making all reasonable allowtmce for natural tact or talent, and for tlie facilities and advantages of instruction to be had in extensive medical establishments, it will be found that 8^w(i^, intense, untiring, unremitted 8fitt?«/, is the only foundation of professional worth and distinction." 20 Plirrn. oldgy. L'ltitH l':i lev's Natiinil Tlit'oldffy " Biirtlett onKLvers. A prcat stiTiiiilus lind lu-en giwu to tlio study of iihrcuology hy tlio visit of Si»iir7,lit'im to this i-oiiiitry. lie gave iicomse of six lt'cturt'8 on tlif anatomy of tlic brain and spinal cord at ono of the apartnionts of tlic Medical College in Sej)tem- l)cr of tliat year, and sul)S('(|ucnlly a popular course of lec- tures on phrenology. In 1H:\'2 he died in Boston of tyi)hus fever. His hrain, it is stated, was in the possession of the Jioston I'hrenoh)gical Society, before which, in January, 1^88, Hartlettgave an interesting address on scientific phre- nology. In ls:^0 Bartlett edited " Paley's Natural Theology," that delightful book, dear especially to those of us who were trained in religious colleges. To some of us at least the freshness of the natural theology-, which in Paley's hands was really a delightful connnentary on anatomy and physiology, was a happy change from artilicial theology, or even from the "Horae Paulinm " of the same author. Bartlett's claim to remembrance, so far us his medical writ- ings are concerned, rests maiidy on his work on " P'evers " issued in 1842, and subsequent editions in the years 1847, 18;")2 and 1857. It remains one of the most notable of con- tributions of American physicians to the subject. Between the time of Bartlett's visit to Paris and 1840, a group of students had studied under Louis, and had returned to this country thoroughly familiar with tyi)hoid fever, the prevalent form in the Fnaich capital at that time. In another place^ I have told in detail how hirgely through their labors the profession learned to recognize the essential differences be- tween the two i)reval(!nt forms of fever, typhoid and typhus. The writings on fever chiefly accessible to the American reader of that day were the English works of Fordyce, Armstrong, Southwood Smith, and Tweedie, in which, as Bartlett says, " they describe a fever or form of fever (that is typhus) rarely met with in this country," andthewriti i^^did not act- ually represent the state of our kiu)wledge upon the giibject. Indeed, for a number of years later a chaci: nialMon of mind prevailed among the writers in Great Britain, and it was not until 1840-50 that William Jenner, by a fresh series of accurate observations, brought the British medical opinion into line. As the British and Foreign Me(lico-Chiriir(jioal lie- ut ,{"''^ ";';•'■« p/ -''"■' ('^ «" American Medicine, Johns Hoiikins Hospital Bulletin, Au- of jilirciiology R'avo iicDuise (1 Hpiniil cord je in Scptein- course of lee- ton of typhus •session of the in J an u my, icientitic jihre- leology," that us who were I ut least the ^y's haiiilH was tl pliysiology, even from the i medical writ- on " Fevers " e years 1847, Dtable of con- it. Between 0, a group of urned to this the prevalent lother place* iir labors the ifferences be- l and typhus, iierican render , Armstrong, iartlett says, t is typhus) ;>!di(] notact- i the ? ibject. "t'lidiaon of ntain, and it a IVesh series idical opinion liriirjical Re- )ltal Bulletin, Au- 21 %mn\ in a most complimentary notice of Bnrtletl'H work, says, "A iiistory of liritish fevers such as Louis has furnished to France, or such us given in the volume under discussion, ilid not exist." Still, even at that diite, 1^44, the /^c/m- ex- pressed the ultia-coiiservativc opinion held in l-^ngland, that the coimnon continued fever, or the h)w nervous fever (»f lluxhuni, was only a mild form of typhus fever. The work is dedic.iteil to his friends, James .Jackson, of Boston, and W. W. (I"'iliard, of I'hiladtdi)hia ; as he states, "a history of two tliseases, many points of \\lii(.h tliey, especially among his osvu countrymen, have diligently and successfully stud- ied and illustrated." As to the work itscH', the interest to-day rests ehietly with the remarkably accurate picture wliicli is given of tyi)hoid fever — u picture the main outlint?s of which are as well and iirmly drawn as in any work which has appeared since. It is written with gi'cat clearness, in logical order, and he shows on every l»age an accurate acquaintance with ihe liter- ature of the day, and, as the author of the review already mentioned remarks, u knowledge also of that best of books, the book of nature. The practical character of Bartlett's mind is indicated by the briefness with wliich \w discusses the favorite topic of the day, namtdy, the theory (»f fever. He acknowledged at the outset that the materials tor any satisfactory theory of typhoid fever did not exist. He went so far as to claim that the fundamental primary alteration was in the blood, and that the local lesion was really secoudary, and he refers to the prevalent theory of fever as "wholly a creation of fancy; the offspring of a false generalization and of a spurious philoso- phy. What then can its theory be but the shadow of a sliade?" This work immediately ]»lacc(l Bartlett in the front rank of American pliysicians of the day. It had a i)owt'rful influence on the profession of the country. Among his let- ters there is an interesting and characteristic one from James Jackson, already referred to in the dedication. Acknowl- edging tlie reeei[)t of a copy, he says: "1 am now vvriting to express to you the great satisfaction the l)ook has given me. I think that it entirely answers the end that yon [U'o- posed. It. in fai't, transkites to the common reader, in a most clear style and lucid method, the acquisitions which science has made on its subjects Avithin the last few years. Nowhere 22 ThP I'hil- osiiiihy >f Medicine. else can the same conipreliensive view of those subjects be foi.nd. What may be the conclusions ol medical men in re- gard to essential fevers twenty years hence I would not pre- tend to say. It iscertiiin their views have changed very much within a slmrter period, and if new discoveries are made in ten years to eume 1 (h)i\bt not you will be ready to change yours. We must take to-day the truth so far as we know it, and add to it day by day as we learn more."' It IS evident from iiis letters that the success of the work on fevers was a great gratiticatlon to Dr. Bartlett. The sec- ond edition was issued in 1847, and while the history of tvphoid and tyjjhus fever remained nuich in the same state, with certain additions and developments, the subject of pericidical and yellow fevers were greatly extended. The third edition was issued in 1852. The fourth edition was edited by Bartlett's friend, Ahmzo Clark, of New York. The dedication of the second, third and fourth editions was to Dr. John Ovne Green, of Lowell, " with whom the early and active part of the writer's life \v'as passed ; in a personal friendship which no cloud, for a single moment, ever shad- owed or chilled : and in a professional intercourse whose de- licrhtful harmonv no selfish interest nor personal jealousy ever disturV)ed."' From every standpoint "Bartlett on Fevers" may be re- garded as one of the most successful medical works issued from the medical press and it richly deserves the comment of the distinguished editor of the fourth edition: "The question niiiy be fairly raised whetlicr any book hi our pro- fession illustrates more eleai'ly tlie beauties of sound reason- ing and the advantages of vigorous generalization iVom care- fully selected facts. Certainly no author ever brought to his lalxir a more liigh-miiided iiurjiose of representing the truth in its simplicity and in its iuhiess, wliile few luive been possessed of liigher gifts to discern, and gracefully to ex- hibit it." ''An Essay on the Thilosophy of Medicine," 1H44, a_ classic ui Americiui medical liteiature, is tlie most eharacteristic of IJartlett's works, and tlie one to which in the future students will turn most often, since it re^jreseuts one of the most suc- cessful attem])ts to a[)ply tiie [)rinciplcs of deductive rea- soning to nu'dieine. aiul it moreover illustrates the mental atr titude of an acute and thouglitful oliservcr in the middle of 23 subjects be 1 men in re- ulcl not pre- ■d very much are made in ly to change we know it, of the work t. The sec- le history of I same state, ! subject of ended. The edition was w York. The tions was to ;he early and in a personal t, ever shad- se whose de- II al jealousy ' may be re- ^vorks issued the comment ition : " The : in our pro- iound reason- )ii from carc- )roug'lit t<» his ng the trutli ;w have been :efully to ex- IH44, a classic iracteristic of iture students the niDst sue- I'duclivc rea- the mental at- lie middle of th» centu-y. The work consists of two parts: in tl,e first science i^'deflned and its onions htid do,vn Ascertamea fa«ts, ith t^Jir relations to otters obtained by o''-"»"°» .^;X rsU*.Hesinaninter.t^^ •ni nncpTver and as a LueuiiSL. -u- ^^^^ v ' i £ anv time or Jn any degree his strong neck to the yoke of iZcSesis it was always with a perfect consciousness ot his aM y fw 11 to shake it oft', as the lion shakes the dew.lrop fi^m humane" He quotes from Sir Humphrey Davey !:Wheu I com^^^^ the variety of theories that may be formed on t e slen.ler foundation of one or two facts, I am convn ced tLt it?s ilie business of the true philosopher to avo.d them '^'Sfive'm'imary propositions with which the second part opens contain the pith of the argument: ^ Proposition First. - All medical science consis s m a.cei- tainirfcL, or phenomena, or events; with their relations to 2r fact;, o/phenomena, or events; the whole classdied "^p'ZSt .^..o,uZ.-Each separate class of l^cts, phe- v.omena a d events, with tlieir relationships, constitutmg, as ai as il>ey <'0, medical science, can be ascertamed in only one wav u d that is by observation, or experience. They can- n^belducd, or inferred, from any other class o^ t>u>ls, phenomena, events, or relationships by any process of mduc- tion or reasoning, independent ot observation. FrZosition Third. ^A^^ .bsolnle law, or principle, ot med- icd en c consists in an absolute and rigorous generahza- ^ u ome of the facts, ph.n.nnena, events, ! of the i)r..fession, at tlie period of its publi- cation. _ It breathes a spirit of th.mghtful and considerate s^'eptieism, which was then needed to temper the headlong Habit ot conhdent polyi.harmacy prevalent over our country. • ; \ A. ;!'''" /i^^'^''^'«'^*-^'^' liowever, I)v Hartlett, on this side of the Atlantic, and on the other by Forbes, he (the or- thodox discij)le-) stoj.pcHl to listen and consider. Tliese lifted men spoke with authority; they pl.-aded impressivehs elo- quently, wisely. If, in the natural ardor of controversy, they went somewhat too far, let that slight fault be forgiven for tlie great good they accmplished. Nav, let them be iionored tor tiie courage and frankness with whieh thev attacked prevalent error, an.l risked their popularity and position by " Gross : American .Aredioal liinjrraj'liy. I'Jfii. p. 7r,(i, '^K ^^K " •25 jects of nat- rrangement. al and per- nce, and the )et\veen the )i the mod- " is charac- analysis of e accuracy, has carried as an esseu- ', reasoning guides and :hat all sci- eir relation- n\s ajul iii- f medicine. )indino' im- ^'y are sus- f which are nd Forehjn :lie work of ist, it had a •ary writer, ing terms : 'Ctively to " its publi- onsiderate i headlong r country. :t, on this e (the or- lese gifted ^^'ely, elo- "(M'sy, tliey rgiven for >e honored attacked isition hy 4i ftssailing modes of practice rendered familiar by custom, and everywhere adopted and trusted to." . • .:„ Ti,e In 1848 appeared one of IJartlett's most characteristic 7^|^,,„, works, a little volume of eiglity-four pages, entitled "An In- ^^^ nuirv h>to the Degree of Certainty of Medicine, and mto the MecUc.ne. N ature and Extent of its Power over Disease." 1 he icono- clastic studies of Louis and certain of the Pans physicians, and the advocacy of expectancy hy the leadei^ ot the \ leima school, had between 1880 and 18oU vogue as in the seventeenth and cioh'ecnth centuries. H.e reception of the essay m certain quarters in"«ture, the iperanients, eel that the : Avorth the ^'1' and tlie ; we have liave heen 27 wrongly interpreted, and smitten perhaps in the house of our friends, the worries of heart to which we doctors are so sub- ject makes us feel bitterly the uncertainties of medicine as a profession, and at times make us despair of its future. In a voice that one may trust Bartlett concludes his inquiry with these memorable words, which I (piote, i}i the hope that they may soothe the heartache of any pessimistic brother : " There a nowe is no process which can reckon up the amount of good which to'ou/ the science and art of medicine have conferred upon the profession, human race ; there is no moral calculus that can grasp and com])rehend the sum of tlieir beneficent operations. Ever since the first dawn of civilization and learning, through ' the dark backward, and abysm of time,' they have been the true and constant friends of the suffering sons and daughters of men. Through their ministers _ and disciples, they have cheered the desponding ; they have light- ened the load of human sorrow ; they have dispelled or dimm- ished the g^oom of the sick-ehamber ; they have plucked from tlie pillow of pain its thorns, and made the hard couch soft with the i)oppies of delicious rest : they have let in the lis'ht of joy upon dark and desolate dwellings ; tiiey have re- knidled the hunp of hoi^e in the bosom of despair; they have called back the radiance of the lustreless eye and the bloom of the fading cheek ; tliev have sent m^w vig.n- through the failing limbs ; and, tinallv, when exhausted in all their other resources, and ballled in their skill — handmaids of philoso- phy and rebgi(m -— they have blunted the arrows of death, anJl rendered less rugged iind precipitous the inevitable path- way to the tomb. In the circle of human duties, I do not know of anv, short of heroic and perilous daring, or religious martynU.m and sclf-sacriticc, higher and nobler, than those of the phvsician. His daily round of labor is crowded with beneficence, and his night'lv sleep is l)roken, that others may have better rest, llis whole life is a blessed ministry of con- sohilion and ho[ie." The last of P)artletfs strictly medical publications was a little monograph on the "History, Diagnosis and Treatment of Edematous Larvn^'itis," publislu'd in Louisville at tjie time he held tlie chair .>f practice at the University, ui ISoO. It is a .•arefully prepared monograph, based largely on the Kdeinatous Laryngitis. 28 studies of Valleix, and to which u iVe.h interest had I.een giveii him ,y he observations of Dr. Gurdou Huck, ^W the eilematous membranes. IV. <'»I{ATOR A^•D Poet Natural y studious, fond of poelvv, liislorv, l,io.r,,,,,l,v ,,,,1 imns of general ,,n,„tu.e. liartlett had a.ui.lo onportuniti.^ .;;.v |in,c hot. ,„i.o alone, ..tlit'l ii'/Z:^^^,,;^:^:^ hours u, „K,IUation nuteh oftener than' when e ",*;.., the nore varied and active affairs of i.usiness at h, ,m i Hunk that ahvavs leave Pittstield with H, M, d uve pm ot my heiiig sonienhat strengthened ■■ linrion Zun lus immortal treatise with the advice rT,\T V! ''" "Otidle," hut the true studen In ^ne , art ,f 'h s 1 'if '. "I least, shouM know the "fruitful hours f 11] orea^ ' Fo, .^a,,y years Bartlett enjoyed a leisure know , toihn to fov professors ot medicine, tlie fruits of wliich are luu iS^t i„ l r ';Siia;^r:^'S:;'r '",;?-^"- ' >- Bartlett was at his best in the oceasi.m'd ndr]-,>« ■ i expression, that florid warmth wl„.„ ■"' ' '"'"''"'""J "1 conunonly marks the p . i;,:;'-™.;' '/'^'■'■■^' " '"'i.' Anio, these addressci the, i-e tviiu ::';;; ■';;:j;i™„r;r;:-i.- 29 t had I)een !k, of New scarifying Tapli}- and md in the pnrtuuities rs to Green 'd deal of ihng away ngaged in home. I and purer concludes 'litary, oe lis life at use."' For I}' to few fest in his ?ion there icol) IJige- high and »proaehed " Princi- ditioii of 'Ived, ol)- his niedi- ic Trouj- and, as ery early of July scaiccly lustrate, cility of s, \vh it'll poets." of a per- manent place in our literature. Perhaps the most character- istic is one entitled, "Tlie Head and the Heart, or the Rela- tive importance of Intellectual and :\loral Education," which is a stirring plea for a higher tone in social and political mor- ality. In the same clear, ringing accent he speaks in his ad- dress on Spurzheim of the dangers of democracy. In a lec- ture on the " Sense of the Beautiful," delivered in 1843, liartlett appears as an apostle of culture, pleadhig in glowing language for tiie education of this faculty. One short frag- ment I must quote : " Amongst the Hebrews, and in the age of :\Ioses, it was linked to religion; it dwelt amidst the mys- teries of Worship and Faith. It brought costly offeniigs to the costlier altar; it hung the tabernacle with its curtams of fine twined linen, and blue, and purple, and scarlet ; and with clienibim of cunning work ; it arrayed the high priest of Jehovah in his gorgeous and consecrated garments, and on the mitre of pure gold upon his forehead, it graved, like the en o-ravimi- of a signet — Holiness to the Lord. At a later da?, an.rlunongst a widely different people, it became the handmaid of a refined and luxurious sensuality. It lapped the soul of (ireece in a sensual elysium. Its living impersona- tions were Pericles aiid Aspasia. It called the mother of love from the froth of the sea, and bound her z(.ne with its cestus ; it filled the hills of Arcady with ileet Oreads ; it o-raced with half naked Naiads the fountains and the rivers. It crowned the Acropolis with the Parthenon, and it embod- ied its highest conceptions of physical grace and beauty m the Venus and the Apollo. At other periods during the history of our race, it has manifested itself iii other torms than these; under other cij'cumstaiices, aspects and influences, and with other results." , In 1848 he delivered the Fourth of July oration be tore his old friends in Lowell. At the oiuMiing he refers to the_ tact that twenty years before he ha.l orcui)ied the same position. " It was tile dewy morning of my manho(Ml ; 'time had not thinned mv flowhig hair*; life, with its boundless h()pes anc its o,,lden Visions, spread far and fair before me ; ami cheered bv your words of encouragement, and aided by your helping h"ands, — your associate and (>o-worker, and m your service ; a strano-er, but welcomed with frank confidence and trust,— I bad just entered upon its arduous and upward path- way." The Head and the heart. Tho Sense of the Uoautiful. Fomth of .Inly t)iiUion. H 30 William Charles Wells. Discourse on Hlp-J pocrates. In 1849 appeared a "Brief Sketch of the Life, Character and Writings of William Charles Wells," the Soutli Carolinian Tory, who suhsequentiy became a distinguished man of sci- ence hi London, and who was well known for his researches on the phenomena of dew. One of the last of liartlett's publications was "A Discourse on the Times, Character and Writings of Hippocrates," de- livered as an introductory address before the trustees, faculty and medical class of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, at the opening of tlie session of 1852-53. The three pictures" which he gives of Hippocrates, as a young practitioner in the Isle of Tliasos, at the death-bed of Pericles, and as a teacher in the Isle of Cos, are masterpieces worthy of Walter Savage Liuidor. In no words of exaggeration the late George D. Prentice said, " There are but few word pictures in the Enghsh language that exceed the grandeur and loveliness of that one called into being by Dr. Bartlett in which he imag- ines Pericles upon his death-bed with H'^^pocrates in attend- ance." It is remarkable how many physicians write poetry, or what passes as such. I have been told of a period ui the history of the Royal College of Physicians of London when every elect (censor), as they were called, had written verses. Some begin young, as did Bartlett ; others become attuned in the deep autumnal tone of advancuig years, when, as Plato tells us in the Phaedo, even Socrates felt a divine impulsion to make verses before quitting the prison house. Those of us who have read the epic of the late distinguished Professor George B.Wood, of the University of Pennsylvania, entitled, " First and Last," published when he was sixty-four, will devoutly hope that professors of medicine, when afflicted with this form of madness, Avill follow his example and pub- lisli their poems anonymously and in another country. Jacob Bigelow, too, when nearly seventy, " darkened sanctities with song " with his American " Rejected Addresses " (Eolopoe- sis). Dr. Bartlett had poetical aspirations early in life. In a letter to his sister of Dec. 3, 182G, lie speaks of having seen in New York, in the Garland, " two fugitive pieces which some months before I had made use of to fill up the corner of a newspaper, but what sense they might have contained had " The reader will find these iiictures In an appendix to this lecture. 31 Ings in been turned into nonsense, and I blushed for my ^andeu g orphans, notwithstanding they had l>een so we dressed and though they had £oun man's tender tie On earthly bliss; — it breaks at every breeze.' We are brothers, then, in all the liabiUties and contingencies and uncertainties of the future. Let us be brothers and fel- low-helpers, also, in its hopes and its duties. There can be no entire and hopeless wretchedness for the soid of man, ex- cept that which arises from its self-intlicted degradation. The sweet sister, the affectionate daughter, the beautiful bride, and the young mother, was taken away in the clear, imclouded morning of hw life — taken away, but where? And by whom ? The flower was transplanted from an earthly garden — a fair and sunny one, it is true, but horn an earthly garden — to be set forever where no worm can feed on its root, where no decay can ever dry up its bloom — in the Paradise of God. l(v wh(mi? Taken away — by her Father, from a far-off country, where she was only a sojourner or a pilgrim — to her beautiful and eternal home. Take these thoughts into your heart, and they shall lighten up, or drive away, the darkness of the past, and, what is bettei', they shall again cheer your future with the once familiar forms and faces of JIappiness and Hope. How can we know what, even of present good, our indulgent Father may have hi store 88 for us? He may have allotted to yon many long years, to be tilled up tirst with duty, and, if tilled with duty, to Ito crowned, also, witli tiie eheerfnl li,t,dit ut' social and doniestio j(»y. You may say, i)erhai)s, tlial this is all very well for me to say, but that I know nothing about it. Hut I do know something of the mutability of all earthly things. This un- certainty has long been to me a daily theme of meditation; so I am n(»t wiiolly a stranger. Uut 1 have found an anti- dote to the gloom and sadness which would otiierwise occa- sion in remembering that all things are in the hands of a Wise Disposer, and the surest way to please Ilim, as well as to seciire our own present as well as luture peace, is to sul)- mit to His dispensations and t(» follow on in the course of active and cheerful duty to Ilim, to our fellows and to our- ves. When at Louisville some obscure nervous trouble, the na- U'e'ith/"'' ture of which I have not been able to ascertaui, attacked Dr. Bartlett. Against it in New York he fougiit bravely but in vain, and after the session of ls5:5-54 retired to Smithtield, his native [dace. The prolonged illness terminated in paraly- sis, but, fortunately, did not impair his mental facuUies in the slightest degree, ih- died on ihe T.Hh of Jnly, iSoo. ¥von\ the many euhtgies which appeared after Hartlett's death, 1 select a portion of one written by his dearest friend, Ahaizo Clark, as the preface to the fourth edition of the ^^^^^^^ "Fevers."' "Sixteen months ago, he closed his brilliant pro- ciark's fessional career, after years of growing bodily weakness and ^"'"*''^'' pain; liis mind not dimmed by liis physical inlirmities, but briL;ht and compreliensive, glowing witli the memories of the past, and the visions of llie future, lie died too soon for the profession he adorned. Tlie clock liad hardly marked twelve at noon, on the dial plate of life, when its penduhnn strokes grew faint and gradually fainter to tlie ear; and now, at h'ngth, when all is still,' the hand that notes the hours pohits sad'Tv ui)war(l, to indicate how nnicli of daytime still remained to reai» tlie harvest (»f affection and honor, in those tields from which he had already garnered up so many golden sheaves, lie died, alas 1 too soon. The wliole profession are his mourners: for conspicuous as he had become by his med- ical writings and bis extended professional lalxn's, his ae- l Kvdin a Discomse on the Tiiuo.-. Character, and Writings of llii>i>ocratos, by Elisha Hartlett. 36 proved fatal, deatli connnonly took ylace on the sixth day, as in the cases of Epaininondas. Silenus, and IMnliscus, son ot Anta- Conas. . . . The parotid .ulands siiiipnrated in the case ot Cratistonax, who lived near the tenq.le of Hercules; and also in that of the servant of Scynnnus, tion — after the lapse of nearly twenty-three centuries, uoav finds, for the first time, its fitting representative and likeness — as tl\e character and career of the great Athenian find their counterparts also — in that illustrious orator and states- man, who now walks in solitary majestv amongst us — the pride, the strength, the glory, of the l{ei)uljlic-— the Pericles of our 39 Athens — whose Acropolis is the Constitution of his conntry — whose Propyhva are the freedom and the federation of the States. A(hle(l to the calamities of that lontj; and disastrous internecine Btru;le hetween tlie two rival cities of Greece, which had just begun, Athens was now afflicted with that terrible visitation of the ]>lagne, the history of which has been left to us by Thu- cydides; and Pericles was sinking under a protracted and Avear- ing fever — the result of an attack of the disease. His long and glorious life is about to close. lie Lad been, for more than an entire generation — if never the tirst Archon, and not always the most popular — by common consent the most eminent citizen, statesman, and orator of the republic — the great defender of her constitution — tlie champion of her freedom and her rights — the upholder and the magnifier of her renown. Political rivals, di8a])pointed partisans, and a few malignant personal enemies, and professional libellers and satirists, had been hostile to his career, and had endeavored to blacken his fair fame ; but his strong and unshaken democratic faith — his far- seeing sagacity — his firmness and moderation — his enlarged, liberal, humanizing, conservative, and pacific policy — his moral courage and independence, and his high public ]>robity, had triumphed over them all; and although by braving the jirejudices of his friends and supporters, in his devotion to the general weal, he had gathered over his declining sun some clouds of jniblic dis- favor — the sense of justice, and the feeling of gratitude in the minds of his countrATuen were (]uick to return — the clouds were already scattered, or they served only to deei)en and reflect the setting splendor which, for a moment, they had intercepted and obscured. Many of his near personal friends and relatives had already fallen victims to the pestilence. Both his sons had jierished, and the young I'ericles — the child of Aspasia — had been sent away, with his niother, for safety, into Thessal) . I'hidias, and his old teacher, Anaxagoras, his " Gil ,le, pliilosoplier, ami friend," had died a little while before the breaking out of tlie epidemic. 1'hose who were left had now gafhered around the bed of the dying Archon, to receive the rich legacy of his parting words, and to ]iay to him the last solemn and kindly oflices of life. Not often in the world's history has there met together a more august and illustrious com]iany. These are a few of those whom we are aide tit recognize amongst them. IJesting his head on the shoulder of Socrates, and sobbing aloud in unrestrained and ]ias- sionate sorrow, leans the wild and reckless Alcibiades — just in 40 the tirst bloom of that res]>len(lent i)ev8onal beauty Avhicli niade him seem to the eves, even of the Greeks, more hke the radiant ainiarition of a xomv^ Apollo, than any form ot mere earthly mould — snbaueci, for^he first time in his life, and probably for tiie last— by the spectacle before liim, of his dying relative and <.-uardian— to reverence, tenderness, and truth. Sophocles, his old comi)anion in arms, is there; an.l near him, in his coarse mantle, and with unsandaled feet, may have stood a grandson ot Aristides, still poor Avith the honorable poverty of Ins great an- cestor. , 1 • 1 C'onspicuous amidst this group of generals, admirals, statesmen, orators, artists, ])oets, and philosophers,— in rank and fortune, in social position, in reputation, in learning, culture, and retinement, theh- equal and associate, sits the young physician of Cos. AI- readv had his risinu' fame reached Athens, and when the city, overcrowded with "the inhabitants of Attica, driven from then- homes by the armies of Sparta, Avas smitten Avith the pestilence, he Avas summoned from his island home in the ^Egean, to stay, if he could, the march of the destroying angel, and to succor AVith his skill those Avho had fallen under the shadoAv of its Avings. On a gentle declivity, looking tOAvard the south-Avest, in the small island of Cos, Iving in the ^Egean sea, a few stadia from the coast of Asia Elinor," stands the temple of ^Esculapius. Its Ionic columns, and its ornamented friezes of Pentelican marble, glitter and Hash in the sun-light, as Ave Avatch them through the sAvay- ing branches of the ancient oaks, chestnuts, and elms, that make the sacred grove of the temi)le. In the centre of the principal room, or cella, of the temple, and fronting the entrance, stand statues of ^Esculai-ius, and his daughters, Ilygiea and Panacea. On each side of the entrance are marble fonts of lustral Avater, for the ]>reliminarv purification of the sick visitors to the temj.le. Near a column of the temple, and holding a roll of jtapyrus in bis left hand, stands Hippocrates, (fathered about him, in ]«ic- tures^pie little trroups, there is a comi)any of (4reek youths. Their tasteful and eleirant costumes, their earnest and intelligent faces, and their general air and bearing, all show i)lainly enough the suiierior refinement and culture of the class to Avhich they be- long;. Tl-.ey are medical stu.lents, young Asclei>iades, Avho have assembled here from the several states of Greece, to acquire the clinical skill and ex]ierience of the great surgeon and physirian of Cos, and to listen to the eloquent less<.ns of the illustrious jirofessor. Thirty years have gone by since Ave met him at the bedside ot the dvinu'l'erii'les. The lapse of this generation has thinned his flowing iialr. and sprinkled his beard with silver. 41 It wouM 1)6 gratifying if we oouM know soniethino; of his ].ev- >4onal history aiiring'thi's long an«l ai-tive i)eri()(l of his life. We kiH)\v hut 'little, however, and this little is dim and shadowy. That he had led a life of activity and usefulness, and of growing rei.utation, and that he had visited various portions of Greece, is certain. What he himself had witnessed, and nuist have felt, we know well enouyh. He had seen, for this whole i.eriod, his countrv torn and' distracted by civil war — state arrayed against state, city against citv ; he liad mourned over the disastrous ex- pedition of^Vthens against Syracuse: and shooting athwart a! the nmrky darkness of this troubled and stc.rmy period — instead of the beiiignant sun of Pericles — the l)aleful rays of the star of Alcibiades,'setting at last, but too late for his country, in ignonuny and lilood. . . I have not departed from the strictest limits ot historical pro- babilitv, in assigning to Hipi.ocrates the high powers of didactic and persuasive oratorv. One of the most potent agencies m the develoi)ment of Greek intellect, and the advancement ot (-Jreek civilization, consisted in the general prevalence of pul)lic teaching and recitation. For manv successive centuries, it was from the livinu- lii)s of bards and Vhapsodists, kindled with coals from the trlowTno- altars of i)atriotism and religion,— and not through the iuediuin of anv cold and silent written records, that the immortal strains of the Iliad and the Odyssey rang thnuigh the land, an"l)ly take such an occasion as that of which I am s|ieakinir, tc rn and to vindicate the ureat prinei) lies of his system; ji.nd .-iild be likely to heu-in Avith an exposition of the errors of n.„-(iical doc- trine and practice, most imjiortant and most irenerally prevalent. I do not supjtose that our illustrious historical father was wholly exempt from the intirniities of our common nature; and it is very possible that in his animadversions ujion the system of his Cnidian neighbors, there were mingled some ingredients more spicy than Attic salt; and he may have indulged, ]>ei'haps, in some allow- al)le self-congratulation, that the class of Cos was so much larijer than that at Cnidus. I suppose, however, that as President of the college, he would, in a graceful and digniiied exordium, give his greeting and wel- come to the members of the class; he would express his gratifica- tion at seeing so numerous an assemblage from so numv of the states of (Greece — from the North and the South, the East and the West — from Attica, and Beotia, and the Peloponnesus — from distant Sicily, and even from Egypt. After this, or some similar a]ij>ropriate introduction, he would probably continue l)y warning his hearei\s against the subtle ami dangerous errors of superstition — of the old theurgic faith. He would speak of the great revolution that had so recently taken place in the Greek mind, even then only jiartially accomi)lished ; be Avould describe in colors such as only he could use, who had felt this change in his own sj.irit, and who had witnessed it all about him — the gra(bial dawn and the h'nal rising of the central, solar idea of a simple spiritual theism, of fixed laws, of invariable relations and sequences of events, in the economy of nature. As he sketched the outlines of this great ami pregnant history, he could hardly fail to linger for a moment, with something of the passionate enthusiasm of his early years, and Avith something also of their strong and simjde faith, upon that gorgeous theuriric and mythological creation of theCireek mind, which marked its legend- ary and religious period. lie would speak of this mythology, and its various and beautiful legemls, in no cynical or bigoted" tone, but with i)hiloso]ihicil toleration, and with something even of loving sympathy and admiration. He Avould say it was the genial and natural product of the quick, susceptible, 'many-siry, tille