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                      DELIVERED ON THE







               TWENTY-SIXTH OF MAY, 1818,






                           AT THE







INTERMENT OF DOCTOR  JAMES TILLARY,








          LATE PRESIDENT OF THE ST. ANDREW'S SOCIETY OF




                    THE CITY OF NEW-YORK.
BY DAVID HOSACK, M. D-



  Professor in the University of New-York.
DELirEnHD AT THE REQUEST OF THE ST. ANDREW'S SOCIETT.
                    NEW-YORK:





FRINTED BY C. S. VAN WINKLE, 101 GREENWICH STREET,



            Printer to the University of New-York.





                        1818. 
 
T\JXm&li ATyOT^SS.
Friends and Fellow Members of the
       St. Andreiv's Society,

   Upon this melancholy event, some expression of
those feelings which pervade every heart in this
assembly, is due to the memory of our distinguish-
ed associate, whose remains now lie before you. In
the absence of his much loved reverend friend and
pastorof this church,* by whom this duty would have
been performed in a manner more suited to the so-
lemnity of this occasion, and more in consonance
with your feelings, I am induced to appear before
you, only by my sincere regard  for the memory of
our late excellent colleague, and to testify to  you
my desire to comply with your wishes in expressing
that  respect which we all entertain for our deceas-
ed president and fellow citizen.  There is a con-
* The Rev. Dr. Mason. 
                        6

solation,  melancholy  indeed,  but  not  the  less
grateful on that account, in paying the humble tri-
bute  of esteem and affection to the memory of one
who  exhibited so  many qualities worthy  of our
imitation.

   I knew him, and received much of his friendship
at an early period of my life ;  and when on a visit
to the land of his birth-place, had the satisfaction
of hearing from his contemporaries, who distinct-
ly recollected him at school, that he was even then
regarded as a  youth of  promise ; and at that early
period of  his life, was characterized by that integ-
rity and virtue which marked the remainder of his
days.

   Having laid the usual foundation of classical
learning,  in which his attainments were very re-
spectable, and having  received some preliminary
medical knowledge in the north of Scotland, he en-
joyed the benefit of a course of instruction at the
great medical  school of Edinburgh.  Although he
did not remain at the university the time prescribed
to obtain  its honours, he assiduously attended the 
7
 various lectures, which qualified  him for the sta-
 tion  he soon afterwards  obtained, that  of  a sur-
 geon in the army of Great Britain.  In that capa-
 city, at an  early period of the revolutionary war,
 he first  came to this country, which he  made  the
 permanent place of his residence.

    Shortly  after his arrival in this city, he assumed
 the character  of  a practitioner  of medicine  and
 surgery. To the former branch, however, he prin-
 cipally  confined his attention, and  for more than
 forty years exercised its responsible and  important
 duties—with what success  the inhabitants  of  this
 city can abundantly testify ; you all  can  testify,
 for you have  had daily  evidence of his  profes-
 sional merit and skill.   If is  not my  intention to
 detain you by a recital of the various qualifications
 which adorned   his professional  character—those
 will, doubtless, be delineated by another society,
 of which  he  was a  conspicuous  member,  and
 where he also for many years occupied the most el-
 evated station in their power to  bestow.*   But I

 * Dr. Tillary was for several years the President of the Medical Socie-
ly of the county of New-York. 
8
must, nevertheless, be permitted to bear my testi-
mony to his merit as a practitioner of the healing
art.  He seemed by nature to be peculiarly capaci-
tated for the  exercise of the medical profession;
and the education which he had received was suf-
ficient to elicit the native energies of his mind for
that purpose. He was a substantial classical scho-
lar ;  his  reading of medical authors was limited,
but judicious ; among these, Sydenham and Hux-
ham were his favourites.   He was a patient and
close observer  at the bed-side  of the sick—he re-
flected—and his decisions evinced the solidity of
his understanding.   Few men,  I think, surpassed
him in strength  of judgment; and  this qualifica-
tion  of the head gave  him that elevated  station
among many of his fellow practitioners, which he
so long and deservedly enjoyed.   He was scepti-
cal of  novelty  in medical prescriptions, and slow
in adopting new methods of cure.  He carefully
observed the progress of disease—he discovered its
nature, and was bold and energetic in his principles
of treatment.  He  was confident of his own prac-
tical knowledge, and inspired a corresponding con-
fidence in those for whom he prescribed—few men 
9
 performed their duty to  their patients with  more
 fidelity.  He spared no pains in collecting all the
 symptoms from which the disease might be ascer-
 tained, and the corresponding remedies directed for
 its removal.

   During those  memorable visitations of God's
 providence on our city, in 1795 and 1798, when
 pestilence spread  its devastation upon our shores,
 though fully  conscious of our impending  danger,
 he; abided with us ; and no consideration whatever
 could induce him to swerve from his duty—a faith-
 ful sentinel, he remained  at his post.—Amidst the
 distressing and  fatal ravages of yellow-fever, Dr.
 Tillary spared no exertions  that could contribute
 to the comfort of his suffering fellow-citizens.  He
 visited and attended with unceasing assiduity all
 who  called for  his professional services, without
 reserve ; and it may be added, that to the poor and
forsaken, from whom no recompense could be ex-
pected, his labours were for the most part devoted ;
the more wealthy,  who were   able to  remunerate
<■> 
10
him, having chiefly abandoned  the city, then the
scene of desolation.

   I  frequently conferred with  him  during those
anxious  and  melancholy  seasons.  I remember
well his perseverance and his fortitude : nor were
they forgotten by his fellow-citizens:  For the im-
portant services he thus performed to the commu-
nity, he was afterwards rewarded by the honoura-
ble office  of  resident  physician; the  duties  of
which, though full of hazard and responsibility,
were performed with that fidelity which  correct
principles of conduct must ever secure.

   In relation  to medical decorum, he  was a pat-
tern of  excellence to his  professional brethren ;
with reference to the rights and feelings of the ju-
nior members in particular, his conduct was pecu-
liarly delicate and honourable.

   As a  citizen of this republic, I may venture to
 say,  that  while  he remembered  with becoming
 feelings the land of his forefathers, he possessed an
 ardent attachment to his adopted  country.   He 
                       11

admired the genius and nature of our social, politi-
cal and religious institutions.   He was not an indif-
ferent spectator of passing events, and in that spe-
cies of knowledge which is acquired by intercourse
with the world, he was excelled by few.

  Fellow Members of the St. Andrew }s Society,
    Your bereavement is of no common kind.   You
have lost  him  to whom  you have looked up as
your principal.   After the resignation of a gentle-
man,* who many years filled and reflected honour
upon the office of president of the society, our la-
mented associate united your hearts and suffrages
as the next most worthy of your confidence, and
in that responsible office, now vacant by death, he
discharged its duties with distinguished ability and
universal satisfaction.   As the physician of your
charitable and  praise-worthy  institution,  an oflice
which he filled for many  years,  the disinterested
generosity  which he manifested in  his medical at-
tention to the indigent poor, who are the objects of
its charity,  is familiarly known to you all.
* Robert Lenox, Esq. 
12
   It may  be asked, had the deceased no failings r
He had his failings, but they were of that minor
character, that are inseparable  from our nature :—
He was human, and he  erred.

   Let those who delight to dwell upon the shade
of human  character, search out the frailties of our
deceased brother; for  ourselves, we  can shed the
tear for his weaknesses, and abundantly rejoice at
his numerous excellencies.

   Indulge me, if, before I close, I speak of his chris-
tian virtues; they are a proper topic for a christian
audience—they made up a large portion of his cha-
racter, and they ought not to be omitted.   On this
momentous  subject, he has not left  the world to
doubt of his religious creed.   He has  long, both in
public and private, evinced  his faith and his hope ;
and has declared his firm belief in the great truths of
the christian religion ; a belief  arising not merely
from those impressions which an early pious educa-
tion leaves upon the mind, but from a careful exami-
nation of the evidences upon which it has been em- 
13
braced by most of the distinguished men who have
adorned the world.  His course of reading on reli-
gious subjects was extensive : the volume of nature,
too, he consulted with additional  strength to those
opinions which he had derived from revelation, and
he adds another happy example to the many already
on record, of the possession of sound christian prin-
ciples by a member of a profession in which it is too
generally and most erroneously supposed, religious
scepticism abounds.  To the christian philanthro-
pist, moreover, it is consoling to reflect, that at a time
when, to use the  language of an eloquent Ameri-
can divine,* " scepticism is breathing forth its pesti-
lential vapour and polluting, by its unhallowed touch,
things divine and  sacred, so many of the great and
the wise, as if touched with an impulse from heaven,
appear as the advocates of Christianity,"and present,
with one accord, their  learning, their talents, and
their virtues, as an offering on the altar of religion.

  Religious  consolation, while it supported  him in
life,  shed a ray of glory around the dying bed of our
* The Rev. Dr. Nott. 
14
 deceased brother, and in his latter moments, to the
 exclusion  of every  other concern, claimed all his
 thoughts.

   In the records of those eminent men who have
 supported the medical character of our country, Dr.
 Tillary will maintain a highly respectable rank; and
 while talents, inflexible integrity, and distinguished
 virtue, are held in remembrance, his memory will be
 cherished by his fellow men, especially by that soci-
 ety  of his native  and adopted countrymen, with
 whom he was so long and so intimately connected.

   I  lament to add that  the circumstances* under
 which I now address  you, have not permitted a more
 ample expression of that esteem and respect which
 we  all cherish for our departed friend.

 * This address was delivered at the request of the St. Andrew's Society,
on the day subsequent to the death of Dr. Tillary. 
 
 
 
 
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