DARTM OUT II 
Medical College 
and 
NATHAN SMITH. 
A nilistorical Idiscourse, 
BY 
OLIVER P. HI BBARD, M. I)., LL. D.  
ASA T il il A .'A iS Ail il 'if il ilAil.. il;)„ 
I.AIK I’UOK OK .SI 11«: i: i; y wiitiii: i-KAi’Tiri. ok kiiysh 
i\ v.iu: < i rrr k-k »*- THE EARLY HISTORY 
OK THE 
]\]eW )4 AyVlPSHII\E 
MEDICAL INSTITUTION, 
WITH A SKETCH OF ITS FOUNDER. 
NATHAN SMITH, A. M., M. D., 
Professor of Medicine, 
BEING A 
LECTURE INTRODUCTORY 
TO THE 
EIGHTY-THIRD COURSE OF MEDICAL LECTURES, 
AT 
DARTMOUTH COLLEGE, 
.IITLY 31, 1«71>, 
By OLIVER P. HUBBARD, M. I)., LL. I)., 
Professor of Chemistry and Pharmacy, 
AND READ BY REQUEST BEFORE THE 
New I lampshire Medical Society at their Semi- 
Annual Meeting, at Hanover, 
Sept. 17, 1879. 
WASHINGTON, 1). C. 
THE GLOBE PRINTING AND PUBLISHING HOUSE. 
l88o . A LECTURE INTRODUCTORY 
TO THE 
Eighty-third Course of the New Hampshire Medical Institution, 
At Dartmouth College, July 31, 1879. 
By OLIVER P. HUBBARD, M. D., LL. D., 
Professor oj Chemistry and Pharmacy * 
Gentlemen: 
It having fallen to me in turn to give the lecture introduc- 
tory to our annual course of instruction, I offer you such 
brief notes as the limit of the hour permits, upon a subject 
of real and permanent importance to us all—The Origin of 
the New Hampshire Medical Institution. This school has a 
history and a career as honorable as any. Its early instruc- 
tors were eminent men, faithful and laborious in their day 
and generation, who blessed mankind. It is one of the oldest 
medical schools in this country, there being now hut two of 
earlier date;f its courses of instruction have never been in- 
terrupted, and it has every year sent forth its graduates to 
extend its reputation and influence. It was organized in the 
last century—so long ago that the reminiscences of its early 
history and of its eminent founder are faint, and fast passing 
away, and on this account my colleagues have more than 
"This lecture was road bo fore the Now Hampshire Medical Society at 
their semi-annual meeting, at Hanover, N. li., Sept. 17,1879, and a copy 
was requested for publication in their Proceedings. 
f That of Harvard College, 17sa, and of the University of Pennsylvania, 
The College of Physicians and Surgeons, of New York, 1S<>7. is 
fourth in age, (X. S. Davis, M. I).. Contributions to the History of Medi- 
cal Education, »)kc., in tin* United States,) and lias its 7.‘M annual course 
(ktober 1, 1879. 4 
once requested me to prepare a memorial sketch of the school 
for an occasion like the present. 
In compliance with this request, I have attempted, with 
the aid of some scattered, fragmentary documents,* and com- 
munications from a few surviving friends and pupils, to 
furnish a concise account of the menf who were chiefly con- 
cerned in its founding, and in giving it character and reputa- 
tion during the first forty years of its existence—from 1797 
to 1837. Those persons, who, as pioneers of important enter- 
prises, or as founders of useful and valuable institutions, 
have conferred permanent benefits upon the country or a 
community, deserve to have their labors commemorated and 
their memory kept green—at least in the institutions they 
have established. 
The preparation of this sketch has afforded me great 
pleasure, and has impressed me with a deep sense of the value 
and unselfishness of their lives and of the weighty obliga- 
tions laid upon us, their successors in office, to emulate their 
zeal and devotion ; and upon you, young gentlemen, to follow 
in their footsteps, that by a patient continuance in well-doing 
you may reap their reward. 
To weigh rightly the events of early times and the motives 
that gave rise to them, we must, as far as possible, place our- 
selves in the circumstances of the actors. Before the War 
of the Revolution, and as early as the French war, so called, 
these regions were known and had become attractive to many 
enterprising inhabitants of the older provinces of Massa- 
*The most important are “An 'Eulogium oil Nathan Smith, M. D., 
late Professor of the Theory and Practice of Physic and Surgery in the 
Medical Institution of Yale College, pronounced at his funeral by Jona- 
than Knight, M. D., Professor of Anatomy and Physiology. 
“ New Haven, 1829.” 
“ An address occasioned by the death of Nathan Smith, M. D., First 
Lecturer in the Medical School of Maine, at Bowdoin College, by William 
Allen, D. D., President of Bowdoin College. 
“ Brunswick, 1829.” 
These will he freely quoted as Prof. K. and Pres. A. 
f These were Nathan Smith, Lyman Spalding, Cyrus Perkins, Reuben 
D. Mussey, Daniel Oliver, James F. Dana, Usher Parsons, Benjamin 
Hale. A notice of Dr. Smith only was read to the New Hampshire 
Medical Society, and of the others to the class in successive lectures. 5 
chusetts and Connecticut, who for various reasons sought 
here a new home. Townships had been surveyed and divided 
and proprietors’ rights offered for sale in all the older settle- 
ments. Hy the immigration of some of their best citizens 
and families there was a transfer to these new regions of the 
same powerful energy which had characterized the early 
English settlers, with the added experience of one hundred 
and fifty years. They were at times exposed to the hostile 
incursions of the Indians from the North, and always had to 
encounter the difficulties and deprivations attending the sub- 
jugation of a heavily wooded country, whose magnificent 
forests indicated the strength of the soil beneath.* 
Rev. Eleazer Wheelock,f a distinguished and benevolent 
clergyman, had, since about 1752, conducted at Lebanon, 
Conn., a private charitable enterprise for the education of 
Indian youth, called from an early benefactor,J “Moor's In- 
dian Charity School.” 
This school he desired, for its greater usefulness, to remove 
to a favorable locality nearer the Indians, and also to found 
a college in connection with it, for general education in tlie 
new country. 
His intentions and inquiries were widely published, and 
attracted much attention, and he received liberal offers of land 
and privileges from Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts, 
and New Hampshire. 
The offer from New Hampshire seemed the most advantage- 
ous, and was accepted ; large grants and gifts of land from 
the governor and individuals were secured ; a liberal charter 
for “Dartmouth College” was obtained from the Honorable 
♦The nines at Hanover were from 250 to 270 feet high.—Life of 
Wheelock. 
tGraduate of Yale, 1733, and the first “Scholar of tlie House” on tlie 
“ Berkeley Fund,” S. '1'. I). Edinburgh Univ.. 1707, horn at Windham, 
Conn., April 22. 1711, died at Hanover, April 24, 1770. and his son. Col. 
John Wheelock, succeeded him and presided 30 years. He was great- 
grandson of Ralph Wheelock, of Shropshire, in England, a graduate of 
Clare Hall. Cambridge, 1026, who came soon after to Dedham and Mod- 
Held, Mass. 
{Joshua More, who gave “ about two acres of pasturing and a small 
house and shop " in Lebanon. 6 
John Wentworth, Governor of the Province, in 1769; and 
late in the autumn of 1770 President Wheelock came with 
his family and pupils and a few settlers, cleared off the forest 
from some six acres, where is now “the Common” of Han- 
over, built their log cabins in the wilderness, organized the 
college, with its four classes, under their several tutors, and 
laid the foundations of a civil and religious society whose 
line has gone forth into all the earth. The two institutions 
grew apace, and the college soon became a center of light and 
knowledge to the surrounding region. 
The Indian school, by reason of the removal and fading 
away of the Aborigines, has now nearly vanished, while the 
college, with its several departments, holds rank among the 
first in our country. 
We, of this generation and of this school, have abundant 
cause to remember this resolute, far-seeing, eminent founder, 
who planted the germ of the vigorous stock upon which, 
within thirty years, was to be engrafted by a fellow-worker, 
a hud of a kindred species of intellectual fruitage—even the 
New Hampshire Medical Institution, whose eighty-third 
course of lectures opens to-day—just one hundred years from 
the death of President Eleazer Wheplock, and fifty years from 
the death of Nathan Smith. 
The history of this school begins, and during all its early 
years is identified, with the life of Nathan Smith, its founder 
and supporter. 
The tide of emigration, about the time of Wheelock, had 
brought from Rehoboth, Mass., his parents and family, who 
had settled in Chester, Vermont, at the eastern foot of the 
Green Mountains. This son was horn at Rehoboth, Septem- 
ber 30, 1762. His father was a respectable farmer of mod- 
erate pecuniary resources. 
His youth was passed in the usual routine of a farm life, 
with the stimulating amusements of a new country, hunting* 
and fishing, of which he was fond in mature life, with only 
*UA propensity or taste which found its gratification amongst the 
wild fowl of Casco Bay,” when lecturing at Bowdoin.—Pres. A., p. !). 7 
the ordinary meant* of education in the district schools in the 
winter, and the additional discipline of teaching, at times, 
himself, and he made good use of his opportunities. 
Happy is the man who has, in his youth in the country, 
become familiar with the seasons and their occupations, from 
seed time to harvest, and with the no less manly and invig- 
orating pursuits of the winter ; who knows all the shruhs 
and trees of the forest, and the streams that water them, and 
their various inhabitants ; who has observed the laws of life 
and has developed a true humanity by his kind and faithful 
care of domestic animals, and a sound judgment from his 
varied experience. 
I do not know a better discipline for the training of boys, 
physically and morally, thereby securing that most desirable, 
indispensable equilibrium of forces, styled the “Mens sana 
in corpore sano.” Very few incidents of Smith’s early life 
have come down to 11s. 
When still a youth, near the close of the Revolutionary 
War, he served with the Vermont militia* who were stationed 
on the northern frontier to protect the inhabitants against 
the incursions of the Indians, in which service he encountered 
the risks of Indian warfare and the hardships incident to 
this life in the wilderness, in common with thousands of the 
inhabitants. We may presume that young Smith had de- 
veloped marked traits of character, patience, courage, indus- 
try, perseverance, self-reliance, and integrity, which, under 
genial and favorable circumstances, were to give him a de- 
cided superiority over his fellow-men ; but surrounded by 
this very limited horizon or environment, there seemed little 
chance for him to show what he might become in changed 
conditions. 
We have all observed how an unexpected, and it may be 
a seemingly trivial incident, may give a new direction to and 
change the purpose of a whole life. Such a new direction 
* “ Vermont conducted its military operations during the war indepen- 
dent of the United States.”—Noah Webster’s Am. Selections, 3d part, 
122 ed., 1793. 8 
was given to Mr. Smith’s career when he was about twenty- 
one years of age,* by his being present accidentally, or shall 
we not say Providentially, when Dr. Josiah Goodhue, of 
Putney, Vt.—for many years the most celebrated surgeon in 
this upper portion of the valley of the Connecticut—performed 
an important surgical operation at Chester, Vt.f He watched 
it with intense interest. By what mental process or sudden 
illumination he was inspired he probably could not have told, 
but he was “penetrated with a desire to know more of a sub- 
ject so wonderful and novel as the structure of the human 
body.”! The surgeon seemed to him a ministering angel of 
comfort, and to become a student of medicine was his highest 
wish. 
He requested Dr. Goodhue § to receive him as a pupil. 
The doctor inquired as to his previous course of life, and what 
were his acquirements. He replied, “ Until last night I have 
labored with my hands during my life.” Dr. Goodhue told 
him kindly that he was not in the habit of receiving students 
who had not some adequate preparatory education, giving 
him as the reason that the profession there was in a low state, 
and that to elevate it in reality and in the public estimation, 
only young men properly qualified should be encouraged to en- 
gage in it. He advised Mr. Smith to study with some good 
instructor till he was qualified to enter the Freshman Class of 
Harvard College, and he would then receive him as a pupil. 
*Prof. K., Pres. A., and Dr. N. R. Smith in, Preface to “Med. and 
Surg. Memoirs,” by his father, all say he was now “ 24 years old,” hut as 
he was born in 1762, and he states in his Essay on Typhus Fever that he 
began practice at Cornish in 1787, when 25 years old, and allowing one 
year with Mr. Whiting and three with Dr. G.—4 years—lie could have 
been only 21 years old when he saw the operation. 
f Personal communication by Dr. Twitcliell, of Keene, to his student, 
Dr. II. F. Crain, of Springfield, Vt., and by him to me, Hanover, Sept. 17, 
1879. 
jSilliman, Yale Book, v. 2. 
§Dr. G. removed from Putney to Chester, 1808 ; to Hadley, Mass., 
1816 ; was President of Trustees of Berkshire Medical College ; died in 
1829, aged 70, at Keene, N. H., when visiting his daughter, wife of Dr. 
Amos Twitcliell; operated by trepanning forty and more times ; strang- 
ulated hernia thirty; first who amputated at shoulder joint in New Eng- 
land.—Dr. S. W. Williams, Address Berkshire Med. Inst., Nov. 20, 1829. 9 
Nothing daunted by this postponement of his request and 
the condition imposed, he at once placed himself under the 
tuition of Rev. Mr. Whiting, of Rockingham, Vt., till the 
required condition was fulfilled. He then studied with Dr. 
Goodhue for three years. The intimacy thus commenced be- 
tween the faithful and judicious instructor and the zealous 
and grateful pupil, ripened into a strong and lifelong friend- 
ship, Dr. Goodhue dying a few months after Dr. Smith.* 
In the life of “Dr. Amos Twitchell, by Dr. H. I. Bow- 
ditch,” pp. 28-80, is the following account of Dr. Goodhue’s 
operation, &c., given by Dr. Perry, of Boston, to Dr. B., 
and received by Dr. P. from Dr. Goodhue himself: 
Young Smith was a teacher of the adjacent district school, 
when it was rumored that the important operation of amputa- 
tion of the thigh was to be performed by Dr. Goodhue. The 
village was alive upon the subject, and many gathered at the 
house of the patient, apparently attracted by simple curiosity. 
When all was prepared, Dr. Goodhue, not having sufficient 
medical assistance, asked of the assembled company whether 
any one would hold the limb that was to be taken off. Im- 
mediately a strange and rather ungainly backwoodsman- 
looking youth stepped up boldly and offered his aid. 
Dr. Goodhue was struck with the apparently intense in- 
terest that he took in the proceedings, and with his unflinch- 
ing steadiness of nerve. Smith even tied the arteries as Good- 
hue took them up, and did so without tremor. 
After all was finished and most of the villagers had left, 
the youth still remained, fixed on the spot, with his hands in 
his pockets, apparently in deep thought. Suddenly he ex- 
claimed, in Yankee phrase and tone, somewhat as follows: 
“Look ye here, I think l should like to study medicine 
with you. 1 am the teacher in your (the?) district school, 
and after my term has finished, I’ll begin.” 
Dr. Goodhue scanned him well, and answered: “Stop, 
young man, not so fast; let me see what you know.” Finding 
that he was deficient in his preliminary education, Dr. Good- 
* This account from Prof. K. 10 
hue stated his opinion and the youth left. The doctor never 
thought of the subject until many months afterward, when 
an unknown individual appeared suddenly at his house, with 
his pack on his back, apparently prepared to stay. “Well 
(cried the stranger,) I have come back to study with you, but 
you must let me earn my board, for I have spent all my 
money in ‘fitting,’ as you told me, for college.” 
An explanation soon took place, and Dr. Goodhue perceiv- 
ing the qualities possessed by his extraordinary companion, 
generously offered him a home and medical tuition, while the 
youth on his part was to assist by performing any manual 
labor that might arise in the country physician’s family. 
In 1787,* Dr. Smith, now twenty-five years of age, began 
practice at Cornish, N. H., though without any diploma. 
After about two years, he became so conscious of the defi- 
ciency of his education, and of how much there was yet to be 
learned, that he determined again to become a pupil, and for 
this purpose went to Cambridge and renewed his studies, by 
attending the lectures of Dr. John Warren on Anatomy and 
Surgery, Dr. Aaron Dexter on Chemistry and Materia Medica, 
and Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse on Theory and Practice, of 
the Medical Department,j* to which he added those of Pro- 
fessor Samuel Webber J on Natural Philosophy, in the Col- 
lege; which was probably his first course of lectures. At 
the close of the term he read an “Inaugural Dissertation” 
on “the Circulation of the Blood,” which was received with 
high approbation, and at the request of the Faculty was pub- 
lished. At the Harvard Commencement in 1790, he took the 
degree of M. B., the only one in a class of four,§ and he re- 
turned to Cornish with increased knowledge and zeal, where 
he continued to practice for the next six years. 
* “ Med. and Surg. Memoirs,” p. 45. 
t Organized in 1783. These Professors constituted the Faculty, and 
all received the degree of M. D. in 1780. 
{Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy, 1789-1800, and 
President, 1800-1810. 
§One degree of M. B. was conferred in each of the first four years, 
1788-91. 11 
The crude condition of the profession in New Hampshire 
and V ermont, already well known, was now more than ever 
obvious and painful to him, but as he had secured for himself 
a considerable eminence, why not selfishly enjoy the benefit? 
His whole life of self-sacrifice and devotion to his profession 
showed that he had no such element in his character. There 
were at this time but three schools of medicine in the United 
States—two of them in Philadelphia and New York,* and 
one at Cambridge. To attend either of the first two was 
entirely out of the question, and never thought of by students 
of this region, and on account of poverty almost none could 
go to Cambridge for medical instruction. It was plain, there- 
fore, that the great majority of the students of medicine in 
New England were unable to avail themselves of the advan- 
tages of a scientific education. 
It was the universal custom for students to become regu- 
larly apprenticedf to some retired “army surgeon,” or skill- 
ful practitioner, for a term of three or four years, during 
which the preceptor was entitled to their services in prepar- 
ing medicines, attending on the sick, and in such operations 
it) minor surgery as they were qualified for; in return they 
were to receive thorough instruction in all the branches of 
medicine. 
Dr. Smith determined to/attempt a remedy for this state of 
the profession, by furnishing to students the means of obtain- 
ing a correct medical education. 
He has left no transcript of his thoughts, hut in seeking 
how to accomplish his purpose and to prepare himself for 
what seemed too great a responsibility to he carried alone, 
his clear head was ready with a plan, and his energy was 
equal to its accomplishment—i. e., he would himself (jive pub- 
lic instruction in medicine. 
As a stream can never rise higher than the fountain, he 
saw that he must cultivate himself still more to he fitted for 
♦'I'lic Medical School of Columbia College, discontinued In 1810. 
Davis, Contrlb., ]>. 2.‘1. 
t Davis. Contrlb., p. 24. 12 
such a duty, and that he must go to the best sources in 
Europe for that purpose. 
Before doing this he made an application to the Trustees 
of Dartmouth College, which is recorded at their annual 
meeting in August, 1796, “ asking their encouragement and 
approbation of a plan he had devised to establish a Pro- 
fessorship of the Theory and Practice of Medicine in connec- 
tion with Dartmouth College.” 
His plan was fully approved by President John Wheelock.* 
The scheme, novel and far-reaching, was favorably received 
and discussed by the Trustees, and a resolution complimentary 
to the character and energy of Dr. Smith was passed, and 
hope given of future encouragement; hut it was “ voted to 
postpone final action upon the proposition for a year.” Was 
Dr. Smith discouraged or led to suspend his purpose because 
of the proposed deliberation ? Not at all more than when 
Dr. Goodhue advised him to special study. His resolution 
was taken, and he went straight forward to accomplish his 
plan, just the same as if the Trustees had adopted or entirely 
declined his request. He would have undertaken public in- 
struction alone; as later, George McClellan, M. D., when a 
young physician in Philadelphia, was lecturing to ninety 
private students. 
At this time the University of Edinburgh was distinguished 
by a corps of eminent medical professors and writers, and 
was a great center of medical teaching, taking rank with the 
universities of Paris, Leyden, and Berlin. 
Within about three months from the action of the Trus- 
tees as above mentioned, and on his own resources,f “ Dr. 
Smith left a practice which had now become lucrative,” and 
went to Edinburgh “to qualify himself more thoroughly for 
this employment, which he probably foresaw was to occupy 
a large portion of his future life;”! and thus a second time 
*Pres. A., p. 10. 
17. e., he borrowed the money of Hon. Sanford Kingsbury, the owner 
of the now noted Consul Jarvis farm, and repaid it. 
| Prof. K. 13 
he became a pupil after commencing practice. “In Decem- 
ber, 179G, lie sailed from Boston in the bark Hope, for Glas- 
gow.”* 
“ Early in 1797, he attended the medical lectures at Glas- 
gow, and at Edinburgh under Monro,f Kecundus, on Anato- 
my and Surgery, and Black, on Chemistry,| for three months, 
and proceeded in April to London, where he was diligently 
engaged in the hospitals and with eminent physicians for 
four months more. He sent home to the college library, 
from Edinburgh, medical books of the value of .£30 sterling, 
and brought with him apparatus lor anatomy, surgery, and 
chemistry, which he deemed indispensable for commencing 
the proposed medical institution, and arrived at Boston in the 
ship Apollo about September 10, 1797.Ӥ 
A learned American gentleman wrote from London to 
President Wheelock concerning him : “With pleasure I ac- 
knowledge your letter by Dr. Nathan Smith, who has lately 
come here from Edinburgh. I am thankful to you for intro- 
ducing him to me. His manners, conversation, and science 
entitle him to my esteem and your recommendation to my 
attention.” Just after he left London, in consequence of a 
letter from President Wheelock to Dr. John Coakley Lett- 
som, || he was elected a Corresponding Member of the Medical 
Society of London, while in this country he had not yet ob- 
tained the degree of M. I). “This diploma was committed 
*Pres. A., p. 10. Doubtless on the 18tli, as he writes his wile from “on 
hoard the bark Hope, December 17, 17!<(>. We expect ii fair wind in the 
morning and a pleasant voyage.” He writes from “Glasgow, January 
24, 1707,” probably on his arrival. 
fSee Appendix A. 
J llis last course. 
§ Pres. A., p. 10. The price of passage to Glasgow was #7">; to London. 
#170 ; he chose the former for economy in going out. 
|| Horn in Little Vandyke, one of the Virgin Islands. \V. L, 22 Novem- 
ber, 1744. A “Friend,” M. 1). Leyden, June 29. 1700—Thesis, “Ob- 
servationes ad vires These pertinentes,”—in 1770, with a few medical prac- 
titioners, organized “The Medical Society of London.” In 1788 gave it 
a house for its meetings. Business from 1780 to 1800 from £5,000 to 
£12,000 yearly. Presented Harvard College in 1704-0 some 800 speci- 
mens of valuable minerals, “the Lettsom Cabinet,” called “the richest 
and most extensive collection of minerals in the United States,” and re- 
ceived an LL. I).—Pettigrew’s Memoirs of Life. Ac., 0 vols., London, 
1817. Appendix B. 14 
to General Ira Allen, who, in his voyage, was captured by a 
British man-of-war.”* 
The first course of lectures was delivered promptly after 
his return from Europe, in the fall of 1797,t before his elec- 
tion as Professor. 
In August, 1798,| the plan proposed by Dr. Smith in 1796 
was adopted by the Trustees, and he was appointed a Pro- 
fessor, “ whose duty it shall be to deliver public lectures upon 
Anatomy, Surgery, Chemistry, and the Theory and Practice 
of Physic.” A complete schedule was prescribed as to the 
course of lectures and the conditions of study and graduation, 
and the degree of A. M. was conferred on Dr. Smith, while 
that of M. D. only came in 1801. The fable of the emer- 
gence of Minerva fully armed from Jupiter’s brain is hardly 
more remarkable than the complete evolution of this school, 
and the placing of it on the shoulders of one man. 
It is related of our late lamented and accomplished col- 
league, Dr. E. R. Peaslee, that he lectured in different 
schools on nearly all the branches of medicine, but I think it 
can be said truly of no man but Dr. Smith, that he gave in- 
struction for years in all the departments at the same school. 
At the commencement, August, 1798, two young men re- 
ceived the degree of M. B. as the first fruits, and one of them, 
Joseph Adams Gallup, M. D., 1814, became eminent as a 
practitioner, Professor in Castleton Medical College, and 
author. His diploma then conferred—a handsome copper- 
plate—we have as a memorial of this eventful period. 
The interest excited by the instruction in this new depart- 
ment is curiously illustrated by an anecdote related to me 
by a gentleman who was, early in this century, an under- 
graduate in the college : 
President Wheelock came from Dr. Smith’s lecture room 
* Pres. A., p. 11. 
f Smith’s History Dartmouth College, p. 342. Dr. S. letter to his wife, 
“ Hanover, November 20, 1797.—I am so much engaged here, and the 
time for beginning my business is so near, that I cannot come to Cornish 
till 1 begin my lectures.” Pres. A., p. 12, says “ early in 1798.” 
| Appendix C. 15 
to evening prayers in the ol<l chapel, and gave thanks, in 
substance,'as follows: “Oh, Lord! we thank Thee for the 
Oxygen gas ; we thank Thee for the Hydrogen gas; and for 
all the gases. We thank Thee for the Cerebrum ; we thank 
Thee for the cerebellum ; and for the medulla oblongata.”* 
After Dr. Smith’s ofhcial connection with Hanover,! he 
engaged in a wide practice of medicine and surgery, mostly 
on horseback, over a rugged country, with poor roads, often 
nearly impassable, exposed to all the vicissitudes of the 
weather, and every autumn addressed himself with charac- 
teristic ardor and faithfulness to the work of instruction, 
leading his classes skillfully through the several departments 
of medical science by a much more direct path than he had 
trodden, and imparting to them his own knowledge, experi- 
ence, and energy. 
His first and only colleague! at Hanover was Dr. Cyrus 
Perkins, (Dart., 1800, M. B., 1802, M. D., 1810,) who was 
appointed Professor of Anatomy and Surgery in 1810, at the 
request of Dr. Smith, “ for relief from teaching Anatomy.” 
He worked successfully with Dr. Smith till I81d, and with 
new members of the Faculty till 1810, when he removed to 
New York City, and died at Kossville, Staten Island, in 
1840, aged 70. 
Dr. Smith was skilfully aided in 1708 and 1700 by his pu- 
pil, Lyman Spalding, M. B., Harvard, 1707, who lectured 
on and Materia Medica, and printed for the use 
* Isaac Patterson, Esq., Hath, N. H.,Dartmouth, 1812, confirms this as 
occurring in 1810, in lettftr, October 13, 1870. 
t He removed his family to Hanover, probably in the spring of 1803, as 
the Trustees in August, 1804, voted him an annual salary of $200 on this 
condition. 
J l’rof. K., p. 10, says: “The medical school flourished under his 
auspices ami those of the able professors who were associated with him.” 
Silliman, Yale Hook, v. 2, p. 08, Memoir of l)r. N. K., says : “ After hav- 
ing single-handed taught for several years the various branches of medi- 
cine and surgery and the auxiliary sciences, and spent about a year in 
(Jreat Hrltain, he returned home, where he was now sustained by an able 
corps of associates.” This is an error. He went abroad before he began 
to teach, and had no Associate Professors; but one in 1810-13. 
§ Chemistry was first taught by Dr. John Maclean, in the College of 
New Jersey, 1703, and by his pupil, Prof. B. Silliman, in Yale College, 
April 4, 1804. “At the Commencement of Dartmouth in 1801, Daniel 
Webster pronounced a discourse on ‘The recent discoveries in Chemistry, 
especially those of Lavoisier,’ then recently made public.” Life of Prof. 
A. Alexander, p. 250. Appendix D. 16 
of the classes, “A new Nomenclature* of Chemistry, pro- 
posed by Messrs. DeMorveau, Lavoisier, Berthollet, and 
Fourcroy, with additions and improvements.” He published 
“ A Dissertation* on the Bilious Malignant Fever” (Dr. 
Smith’s Typhous) that prevailed at and around Dartmouth 
College in the summer of 1798, and on graduation at Harvard, 
an “Inaugural Dissertation on the Production of Animal 
Heat.”* Dr. Spalding afterwards attained distinction as a 
practitioner in Portsmouth, N. H., and New York City; as 
President and Professor in the Medical School of the Western 
District of the State of New York, at Fairfield, in 1812; and 
as the Originator, in 1817, of the movement for a Pharmaco- 
poeia of the United States, adopted hy a convention of delegates 
representing the profession, at Washington, in January, 
1820; and Chairman of the Committee of Publication that 
issued it to the profession, and he was the acknowledged 
“Head” of the whole scheme,f its inception and completion, 
as appears from the historical documents. 
There is a tradition, current for the last half century, that 
the lectures were given at first in a small two-story house of 
four rooms, that stood just in front of this building, which is 
called in Dr. Smith’s first deed of a site to the State, “the 
Medical House,J being the house next southerly of my dwell- 
ing-house.” 
In August, 1799, the Trustees “devoted and fitted up room 
No. 6,” in the north-east corner and first story of Dartmouth 
Hall for Dr. Smith’s lectures, and in August, 1803, provided 
further accommodations in an adjacent room; “which two 
served for a lecture hall, dissecting room, chemical laboratory, 
and library,” until the present medical building was erected 
in 1811. 
* All seen in the Library of the N". Y. Ilospital. 
t Prof. Asa Gray, Am. Journal Science, Apr., 1879, p. 264, speaks of 
Dr. Jacob Bigelow as “at the head, or at the laboring oar, of the Com- 
mittee, which, in 1820, formed the American Pharmacopoeia.” The lat- 
ter part of the statement is correct, and he was on the Committee of 
Publication. Dr. S. died at Portsmouth, N. II., Oct. 31, 1821, rE. 46 
years. Dr. B. died at Boston, January 10, 1879, at 92 years. 
t Removed years ago to the south-west corner of the village, and is 
now the Westgate house. 17 
The school prospered under these most inadequate condi- 
tions, hut it was obvious that private funds could no longer 
provide for what was in its scope and effects a public institu- 
tion 
In 1803, on the application of Dr. Smith for aid, the Legis- 
lature of New Hampshire voted an appropriation of $600 for 
apparatus, and on his solicitation the Stategave a further sum 
of $3,450 to erect a building, of brick or stone, for a Medical 
School, on condition that “ he would give a site for it and 
assign to the State his Anatomical Museum and Chemical 
Apparatus.” 
His house, which stood north and by the well at the en- 
trance to Prof. Hardy’s place, was burned in 1855. He 
owned a small farm of about forty acres, extending from 
Prof. Lord’s house on the south to some distance above Prof. 
Hardy’s house, with the front on the opposite side of the 
street, and the hill on the east, then covered with a beautiful 
grove of ancient oaks and maples, which were mostly cut 
off by a subsequent owner after 1840, and twenty or more 
acres of meadow lying east of the hill and on the road east 
from the college. 
He gave for the site, December 31, 1810, a half acre, just 
east of this building, higher on the hill. This was found 
inconvenient of access, and June 1, 1811, he conveyed to the 
State of New Hampshire forty-five square rods, the site we 
now occupy,* and this building of brick was erected, sev- 
enty-five feet by thirty-two, having twof commodious lecture 
rooms in the two-story center, and two three-story wings for 
library, chemical laboratory, museums, &c., Ac. 
It is understood the appropriation made by the State was 
insufficient, and Dr. Smith raised more money to complete 
*H»* reserved “a road or passway from the road (or highway) to these 
lots, twenty feet wide, from the lines of the lot of II. Hutchinson,” 1 SI4, 
(now occupied by Prof. Lord,) and passing between and including the 
two large maple trees on the edge of the hill. V. decal of N. S. to Yale 
College, and of Yale College to Blaisdell and Hubbard, 2X March, ls:t!>. 
fThe upper room now contains the new and valuable Stoughton Mu- 
seum of Pathology. 18 
the work, and thus was provided a comfortable “habitation,” 
in which became permanently established “the New Hamp- 
shire Medical Institution.” 
From whatever point we view it, this enterprise was a bold 
one, quite akin to that of Wheelock in founding the college, 
and a natural sequence of it. Every new country has a 
heroic period, in which it is especially true that “ every man 
is the artificer of his own fortune.” It was unprecedented 
for a young physician, without a liberal education and with 
very small resources, to attempt to found alone a professional 
school, When a similar one connected with the first college of 
New England, (Harvard,) founded in 1640, was with difficulty 
sustained under the instruction of three eminent and learned 
men.* We can see from this recital how completely Hr. 
Smith triumphed over difficulties which no other man would 
have dared to encounter, and how decidedly his sagacity 
and good judgment were confirmed as to the wants of the 
profession, and the means of meeting the dearth of medical 
science by the supply of educated physicians. The prosperity 
of the school was secured, and in 1814 its classes had in- 
creased in numbers to seventy-seven. 
The school at Cambridge gave its first degree in 1788, and 
up to 1798 there were twenty graduates. Comparing the 
two schools from 1798 to 1828, both inclusive, Harvard grad- 
uated two hundred and thirty students of medicine, and Dart- 
mouth three hundred and forty ; and to this date, one thou- 
sand three hundred and fifty-five. 
If this were the climax of Dr. Smith’s life and he bad 
rested from his labors, and this school was his only monu- 
ment, we might justly inscribe upon it, “ Gaudet tentamine 
virtus.”f It is impossible that a man capable of accomplish- 
ing these results should not have acquired an eminent fame 
beyond the immediate scene of his labors. The graduates of 
*Pres. A., p. 12, says: “ For some years after 1798 there were but few 
Students of medicine attendant ou the lectures, as I may safely assert 
from being a hearer of them myself.” 
f The Dartmouth motto. 19 
thin school, “young, enterprising and intelligent physicians, 
had settled in the neighboring parts of New Hampshire and 
Vermont, as well as in more distant places of New England.* 
They all looked up to him as their friend and professional 
father, and wished him as their counsellor. This, together 
with his deservedly high and continually increasing reputa- 
tion as a kind, attentive, and skillful physician and surgeon, 
drew upon him a vast amount of business. The good which 
ho accomplished by affording advice and counsel, and im- 
parting a portion of his own vigor and energy to the younger 
members of his profession, as well as the more direct benefit 
which he gave the sick, can scarcely be estimated.” 
Dr. Smith seemed now well established at Hanover, where 
he was surrounded by friends, and the school, “the child of 
his hope which he had raised from the cradle,”f was in a 
vigorous and thriving condition ; but the country was poor, 
remuneration for practice and instruction not large, and 
somewhat precarious, with his unbounded professional gen- 
erosity his income was small, while discouragements and 
difficulties of a local character were not wanting. 
Just then, 1812, Yale College determined to establish a 
Medical Department, and wished a man of ripe professional 
experience and tried success for the enterprise. There was 
no hesitation in the selection. Dr. Smith was called to take 
the foremost place and responsibility, He accepted the ap- 
pointment of Professor of the Theory and Practice of Medi- 
cine and of Surgery, commenced his lectures in New Haven, in 
1813, when fifty-one years old, which he continued annually 
through his life. “In the year 1814,J by the personal ex- 
ertions of Dr. Nathan Smith, funds to the amount of 
$20,000 were obtained by a grant from the Legislature of the 
State of Connecticut. With these a new stone building was 
* Prof. K., et seq. 
t Pres. A., p. 14. 
| Prof. K., Introductory Lecture, 18.'t8, p. 8. The Sheffield S. S. Build- 
ing, ut the head of College street (erected by Hon. James llillhouse, 
originally for a tavern,) and land adjacent on the east and north, where 
was Prof. Eli Ives's Botanical Garden. 20 
purchased, a Library was begun, and the foundation of an 
Anatomical Museum was laid.”* He was now far more 
eligibly situated for his practice, which was very large in the 
city and vicinity. “ He was called in time into every county 
and almost every town in the State. The sick and unfortu- 
nate from every part of the country collected to receive the 
benefit of his skill, and his life was one continuous scene of 
active, laborious, and useful exertion.” Under the auspices 
of Dr. Smith and his eminent associates, Professors Silliman, 
Ives, and Knight,f the school prospered, and the classes ad- 
vanced to ninety members during his life. 
Dr. Smith’s resignation at Dartmouth was not accepted 
till 1814. He was re-elected in 1816, but declined the elec- 
tion, gave a final course of lectures in 1816, J and removed his 
family to New Haven in the spring of 1817. During all 
this time he practiced extensively in all this region in the 
summer, certainly as late as 1821. 
In 1820, the new State of Maine established a Medical 
School, with an annual appropriation of $1,000 a year, which 
was opened at Bowdoin College in the spring of 1821. Dr. 
Smith was called to organize this school also, the third, and 
for five§ years, from 1821 to 1825, inclusive, he carried as 
usual the chief burden, and gave all the lectures, except in 
Chemistry and on Anatomy, from which he was relieved after 
two years. He gave, also, four|| courses of lectures at the 
University of Vermont, as “ Lecturer on Medicine and Sur- 
gery,” 1822-1825, making some forty-two general courses 
with which he was connected in the thirty-two years from 
1797 to 1828, both inclusive, and giving instruction in dif- 
* Prof. Kingsley, Christian Spectator, v. 1, p. 642, says: “At liis death 
he gave his Library to the Medical School.” 
|“Only Dr. S. held a diploma from any regularly organized (Medical) 
Institution.” Yale Book, v. 2, p. 65. 
J Attended by sixty-six medical and forty-four college students. Y. 
Sheet Catalogue, 1816. 
§Pres. A., p. 16. Prof. K., p. 12, says, “two.” 
|| Triennial Catalogue, University of Vermont, from J. E. Goodrich, 
Librarian, where his son, N. 11. Smith, M. D., was Professor of Anatomy 
and Physic. 21 
ferent departments in about one hundred and thirty-eight * 
special courses. During tliis time Dr. Smith saw numerous 
other schools established in various parts ot‘ the country, at- 
tended by some 2,000 students.f “ To him, more than to 
any other man, it is believed, may be ascribed this rapid in- 
crease in the advantages for medical education in America. 
Who can estimate the value of the results, which may he 
traced to the blessing of God, on the enterprise of one man.” 
An eminent Professor of Yale College wrote of him : 
“ His lectures, which were commonly, if not always extem- 
poraneous, were probably at no period more fraught with 
various knowledge and with the results of recent observation 
and reading, than from the time he removed to New Ilaven 
till his death. 
It is plain that no man can carry such a burden of duty 
and responsibility indefinitely. The end comes far too early, 
and the world reluctantly surrenders such an invaluable 
treasure. We are indebted to Professor Knight for the fol- 
lowing account of his last illness :§ 
“In July, 1828, Dr. Smith had a severe but short illness, 
which left him in a debilitated state. Weakness and oc- 
casional attacks of illness continued through the summer and 
autumn. Though enfeebled in body, his mind retained its 
usual vigor and activity, and unwilling to yield to what he 
probably considered a trivial complaint, he continued, with 
the exception of a few days, his laborious employments. He 
was now in the midst of his annual course of lectures, when, 
toward the close of December, he was attacked with a severe 
vertiginous affection, which was alleviated by remedies. On 
January 13th, he perceived a slight numbness of his left 
hand and a trifling indistinctness in his articulation. These 
*A near estimate. Prof. Blumenbach, of Gottiugeii, In fifty years 
gave one hundred courses of lectures. 
fPres. A., j). 10. 
J Prof. .T. L. Kingsley, Christian Spectator, v. 1, p. 044. Rev. of 
Dwight’s Travels in North Germany, 1825-0, in defense of American 
Professors. 
§ Prof. K., p. 13. 22 
symptoms gradually increased until the morning of the 26th, 
(Jan., 1829,) when the powers of life became exhausted, and 
at six o’clock, in the sixty-seventh year of his age, he slept 
the sleep of death.”* 
During his illness he was tenderly watched by his col- 
leagues and their families day and night. A favorite and 
admiring pupil, Dr. George C. Shattuck, (a graduate of 
Dartmouth, 1803, M. B., 1806, and M. D., 1812,) came on from 
Boston to see him, and comforted his last hours by promising 
to assume the education of his youngest son—then in his second 
year at Yale—which promise he faithfully fulfilled. Dr. 
Reuben D. Mussey, his pupil and successor here, (Dartmouth, 
1803, M. B., 1806, and M. D., 1812,) was also by his bedside 
with kind ministrations. 
In regard to the religious character of Dr. Smith, “ there 
is reason to believe his last days were his best days.” He 
had never made a profession of his faith, though he had been 
an attendant upon the public worship of God, and always 
“ regarded the institutions and the ministers of religion with 
the highest reverence.” 
“A friend held a long and deeply interesting conversation 
with him some months before his death, in which he ex- 
pressed his full conviction of the truth of the Christian re- 
ligion. ”f On its consolations he seemed to rely in the clos- 
ing scenes of his life, “requesting the counsel and prayers 
of several ministers of the gospel.” 
“When one of his friends asked him if in communicating 
the sad fact to one of his sons he might say that ‘ lie died in 
the faith and hopes of the gospel?’ he professed that such 
was the fact, and wished liis friend thus to write. ”J 
The college and the city .of New Haven mourned at his 
death, and a wide-spread sense of bereavement was felt 
throughout all classes ; for the rich and the poor were equally 
his friends and debtors. Professor Silliman wrote: “He 
*Dr. Thomas Hubbard, Pomfret, Conn., succeeded him ; d., 1838. 
f Christian Spectator, v. 1, p. 208,1829. 
J Pres. A., p. 27. 23 
was the favorite of a wider circle of personal acquaintances 
and friends than any other man probably ever enjoyed in 
New England.”* 
1 might now, young gentlemen, leave this brief sketch to 
your own reflections, believing you can draw from this ex- 
example only profitable inferences and principles to form 
your habits of study and professional life ; but it is proper 
and just to add some special delineations of his character, 
recorded by those who knew him.f 
“ Dr. Smith possessed a keen, discriminating inquisitive- 
ness into everything submitted to his inspection—a principle 
of rational inquiry for information to he applied to some 
valuable purpose.” 
“Closely related to this, and perhaps a consequence, his 
memory was remarkable in regard to all the diseases he had 
treated and the operations he had performed, so that he had 
always at command all the results of his experience to con- 
firm and illustrate his opinions.” In all this fullness his 
mind was not inclined to speculation, but rather by “a 
faculty, familiarly called plain common sense,” he could ap- 
ply his knowledge “ to all subjects connected with his pro- 
fession.” 
Dr. Smith had “an undaunted moral courage.” The 
physician or surgeon is often brought into straits by the 
peculiarity or severity of the disease, or the risks from using 
“a powerful remedy or performing a*painful and hazardous 
operation,” as well as embarrassed by the anxiety of friends 
and various social influences. “Having satisfied himself 
what course was best for his patient, he honestly advised and 
fearlessly pursued it, regardless of the censure which might 
follow should it prove unsuccessful.” 
“With him there was no hesitation, no wavering between 
duty and expediency, between the welfare of his patient and his 
own reputation. This conduct in one who valued reputation 
so highly, is the strongest proof of the existence of that 
♦American Journal Science and Arts, v. 16, p. 213. 
1 I’rnf. K., ot. w*q. 24 
courage of the mind so much more noble and so much more 
rarely found than mere physical valor.” “He was especi- 
ally kind, assiduous, and delicate in the treatment of his 
patients,” exhibiting everywhere encouraging words, and 
“the cheerful countenance that doeth good like a medicine 
alleviating the distress as well of the body as of the mind.” 
“ If patients were dangerously sick he watched at their bed- 
side day and night, performing the offices of a kind friend 
as well as those of a skillful physician.” 
“As an instructor the reputation of Dr. Smith was high 
from the first. The fact that he gave instruction upon all 
the branches of medical and surgical science, which was ac- 
ceptable to classes of intelligent young men, many of whom 
have become eminent in their profession, proves not only 
versatility of talent but variety and extent of information, 
with a happy methodvof communicating it. This was simple, 
natural, and unaffected. He sought no aid from an artificial 
style, but merely poured forth, in the plain language of en- 
lightened conversation, the treasures of his wisdom and ex- 
perience.” He said little of theories, but insisted on facts 
and principles illustrated by cases in his own practice, “re- 
lated always in an impressive and often playful manner, to 
jrain the attention and fix the truth in the mind.” 
“He often urged upon his pupils correct moral deportment, 
industrious habits, independent judgment of cases, love of 
the profession, activity in the practice of it, and zeal in the 
promotion of its best interests. His suavity of manner and 
kind interest in the welfare of his pupils gained their affec- 
tion and friendship.” 
“The various relations of life were sustained by Dr. Smith 
in an exemplary manner. As a citizen, the same spirit 
which prompted him to enlist in the service of his country 
when engaged in war, led him to support, by his influence, 
her institutions in time of peace. As a lover of good order, 
he rejoiced in the enaction and the execution of wholesome 
laws and regulations ; and as a friend of morality, he dis- 
countenanced vice in every form. The purity of his life, it 25 
is believed, arose not so much from the restraints of society, 
as from a purity of mind which remained unsullied.” 
“In his relations to his fellow men there are particular 
traits of his character which ought not to pass unnoticed. 
He possessed strong social feelings and habits. Accustomed 
from early life to the society of men in every station, he entered 
readily into unreserved intercourse with all. In companies 
of every kind, learned or unlearned, polished or otherwise, 
his conversation, his fund of anecdote and the acuteness of 
his remarks upon all subjects, whether relating to the com- 
mon affairs of life or the more important concerns of morals 
or literature, rendered him a welcome guest. His manners, 
which were free, yet unassuming and unshackeled by the 
forms of ceremonial observances, were such as to impose no 
inconvenient restraints upon others or upon himself. No 
one delighted more in social intercourse with his friends, 
and in a free interchange of feelings and opinions with 
them. This was one of the pleasures of his life, and en- 
deared him to those with whom he assoeiated.” 
“ Dr. Smith was eminently a benevolent man. He re- 
garded man as a brother, and when in distress, as a brother 
he afforded him relief. No one, it is presumed, ever heard 
him say to the destitute, ‘ Be ye warmed and be ye clothed,’ 
without at the same time furnishing the means of relieving 
their necessities.” 
“ l)r. Smith was more extensively known in New Eng- 
land than any other medical man, or indeed, than any man 
of any profession. The assertion that he has done more for 
the improvement of Physic and Surgery in New England 
than any other man will by no one be deemed invidious, and 
his influence over medical literature, through his large ac- 
quaintance with medical men, by his advice and example, 
as well as more directly through the medium of the various 
medical schools which were favored with his instructions, 
was equally extensive. ” 
Well may his son in honest pride say: “He was instru- 
mental in founding colleges of medicine which now flourish 26 
(even to-day, 1879, and fifty years after his decease) as his 
noblest monuments in several States of New England.” 
“Though he labored sufficiently for earning three for- 
tunes, he died leaving none.”* 
The publications of Dr. Smith are not numerous. He be- 
gan to write as soon as he commenced practice. The earliest 
papers yet discovered are a| Dissertation on the causes 
and effects of spasms in Fevers,” in the Massachusetts Maga- 
zine, vol. 3, 1791, January, p. 33, February, p. 81, and 
another, “Observations on the position of patients in the 
operation for Lithotomy, with a case of a man 72 years old,” 
in the “ Memoirs of the Medical Society of London, vol. 6, 
p. 227, 1805,” in a letter to Dr. Lettsom. One of the most 
important and best known is a “Practical Essay on Typhus 
(Typhoid) Fever, 8vo, 1824, New York,” which our late 
lamented Professor A. B. Crosby said “ was the first com- 
prehensive description of Typhoid Fever written, and covered 
in a wonderfully exhaustive way not only the clinical 
history and pathology of this interesting disease, and in 
which the gist and germ of the magnificent discoveries of 
Louis in the Hospitals of Paris years after are anticipated. ”J 
This appeared again in the “Medical and Surgical Memoirs,” 
where the student will find much of what he did, which is 
original in medicine and surgery. 
He edited, with copious notes and additions, “ A treatise 
on Febrile Diseases, by A. P. Wilson Philips, M. D., 2d 
Am. from 3d London ed., Hartford, 1816, 2 vols.” He 
contributed valuable papers to the Philadelphia Monthly 
Journal, some of which were reprinted in the French Medi- 
* Preface to “Medical and Surgical Memoirs by Nathan Smith, M. I)., 
Professor Theory and Practice Medicine, Surgery and Obstetrics, Yale 
College,” edited by his son, N. It. Smith, M. D., Baltimore, 1831. 
fSee Callisen’s Medicin. Schriftsteller Lexicon Copenhagen, 1833, pp. 
534-537 ; and for abstract of last, Medical and Physical, Jour. v. 15, 1800, 
—London. 
J Smith’s History Dartmouth College, pp. 340-7, quoted. Dr. S. in a 
letter to his wife, dated Brunswick, Me., April 4,1823, says : “I am writ- 
ing a book on Typhus Fever; have written it all out, and when copied 
it will be ready for the press. I shall write another on Surgery, which I 
hope to have nearly completed before I leave this place.” 27 
cal Journals.* He ranks as second in time among Ovarioto- 
mists, having performed an original operation at Norwich, 
Vt., July 5, 1821, with no knowledge of McDowell’s opera- 
tions. f Out of thirty caseR of Lithotomy, only three were 
fatal. He lost no patient of hemorrhage, consequent upon 
an operation, and he first in America performed Staphylora- 
phy. His surgical clinic in the first course at Bowdoin, in- 
cluded twenty operations for cataract, one removal of an 
eye, one amputation of a leg, with various others.| 
In reference to necrosis, amputation of the thigh, reduc- 
tion of dislocation of the hip, and treatment of fractures, 
his principles and devices were new and valuable. “To him 
is justly due the credit of having introduced and diffused 
over a large part of New England, the most correct practice 
of all the celebrated surgeons of the last and the present 
century, which is no mean praise.Ӥ 
A few of Dr. Smith’s pupils and friends still survive, and 
have favored me with some particulars of his life. Dr. Abra- 
ham T. Lowe, of Boston, a graduate in 1816 at this school, 
who rode with Dr. Smith at that time five months, has sent 
me some recollections of his pupilage. His fellow-student, 
Nehemiah Cutter, M. 1)., Yale, 1817, was afterwards promi- 
nent in the treatment of Nervous Diseases, at Pepperell, 
Massachusetts. 
He says: “We generally rode on horseback, Dr. Smith in 
the middle. Almost all of our conversation took the form of 
clinical lectures on the surgical and medical cases which we 
visited in our sometimes long circuit of days, and it was 
always interesting and instructive. At this time he was pre- 
paring his edition of ‘ Wilson on Fevers,’ afterward published 
at Hartford. When we were kept from home for a night, 
Dr. Smith would retire to his room and write a chapter or a 
* Pros. A., p. 31. 
11 >r. MoDowoll was studying In Edinburgh, 1793-4. 
} Pr*s. A.. p. 15. 
§ Prof. K., p. 28. 28 
few paragraphs for the work, much of which, I think, was 
written in this way. 
“He was once called in, when riding through Queechy,Vt., 
to see a severe case of secondary dysentery, the patient in 
great distress, and the room full of desparing friends. The 
attending physicians had prescribed sedatives, as they 
thought, with the utmost liberality, but without benefit. 
Dr. Smith asked but one or two questions, and administered 
a compound opiate, in a dose which led his pupils to fear the 
patient would he relieved from all pain and enter the spirit 
land within the coming hour. He waited for the effect of the 
medicine, called the attention of the anxious friends to a re- 
markable yoke of oxen he espied through the window, and 
by inquiries and remarks that led to much conversation, he 
completely diverted their minds. Soon a whisper was heard, 
‘She’s sleeping and again, ‘ Doctor, do you think she will 
get well ? ’ and his reply, ‘ Get well ? yes, of course she will.’ 
At the end of an hour he left the patient sleeping quietly 
and breathing freely, all anxiety removed, and she fully re- 
covered. 
“ Before the discovery of Anaesthesia, surgeons suffered in 
their sensibilities as well as their patients. With other pu- 
pils I accompanied the doctor to a distant town to see a cap- 
ital operation. It was a case to excite commisseration. The 
patient was old enough to understand the purpose in hand, 
hut not sufficiently mature to perceive its necessity. It was 
a chilly morning, as we sat by the fire, and the doctor looked 
at the patient at the farther end of the room. The lad was 
emaciated and trembling. Dr. Smith was visibly affected, 
his eyes dropped tears and his hand trembled as he whispered 
to me, ‘1 shall not do what they expect. It is a cruel busi- 
ness, and I will perform a less severe operation, in the hope 
it may have the same effect.’ On examination it became ap- 
parent that the severer operation (amputation of the thigh) 
could not be avoided. Before we returned to the room, he 
said to the attending physician, ‘ Hall, you know all about 
this boy’s sufferings ; at the moment we begin, bend over and 29 
across the bed to hide us from his sight, and do your best to 
comfort him,’ the tears still falling from his eyes. At once 
he became calm, the tremor left him, and in less time than 
while I write thisperiod, the operation was completed, and the 
patient recovered.” 
Dr. Lowe adds: “Dr. Smith was a great and good man. 
He never seemed to toil for professional fame, but to do good 
to his fellow men, and in view of his virtues as a citizen, and 
his justly prominent skill as a physician, one of his surviv- 
ing pupils, of more than four-scduie.years, (eighty-four,) 
says: *’ Honored be the name of Nathan Smith, the founder, 
father, and for many years the sustainer of the Medical De- 
partment of Dartmouth College ; ever recognized by all his 
friends and acquaintances as an honest man and most use- 
ful citizen.’ ” 
The venerable Professor A. S. Packard, of Bowdoin Col- 
lege, more than fifty years in office, writes me : “1 was a tu- 
tor in our college, and heard Dr. Smith’s opening lecture in 
1821, and other lectures in subsequent years, and his lodg- 
ings were in the same house where I hoarded. It is one of 
my most pleasant reminiscences, and I have not ceased to re- 
call the noble traits of that eminent man with great satisfac- 
tion. I never saw him out of humor but once while he was 
with us, and then he was really indignant. He had returned 
from visiting a patient in an adjacent town, who had been 
neglected by his physician, a young man, and who had gradu- 
ated from our Medical School. The Doctor, after a ten-miles 
ride, had not cooled ofF from this instance of a dishonor to 
the profession.” 
Ex-president Woolsey, of Yale College, relates that “When 
Dr. Smith came to lecture at Yale, in 1813, he came directly 
to my father’s house, and remained there all winter. He 
was the most delightful, unselfish, and kind-hearted man I 
ever knew, and we children all loved him. He was confined 
to the house for a month by an injury to his leg, and it was 
a great treat for us to he in his room, and difficult to keep us 
out.” 30 
He mentioned an anecdote of his humor : “ He was riding 
through Guilford, a few miles east of New Haven, when a 
woman came out of a house and asked if he knew Dr. Smith, 
and if he were in New Haven, and explained there was a 
case there requiring his attention. He inquired the partic- 
ulars, and said, c I know Dr. Smith very well, he is not in 
New Haven, but I can attend to this case just as well as he 
can.’ He did so, performed the operation, and rode away 
without telling who he was.” 
It has always been a gratification to myself to have known 
somewhat of this eminent man. His person, features, and 
dress are perfectly fresh in my recollection as you find them 
faithfully delineated in his picture, in the Stoughton Mu- 
seum, and presented by Dr. Peaslee.* I can testify, per- 
sonally, when a member of Yale College in the spring of 
1828, to his tact and good sense, when called to the first 
case of an epidemic of varioloidf and small pox that in- 
vaded the college, by which he prevented a panic and a gen- 
eral dispersion of the students. He gave the students of the 
college in 1826 and 1828 an occasional lecture on Hygiene, 
in a style attractive and convincing. 
An anecdote of his charity was then current. He was 
called to a neighboring town to amputate a leg, shattered hy 
some explosion on an occasion like the 4th of July. The 
operation being finished, his charge was asked for. He re- 
plied; “Fifty dollars.” The sympathizing crowd contrib- 
uted the amount, which he counted and gave to the patient, 
and rode home. 
Dr. Amos Twichell,| late of Keene, N. H., who stood at 
the head of the profession as a physician and surgeon, was 
* Copied by IT. D. Tenney, from the original in the Yale Medical Col- 
lege, hy S. F. B. Morse; presented by the class of 1824-5. 
I There were eleven cases of varioloid and one fatal case of confluent 
small pox. 
J Born Dublin, Y. H., April 4, 1781 ; entered Dartmouth, 1798 ; A. B., 
1802; M. B., 1805; died of paralysis, Keene, May 26, 1850; aged sixty- 
nine years; married, June, 1815, Elizabeth, daughter Dr. Josiali Good- 
hue. He was offered a Professorship at Dartmouth, in 1819 ; Castleton, 
Vt., 1824; Bowdoin, 1826 ; University Vermont, 1827; and declined 
them all. 31 
a pupil of Dr. Smith. He began practice in 1805 in Nor- 
wich, Vt.. and experienced the ordinary discouragements of 
a young doctor. 
Dr. II. I. Bowditch, of Boston, his biographer, relates the 
following anecdote, which “ shows in a clear light the sa- 
gacious good sense of the preceptor, and his willingness to 
forget himself for the sake of his beloved pupil.” 
Being naturally inclined to depression of mind at one 
time, Dr. B. says: “Darkness had been resting over the 
young physician for many days.” He had made up his 
mind “ that it was impossible to succeed.” He had few pa- 
tients, and still fewer hopes of any. At length, he confined 
himself to his chamber, and refused to see even those who 
called for his services. While urged by friends in the fam- 
ily to send for Dr. Smith or some other doctor, he declined, 
saying, “he needed no doctor.” Finally, the alarmed fam- 
ily sent over to Hanover for Dr. Smith, informing him of the 
circumstances, and of Dr. TVs refusal to see him or any 
doctor. 
The next day, early, Dr. Smith entered his room, and 
Dr. T. said, “ What brought you here, sir ? ” He replied : 
“ I was making my circuit and it brought me near you, and 
as 1 wanted you to make for me some of that chemical prepa- 
ration (naming it) that you used to prepare when a student, 
1 thought I would ask you to go home with me and make a 
little, and at the same time teach my students the art.” T. 
said, “ 1 can’t go.” S.: “ I cannot listen to any refusal ; 
you must <jo; besides, I mean to show you a severe gun-shot 
wound that 1 met with a few days since.” T.: “1 repeat, 
sir, 1 cannot go.” But remembering his former kindness, 
“ I consented, and prepared for the journey. We were soon 
in the carriage, and my companion, Dr. S., was in his live- 
liest humor. He told me of all he was doing, of his cases, 
the news of the neighborhood, Ac., Ac. Arrived at Hanover, 
1 was kept hard at work all day in the Laboratory and teach- 
ing the students until dark. Smith then came home and 
thanked me very much for what I had done, and said, ‘ It 32 
is too late to think of returning home now ; you will pass 
the night here.’ I protested in vain. ‘ Besides, there is 
that patient I told you about ; we must get up early to-mor- 
row morning and go and see him.’ 
“Unwillingly I yielded, and the next day at early dawn 
we were in the chaise. I observed the doctor had his gun 
with him, but presumed that his love of hunting, gained in 
his youth, was the cause of it. We visited two or three pa- 
tients, and drove farther and farther from home. About 
dinner time we stopped at a country inn and took dinner, 
and it was proposed to the landlord that he should put up 
some turldes for us to shoot at. The afternoon passed away 
rather more pleasantly ; the whole of it was spent in sport- 
ing, and my mind was taken from the fixed and morbid con- 
templation of my own thoughts. Evening came, and we 
were still far from home, and the result was another night’s 
sojourn at Dr. Smith’s, and a prospect of another ride in the 
morning. 
“ The next day, as we were driving over hill and dale, it 
suddenly flashed upon me that Smith, my honored master, 
had been thus devoting two whole days to cure me of a mere 
mental hallucination. I felt thoroughly ashamed of myself 
at the idea. The charm was broken; I knew he had been 
reading me all the while, and I had been behaving like a 
fool. We were rapidly driving down hill, and Smith was 
talking as usual, when I burst out into a loud laugh. He 
turned to me with his keen, kind glance and said, ‘Well, 
what is the matter noivV I replied, ‘ What a fool you must 
have thought me; I feel heartily ashamed of myself.’ He 
shrewdly replied, ‘I rather think you will be able to go home 
to-night!’ Ever after, if I looked sad, Smith would bring 
me up to a right frame of mind by asking whether ‘it would 
not be well to go to Hanover to make chemicalsV ” 
I will add to these testimonials one from Edward E. 
Phelps, (M. D., Yale, 1825,) of Windsor, Vt., who was for 
two years a pupil of Dr. Smith, and for many years an hon- 
ored Professor in this school, and whose opinions we are ac- 
customed to receive with great respect: 33 
“Of Dr. Nathan Smith what shall I say? He was a kind- 
hearted man, a most sagacious physician, and every inch a 
philosopher. 1 have of late years endeavored to make up 
my mind to what to attribute his greatness, and so far as 1 
can settle this question, I think his great talent lay in two 
things principally. 
“ First, his remarkably clear idea of vital action. He was 
not versed in the complicated knowledge of modern physi- 
ology, but be bad just such views of the laws of vital action 
as John Hunter, I3ichat, and old Haller—a far-reaching 
insight of life and all its various phenomena—which is a far 
better discerner of morbid action than even the refined 
physiology of the present day, unless assisted by clear views 
of life as a whole or an unit. 
“Second, the other factor was bis astonishing, acute per- 
ception of the most trifling deviation from normal action in 
the human system, and a remarkably just estimate of its 
value. This explains the wonderful sagacity be possessed in 
diagnosis and prognosis. 
“His reading of cases at the bedside, with the very few 
and brief interrogatories, was most remarkable for its ac- 
curacy. To the same keenness of perception was due bis 
accurate knowledge of the remedies be used and their 
peculiar adaptation to the case before him. 
“ Of bis surgical talent, 1 must say a word of the injustice 
done him in relation to some of the great improvements of 
modern surgery. The reduction of dislocations by the ma- 
noeuvre, as it is now called, was practiced by him as early as 
1818, almost before those who claim the discovery were born ; 
and ovariotomy was practiced successfully by him almost 
simultaneously for the first time with Dr. McDowell, and at 
a period when intelligence between remote parts of the 
country was almost impossible. 
“ Smith’s first operation was not an accidental one, a hap- 
hazard attempt to get an ugly case out of the way, but the 
result of a calm, deliberate study of the laws of vital action, 34 
just like all the rest of his surgery. There was as much of 
John Hunter in it as in any action of John Hunter’s life. 
“With the deep-rooted modesty of true greatness he did 
almost nothing to spread abroad his doings, hut was con- 
tented, like the sower of good seed, to trust to Providence 
for its germination and its fructifying results. His mental 
structure is best understood if we consider it as an harmoni- 
ous combination of some of the best intellectual qualities of 
those great men whom he so highly esteemed, and whose 
works he so enthusiastically studied, such as Baron Haller, 
John Hunter, Xavier Bichat, and Sir William Jones, the 
eminent Asiatic scholar. I have thus briefly given a little 
tribute to the memory of one who certainly has not had his 
superior in medicine. It may have been said of him that he 
was not a scientific man. I deny it. He was all science. 
As well assert that John Hunter was not a scientific man. 
He was filled with science as by a species of inspiration.” * 
* Appendix E. APPENDIX A. 
The family of Monro was so long connected with the University of Edin- 
burgh, and Monro, Secundus, and Dr. Black having been Dr. Smith's 
instructors, I give the following notes concerning them. Slight varia- 
tions exist, with authorities: 
•John Monro settled in Edinburgh in 1700 as a Surgeon, after serving 
as Surgeon under King William, in Flanders. 
His son, Alexander Monro, Primus, horn in London, 10 September, 
1007; 1717, Anatomy with Cheselden in London, and made anatomical 
preparations for his father; 1718, Hospitals in Paris, and lectures of 
Chomel. Botany and Chemistry, et al.; 1718, autumn, Leyden, w Boer- 
haave. Chemistry, Theory and Practice, and Clinical Lectures; 1722, 
succeeded Professors Drummond and McGill in Anatomical College Phy- 
sicians and Surgeons; 172.1, Professor Anatomy Edinburgh University 
for forty years, and died July 10, 1707, aged seventy; and succeeded by 
his son. 
Alexander Monro, Secundus, (also Elder,) horn Edinburgh, 20 May, 
17311; 1751, began medicine with father, assisted In dissecting room, 
studied under Professors Rutherford, Sinclair and Alston; 1753, aided 
father in his lectures; 1755, graduated M. D., Professor Anatomy and 
Surgery, “on request of his father,” after study at London, Paris, Ber- 
lin and Leyden; 1758, lectured as colleague with father, and for forty 
years lectured without aid (son began to assist 1798 or 1800.) continued 
Surgery to 1807 ; Introductory lecture to course 1808-9, when seventy-six 
years old ; a Professor fifty-four years; died 1818, aged eighty-five and 
succeeded by his son. 
Alexander Monro, Tertius. (also Junior,)horn Edinburgh, November 5, 
1773; 1798, colleague Professor with father; 1799, M. D.; 1803. began 
class of practical Anatomy ; 1808, succeeded father in Chair of Anatomy ; 
retired from chair 1847 as Emeritus Professor, “and thus ended the con- 
nection of the College of Edinburgh and the family of Monro, which 
lasted for more than a century and a quarter;*’ died March 10, 1859. 
“ Monro, Primus, lectured to 3,850 students, whose expenses in Edin- 
burgh at £50 each must have amounted to £192,500; Monro, Secundus, 
to 14,ooo students, £700,000, or the sum of £892,000, or near three and 
a half millions of dollars, which these two distinguished individuals 
added to the improvement of Edinburgh and its inhabitants.”—Edin- 
burgh Encyclopaedia, American edition. 1832. 
Dr. Joseph Black, born Bordeaux, France, 1728; 1756, Professor of 
Anatomy and Lecturer on Chemistry, University of Glasgow, on taking 
M. D., and Thesis on “Cause of dlft’ernee between limestone and quick- 
lime. or mild and caustic alkalies,” in place of Dr. Cullen, transferred to 
University of Edinburgh; 1766, succeeded Dr. Cullen at Edinburgh; 
Professor at Glasgow and Edinburgh nearly forty-three years; died 
November 26, 1799, aged seventy-one years. His successor was 
Professor Thomas ('. Hope, born Edinburgh, July 21, 1766, (son of Dr. 
John Hope Professor Botany, University Edingburgh;) 1787, Professor 
Chemistry, Glasgow; 1795, assistant to Dr. Black; 1799, succeeded Dr. 
Black as Professor Chemistry, University Edinburgh, to end of session 
of 1843, forty-four years; ana at Glasgow and Edinburgh, fifty-six years; 
died June 13, 1844, aged seventy-eight years; annual income from lec- 
tures reported as $4,000 to $5,000. 
Professor B. Silliman's instructor in 1805. 36 
APPENDIX B. 
This honor led in after years to the following letter : 
LONDON MEDICAL SOCIETY, 
Bow Court, Fleet Street, 
London, November 6, 1823. 
Sir: I have the honor, by the direction of the Council of the “Medi- 
cal Society of London,” to communicate to you that it is the intention of 
the Society to resume the publication of their transactions, and, anxious 
to avail themselves of the advantages of your talents and information, 
they beg that you will, as a corresponding member of the Society, favor 
them with any communications you may deem of sufficient interest upon 
subjects of Medicine or Surgery generally; or with the detail of any curi- 
ous or important cases which may have come under your consideration. 
By such a mode of correspondence the Society trust that a degree of 
good-fellowship and esteem may he maintained between the learned of 
the two nations, which cannot fail to add to the advantage of each. 
I have the honor to be, sir, 
Your very obed't servant, 
ROBLEY DUNGLISON. 
Secretary for foreign correspondence to the Medical Society, 
and one of the Editors of the London Medical Repository. 
To Dr. Nathan Smith. 
P. S. I should feel highly honored by being proposed a member of 
any of your Scientific Societies in America. 
Dr. D. was now about twenty-six years old. Little did he antici- 
pate that within another year, he would make a winter voyage and ar- 
rive at Norfolk, Va., in February, 1825, on his way to the Professorship 
in the University of Virginia, thence to another in Baltimore, and next 
in Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, and to an eminent profes- 
sional position and membership of learned societies in America. 
APPENDIX C. 
Some of the events of this period are worthy of record here. The 
following is a list of the Trustees in 1798 : 
John YVheelock, LL. D., President 1779-1815. Dartmouth, 1771. 
Prof. Bezabeel Woodward, Treasurer, Yale, 1764. 
Rev. Eden Burroughs, Yale, 1763. 
Elisha Payne, Esq., Dartmouth, 1784. 
Rev. David McClure, D. D., Biographer Pres. E. Wheelock, Yale, 1769. 
Prof. John Smith Dartmouth, 1773. 
lion. Peter Olcott, Judge Sup. Ct. and Lt. Gov. Vt.. Hon. Dart., 1796. 
Rev. Israel Evans, Founder Evans Professorship, Col. N. J., 1772. 
Jonathan Freeman, Esq., Treas. M. C.: Hon. Dartmouth, 1795. 
Hon. Nathaniel Niles, M. C., Col. N. J., 1766. 
Gov. John T. Gilman, ex-offi., Hon. Dartmouth, 1796. 
There are the Alumni of Yale, Princeton, and Dartmouth—Clergy- 
men, Governors, Members of Congress, and civilians—representing the 
intelligence of the country and the animating spirit of these colleges. 37 
The pro|H)sitiou of Dr. Smith, in 170*5, to establish a new Department, 
without endowment—asking simply for favor and countenance, not for 
support—was one where deliberation was most certainly wise and prudent. 
The committee, Rev. Eden Burroughs and Hon. N. Niles, in their re- 
port of acceptance and organization, expressed the views of the Trustees. 
The idea of growth and expansion lies at the foundation of this college. 
It was then only “Vox clamantis in deserto.”* “Under the govern- 
ment and protection of the general laws of the land these institutions 
go on with the progress of society, accommodating themselves easily, 
without sudden change or violence, to the alterations which take place 
in its conditions, and in the knowledge, the habits, and pursuits of men— 
a better constitution for a college, or one more adapted to the condition 
of things under the present government, in all material respects, could 
not now be framed.” t 
This Royal Colonial charter authorized the Trustees to “Give and 
grant any such degree or degrees, to any of the students of the college, 
or any others by them thought worthy thereof, granted in | either of the 
universities or any other college in our realm of Great Britain, and that 
they sign and seal diplomas or certificates of such graduations, to be 
kept by the graduates as perpetual memorials and testimonies thereof.” 
So also, “To nominate and appoint all other otlicers and ministers for 
the service of said college,Ӥon the same broad basis of a university 
scheme as above, connected with a provision “to establish such ordin- 
ances, orders, and laws as may tend to the good and wholesome govern- 
ment of the said college and all the students, and the several officers and 
ministers thereof, and to the public benefit of the same.” “ And not 
excluding any person of any religious denomination whatsoever from 
free and equal liberty and advantage of education, or from any of the 
liberties and privileges or immunities of the said college on account of 
his or their speculative sentiments in religion, and of his or their being 
of a religious profession different from the said Trustees of the said 
Dartmouth College.”|| 
“ A charter of more liberal sentiments, of wiser provisions, drawn 
with more care or in a better spirit, could not be expected at any time or 
from any source.” 
Thus declared Mr. Webster, when maintaining, on the broadest ground 
of English and American jurisprudence, the franchises of the college, its / 
rights and that of all its benefactors to visitation of their foundations, 
and at the same time, as the greater includes the less, “that each individ- 
ual Trustee has his own individual franchise,” and that “both President 
and Professors have freeholds in their offices; subject only to be removed 
by the Trustees, as their legal visitors, for good cause.” 
These principles once settled, the way Avas prepared for receiving from 
liberal donors benefactions to any extent. So when, some thirty-four 
years after, Mr. Abiel Chandler (Harvard, 180(5) proposed to found a new 
department, by a kuni> of fifty thousand dollars, the whole subject 
received an exhaustive examination by the highest legal talent, and the 
Trustees accepted the trust and organized the “Chandler Scientific 
Department.” 
Later, General Sylvanus Thayer (Dart., 1807,) donated a fund of 
seventy thousand dollars for the “Thayer School of Civil Engineering.” 
Both of these, under the fostering care of the authorities and efficient 
officers, are adding, like the Medical College, to the fair fame of the 
parent stock on which they are engrafted. 
* Oollego seal. 
t Mr. Welwtnr, In Ills argument In the Dartmouth College Casts p. 2K1 
(Similar clnuse In Yale College Charter, 174fi, section IX. 
1 Saints |>. 14. 
n Same, p. 13. 38 
APPENDIX D. 
A taste for Chemistry was thus early formed at Dartmouth, and three 
Professors of Chemistry are found among the graduates of the first part 
of the century, viz.: 
Josiah Noyes, 1801, M. D., Prof. Ham. Coll., and Fairf. Med. Coll., 
N. Y. 
Frederick Hall, 1803, M. D., Prof. Mid., and Trin. Coll. 
James Hadley, 1809, M. T)., Prof. Fairf., Ham. and Geneva Coll. 
“In the ‘ Medical Repository, vol. 2, p. 337, 1799, New York,’ we And 
the announcement that ‘The Medical Lectures at Dartmouth College 
commence the first of October, annually, and continue ten weeks, on 
the following branches: Anatomy, Surgery, Midwifery, Chemistry, 
Materia Medica, and Theory and Practice of Physic.’” 
“This Institution was established in August, 1798, at which time the 
degree of Bachelor of Medicine was conferred on Joseph A. Gallup, 
Bethel, Vt., and Levi Sabin, Rockingham, Vt.; and the Honorary degree 
of Bachelor of Medicine on Lyman Spalding, of Harvard.” 
“ The present medical officers are Nathan Smith, A. M., Professor of 
Medicine, and Lecturer on Anatomy, Surgery, Midwifery, Theory and 
Practice of Physic; and Lyman Spalding, Lecturer on Chemistry and 
Materia Medica.” 
At Yale College the Corporation had taken an important step in 1798, 
thus described in the Yale Book, p. 211 : 
“Already in 1798, President Dwight, in the fullness of his learning 
and the wide reach of his intelligence, had perceived the importance of 
the science of Chemistry, and through his influence a vote of the Cor- 
poration was passed to the effect ‘That a Professorship of Chemistry 
and Natural History be instituted in this College as soon as the funds 
shall be sufficiently productive to support it;’ and in 1802, it having ap- 
peared that tiie fund was adequate, it was voted, September 7, ‘That, a 
Professorship of Chemistry be, and it is hereby, established in this Col- 
lege,’ and in accordance with this vote, Mr. Silliman was elected Pro- 
fessor in this Department. Professor Silliman writes in his private 
journal: ‘ A single room was appropriated to this Department.’” Lec- 
tures began in 1804. 
APPENDIX E. 
Since this sketch was completed Dr. J. D. Smith, the only survivor of 
the family, has sent some letters of his father, from which are selected a 
few extracts illustrative of his character as a husband and father: 
BOSTON, December 4, 179G. 
By the time you will receive this, I shall be on my passage to Europe, on 
board the Bark Hope, bound to Glasgow, Scotland. She is a good sound 
vessel, sails well, and very safe. The report respecting the French tak- 
ing our vessel is not true, and no danger is expected from that quarter. 
I am very confident that I shall have a safe and good voyage. Wish you 
to live as happy as possible. Take every possible care of the hoy, Solon. 
Kiss him often for me. I have no fear for myself, my anxiety is all for 
you and the dear little boy. Take good care of the house, and be sure 
that it does note take fire. I shall be in early in the spring, and hope 
thro’ God’s mercy to find you and Solon alive and well. If God will 39 
protect me thro' this enterprise, I am determined to abide with yon till 
death shall part ns. I am your meet affectionate husband. 
The day of sailing was deferred, and he wrote : 
On BOARD the Bakk Hope, December 17. 1700. 
Now for the last time, until I arrive in Europe, I address you. 1 have 
lately sent you two letters, which I hope you will receive without delay. 
1 have in them expressed my love and constancy to you, and my tender- 
ness for the dear little Solon. All my anxiety is for my family. I fear 
no danger but on their account. I have been very fortunate since I left 
home, all excepting some delay in sailing, which I do not much regret 
as I have been able to procure letters and other advantages in this town 
which I should not have done if I had sailed immediately. Do, my dear, 
remember me. You are ever on my mind. I am sure I shall ever be 
happy if I live to return and find you and Solon alive and well. Do be 
careful of our dear little son. I shall keep you in mind, and hope to re- 
turn happy. It is my constant prayer, and if good intentions can have 
any influence on our fortune, I am sure I shall succeed. 
1*. S.—We expect a fair wind in the morning, and a pleasant voyage. 
There are four passengers on board, all very agreeable. The vessel is as 
good and safe as ever sailed from Boston, a line captain and crew, all 
very obliging and civil. 1 lack for nothing to make me happy but your 
company, with Solon. 
Glasgow, January 24, 1797. 
He writes : “ As the winds and seas are uncertain, and as I may have 
a much longer passage going to America than 1 had coming here, I do 
not like to start till the stormy season is over, which will be about the 
tirst of May.” 
London, April 28, 1797. 
I wrote you a few days since by way of Philadelphia, and told you then 
that I expected to sail for Boston in the ship Lydia, from Boston, but since 
that time I have concluded to go to Liverpool to sail, which I shall do in 
a few days. In sailing from Liverpool I shall avoid the French coast, 
and of course shall not be so liable to be detained by the French priva- 
teers. As I wrote in my last, 1 have been very well, have accomplished 
my business here, and am impatient to return to you and to embrace you 
with my little son, whom I love to excess. Godsend that he may be alive 
and well on my return. I am sure I will never leave you again. My 
country, my friends, and acquaintance will be dearer to me than ever. 
I shall probably be at home in a few days. 
As to the cause that led him to protract his visit so as not to arrive at 
Boston till about the 10th of September, there remains no record. 
After reading the lecture, the Hon. George W. Nesmith, (Dart., 1820,) 
Trustee of the College, drew from his memory the following fresh 
tributes. He writes—Franklin, N. II., Deceml>er 27. 1879—of Dr. 
Smith : 
‘‘It was my good fortune, in 1816, to hear him deliver three lectures. 
The first was his introductory lecture, addressed to the Medical class. In 
tins lecture he gave the history and progress of Medical Science from the 
days of Hippocrates down to his own time; sketching briefly the many 
improvements of modern days, and comparing them with the darkness 
and superstitious practices of ancient times; illustrating his various 
positions by appropriate anecdotes; closing his lecture by sensible advice 
to the students in reference to their conduct, their habits of study, in- 
culcating industry, close and earnest investigation, ami the acquisition of 
all that knowledge best calculated to make them good citizens and useful 40 
in their profession. This lecture was extempore entirely—without notes 
—delivered in plain, familiar language, without any apparent attempt at 
display, still demanding and receiving the strict attention of his hearers. 
It is now more than sixty-three years since I heard that lecture and 
much of what he then said is still impressed upon my memory. 
“The next lecture I heard was about one month later, and was 
specially devoted to ‘ discussion upon the effects of wounds or injuries 
upon the head and brain.’ 
“This subject gave the Professor opportunity to relate to his class 
many and diverse cases that had occurred in his long and extensive prac- 
tice. He made this lecture interesting, having a skeleton head before 
him, enabling him to illustrate this class of injuries to this delicate part 
| of the human frame. The Professor allowed the students the free use 
of interrogatories. Whereupon a certain student, not the sharpest, in- 
tellectually, of the number, inquired ‘ if it would not be possible to 
f transfer living sentient brains from one head to another’s?’ Professor 
Smith answered ‘ that he was not aware that a wise Providence had yet 
pointed out any successful mode of effecting this object; hut he thought 
if the gentleman, who puts the question, could make a discovery of this 
nature, it might prove of great advantage to himself and many others 
' in this world.’ He asked no more questions that day. 
“ The third lecture was upon ‘ the diseases incident to the New England 
climate and their treatment.’ Here Professor Smith was much at home 
in a learned discussion upon fevers. It appeared lie had written and sent 
out to the public something upon this subject. My recollection is he dis- 
cussed the character and symptoms and treatment of the Spotted Fever, 
which had prevailed extensively through many parts of New England. 
I sympathised with his remarks on this subject, and could attest to their 
truthfulness, because it had visited our town (Antrim?) in 1812. 
“He merited all the encomiums conferred upon him by you and more. 
Many of the good works that he did will never be recorded. The Insti- 
tutions he aided or established will be living monuments consecrated to 
his memory, we trust, forever.” 
NECROLOGY. 
Smith, Nathan, b. Rehoboth, Mass., Sept. 30, 1702; d. Jan. 26, 1829, 
New Haven, Conn., of paralysis, aged 67 years. 
Spalding, Lyman, b. Cornish, N. H., June 5, 1775; d. Oct. 31, 1821, 
Portsmouth, N. 11., of chronic inflammation of the brain, from accidental 
blow on the head, aged 46 years. 
Perkins, Cyrus, h. Middleborough, Mass., Sept. 4, 1778; d. April 23, 
1849, Rossville, L. I., N. Y., aged 70 years. 
Mussey, Reuben D., b. Pelham, N. H., June 28, 1780; d. June 21, 
1866, Boston, Mass., of old age, aged 86 years. 
Oliver, Daniel, b. Marblehead, Mass., Sept. 9, 1787; d. June 1, 1842, 
Cambridge, Mass., of a severe cold, inducing erysipelas of the brain, aged 
55 years. 
Dana, James F., b. Amherst, N. H., Sept. 23, 1793; d. April 15, 1827, 
New York City, of erysipelas, aged 33 years. 
Parsons, Usher, b. Alfred, Maine, Aug. 18, 1788; d. Dec. 10, 1868, 
Providence, It. 1., of acute inflammation of the cerebellum, aged 80 
years. 41 
Hale, Benjamin, h. Newbury, Mass.; d. July 15,1863, Newbury, Mass., 
aged 66 years. 
I>r. Smith left four sons : 
’ David S. ('. H., Yale, M. D., 1816; d. April 6, 185!), aged 64 years. 
, Nathan It., Yale, A. B., 1817, M. I)., 1820; d. July 3, 1877, aged 80 
years. 
James M., Yale M. 1)., 1828; d. May <!, 1853, in Norwalk disaster. 
John I)., Yale, A. B., 1832, Balt., M. 1)., 1846 ; res. Scotland. Mass. 
Dr. Smith’d monument stand' in tin* New Haven cemetery, and is of 
Connecticut red sandstone, after tin* model of the tomb of the Scipios at 
Koine; tin* same with that of Eli Whitney, the inventor of the cotton 
gin, and of Ashtnun, the founder of the colony of Liberia.