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LIFE AND LETTERS OF NATHAN SMITH 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2010 with funding from 
 
 Open Knowledge Commons 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/lifelettersofnatOOsmit 
 
Nathan Smith, M. D. 
 
 Professor on Yale Medical Faculty, 1813-1829 -From a portrait by S. F. B. Morse 
 Presented to the Medical School by the Class of 1826 
 
THE LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 OF 
 
 NATHAN SMITH, M.B., M.D. 
 
 By 
 
 EMILY A. SMITH 
 
 With an Introduction by 
 WILLIAM H. WELCH, M.D., LL.D. 
 
 New Haven : Yale University Press 
 
 London : Humphrey Milford 
 
 Oxford University Press 
 
 MDCCCCXIV 
 

 Copyright, 1914 
 
 BY 
 
 Yale University Press 
 
 First printed May, 1914, 1000 copies 
 
 
 5 
 
With deep gratitude and heart interest I dedicate 
 this book to the members of the medical profession, 
 who, following the leadership of those who have gone 
 before, but with new light and better facilities, are 
 laboring to relieve the pain and suffering of their 
 fellow beings. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 By William H. Welch, M.D., LL.D. 
 
 The medical profession and all interested in the his- 
 tory of medicine in this country owe a large debt to 
 Mrs. Alan P. Smith for the preparation of "The Life 
 and Letters of Nathan Smith," one of the most inter- 
 esting and important figures in the history of Ameri- 
 can medicine. It is eminently fitting that this work 
 should issue from the Yale University Press as a con- 
 tribution to the celebration of the centennial anniver- 
 sary of the opening of "The Medical Institution of 
 Yale College," of which Dr. Smith was an organizer 
 and chief ornament. 
 
 The main sources hitherto available for what is 
 known of the life of Nathan Smith have been the 
 addresses of Dr. Jonathan Knight and of the Rev. Dr. 
 William Allen, delivered and published shortly after 
 his death in 1829, the "Medical and Surgical Mem- 
 oirs" by his son, Dr. Nathan R. Smith, published in 
 1 83 1, and especially the "Historical Discourse" by Dr. 
 Oliver P. Hubbard, printed in 1880, to all of which 
 repeated reference is made in this book. The many 
 scattered estimates and accounts, mostly of an inci- 
 dental nature, of the life and work of this remarkable 
 man in medical writings have been drawn in the main 
 from the foregoing sources. 
 
Introduction 
 
 To this rather meagre fund of information a sub- 
 stantial addition has been made by the painstaking and 
 devoted investigations and labors of Mrs. Smith. 
 Especially interesting are Dr. Smith's hitherto unpub- 
 lished letters, particularly those, covering a period of 
 nearly a quarter of a century, to his friend and pupil, 
 Dr. George Cheyne Shattuck, an eminent physician of 
 Boston and a benefactor of Dartmouth College and 
 other educational institutions, and the extracts from 
 Dr. Smith's ledgers and lecture notes. 
 
 Mrs. Smith has drawn a much clearer and fuller 
 picture than had been done before of the setting of 
 Nathan Smith's life, of his struggles and trials, of his 
 indomitable courage and resourcefulness, of his mar- 
 velous capacity for work, of his professional and edu- 
 cational ideals and activities, and of his triumphs. We 
 catch intimate glimpses of the active-minded lad upon 
 the frontier, of the student at home and abroad getting, 
 in spite of great difficulties, a good medical training, of 
 the lover "transported with joy and expectation," of 
 the devoted husband and father, solicitous for the edu- 
 cation of his sons, of the busy physician and surgeon, 
 "bandied about from one part of the country to the 
 other," treating fevers, couching for cataract, cutting 
 for stone, excising tumors, and embarrassed most of the 
 time, as is the way of doctors, from failure or inability 
 to collect his fees, small as they were, of the founder of 
 medical schools and the professor, filling and filling well 
 all the chairs in the medical curriculum, — from all 
 accounts a really great teacher, and withal deserving 
 President Woolsey's characterization of him as "the 
 
Introduction 
 
 most delightful, unselfish and kind-hearted man I ever 
 knew, and we children all loved hin." 
 
 Dr. Smith's letters to Shattuck remind one not a 
 little of John Hunter's correspondence with his former 
 pupil, Jenner. How suggestive of Hunter's many com- 
 missions imposed upon Jenner is the letter (on page 47 
 of this book) beginning, "I am continually troubling 
 you about many things!" . . . "If you have a man in 
 Boston who makes thermometers, and if he can do it, I 
 wish also to have an air thermometer constructed 
 according to Henry's directions in his chapter on 
 Caloric. I presume you can find that book in Boston, 
 and the workman may follow that in his work." The 
 repeated requests to send chemicals, apparatus, instru- 
 ments and books afford some insight into Dr. Smith's 
 scientific interests and activities, as does also the novel 
 task assigned to two of his pupils to read through 
 fifty-two volumes of historical works, recently added to 
 his library, in order to cull out and index "everything 
 relating to medicine or medical men." 
 
 The difference between the mental attitudes toward 
 medical science of Nathan Smith and of his older con- 
 temporary, Benjamin Rush, is made clear in the letter 
 to Dr. Shattuck when a student in Philadelphia. Rush, 
 the greatest historical figure in American medicine, 
 belonged essentially to the group of systematists of the 
 eighteenth century. Dr. Smith writes: "Dr. Rush must 
 be a very interesting lecturer. As to his classification of 
 diseases I do not think it very material. However we 
 may class diseases, we must study them in detail. . . . 
 As to the unity of disease, you know it is my opinion 
 
Introduction 
 
 that we have in medical science of late generalized too 
 much and that the progress of medicine has been 
 checked by it. This mode of proceeding tends to 
 substitute idleness for industry, and dogmatism for 
 patient inquiry." 
 
 None of Nathan Smith's contemporaries in this 
 country was possessed in larger measure of the true 
 spirit and method of scientific inquiry. A very remark- 
 able vision of the benefits that must accrue to medicine 
 by the applications of chemistry and of the experimental 
 method to the problems of disease is presented in the 
 extract from one of his lectures on chemistry printed 
 on page 79 of this book. 
 
 Nathan Smith was one of the earliest and best of the 
 new generation of medical men who came to the front 
 in the quarter of a century immediately following the 
 War of the Revolution and gave to American medicine 
 a self-reliance, an adaptation to the needs of a rapidly 
 expanding country, an activity and a productivity pre- 
 viously unknown. Only two medical schools, one in 
 Philadelphia and one in New York, had been estab- 
 lished in the decade preceding the Revolution ; now new 
 medical schools, societies and journals were founded 
 and the practice of medicine and of surgery was brought 
 fully abreast of the times. While the most familiar 
 names of this heroic period are of physicians and sur- 
 geons of the cities on or near the Atlantic seaboard, as 
 John Warren, Samuel Bard, Wright Post, David 
 Hosack, Benjamin Rush, Philip Syng Physick, David 
 Ramsay, yet in many ways the most original, interesting 
 and distinctively American are those of the frontier, as 
 
Introduction 
 
 Ephraim McDowell, Benjamin W. Dudley and Daniel 
 Drake. Dr. Nathan Smith had closer kinship with this 
 latter group than with the former. In his early years 
 the parts of Vermont and New Hampshire where he 
 lived were scarcely less frontier settlements than were 
 Kentucky and Ohio. Smith, like McDowell and Dud- 
 ley, received an excellent medical training, enjoying the 
 advantages of European study, but not the least valu- 
 able part of the training of these men was acquired 
 during their youth in the woods and the fields under the 
 primitive conditions of pioneer life, imparting that 
 vigor, virility, keenness of observation, resourcefulness 
 and fund of good sense which characterized them. 
 
 In his day Nathan Smith shared with John Warren 
 a position of unexampled preeminence in the medical 
 profession of New England, his activities extending 
 over a wider territory and including all of that region 
 except eastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island. He is 
 a remarkable example of equal eminence in internal 
 medicine and in surgery. Only a later generation could 
 appreciate fully how original and great was the con- 
 tribution to medicine which he made in his essay on 
 "Typhus Fever," now a medical classic. Probably the 
 first adequate appreciation by a competent authority of 
 Dr. Smith's "Observations on the Pathology and Treat- 
 ment of Necrosis" is that of the distinguished surgeon, 
 Frederick Lange, in his paper on osteomyelitis in the 
 "Festschrift" in honor of von Esmarch, published in 
 1893. Both of these famous essays are models of keen 
 observation, accurate description, correct inference, ex- 
 
Introduction 
 
 pressed in clear and simple language and presenting 
 admirable pictures of the conditions described. 
 
 Mrs. Smith has set forth fully the interesting circum- 
 stances of Nathan Smith's unprecedented activities con- 
 nected with the establishment of four medical schools, 
 those of Dartmouth, Yale, Bowdoin and the University 
 of Vermont. The only one of these schools which he 
 actually initiated was that of Dartmouth, where for 
 twelve years he taught, with only occasional and slight 
 assistance, all of the subjects then included in the medi- 
 cal curriculum, and we know that he taught them well. 
 Few teachers have ever been held in greater esteem and 
 affection by pupils than was Dr. Smith. One cannot 
 restrain a feeling of regret, although sympathizing with 
 the enlightened decision necessitated by the changed 
 conditions of medical education, that the Dartmouth 
 Medical School, with its long and honorable history, is 
 to discontinue the last two years of the course after the 
 present session. 
 
 That Dr. Smith did not believe in the unnecessary 
 multiplication of medical schools is apparent from a 
 statement in his letter to Dr. Shattuck of April 18, 
 1823 (on page 122) : "I think the four schools which 
 I have been concerned in bringing forward, in addition 
 to Harvard, will be as much as New England will bear, 
 and I think there will not be too many. Every state 
 should have one medical school and no more." It 
 would have been well for medical education in this 
 country if this standard had been maintained, and well 
 too if his example had been followed of establishing 
 
Introduction 
 
 such schools only in association with colleges or 
 universities. 
 
 Coming to New Haven in 1813 in the fullness of his 
 powers, Nathan Smith was by far the most distin- 
 guished member of the first faculty of the Yale Medical 
 School and the one most active in its organization and 
 development. Here, too, was the scene of his most 
 productive activities, of his widest influence and great- 
 est usefulness. If provided with adequate resources, the 
 Yale Medical School, favorably located in connection 
 with a great university, is in a position to enter upon the 
 second century of its existence with a well-founded 
 expectation of renown and usefulness surpassing even 
 the high hopes of Nathan Smith, under whom it had 
 attained a large measure of prosperity. 
 
 It is related that the first President Dwight was 
 accustomed to give a brief sketch of the events of 
 Nathan Smith's life to the senior class of Yale College 
 "in order to awaken their ambition and to encourage 
 them in surmounting difficulties." It was indeed a life 
 full of useful lessons, and many will be grateful to Mrs. 
 Smith for this memorial volume, which will help to 
 extend and perpetuate the fame of a great physician, 
 teacher and builder, whose name stands high in the 
 medical annals of this country. Several of the descend- 
 ants of Nathan Smith became distinguished in medi- 
 cine and an interest attaches to the short biographical 
 notices of other members of this remarkable family of 
 physicians. 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 It gives me great pleasure to fulfil what I consider 
 a sacred trust, by contributing to the Medical School 
 of Yale University a brief sketch of the remarkable 
 life of Dr. Nathan Smith, with many of his heretofore 
 unpublished letters and extracts from his ledgers kept 
 at Dartmouth and Yale. 
 
 No attempt has been made in this compilation to 
 dilate upon the history or to do more than connect 
 the letters with the various incidents of the life of Dr. 
 Smith by arranging them in chronological order. 
 
 Since I have been the guardian of his valuable 
 papers, a steady growth of interest has been mani- 
 fested in them and in their author, who is now recog- 
 nized by the medical profession to have been in 
 medicine one of the greatest men of his day in Amer- 
 ica, a pioneer, who made important innovations in the 
 treatment of diseases, raising the standard of medical 
 science from a very low estate — and who in the face 
 of almost insurmountable difficulties founded medical 
 schools where he taught hundreds and perhaps thou- 
 sands of men, of whom many have become shining 
 lights in the medical profession. 
 
 This biography will show that Dr. Nathan Smith 
 was practically the founder of the Yale Medical School 
 in the year 1813, for he not only supplied the first 
 lectureships in the Theory and Practice of Physic, of 
 Surgery and of Obstetrics, but, by his own personal 
 
viil Foreword 
 
 application to the Legislature of Connecticut, obtained 
 a grant of twenty thousand dollars to start the medical 
 buildings. 
 
 It will also be shown that it was during Dr. Smith's 
 sojourn at New Haven that he accomplished his best 
 work in teaching, writing, and attending the sick. 
 
 In consideration of Dr. Nathan Smith's important 
 connection with the Medical School of Yale Univer- 
 sity, there would appear to be no better way of cele- 
 brating the Centennial Anniversary of its opening than 
 in honoring its distinguished founder by putting into 
 some permanent form an account of his remarkable 
 life and a collection of his writings as a fitting memorial 
 to his beloved memory. 
 
 In the summer of 19 10 it was my privilege to visit 
 the early home of Dr. Nathan Smith at Cornish, N. H., 
 and some of the colleges connected with his work. 
 
 At Dartmouth, Prof. John K. Lord loaned me some 
 interesting letters written by Dr. Smith, and Dr. Gil- 
 man D. Frost showed great kindness in taking me 
 through the old medical building for which Dr. Smith 
 gave the land, and in which in 1798 he started the 
 first medical school in New Hampshire by filling all 
 the chairs himself. 
 
 At Yale, Dr. Wm. H. Carmalt took pains to help 
 on my work and by his continued kindness has done 
 much to further its completion. 
 
 I feel that I owe thanks to many who have aided me 
 in one way or another. Mrs. Nathan Smith Lincoln 
 and other ladies of the family have contributed letters 
 and photographs, and Drs. Frederick C. Shattuck, 
 
Foreword ix 
 
 William H. Welch, Samuel C. Chew, of the Univer- 
 sity of Maryland, James A. Spalding, Alfred Mitchell, 
 of Bowdoin College, and Samuel Theobald, of Johns 
 Hopkins University, have all aided by supplying letters 
 or giving permission to quote from their writings. To 
 no two friends do I feel more gratitude than to the 
 late Dr. John Taylor Gilman Nichols, who encouraged 
 me to compile the biography, and to Dr. Henry M. 
 Hurd, without whose substantial interest the work 
 might have received no further recognition. 
 
 I have also been aided by Dr. Nathan Ryno Smith 
 and Dr. Eugene McEvers Van Ness, who gave much 
 time and the benefit of their medical knowledge to 
 examining the manuscripts of Dr. Nathan Smith and 
 to deciphering his very difficult handwriting. For 
 some of the early accounts of Cornish I am indebted 
 to Mrs. Laura Chase Smith and her very interesting 
 history of her grandfather, Bishop Philander Chase. 
 Mr. Carroll Smith, of Albany, kindly contributed items 
 from the genealogy of the family. 
 
 I am deeply grateful to Mrs. Robert Nelson Corwin 
 for her very careful editorial work and also for the 
 addition of many of the footnotes and a few historical 
 items of much interest. 
 
 Emily A. Smith. 
 
 August 18, 1913. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 Chapter Page 
 
 I. The Landing of the "Diligent" in 1638 . . 1 
 
 II. Exciting adventures of Nathan Smith's early 
 days. War with Indians. He becomes a 
 teacher. Assists at a surgical operation and 
 decides to study medicine 4 
 
 III. His removal to Cornish, New Hampshire, to 
 
 practice medicine. The Chases and Spaldings 
 his friends there. Goes to Harvard and takes 
 degree of M.B. in 1790. Marriage with 
 Elizabeth, daughter of General Chase. Death 
 of wife and marriage, the following year, 
 with her half-sister, Sarah 7 
 
 IV. Nathan Smith offers to establish a medical 
 
 department at Hanover. Sails on Bark 
 "Hope" for Edinburgh to continue studies. 
 Returns after nine months with books and 
 instruments for his work. Honored by Lon- 
 don Medical Society 15 
 
 V. Dr. Smith founds Dartmouth Medical School 
 in 1797. Sole teacher in all branches. De- 
 gree of A.M. conferred upon him by Dart- 
 mouth in 1798. Rapid growth of the school 
 under difficulties. Dr. Smith practices vac- 
 cination in 1800. Extracts from his ledger 
 of 1800. Lists of pupils, including Daniel 
 Webster. M.D. from Dartmouth, 1801 . 22 
 VI. Friendships with pupils. Letters to Dr. George 
 C. Shattuck; one of the earliest, with com- 
 ments on the teaching of his contemporary, 
 Dr. Benjamin Rush, of Philadelphia. Dr. 
 
xii Table of Contents 
 
 Chapter Page 
 
 Smith gets grant from Legislature of New- 
 Hampshire to build a home for the Medical 
 School ; he gives land and assigns his anatomi- 
 cal museum and chemical apparatus to the 
 State 34 
 
 VII. Difficulties and trials followed by honors. 
 Dr. Smith elected president of the State 
 Medical Society. Renewed honor by Lon- 
 don Medical Society. M.D. from Harvard, 
 1811. More letters to Dr. Shattuck. Fa- 
 mous prophecy in his lecture on Chemistry . 53 
 
 VIII. In letter to Dr. Shattuck of April 15, 1811, 
 some account of his family is given, and a 
 full description of the origin of the Dart- 
 mouth Medical School. Other important 
 letters 61 
 
 IX. Description of the old medical building. Great 
 discouragements come to Dr. Smith at Dart- 
 mouth. In 1812 he is invited to assist the 
 trustees of Yale College in establishing a 
 medical department there, by becoming Pro- 
 fessor of the Theory and Practice of Physic, 
 Surgery and Obstetrics. Accepts proposition 75 
 
 X. Dr. Nathan Smith leaves Dartmouth for New 
 Haven, taking with him his sons, David 
 Solon and Nathan Ryno, to enter at Yale as 
 pupils. Teaching and practice in New Haven 90 
 
 XL Dr. Smith's manner of lecturing. Makes per- 
 sonal application to the Legislature of Con- 
 necticut for a grant of funds and receives 
 twenty thousand dollars for the medical 
 
Table of Contents xiii 
 
 Chapter Page 
 
 buildings at Yale. Dr. Smith's affliction in 
 loss of his eldest daughter. Moves family to 
 
 New Haven 93 
 
 XII. David Solon receives degree of M.D. in 1816. 
 Nathan Ryno, the second son, writes a play 
 and performs in it. Receives degree of A.B. 
 in 1817 and leaves to be tutor in a Virginia 
 family. Solon goes west to study botany. 
 More letters to Dr. Shattuck. Extracts from 
 records in family Bible. Marriages of elder 
 children 103 
 
 XIII. In 1820 the Legislature of Maine endows a 
 
 medical school. Dr. Smith is consulted and 
 placed at the head of it and thus assists in 
 establishing the medical school in connection 
 with Bowdoin College at Brunswick, Maine 109 
 
 XIV. Dr. Smith lectures at both Bowdoin and Yale. 
 
 Extracts from his ledger kept at New Haven 
 in 1821 and 1822, with list of students there. 
 Dr. Solon Smith marries and settles at Sut- 
 ton. Dr. Nathan Ryno Smith returns to 
 Yale and receives degree of M.D. there in 
 1820. Begins practice at Burlington and 
 marries there. He is called to the Univer- 
 sity of Vermont, where with his father he 
 establishes a medical department in 1821 and 
 becomes Professor of Surgery and Anatomy 114 
 XV. Letters to Dr. Shattuck from Dr. Nathan 
 Smith from Brunswick and New Haven; 
 the one of April 18, 1823, mentions comple- 
 tion of his well-known treatise on typhoid 
 fever. The work of Dr. Nathan Smith com- 
 
XIV 
 
 Table of Contents 
 
 Chapter Page 
 
 merited upon by Professor Knight of New 
 
 Haven 121 
 
 XVI. Dr. Nathan Ryno Smith goes to Philadelphia, 
 where, as Professor of Anatomy, he joins Dr. 
 George McClellan in founding the Jefferson 
 Medical School, advised and assisted by Dr. 
 Nathan Smith and Dr. George C. Shattuck. 
 Letters from the elder Dr. Smith to Dr. Shat- 
 tuck. Financial cares 130 
 
 XVII. Dr. Nathan Ryno Smith is called to chair of 
 Surgery in the University of Maryland, and 
 leaves Philadelphia for Baltimore. Last let- 
 ter of Dr. Nathan Smith to Dr. Shattuck, 
 dated New Haven, December 8, 1827, speaks 
 with pride and affection of his family. Letter 
 from Dr. N. R. Smith upon hearing of the 
 extreme illness of his father 135 
 
 XVIII. The death of Nathan Smith, surrounded by his 
 family and his beloved pupils. Dr. Shattuck 
 soothes his last hours by promised care of the 
 education of his youngest son. Professor 
 
 Knight's eulogium 140 
 
 XIX. Resolutions passed containing eulogies and testi- 
 monials of honor to the memory of Nathan 
 Smith during the course of the century almost 
 
 elapsed since his death 147 
 
 XX. Medical men descended from Nathan Smith . 156 
 
 The Appendix: 
 
 Containing an account of the writings of Dr. 
 Nathan Smith. His Introductory Lecture 
 delivered at Yale in 1813 167 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Nathan Smith, M.D Frontispiece 
 
 PAGE 
 
 One of the Jonathan Chase Houses at Cornish ... 6 
 
 The Episcopal Church at Cornish 10 
 
 The Graveyard Next to the Episcopal Church ... 10 
 
 General Jonathan Chase 12 
 
 Mrs. Jonathan Chase 14 
 
 One of the Homes of General Jonathan Chase at Cornish 20 
 
 The Connecticut River near Hanover, N. H 22 
 
 The Book Plate of Dr. Nathan Smith 26 
 
 Photograph of a Page from Dr. Smith's Ledger Kept at 
 
 Dartmouth, 1800-1801 28 
 
 The Old Medical Building at Dartmouth .... 76 
 
 The Nathan Smith Laboratory at Dartmouth ... 80 
 Photograph from the Ledger of Dr. Smith Kept at Yale, 
 
 1813-1814 92 
 
 Yale College in 1807 96 
 
 Photograph of Invitation for Junior Exhibition, Yale 
 
 College, 1816 102 
 
 Yale Medical College in 1840 108 
 
 Photograph of Original Ticket to Dr. Smith's Lectures 
 
 at Yale College, 1821 116 
 
 Mrs. Frances (Montesque Buchanan Allen) Penniman . 118 
 
 Mrs. Margaret (Schoolcraft) Montesque Wall ... 120 
 
 Dr. Nathan Ryno Smith (from Miniature) . . . . 136 
 
 The Grave of Dr. Nathan Smith 142 
 
 Dr. David Solon Chase Hall Smith 156 
 
 Dr. Nathan Ryno Smith 158 
 
 Dr. James Morven Smith 160 
 
 Dr. John Derby Smith 162 
 
NATHAN SMITH 
 
 Harvard— M.B. 1790. M.D. 1811. 
 Dartmouth— A.M. 1798.' M.D. 1801. 
 
 Corresponding member of the Medical Society of 
 
 London, 1797. 
 
 Founder of the Medical School of Dartmouth, 
 
 1798. 
 Dartmouth — Professor of Anatomy, Surgery, Chemistry, and 
 
 Theory and Practice of Medicine, 1798 to 1810. 
 Dartmouth — Professor of Chemistry, and Theory and Practice 
 
 of Medicine, 1810 to 1813. 
 Yale — First Professor of Theory and Practice of Physic, 
 
 Surgery and Obstetrics, 1813 to 1829. 
 Bowdoin — With President Allen the inaugurator of the 
 
 Medical School in connection with Bowdoin Col- 
 lege, Maine, 1821 to 1826. 
 Bowdoin — Professor of Anatomy, Surgery, and Theory and 
 
 Practice of Medicine, 1821 to 1823. Professor 
 
 of Theory and Practice of Medicine, 1821 to 
 
 1826. 
 Burlington — Together with his son, Dr. Nathan Ryno Smith, 
 
 founder of the Medical School of the University 
 
 of Vermont at Burlington, 1820. 
 
 Born September 30, 1762 — Died January 26, 1829. 
 
LIFE AND LETTERS OF NATHAN SMITH 
 
CHAPTER FIRST 
 
 The Landing of the "Diligent" in 1638 
 
 Within a few months of the ordering of a school 
 or college at Newetowne, and in the memorable year 
 when the name of Newetowne was changed, hencefor- 
 ward to be called Cambridge, no less than twenty ships 
 plowed their way across the unusually stormy waters 
 of the Atlantic, bringing to the shores of America at 
 least three thousand persons, many of whom were men 
 and women of quality and estate who were seeking 
 freedom from religious persecution and who were to 
 be the founders of the great Republic of the United 
 States, — among them men wisely called "the greatest 
 geniuses for government that the world ever saw 
 embarked together in one common cause." 
 
 One of these twenty ships was the good "Diligent" 
 of Ipswich, which, on August 10, 1638, safely landed 
 her cargo of one hundred and thirty-three souls, 
 brought from Old Hingham, England, to the New 
 Hingham in New England. Some of these men were 
 destined to become important factors in laying the 
 firm foundation for prosperity and peace upon which 
 future men were to build. There were the Gilmans, 
 Lincolns, Cushings, Coopers, Folsoms and others. 
 
 Many of these families had been the parishioners 
 of the Rev. Robert Peck, under whose leadership they 
 had come to the land where religious toleration existed 
 
Life and Letters 
 
 for all. Among the one hundred and thirty-three pas- 
 sengers of the "Diligent" was a Mr. Henry Smith, 
 who, with his wife, Judith, their three sons and two 
 daughters, three men servants and two maid servants, 
 was from Hargham Hall, Norfolk County, England. 
 English histories refer to this Henry Smith as one of 
 the prominent men who emigrated to New England 
 on account of religious controversies then existing. 
 
 Mr. Henry Smith's five children were all born and 
 educated in England, and, as the term "Mr." indicates, 
 he himself had been a college graduate, and in the new 
 country became a useful citizen and was, in 1641, a 
 representative in General Court. 
 
 His son, Henry, Jr., called Ensign Henry, a man of 
 superior culture and an engineer, surveyed the Reho- 
 both North Purchase, Attleboro, Mass., and Cumber- 
 land, R. L, with Mr. Carpenter; also the Douams 
 Purchase, Barrington, R. I., and many other places; 
 he, likewise, was a representative in General Court in 
 1662. 
 
 Ensign Henry Smith's son, called Deacon Henry, 
 married Rebecca Atwood and they were the parents 
 of John Smith, whose second wife, Elizabeth (Ide) 
 Hills, was the mother of Nathan Smith of this history. 
 
 The family of the first Henry Smith removed, not 
 very long after their landing, from Hingham to Reho- 
 both, where it took root and flourished for four 
 generations. 
 
 Here, on September 30, 1762, a son, Nathan, was 
 born to John Smith and Elizabeth, his wife. They 
 subsequently removed to Chester, Vt., but the exact 
 
of Nathan Smith 
 
 time or cause for this step is not known. Accounts of 
 the boyhood days of Nathan Smith indicate that his 
 father was a pioneer among the farmers of that 
 district. 
 
CHAPTER SECOND 
 
 The youthful days of Nathan Smith were spent 
 upon his father's farm, aiding in the usual duties in 
 garden and fields and in the care of the domestic ani- 
 mals; but there were times when he had experiences 
 exciting enough to suit the most ambitious taste for 
 adventure. His hunting and fishing excursions were in 
 the wilds of the frontier lands, where it is said that 
 on one occasion he was lost for three days in one of the 
 dense forests where lofty pines sometimes reached to 
 the height of 270 feet, and the thick undergrowth in 
 places often concealed wild beasts as well as hostile and 
 treacherous Indians. It may well be imagined that 
 under such circumstances as then surrounded the young 
 Nathan, he must have acquired very early in life great 
 courage and self-reliance, especially as, beneath the 
 natural love which boys usually have for sports, he 
 possessed from the first uncommon force of character 
 and a great ambition to acquire knowledge and use it 
 for the benefit of others. It is recorded of him that 
 at the close of the Revolutionary War, when still a 
 youth, he served with the Vermont militia to protect 
 the inhabitants against the incursions of the Indians, 
 and at one time "narrowly escaped a bullet aimed at 
 him by a son of the forest from his place of ambush." 
 Evidently his military conduct gained approval, for at 
 the age of eighteen years he was promoted from the 
 ranks to a captaincy in his regiment. 
 
Nathan Smith 
 
 A little later we hear of him as a teacher in a dis- 
 trict school, showing that, although a farmer's boy, 
 his early education had not been neglected by his 
 father, who was descended from cultured people. 
 
 While engaged in this work of teaching, his interest 
 was aroused on hearing that Dr. Goodhue, a noted 
 surgeon of the time, was coming from Putney, Vt., to 
 amputate the leg of a man in Chester. Together with 
 others, young Smith repaired to the spot to watch the 
 operation and when Dr. Goodhue asked if any one 
 present would assist him by holding the leg, Nathan 
 Smith stepped boldly forward and with unflinching 
 nerve gave his aid, even so far as to tie the arteries 
 without a tremor. After the operation was completed 
 and many had left the house, young Smith expressed 
 to Dr. Goodhue his intense desire to study medicine, 
 proposing to begin as soon as the school term should 
 close. But after questioning him as to his acquire- 
 ments, Dr. Goodhue wisely advised more preparation 
 as a foundation for the all-important profession of 
 medicine and surgery, and told the ambitious youth 
 that he must be qualified to enter the Freshman class 
 at Harvard before beginning medical studies. 
 
 After a year had passed, when probably the doctor 
 had forgotten all about his aspiring young assistant at 
 Chester, he was surprised one day by the arrival of 
 Nathan Smith at his home, claiming his promise to act 
 as his instructor. Dr. Goodhue found that this remark- 
 able young man had fulfilled all of the conditions which 
 he had made by studying industriously during the year 
 with the Rev. Mr. Whiting of Rockingham, Vt., and, 
 
Life and Letters 
 
 persuaded of rare characteristics in Nathan Smith, 
 then just twenty-two years of age, Dr. Goodhue 
 offered him a home and medical tuition in return for 
 certain work necessary in the country home of a physi- 
 cian. Three years were thus passed, during which 
 time a strong intimacy and lifelong friendship grew 
 up between the instructor and his pupil. 
 
 In the year 1787, when twenty-five years of age, 
 Nathan Smith began the practice of medicine at Cor- 
 nish, N. H., before he had received a degree from any 
 of the three medical schools then existing in the United 
 States, this plan of entering the medical profession 
 being customary in that day. 
 
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CHAPTER THIRD 
 
 Beautiful Cornish, N. H., Where Dr. Nathan 
 Smith Began the Practice of Medicine 
 
 In order to understand the early life of Nathan 
 Smith at Cornish, it is necessary to know something of 
 the state of the country in that neighborhood when he 
 began his work there. 
 
 Only about thirty years had elapsed since Dudley 
 Chase and Dyer Spalding, with a party of workmen, 
 had gone from Fort No. 4 (Charlestown), then the 
 northernmost settlement in the State of New Hamp- 
 shire, to a well-chosen spot sixteen miles up the Connec- 
 ticut River, where they were to fell the great forest 
 trees, clear the ground and start the little town of Cor- 
 nish. A thrillingly interesting account of the undertak- 
 ing is given in the beautiful history of Dudley Chase's 
 son, Philander, who became the first Bishop of Ohio 
 and Illinois. It is stated that the brave and lovely wife 
 of Dudley Chase, Mistress Allace Corbett, was so anx- 
 ious to share the companionship and perils of her hus- 
 band in this enterprise that she prevailed upon Mr. 
 Dyer Spalding, who had returned to the fort for provi- 
 sions, to take her and her seven little children in a canoe 
 to join her husband before the men had found time even 
 to build a log cabin for their shelter; but a tent of long 
 strips of bark was soon made by the loving hands of 
 the men for her and her little ones, and no doubt the 
 heroic woman was able to add much to the comfort of 
 
8 Life and Letters 
 
 these, the first settlers of Cornish. Dudley's brother 
 Jonathan and their father, Judge Samuel Chase, of 
 Aquilla's family of Newbury, soon followed him from 
 Sutton, Mass., their native town, to Cornish, and the 
 settlement became especially identified with the Chases 
 and Spaldings. 
 
 The first thirty years of the existence of Cornish 
 had brought many stirring events and changes not 
 only to the settlers of the little town but to the whole 
 country; for during that time freedom from England 
 was obtained by the Revolutionary War. The inhabi- 
 tants of Cornish had contributed their share in bring- 
 ing this to pass; marching under the leadership of 
 General Jonathan Chase were many neighbors, includ- 
 ing Jonathan's venerable father, Samuel Chase, judge 
 of the County of Cheshire, N. H., already seventy 
 years of age. This regiment marched from Cornish 
 to Bennington, Vt., and to Saratoga, N. Y., and was 
 present at the surrender of General Burgoyne. But to 
 the residents of the little town of Cornish, so far 
 inland as to be removed even from the news of the 
 great battles, Indians as enemies were even more to be 
 dreaded than enemies from foreign lands, for at that 
 time savages infested the neighboring forests and were 
 constantly ready to attack. 
 
 In 1780, just seven years before Nathan Smith 
 came to Cornish, Royalton, Vt., only a few miles away, 
 had been burned and destroyed and seven men of 
 Randolph, its near neighbor, had been captured and 
 kept prisoners by the Indians for two years. But in 
 this heroic age, the courage and energy of the pioneers 
 
of Nathan Smith 
 
 were boundless, — the men, like the builders of the walls 
 of Jerusalem in Nehemiah's time, had their implements 
 of defense always at hand while with a "mind to work" 
 they cleared the land, built their homes, made their 
 own farm implements and attended to their flocks and 
 herds. The women, no less busy, carded wool, made 
 cloth by the aid of the loom and the spinning wheel, 
 knitted stockings and attended to the pickling and pre- 
 serving of meats and fruits as well as to the cooking 
 of the food. Not many idle moments could have been 
 spent by these early settlers of the country and yet they 
 seem to have had time for the education of their chil- 
 dren. Four of the sons of Dudley Chase graduated 
 from Dartmouth, while Allace, one of his daughters, 
 is said to have been able to repeat the whole of 
 Homer's Iliad and to have kept up with her brothers 
 in their studies at Dartmouth. 
 
 But this period of the country's history was so 
 marked in many districts by great ignorance and super- 
 stition in regard to the care of the sick, that the pres- 
 ence of a well-trained young physician among them 
 received a kindly and hearty welcome from the families 
 at Cornish, and a special intimacy grew up between 
 the Chases and Spaldings and Nathan Smith. Young 
 Lyman Spalding, then a lad of twelve or fifteen years, 
 became his ardent admirer, and from that time was 
 so influenced by his example and good work that he 
 resolved to enter the medical profession, in which he 
 afterwards rose to distinction. 
 
 We are not informed as to Dr. Smith's reason for 
 selecting this Cornish region for his professional work, 
 
10 Life and Letters 
 
 but, as artists and authors of this day have discovered, 
 no one could visit the neighborhood without being 
 impressed by its natural advantages and beauty. 
 
 Nestled at the very foot of Mt. Ascutney, on a 
 broad bend of the Connecticut River, is the little town 
 of Windsor, Vt., which, by means of a most picturesque 
 old covered bridge, spanning the river, is so connected 
 with Cornish that the two villages are practically one. 
 From this bridge, through a wonderful New England 
 forest, a short road leads up to the part of Cornish 
 once owned by General Jonathan Chase and his fam- 
 ily, and it is evidently here that Dr. Smith spent much 
 of his time. 
 
 Two years of practice at Cornish but served to im- 
 press upon the young physician the importance of fur- 
 ther knowledge in the great field of medicine and sur- 
 gery. Accordingly he gave up his practice there to go to 
 Cambridge, where he attended "the lectures of Dr. 
 John Warren on Anatomy and Surgery, Dr. Aaron 
 Dexter on Chemistry and Materia Medica, and Dr. 
 Benjamin Waterhouse, of the Medical Department, on 
 Theory and Practice of Medicine ; besides the medical 
 lectures he attended those of Professor Samuel Webber 
 on Natural Philosophy, in the College; and these to- 
 gether probably constituted his first course of lectures. 
 At the Harvard Commencement in 1790, he took the 
 degree of M.B. (Bachelor of Medicine), the only one 
 in a class of four, and the fourth graduate in the Medi- 
 cal School of Harvard." 1 It was on that occasion that he 
 
 1 The statement stands as quoted in Dr. Hubbard's discourse, and he 
 evidently derived his facts from Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes. The 
 
The Episcopal Church at Cornish 
 
 The Graveyard Next to the Episcopal Church 
 
 The grave marked is that of Elizabeth, the first wife of Dr. Nathan Smith 
 
of Nathan Smith // 
 
 read an "Inaugural Dissertation on the Circulation of 
 the Blood," which was received with high approbation 
 and published at the request of the faculty. 
 
 Immediately after the receipt of his diploma, Dr. 
 Smith returned to his friends and professional work 
 at Cornish, where his friendship with the Chases was 
 cemented by his marriage on January 16, 1791, with 
 Elizabeth, one of the daughters of General Jonathan 
 and his first wife, Thankful Sherman Chase. But his 
 happiness with his young wife was of short duration, 
 for she died on April 14, 1793, leaving no children. 
 In those early days, however, it was universally felt 
 that "it is not good that a man should be alone"; 
 exigencies of home life demanded that each man should 
 provide himself a helpmeet and early marriages were 
 the order of the day. When death separated even the 
 most loving couples, second and third marriages were 
 often contracted. 
 
 Such being the custom it is not surprising to learn 
 that some time after the death of Elizabeth, Dr. Smith 
 began to realize a growing interest in the bright and 
 gifted Sarah, a half-sister of his wife, and daughter of 
 the General and his second wife, Sarah (Hall) Chase. 
 
 account in the Harvard Quinquennial Catalogue does not, however, 
 bear out this statement, and application to the authorities at Harvard 
 reveals the fact that, since the writing of the above, three names have 
 been added to the list of graduates in medicine, making a showing of 
 two names, instead of one, to each of the first three classes. "Since 
 1875, and especially at the time the Quinquennial Catalogue was trans- 
 lated from Latin to English, the Corporation records were carefully- 
 examined and the three names added to the classes of 1788, 1789, 
 1790." 
 
12 Life and Letters 
 
 This young girl had been a mere child at the time of 
 her sister's marriage, on which occasion she is said, in 
 her admiration for Dr. Smith, to have pushed her way 
 in beside him and stood for a while between the bride 
 and groom. 
 
 Having fixed upon his choice, Dr. Smith determined 
 upon asking of her parents her hand in marriage. The 
 letter by which Dr. Smith addressed Sarah is so char- 
 acteristic of the man, being such a rare combination of 
 vehemence in love and straightforwardness in business, 
 that it cannot be omitted here, and is as follows : 
 
 "Cornish, N. H., January 22, 1794. 
 Sally : 
 
 You will excuse the precipitancy with which I proceed 
 in my endeavors to accomplish my connection with you. 
 I expected last evening to have set off for Hanover this 
 morning, and I could not endure the least uncertainty 
 till I returned, therefore I discovered my wishes 
 respecting you to your Sire and Marm last evening, and 
 they have generously given me leave to marry with you. 
 
 I hope I shall never meet with your disapprobation. 
 Transported with Joy and Expectation I am 
 
 Your sincere Lover 
 
 Nathan Smith. 
 Miss Sally H. Chase, 
 Cornish." 
 
 Clearly Sally had already been led to acknowledge 
 a willingness to accede to his desire before her "Sire" 
 
General Jonathan Chase 
 
 Father of Mrs. Nathan Smith 
 
of Nathan Smith 13 
 
 and "Marm" were approached. Their consent having 
 now been obtained, Nathan Smith and Sarah Hall 
 Chase were married in September, 1794, and this mar- 
 riage proved a happy one in every way, Sarah being a 
 true helpmeet in the home of her husband. 
 
 By his union with her Dr. Smith became connected 
 with a large circle of New England families of promi- 
 nence, although none of them were very rich in this 
 world's goods. Sarah was the granddaughter of the 
 Rev. David and Elizabeth Prescott Hall on her 
 mother's side, and of Judge Samuel and Mary Dudley 
 Chase on her father's. 
 
 The Chases had by this time acquired by thrift and 
 economy what in that day might have been considered 
 at least a competency. They had built substantial 
 houses in Cornish, where they were able to enjoy great 
 comfort, and had also extended their possessions in 
 lands and promoted other settlements in their state. 
 Dr. Smith, the only physician in the neighborhood, soon 
 acquired a large practice, making his rounds to distant 
 places either on horseback or by stage. On the 27th of 
 June, 1795, a son was born to Dr. and Mrs. Smith, to 
 whom they gave the name "David Solon Chase Hall 
 Smith," all family names except the Solon, which came 
 from Ossian, — evidently a favorite poet of the time, — 
 and this became the name by which this son was always 
 called. 
 
 As a devoted husband and father, with a good prac- 
 tice and every prospect of happiness, it would have been 
 but natural for Dr. Smith to content himself with life 
 in Cornish, enjoying his domestic felicity. But the 
 
14 Life and Letters 
 
 feeling that fellow beings were suffering and dying on 
 account of the prevailing ignorance of the science of 
 medicine, gave him no rest, knowing as he did that 
 numbers of ambitious young men lacked only the oppor- 
 tunity of acquiring good medical instruction to fit 
 them, as educated physicians, to become blessings to 
 humanity. 
 
Mrs. Jonathan Chase 
 
 Mother of Mrs. Nathan Smith 
 
CHAPTER FOURTH 
 
 The Founding of the Dartmouth Medical 
 
 School. Dr. Smith's Voyage to Edinburgh, 
 
 Where He Continues His Medical 
 
 Studies 
 
 Strong in the determination to provide opportunities 
 for this needed instruction, Dr. Smith applied to the 
 trustees of Dartmouth College, at their annual meeting 
 in August, 1796, for their approbation of a plan he had 
 devised for establishing a Professorship of the Theory 
 and Practice of Medicine in connection with Dart- 
 mouth. His plan was fully approved by President John 
 Wheelock; the scheme, novel and far-reaching, was 
 favorably received and discussed by the trustees, a 
 resolution complimentary to the character and energy 
 of Dr. Smith passed, and hope given for future 
 encouragement; but it was voted to postpone final 
 action upon the proposition for a year. This unsatis- 
 factory response to his generous offer might have 
 entirely discouraged an ordinary man, but Dr. Smith 
 was only stimulated to new effort and determined to 
 persevere in what he hoped might benefit many suf- 
 ferers, for the only three schools then in the United 
 States where medicine was taught were those of the 
 University of Pennsylvania, the Medical School of 
 Columbia College and the Medical School of Harvard 
 College. 
 
16 Life and Letters 
 
 In the absence of railroads, the distances to be 
 traveled made it almost impossible for young men of 
 moderate means to attend these schools, and one desir- 
 ing to study medicine was compelled to apprentice 
 himself to a physician who would instruct him in return 
 for some menial work as office helper or farm hand. 
 In consequence of the lack of proper instruction, few 
 physicians of that day were at all qualified to attend the 
 sick. 
 
 Dr. Smith, with his usual energy and far-sightedness, 
 decided to utilize the months of waiting for the trustees 
 of Dartmouth to accept his offer, by acquiring for him- 
 self more knowledge of his profession, and, in order to 
 get the best instruction that could be had, he concluded 
 to become a student at the University of Edinburgh, 
 then one of the most noted medical schools of the 
 world. Almost insurmountable difficulties beset this 
 undertaking, for not only had he to part with his 
 family, friends, and patients, but crossing the ocean in 
 midwinter on a rather small sailing vessel was attended 
 by many perils, and his very limited means made it 
 necessary for him to borrow a greater part of the 
 money to pay the way. His integrity of character was, 
 however, so well established that the Hon. Sanford 
 Kingsbury and other friends willingly loaned a sufficient 
 sum to cover whatever part of the expense Dr. Smith 
 himself could not provide. 
 
 Plans for the long journey were made with a view 
 to the greatest economy, and every expense considered 
 and eliminated as far as possible. The horse was sold 
 
of Nathan Smith 17 
 
 and the proceeds used toward defraying the cost of the 
 passage to Glasgow, this route being selected in prefer- 
 ence to that by way of London because the price of the 
 voyage to London was $170, while Glasgow could be 
 reached for $75. 
 
 Great care and self-denial attended all the arrange- 
 ments for this journey. He wrote to Dr. Lyman Spald- 
 ing before sailing: "Respecting my voyage I am not 
 so well provided for as I could wish, but must put my 
 trust in God and not in filthy lucre." His farewell 
 letters to his wife were full of tender solicitude for her 
 and his little son, although he took comfort in knowing 
 that they would be well cared for by her father and 
 mother. 
 
 Just before sailing from Boston he wrote the follow- 
 ing: 
 
 "On Board the Bark Hope, December 17, 1796. 
 
 Now for the last time, until I arrive in Europe, I 
 address you. I have lately sent you two letters, which 
 I hope you will receive without delay. I 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 
 
18 Life and Letters 
 
 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 return happy. It is my constant 
 prayer, and if good intentions can have any influence 
 on our fortune, I am sure I shall succeed. 
 
 P. 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 fine Captain and 
 crew, all very obliging and civil. I lack for nothing to 
 make me happy but your company, with Solon." 
 
 The bark "Hope" left with her five passengers, 
 captain and crew on December 18, 1796. After land- 
 ing and gaining what he could at Glasgow, Dr. Smith 
 proceeded to Edinburgh, where for three months he 
 attended the lectures of Monro, Secundus, on Anatomy 
 and Surgery, and of Black on Chemistry. 
 
 A letter to his wife from Edinburgh shows the depth 
 of his affection for his family and what a sacrifice he 
 was making in separating himself from his home in 
 order to accomplish the great work that he hoped to 
 do for humanity. Evidently when he wrote the fol- 
 lowing letter his homesickness was so intense that he 
 felt tempted to give up the struggle and return to 
 America in the early spring, but his strong will and 
 great ambition came to the rescue and he bravely per- 
 severed and eventually decided to remain abroad until 
 September. 
 
of Nathan Smith ig 
 
 Addressed to Mrs. Sally H. Smith 
 Cornish, 
 
 State of New Hampshire. 
 "My dear Sally: 
 
 I am quite homesick tho' very well on all other 
 accounts. You cannot, and I hope you never will by 
 similar experience, be sensible of the anxiety I have 
 suffered since I left my home and family. Tho' I am 
 every day surrounded with new and interesting scenes 
 and am treated with great kindness and attention by 
 the people here, yet my thoughts continually turn on 
 you and our dear little son, whose name I cannot write 
 without shedding tears on it. I imagine a thousand 
 evils ready to befall him. I see him every night in my 
 dreams and often wake myself by attempting to grasp 
 him, but he always eludes my fond embrace and leaves 
 me to mourn his absence. Do my dear, if he be still 
 living, and I dare not think otherwise, do, I say, watch 
 over him with maternal care, kiss him for me a thou- 
 sand times each day and tell him that his papa is 
 coming soon. 
 
 In my letter which I wrote you while in Glasgow I 
 mentioned that I might not be at home till June, but I 
 think now that I shall come sooner. I am now in Edin- 
 burgh, shall stay here but a few days, shall then go to 
 London where I shall make but a short stop and then 
 sail immediately to Boston. I have had no material 
 misfortune since I came here ; have become acquainted 
 with the Medical Professors here, and am attending 
 their lectures. I have a prospect of accomplishing my 
 
20 Life and Letters 
 
 purpose to my mind. I have bought several books for 
 your amusement, some of them written in the Scotch 
 Dialect with an explanation which will give you a very 
 just idea of the customs and manners of the Scotch 
 people. Present my best Respects to your Honored 
 parents, give my fondest love to your brother and 
 sisters and remember me with fond affection to all our 
 relatives and friends. Present my compliments to my 
 pupils and inform them that I shall, God willing, be 
 with them again in May or sooner. Remember me in 
 particular to my brother and to every one with you in 
 my home. I am, my dear Sally, yours with the fondest 
 love and conjugal affection till Death, which God grant 
 may be at a late day. Adieu, my dear, for a little. 
 
 Nathan Smith. 
 February 23, 1797. Edinburgh." 
 
 While in Edinburgh, Dr. Smith purchased and "sent 
 home to the college library medical books to the value 
 of thirty pounds sterling and brought with him appara- 
 tus for anatomy, surgery, and chemistry which he 
 deemed indispensable for commencing the proposed 
 medical institution" and which he hoped the trustees 
 of Dartmouth might purchase, as he "could ill afford 
 to bear the expense himself." 
 
 After leaving Edinburgh, Dr. Smith spent three 
 months in London, where he engaged in hospital work 
 with eminent physicians, before returning to Boston 
 on the ship "Apollo" early in September, 1797. 
 
 In this visit of nine months to older countries Dr. 
 
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of Nathan Smith 21 
 
 Smith acquired a great deal of valuable information on 
 medical subjects as well as a broader knowledge of the 
 world in general, and the good impression made by the 
 enterprising young American upon foreign friends was 
 attested by letters from them to other American phy- 
 sicians, as also by a diploma, which was sent to him in 
 1797 on his return, from the Medical Society of Lon- 
 don, accompanied by a notice of his election as Corre- 
 sponding Member of their organization. 
 
 On Dr. Smith's arrival at his home in Cornish he 
 not only found his wife and Solon well, but he had 
 acquaintance to make with a second son, Nathan Ryno 
 Smith, a fine boy four months old, who was born on 
 May 21, 1797. A pretty story is told of this happy 
 meeting: When Mrs. Smith was preparing for the 
 father's coming, she borrowed several babies from 
 neighbors and made Dr. Smith select his own from 
 among them, which he immediately succeeded in doing, 
 for, as he said, he "picked for the prettiest." Although 
 this son Nathan was his father's namesake, a name 
 from Ossian's poems was again supplemented, and 
 "Ryno" became the name by which he was always 
 called in the home. 
 
 Not much time could be spared by Dr. Smith for 
 the enjoyment of his family and home at Cornish, for 
 he was obliged to go very soon after his arrival to 
 Dartmouth to put into operation the plan for estab- 
 lishing the medical department, which the trustees of 
 the college had decided to accept. 
 
CHAPTER FIFTH 
 
 Both taste and good judgment were shown by 
 Eleazar Wheelock and his little company, when in 
 1770 they selected the site of Hanover for the Indian 
 and American College of Dartmouth. The land about 
 it was fertile, the climate very healthful, the scenery 
 around the high plateau upon which it is built exceed- 
 ingly varied and picturesque. In one direction between 
 the branches of the lofty elms and pines were opened 
 up vistas of still higher hills, and valleys so deep that, 
 in ascending from them, the cattle, as they grazed, 
 made circuitous paths as in mountain districts. From 
 another point could be seen the beautiful Connecticut 
 River, which in its windings formed the boundary line 
 between New Hampshire and Vermont, and not only 
 added variety to the wonderful scene, but brought 
 many practical gifts and privileges of great value to 
 the new settlement. 
 
 No wonder that a place so full of natural advan- 
 tages, and a knowledge of the energy of those pioneers 
 in undertaking the education and civilization of Indian 
 youths, appealed to the generosity of many noble men 
 and women and made them willing to help on the good 
 work by their donations, until, during the twenty-six 
 years which elapsed between the founding of the col- 
 lege and the offer of Dr. Smith to establish the medical 
 school in connection with it, the reputation of the insti- 
 tution had spread over the country, and Dartmouth had 
 
Nathan Smith 23 
 
 become recognized as one of the best colleges in the 
 United States. 
 
 But in those early days it was not in the power of the 
 most generous to give largely, for the early inhabitants 
 of the country were poor, and even the best of schools 
 had to struggle for the means to erect suitable buildings 
 to carry on its work, and this, the first college of New 
 Hampshire, was no exception to that rule. 
 
 "The first full course of Medical Lectures was 
 delivered by Dr. Nathan Smith at Dartmouth in the 
 Autumn of 1797 before his election as Professor." 
 Dr. Oliver P. Hubbard in his "Historical Discourse" 
 at Dartmouth, from which the writer of this history 
 largely quotes, says that "in August, 1798, the plan 
 proposed by Dr. Smith in 1796 was adopted by the 
 Trustees, and he was appointed a Professor, '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 emergence 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." 
 
 Dr. Smith's great skill and energy and his faithful- 
 ness to duty carried forward the work of this, the 
 fourth medical school of the country, with such surpris- 
 ing success that students came in numbers to be under 
 his instruction. 
 
24. Life and Letters 
 
 In August, 1798, two young men received the degree 
 of M.B., one of whom was the afterwards noted Dr. 
 Gallup. The degree of A.M. was at the same time 
 conferred by the trustees upon Dr. Smith. 
 
 But notwithstanding the phenomenal growth of the 
 Medical School at Dartmouth carried on by one man, 
 Dr. Smith's trials and discouragements were so great 
 that few men thus situated would have persevered in 
 the undertaking. Having no salary from the college 
 to help towards the expenses of the school or the sup- 
 port of his family, he was dependent upon the small pay 
 then exacted from medical students and the meagre 
 returns from his practice, which, although extensive, 
 was far from lucrative, and had to be attended under 
 difficulties, on horseback, over bad roads, and often in 
 inclement weather both in winter and summer. 
 
 The accommodations for the medical department 
 were also small and inadequate. Dr. Hubbard says 
 that tradition points to "a small two-story house of 
 four rooms" as its first home, and in August, 1799, the 
 trustees devoted and fitted up, for Dr. Smith's lectures, 
 Room No. 6 in the northeast corner and first story of 
 Dartmouth Hall — a building which, during the hun- 
 dred years of its existence, by its beauty and suitability 
 well repaid the "long agony of effort" which its erec- 
 tion is said to have cost. 
 
 But no inconvenience of surroundings prevented Dr. 
 Smith from persevering in his noble work. He not 
 only taught faithfully and attended untiringly to his 
 large practice, but he kept in touch with physicians of 
 
of Nathan Smith 25 
 
 the large cities, and was ever ready with keen interest 
 to avail himself of new discoveries. 
 
 Jenner published his great work on Variola Vaccina 
 in London in 1798, and to Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse 
 is given the credit of being the first to practice vaccina- 
 tion in the United States, for he is said to have vacci- 
 nated his own family on July 8, 1800; but, if not the 
 first, Dr. Smith and his pupil, Dr. Spalding, were cer- 
 tainly not far behind Dr. Waterhouse in adopting the 
 use of vaccine, for, under date of Hanover, August 
 25, 1800, Dr. Smith wrote to Dr. Spalding: "I have 
 to acknowledge the receipt of two letters from you since 
 I wrote you and am under great obligation to you for 
 the kine-pox infection which I received in your first 
 letter. I have always been of the opinion that we 
 should arrive at such a degree of knowledge about the 
 kine-pox as to make it a substitute for the small-pox 
 and attributed our failure of it in several instances to 
 our ignorance of the proper mode of communicating 
 it. I have used some of the infection that you sent me. 
 I have never subjected any of my patients to the 
 infection of the small-pox." 
 
 This letter with its date clearly shows that before 
 August 25, 1800, Dr. Smith had been practicing 
 vaccination. 
 
 Among Dr. Smith's very old ledgers, containing 
 heads of his lectures, there is one marked Hanover. 
 On the inside of the cover is pasted the very plain 
 book plate shown on a following page. 
 
26 Life and Letters 
 
 And on the first blank fly leaf he has written : 
 
 Heads of Lectures. Anatomy. 
 
 Nathan Smith M.D.— C.S.M.S. Lond. 
 
 Prof. Medicine Dartmouth College 
 New Hampshire. 
 
 Throughout the book, the paper and ink are in excel- 
 lent preservation. The writing is evidently intended 
 for his own eyes alone, for it was rapidly and vigor- 
 ously penned to serve as suggestions in his extem- 
 poraneous manner of delivering lectures. 
 
 The first lecture is on anatomy and gives the Greek 
 derivation of the word, and, as was Dr. Smith's custom 
 in all that he did or said, he commenced at the very 
 foundation of things and traced the history in outline 
 along from the ancients to the day in which he was 
 lecturing. He found the era of philosophy beginning 
 with the Ionian Thales in 480 B. C. Socrates, the 
 seventh in succession, introduced the study of morals, 
 bringing down philosophy from Heaven to make men 
 truly wise. "Plato was his scholar, and by his writings 
 we see that he had studied Anatomy. He said that 
 'the heart was the knot of the blood vessels, and that 
 the blood was the food of the flesh.' 
 
 "Hippocrates was nearly contemporary with Plato, 
 — about 400 B. C. From the time of Hippocrates to 
 Galen, who flourished about the second century in the 
 
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 |nathan SMITH,f 
 
 y Hanover, New-fiampjhire. ># 
 
 p ±X !.- ) ■ j . 1 ! Vf V f <"f-r-M-f-t -H-- f 4 4-f^ 
 
 The Book Plate of Dr. Nathan Smith 
 Photographed from the one in his ledger of 1800 
 
of Nathan Smith 27 
 
 decline of the Roman Empire, a space of six hundred 
 years, anatomy was greatly improved. These two 
 great men raised the credit of natural knowledge and 
 spread it as wide as Alexander's Empire. Civilization 
 and improvements of every kind are thought to have 
 begun in the fertile countries of the East. . . . 
 
 "It does not appear from the history we have of the 
 Jews, who went out from Egypt when that country had 
 arrived at considerable improvement in other arts and 
 sciences, that they had much knowledge of anatomy. 
 
 "We read of physicians, but how or in what manner 
 they were instructed, we have no account of, and, if we 
 may judge from some of the Jewish ceremonies which 
 were observed in preventing and curing disease, we 
 shall conclude that the rational system of physic was 
 not then taught. Witchery and marvelous applications 
 being in vogue is a sufficient proof of their ignorance in 
 natural knowledge. 
 
 "We read that Samuel hewed Agag to pieces, but we 
 do not learn that he did it to acquire anatomical knowl- 
 edge. On the contrary we are informed that he did it 
 in obedience to a Divine Command." 
 
 This interesting introductory lecture is continued in 
 rather unfinished sentences and clauses, and naturally, 
 being hurriedly penned, some of it is difficult to 
 decipher, but all that Dr. Smith ever wrote or said 
 showed not only deep thought and study, but a direct 
 and perfectly original and interesting way of imparting 
 information, often adding to sound teaching the spice 
 of wit. 
 
 A lecture on osteology follows the introductory lee- 
 
28 
 
 Life and Letters 
 
 ture on anatomy, and then a general description of the 
 human body, etc. 
 
 Lectures on physic follow those on anatomy and then 
 come a number of lectures on chemistry. At the back 
 of the book Dr. Smith carefully recorded the names of 
 his pupils under the heading "Catalogue of the mem- 
 bers of the classes who attended lectures in 1800 and 
 1 801." These lists are here appended with a photo- 
 graph of one of the pages. 
 
 Seniors for 1800 
 
 Josiah Noyes 
 Nathaniel Shattuck 
 Daniel Parker 
 Elisha Hotchkiss 
 Daniel Campbell 
 Thomas A. Merrill 
 H. W. Fuller 
 Ephraim Simonds 
 Freeborn Adams 
 Asahel Stone 
 Matthew Taylor 
 Abner Howe 
 Caleb J. Tenney 
 Simeon Lyman 
 Daniel Webster 
 James H. Bingham 
 Elihu Smith 
 Lemuel Bliss 
 Ebenezer Janes 
 
 Juniors for 1800 
 
 Elisha Rockwood 
 Amos J. Cook 
 Moses M. Fisk 
 Amos Twitchell 
 Josiah Moulton 
 Samuel Whitmore 
 Nathaniel Huse 
 Joseph Richardson 
 Joseph Paine 
 Samuel Eastman 
 Augustus Alden 
 Daniel Phelps 
 Nathaniel Dutton 
 John Frink 
 Jacob Gillett 
 Joseph Mulliken 
 

 
of Nathan Smith 
 
 29 
 
 Catalogue of the Members of 
 the Senior Class who at- 
 tended Medical lectures in 
 1801. 
 
 Amos Cook 
 
 Cutting 
 
 Brown Emerson 
 Elisha Hammond 
 Joseph Richardson 
 
 Rockwood 
 
 Amos Twitchell 
 Samuel Walker 
 Samuel Whitmore 
 Roswell Willard 
 Nathan Wood 
 
 Catalogue of the Members of 
 the Junior Class who at- 
 tended Medical lectures in 
 1801. 
 
 Luther Chapman 
 Jonathan Eastman 
 Isaac Garvin 
 Jonathan Gilmore 
 Samuel Haines 
 Frederic Hall 
 Henry Hubbard 
 Nehemiah Huntington 
 Benjamin Kimbal[l] 
 John Keyes [Keys] 
 Vryling Lovell 
 Joseph A. Marshall 
 Eben r . Morse 
 R. Dimond Mussey 
 John Nelson 
 Salmon Nye 
 Thad[d]eus Osgood 
 Edmun[d] Parker 
 Samuel Peabody 
 Augustus Peabody 
 Jeremiah Perley 
 Samuel Phelps 
 John Porter 
 Experience Porter 
 Silas H. Sabin 
 George Shattuck 
 John B. Storey 
 Enoch E. Tilton 
 Nathan Weston 
 Luke Wood 
 Jabez Woodman 
 
 Storrs 
 
 Azor Moody 
 Jesse Billings 
 
SO Life and Letters 
 
 These lists show conclusively that the Dartmouth 
 Medical School was already in a flourishing condition 
 in the year 1801, when Dr. Smith's only assistant was 
 his pupil, Dr. Lyman Spalding, whom he employed at 
 his own expense to give three courses of lectures on 
 chemistry and to help him somewhat with his practice. 
 
 So many of the students here mentioned became 
 eminent in the medical profession, that comment is 
 scarcely needed to certify to the excellence of the 
 instruction which they must have received from Dr. 
 Nathan Smith, and it has been said that no one could 
 have come under the strong personal influence of a 
 man so attractive, so wise and so exemplary in char- 
 acter, without having ambition stirred and a lasting 
 impression for good made upon him for life. 
 
 Among these students of 1800, the man who became 
 most distinguished in the history of the country was 
 undoubtedly Daniel Webster, 2 but the names of Josiah 
 Noyes, Amos Twitchell, Phelps, Peabody, Emerson, 
 Mussey, Shattuck, and, indeed, nearly all here enumer- 
 ated, are familiar as eminent either as physicians or 
 men of letters among the early settlers of the country. 
 
 In 1 80 1, Dartmouth again honored itself in con- 
 ferring upon Dr. Smith a second degree — this time that 
 of M.D., a degree then by no means common. Up to 
 within four years of this time Yale had conferred this 
 as an honorary degree upon but seven physicians, two 
 being foreigners. (See Welch, note 13.) 
 
 But it was evident to Dr. Smith that, if the school 
 
 2 Daniel Webster probably took only chemistry or one or two 
 branches. 
 
of Nathan Smith 31 
 
 were to go on increasing in numbers, more space must 
 be secured and aid must be had to supplement his 
 small private funds. He therefore made personal 
 application, in 1803, to the Legislature of New Hamp- 
 shire, which resulted in an appropriation of $600 for 
 medical apparatus, and in the same year the trustees of 
 Dartmouth College provided another room adjacent 
 to No. 6 already given, which two rooms served for 
 lecture hall, dissecting room, chemical laboratory and 
 library. 
 
 In addition to his arduous work in conducting the 
 Medical School at Dartmouth all alone during the 
 winter months, Dr. Smith received a number of stu- 
 dents at Windsor, Vt., which adjoins Cornish, and gave 
 them private instruction in medicine in summer. Evi- 
 dently Dr. George C. Shattuck, who had already 
 received his degree of M.B. at Dartmouth, had some 
 intention of taking the summer course, as the follow- 
 ing letter must have been in answer to one from him 
 inquiring about terms, etc. : 
 
 "Windsor, July 12, 1804. 
 To Dr. George C. Shattuck. 
 Sir: 
 
 Respecting my terms for tuition I have of those who 
 have been educated at College, 133 dollars for tuition, 
 deducting from that what they have paid for tutors 
 while in College. I am now situated in Windsor, Vt., 
 have perhaps as good accommodations for Students in 
 the neighborhood as I had at Hanover. I have with 
 
32 Life and Letters 
 
 me now nine medical students and shall in time to 
 come give a private course of lectures on theory and 
 practice every summer over and above my public 
 course. Respecting the time of payment, I have gen- 
 erally accommodated my students as to time &c. If 
 you should conclude to study with me, I will do all in 
 my power to promote your studies. I am with respect 
 
 Your friend and servant 
 
 Nathan Smith." 
 
 One month after this letter was written, a proposi- 
 tion came to Dr. Smith from Dartmouth which enabled 
 him to concentrate his efforts in teaching in one locality. 
 In August, 1804, the trustees voted Dr. Smith a salary 
 of $200 per year, on condition that he should remove 
 his family to Hanover from Cornish, which, on 
 account of straitened circumstances, he had been 
 unable to do up to that time. Accordingly, early in 
 the spring of 1805, Hanover became their settled home 
 and this obviated the necessity for Dr. Smith's con- 
 stant journeys back and forth. 
 
 The interest excited by the instruction in this new 
 department is curiously illustrated by an anecdote 
 related to Dr. Hubbard by a gentleman who was, 
 early in this century, an undergraduate in the college: 
 
 "President Wheelock came from Dr. Smith's lec- 
 ture room to evening prayers in the old 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 
 
of Nathan Smith 33 
 
 gases. We thank Thee for the Cerebrum; we thank 
 Thee for the Cerebellum, and for the Medulla Oblon- 
 gata.' 
 
 "Isaac Patterson, Esq., Bath, N. H., Dartmouth, 
 1812, confirms this as occurring in 18 10, in letter, 
 October 13, 1879." 
 
CHAPTER SIXTH 
 
 Friendship of Dr. Smith with His Pupils 
 Letters to Dr. George C. Shattuck 
 
 Friendship between Dr. Smith and his pupils did 
 not end with their student days at the Dartmouth 
 Medical School, but with many of them great interest 
 and strong attachment continued through life. 
 
 As has been stated, Dr. Lyman Spalding 3 became 
 his assistant, living for a time in his house, and Dr. 
 Cyrus Perkins 4 was selected by him to fill the chairs 
 of Anatomy and Surgery in 1810, when ill health from 
 overwork made it necessary for Dr. Smith to give up a 
 part of the great burden of the school. But perhaps 
 no one of his pupils was ever nearer or dearer to him 
 than Dr. George C. Shattuck. 5 Their correspondence 
 was constant when apart, and many of Dr. Smith's 
 letters were preserved by this warm friend, who was 
 ever ready to aid his beloved preceptor, often no doubt 
 
 3 Lyman Spalding, from his boyhood days at Cornish, was the 
 admirer and emulator of Dr. Smith. He had secured his M.B. at 
 Harvard in 1797, taking a similar degree at Dartmouth in 1798, and 
 these were followed by an M.D. from Dartmouth in 1804 and the 
 same from Harvard in 1811. 
 
 4 Cyrus Perkins, Dartmouth A.M. 1800; also Harvard 1823; Dart- 
 mouth M.B. 1802; M.D. 1810; also Harvard 1823. 
 
 5 George Cheyne Shattuck, Dartmouth A.M. 1803 ; also Harvard 
 1807; Dartmouth M.B. 1806, M.D. 1812; also Bowdoin M.B. 1851; 
 Dartmouth LL.D. 1853; 1846-1852, president Massachusetts Medical 
 Society. 
 
Nathan Smith 55 
 
 at the sacrifice of his own time and interests. Long 
 after the death of both of these good friends, the 
 family of Dr. Shattuck, no less kind than he, sent Dr. 
 Smith's letters to his grandson, Dr. Alan P. Smith 
 of Baltimore. One of the earliest, bearing the date 
 Hanover, January 22, 1806, is in answer to a letter 
 from Dr. Shattuck, who, after graduating at Dart- 
 mouth, had gone to the University of Pennsylvania 
 for a special course under the then famous Dr. Rush. 
 The address is simply 
 
 "To Dr. George C. Shattuck, 
 Medical Student, 
 Philadelphia," 
 
 and reads as follows: 
 
 "Dear Sir: 
 
 Your favor of the 25th ult. was duly received. I 
 rejoice that you are so happily situated and that your 
 opportunities of acquiring information equal your 
 former expectations. Dr. Rush 6 must be a very inter- 
 esting lecturer. As to his classification of diseases I 
 do not think it very material. However we may class 
 diseases we must study them in detail. I have observed 
 that men of genius, having accustomed themselves to 
 view objects in certain relation to each other for some 
 time, consider their relations so obvious as not to 
 escape the notice of the most inattentive observer, 
 
 6 Dr. Benjamin Rush died in 1813. He was not a surgeon of note, 
 but a distinguished teacher and general practitioner of medicine. 
 
36 Life and Letters 
 
 when in reality their reasoning is too arbitrary to be 
 followed without much study and attention. This has 
 generally been the case with nosologists, and perhaps 
 Dr. Rush's method of classing diseases is not wholly 
 exempt from arbitrary reasoning. I cannot see how 
 nosology is essentially benefited by adding the word 
 'state' to the name of diseases, as the pleurisy state, 
 rheumatic or hydrophobic state of fever. It is no new 
 discovery that those diseases are attended with fever, 
 and the word pleurisy, rheumatism and hydrophobia 
 give us as much information respecting the disease, 
 without the word state, as with it. As to the unity of 
 disease, you know it is my opinion that we have in 
 medical science of late generalized too much and that 
 the progress of medicine has been checked by it. This 
 mode of proceeding tends to substitute idleness for 
 industry, and dogmatism for patient inquiry. Meta- 
 phorical reasoning in a lecturer will have one good 
 effect, — young men are always fond of tracing resem- 
 blances, and if they do not carry them from the truth, 
 such reasoning will tend to engage and fix their 
 attention. 
 
 Since you left this place I have suffered a prodigious 
 loss of books. On getting my library together since 
 the close of last year's course of lectures, we find that 
 22 No.'s of the Medical and Phy. Journal, Med. 
 Museum and Med. Repository are missing, with 
 about 20 Vols, of other books. I have since brought 
 my library into my own house and suffer no one to 
 take a book without my knowledge. 
 
 I have lately amputated successfully in Montpelier; 
 
of Nathan Smith 37 
 
 the subject was a boy seven years old, the disease a 
 white swelling in the knee. 
 
 I congratulate you on obtaining a Royal Stone 
 medal, and am with the sincerest regards for your 
 happiness and prosperity, 
 
 Your humble servant, 
 
 Nathan Smith. 
 Hanover, January 22, 1806." 
 
 This letter is especially interesting as giving the 
 opinion of one of the greatest teachers of medicine 
 of that day about the methods of another equally dis- 
 tinguished. It also tells of Dr. Smith's loss of valuable 
 books from his library when it was almost impossible 
 to replace them, there being no bookstores nearer than 
 Boston, and even there rare books were often not to 
 be found. The theft, or even the mislaying, of the 
 books so needed in the work of Dr. Smith, who was 
 willing to sacrifice his own time and comfort in the 
 effort to instruct others, seems more than an ordinary 
 offense. 
 
 As has been shown, there never was a man more 
 opposed to a faulty education for a physician. He 
 fought ignorance and the improper treatment of the 
 sick, and waged war openly upon quackery, which was 
 to him an abomination. As early as in 1808, he wrote 
 to Dr. Spalding thus: "I wish you to write me when 
 the next annual meeting of the New Hampshire Medi- 
 cal Society will be holden, and where. I have an inten- 
 tion to attend if possible. I intend to renew the effort 
 
38 Life and Letters 
 
 to obtain an Act of the Legislature to discourage 
 quackery. You know I'm not easily beaten down in my 
 projects, and, though sometimes slow in execution, yet 
 keep the object in view. The business was not judi- 
 ciously managed this year. I was out of town when 
 the questions were tried and I'm confident that more 
 than half the members did not understand the matter. 
 Several of the members have solicited me to renew 
 the application. I shall attend the General Court 
 solely for medical purposes at their next session." 
 
 At a meeting of the New Hampshire State Medical 
 Society in May, 1807, it had been proposed by Dr. 
 Spalding and voted that a resolution to prevent quack- 
 ery be offered to the State Legislature, — no physician 
 to be qualified for practice unless a graduate from a 
 respectable university, and no medical man not so 
 qualified to have legal power to collect debts. 
 
 The next eight letters, all written to Dr. Shattuck 
 between 1807 and 18 10, are introduced here in a 
 group and almost without comment, as they speak 
 for themselves, telling of the perseverance of Dr. 
 Smith in carrying on his practice in medicine and sur- 
 gery, while working under difficulties to establish the 
 Medical School at Dartmouth. There were then no 
 apothecaries anywhere near, and acids and other drugs 
 had to be brought by stage from a great distance, 
 instruments made by a tinman in Boston, to order, 
 after drawings found in books, and necessary herbs 
 and plants derived from the gardens of friends in 
 Salem and Newbury. 
 
 It was early in the year 1808 that Dr. Smith, at 
 
of Nathan Smith 39 
 
 great expense to himself, secured the services of Dr. 
 Alexander Ramsey, 7 whom he considered the best 
 anatomist in America, to give a course of lectures on 
 anatomy in the school. With the highest appreciation 
 of the good work of others and perfect freedom from 
 professional jealousy, Dr. Smith wrote to Dr. Shat- 
 tuck that Dr. Ramsey had begun a new era in the col- 
 lege, and put it in his power to do more in the science 
 of anatomy than he knew how to do before. 
 
 In this course of lectures, Dr. Spalding showed him- 
 self invaluable not only as assistant in demonstration, 
 but also in bringing from Portsmouth much-needed 
 material for illustrations, etc. 
 
 Perhaps these lectures and the presence of his 
 valued friends filled Dr. Smith with more enthusiasm 
 than ever for the advancement of the interests of his 
 institution, for about this time he again made per- 
 sonal application to the Legislature of New Hampshire 
 for an appropriation towards building a suitable home 
 for the medical school. 
 
 In 1809, the sum of $3450 was granted to him to 
 erect a building of brick or stone for its accommoda- 
 tion, but again a condition was made and this time it 
 
 7 Alex. Ramsey, anatomist, 1754-1824, came to this country about 
 1800 and delivered a short course of lectures on anatomy and physiol- 
 ogy in Columbia College. He possessed much profound learning, but 
 his vanity, arrogance and pomp, combined with his grotesque person, 
 interfered with his success as a teacher and won him the name of the 
 "Caliban of Science." He adopted the theory that the bite of a 
 venomous snake was rendered innoxious by alkalies and died from the 
 results of an experiment on himself. — National Cyclopedia of American 
 Biography. 
 
40 Life and Letters 
 
 was that he should "give a site for it and assign to the 
 State his Anatomical Museum and Chemical Appara- 
 tus." Dr. Smith had hoped for a much larger sum, 
 and found it necessary to supplement this grant by over 
 a thousand dollars, with the hope that it might be 
 refunded to him later. But his generosity was as 
 unbounded as his love for his fellow men. He gave 
 the site in 1810, and afterwards, finding the first situa- 
 tion inconvenient, "he conveyed to the State of New 
 Hampshire forty-five square rods," — the site now 
 occupied. A building of brick was erected, seventy- 
 five by thirty-two feet, having two commodious lecture 
 rooms in the two-story centre, and two three-story 
 wings for library, chemical laboratory, museums, etc. 
 
 Dr. Hubbard, in his most interesting Historical Dis- 
 course, describes the enterprise of Dr. Smith as unpre- 
 cedented, in attempting, all alone and in face of almost 
 insuperable obstacles, to found a medical school, when 
 that at Harvard, the first college of New England, 
 was being sustained with difficulty under the ministra- 
 tions of three eminent and learned men. 
 
 Dr. Smith's letters to Dr. Shattuck, who was now in 
 Boston, show in a small degree how he triumphed over 
 some of these barriers, even when hampered at times 
 "with the weight of business and with very ill health," 
 which he concealed as much as possible for fear of 
 alarming his friends and his class. 
 
 The letter of November 28, 1808, will be particu- 
 larly interesting to the profession, as it gives at that 
 early day some of Dr. Smith's independent views in 
 regard to cancer and necrosis. 
 
of Nathan Smith 41 
 
 "Hanover, September 15, 1807. 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 Respecting our doings at our last Commencement I 
 conclude you have discovered that the Board of Gov- 
 ernment gave no doctor's degree in Medicine. Dr. 
 Thatcher was not formerly proposed the last year, 
 and by a law of the Board, no honorary degree can be 
 voted without the candidate has been proposed by 
 some person at sitting of the Board preceding. Dr. 
 Thatcher now stands proposed and will probably be 
 honored by a degree at our next meeting. 55 
 
 I have been pestered with a number of letters from 
 several persons, in and about Boston, who appear to 
 have made very great exertions to obtain a degree for 
 a Dr. Barnes of that place. In a letter to a Mr. Hill, 
 one who wrote in his favor, I referred him to you to 
 learn the requisites for a degree at this college, but 
 instead of bringing any word from you, I received 
 several certificates signed by several persons in Lynn 
 and in Boston in his favor but none of them appeared 
 to come exactly to the one thing necessary, and we 
 thought best to postpone the business for that time. I 
 wish, if it would not be too much trouble, that you 
 would try to ascertain the situation and merits of Dr. 
 Barnes, and let me know that I may know how to 
 answer their importunities. 
 
 I wish also that you would apply to Mr. Dunn or 
 
 8 The honorary degree of M.D. was conferred in 1810 upon James 
 Thacher, surgeon in the Revolutionary Army, and author of "The 
 American Medical Biography" ; but the Dartmouth catalogue gives no 
 evidence of Dr. Barnes having been honored with a degree. 
 
42 Life and Letters 
 
 Mr. Maynard, whom you think best, and procure of 
 them on my account several things, viz : One dozen oil 
 flasks and a pound of each of the following, and in as 
 great a degree of purity as they can be obtained : 
 
 Nitric Acid. 
 Muriatic Acid. 
 Sulphuric Acid. 
 
 I will send by Mr. Pool or some other person from 
 Hanover for the goods. 
 
 I wish also, that if they can be obtained in Boston, 
 that you would procure for me some earthen and glass 
 retorts. 
 
 I am with sentiments of esteem, 
 
 Your Friend and Servant, 
 
 Nathan Smith. 
 To Dr. George C. Shattuck, Boston." 
 
 "Dear Sir: 
 
 Mr. Church, — the bearer, wishes to be acquainted 
 with you. Mr. Church has been with me one year. 
 You will find him a well-informed, honest man. Any 
 favours you are pleased to bestow on him, will oblige 
 me. 
 
 Respecting the subject of your last letter, you may 
 inform those who make it their business to take care 
 of my concerns, that I will thank them to exhibit any 
 demands against me for tuition etc. Respecting Dr. 
 
of Nathan Smith 43 
 
 Warren, — I payed him his money with interest when 
 he called for it; he was kind enough to wait on me a 
 long time, I suppose because he thought his money safe 
 and at interest. 
 
 I have a prospect of procuring a very handsome set 
 of anatomical preparations in season to use them the 
 ensuing course of lectures; if I succeed, I shall have a 
 better collection than there is this side of Philadelphia. 
 I have proceeded some lengths in my dissertation on 
 Cancer etc. 
 
 I am with sentiments of esteem and sanguine hopes 
 of success, 
 
 Your sincere friend and humble servant, 
 
 Nathan Smith. 
 Hanover, November, 1808. 
 
 To Dr. George C. Shattuck, Boston." 
 
 "Hanover, November 28, 1808. 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 I fear I have not in my observations on cancer and 
 scirrhus, been so particular in some parts of it, as I 
 should have been respecting the definition of the word 
 'Scirrhus.' If that word means only a diseased gland, 
 I am incorrect, or rather the definition is defective, 
 for, from the cases I have related, it appears that a 
 Scirrhus tumor often arises in a part of the body where 
 there are no glands of any kind situated, unless you 
 allow the cells which contain the fat in the adipose 
 membrane that office, and even then we find cases 
 
4.4 Life and Letters 
 
 which begin in the bone itself, which can hardly be 
 considered as glandular. 
 
 Another point perhaps I have not sufficiently insisted 
 on, — that is, that when cancer begins in any particular 
 part of the body and if it produces its likeness in 
 another part of the body it is in a similar part, viz: if 
 it begins in a bone it will next appear in some other 
 bone, or if it begins in the cellular substance, it will 
 next appear in some other part of the cellular sub- 
 stance &c. This happens also in other diseases. In 
 necrosis, or that disease of the bones which is called 
 in this country 'fever sore' the disease is not always 
 confined to one bone; indeed if the disease is extensive, 
 and especially if it is illy treated in the part first 
 attacked, it generally appears in some other bone and 
 runs the same course as in the first. I believe we might 
 point out many diseases which serve to confirm the 
 doctrine I have espoused. 
 
 I fear too, that I have not explained myself suffi- 
 ciently on the question respecting cancer being a general 
 or local disease. I think, however, it will appear that 
 I consider it often as a general disease. 
 
 If you have time to make any alterations in what I 
 have written in either of the points above pointed out, 
 I wish you to do it, but I fear you had it too late and 
 that the thing will be found too imperfect to make any- 
 thing of it this year; if so let it lay over, we can do 
 something with it hereafter. I wrote it under very 
 great disadvantages. I had to struggle with a weight 
 of business and with very ill health for two months 
 past; till within a very few days, I have been wretched 
 
of Nathan Smith 45 
 
 and more than half the time in torture with an affection 
 of my stomach, which I have concealed as much as 
 possible that I might not alarm my class, which is 
 very numerous and respectable, and alarm my friends; 
 but I had almost determined to yield to the complaint, 
 when, on a sudden, after taking some pretty powerful 
 medicine several days since, my complaint seemed to 
 leave me, and this is the first evening which I have felt 
 like myself for more than two months. 
 
 Dr. Ramsey has commenced his lectures with much 
 applause and I think him a very able anatomist. Being 
 relieved from anatomy I shall be able to do better 
 justice to the other branches so that Dartmouth will 
 not sink this year. 
 
 Your sincere friend, 
 
 Nathan Smith. 
 
 If I have my health I shall be able to furnish a paper 
 for Dr. Boylstone in a few weeks. 
 
 Dr. Shattuck, Boston." 
 
 "Hanover, December 31, 1808. 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 Permit me to make you known to my worthy Friend 
 and Benefactor, Dr. Alex r . Ramsey, who will pass 
 through Boston on his way to Philadelphia. Dr. Ram- 
 sey has just closed his course of Lectures in this College 
 which have been delivered much to the satisfaction of 
 all concerned. Dr. Ramsey has begun a new era in our 
 
4-6 Life and Letters 
 
 College as relates to Anatomy and Physiology, and 
 has put it in my power to do much more in that science 
 than I knew how to do before. 
 
 I wish, if it can be consistent, that you would con- 
 trive to bring Dr. Ramsey acquainted with Mr. Boyl- 
 stone, who seems to have the improvement of medical 
 science in view. 
 
 I am now projecting a scheme to procure a building 
 for medical purposes at Hanover. I expect to be in 
 Boston in the course of next month and will then 
 acquaint you with all my plans relating to the advance- 
 ment of our infant, but somewhat thrifty, medical 
 institution. I am with sentiments of the warmest 
 friendship, your old friend 
 
 Nathan Smith. 
 Dr. G. C. Shattuck, 
 
 13 Middle St., 
 Boston, 
 
 Massachusetts." 
 
 "Sir: 
 
 I have written a letter to Mr. Thurston of New- 
 bury, requesting him to pay you twenty-five dollars, 
 and have directed Mr. Aspinwall, who will hand you 
 this, to leave the letter with you, and must request you 
 to take the trouble of calling on Thurston for the 
 money, if he should be in Boston, as I think probably 
 he may be; if not, be so kind as to send the letter to 
 him and let him know where he may direct to you. 
 Mr. Aspinwall is a pupil of mine and will return 
 
of Nathan Smith 47 
 
 directly here; if you have any communication to make 
 to me you may do so by him. 
 I am, with sentiments of esteem, 
 
 Yours, &c, 
 
 Nathan Smith. 
 Hanover, March 16, 1809. 
 Dr. G. C. Shattuck." 
 
 "Sir: 
 
 I am continually troubling you about many things. 
 I wish now that you would be so kind as to procure 
 for me, two tin reflectors and a tin canister, which you 
 will find described in Henry's Chemistry, in his chapter 
 on Caloric. If you can find a tinman who will make 
 them for you, and you will transmit them to me by Mr. 
 Williams or Mr. E. Woodward, it would oblige me 
 very much. I shall soon be able to transmit to you the 
 means of paying for these things. 
 
 If you have a man in Boston who makes thermom- 
 eters, and if he can do it, I wish also to have an air 
 thermometer constructed according to Henry's direc- 
 tions in his chapter on Caloric. I presume you can 
 find that book in Boston, and the workman may follow 
 that in his work. 
 
 I have a patient here from Boston, a Mr. Darby, 
 who has cataracts. I have operated on one yesterday 
 with very flattering prospects of success. 
 
 If no other opportunity should offer I wish you 
 would send these things by the stage; if they were 
 
48 Life and Letters 
 
 carefully put up and sent by the mail and the driver 
 well charged, I think they would come safe to hand. 
 I am, with sentiments of esteem, 
 
 Your Friend and Servant, 
 
 Nathan Smith. 
 
 To Dr. George C. Shattuck, Boston. 
 October, 1809." 
 
 "Dear Sir: 
 
 Since writing to you last, Colonel Graves informed 
 me that a man by the name of Howe, a tinman living 
 near Boston Stone, will make the instruments of tin 
 which I wrote for, extremely well, as he can give a 
 very high polish. 
 
 The reflectors I wrote for, you will find described in 
 Henry in his chapter on Caloric, 28th page. They 
 should be twelve inches in diameter and segments of 
 a circle or sphere of nine inches radius. 
 
 The canister you will find described on the next 
 page ; it says polished block tin, six inches square, and 
 I wish also that you would send me a little tinfoil. 
 
 We have commenced our course of medical instruc- 
 tion in this place. I do not know how many students 
 we have, as I have not yet taken a catalogue, but have 
 already over fifty medical students and fifty or more 
 from the College, making in all a little more than an 
 hundred. 
 
 Mr. Darby's case still appears very promising. He 
 had not the least pain or soreness in the eye more than 
 
of Nathan Smith 49 
 
 forty-eight hours. I think there can be no doubt but 
 he will see well. 
 
 I have lately become acquainted with a Mr. Henry 
 Darby from Salem, who has gratuitously offered me 
 whatever I may find in his garden that will be useful 
 to me. I am informed that he has one of the best 
 gardens in New England. This was what I wanted 
 very much and shall make my calculations to profit by 
 it. I will visit him in April or the very first of May 
 next and shall spend my time there and at Boston and 
 Newbury till the last of that month, with a view to 
 possessing myself of everything pertaining to garden- 
 ing and agriculture that may be useful in this part of 
 the country. 
 
 Respecting the glass retort, you may send me two 
 or three; the middling size is the best. 
 
 I am, with sentiments of esteem, 
 
 Yours, &c. 
 
 Nathan Smith. 
 Hanover, October 4, 1809. 
 To Dr. George C. Shattuck, Boston." 
 
 "Sir: 
 
 I have written you two letters of late, and as Mr. 
 Woodward was going to Boston, I thought best to 
 write you again and, in addition to what I wrote for 
 before, I want you to procure for me, one quarter of 
 an hundred of red lead, sixteen pounds of mercury and 
 about one gallon of winter strained lamp oil. The 
 whole of those articles will be too much to send by the 
 
SO Life and Letters 
 
 stage, but if an opportunity should not offer for send- 
 ing them otherwise, I wish you to send me about half 
 a dozen oil flasks by that conveyance. The remainder 
 of the dozen I should like to have sent by the first team 
 or when you send the other articles and should like it 
 as well to have them sent full of oil as they come to 
 hand. If opium is less than $1.50 an ounce ask the 
 apothecary to put up four ounces for me. 
 
 Mr. Woodward will speak with you respecting pub- 
 lishing some account of our medical affairs in this 
 State, especially as respects the late grant for a Medi- 
 cal Building about which some of our people are mak- 
 ing a political issue. Mr. Woodward will be able to 
 inform you respecting the particulars. 
 
 I have already received several pupils for attending 
 the opening course of lectures and have heard of a 
 greater number than usual at this time who are calcu- 
 lating to attend. I feel very anxious to meet them 
 and shall neglect nothing that I can do to render the 
 institution reputable. 
 
 I am, 
 
 Your Friend and Servant, 
 
 Nathan Smith. 
 
 To Dr. George C. Shattuck, Boston. 
 October, 1809." 
 
 Pathetic indeed is the letter of May 14, 18 10. For 
 the first time in the history of Dr. Nathan Smith, we 
 find his ardor for his work dampened and his great 
 
of Nathan Smith 5/ 
 
 discouragement expressed. He had been willing to 
 give his all to benefit his fellow men, but in return he 
 found himself misunderstood and surrounded by such 
 unpardonable ignorance and persecution as to make the 
 situation almost unbearable. In his hour of deep dis- 
 appointment, after a struggle of over twelve years to 
 establish the Medical School, he wrote confiding to his 
 friend his strong temptation to give up the battle. 
 
 On more mature reflection, however, this uncommon 
 man put self aside, his benevolence conquered and he 
 persevered again with his noble work. Some help was 
 accorded, for it was in this year of 18 10 that the trus- 
 tees of Dartmouth for the first time employed an 
 assistant for Dr. Smith, calling, at his request, his 
 pupil, Dr. Cyrus Perkins, to occupy the chairs of 
 Anatomy and Surgery, and this somewhat lightened 
 the burden of the man who had for so long carried on 
 the work of the whole school alone. 
 
 "Hanover, May 14, 18 10. 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 I have at length determined to leave Hanover, but 
 at present have not concluded on any certain place of 
 future residence. The political parties are so very 
 jealous of each other in this State and so near a balance 
 that I have nothing to expect from either, as some 
 ignorant persons might be offended at any grant or 
 assistance voted by the Legislature to promote what 
 they term the 'cutting up of dead bodies.' No one 
 will choose to advocate the measure and I expect they 
 will, if not deemed too unconstitutional, revoke the 
 
$2 Life and Letters 
 
 grant made for that purpose last year, 9 and, if that 
 can not be effected, they will enact laws which will 
 inflict corporal punishment on any person who is con- 
 cerned in digding ( ?) or dissecting. If the thing 
 should take this course it will afford me a good pretext 
 for leaving the College and State, — a thing which will 
 not be disagreeable to me. The proposal I made the 
 State of giving land and the whole of my museum and 
 apparatus was too much to give, but while engaged in 
 promoting the school in this place I felt willing to go 
 all lengths in sacrificing on the Esculapean altar; but 
 the conduct of people and parties has cooled my ardor 
 for laboring in my avocation in this place and deter- 
 mined me to sell my talents in physic and surgery to 
 the highest bidder. 
 
 I shall attend the medical meeting at Exeter on the 
 last Wednesday in this month and shall go from thence 
 to Boston thro' Newbury and Salem. I propose to 
 spend a week or two in Boston and shall then have an 
 opportunity to converse with you on all subjects. 
 
 I am in haste, 
 
 Your Friend and Servant, 
 
 Nathan Smith. 
 
 Hanover, Monday, May 14, 18 10. 
 
 P. S. — You will not at present mention publicly my 
 intention to remove from this place. 
 
 To Dr. George C. Shattuck." 
 
 9 For the erection of the medical building. 
 
CHAPTER SEVENTH 
 
 Amid the difficulties and trials here described, more 
 honors were awaiting Dr. Smith. 
 
 In his historical paper, kindly loaned to the writer 
 by Dr. James A. Spalding of Portland, the following 
 extract is found: "Dr. Smith having been chosen Presi- 
 dent of the State Society in 1811, was asked by Dr. 
 [Lyman] Spalding, who was Secretary of the same 
 Society, what he should announce on the program 
 about the President's oration. Dr. Smith replied: 
 'You know what my habits have always been, viz., to 
 deliver my sentiments on the nature and cure of dis- 
 eases in as plain and simple a style as possible, and 
 as this method has raised me to honor, and my pupils 
 to a rank at least equal to any medical man's pupils in 
 New England, I should not like to depart from my 
 former practice. And especially as what I have to 
 say will be confined to the theory and treatment of one 
 or two diseases which can only interest medical men, 
 I should not like to call it an oration, lest from the 
 very name, I should be induced to play the orator.' " 
 
 Perhaps the recognition of his work and achieve- 
 ments manifested at this time in various quarters 
 helped in a measure to cheer Dr. Smith, for, aside 
 from his election to the presidency of the State Medi- 
 cal Society, the London Society, forgetful of its 
 diploma presented in 1797, sent a similar document, 
 while Harvard conferred upon him the degree of M.D. 
 
54 Life and Letters 
 
 These, together with the aid given by Dr. Perkins in 
 the Medical School, and the exhilaration due to sev- 
 eral notable cases of surgery, give a new tone to the 
 letters of this year. Two from Worcester describe 
 some very interesting operations. It is said that Gov- 
 ernor Lincoln was on the point of resigning his office 
 on account of threatened blindness, but that a success- 
 ful operation by Dr. Smith for cataract enabled him 
 to see again and continue his work as governor. Dr. 
 Smith's joy and very pardonable pride over the success 
 of his surgery at Worcester is really refreshing, and 
 surviving friends and relatives of his still feel grati- 
 tude to the friends and patients who covered him with 
 glory before he returned to the good people of Han- 
 over, whose accusations of delay, etc., he dreaded 
 might be awaiting him. 
 
 The money arrangements of that day seem to have 
 been made principally by notes, promising payment; 
 and these were handed about from one to another for 
 collection. Dr. Shattuck was evidently Dr. Smith's 
 chief reliance in place of a bank, for almost every 
 letter to him contains some allusion to notes to be 
 collected. 
 
 "To George C. Shattuck, 
 
 Boston. 
 
 Worcester, March 18, 1811. 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 Today I have couched an eye for Governor Lincoln 
 and one for a little daughter of Judge Paine of this 
 
of Nathan Smith 55 
 
 place. Both operations were attended with the most 
 flattering prospects of success. In the Governor's case 
 the operation was exactly similar in all its circumstances 
 to that I made on Mrs. Marston. 
 
 The little girl's case was a very interesting one. She 
 had lost one eye by a former operation; her eye was 
 very unsteady and the cataract membranous, but I 
 contrived to fix the eye and to perform the operation 
 in about two minutes with the most heartfelt satisfac- 
 tion to all present. The little girl is about sixteen 
 years old, a lovely child and very sensible. The disease 
 in her eye was born with her. Her connections are 
 numerous and very respectable. You can hardly imag- 
 ine a case in which the feelings of friends and acquaint- 
 ances could be more interested. 
 
 If these two cases succeed, as they promise, I shall 
 be in danger of receiving more flattery and commen- 
 dation than I can well bear. 
 
 I wish you to call on Mrs. Derby and say to her that 
 I do not recollect whether I took the money which I 
 deposited with her or not; if she gave it to me it is 
 safe in my trunk at Lancaster, but if it was left by 
 mistake, you may take it and send it to Mr. Adams by 
 the first safe conveyance. One parcel was for Mr. 
 Adams, and the other for Mr. Gilbert, which was 
 about 14 dollars. 
 
 I feel more inclined than ever to move to Boston to 
 practice my profession. I am with sentiments of 
 esteem your friend and servant, 
 
 Nathan Smith." 
 
$6 Life and Letters 
 
 "Worcester, 21st March, 181 1. 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 I wrote you on the 18th inst. and believe I forgot 
 to give you your title which you may be assured was 
 not from the want of due respect. Since I wrote you 
 I have performed on an eye in Sutton; the case was a 
 singular one, the cataract was as hard as calculus ; when 
 touched with the needle it broke with an audible sound, 
 like that of glass, which was heard by the bystanders, 
 and a portion of it, about one third part of it, slipped 
 through the pupil into the anterior chamber and fell 
 below the pupil; another part of it adhered very firmly 
 to the 10 . . . and returned with great violence after 
 it was depressed, but at length the pupil was nearly or 
 quite cleared and the light passed into the eye and 
 the man exclaimed that he could see. The piece of 
 cataract which passed through into the anterior cham- 
 ber remains below the pupil and I do not know that it 
 will ever be absorbed on account of the unusual hard- 
 ness, and unless it should irritate the iris or cornea 
 by resting on them, I do not know that it will do any 
 harm, except the deformity, as it appears white 
 through the cornea. The case was one of those which 
 was from the birth of the person, who was about 
 thirty years old. 
 
 Governor Lincoln and Miss Paine are both in a most 
 hopeful and promising way. The Governor could see 
 to count his fingers in a very . . . light, and Miss Paine 
 this morning ... we uncovered her eye we held a 
 
 10 The paper of the letter was torn where the words are left out. 
 
of Nathan Smith 57 
 
 bowl of water before her and asked her if she could 
 see it. She looked at it and said she could see the bowl 
 but the water did not appear as she expected and 
 should think there was something in it. There was a 
 piece of sponge in the bottom of it. I shall set off 
 for Hanover to-morrow morning covered with glory. 
 I suppose I shall be accused of delay and wrong dis- 
 position of my time by the good people in our own 
 vicinity, but I thought those two cases in Worcester 
 were of such importance to me that a few days' time 
 should not prevent my improving the opportunity to 
 my best advantage. 
 
 Nathan Smith. 
 Dr. G. C. Shattuck, Boston." 
 
 "Dear Sir: 
 
 I have enclosed to you a note against Noble Orr, 
 as you will see. I wish you to deliver the note to Cap- 
 tain Joshua Blake. You may leave the note with 
 Messrs. Stanton and Spelman with whom Blake is con- 
 cerned, to be delivered to Blake who is going to 
 Havana where Orr is, and Mr. Blake tells me that he 
 knows him and that he has no doubt but the money 
 will be obtained on the note. 
 
 I left Worcester yesterday. All my cases were very 
 promising then. 
 
 I am, with sentiments of esteem, 
 
 Your Friend and Servant, 
 
 Nathan Smith. 
 
$8 Life and Letters 
 
 Mr. Blake is going out soon, of course wish you to 
 attend to the business soon. 
 
 Lancaster, March 23, 181 1. 
 Dr. G. C. Shattuck, Boston." 
 
 "Dear Sir: 
 
 I have this day received your favor enclosing the 
 money which I left with Mrs. Derby which came safely 
 to hand, and have enclosed to you Dr. Abbot's note 
 which you will perceive had turned into an execution 
 and which you will find endorsed satisfied. I will also 
 enclose to you the note against Dr. Nye and Dr. Foster 
 as soon as I can find it. 
 
 I left Lancaster on the day I wrote you from that 
 place and arrived at Brattleborough on Sunday morn- 
 ing after. We were obliged to wait there for the stage 
 till Tuesday morning and to fill up my time I was 
 engaged to reduce a dislocated shoulder which had 
 been dislocated nine weeks. I succeeded in about half 
 an hour. Afterwards on the same day a child was 
 brought to me with cataracts in his eyes. 
 
 The child was a beautiful and very sprightly boy of 
 three years old. The question was whether we should 
 operate immediately and run the risk of failing in the 
 operation from the restiveness of the child, or defer it 
 till the child was ten or twelve years old. Considering 
 how much the child must lose by being blind so many 
 years and how very troublesome it would be for the 
 parents, I determined to attempt an operation which 
 
of Nathan Smith 59 
 
 was effected in the most safe and perfect manner and 
 I have no doubt of final success in the case. At 
 Charlestown I amputated a finger and performed for 
 a Hydrocele. 
 
 I arrived at home last evening, finding my family and 
 friends all well. 
 
 I am with sentiments of esteem, 
 
 Your Friend and Servant, 
 
 Nathan Smith. 
 Hanover, March 28, 181 1. 
 Dr. G. C. Shattuck, Boston." 
 
 "Dear Sir: 
 
 I have enclosed to you a note against Dr. N. Whit- 
 man of Bridgewater. The conditions were that I was 
 not to drive him to pay, which promise must be kept, 
 but if he could probably help me to the money I would 
 willingly make him such a discount as would satisfy 
 him. 
 
 I have also sent you a note against Selfridge which I 
 wish you to present to Thos. O. Selfridge and obtain 
 pay if possible. I have also sent a note against Dr. 
 Abraham Menan who lives in Mendheim or Cumber- 
 land, Mass. I wish you to send the note to some per- 
 son in that vicinity to be collected. For all these things 
 and for the postage of letters, &c. I wish you to pay 
 yourself out of the first money that comes into your 
 hands which is my property. 
 
6o Life and Letters 
 
 Perhaps Dr. Perkins can make use of the notes to 
 his advantage. If so let him have them. 
 
 Nathan Smith. 
 March 31, 1811. 
 Dr. Shattuck, Boston. 
 
 P. S. — The money by Mr. Payne came safe to hand. 
 
 I have a case of cataract since I came home which 
 promises success. 
 
 I have also sent you a note of Ephraim Wales. I 
 believe you had a note against him before which he 
 partly paid to me and had a receipt for the same and 
 he has since paid same to D — for me. I wish you to 
 present him both notes and let him bring in his receipts, 
 &c. and pay me the balance. Another note against 
 Saml. who lived in Manchester, which perhaps his 
 brother will pay if pains are taken to look it up." 
 
CHAPTER EIGHTH 
 
 The letter of April 15, 181 1, brings forward a little 
 glimpse of the family of Dr. Smith. It will be remem- 
 bered that the Ryno he speaks of with such pride was 
 his second son, Nathan Ryno, then a lad of fourteen, 
 who was destined to become distinguished in later 
 years, as this history will show. At the time this letter 
 was written, Dr. Nathan Smith and his wife, Sarah 
 Chase, were the parents of nine children, four sons and 
 five daughters. Solon, the eldest, of whom we have 
 heard, was sixteen years old, and the youngest then was 
 the little baby, John Derby. 
 
 Although deeply engrossed in his practice and busi- 
 ness interests, there never was a more devoted husband 
 and father than Dr. Smith. His daughter-in-law, who 
 knew him intimately, told the writer that he was the 
 tenderest and gentlest man in his home that she ever 
 saw. 
 
 This letter is one of the most important of the col- 
 lection, for, after telling of his children, Dr. Smith 
 gives to Dr. Shattuck, in his own handwriting, a full 
 account of the origin of the Dartmouth Medical School. 
 
 "Hanover, April 15, 1 8 1 1 . 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 I have received your favor by Dr. Perkins and am 
 much obligated to you for your attention to my business 
 respecting the note against Selfridge. I think with you 
 
62 Life and Letters 
 
 that it will be improper to urge his brother to pay it. 
 I shall consider it lost. 
 
 You will recollect that Sylvester wrote you that Ryno 
 had gone all amiss, and I really supposed he had been 
 idle during my absence and intended to have inquired 
 into his conduct in a few days after my return. It hap- 
 pened, however, that the school he attended was to be 
 examined a few days after my return. I was not pres- 
 ent at the examination, being called off on urgent busi- 
 ness, but Professor Shurtleff 11 attended and, without 
 soliciting, told me that Ryno Smith passed the best 
 examination on the Principles of Arithmetic he ever 
 witnessed in any person of his age. Ryno began the 
 study of Arithmetic in January last and was examined 
 about the last day of March, so that we may form some 
 judgment how he has spent his time. So much for the 
 boy who goes all amiss. 
 
 I know not how it happened but so it is, that a certain 
 kind of owl-like gravity in men gives them great credit 
 for wisdom, and stupidity and aversion to play in a boy 
 secures him the reputation of a good scholar. 
 
 Mr. Perry, who taught Ryno last winter, is now a 
 member of my family and has the charge of the educa- 
 tion of my children. I have great reason to be satis- 
 fied with the progress of Solon, made during my 
 absence, and the little girls have exceeded my most 
 sanguine hopes in their improvement. 
 
 Respecting the origin of the Medical School in this 
 
 "Roswell Shurtleff, A.B. 1799 Dartmouth, tutor, professor, college 
 pastor and librarian, filling at Dartmouth one or more of these 
 positions at a time between 1800 and 1861. 
 
of Nathan Smith 63 
 
 place : I gave the first course of medical lectures in 1797 
 beginning in November, — was made Professor in 1798. 
 Dr. Lyman Spalding gave a course of chemical lectures 
 in 1 801 or 2, — he can inform you the exact date, and 
 whether he gave one or two courses. I do not know. 
 Dr. Ramsey gave a course on Anatomy in 1808. The 
 State Legislature granted to me 600 dollars for chemi- 
 cal apparatus in 1803 and in 1809 granted 345° dollars 
 for a Medical Building, which is now begun and pro- 
 gressing and will be finished by the first of October. I 
 obtained both grants by my petitions alone. 
 
 N. Smith. 
 Dr. G. C. Shattuck, Boston." 
 "Received April 20, 1811." 
 
 "Dear Sir: 
 
 Your favor of 16th inst. I received yesterday. The 
 package from London contained a diploma from the 
 London Medical Society with several pamphlets relat- 
 ing to the doings of the Humane Society in London. 
 
 I perceive that the folks in London are forgetful 
 as we are on this side of the Atlantic. I had a diploma 
 from the same Society in the year 1797, and in a letter 
 from Dr. Lettsom he remarked on the properties of 
 the Bloodroot, a specimen of which I sent him, that 
 the astringent qualities of it rendered its effect in 
 dysenteric cases doubtful. Now I never mentioned in 
 my letter that it was astringent, neither do I think that 
 it is so, or at least its astringent properties are but 
 trifling and probably constitute no part of its medical 
 
64 Life and Letters 
 
 virtue, besides, I did not mention it as a remedy in 
 dysentery. The diseases I mentioned in my letter in 
 which it had been useful were: acute rheumatism, 
 bleeding from the lungs, coughs, and epileptic fits. I 
 conclude the good old man wrote long after receiving 
 my letter. 
 
 Respecting your application in favor of young Park- 
 man; 12 — Dr. Perkins and myself shall be happy to 
 recommend him to our Hanover Board of Trustees for 
 a degree, and from my own knowledge of his perse- 
 verance in studies and the excellence of his mind, I shall 
 consider it as a just tribute to his superior merit. 
 
 I intended to have spent this winter in Boston, but in 
 reviewing my affairs I found them such as required my 
 presence at home and all my exertions to bring them 
 into a better form. I have made considerable progress 
 in settlement of my old affairs and hope in the course of 
 the year to see myself in better circumstances. Our 
 business has been very good this winter and we have no 
 reason to be dissatisfied with our income excepting that 
 the usual delay in payments in this district gives us some 
 trouble at present. 
 
 I shall spend a part of the summer in Boston. I am 
 
 12 Presumably George Parkman, then twenty-one years of age, Har- 
 vard A.M. 1809. Evidently a young man of great promise, for 
 although Dartmouth did not give him a degree, he had that recognition 
 from Aberdeen in 1813. He became one of Boston's noted physicians 
 and gave the land upon which the Harvard Medical School was built. 
 The Parkman Professorship of Anatomy and Surgery was established 
 in 1847 and named in his honor, and this chair was occupied by Dr. 
 Oliver Wendell Holmes, 1847-1882—1894 Emeritus. Dr. Parkman was 
 murdered in the College laboratory. 
 
of Nathan Smith 65 
 
 about to petition the Legislature of New Hampshire at 
 their next session for an additional grant to cover one 
 thousand dollars which I expended in building the 
 Medical House over and above what the State granted 
 for that purpose and for another thousand to begin a 
 botanical garden. The Russian stove I have heard of 
 and calculate when I come to Boston to procure plans 
 for building them in my house. 
 
 Yours etc. 
 
 Nathan Smith. 
 
 Please to give my own and Mrs. Smith's best respects 
 to Mrs. Shattuck, Mrs. Davis, and to Mr. and Mrs. 
 Derby. 
 
 Hanover, April. 
 To George C. Shattuck, M.D., Boston." 
 
 It is thought best to publish all of the letters of Dr. 
 Smith to Dr. Shattuck in full, as they give better 
 evidence of the vast extent of his professional work 
 than can be procured in any other way. They tell not 
 only of his interest in the Medical School, but of his 
 medical and surgical practice throughout New England, 
 as he described it: "bandied about from one part of 
 the country to the other." The last week of April of 
 181 1, he was eighty miles above Hanover with an ill 
 patient; a few days later at Bath attending spotted 
 fever; at Exeter, the last of May, to attend the meeting 
 of the Legislature in the interest of the Medical 
 School, going thence to Concord, where he operated 
 
66 Life and Letters 
 
 successfully on Mr. Cushman for artificial joint. In 
 September he writes from Worcester of having had six 
 operations for cataract in various localities during two 
 weeks, besides an operation for the same thing on 
 Judge Lincoln; and in the same letter he expresses the 
 intention of visiting Boston within a few days. 
 
 Under date of June 26, 18 12, Dr. Smith describes 
 his tour of three weeks, spent in again attending the 
 meeting of the Legislature of New Hampshire, as well 
 as in ministering to the sick, blind and halt about the 
 Merrimack, and performing several operations among 
 them; also of the prospect of visiting Boston again in 
 July. Evidently after leaving Boston under pressure 
 and hurry of business, he writes, under date of July 1 1, 
 of hoping to be there in September, and that on his way 
 home to Hanover he had extirpated a tumor in Truro 
 and another in Charlestown, and on his arrival per- 
 formed a very serious operation on the thigh of a lad 
 for necrosis, and adds, "the cure is certain." Within a 
 week he is to operate in Concord, and next in Walpole 
 for an exostosis of the thigh bone. 
 
 It may be noticed that the majority of those distant 
 visits for professional work were made during the 
 vacation months of the Dartmouth Medical School. 
 During the lecture terms there is not a doubt but that 
 Dr. Smith's conscientious and earnest endeavors were 
 given to the instruction of his classes. 
 
 "Dear Sir: 
 
 I have fallen to my old habits and am bandied about 
 from one part of the country to the other. Last week 
 
of Nathan Smith 67 
 
 I was in the upper Coos, eighty miles above Hanover 
 and am now at Weathersfield in the service of Mr. 
 Jarvis, late Consul at Lisbon who has been dangerously 
 sick but is, I think, to-day out of danger. 
 
 We have broke ground for the foundation of the 
 Medical House and every part of the business towards 
 the completion of the building is in happy progress. 
 
 The spotted fever is still ravaging various parts of 
 this part of our country. I saw four persons sick of 
 that terrible disease at Bath a few days since. Two 
 children, who were taken the morning of the same day 
 I was there, died before noon. Perhaps you may have 
 seen some of the newspaper publications from several 
 of the medical gentlemen in this quarter, and, if so, you 
 may remember the old proverb, viz. : 'In trouble every 
 fool pretends to advise and if more happy thinks him- 
 self more wise.' The object of these publications 
 seems to be principally to puff their authors and to 
 brag of what they have done, and two of those teachers 
 of the public have fallen out and have accused each 
 other of telling more than was true in their own favor, 
 and the public, I believe, are generally agreed that they 
 are both correct in that particular. 
 
 I wish you to see Mr. and Mrs. Derby, and after 
 remembering me to them in the most affectionate 
 manner, inquire of them whether I am to expect a visit 
 from them, Mr. and Mrs. and Miss Davis in June 
 next. I shall be at Exeter on the last Wednesday in 
 May and shall be home in about four days from that 
 day; should like to receive them the beginning of the 
 second week in June. 
 
68 Life and Letters 
 
 You may inform my friends that I shall be in Boston 
 the latter part of June. 
 
 I am with sentiments of esteem, 
 
 Your Friend and Servant, 
 
 Nathan Smith. 
 Hanover, May 2, 181 1. 
 
 Dr. George C. Shattuck, Boston." 
 
 "Hanover, May 4, 181 1. 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 I have this moment rec'd your letter by the last mail 
 and you may rest assured that I have not for many days 
 read a letter that gave me half so much joy. I think 
 you have taken the wisest measures to effect the best 
 purposes and have no doubt but you are candidate for 
 as much happiness as falls to the lot of human nature. 
 You must however remember that it is not always in 
 the power of man to secure his own happiness, tho', I 
 think yours looks as well in prospect as that of any man 
 within my knowledge. 
 
 I wrote you last week by Mrs. S. Jarvis of Clare- 
 mont but possibly you may not receive the letter so soon 
 as this will reach you. In that letter I requested you 
 after presenting my best respects to Mr. & Mrs. Derby, 
 Mrs. Davis, Miss Eliza D. & Miss E. Williams, to 
 inquire of them when I might expect to see them at my 
 house. I shall be at Exeter on the last Wednesday in 
 May next & shall return the week after, so that it 
 would be convenient for me to receive them about the 
 2nd week in June. I have rec'd a letter from Dr. 
 
of Nathan Smith 6g 
 
 Whitman informing me that Mr. Peabody had called 
 on him to pay the note &c. I thought I expressed to 
 you in the letter inclosing the notes that Whitman was 
 not to be called on for the note unless it was convenient 
 for him to pay, but it may be I neglected it. As Whit- 
 man cannot pay till fall I wish you would speak to Mr. 
 Peabody to give you the note & wish you to keep it till 
 Dr. W. can pay it &c. I am with sentiments of esteem, 
 Yours in great haste, 
 
 Nathan Smith. 
 Dr. G. C. Shattuck, Boston." 
 
 "Dear Sir: 
 
 I should like to know to a day when I may expect 
 Mr. Derby and company at my house. You will bear 
 in mind that I must be at Exeter on the last Wednesday 
 of this month which will be next week, and if Mr. 
 Derby should not be here till the Monday or Saturday 
 after our elections, which will be on the first Wednes- 
 day in June, I should probably stay and see our elec- 
 tions at Concord; but if Mr. Derby has made his 
 arrangements otherwise you will not communicate that 
 wish of mine to him as it is a matter of great 
 indifference to me whether I am at elections or not. 
 
 I have had two successful operations for cataract, — 
 both old men, one 72 and the other 84, — the last week. 
 I have no doubt of the success of both cases. The man 
 aged 72, was one of old Bob Rogers' Rangers and has 
 served through the whole of the Revolutionary War. 
 All I expect in either case is the pleasure of doing good, 
 
yo Life and Letters 
 
 as they are both extremely poor. Mr. Cushman of 
 Concord, who suffered the operation for an artificial 
 joint, has recovered so far as to walk with crutches. 
 The thigh bone has united firmly; it is a little shortened. 
 This patient, from want of proper attention, has suf- 
 fered a confinement at least twice as long as was neces- 
 sary and the limb is less perfect than it might have been 
 in a similar case so situated that I could attend it. I 
 am certain I could cure it in half the time and have the 
 limb the full length. I consider the experiment a 
 sufficient warranty for such observation. 
 
 I am with sentiments of esteem and sincere friend- 
 ship, 
 
 Your humble Servant, 
 
 Nathan Smith. 
 
 Hanover, Sunday, May 19, 181 1. 
 Dr. G. C. Shattuck." 
 
 "Dear Sir: 
 
 I left home a fortnight since & since that time have 
 had six operations of couching besides an operation on 
 Judge Lincoln which I performed yesterday; the 
 cataract has risen but the eye is not injured & I shall at 
 length make his sight perfect. I regret very much that 
 I was not able to be at Boston on the day you mentioned 
 in your last letter to me, but my business seemed to 
 require my delay & I assure you that you & Miss Davis 
 have my warmest wishes & most fervent prayers for 
 your mutual happiness. 
 
of Nathan Smith 7/ 
 
 I shall probably be in Boston on the day after 
 tomorrow. I am with sentiments of esteem, 
 
 Yours sincerely 
 
 Nathan Smith. 
 Worcester, September 25, 181 1. 
 Dr. G. C. Shattuck." 
 
 "Hanover, December 20. 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 Immediately on receiving yours by Dr. Twitchel I 
 wrote to Bradley & Gardner & by the last mail they 
 write that Dr. Waterhouse has obtained the appoint- 
 ment which I was soliciting for you. ... I have closed 
 my course of public instructions for the present year 
 perhaps with as much credit as I have done heretofore. 
 We had a very good course on Anatomy, much better 
 than at any former time. We were very fortunate in 
 obtaining subjects and have dissected three who were 
 all pretty good; the one brought by T. was excellent. 
 
 I have lately added 52 volumes to my library of 
 historical works, viz: Mavors' General History, 26 
 vols., Mavors' Voyages, 19 vols., and Hume's England, 
 8 vols. As my time is so taken up that I cannot read 
 such lengthy works, have set two pupils to reading in 
 course and have requested them to fix a kind of index 
 to everything relating to medicine or medical men to be 
 found in the several works, so that I hope to reap some 
 advantage from the books tho' they are not medical. 
 
 In your last, you mentioned a gentleman who is going 
 
J2 Life and Letters 
 
 to England and who will purchase any books I wish for. 
 I do not know whether he is a bookseller or whether 
 he must have the money to purchase with before he 
 goes; if he is a dealer in books and will purchase books 
 which are wanted and will wait for his money till the 
 books are delivered at Boston, should be glad to pur- 
 chase to a considerable amount, but the dearth of 
 money 13 here is so great that I cannot immediately send 
 enough to make it any object, not having as yet made 
 any collections the present year. I will, however, make 
 out a list of books which I should be glad to purchase 
 and for which I would pay the money as soon as the 
 books could be procured, and perhaps the man you 
 mention or some importer of books will be willing to 
 order out the books. 
 
 Bell's Anatomical Tables and Dissections. 
 
 Sayer Walker's Observations on the Constitutions of 
 Women and Diseases to Which They are Liable. 
 
 Pemberton's On Diseases of the Abdominal Viscera. 
 
 Stone On Diseases of the Stomach. 
 
 Everard Homes' Observations on Cancer. 
 
 I wish you to send me one canister of the best battle 
 gunpowder, 
 
 Yours sincerely, &c. 
 
 N. Smith. 
 
 To Dr. George C. Shattuck, Boston. 
 
 Wish you to put the formula in the mail if you have 
 no opportunity to send it immediately ( ?) ." 
 
 13 Perhaps due to the War of 1812. 
 
of Nathan Smith 73 
 
 "Dear Sir: 
 
 I have only a moment to write you and can only 
 inform you that we are all well at present. I have just 
 returned from a tour of about three weeks spent in 
 attending our Legislature and attending on the sick, 
 blind and halt on and about the Merrimack. Our Legis- 
 lature did not see fit to allow me the 1,217 dollars I 
 expended in building the medical school at Hanover 
 over and above the grant made by the Legislature for 
 that purpose, but I have no doubt but they will at their 
 next meeting. 
 
 I have among several operations performed on my 
 tour, worked twice with success and have a patient now 
 waiting for the operation to be performed this morning. 
 
 I shall probably be in Boston next month; till then 
 please remain assured of my very great esteem and 
 sincere friendship. Also please to give my respects to 
 Mrs. Shattuck, Mrs. Davis and Mr. and Mrs. Derby. 
 
 Yours, &c. 
 
 Nathan Smith. 
 Hanover, June 26, 181 2. 
 To George C. Shattuck, M. D., Boston." 
 
 "Hanover, July 11, 18 12. 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 . . . I wish you to tell Mr. Maynard that I 
 intended to have seen him before I left town & have 
 spoken with him on the subject of what I owed him, 
 but the hurry of business prevented it. You may 
 
J4 Life and Letters 
 
 inform him that I shall be at Boston early in Septem- 
 ber next & will then settle with him. On my way home 
 I extirpated a tumor in Truro, another in Charles- 
 town, & since I arrived I have removed a large 
 sequestra from the thigh bone of a lad. The dead 
 bone is about four inches in length of the whole femur. 
 I divided the flesh, introduced a trephine, sawed off 
 the dead portion of bone in the middle, & drew out 
 first one end & then the other. The cure is certain. 
 I am going this week to perform an operation in 
 N. Concord, where an artificial joint has been made 
 in the thigh bone, & next week in Walpole for an 
 exostosis on the thigh bone. 
 
 Nathan Smith. 
 Dr. G. C. Shattuck." 
 
CHAPTER NINTH 
 
 The accompanying photograph will give some idea 
 of the form of the old medical building for which Dr. 
 Smith obtained the grant and gave his land, anatomical 
 museum, etc., and which was the first independent home 
 of the Dartmouth Medical School. It was built of 
 brick and was probably completed in the autumn of 
 1811. In the two-story centre are two good lecture 
 halls and in the two three-story wings are smaller 
 rooms for library, laboratory, museums, etc. The 
 lighting of the lecture hall on the first floor, by large 
 windows on opposite sides of the room, and the 
 acoustic properties are exceedingly good. The seats 
 for students are well arranged; they are placed in long 
 rows slightly elevated one above another all the way 
 up in front of the lecturer, and on the wall behind his 
 position is hung a large blackboard. 
 
 The very primitive arrangements of the hall consist 
 of a trap . door beneath where the lecturer stands, 
 which opens into an underground place, where a hun- 
 dred years ago subjects were kept and lifted up for 
 anatomical study. Running almost all the way across 
 the room in front of the lecturer is a broad counter- 
 like table somewhat rounded at the corners, a part of 
 which must have served for anatomical demonstra- 
 tions; about one third of it at the other end, being 
 detached and on small wheels fitted to a little track, 
 could be rolled through a side door into an adjoining 
 
y6 Life and Letters 
 
 room where patients prepared for surgical operations 
 were placed upon the table and rolled back into the 
 lecture hall ready for the surgeon. 
 
 In those old days no aseptic treatment was practiced, 
 nor had antiseptics been discovered, for the world was 
 in blissful ignorance of the presence of lurking germs, 
 now recognized as arch enemies to the health of the 
 human race. But, although germs were undiscovered, 
 pain was fully understood and believed in, and — sad to 
 say — no anesthetics were known by which to deaden 
 the sufferings of patients, or the sympathies of the ten- 
 der-hearted surgeon. 
 
 An early pupil of Dr. Smith at New Haven, Dr. 
 Abraham T. Lowe of Boston, who, when a student, 
 accompanied him to a distant town to assist him in 
 performing a capital operation, described to Dr. Hub- 
 bard, as follows, Dr. Smith's deep sympathy for the 
 patient on this occasion: 
 
 "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 : 'I shall 
 not do what they expect. It is a cruel business, and I 
 will perform a less severe operation, in the hope it 
 may have the same effect.' On examination it became 
 apparent 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 across the bed to hide us from 
 
of Nathan Smith 77 
 
 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 
 this period, 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." The old hall of the 
 Medical Building at Dartmouth was the scene of many 
 minor operations, and when sufferers were brought 
 from distant places to be relieved from complaints 
 and injuries, after the wheeling back into the little 
 dressing room of the operating hall, they were often 
 subjected to the further ordeal of being transported 
 to their homes on mattresses in wagons. But, in spite 
 of the want of later day science, the majority of 
 patients recovered and lived long lives. 
 
 The hall of the old Medical Building is light and 
 airy, and some of the lectures are still given there. Dr. 
 Gilman D. Frost, the present Professor of Anatomy, 
 who kindly showed the writer through the building, 
 values highly its association with the man who first 
 filled the chair, or — as Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes 
 expresses it — who filled a "Settee of Professor- 
 ships." Very recently Dr. Abraham Flexner has added 
 his tribute, speaking of him as the man who "was its 
 entire faculty, and a very able faculty at that." 
 
 While still retaining the use of what is so good of 
 the old building, Dartmouth now possesses excellent 
 modern conveniences for its medical school. On one 
 side of the structure of 181 1, there is an up-to-date 
 
y8 Life and Letters 
 
 building for dissecting and anatomical study, and on 
 the other side of it has been erected the splendid 
 "Nathan Smith Laboratory," for chemical and patho- 
 logical research. Not far away from this group of 
 buildings is the beautiful "Mary Hitchcock Hospital," 
 which, although not very large, is fitted up with every 
 comfort for the sick, and also with operating rooms, 
 whose spotless and lovely white marble walls and tiled 
 floors are in every way sanitary. Indeed, all the 
 arrangements of the hospital show it to be as thor- 
 oughly equipped for surgery as any hospital in the 
 world. 
 
 This venerable Medical School of Dartmouth, — the 
 fourth institution of the kind in the United States, — 
 has created a record worthy of all honor during the 
 century and more of its existence; from its lecture 
 halls have gone forth not only well-taught physicians 
 to do work in distant country neighborhoods, but 
 numbered among its alumni are to be found the names 
 of some of the most useful and distinguished physicians 
 and teachers throughout the country; men who have 
 held chairs in other colleges and, in their turn, been the 
 instructors of scientists and discoverers who have built 
 upon their foundation. 
 
 One of the most carefully kept of Dr. Smith's old 
 ledgers contains only the notes of his lectures on 
 chemistry and, as he was never a regularly appointed 
 professor of chemistry after leaving Hanover, it is 
 reasonable to suppose that these lectures were delivered 
 in the Dartmouth Medical School before the year 1813, 
 when he left for New Haven. All of the lectures show 
 
of Nathan Smith 79 
 
 a wonderful amount of study, and also of original 
 thought, and one of them ends with the following 
 remarkable prophecy. 
 
 Extract from a Lecture on Chemistry 
 
 by Nathan Smith, delivered at Hanover — probably 
 
 before 1813. 
 
 "Respecting what the effect of chemistry on medi- 
 cine may be hereafter is uncertain, but it is conjectured 
 that it will be able to discover the nature and compo- 
 sition of inanimate animal matter, that it will precisely 
 discover and determine the chemical effects which take 
 place in living animals, that it will also discover what 
 takes place in organic injuries, and in what diseases 
 consist, that it will discover the means of preventing 
 such injury at its commencement and of remedying 
 several of them when produced, and that it will sim- 
 plify materia medica. That it will effect all this is by 
 some fondly hoped, in the first place : by pursuing with 
 ardor the modern analysis, — so different from the 
 ancient; by making physiological experiments such as 
 those of Spallanzani on digestion, of Lavoisier on 
 respiration and Vauquelin on excrements ; by operating, 
 in an Hospital consecrated to experiments of that kind, 
 on the liquids and organs altered by disease before 
 and after death; by experiments tried with prudence 
 on diseases after the notions formed from preceding 
 data; by causing only well known remedies to be pre- 
 scribed; by discarding all inert substances; by forbid- 
 ding such as are poisonous ; by reducing the number of 
 
8o Life and Letters 
 
 medicines to such as possess real activity, and lastly, 
 by rendering the formulae of medicine more exact." 
 
 In the hundred years which have passed since these 
 words were uttered, what of all that Dr. Smith fore- 
 told has not been accomplished by chemistry? How 
 fitting and poetically appropriate that, almost upon the 
 very spot where his words were spoken, a beautiful 
 building has recently been erected, bearing in his honor 
 the name of "The Nathan Smith Laboratory," where, 
 as he fondly hoped, in a "Hospital consecrated to 
 experiments of that kind," scientists of to-day are pur- 
 suing with ardor the modern analysis, and, by chemical 
 and pathological research, carrying on some of the 
 work which is giving to the world discoveries and 
 benefits far exceeding his most loving and most 
 ambitious dreams. 
 
 In the year 1812, it was decided to establish a medi- 
 cal department at Yale College and, knowing of Dr. 
 Smith's rare ability as an organizer and teacher, and 
 of his great skill in the practice of medicine and sur- 
 gery, the trustees selected him as the man best fitted 
 to aid in the enterprise and invited him to become 
 Professor of the Theory and Practice of Physic, Sur- 
 gery and Obstetrics in the new institution. 
 
 It is easy to gather from one or two of the fore- 
 going letters — especially the one of May 14, 18 10 — 
 that Dr. Smith had found thickening clouds of diffi- 
 culty closing in around his work at Hanover. 
 
 Although his classes in the Medical Department of 
 Dartmouth were steadily increasing in numbers and 
 were filled by intelligent young men attracted to the 
 
- 
 The Nathan Smith Laboratory at Dartmouth 
 
of Nathan Smith 
 
 school by his rare ability as a teacher, he began to 
 feel as though he were held in the strong grip of 
 circumstances impossible any longer to contend 
 against. The poverty of the state and political 
 jealousies which separated men into parties were 
 already threatening the crisis which a little later came 
 to the Dartmouth School and which brought forth the 
 noted and pathetic appeal from Daniel Webster before 
 the Federal Supreme Court, when he is said to have 
 shed tears, while pleading, in one of his eloquent 
 speeches, for the life of his Alma Mater. 
 
 To question Dr. Smith's patience or unselfish devo- 
 tion to the child of his fostering care, would be an 
 injustice that no one could be guilty of after reading 
 of all he had endured to bring it into existence; but, 
 perhaps, in his wisdom and keen foresight, he may 
 have seen that his future usefulness there was being 
 made impossible, and that some new element was 
 needed to complete the work. 
 
 In what way he was influenced to leave Dartmouth 
 no one can tell. But it is evident that the Higher 
 Power which orders the destinies of men had work in 
 other fields awaiting the services of the master hand 
 which had accomplished so much already. 
 
 President Wheelock and the trustees of Dartmouth 
 College regretted exceedingly the parting with Dr. 
 Smith and were as slow in accepting his resignation as 
 they had been in accepting his proposition to establish 
 the Medical School, for their action was delayed until 
 1814. 
 
 Two years later, in 1816, Dr. Smith returned by 
 
82 Life and Letters 
 
 invitation to give another course of lectures which was 
 attended by sixty-six medical and forty-four college stu- 
 dents. 14 He was at this time reelected to a professor- 
 ship, but declined to accept and the trustees were 
 obliged to consider his action in leaving Dartmouth as 
 final. 
 
 The tremendous start given to the school by Nathan 
 Smith's unprecedented skill and energy carried it along 
 through many years until its reputation was spread far 
 and wide; indeed, Dr. Hubbard asserts that "compar- 
 ing the two schools [the Medical Schools of Harvard 
 and Dartmouth] from 1798 to 1828, both inclusive, 
 Harvard graduated two hundred and thirty students 
 of medicine, and Dartmouth three hundred and forty." 
 
 No wonder that Dr. Hubbard is impelled to add: 
 "If this were the climax of Dr. Smith's life and he had 
 rested from his labors, and this school was his only 
 monument, we might justly inscribe upon it [the Dart- 
 mouth motto], "Gaudet tentamine Virtus." 
 
 Dr. Smith had already arrived at the age of fifty- 
 one years, a time of life when, after achieving a great 
 work, men usually crave the quiet of home and rest 
 from some of their arduous labors; but the zeal of this 
 man was untiring, he weighed the ponderous question 
 before him carefully and decided that the new field 
 where ground had to be broken needed him more than 
 the one which was then in a flourishing state of culti- 
 vation. In his acceptance of this professorship in the 
 Yale Medical School selfish considerations had no 
 
 "Hubbard, p. 20. 
 
of Nathan Smith 83 
 
 weight. To leave family and friends and the school 
 which he had struggled for fifteen years to establish, 
 must have cost the good doctor many a heartache, but 
 once recognizing a call to be that of duty, there was 
 no hesitation in his obedience. 
 
 Dr. Smith owned a little farm at Hanover where 
 he could leave his wife and younger children in comfort 
 until he could make a home for them at New Haven, 
 and plans were made to take up the new work in Yale 
 College at an early day. But, as the following letters 
 from him to Dr. Silliman will show, Dr. Smith was 
 detained in Hanover by the spread of a most disastrous 
 epidemic, which extended even to members of his own 
 family. 
 
 In his letters to Dr. Silliman, Dr. Smith gives no 
 name to the disease, but from his "Essay on Typhus 
 Fever," on page 75 of "Medical and Surgical Mem- 
 oirs," we gather that this epidemic was what was then 
 called typhus fever (now typhoid), for he states: "In 
 the autumn of 1812, Professor Perkins, now of New 
 York, and myself attended between fifty and sixty 
 cases of Typhus in the vicinity of Dartmouth College, 
 and many of them were students of the Institution; of 
 the whole number which came under our care, only one 
 was bled, and that on account of a sense of fullness in 
 the head of which he complained, ... he eventually 
 recovered," and, the doctor adds, "Of all our patients 
 we lost but one." 
 
 The remarkable success of Dr. Smith in saving the 
 lives of so many patients ill with this dread disease, 
 was due to his entirely original and independent treat- 
 
84 Life and Letters 
 
 ment, which he had devised and practiced as early as 
 the year 1798 at Cornish. This treatment is described 
 in the article on typhus fever, referred to above. 
 
 Of the letters relative to Dr. Smith's call to New 
 Haven one has been preserved, addressed to Dr. 
 Mason Fitch Cogswell, of Hartford, a noted physician 
 and the founder of the first asylum in the country for 
 deaf-mutes. Dr. Cogswell had been asked to take the 
 chair subsequently offered to Dr. Smith, but felt his 
 work in Hartford of too great importance to leave. 
 This letter, though undated, evidently was written at 
 about this time and shows the humble spirit of the 
 truly great man, ready to acknowledge himself at fault 
 and to endeavor to undo such harm as he may have 
 been instrumental in causing. This was a period in 
 which the faith of many thinking men was severely 
 shaken as the result of books published about that 
 time, notably Paine's "Age of Reason," and perhaps 
 Dr. Smith may have been for a time one of those so 
 influenced. 
 
 The early part of the letter has to do exclusively 
 with surgical cases. The last part, referring to Dr. 
 Smith's call to New Haven and the considerations 
 set forth by the president of the college, is as follows : 
 
 "Respecting Dr. Dwight's former objections to me, 
 I freely acknowledge that they were well founded and 
 such as a wise and good man would always consider as 
 all important. My earnest prayer now is to live to 
 undo all the evil I have done by expressing my doubts 
 as to the truth of Divine Revelation, and to render 
 
of Nathan Smith 85 
 
 to Society all the good my talents and powers will 
 permit me to do. 
 
 I am with sentiments of esteem 
 
 Your friend and servant, 
 
 Nathan Smith." 
 
 "Hanover, March 31, 1813. 
 Prof. Silliman, New Haven, Ct. 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 Your favor of the 19th has been received. Accord- 
 ing to my promise to Dr. Cogswell I intended to have 
 visited you at New Haven last January, but before I 
 was ready to set off on my journey, we were visited 
 by a very fatal epidemic and instances of sickness and 
 mortality became so frequent that I was afraid to 
 leave my family in such perilous times; and my fears 
 were not groundless, — four of my children have lately 
 been affected by the prevailing epidemic, but by the 
 Divine Goodness have nearly recovered. I believe this 
 country has never before been visited by sickness which 
 has carried off so great a number of adult persons in 
 so short a time. In some towns of this vicinity which 
 contain perhaps from 1000 to 1500 inhabitants they 
 have buried over fifty persons since the first of last 
 January. The disease has not yet much abated either 
 in its violence or frequency of attack. We hear of 
 new cases every day, and almost every day brings me 
 an account of the death of some friend or acquaintance. 
 
86 Life and Letters 
 
 How long this dreadful calamity will be suffered to 
 afflict us, none can tell; but we hope and pray that 
 when the winter is over the disease will disappear. 
 
 The winter here has been long and severe. The 
 snow is deep and the three last days have been the 
 first springlike days we have had. 
 
 Respecting your former letter, Dr. Cogswell wrote 
 me that he had it and declined sending it as he feared 
 it might pass me on the road. I wrote him to keep 
 it safe till my arrival, so that I have not seen it. Dr. 
 Cogswell however mentioned in his letter some circum- 
 stances alluded to in yours, particularly respecting the 
 Anatomical Museum and Library. I wrote him on 
 that subject, that I would furnish something towards a 
 museum and that I had between five and six hundred 
 vols, of books, chiefly medical, which should contribute 
 to build up the intended Institution at New Haven. 
 
 Respecting my visit to Court, — that, — sickness and 
 death excepted, you may depend on seeing me at New 
 Haven before your General Court convenes at Hart- 
 ford next May. I am, dear Sir, with high considera- 
 tion, Your obedient Servant 
 
 Nathan Smith." 
 
 "Hanover, September 2, 18 13. 
 Prof. Silliman, New Haven, Ct. 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 Your favour of the 28th August, was handed [me] 
 yesterday. On my arrival at home from Boston, I 
 found Mrs. Smith convalescent, for which I have 
 
of Nathan Smith 87 
 
 great reason to render thanks to Divine Providence; 
 she still continues to convalesce, so that I think I shall 
 be able to leave home for New Haven soon. 
 
 Respecting the terms and regulations you have 
 agreed on for the government of the Medical Institu- 
 tion, I have no fear on that subject, and doubt not 
 but they be well adapted to the purpose for which 
 they were made. 
 
 I think with you that it will contribute much to the 
 prosperity of the establishment to have commons in the 
 Medical College, as it will probably reduce the price 
 of board, which I find is an object with many who are 
 wishing to attend there. If this arrangement is carried 
 into effect, the young gentlemen can certainly go 
 through their study term at New Haven, cheaper than 
 at Hanover; the length of time taken up in our course 
 of lectures, 15 being greater than in other institutions in 
 New England, will be in favour of the students in a 
 pecuniary point of view, for, while they are living at 
 
 15 Dr. Smith had evidently already identified his interests with the 
 institution at New Haven. It is not at first clear as to whether he 
 means Dartmouth or Yale in speaking of "our course of lectures," but 
 we learn through Dr. Welch, that "at the beginning, the course of 
 medical lectures here [at Yale] extended through six months, a longer 
 period than obtained at the time in any other medical school in this 
 country." He adds in a note: "The length of the annual course was 
 afterwards shortened to five months, then to four months (1824). In 
 1832 it was from the second week in November to the last week in 
 February. It is now thirty-four weeks, exclusive of vacations." It will 
 be more readily understood, if the length of the term was only four or 
 five months, how it was possible for Dr. Smith to give courses at 
 Brunswick and Burlington without interfering with his teaching at 
 New Haven. 
 
88 Life and Letters 
 
 as little expense as they do in the country, they pay 
 nothing during the lectures for private tuition. 
 
 I think you have done well to prohibit the under- 
 graduates from attending any lectures but yours (Chem- 
 istry) . I have felt the embarrassment of lecturing on 
 Anatomy and Surgery before young men who are not 
 designed for the profession. 
 
 When Dr. Cogswell wrote to me on the subject, my 
 answer was, that if I had an appointment in the insti- 
 tution, I would take any part on me that in the opinion 
 of those concerned would contribute most to the good 
 of the establishment. Therefore if it is thought best 
 I will lecture as you propose. My son who entered 
 the College at Yale some time since, left home before 
 I arrived from Boston, expecting to meet me at Weth- 
 ersfield to make arrangements for him respecting room 
 at College and to give bond for the payment of tuition, 
 board &c. If anything should be necessary before I 
 come to New Haven, I will thank you to take so much 
 concern for him as to do what may be wanting and I 
 will see that everything is done on my part as soon as 
 I arrive. With sentiments of esteem, I remain, dear 
 Sir, Your Friend and Servant, 
 
 Nathan Smith." 
 
 (These two letters to Professor Silliman are in pos- 
 session of Dr. Saml. Theobald, the great-grandson of 
 Dr. Nathan Smith.) 
 
 In the autumn of 1813, about a month after the 
 writing of the second letter to Professor Silliman, Dr. 
 
of Nathan Smith 8g 
 
 Smith left Dartmouth for New Haven. His two sons, 
 David Solon and Nathan Ryno, were to be with him as 
 students at Yale College. His good friend, President 
 Wheelock, and the trustees of Dartmouth were most 
 reluctant to part with him. 
 
CHAPTER TENTH 
 
 On his arrival at New Haven, Dr. Smith was 
 received with great kindness and cordiality. Ex-Presi- 
 dent 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 be in his room, 
 and difficult to keep us out." 
 
 Dr. Smith wrote an interesting letter to one of his 
 warm friends at Hanover, Mr. Mills Olcott, dated 
 December, 18 13, in which he described his accident as 
 follows: "Immediately on arriving into New Haven, 
 I fell into such a run of business that, it being very 
 dark one evening, I ran my leg against a plank with 
 such violence it gave a pretty severe contusion. Fever 
 followed, but Mr. Woolsey had received me into his 
 house supplying all my wants both in sickness and 
 health." 
 
 The same letter describes one of his first profes- 
 sional cases, — a very pretty young lady with white 
 swelling of the knee. She informed Dr. Smith that 
 she had had it set five times, — twice by women and 
 three times by male bone-setters, — but, instead of get- 
 ting better, it grew steadily worse every time. Dr. 
 Smith adds: "If I should remain I must have a severe 
 
Nathan Smith 
 
 conflict with this tribe of bone-setters, for I never 
 could when young and pliable get on with them, and 
 now, grown old and stiff, I feel less inclined than ever 
 to yield the least approbation to this kind of gentry." 
 
 As soon as Dr. Smith recovered from the injury 
 caused by his accident, he lost no time in taking up 
 his duties as Professor of the Theory and Practice of 
 Physic, Surgery and Obstetrics in Yale College. There 
 he was to have as associates: iEneas Munson, Pro- 
 fessor of Materia Medica and Botany; Eli Ives, Ad- 
 junct Professor of Materia Medica and Botany; Ben- 
 jamin Silliman, Professor of Chemistry, Mineralogy 
 and Geology; and Jonathan Knight, Professor of 
 Anatomy and Physiology. 
 
 Students came in numbers to benefit by the instruc- 
 tion of these eminent teachers, and the medical depart- 
 ment steadily grew with the college in reputation and 
 importance. 
 
 In addition to his work as instructor in medi- 
 cine, Dr. Smith rapidly acquired a large practice, 
 not confined to the city of New Haven, for his calls 
 were to every county and almost every town in the 
 state. The sick and unfortunate also came to him 
 from a distance to get his ever ready help and advice. 
 
 In the ledger which Dr. Smith kept at New Haven, 
 in 1 8 13, and 18 14, are recorded the daily visits to 
 patients, and his charges for professional services. A 
 photograph of one of these pages will show names 
 familiar to many even now, for the descendants of 
 some of these good people still live in and around New 
 Haven. In addition to the records photographed, we 
 
92 Life and Letters 
 
 find Roger Allen, of Woodbridge, appearing as first 
 patient in November, 1813. Then here and there 
 throughout the book, there are such names as Hotch- 
 kiss, Atwater, Hoadley, Dummer, James Hillhouse, 
 Judge Painter, Mrs. Shattuck, President Dwight, 
 George Munson, Professor Silliman, Miss Woolsey, 
 Jonathan Edwards Porter, another Nathan Smith, 
 etc. Many out of town visits are recorded, and one 
 of the last pages of the ledger is taken up with a list 
 of visits to a lady who seems to have been a pensioner 
 of the city, for all the charges for the visits are made 
 to the town of New Haven. 
 
 One feature of this interesting old book is the low 
 price charged for medical attention. For an ordinary 
 visit with prescription the price was only fifty cents, 
 and even when surgery was done the charge seldom 
 reached five dollars. 
 
 Probably for economy of space and time, Dr. Smith 
 usually made his ledgers serve for recording the heads 
 of his lectures as well as for the keeping of his accounts. 
 This ledger of 18 13 and 18 14 contains a careful out- 
 line of his introductory lecture and, as it was almost 
 certainly the first lecture ever delivered in the Yale 
 Medical School, it may be interesting to find it intro- 
 duced in the Appendix to this volume. 
 
J*4~ /k^ &^& 
 
 t<<^faf~ y— &l&6u_sc 
 
 
 r>^ 
 
 4* 
 4* 
 
 
 ulyfirf- 
 
 C<TS> 
 
 >p*y 
 
 <^r£ 
 
 
 4& 
 
 
 -XmJLtfi 
 
CHAPTER ELEVENTH 
 
 In order to show Dr. Smith's manner of teaching 
 and delivering his lectures, the following extract is 
 borrowed from Appendix E of Dr. Oliver Hubbard's 
 admirable Historical Discourse. The lectures here 
 described by Mr. Nesmith were probably heard by him 
 at Dartmouth when Dr. Smith returned there for his 
 special course in 1816, and the introductory lecture 
 must have been repeated by Dr. Smith from memory, 
 as it is no doubt the one prepared in 18 13 for his first 
 address at Yale College. 
 
 The Hon. George W. Nesmith (Dartmouth, 1820) 
 writes: "Franklin, N. H., December 27, 1879. — ^ 
 was my good fortune, in 18 16, to hear him [Dr. Smith] 
 deliver three lectures. The first was his introductory 
 lecture, addressed to the Medical class. In this 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 super- 
 stitious practices of ancient times; illustrating his vari- 
 ous positions by appropriate anecdotes; closing his 
 lecture by sensible advice to the students in reference to 
 their conduct, their habits of study, inculcating industry, 
 close and earnest investigation, and the acquisition of 
 all that knowledge best calculated to make them good 
 citizens and useful in their profession. This lecture 
 was extempore entirely — without notes — delivered in 
 
94 Life and Letters 
 
 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 practice. 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, intel- 
 lectually, of the number, inquired 'if it would not be 
 possible to 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; but 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 dis- 
 cussion upon fevers. It appeared he had written and 
 sent out to the public something upon this subject. My 
 recollection is he discussed the character and symptoms 
 
of Nathan Smith 95 
 
 and treatment of the Spotted Fever, which had pre- 
 vailed extensively through many parts of New England. 
 I sympathized with his remarks on this subject, and 
 could attest to their truthfulness, because it had visited 
 our town (Antrim?) in 18 12. 
 
 "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 Institutions he aided or 
 established will be living monuments consecrated to his 
 memory, we trust, forever." 
 
 One beautiful trait in the character of this great man 
 was his tenderness and strong affection for his friends 
 and his family. All of the histories of Dr. Smith 
 demonstrate that in his busy life he could not have had 
 many leisure moments, and yet no rush of business 
 could ever crowd out from his loving heart the constant 
 thought of his home and family, so that the many neces- 
 sary separations from them were among his severest 
 trials, as the following letter to his wife will show. 
 
 "To Mrs. Sally H. Smith, Hanover, N. H. 
 My Dearly and Well-beloved: 
 
 I fear that my absence has been severely felt by you 
 and the children. For my own part I have had a 
 dreary winter of it; you may rest assured that I will 
 never leave you and the dear children so long a time 
 during my lifetime. I think I shall be able to get home 
 by the middle of April. I will thank you to tell Plumley 
 that I wish him to engage somebody to do the ploughing 
 and sowing in the Spring, as it may be necessary to 
 
g6 Life and Letters 
 
 have it begun before I can reach home. Do kiss all the 
 children for me and tell them that papa will come 
 home and never leave them again. 
 
 Solon and Ryno are both very well and doing very 
 well in their studies. Ryno is one of the first in his class 
 and Solon has improved very much. 
 
 We have lately had some difficulty in the School 
 between the cooks and the scholars. A cook abused 
 one of the scholars in the kitchen and the scholars put 
 the cook under the pump and pumped him, as it is 
 called. I think, however, it will be settled without 
 much difficulty. Solon was one who helped to pump the 
 cook, but so many assisted in the thing that the blame 
 will be light on the individuals. 
 
 Miss Painter, who was at Hanover two summers ago 
 for her health, is here now under my care. I have 
 obtained a good deal of business since I came here for 
 which I shall receive my pay in the Spring. The people 
 in New Haven expect to see you here in the Spring, 
 but it is not certain that I shall ever remove to this 
 place. I am with the fondest affection yours forever, 
 
 Nathan Smith. 
 New Haven, March 4, 18 14." 
 
 The school began its work in October, 18 13, with a 
 class of over thirty students, in the building at the head 
 of College Street, which had been erected for a hotel 
 by James Hillhouse. This was readily adapted to its 
 new uses and, after a short lease, purchased by the 
 Medical Institution, together with a considerable tract 
 of land adjoining, designed for use as a botanical 
 
of Nathan Smith gj 
 
 garden. The money necessary for this purchase was 
 obtained through the personal application of Dr. Smith 
 to the Legislature of the State of Connecticut, which 
 responded with the generous sum of $20,000, which 
 proved sufficient to secure not only the building and 
 grounds, but to furnish the beginning of a library and 
 of an anatomical museum. 
 
 The plan for a botanical garden must have been 
 particularly pleasing to Dr. Smith. 
 
 In his letter of October 4, 1809, he rejoiced in the 
 opportunity offered him to profit by a garden produc- 
 tive of healing herbs in Salem, and in April, 181 1, he 
 writes of his intention to petition the Legislature of 
 New Hampshire for a thousand dollars with which to 
 begin a botanical garden at Dartmouth. 
 
 "The garden for the Yale Medical School was estab- 
 lished on grounds adjacent to the building on Grove 
 Street, by the exertions of Professor Eli Ives and at his 
 own expense. A hothouse was built and a variety of 
 native and foreign plants, shrubs and trees, mostly of 
 a medicinal nature, were planted. Dr. M. C. Leaven- 
 worth, a graduate of the Medical Department in 1817, 
 who was a good botanist, was engaged to make a col- 
 lection of indigenous plants for the garden, and at one 
 time there was a good collection of such plants. The 
 time and expense involved, however, proved to be 
 burdensome, and the garden, after a protracted 
 struggle for life, perished from neglect." — Welch, note 
 26. 
 
 " 'Commons' were instituted in the basement of the 
 building, and above were sleeping and study rooms for 
 
g8 Life and Letters 
 
 the students. The close connection with the college is 
 evidenced by the attempt to introduce into the Medical 
 School academic customs of the former. The medical 
 class assembled morning and evening for prayers, the 
 professors officiating, and the rigid rules governing the 
 academic department were enforced. These academic 
 customs were discontinued in 1824 with the establish- 
 ment of the Theological and Law Departments. They 
 are probably without parallel in the history of medical 
 schools. 
 
 "In 1835 and subsequently, enlargements and other 
 improvements were made in the medical building, better 
 fitting it for its purposes, especially for anatomical 
 work. At the beginning a few hundred dollars were 
 advanced by the College Corporation to enable the 
 School to begin its work, but later this sum was 
 refunded." — Welch, note 30. 
 
 In this building, now familiar to all as "South Sheff," 
 or Sheffield Hall, the work of the Medical Department 
 was carried on for forty-five years until in 1859 the 
 property was sold to Hon. Joseph E. Sheffield for a 
 Scientific School, and from the funds thus obtained the 
 present building was erected on York Street, for the 
 accommodation of the Medical School. 
 
 According to popular hearsay, this change of loca- 
 tion was necessitated by the proximity of the Grove 
 Street Cemetery to the original situation, the belief 
 being current that resurrectionists found it all too easy 
 to introduce subjects for dissection disinterred from 
 New Haven's "Westminster," as the cemetery across 
 the street is sometimes denominated from the great 
 
of Nathan Smith gg 
 
 number of distinguished men whose remains have been 
 interred there. 
 
 Strong feeling against "the cutting up of dead 
 bodies" had made trouble for the Medical School in 
 New Hampshire, as Dr. Smith's letter of May 14, 
 1 8 10, testifies, and doubtless all of the early medical 
 schools had to contend against similar popular preju- 
 dice and ignorance. 
 
 In the spring of 18 15, Dr. Smith was called to his 
 home at Hanover by the extreme illness of his eldest 
 daughter, Sally Malvina, a lovely girl of sixteen years. 
 There seems to have been nothing that the devoted 
 father and skilled ptrysician could do to save the pre- 
 cious life of his child, whose passing to the Better 
 Home on June 13 is described as a scene of "perfect 
 Christian peace and Heavenly serenity" which im- 
 pressed all about her with the comfort which faith and 
 trust alone can give. 
 
 The influence of the good Bishop Philander Chase 
 must have lingered around his family and friends long 
 after he had left the neighborhood of Dartmouth, for 
 Mrs. Smith and many of the Chase family were earnest 
 Christians. President Allen, of Bowdoin College, 
 stated in his address of 1 829 that the death of this dear 
 daughter, following that of Dr. Smith's friend and 
 patient, Mr. Hubbard, Professor of Mathematics at 
 Dartmouth, overwhelmed Dr. Smith with wonder and 
 convinced him beyond all question of the truth and 
 efficacy of religion. 
 
 Mr. Hubbard was a cultured and strong man of 
 many accomplishments, whose eloquent expressions of 
 
ioo Life and Letters 
 
 trust in his Saviour and of lofty anticipations of happi- 
 ness in the world he was about to enter impressed all 
 who were around him in his dying hours with the truth 
 and power of religion. Dr. Smith, who was present, 
 did not ascribe this radiance of Christian hope and com- 
 fort to "nervous influence or to an inflamed fancy — 
 for Mr. Hubbard was a man of reason and argument 
 as well as of feeling, and his words carried conviction 
 to the mind as well as emotion to the heart." 
 
 The death of this daughter was the first break in the 
 home circle and came as a crushing sorrow, never to be 
 entirely outlived, and it must have been harder than 
 ever for the husband and father to leave his bereaved 
 family to go back to work at Yale College; but it is 
 probable that, as the summer was already at hand, he 
 was able to spend the long vacation with them before 
 returning to New Haven. 
 
 As has been already stated, he was invited to Dart- 
 mouth soon after to give another course of lectures and 
 no doubt his visits to his home and family were not 
 infrequent, although in those days, when there were no 
 railroads or conveniences for rapid travel, journeys 
 were very difficult to accomplish, and long separations 
 must sometimes have been inevitable. 
 
 Letters to Dr. Smith's intimate friend, Mr. Mills 
 Olcott, at Hanover, show that he returned to New 
 Haven in September, 1815, having Miss Mary Olcott 
 under his care. In October of that year he wrote to 
 Mr. Olcott: "I am much obliged to you for your kind 
 attention to my family and hope you will continue to 
 look a little after them." 
 
of Nathan Smith 101 
 
 Again, in January, 1816, he wrote to the same good 
 friend: "I feel very anxious about my family. I wish 
 you would call on Mrs. Smith and if anything is wanting 
 to make her comfortable during this stormy season, if 
 you will lend her the necessary aid I will remunerate 
 you if I live, — as I trust I shall." 
 
 The Junior exhibition of 1 8 1 6 was held in the Chapel 
 at Yale College, on Tuesday, May 7, when the name of 
 N. R. Smith appears on the card of invitation as one of 
 the managers. This photograph of one of the original 
 cards will be found quaint and interesting. It was in 
 this year that Solon took his degree of M.D., an occa- 
 sion of great pride and interest to the family — and it 
 is probable that his good father at this time appreciated 
 more than ever the necessity of collecting his family 
 into a more settled home. 
 
 He therefore gave his final course of lectures at 
 Dartmouth during that summer, and, declining reelec- 
 tion to a professorship there, immediately went about 
 making arrangements for the removal of his family to 
 New Haven, which was accomplished early in the 
 spring of 18 17. With efforts and interests concen- 
 trated in one place, Dr. Smith began to feel relief from 
 certain anxieties, and having arrived at the zenith of 
 his ripe knowledge and experience, it is said that at no 
 time in his life was he able to accomplish more wonder- 
 ful work as teacher, writer and practitioner, than in the 
 years which followed this removal to New Haven. 
 
 The following rather gratifying testimonial came to 
 him from his pupils in the spring of 18 17 : 
 
102 Life and Letters 
 
 "Professor Smith, Sir: 
 
 Conscious of your abilities and the exertions you 
 
 have made in contributing to the improvement of the 
 
 medical class in the study of Surgery and Practice of 
 
 Physic the winter past : 
 
 We, as in their behalf, acknowledge their entire 
 
 satisfaction with the Lectures and, with emotions of 
 
 gratitude and sentiments of much respect, return you 
 
 their sincere thanks. 
 
 Benjamin Trumbull, 
 David S. Edwards, 
 
 Committee. 
 New Haven, March 22, 1817." 
 

 m 
 
 \Iarm^'rsoft/i€ ^~4 
 
 
 <,. ^tUSTozr 
 
 •G 
 
 ^isty 
 
 (i hn 
 
 
CHAPTER TWELFTH 
 
 The summers of 1816 and 18 17 brought events of 
 great importance to the young Smiths. Solon took the 
 degree of M.D. at Commencement in 18 16, for which 
 occasion Nathan Ryno, a Junior of the regular college 
 course, wrote a play called "The Quixotic Philoso- 
 pher," which was acted, with great applause, by the 
 students, he himself taking a prominent part. The play 
 added much to the entertainment of the members of the 
 college and its visitors, and was said to be very clever, 
 showing great literary talent on the part of its young 
 author. In 18 17 Nathan Ryno received the degree 
 of A.B. 
 
 Dr. Smith, with his usual promptness in action and 
 his great interest in the future welfare of his sons, 
 immediately after their graduation sought to make the 
 best plans for their advancement in life. For the 
 younger one, Nathan Ryno, he secured a fine position 
 as classical tutor in the family of Mr. Thomas Turner, 
 of Fauquier County, Virginia, a gentleman of wealth 
 and position; but after a year or more there, young Mr. 
 Smith realized that, although he had enjoyed his work 
 as instructor and had formed a strong attachment to 
 his friends of Virginia, and a sympathy and love for the 
 southern people which went with him through life, his 
 tastes were all pointing in the direction of medicine and 
 surgery as his special vocation. He therefore returned 
 to New Haven, and began to study medicine under his 
 
104 Life and Letters 
 
 father and the other eminent professors of the Medical 
 Department of Yale College. 
 
 In the meanwhile, Dr. Smith had given Solon rare 
 opportunities for the study of botany by employing a 
 German botanist to travel with him for a year through 
 the western country, which enabled him to classify and 
 know the medical properties of nearly all the plants of 
 the country. He was also a fine naturalist and gave 
 much attention to entomology. Some time later he 
 furnished descriptions of the New England reptiles for 
 President Hitchcock's great work. The two letters to 
 Dr. Shattuck which follow give an idea of Dr. Smith's 
 hopes and plans for Solon. 
 
 "Dear Sir: 
 
 I wish for your assistance in a certain way. Solon 
 writes me that he has learnt by the public papers that 
 an expedition is to be fitted out to make an establish- 
 ment at the mouth of the Columbia River. He wishes, 
 if possible, to obtain the office of Surgeon's Mate in 
 that expedition, which would, he thinks, favour his 
 project for acquiring a thorough knowledge of the 
 Botany and Natural History of North America. Mr. 
 Crowninshield lives in your vicinity, and I wish you 
 to sound him on the subject, and you may state to the 
 Secretary of the Navy, 16 that Solon has been fully edu- 
 cated in the Science of Medicine, and has studied 
 Botany practically, and is perhaps not behind any one 
 of his age in the United States; and also suggest that 
 
 16 Mr. Crowninshield was Secretary of the Navy only until No- 
 vember, 1818. 
 
of Nathan Smith 105 
 
 an industrious botanist stationed in that unexplored 
 region, might, besides doing his duty in the service, 
 render this country essential service by his discoveries. 
 
 Professor Silliman is now absent, and as soon as he 
 returns, we, the Professors of Yale College, shall make 
 out Solon's certificate and credentials in manner and 
 form, and send them to Mr. Secretary, and also for- 
 ward them to the Seat of Government. 
 
 Please to accept my very great regards for yourself 
 and Mrs. Shattuck and also remember me affectionately 
 to Mrs. Derby. Also present my very great respects 
 to Mr. Elliot and family. 
 
 I am with sentiments of esteem yours, &c. 
 
 Nathan Smith. 
 New Haven, August 31, 18 18. 
 To Dr. George C. Shattuck, Boston." 
 
 "Dear Sir: 
 
 I wrote you a few days since respecting a place for 
 Solon in the Navy or Army; as the hurly burly of Com- 
 mencement is now over, the subject will be attended to 
 by the Professors and his testimonials will be for- 
 warded to the proper authority; a commission in the 
 Army, if it cannot be obtained in the Navy, will enable 
 him to travel in the Western country, (which he much 
 wishes for) , if he can be stationed in that region. 
 
 We were much pleased with your pupil, Mr. Wells, 
 who from his modest deportment and amiable manners 
 promises well. Mr. Wells will be able to give you an 
 account of our Commencement. A class of sixty-seven 
 
io6 Life and Letters 
 
 graduated and we think the present Freshman class 
 will be considerably more numerous. We do not know 
 how many we shall have in our next class of medical 
 students, but, from the present appearances I think it 
 will exceed any we have had before. 
 
 I am with esteem yours, &c. &c. 
 
 Nathan Smith. 
 
 New Haven, September 10, 1818. 
 To Dr. George C. Shattuck, Boston." 
 
 The history of Sutton, Mass., compiled by the Rev. 
 Messrs. Benedict and Tracy, contains quite a full 
 account of the life there of Solon, from which we gather 
 that the position in the army or navy, which his father 
 so anxiously sought for him, was not obtained, and that 
 he started the practice of medicine in that town in 18 19, 
 when there were already three other doctors in the 
 district. Solon's thorough training and the prestige of 
 his father's fame, however, soon helped to make him 
 one of the most popular physicians in that part of the 
 country. 
 
 He is described as a large man, of fine personal 
 appearance, with great, piercing, gray eyes, which his 
 patients thought could look straight through them and 
 tell exactly what was the cause of complaint. 
 
 Sutton had been the home of many of his ancestors, 
 for his great-great-grandfather, Samuel Dudley, de- 
 scended from the Dudleys and Suttons of England, was 
 the founder of the settlement and the name, Sutton, was 
 given to it in his honor. The Chase grandparents 
 were also residents of Sutton. 
 
of Nathan Smith 
 
 ioy 
 
 On the 26th of July, 18 19, the sixth little daughter 
 and tenth child was born to Dr. and Mrs. Nathan 
 Smith. They called the child Sarah, for her mother as 
 well as for the elder sister who had died at Hanover 
 four years earlier. 
 
 This advent made the number of Dr. Smith's family 
 complete. A copy of a page from the family Bible, in 
 which Dr. Smith had with his own hand most carefully 
 registered all of the births of his children, may prove 
 of interest here. 
 
 Children of Dr. Nathan Smith and His Wife, 
 Sarah Hall Chase Smith. 
 
 David Solon Chase Hall 
 
 Smith was born 27th June 
 
 1795 at 3 o'clock A.M. 
 Nathan Ryno Smith was 
 
 born 21st May 1797 at 1 
 
 o'clock P.M. Sunday. 
 Sally Malvina Smith was 
 
 born Dec. 27th 1799 at 4 
 
 o'clock P.M. 
 Gratia Eliza Smith was born 
 
 16th May 1802 at 11 
 
 o'clock A.M. Sunday. 
 Mary Amanda Smith was 
 
 born 30th Dec. 1803 at 11 
 
 o'clock A.M. 
 James Morven Smith born 
 
 Sept. 23rd 8 o'clock P.M. 
 
 in the year 1805. Monday. 
 Catherine Camilla Smith 
 
 born July 2nd at 1 o'clock 
 
 AM., 1807. 
 
 Laura Matilda Smith born 
 on the 3rd day of Dec. 
 1809 at 2 o'clock in the 
 morning. Sunday. 
 
 John Derby Smith born on 
 the 9th day of April A.D. 
 1812 — at 6 o'clock in the 
 evening. Thursday. 
 
 Sarah Smith born on 
 
 the 26th day of July 1819 
 at 8 o'clock in the evening. 
 Monday. 
 
 Gratia Eliza Smith married 
 Dec. 30th 1822. 
 
 David S. C. H. Smith mar- 
 ried July 26th 1820. 
 
 Sally Malvina Smith died 
 June 13th 1815. 
 
io8 Life and Letters 
 
 It is evident from the above register that marriages 
 of the older children soon began to follow the birth of 
 the little Sarah, and if no other records were left of 
 them, the people of the present day might be left in 
 ignorance as to whom the children married; for the 
 fact that they were married on a certain date seemed 
 to be all that impressed their father, who registered the 
 brief statements. David Solon C. H. Smith married 
 Lucy Hall, — probably his cousin, — of Sutton, where 
 he continued to live and practice medicine. Gratia 
 Eliza married Rev. I. S. Lincoln, in her father's house 
 at New Haven. 
 
Yale Medical College in 1840 
 
CHAPTER THIRTEENTH 
 
 In June, 1820, — according to President Allen of 
 Bowdoin, — the first Legislature of the new State of 
 Maine passed an act establishing and endowing the 
 Medical School of Maine, and he asserts that "the 
 creation of this school may be in no small degree 
 ascribed to the fact, that Dr. Smith had been consulted 
 on the subject of being placed at the head of it." Dr. 
 Allen writes further that: "Before the session of this 
 Legislature, and before I became a resident in this 
 State, I received from him a communication, in reply 
 to a letter suggesting the plan of such a school in 
 Maine, in which he said, he should take great delight 
 in cooperating in such an institution. He added: — 'I 
 think after what experience I have had, we could form 
 a medical school, that would, in point of real utility, 
 equal any in the country. — In a new State like Maine, 
 where neither habit nor party have laid their ruthless 
 hands on the public institutions and where the minds of 
 men are free from their poisoning influence, everything 
 is to be hoped for.' " 
 
 Dr. Smith wrote the following letter from New 
 Haven to Dr. Shattuck before taking up his duties in 
 the new Medical School of Bowdoin College at 
 Brunswick, Maine. 
 
 "New Haven, January 7, 1821. 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 I have engaged to go to Bowdoin College and to 
 
no Life and Letters 
 
 deliver a course of lectures which will continue about 
 ten weeks, for which I am to have six hundred dollars. 
 President Allen has written to me saying that there is 
 a young physician by the name of Arnold who has had 
 considerable experience in dissecting, and wished me 
 to consult him about going on with me, and to ascertain 
 what compensation would satisfy him. It is not prob- 
 able that his services will be wanted more than five or 
 six weeks. Will thank you to feel of him on the subject, 
 if you think he would be a suitable person, and learn 
 his terms if he is inclined to go with me. 
 
 I have one more favor to ask of you, and that is to 
 see if you can find some young man in Boston who 
 would agree to furnish us with two or three subjects. 
 They could be sent to Portland and by water. The 
 College expects to pay the expense and will be willing 
 to give a reasonable compensation. Perhaps some 
 young man who wants cash might be willing to furnish 
 two or three. They will not be wanted till some time 
 in March. 
 
 We have a good class of medical students in this 
 Institution, about sixty very respectable young men. I 
 have pushed on my course of lectures with a view to my 
 engagement at Bowdoin. I am through Theory and 
 Practice and have advanced some ways in Surgery. 
 
 I shall go to Brunswick by the way of Boston and 
 will then see you; this will be the fore part of next 
 month. 
 
 I have performed many surgical operations in the 
 last year, and some of great importance. My success 
 has been very great as respects curing, and if my 
 
of Nathan Smith /// 
 
 patients had been of the right sort, my business would 
 have been very good, but alas, many of them have 
 been poor, and the people in Connecticut have no idea 
 of rewarding professional men except by compulsion or 
 by being begged. The lawyers compel, and the priests 
 beg for pious purposes. 
 
 Please to remember me affectionately to Mrs. Shat- 
 tuck, Mrs. Davis and Mrs. Derby. 
 
 I am with sentiments of esteem, 
 
 Your Obedient Servant, 
 
 Nathan Smith. 
 Dr. G. C. Shattuck, Boston." 
 
 From President Allen's address we gather that the 
 Medical School of Maine was opened in the spring of 
 1 82 1, the governors of the college having very liberally 
 offered apartments for the purpose in Massachusetts 
 Hall. Dr. Smith delivered the various lectures, with 
 the exception of chemistry, in which branch ample 
 instruction had for many years previous been given at 
 the college by Professor Parker Cleaveland. He was 
 assisted, however, in anatomy by Dr. John Doane 
 Wells, 17 the expert hand which two years afterwards 
 relieved him wholly in that department and in surgery. 
 Dr. Wells was a graduate of Harvard and a pupil of 
 Dr. Shattuck, who in answer to Dr. Smith's letter 
 recommended him for the position. 
 
 17 John Doane Wells, Harvard A. M. 1817, and M.D. 1820; also 
 Berks. Med. Inst. Mass. 1829, afterwards Professor of Anatomy at 
 the University of Maryland. 
 
ii2 Life and Letters 
 
 There were twenty-one young gentlemen at the first 
 course. The next year they had increased to forty- 
 nine. In the year 1829 there were nearly a hundred, 
 and Dr. Allen ascribed much of the success of the 
 school to the reputation, experience and skill of Dr. 
 Smith. In his surgical clinic during the first course he 
 couched nearly twenty eyes for cataract, one eye was 
 completely removed, a leg was amputated, and various 
 other surgical operations were performed, which 
 brought relief to sufferers, while increasing the advan- 
 tages of the students. 
 
 Dr. Nehemiah Cleaveland, in his history of Bowdoin 
 College, states that "Dr. Smith had been the steadfast 
 friend of the venerable Wheelock [of Dartmouth], 
 and though no partisan, he had deeply felt for him in 
 those troubles which saddened his last days. . . . His 
 friendship for President Wheelock extended to the 
 son-in-law [President Allen of Bowdoin], and made 
 him [Dr. Smith] the more willing to give his name and 
 strength to a work which was in other respects con- 
 genial to his spirit." Dr. Cleaveland states further: 
 "As I was at that time studying medicine, I joined the 
 class [of 1 821], attended the lectures, was present at 
 most of his operations in the neighborhood, and saw 
 much of him in general society. The course over, I 
 accompanied him, in that most sociable of vehicles, a 
 one-horse chaise, on a professional tour to Wiscasset 
 and up the Kennebec. Of my intercourse — at once 
 pleasing and profitable — with that great man the im- 
 pressions are still vivid. . . . 
 
 "Dr. Smith was a large man. . . . His expression 
 
of Nathan Smith 773 
 
 and genial countenance, his very attitude and air, were 
 admirably caught by the great artist who fixed them on 
 his canvas, and whose picture will reproduce his image 
 to all who knew him. . . . 18 There was no show of 
 learning, no attempt at brilliancy, no assumption of 
 dignity or superiority. The admiration which was felt 
 for his ability and wisdom — a feeling shared by all who 
 knew him — could be accounted for only by his posses- 
 sion of those attributes." 
 
 18 The portrait here referred to is supposably the well-known one 
 painted by Samuel Finley Breese Morse for the Yale Medical School 
 Class of 1826, a copy of which appears opposite title page of this book. 
 This picture, Professor Silliman says, is "esteemed one of the best 
 works of that artist." Morse's fame as a portrait painter has been 
 so eclipsed by that of his later achievements as inventor of the tele- 
 graph that his work as an artist has not had the prominence in the 
 popular mind which it merited. 
 
CHAPTER FOURTEENTH 
 
 The summer course of lectures at Bowdoin did not 
 in any wise conflict with the regular work of Dr. Smith 
 at New Haven, for that city continued to be the theatre 
 of his most important professional achievements as 
 physician, surgeon and teacher of medicine, and it was 
 during the time of his connection with Yale that he per- 
 formed some of his most remarkable operations. 
 
 It was on July 5, 1821, at Norwich, Vt., that he 
 performed the extraordinary operation of ovariotomy, 
 which should in itself have rendered his name famous 
 and which would, doubtless, have been associated with 
 him but for the fact that McDowell in Kentucky had 
 performed a similar operation some nine years pre- 
 vious, although of this Dr. Smith had no knowledge. 
 
 Such an authority as Dr. Gilman Kimball of Lowell, 
 Mass., says: "Ephraim McDowell, as has been already 
 said, will be regarded in all time to come as the 'father 
 of ovariotomy,' and as one of the master spirits of his 
 profession. It was my privilege to be present at the 
 dedication of the monument to him, and to listen to the 
 words I have just quoted as they fell from the lips of 
 the orator on that occasion. 
 
 "Doubtless, in point of time, the credit should be 
 given to the Kentucky surgeon as having been the first 
 ever to successfully perform the operation of ovari- 
 otomy. 
 
 "But I believe I should be guilty of a great injustice 
 
Nathan Smith 115 
 
 to the memory of Dr. Nathan Smith did I not insist 
 upon this fact, that has already been almost forgotten, 
 and place upon the imperishable page of history the 
 assertion which I think every candid reader will admit 
 — viz., that, in point of absolute merit, Dr. Nathan 
 Smith is entitled to the same honors that have been 
 accorded to Dr. McDowell. Nor was his first opera- 
 tion an accidental one, as has been intimated, but the 
 result of calm, deliberate study of the laws of vital 
 action, 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." 
 
 In the same address Dr. Kimball says: 
 "It is claimed, and justly, I suppose, that he was the 
 first to perform staphyloraphy in this country. As an 
 operator, he was cautious and painstaking, and is said 
 never to have lost a patient from hemorrhage, either 
 primary or secondary. His ingenuity and manual 
 adroitness are especially deserving of notice on account 
 of his introduction of a new method for reducing dis- 
 locations of the hip joint by what is known as the 
 manoeuvre system, 'which is as useful as it is simple, and 
 as scientific as the principle of flexion and leverage, on 
 which it depends.' 
 
 "The incident by which Dr. Smith came into posses- 
 sion of a clew to this important discovery is but another 
 illustration of the truth already declared, that the most 
 beneficial results to mankind have been those which 
 have been educed from the slightest circumstance, 
 which the thoughtless might consider a mere trifle or 
 accident. This fact, as related by the late Professor 
 
1 1 6 Life and Letters 
 
 A. B. Crosby, is as follows: 'While residing at Cornish 
 he had a friend who was a sea-captain, and who, on 
 returning from foreign voyages was wont to relate to 
 him whatever of interest in a medical way he might 
 have chanced to observe while abroad. On one occa- 
 sion he told Dr. Smith that on his previous voyage one 
 of the sailors dislocated his hip. There being no sur- 
 geon on board, the captain tried, but in vain, to reduce 
 it. The man was accordingly placed in a hammock 
 with the dislocation unreduced. During a great storm 
 the sufferer was thrown from the hammock to the 
 floor, striking violently on the knee of the affected side. 
 On examination, it was found that in the fall the hip 
 had somehow been reduced. This interested Dr. Smith 
 wonderfully, and he questioned the narrator again and 
 again as to the exact position of the thigh, the knee, and 
 the leg at the time of the fall.' 
 
 "From a careful study of 'this apparently insignifi- 
 cant circumstance,' Dr. Smith demonstrated the reduc- 
 ing of dislocation of the hip by the 'manoeuvre 
 method,' so called, now almost the only one resorted 
 to. 
 
 The Medical School at Yale continued to grow in 
 reputation and in numbers during these the busiest 
 years of the life of Nathan Smith. In the ledger he 
 kept in 1821 are notes of some of his lectures, which 
 show his extreme care in giving instruction, as likewise 
 his own steady growth in knowledge and experience, 
 preparing him to write for the world his invaluable 
 essays on fevers, necrosis, etc., which, according to 
 scientific men of to-day, marked him as a hundred years 
 
of Nathan Smith 
 
 117 
 
 ahead of his times. In the same ledger are recorded 
 the following names of the medical students of Yale in 
 1 82 1 and 1822. The accompanying photograph is 
 from the original ticket to Dr. Smith's lectures, of Dr. 
 Elijah Bishop, one of the students of 1821. 
 
 From Dr. Smith's ledger, kept at New Haven in 
 1 82 1 and 1822, the following lists of students' names 
 are taken. 
 
 Benj. Welch Jr. 
 Timothy Dimock. 
 H. Everitt. 
 Solyman Russell. 
 
 Heminway. 
 
 Miller. 
 
 Case. 
 
 George W. Walcott. 
 D. S. Hart. 
 Charles Smith. 
 George Gary. 
 Joseph G. Knapp. 
 Asahel Jones. 
 Edward Dickinson. 
 Horatio N. Fenn. 
 
 Edward York. 
 John A. Paine. 
 William Powell. 
 Amos W. Gates. 
 Charles Hooker. 
 Increase Harrison. 
 Wyllys Woodruff. 
 J. B. Irving. 
 George Taylor. 
 Ephraim Little. 
 Norman Bull. 
 Henry Holmes. 
 B. Mawry. 
 Eben West. 
 Edward Leffingwell. 
 
 Catalogue of Students in 1822, Who Have Taken 
 
 Tickets. 
 
 Thomas A. Dutton. 
 
 Joseph Camp. 
 
 Henry Hewitt. 
 
 Henry Lee. 
 
 Samuel H. P. Lee, Junr. 
 
 Alexander Wolcott. 
 Thomas Wilbur. 
 Benj. B. Coit. 
 Z. W. Bingham. 
 Abraham L. Smyth. 
 
n8 
 
 Life and Letters 
 
 John H. Arnold. 
 Datin Williams. 
 William O. Talcott. 
 Chester Hamlin. 
 Garry H. Minor. 
 Ulysses W. Mather. 
 H. Cleveland. 
 Samuel W. Pratt. 
 Asa H. King. 
 E. S. Trowbridge. 
 Titus C. Pratt. 
 Samuel D. Carver. 
 Chester Griggs. 
 Nelson Carpenter. 
 Alden L. Skinner. 
 A. P. Beers. 
 Edward P. Terry. 
 Gustavus A. Rogers. 
 Lemuel Wick. 
 Curtis Prentice. 
 Sheldon Lemon. 
 Samuel Woodruff. 
 Isaac Beers. 
 
 Theodore Gilbert. 
 Asa Witter. 
 J. G. Pierce. 
 W. H. Cogswell. 
 William H. Huggem. 
 Thomas H. Klien. 
 Walter H. Olcott. 
 Robert G. Huntington. 
 Samuel W. Brown. 
 Earl Loomis. 
 Elijah Bishop. 
 J. P. Haynes. 
 William Henry Cleveland. 
 Richard H. Eastman. 
 D. B. Shelton. 
 Samuel McClellan. 
 Henry B. Porter. 
 Charles Rowland. 
 B. F. Cleaveland. 
 Solomon P. Cushman. 
 Orson Osborn. 
 Samuel W. Gaylord. 
 Thomas O. H. Carpenter. 
 
 Although Dr. Smith was doubtless free from par- 
 tiality for one son above another, it is quite clear that 
 from the time "Ryno" passed the fine examination in 
 arithmetic at Hanover through the period when he 
 stood one of the first in his class at Yale, the father's 
 natural pride continued to grow and centre around this 
 talented son who seemed to have inherited many of 
 his own tastes for the medical profession and who 
 
Mrs. Frances (Montesque Buchanan Allen) Penniman 
 
 The mother of Mrs. Nathan Ryno Smith 
 Portrait by Copley when she was nine years old 
 
of Nathan Smith HQ 
 
 showed much perseverance in making progress under 
 difficulties. 
 
 Solon had married early and was practicing medicine 
 in Sutton, Mass., James Morven was but fifteen years 
 of age, and John Derby was only a little lad of eight 
 years when Nathan Ryno Smith received the degree of 
 M.D. from Yale in 1820. 
 
 Soon after graduation in medicine, Dr. N. R. Smith 
 removed to Burlington, Vt., and there married Juliette 
 Octavia, the daughter of Dr. Jabez Penniman. Mrs. 
 Nathan Ryno Smith was a woman of beautiful char- 
 acter and strong personality. Her mother and grand- 
 mother were quite noted in Revolutionary days, the 
 mother before her marriage to Dr. Perriman having 
 been the second wife and widow of General Ethan 
 Allen, and the grandmother, after the death of Monte 
 Montesque, having married the well-known Tory, 
 Crean Brush. The photographs of their interesting 
 portraits are here given. 
 
 In the early part of the nineteenth century the 
 impulse given by the elder Dr. Smith toward advance- 
 ment in the knowledge of medicine and surgery had 
 extended throughout the country, and the necessity for 
 good medical schools began to be felt in many states. 
 
 The University of Maryland was first to follow 
 Dartmouth and established its school in 1807. Then, 
 in rapid succession during the next ten years, five other 
 medical schools sprang into existence, headed by that 
 of New Haven in 18 13. 
 
 According to Professor Benjamin Silliman: "In 
 order of time the Medical Institute of Yale College 
 
120 Life and Letters 
 
 was the sixth established in the United States. The 
 medical schools of the University of Pennsylvania and 
 at Columbia College were instituted in 1768; that at 
 Harvard in 1782; at Dartmouth in 1798; and in the 
 University of Maryland in 1808. But prior to 18 10, 
 Columbia had sent out only 35 graduates in medicine, 
 and from 18 10 to i860 none. Harvard graduated 
 only 54 students [59 according to recent catalogues] 
 prior to 18 13, when Yale came into the field." 
 
 Bowdoin's medical department at Brunswick, Me., 
 was started by Dr. Nathan Smith in 1821 and a few 
 months later the University of Vermont established its 
 medical department at Burlington and called to the 
 Professorship of Surgery and Anatomy, Dr. Nathan 
 Ryno Smith, through whose exertions, aided by those 
 of his father, the school was organized. 
 
 While still faithfully discharging his duties at Yale 
 and at Bowdoin, Dr. Nathan Smith visited the Bur- 
 lington school and not only delivered courses of lectures 
 there, but by constant correspondence with his son, gave 
 it the benefit of his wisdom and experience, thus, as the 
 colleague of his son in the enterprise, aiding in the 
 establishment of a fourth medical school in New 
 England. 
 
Mrs. Margaret (Schoolcraft) Montesque Wall 
 
 The grandmother of Mrs. Nathan Ryno Smith 
 Portrait by Copley 
 
CHAPTER FIFTEENTH 
 
 Three interesting letters from Dr. Nathan Smith to 
 Dr. Shattuck will give an idea of his wonderfully busy- 
 life. Writing from Brunswick, Me., and from New 
 Haven, he mentions the completion of his Treatise on 
 Fevers and also speaks of his intention of spending 
 some weeks in Burlington, Vt., where he will deliver a 
 course of lectures, which he hopes may be the last he 
 will be called upon to give outside of New Haven. 
 
 From Brunswick, April 18, 1823, Dr. Nathan Smith 
 writes to Dr. Shattuck in Boston : 
 
 "Dear Sir: 
 
 I left a chaise at Middletown in Connecticut with 
 orders to send it by water to Boston, and directed that 
 it should be sent to your care. If it arrives I wish you 
 to turn it over to James Mann & Co., India street, with 
 orders to send it on by some of our coasters who ply 
 between Brunswick and Boston; or, if it is more con- 
 venient to send it to Bath, it will answer my purpose. 
 If there are any charges from Middletown to Boston 
 I will thank you to pay it. Send the bill in a letter to 
 me and I will pay it to you. 
 
 Our course of lectures go on very well and I believe 
 will be very satisfactory to the class, which is without 
 exception the best class of medical students I have seen 
 together. 
 
 I have written out a treatise on Typhus Fever and 
 
122 Life and Letters 
 
 Mr. Bell is copying it for the press. I shall also, before 
 I leave this, finish a book on Surgery which will con- 
 tain about two hundred pages, which I shall publish in 
 the course of the present year. 
 
 Dr. Wells gives a very good course on Anatomy, and 
 is popular with the class. I think the school is now 
 established. The next year will decide the fate of the 
 school at Burlington. We made a very good beginning 
 last year, and if no untoward circumstance occurs I 
 think it will live. I think the four schools which I have 
 been concerned in bringing forward in addition [to 
 Harvard], will be as much as New England will bear, 
 and I think there will not be too many. Every State 
 should have one medical school and no more. A medi- 
 cal school does more towards ameliorating the condi- 
 tion of mankind than any other institution, as the 
 knowledge acquired in them is of more practical 
 importance. 
 
 Professor Wells and Mr. Bell send their best 
 respects to you and your family. 
 
 I am, with great esteem, 
 
 Your Friend and Humble Servant, 
 
 Nathan Smith/' 
 
 A few weeks later he writes to the same friend: 
 
 "Dear Sir: 
 
 Your letter respecting the chaise has been received. 
 I have enclosed you five dollars for the freight to 
 Boston. 
 
Nathan Smith 123 
 
 I have still another favor to ask. Dr. Wells informs 
 me that you have Cooper's newly invented instrument 
 for extracting the stone through the urethra. We have 
 a case in this village which I think is a proper one for 
 such an instrument, and wish, if you are willing, that 
 you would send it to me by the captain of the vessel 
 who may bring my chaise and I will immediately make 
 use of it and send it safely to you. I have two objects 
 in view, one to relieve the patient, and the other to 
 show it to Mr. M. Eastman, a man of great ingenuity, 
 who, I think, having seen one, can make another like 
 it. If the chaise is already sent, and if you should be 
 willing to oblige me, I wish you to send it by the first 
 safe hand, and if you have an opportunity to send it to 
 Portland sooner than to Brunswick, please to send it 
 to the care of Dr. Merrill of Portland, as I am going 
 to Portland to-morrow and shall probably be detained 
 there the whole week as a witness in a case of alleged 
 murder. If any gentleman was coming to Portland in 
 the stage who would be willing to take charge of it, I 
 can receive it there. 
 
 I am, with sentiments of great esteem, 
 
 Your obedient Servant, 
 
 Nathan Smith. 
 Brunswick, Sunday, May 5, 1823. 
 Dr. G. C. Shattuck, Boston." 
 
 "New Haven, August 16, 1824. 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 I have sent you a manuscript translation of a French 
 
124 Life and Letters 
 
 work on the diseases of the ear, by Dr. J. Bell. I was 
 to have brought it with me last winter, but owing to my 
 present illness I did not, and it escaped my recollection 
 till my return home and till I happened to find it in my 
 house. It was Dr. Bell's request to have it sent to you 
 for your opinion of the work, as to the propriety of 
 printing it, &c. I wish you would peruse it and then 
 give it to Dr. Wells with your opinion of it and request 
 him to send it to Dr. Bell by a safe conveyance. 
 
 I have just located myself in the Medical House 
 which is fitted up in good style and makes me a very 
 commodious house for my family. I have agreed to 
 go to Burlington for six weeks, which will be the last 
 time probably that I shall leave New Haven for the 
 purpose of lecturing in any other place. 
 
 N. B. The direction on the wrapper for Dr. Bell 
 is not correct now as he does not live where he did 
 when that was written. I presume Dr. Wells will know 
 how to direct to him. 
 
 I am with esteem, 
 
 Your obedient Servant, 
 
 Nathan Smith. 
 Dr. G. C. Shattuck, Boston." 
 
 The next letter in point of date from the elder Dr. 
 Smith to Dr. Shattuck is the following, written from 
 Solon's house at Sutton, and is too amusing to be 
 omitted from the collection. Truly the care of clothes 
 seems to have given as much trouble in old days as it 
 does now. 
 
of Nathan Smith 125 
 
 "Sutton, June 29, 1825. 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 By mistake your folks put up one of your white 
 collars and vests with my clothes, and by the same 
 chapter of mistakes, I believe one of my vests with 
 three pair of linen socks were left at your house. I had 
 the misfortune to leave your vest at Black's Tavern in 
 Providence, but have ordered it to be brought to my 
 son's in Sutton and from there to be sent safely to you. 
 
 Now if my clothes should be found in your house, I 
 wish when you have a convenient opportunity you 
 would send them to Mr. Lincoln in Gardner. 
 
 Yours with esteem, 
 
 Nathan Smith. 
 Dr. G. C. Shattuck, Boston." 
 
 Anecdotes of Dr. Smith's kindness and humor are 
 still current among some of the families of New 
 Haven, where his visits were looked forward to with 
 eagerness not entirely due to hope of relief from pain. 
 A descendant of the family of Mr. Woolsey, who so 
 cordially received Dr. Smith into his household upon 
 his arrival in New Haven, remembers hearing many 
 amusing tales of Dr. Smith from her mother, and 
 says that it would be impossible now for any physician 
 to hold toward his patients the relation then sustained 
 by Dr. Smith to those who sought his assistance. 
 
 On every conceivable topic his opinion was asked 
 and looked upon as the ultimate authority, and his 
 humorous accounts of happenings of the day often 
 
126 Life and Letters 
 
 helped as much as his prescriptions in restoring his 
 patients to health. His kindness to the poor took 
 many forms, most frequently that of professional 
 attentions and ministrations entirely without hope of 
 reward. 
 
 He was called one day to a neighboring town where 
 an explosion had taken place, so shattering a poor 
 man's leg as to require its amputation. The $50 fee 
 demanded by the doctor having been collected from 
 the crowd of sympathizing bystanders, the operation 
 was performed. At its close Dr. Smith handed to the 
 patient the money, duly counted, and rode away. 
 
 Another tale related of him shows not only his 
 pleasure in a harmless joke but his entire absence of 
 affectation, with a most pleasing modesty in reference 
 to his own reputation. "One day 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 
 that there was a case there requiring his attention. He 
 inquired the particulars, and said: '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 necessary operation, and rode away without telling 
 who he was." 
 
 His direct fashion of saying things is illustrated in 
 the way in which he treated the case of a student by 
 the name of Lincoln, who came to Dr. Smith for 
 medicine soon after his family had joined him where 
 he was then living in Wall Street. The doctor's 
 daughter was frequently seen by young Lincoln when 
 
of Nathan Smith I2J 
 
 he called, and the medicine, strange to say, instead of 
 curing him, seemed to create a necessity for more. 
 Finally the doctor said to him one day, "I believe, 
 Lincoln, you don't want any more medicine. It's my 
 daughter you want." The doctor's diagnosis proved 
 to be correct and Mr. Lincoln was married to Miss 
 Gratia Eliza, Dr. Smith's oldest living daughter, imme- 
 diately upon the young man's graduation. 
 
 It is not surprising, in view of the illness to which 
 Dr. Smith alluded in one of the letters just recorded, 
 that the commodious and comfortable quarters fitted 
 out for him and his family in the Medical Building at 
 New Haven, should offer for him attractions stronger 
 than he had ever before felt for a home, and that, at 
 the age of sixty-five years, he began to long for a rest 
 from his journeys and strenuous efforts in behalf of 
 distant medical schools. 
 
 In this wonderful age of rapid transit, it is almost 
 impossible for us to realize the magnitude of the work 
 accomplished by that great man of a hundred years 
 ago, now that distance is so nearly annihilated by im- 
 mense floating palaces crossing vast oceans in a few 
 days, while long trains drawn by steam or electric power 
 take travelers from place to place at the rate of fifty 
 or sixty miles an hour, broad rivers forming no obsta- 
 cle to their speed. Men are now even successfully 
 undertaking to fly through the air, and it would seem 
 as though the Prophet Nahum had looked far beyond 
 the future of Nineveh, and even to the automobiles of 
 our day, when he said: "The chariots shall be with 
 flaming torches . . . the chariots shall rage in the 
 
128 Life and Letters 
 
 streets, they shall jostle one against another in the 
 broad ways: they shall seem like torches, they shall 
 run like the lightnings." And doctors of our day are 
 not behind other men in the use of these cars which 
 run like lightnings. 
 
 In Dr. Smith's time, a little sailing vessel took many 
 weeks to bear him across the Atlantic to what was 
 then a far-away land which he visited in pursuit of 
 knowledge. Slow stages took him to distant places by 
 land, and small boats by water, and for visits to 
 patients nearer home his only dependence was his 
 one-horse chaise or his faithful horse. It seems 
 almost incredible that under such circumstances, while 
 his home was at Cornish, he could have successfully 
 established a medical school at Hanover, and that 
 later, while living at Hanover, he should have helped 
 to found the Yale School and have delivered lectures 
 there during four winters before moving his family to 
 New Haven, and further, while still holding his pro- 
 fessorship at Yale, aided in establishing the medical 
 schools at Brunswick and Burlington. It must be 
 remembered, too, that founding these medical schools, 
 and delivering a vast number of lectures, were only 
 a part of his achievements; for he visited many meet- 
 ings of State Legislatures in behalf of his colleges, 
 while his medical and surgical practice extended to 
 almost every part of New England. His wonderful 
 writings, too, while not imposing in point of number, 
 are reckoned among the classics of his profession and 
 are still instructive even in this advanced age. 
 
 During Dr. Smith's experience as a teacher of medi- 
 
of Nathan Smith I2Q 
 
 cine he gave, according to Dr. Hubbard, some forty- 
 two general courses in the thirty-two years from 1797 
 to 1828, giving instruction in about a hundred and 
 thirty-eight special courses. Dr. Welch tells us that 
 the period of greatest prosperity of the Medical School 
 at Yale until quite recent years was the first two decades 
 of its existence, this being precisely the time of Dr. 
 Smith's connection with the school. 
 
 Varied and widespread as were the interests of Dr. 
 Smith, it is gratifying to those connected with the 
 Medical School at Yale to feel that, at heart, he must 
 have cherished a special affection for their institution, 
 for at his death he bequeathed to it his library. 
 
 Dr. Nathan Smith ranks second in time among 
 ovariotomists, having performed an original operation 
 at Norwich, Vt., July 5, 1821, with no knowledge of 
 McDowell's operation. Out of thirty cases of lithot- 
 omy, only three were fatal. He lost no patient of 
 hemorrhage consequent upon an operation, and he first 
 in America performed the operation of staphyloraphy. 
 
 "In reference to necrosis, amputation of the thigh, 
 reduction of dislocation of the hip, and treatment of 
 fractures, his principles and devices were new and 
 valuable." 
 
 Professor Knight of New Haven was assuredly not 
 exaggerating when he wrote in 1829, that "to Dr. 
 Smith 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 present century." 
 
CHAPTER SIXTEENTH 
 
 Dr. Smith's interest in establishing schools of medi- 
 cine did not subside with creating the four schools in 
 New England, for his services were deeply enlisted in 
 the founding of the Jefferson Medical School of Phila- 
 delphia, in 1825, by his son, Dr. Nathan Ryno Smith, 
 and Dr. George McClellan. 
 
 They depended much upon his influence and splen- 
 did judgment and turned to Dr. Smith and his friend, 
 Dr. Shattuck, for contributions of articles for the 
 American Review, a publication issued from Philadel- 
 phia in 1825. 
 
 The Jefferson Medical School under the auspices of 
 the two young professors made a brilliant opening with 
 1 10 or 120 students, and two if not more of the number 
 attained a world-wide reputation in their profession. 
 "One of these was the illustrious head of American 
 surgery, Professor Samuel D. Gross, and another was 
 Dr. Washington L. Atlee, the distinguished ovarioto- 
 mist, whose labors in the advancement of American 
 gynaecology are everywhere held in deserved honor." 
 
 Although great credit for the success of the Jefferson 
 School was due to the young Dr. McClellan's skill and 
 energy, there is no doubt that the help and encourage- 
 ment of Dr. Nathan Smith back of his son (Professor 
 of Anatomy) , did much to promote the interests of the 
 work, and this again shows how widely his influence 
 already extended. 
 
Nathan Smith 131 
 
 That his stupendous professional work was accom- 
 plished while burdened with unusual family cares and 
 great difficulties in financial arrangements, will be 
 shown by the following letters : 
 
 "New Haven, January 6, 1826. 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 I want three hundred dollars to enable my son at 
 Sutton to pay for a house and land which he has pur- 
 chased, and if you will loan that sum to him and me 
 with our joint security, I will see it forthcoming to you 
 in the month of June next. I have about six hundred 
 dollars in endorsed notes at Brunswick and shall solicit 
 Dr. Wells, when he goes to Brunswick again, to get 
 it for me. I think one half will be paid this winter, 
 but if it should not, I can make up the deficiency. 
 
 We have a pretty respectable class this winter, both 
 as to numbers and deportment, and think we shall 
 retrieve what we have lost in character from want of 
 subjects, &c. Since I have made known my determina- 
 tion not to go abroad any more to give lectures, my 
 business in this city has increased and is increasing. I 
 have had a good deal of surgery this winter, a part of 
 which has been before the class. 
 
 When I was at your house I left there a report of 
 
 the trial between Hawks and . Some of our 
 
 fraternity here having seen some sparring about the 
 case wish to see the report, and if you can put your 
 hands on it, will thank you to send it by the mail or 
 otherwise. For myself I care very little about it or 
 what the newspaper folks say about it. 
 
132 Life and Letters 
 
 I believe N. R. is getting on very well at Philadel- 
 phia. They have no students who pay $15 each, 
 which is much better than I expected. John Derby 
 goes to a Latin school in this town, and is a fine scholar 
 and bids fair to make a most excellent speaker. I 
 calculate to have him enter college in a year from next 
 Commencement. Some time between now and that 
 time, when your George is at home, should like to have 
 him spend a few weeks with you. 
 
 The failure of Eagle Bank, has given a great shock 
 to New Haven, and though I did not lose but twenty 
 dollars which happened to be in the bank at that time, 
 yet it has hurt me much more than that by making my 
 debtors poor. Upon the whole it has been one of the 
 most scandalous transactions that could be conceived, 
 and all perpetrated by a single individual who, so far, 
 appears to be perfectly indifferent as to its conse- 
 quences. 19 
 
 I am, with sentiments of esteem, 
 
 Nathan Smith. 
 Dr. Geo. C. Shattuck, Boston." 
 
 19 Happily the verdict of later years was such as to make these 
 statements seem erroneous as far as moral obliquity on the part of the 
 president was concerned. Dexter's Biographies give this account of 
 him: 
 
 "George Hoadly, born December 15, 1781. After graduating [at 
 Yale in 1801] he studied law in New Haven with the Hon. Charles 
 Chauncey, and from March, 1803, to Commencement, 1806, held the 
 office of tutor in the college. Editor in Washington, later returned to 
 New Haven and entered on practice of law with promise of unusual 
 success. Mr. William W. Woolsey, a retired merchant of New York, 
 who had settled in New Haven, became much interested in Mr. 
 
of Nathan Smith 133 
 
 "New Haven, April 22, 1826. 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 In my letter to you last winter respecting my dues at 
 Bowdoin College, I made a mistake of two hundred 
 dollars, which leaves me but $400 due there, and fromf 
 a letter I received from Mr. Cleaveland some time 
 since, I fear there will be more delay about paying that 
 than I expected. I have written to Mr. Cleaveland 
 stating that I should expect the notes to be put in suit 
 immediately or that the Board approve the debt and 
 pay me the money. The notes are given to the Faculty 
 of the College. What they will do about it I do not 
 know; be that as it may, I can pay the money to you if 
 necessary, about, or not long after, the time proposed. 
 
 Please to give my very greatest respects to Mrs. 
 Derby and accept a large portion of my respect and 
 esteem for yourself and family. 
 
 Yours, &c, 
 
 Nathan Smith. 
 
 Dr. G. C. Shattuck, Boston. 
 
 I think I shall visit Boston in the month of June or 
 July on business in that quarter. I have very flattering 
 
 Hoadly, and, as president of the Eagle Bank, which was incorporated 
 in 1811, and which commanded a large share of public confidence, he 
 unhappily persuaded his young friend to give up his profession and 
 become cashier of the bank. Mr. Woolsey returned to New York in 
 1815 and Mr. Hoadly succeeded to the presidency, which he held until 
 the disastrous failure of the bank in September, 1825. The president 
 and directors had loaned on insufficient security an amount equal to 
 the entire resources of the bank, and inevitably great indignation was 
 
134 Life and Letters 
 
 accounts from the new school in Philadelphia. They 
 have a charter sanctioned by act of the Legislature and 
 passed into a law, so that the old school 20 cannot put 
 them down as they intended. They had 120 students 
 last winter and I think may have 200 the next term. 
 I have reason to believe that Ryno is gaining in reputa- 
 tion. Solon, I believe, is doing a handsome share of 
 business." 
 
 felt toward the president, though it was afterwards conceded by most 
 witnesses that his error was one of judgment only, and that he derived 
 no profit from the losses of others. Mayor of New Haven, 1822-1826. 
 In 1829 settled in Cleveland, and had a useful and honorable career 
 there. He was remarkable for evenness of temper and kindliness of 
 disposition. Married in New Haven, November 8, 1819, to Mary 
 Anne, eldest child of W. W. Woolsey and Elizabeth (Dwight) Wool- 
 sey (sister of President Woolsey and niece of President Dwight)." 
 20 The Medical School of the University of Pennsylvania. 
 
CHAPTER SEVENTEENTH 
 
 The success which attended the opening of the Jef- 
 ferson Medical School was phenomenal and young Dr. 
 Smith showed no flagging of enthusiasm, though bur- 
 dened with work and responsibilities. Like his father, 
 he did not regard the duties of his professorship of 
 Anatomy as a reason for not taking up other useful 
 work, and he became the founder of the Philadelphia 
 Monthly Journal of Medicine and Surgery, and asso- 
 ciate editor of the Medical Review, afterwards merged 
 with the American Journal of the Medical Sciences. 
 But in 1827, after two years of work in Philadelphia, 
 his ambition was aroused by an invitation from the 
 School of Medicine of the University of Maryland to 
 become its Professor of Anatomy, of which chair he 
 effected an exchange with Dr. Davidge, before the 
 lecture season began, for that of Surgery. 
 
 He and his father recognized that far greater 
 advantages presented themselves for his future in this 
 more important branch in the older school already 
 holding a "wide celebrity throughout the South and 
 West." Therefore Dr. N. R. Smith concluded to 
 sever his connection with the Jefferson School and 
 accept the appointment. Accordingly, early in the 
 autumn of that year he repaired to Baltimore and 
 made ready to deliver his first course of lectures, which 
 was attended by a very large class. 
 
 By this move of N. R. Smith to a southern city it is 
 
136 Life and Letters 
 
 easy to trace the ever widening benefit to the country at 
 large of the magnificent work of the first Nathan Smith, 
 whose careful and splendid training in medicine and 
 surgery enabled the son to carry to a still more remote 
 neighborhood some of the wealth of wisdom and medi- 
 cal knowledge gathered at the feet of his distinguished 
 father. 
 
 Truly the father's pride must have been more than 
 gratified in witnessing the steady progress towards 
 fame of this son and namesake, even if, as the follow- 
 ing letter shows, the young doctor had not found time 
 to write to him for some weeks after his removal to 
 Baltimore. 
 
 It is pleasant to find a mention of each of the four 
 sons of Nathan Smith, in this, his last letter to Dr. 
 Shattuck, and to read between the lines of the peace 
 which was evidently crowning his life of labor. 
 Although still teaching and writing and accomplishing 
 as much in a quiet way as in any year of his life, he had 
 ceased his tremendous journeys over the country and, 
 surrounded by his wife and younger children, was 
 enjoying his comfortable home life at New Haven. 
 
 "New Haven, December 8, 1827. 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 Your favor of the 5th inst has been received. Mr. 
 Hull informed me by letter that he had left $150 with 
 you and I have given Mr. Crenshaw, my son-in-law, an 
 order to receive it. It gives me great pleasure to hear 
 that your family and Mr. Derby are in good health and 
 prosperity. I wish very much to visit my good friends 
 
From the Miniature of Dr. Nathan Ryno Smith 
 
of Nathan Smith 137 
 
 at Boston, but do not know at present at what time I 
 shall be able to gratify that desire. 
 
 My family are all well who are now with me. Laura 
 is on a visit at N. H. I believe Solon is getting into 
 considerable repute at Sutton, and as for Ryno, I have 
 not heard a word from him since he removed from 
 Philadelphia to Baltimore. I trust, however, that he is 
 working hard, both for fame and money. James is 
 still with me and will probably take his degree in the 
 spring. John is a fine boy and a good scholar; he will 
 enter college next Commencement. 
 
 Our school flourishes tolerably well. We have a 
 class of 90. They are very fine young men and appear 
 better than any class previous. My health has been 
 unusually good the last year and I have effected as 
 much, perhaps, as I have ever done in one year. 
 Respecting my Surgery, I have written a considerable 
 part of it and expect to get through it the next summer. 
 I should probably have accomplished it before, but have 
 been obliged to write some for my son's journal and 
 several essays to deliver before medical meetings &c. 
 
 I wish you to give my very great regards to Mr. 
 Derby, and remember me affectionately to Mrs. Shat- 
 tuck and other members of your family. 
 
 From your friend, 
 
 Nathan Smith. 
 
 George C. Shattuck, M.D., Boston." 
 
 Six months after writing the last recorded letter to 
 Dr. Shattuck, in July, 1828, Dr. Nathan Smith was 
 
138 Life and Letters 
 
 suddenly taken severely ill with a trouble which, 
 although short in duration, left him weak and debili- 
 tated. Dr. Knight of Yale, in his biographical memoir 
 of Dr. Smith, says: "From this state his friends per- 
 ceived with alarm that he did not entirely recover. He 
 continued to be weak, with occasional attacks of illness, 
 through the remainder of the summer and autumnal 
 months. 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 labori- 
 ous employments. No considerable alteration in the 
 state of his health appeared until about four weeks 
 since [early in January], when he was attacked with a 
 severe influenza. This was accompanied and followed, 
 by a painful and vertiginous affection of the head. . . . 
 
 "On the evening of Tuesday, the 13th inst., he first 
 perceived a slight numbness of the left hand, with a 
 trifling indistinctness in his articulation." 
 
 This condition of the father became so alarming that 
 it was considered necessary to notify the two sons who 
 were living at a distance from New Haven, and in 
 answer to the sad letter of one of his sisters, Dr. N. R. 
 Smith wrote the following from Baltimore. 
 
 "Baltimore, January 19, 1829. 
 My dear sister: 
 
 I am extremely distressed to know that our dear 
 father is so seriously ill. I did not see Dr. Wells till 
 last evening. He informed me of papa's illness, but 
 
of Nathan Smith 13Q 
 
 did not think him dangerously sick. I flatter myself, 
 as you are rather timid, you may be more alarmed than 
 there is occasion for. It will be extremely difficult for 
 me to leave Baltimore at this time, but nothing shall 
 keep me from the sick bed of the kindest, the best of 
 fathers; I shall wait one day, — perhaps two, — to 
 arrange business which I cannot honorably neglect, 
 hoping also to receive further intelligence from you; I 
 shall then proceed as quickly as possible to New Haven. 
 
 If my dear father should, in his illness, feel any 
 solicitude about his family, tell him I would have him 
 dismiss it all. Providence has placed me in a situation 
 soon to be able to take his place, in all respects in rela- 
 tion to them. My home, my heart, and my purse will 
 always be theirs, but I trust in Heaven that he may be 
 long spared to us. Tell him that I ask his forgiveness 
 for not having written to him so often as I should have 
 done; it was not from any abatement of affection. 
 
 Give my love to our dear mother and to brothers and 
 sisters. 
 
 Yours most affectionately, 
 
 N. R. Smith. 
 
 N. B. I feel somewhat less anxiety because I think 
 Dr. Ives would have written to me had he thought papa 
 to be in danger. Should papa's situation become more 
 alarming before I see him, I hope that he may be made 
 acquainted with his situation, and pray that he and all 
 his may be resigned to the will of Heaven. 
 
 N. R. S." 
 
CHAPTER EIGHTEENTH 
 
 The beloved doctor was not only surrounded by his 
 large and devoted family during these sad days of 
 suffering and anxiety, but throughout his illness he was 
 tenderly watched by his colleagues and their families 
 by day and by night. Dr. Reuben D. Mussey, his pupil 
 and successor at Dartmouth, was by his bedside with 
 kind ministrations, and Dr. George C. Shattuck, the 
 best beloved pupil and the faithful friend of his life- 
 time, came from Boston to see him, affording him 
 unspeakable comfort in his last hours by promising to 
 assume responsibility for the education of his youngest 
 son, John Derby, then in his second year at Yale — a 
 promise faithfully performed. 
 
 It has been suggested that "these incidents may carry 
 back our thought to the last days of Socrates, sur- 
 rounded by his disciples, ministering consolation and 
 most deeply interested in his fate." If this be true, the 
 contrast in the two scenes must also be recalled. When 
 Socrates was asked by his pupils for his last legacy 
 the answer came : "If you take good care of yourselves, 
 you will always gratify me and mine most." Could Dr. 
 Smith have uttered a last message, it would have been in 
 the doctrine of his unselfish life and in the words of his 
 Saviour he would have said: "This is my command- 
 ment that ye love one another as I have loved you." 
 Before the great Socrates in facing death all was uncer- 
 
Nathan Smith 141 
 
 tainty and unrest, for, although believing in the immor- 
 tality of the soul, he had for his comfort only the 
 vagaries and superstitious teachings of Greek Philo- 
 sophy; but Nathan Smith, the Christian believer, had 
 for his support the firm foundation laid for his faith in 
 the blessed Word of God, and its precious promises 
 brought to his last hours a sense of perfect peace by the 
 assurance of the forgiveness of sin and of happiness in 
 the world to come. 
 
 During the long life of Dr. Smith, he had not regu- 
 larly connected himself with any particular church, 
 although he attended service always and had the high- 
 est reverence for all of the doctrines of Christianity 
 and "had expressed to a friend some months before his 
 illness, his full conviction of the truth of the Christian 
 religion." On its consolations he seemed to rely in 
 these, the closing scenes of his life, "requesting the 
 counsel and prayers of several ministers of the 
 Gospel." 
 
 In the week which followed the letter of his son, 
 N. R. Smith, there was no abatement of the dread 
 disease, the "symptoms of paralysis gradually in- 
 creased, until the morning of the 26th instant when the 
 powers of life became exhausted, and at 6 o'clock, in 
 the 67th year of his age, he slept the sleep of death." 
 
 So passed from the field of its earthly labors, the 
 beautiful spirit of the man who, following the footsteps 
 of the Master, "went about doing good," and, like the 
 Divine Healer, made the blind to see, the deaf to hear, 
 the lame to walk, and who preached to the ignorant 
 and the afflicted the great Gospel of Healing. 
 
14.2 Life and Letters 
 
 Nathan Smith left this world a poor man, but who 
 can estimate the value of the legacy which he be- 
 queathed to Humanity, for its price was far above that 
 of gold or of silver or precious stones? His ripe 
 knowledge and keen observation, after a life of study 
 and vast experience, fitted him not only to become the 
 leading physician and surgeon of his day, but, together 
 with a rare talent for communicating the treasures of 
 his learning, enabled him to instruct hundreds, nay, 
 even thousands, of students in the medical schools which 
 he had established. These young men, looking up to 
 Nathan Smith as their professional father, went abroad 
 to cure the sick, and, as the result of his teaching, to 
 raise the standard of medical science to a far greater 
 height of excellence than it had known before. 
 
 Nor did his great work for his fellow beings end 
 when he ceased to move among men and teach in bodily 
 presence, for his clear and forcible writings have gone 
 on and on for a hundred years, transmitting to succeed- 
 ing generations some of the wealth of his discoveries 
 and scientific research. His essays on "Necrosis" and 
 "Typhus (Typhoid) Fever," — so far in advance of 
 the enlightenment of the time in which they were 
 written, — are a marvel to surgeons and physicians of 
 to-day, and are pronounced by them to be classics in 
 medical literature. 
 
 Loving and sorrowing friends laid the mortal 
 remains of Nathan Smith away to rest in the Grove 
 Street Cemetery in the lot belonging to the college at 
 New Haven, and erected there to mark the spot a 
 handsome stone with this simple inscription : 
 
The Grave of Nathan Smith 
 
 The dark brown sandstone monument, modeled upon the tomb of the 
 Scipios at Rome, marks the grave of Dr. Nathan Smith in the College lot of 
 the Grove Street Cemetery in New Haven. 
 
of Nathan Smith 14s 
 
 N. Smith 
 
 Professor of Med. & Surgery 
 in Yale College 
 
 Born at Rehoboth Mass. Sept. 30, 1762. 
 Died in this City, Jan. 26, 1829. 
 
 The best memorials of Dr. Smith are in the schools 
 which he founded and in the steadily growing reverence 
 in which his memory is held. But it is also delightful 
 to know, as has been stated, that Dartmouth has 
 recently erected a beautiful building and called it "The 
 Nathan Smith Laboratory." Very seldom in the 
 world's history have public monuments been erected to 
 the men who have worked to cure pain and save the 
 lives of their fellow beings. "Even the statue, which 
 once graced Trafalgar Square, of the great Jenner, 
 who by his discoveries saved millions of human beings 
 from the scourge of smallpox, was taken down to make 
 room for that of the successful soldier whose laurels 
 were won, not of c'wes servatos, but on fields red with 
 slaughter." 
 
 But if no national recognition has marked the splen- 
 did achievements of Nathan Smith, many and eloquent 
 have been the eulogies pronounced upon him by ardent 
 and appreciative admirers of his rare character and 
 work, in the more than eighty years since he ceased his 
 labors on earth. 
 
 Very soon after the death of Nathan Smith, Profes- 
 
144 Life and Letters 
 
 sor Knight — his associate and friend at Yale College — 
 pronounced before a large and interested audience in 
 New Haven an eulogium which bears the mark of his 
 profound and heartfelt admiration for the one whom 
 he designated as having been "no ordinary man," 
 beloved, respected and useful, but even more, for he 
 was "more extensively known than any other medical 
 man in New England. Indeed it is doubted whether 
 any other man in New England, of any profession, 
 possessed so large a number of personal acquaintances 
 and friends. . . . The poor knew him as their bene- 
 factor; the sick, as their skilful, attentive physician; 
 the rich were honored by his society; and the wise and 
 the good received him as their friend and companion. 
 
 "At the same time his influence over medical litera- 
 ture was equally extensive. This influence was exerted, 
 through his large acquaintance among 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. By means of 
 his influence thus exerted, he effected, over a large 
 extent of country, a great and salutary change in the 
 medical 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. ..." 
 
 Among the qualities of mind and habits of life which 
 Dr. Knight considered as potent in raising Dr. Smith 
 so far above the ordinary level, he mentions first: "A 
 keen, discriminating inquisitiveness into every thing 
 submitted to his inspection. ..." 
 
of Nathan Smith 145 
 
 "Another faculty of his mind was a memory highly 
 retentive. ... By the aid of this faculty, his mind 
 became a storehouse, well filled with facts suited to his 
 necessities. From it he could, at will, draw forth 
 materials to guide him in his practice; to confirm and 
 to illustrate his opinions. 
 
 "Another faculty, which contributed more than 
 either of the foregoing to his eminence, was the power 
 of reducing all the knowledge which he acquired, 
 whether from reading or observation, to some useful, 
 practical purpose. . . . This faculty is familiarly called 
 plain common sense. It was possessed in a high degree 
 by Dr. Smith, in relation to all subjects connected with 
 his profession. The same faculty was illustrously dis- 
 played in the lives of Washington, Franklin, Sherman, 
 Dwight and Whitney. 
 
 "Another faculty possessed by the deceased, and 
 which aided him much in his successful career, was an 
 undaunted moral courage. . . . With him there was no 
 hesitation, no wavering between duty and expediency; 
 between the welfare of his patient and his own reputa- 
 tion. . . . 
 
 "To these intellectual qualities, were added others 
 of a moral nature, which facilitated his progress, and 
 rendered it more successful. I allude to the kindness, 
 assiduity, and delicacy with which he treated his 
 patients. . . . 
 
 "As an instructor, the reputation of Dr. Smith was 
 high, from the time he began the business of instruc- 
 tion. . . . His mode of communicating instruction, 
 since his connexion with the institution in this place, has 
 
i/f.6 Life and Letters 
 
 been simple, natural and unaffected. He sought no aid 
 from an artificial style, but merely poured forth, in 
 the plain language of enlightened conversation, the 
 treasures of his wisdom and experience. He occupied 
 but little time with the theories and opinions of other 
 men, referring to books only for the facts which they 
 contain; nor did he often indulge in theoretic specula- 
 tions of his own ; but gave principally the results of his 
 practice and experience." 
 
 Professor Knight's "Biographic Memoir" is full of 
 enthusiastic and heartfelt praise of Nathan Smith, and 
 not only as a physician, surgeon, and teacher, for it 
 bears strong testimony to the beauty and excellence of 
 his character in all of the relations of life. "The inter- 
 ests of literature and sound morality, received his 
 cordial and unvaried support. . . . That benevolence 
 which was so active and so expansive, could not but 
 shed its brightest and warmest rays, upon those who 
 were the nearest and dearest to his heart." After com- 
 menting in highest terms upon the "illustrious" life of 
 Dr. Smith, Dr. Knight drew for his audience valuable 
 and instructive lessons from his wonderful example of 
 unselfishness, his enterprise, industry and benevolence. 
 This Memoir was published at the time of its delivery 
 in pamphlet form and was afterwards incorporated by 
 Nathan R. Smith in his "Medical and Surgical Me- 
 moirs" of his father. 
 
CHAPTER NINETEENTH 
 
 Among the many resolutions passed by the various 
 colleges with which Dr. Smith was connected were the 
 following : 
 
 Copy of Records of a Meeting of the Faculty of the 
 Medical School of Maine, held on March 6, 1829: 
 
 "The Committee appointed at the last meeting to 
 propose such resolutions as it may appear proper for 
 this Faculty to adopt in reference to the death of the 
 late Professor Smith presented the following preamble 
 and resolutions, which were unanimously accepted: 
 
 "Whereas the Medical School of Maine, from its 
 commencement in 1821, for five successive years 
 enjoyed the instructions and profited by the fame of the 
 late Professor Smith who was highly distinguished in 
 his profession, and who by years of arduous exertion 
 and by the possession of rich stores of experience had 
 become peculiarly qualified for the duties of a medical 
 instructor, and whereas it has pleased Divine Provi- 
 dence to remove this individual from life, the Medical 
 Faculty of this College in justice to the offices they hold, 
 as well as to their own feelings, would pay the tribute 
 of high respect for his character and grateful recollec- 
 tion of his professional services, therefore 
 
 "Resolved: That this Faculty deeply sympathize 
 with the profession in the loss of a public benefactor 
 whose reputation and worth as an able lecturer, a 
 
i/j.8 Life and Letters 
 
 skilful surgeon and a successful physician, distinguished 
 by accuracy of opinion, clearness of judgment and 
 benevolence of feeling are universally acknowledged, 
 and that they will ever cherish the memory of one who 
 has contributed so much to the improvement of medical 
 education and the advancement of medical science. 
 
 "Resolved: That the President of this Faculty be 
 requested to deliver a Discourse on the occasion of the 
 death of the late Professor Smith before the Medical 
 class and the public. 
 
 "Resolved: That the secretary communicate this 
 expression of our views and feelings to the afflicted 
 family of the deceased. 
 
 "Adjourned without day. 
 
 P. Cleaveland, Sec." 
 
 On March 26, 1829, Rev. William Allen, of Bow- 
 doin College, Me., delivered, by appointment of the 
 Faculty of Medicine, a valuable and interesting address 
 commemorating the life and work of Nathan Smith, 
 which was published at the request of the students of 
 the Medical School of Maine. 
 
 After an eloquent dissertation on the importance of 
 the work of a physician in general, President Allen 
 gave in outline a sketch of the life of Nathan Smith, 
 bringing the incidents down to the spring of 1821, 
 when by his assistance the Medical School of Maine 
 was opened and Dr. Smith delivered the various lec- 
 tures, excepting only those on chemistry. Although 
 valuable assistants came to be his associates, he con- 
 
of Nathan Smith 14.Q 
 
 tinued to lecture in the school for five years, when 
 "from the circumstances of his connection with the insti- 
 tution of New Haven, he found it necessary to decline 
 lecturing in any other establishment. " Dr. Allen says 
 that "much of the great success of this Medical School 
 at Bowdoin may doubtless be ascribed to the reputation, 
 experience and skill of Dr. Smith." 
 
 The address of President Allen gives valuable testi- 
 mony to the rare talents and enterprise of Nathan 
 Smith as well as to his unselfishness and high standard 
 of moral excellence. It tells of his "remarkable gentle- 
 ness and kindness which gained the confidence and affec- 
 tion of his patients; of his fidelity and assiduous, unre- 
 mitted attention to the sick, and of his cheerful, self- 
 denying, unmercenary toils and exposure to cold, hun- 
 ger, and various hardships and dangers in visiting the 
 abodes of the poor. In some great men there seems to 
 exist a strong power of repulsion, but the manners of 
 Dr. Smith were attracting and delightful. He had a 
 keen relish for the pleasures of social intercourse. He 
 was steady and permanent in his friendships, and by his 
 numerous pupils he was beloved." 
 
 President Allen gives a most touching and graphic 
 account of the last illness of Dr. Smith, telling of his 
 firm faith in the Christian religion and of the peace 
 which soothed his last hours. From this part of the 
 address the writer has already quoted. 
 
 On July 31, 1879, fifty years after the death of Dr. 
 Smith, Dr. Oliver P. Hubbard, Professor of Chemistry 
 at Dartmouth College, delivered a lecture there intro- 
 ductory to the eighty-third course of medical lectures 
 
150 Life and Letters 
 
 at Dartmouth College, on "The Early History of the 
 New Hampshire Medical Institution, with a Sketch of 
 its Founder, Nathan Smith," from which discourse 
 some extracts have been taken for this book. 
 
 No outline sketch of the life and work of Dr. Smith 
 could be more comprehensive or better drawn than this 
 very interesting history, for it is full of information 
 collected from the most reliable sources and the many 
 bright and graphic anecdotes connected with the exten- 
 sive professional work of Dr. Smith furnish illustra- 
 tions which make the whole lecture delightfully 
 enjoyable. This valuable history was read by request 
 before the New Hampshire Medical Society, at their 
 semi-annual meeting at Hanover on September 17, 
 1879, an d was afterwards printed in Washington with 
 a steel engraving of Dr. Smith on its front page. 
 
 The reputation of Dr. Smith's noble life and splen- 
 did achievements has never suffered eclipse, and as 
 time has gone on many have paid honor to his memory. 
 
 In Augusta House, Maine, on June 15, 1886, at a 
 banquet given to Dr. H. H. Hills, on the fiftieth anni- 
 versary of his practice in medicine, the Hon. J. W. 
 Bradbury said: "Our guest reminds me by certain 
 characteristics . . . of a very eminent physician whose 
 lectures I attended sixty-two years ago. I refer to 
 Dr. Nathan Smith. . . . Strong common sense, a 
 mind clear as crystal penetrating to the bottom of the 
 subject, were the qualities impressed upon me as 
 especially his." 
 
 Professor Alfred Mitchell of Bowdoin then fol- 
 lowed, saying: "Our school was reared and cared for 
 
of Nathan Smith 75/ 
 
 by men of learning and genius, and this latter attri- 
 bute is not to be limited in its fullest significance when 
 we apply it to the character and professional attain- 
 ments of Dr. Nathan Smith, of whom I once heard 
 the late Professor Willard Parker, in the course of 
 one of his lectures, exclaim with uplifted arm and 
 lighted countenance : 'Gentlemen, Nathan Smith was a 
 great man, one of the greatest that this country ever 
 saw!!!' and then followed a digression so hearty and 
 enthusiastic and coming from such a source, that we 
 all knew that Nathan Smith was a great man." 
 
 Professor Benjamin Silliman sums up in a few words 
 the list of Dr. Smith's additions to the science of 
 healing. He says: 
 
 "Dr. Smith was an original investigator. . . . 
 Among the numerous important contributions made 
 by him to the resources of practice in surgery involving 
 scientific principles and original operations may be 
 mentioned that, next to Dr. McDowell of Kentucky, 
 he was the first in this country to perform the operation 
 of extirpating ovarian tumor (though the operation 
 had been once or twice performed in Germany unbe- 
 known to either of these American surgeons). He 
 was the first to perform in this country the operation 
 of staphyloraphy. He devised and introduced a 
 method of amputating the thigh which bears his name. 
 In the pathology of necrosis he developed important 
 scientific principles on which is founded a new and 
 successful practice. His mode of reducing dislocation 
 of the hip joint was new, ingenious and philosophical, 
 as also is the apparatus he invented for the treatment 
 
152 Life and Letters 
 
 of fractures which has been generally adopted by the 
 best surgeons in all parts of the country." 
 
 Professor Samuel D. Gross of the Jefferson Medical 
 School of Philadelphia wrote of Dr. Smith as follows : 
 
 "One of the most extraordinary medical men whom 
 this country ever produced, whether we regard his 
 great ability as a general practitioner, his skill and 
 daring as a surgeon, or his versatility as a teacher of 
 the different branches of medicine, was Nathan Smith 
 of New Haven. . . . 
 
 "This wonderful man, a true pioneer in the cause of 
 medical education, lectured early in life upon all the 
 branches of medicine then taught at Dartmouth Col- 
 lege and enjoyed for a long time almost an unrivaled 
 reputation as a surgeon, teacher and general practi- 
 tioner in the New England States. In his tract on 
 fevers, he shows himself to have been a sagacious 
 observer, thoroughly acquainted with the nature and 
 treatment of the disease which he has so well 
 described." 21 
 
 It would be impossible to enumerate in this history 
 all the eulogies pronounced on Dr. Smith since his 
 death in 1829; but that of Dr. William H. Welch can- 
 not be omitted, for it is the highest praise from the 
 highest authority in this present century of advanced 
 science and enlightenment. The address of Dr. Welch 
 on "The Relation of Yale to Medicine" was delivered 
 on October 21, 1901, at the two hundredth anniversary 
 
 21 Quoted from the American Journal of Medical Science of April, 
 1876, p. 434. 
 
of Nathan Smith 153 
 
 of the founding of Yale College and reprinted from the 
 Yale Medical Journal for November, 1901. 
 
 {From the address of Dr. William H. Welch.) 
 
 Dr. Welch states that: "Dr. Nathan Smith, when 
 he came to New Haven from Dartmouth, was already 
 a star of the first magnitude in the medical firmament. 
 Starting a poor boy in a small village in Vermont, he 
 managed by his own efforts to obtain a good general 
 education, and then at the Harvard Medical School 
 and in Great Britain a medical education of a char- 
 acter then almost unknown in New England. He was 
 the originator of the Dartmouth Medical School in 
 1797, the most distinguished member of the first 
 Medical Faculty of Yale, and in 1820 the organizer of 
 the Medical Department of Bowdoin College. He did 
 much of his most important work in New Haven, 
 where he remained until his death in 1829. 
 
 "Nathan Smith shed undying glory upon the Yale 
 Medical School. Famous in his day and generation, 
 he is still more famous to-day, for he was far ahead 
 of his times, and his reputation, unlike that of so many 
 medical worthies of the past, has steadily increased, 
 as the medical profession has slowly caught up with 
 him. We now see that he did more for the general 
 advancement of medical and surgical practice than any 
 of his predecessors or contemporaries in this country. 
 He was a man of high intellectual and moral qualities, 
 of great originality and untiring energy, an accurate 
 and keen observer, unfettered by traditions and the- 
 
1 54 Life and Letters 
 
 ories, fearless, and above all, blessed with an uncom- 
 mon fund of plain common sense. 
 
 "Nathan Smith's essay on Typhus Fever, published 
 in 1824, is like a fresh breeze from the sea amid the 
 dreary and stifling writings of most of his contempo- 
 raries. The disease which he here describes is typhoid 
 fever, and never before had the symptoms been so 
 clearly and accurately pictured. He recognized that 
 this fever is due to a specific cause and is self-limited. 
 It took courage in those days for a physician to write, 
 'During the whole course of my practice I have never 
 been satisfied that I have cut short a single case of 
 typhus, which I knew to be such,' and again, 'It does 
 not follow, of course, that this disease in all cases 
 requires remedies, or that a patient should, necessarily 
 take medicines because he has the disease.' To him 
 the lancet was not the 'magnum donum Dei' that it 
 was to Benjamin Rush, and he did more to do away 
 with its indiscriminate use than any single man. The 
 treatment which he advocated — cold water, milk and 
 avoidance of all violent remedies — is practically the 
 same as that now employed, but it was many a day 
 before physicians came to accept Dr. Smith's revolu- 
 tionary views. 
 
 "To the surgeon, Nathan Smith's paper on the 
 Pathology and Treatment of Necrosis has in course of 
 time become as much of a classic as the essay on 
 Typhus Fever is to the physician. Here we find the 
 same admirable description of symptoms, and the intro- 
 duction of methods of treatment which anticipated 
 modern surgery. This is not the occasion, even did 
 
of Nathan Smith 755 
 
 time permit, to describe Dr. Smith's achievements in 
 surgery. It must suffice to say that he was the first to 
 perform a number of important surgical operations, 
 and that in this branch, not less than in medicine, he 
 was an innovator and reformer. 
 
 "Although none of Dr. Smith's colleagues can be 
 placed in the same rank with him as contributors to 
 medical knowledge, they were men of excellent attain- 
 ments and became distinguished teachers." 
 
CHAPTER TWENTIETH 
 
 It may be interesting to the readers of this biog- 
 raphy to learn something further about some of those 
 who have held a prominent place in its pages. 
 
 The good wife of Dr. Nathan Smith outlived her 
 husband by twenty years. The early part of that time 
 Mrs. Smith spent in her home in New Haven with her 
 younger children before going to live for two years in 
 the home of her son, Dr. Nathan Ryno Smith, in Balti- 
 more. It was there that her daughter, Sarah, was 
 married to Mr. James Osgood of Springfield, Mass. 
 By their invitation she accompanied them to their 
 home, where, after a few years, she was released from 
 her earthly labors, on September 7, 1848, and her 
 children laid her away to rest in the beautiful cemetery 
 of Springfield in the lot of her son, Dr. James Morven 
 Smith. 
 
 Dr. George C. Shattuck, pupil, lifelong friend and 
 benefactor of Dr. Nathan Smith and his children, died 
 on March 18, 1854. 
 
 The many tributes of admiration and respect to 
 Nathan Smith, extending over so long a period after 
 he had ceased his labors among men, are certainly most 
 unusual, and, coming from such distinguished and dis- 
 interested sources, bear strong testimony to the nobility 
 of the man and to the magnitude of his achievements. 
 But what honor to the memory of such a man as 
 Nathan Smith could be greater than that his descend- 
 

 Dr. David Solon Chase Hall Smith 
 
 Eldest Son of Dr. Nathan Smith 
 
Nathan Smith 757 
 
 ants should take up and continue his work, that through 
 them suffering humanity might still receive the benefits 
 which he so unselfishly strove to scatter? 
 
 It is probable that there is hardly a family in this 
 country in which so many of its members have adopted 
 the profession of their progenitor. Since the death of 
 Nathan Smith, four sons, nine grandsons, six great- 
 grandsons and one great-great-grandson have already 
 more or less successfully practiced the art of healing. 
 As a pioneer in the profession he had indeed to fight 
 his way past almost insurmountable obstacles through 
 the dense ignorance which surrounded him, and blaze 
 the way for those who were to follow; but even after 
 the pathway was made clear, success for them was not 
 assured; in addition to inherited genius and talent for 
 the profession, courage and industry were needed to 
 enable the Smith surgeons and doctors to push their 
 way through increasing competition and newly arising 
 difficulties towards still higher and ever widening dis- 
 coveries in the science of medicine. 
 
 All four of the sons of Dr. Nathan Smith became 
 physicians and surgeons of note. 
 
 The eldest son of Dr. Nathan Smith, Dr. David 
 Solon Chase Hall Smith, born June 27, 1795, died 
 April 6, 1859. Yale MD - l8l6 « 
 
 For nearly thirty years Dr. Solon Smith, as he was 
 called, was the leading physician and surgeon of Sutton, 
 Mass. His thorough training and the prestige of his 
 father's fame brought him also a large consultation 
 practice at a distance from his home. "He was dis- 
 tinguished as a naturalist, being intimately acquainted 
 
I $8 Life and Letters 
 
 with animal nature, birds and reptiles, and, having 
 made a special study of botany, could classify and give 
 the medical properties of nearly all the plants of this 
 country." His historian, from whom we quote, said 
 of him, "Like his father he was a great man but never 
 became rich." His home life was clouded by sorrow, 
 for he outlived all five of his children, and his experi- 
 ences, although at times full of romance, were also full 
 of pathos. In 1 848 he removed to Providence, where, 
 eleven years later, he died, aged sixty-four years. 
 
 The second son of Dr. Nathan Smith, Dr. Nathan 
 Ryno Smith, born May 21, 1797, died July 3, 1877. 
 YaleA.B., i8i7;M.D., 1820; Princeton LL.D., 1862. 
 
 The beginning of the brilliant career of Dr. N. R. 
 Smith has already been portrayed in this history and 
 his steady rise to great eminence in the profession is 
 well known. As has been shown, he assisted his father 
 in establishing the Medical School of the University of 
 Vermont, in 1822, and after filling there the Professor- 
 ship of Surgery and Anatomy for several years, he 
 joined Dr. McClellan in 1825 in founding the Jefferson 
 Medical School of Philadelphia where for two years 
 he held the Professorship of Anatomy, before accept- 
 ing the call of the University of Maryland to become 
 its Professor of Anatomy. Here by an exchange with 
 Professor John B. Davidge he was almost immediately 
 transferred to the Professorship of Surgery. 
 
 Except for an interval of three years, from 1837 to 
 1840, when he served as Professor of Surgery in the 
 Transylvania School of Kentucky, Dr. Nathan R. 
 
Dr. Nathan Ryno Smith 
 Second Son of Dr. Nathan Smith 
 
of Nathan Smith 1 5Q 
 
 Smith devoted his splendid energy to the interests of 
 his work in Baltimore. 
 
 He was a great surgeon, a learned and interesting 
 teacher, as well as an able writer and an ingenious 
 inventor of surgical instruments. By inheritance from 
 his father, Dr. Smith possessed a remarkable acuteness 
 of perception and promptness of action, and his many 
 fine qualities, together with a commanding presence, 
 obtained for him from his students the title of "The 
 Emperor." So beloved was this great physician that 
 the name of Professor Nathan R. Smith was a house- 
 hold word throughout the State of Maryland. 
 
 Among his inventions, Dr. Smith himself regarded 
 his anterior splint as his chief contribution to surgical 
 appliances, but hardly second in importance to the 
 surgeon was his lithotome, to which his son, Dr. Alan 
 P. Smith, attributed much of his own phenomenal suc- 
 cess in lithotomy. Dr. Nathan R. Smith found his 
 anterior splint already in use in the noted hospitals of 
 Europe when he visited them in 1867, and he also 
 found that his professional reputation had preceded 
 him to the Old World, for he was welcomed and enter- 
 tained by the most distinguished physicians and sur- 
 geons of London and Paris, among the number Sir 
 James Paget and Sir Spencer Wells. The later after- 
 ward visited Dr. Smith in Baltimore. 
 
 On account of his vigorous constitution, Dr. Nathan 
 R. Smith retained his activity to an advanced period of 
 life, but gradually a disease incident to old age gained 
 upon him until "finally on the 3d of July, 1877, a few 
 
160 Life and Letters 
 
 weeks after he had completed his eightieth year, the 
 conflict ceased and he slept in death." 
 
 The third son of Dr. Nathan Smith, Dr. James 
 Morven Smith, born September 23, 1805, died April 
 26, 1853. Yale M.D., 1828. 
 
 Dr. J. M. Smith became a student in the academic 
 department of Yale at an early age ; he began the prac- 
 tice of medicine at Westfield, but removed to Spring- 
 field, Mass., where for nearly twenty years he was a 
 highly successful practitioner of medicine among the 
 prominent families of the place. He was devoted to 
 his patients and greatly beloved by them. When still 
 in his prime (aged somewhat less than forty-eight 
 years) he was cut off by a tragic death in a railroad 
 accident at Norwalk, Conn. 
 
 The fourth son of Dr. Nathan Smith, Dr. John 
 Derby Smith, born April 9, 181 2, died April 26, 1884. 
 Yale A.B., 1832; University of Maryland M.D., 1846. 
 
 Before studying medicine, Dr. J. D. Smith studied 
 and was ordained a Congregational minister in the 
 Andover Theological Seminary. His charge was at 
 Charlemont, Mass., where he preached for ten years, 
 but then had to give up his pastorate on account of 
 throat trouble and took up the study of medicine under 
 the direction of his brother, Dr. N. R. Smith, in 
 Baltimore. 
 
 During the Civil War, he was assistant surgeon in 
 the Fairfax Seminary hospital and he afterwards 
 served for two years as surgeon in the United States 
 Navy. Dr. John Derby Smith was brilliantly talented 
 and a fine classical scholar, and, had he given his undi- 
 
Dr. James Morven Smith 
 
 Third Son of Dr. Nathan Smith 
 
of Nathan Smith 161 
 
 vided attention to the practice of medicine, his reputa- 
 tion for skill might have rivalled that of his brothers, 
 but as it was, he was both an eloquent preacher and a 
 good physician. 
 
 Dr. Nathan Smith Lincoln, grandson of Dr. Nathan 
 Smith and son of Rev. Increase Sumner and Gratia 
 Eliza (Smith) Lincoln, born April 3, 1822, died 
 October 14, 1898. Dartmouth A.M., 1850; Univer- 
 sity of Maryland M.D., 1852; Dartmouth LL.D., 
 1892. 
 
 Dr. Lincoln occupied four chairs in Columbian Uni- 
 versity of Washington, D. C, — Chemistry, Theory 
 and Practice of Medicine, Anatomy and Physiology, 
 and Surgery, and was Professor Emeritus at the time 
 of his death. President Lincoln signed his commission 
 as surgeon of the District of Columbia Volunteers in 
 May, 1 861, and he had five hospitals under his charge, 
 as surgeon-in-chief, which position he held during the 
 Civil War and for some months after its close. 
 
 Dr. Lincoln was not only a great surgeon; he was 
 also a great physician. This was achieved through his 
 unusual power of diagnosis, a direct inheritance from 
 his grandfather, Dr. Nathan Smith. 
 
 Dr. Lincoln was called in consultation to attend 
 President Garfield, and was the only surgeon who made 
 a correct diagnosis of the wound, as was proved by the 
 autopsy. 
 
 Dr. Lincoln held many important professional posi- 
 tions, and his general practice among the influential 
 citizens of Washington was very extensive. He was 
 greatly beloved by those who knew him well and by his 
 
162 Life and Letters 
 
 unusually attractive personality made many friends. 
 Although he lived to the ripe age of seventy-six years 
 he retained his professional activity almost to the last 
 of his long life. 
 
 Dr. David Paige Smith, son of Dr. James Morven 
 Smith, born October i, 1830, died December 26, 1880. 
 Jefferson Medical School, Philadelphia M.D., 1853. 
 
 After being graduated in medicine from Jefferson 
 Medical School, Dr. David Smith studied under dis- 
 tinguished surgeons in Edinburgh, London and Paris. 
 
 In 1 861 on his return to America he enlisted in the 
 United States Army as surgeon of the Eighteenth 
 Massachusetts Infantry regiment, was soon promoted 
 to be brigade surgeon, and at the end of the Civil War 
 was retired with the brevet rank of lieutenant-colonel. 
 He then resumed the practice of medicine and surgery 
 in Springfield, Mass., but was called in 1873 to the 
 chair of Theory and Practice of Medicine in the Yale 
 Medical School. After serving for nearly four years 
 he relinquished this professorship to accept the chair 
 of Surgery in the same university. "The personality 
 of Dr. David P. Smith was unique and strikingly indi- 
 vidual, — quick, abrupt and positive, — characteristics 
 in part hereditary," and like his grandfather he was a 
 very skilful and well-known surgeon. The loss of his 
 only child, a lad of ten years, deeply saddened his life, 
 but seemed to increase his strong sympathy for others 
 in trouble. Dr. David Smith's life was full of good 
 deeds and the large estate of his wife and himself was 
 bequeathed by them in part to Yale University and the 
 
Dr. John Derby Smith 
 
 Fourth Son of Dr. Nathan Smith 
 
of Nathan Smith 163 
 
 rest to the establishment of a hospital for children in 
 Springfield as a memorial to their beloved son. 
 
 Dr. Alan Penniman Smith, third son of Dr. Nathan 
 Ryno Smith, born February 3, 1840, died July 18, 
 1898. University of Maryland M.D., 1861. 
 
 It is seldom in the history of any profession that a 
 steady rise to distinction is begun at such an early age 
 as in the case of Dr. Alan P. Smith. 
 
 At the time of his graduation in medicine, his father 
 had reached the zenith of his fame and in his large 
 practice in medicine and surgery needed the assistance 
 of this, his only living son. Fine training, great indus- 
 try and ambition, together with his rare inheritance of 
 talent, soon caused Dr. Alan P. Smith to be recognized 
 a leader in the profession. 
 
 In 1868, having been instrumental in obtaining from 
 Mr. Hopkins the gift to the city of Baltimore of the 
 Johns Hopkins Hospital, he was selected by the donor 
 to be one of the incorporators of the Johns Hopkins 
 University and a member of the board of trustees of 
 the hospital and later was elected to fill a vacancy on 
 the board of the University. 
 
 In 1873, Dr. Alan P. Smith was called to the Profes- 
 sorship of Operative Surgery by the University of 
 Maryland. After successfully filling the chair for one 
 season, he resigned his professorship, preferring to 
 devote undivided attention to his very extensive prac- 
 tice. Although he made no specialty of surgery, his 
 marked success in that department commanded the 
 attention of the profession, and at the request of the 
 Medical and Chirugical Society of Maryland, in 1878, 
 
164 Life and Letters 
 
 Dr. Alan P. Smith read a report of his first fifty-two 
 cases of lithotomy, without a single loss by death. This 
 phenomenal record so increased his reputation as a 
 surgeon that cases came to him from all over the 
 country, and continued success crowned his professional 
 labors until, from overwork, his health became im- 
 paired, and, after a lingering illness, Dr. Alan Penni- 
 man Smith died at the age of fifty-eight years. In 
 summing up this brief account of his life, we quote 
 from the minutes of the board of Johns Hopkins 
 University: 
 
 "The distinction of Dr. Alan P. Smith extended far 
 beyond the city of his residence and largely rested upon 
 his success in surgery, especially Lithotomy, although 
 he was widely known as a general practitioner. For 
 his gentleness, sympathy, courage, knowledge, and 
 skill, he was respected and beloved by all classes in the 
 Community." 
 
 These sketches of the professional work of the four 
 sons and of three of the grandsons of Dr. Nathan 
 Smith exemplify in a remarkable manner the advan- 
 tages of inherited talent. His good work has been 
 carried forward by his descendants from generation to 
 generation not only as far as the third, but the fourth 
 and fifth generations now have their worthy representa- 
 tives doing notable work in the profession of their 
 distinguished ancestor. 
 
 When we consider the far-reaching influence of the 
 work of Dr. Nathan Smith upon the community at 
 large, not only as having been a most skilful physician 
 
of Nathan Smith 165 
 
 and surgeon, but in the effect of his rare example of 
 rectitude and self-sacrifice, in his untiring energy in 
 seeking knowledge in spite of almost insurmountable 
 difficulties, and lastly in his careful teaching and train- 
 ing of thousands of young men who went forward from 
 his lecture halls to practice and train others in the arts 
 of healing, we must realize with one of the many who 
 have sounded his praises that "Dr. Nathan Smith was 
 one of the most extraordinary medical men that this 
 country has ever produced" and we feel that the Medi- 
 cal School of Yale University may be proud to honor 
 the memory of one who was so intimately connected 
 with its success as well as so instrumental in bringing 
 the school into existence a hundred years ago. 
 
THE APPENDIX 
 
 Dr. Hubbard says: "The publications of Dr. Smith 
 are not numerous. He began to write as soon as he 
 commenced practice. The earliest papers yet dis- 
 covered are a 'Dissertation on the causes and effects of 
 spasms in Fevers,' in the Massachusetts Magazine, 
 vol. 3, 1 79 1, January, p. 33, February, p. 81, and 
 another, 'Observations on the positions of patients in 
 the operation for Lithotomy, with a case of a man 
 seventy-two years old,' published in a letter to Dr. Lett- 
 som, in the Memoirs of the Medical Society of London, 
 vol. 6, p. 227, 1805. 
 
 "He edited with copious notes and additions, 'A 
 treatise on Febrile Diseases, by A. P. Wilson Philips, 
 M.D., 2d American from 3rd London edition, Hart- 
 ford, 1816, 2 vols.' He contributed valuable papers 
 to the Philadelphia Monthly Journal, some of which 
 were reprinted in the French Medical Journals." 
 
 One of the most important and best known of his 
 writings is a "Practical Essay on Typhus (Typhoid) 
 Fever," 8vo., 1824, New York. 
 
 "The late Dr. A. B. Crosby, in referring to it in an 
 address delivered a few years since before the Medical 
 Society of New Hampshire, took occasion to say that 
 it was the first comprehensive description of typhus 
 fever ever written and covered in a wonderfully 
 exhaustive way, not only the clinical history, but the 
 pathology of this remarkable disease. 'Many years 
 
168 Life and Letters 
 
 later,' he continues, 'in the great hospitals of Paris, 
 Louis made, and afterward published, his own observa- 
 tions regarding the same disease, and the whole world 
 rang with plaudits of admiration at his genius and 
 learning; but in this little tract of Nathan Smith the 
 gist and germ of all the magnificent discoveries of 
 Louis are anticipated.' " — Address of Dr. Gilman 
 Kimball. 
 
 This appeared again in the "Medical and Surgical 
 Memoirs," published by his son, N. R. Smith. His 
 hitherto unpublished introductory lecture at Yale on 
 the "Progress of Medical Science," which was prob- 
 ably the first lecture delivered in the Medical Depart- 
 ment of Yale University, is of sufficient interest to be 
 included here. 
 
INTRODUCTORY LECTURE ON THE PROGRESS 
 OF MEDICAL SCIENCE 
 
 The science of medicine or the art of preventing and 
 curing diseases has, by the most intelligent part of 
 mankind, ever been considered a subject of great 
 importance to society, and of course has in all ages and 
 in all civilized countries engaged the attention and 
 employed the talents of some men of the first grade of 
 intellect, so that by tracing its progress we bring to 
 view the operation of the human mind on a subject as 
 difficult of investigation as anything which has been 
 the subject of human inquiry. 
 
 It has been said, that there never was a time since 
 the human race existed in which there was no physician. 
 Be this as it may, we have no distinct account of phy- 
 sicians at a very early period of society. It has been 
 stated by some historians that before Hippocrates 
 lived the profession of physician was usurped by the 
 priests; and that they had some share of the practice, 
 or pretended to the knowledge of remedies, is more 
 than probable; even since the Christian era this has been 
 the case in certain countries; for instance, the Jesuits 
 introduced the use of the Cinchona or Peruvian Bark as 
 a remedy for intermittents and kept it as a secret for 
 some time; from them it had the name of Jesuits' Bark. 
 
 But notwithstanding the interference of the priests 
 in the practice of medicine, I should think, from the 
 mention made of physicians in the Old Testament, and 
 
iyo Life and Letters 
 
 especially in the Apocryphal writings, that there were at 
 the time in which they were written, — which was long 
 before the Christian era, — a class of men called physi- 
 cians whose business it was to cure diseases and attend 
 the sick. But we have no account of their theory or 
 practice, as they have left no writings on the subject 
 that have come down to us, so far as I know. 
 
 The first certain account we have of medicine as 
 taught and practiced by a distinct profession is from 
 the writing of Hippocrates, a Grecian, born about 400 
 years before the Christian era, who left several books 
 on medical subjects which have been transmitted to us 
 through many ages. 
 
 That there was such a person as Hippocrates, who 
 lived about the time above stated, and who was greatly 
 celebrated for his skill in curing diseases, I believe is 
 not doubted by any, but that we have received all his 
 writings, or that all that have passed under his name 
 were actually written by him, has been doubted by some, 
 and if we consider that when Hippocrates lived, books 
 were written and not printed, and, of course, that the 
 copies must be few and the knowledge of them confined 
 to a small number; and, further, if we consider that 
 they were preserved in this way for many ages, we 
 shall have some reason to doubt whether those books 
 which have been attributed to Hippocrates were all 
 genuine. But this does not materially affect our present 
 purpose, for though they may not have been wholly 
 written by him, yet they undoubtedly show the opinions 
 of physicians on medical subjects at or about the time 
 he lived. 
 
of Nathan Smith iji 
 
 Of those writings which are attributed to Hippoc- 
 rates it is observable that the phenomena of diseases, 
 especially of acute diseases, are described with great 
 accuracy and those symptoms or appearances which 
 enable the physician to foresee the event of the disease, 
 whether favorable or unfavorable, have never been 
 more clearly pointed out. So far the subject of disease 
 lay as open to him as to us, because it was within the 
 reach of his own observation; he could observe and 
 remember as well as those who came after him, and 
 perhaps few men have lived since who possessed a more 
 discriminating mind or a sounder judgment. But it is 
 the explanation of the phenomena of disease and the 
 modus operandi of remedies which mark the difference 
 between the theory or reasoning of Hippocrates and 
 the modern theory. 
 
 This difference, in which perhaps the moderns have 
 greatly the advantage, does not depend on the superior 
 understanding of modern folks, but on a cause of a 
 different nature. 
 
 It has been justly said that men can reason but from 
 what they know, and Hippocrates was ignorant of 
 many important facts which have been discovered 
 since his day which were requisite to a rational theory 
 of medicine. Hippocrates was almost totally ignorant 
 of anatomy and of physiology, a knowledge of which 
 may be considered as the foundation of all medical 
 science. This Hippocrates has somewhere in his writ- 
 ings acknowledged; he says — if I mistake not — that he 
 never saw but one skeleton and that but for a short 
 time. Hippocrates, however, had a better excuse for 
 
1^2 Life and Letters 
 
 his ignorance than some who have lived since, who 
 neglect the study of anatomy through want of industry 
 and a dislike of application of every kind. It is not to 
 be supposed that a man so industrious, so fond of a 
 knowledge of the works of the Creator and such a close 
 observer of them, would not gladly have embraced the 
 study of anatomy if the superstitious people would 
 have permitted it. 
 
 This pernicious idolatry of mankind with respect to 
 dead bodies, — which appears to have been the first 
 idolatry ever introduced into the world, — kept men 
 almost wholly ignorant of the structure of their own 
 bodies nearly 2000 years after medicine was taught as 
 a science, and still continues to harass those who 
 attempt to enlighten themselves and others in a science 
 which has as high claims on the patronage of an enlight- 
 ened public as any other. Even in times of old there 
 lived some who knew the importance of the profession. 
 The Son of Sirach — who is supposed to have lived 
 some time between the Babylonish captivity of the Jews 
 and the coming of our Saviour — says: "Honor a 
 Physician with the honor due unto him for the uses you 
 may have of him, for the Lord hath created him, for of 
 the Most High cometh healing, and he shall receive 
 honor of the King. The skill of a Physician shall lift 
 up his head and in the sight of great men he shall be 
 in admiration." 
 
 After Hippocrates the next physician who became 
 distinguished was Galen, who was also a Grecian; he 
 is reported to have written many books on medicine 
 and to have been a man of great distinction, and such 
 
of Nathan Smith 775 
 
 was the influence of his writings, as stated by historians, 
 that they were received and considered the standard of 
 medical science by all the learned faculty and medical 
 schools for nearly 2,000 years. In fact, it was essen- 
 tially the doctrines of Galen which were taught in all 
 the medical schools in Europe till Hermann Boerhaave 
 published his system of physic at Leyden in Holland in 
 the end of the sixteenth century. 
 
 During this long period in which Galen's doctrines 
 were considered as canonical, there was but one schism 
 among the physicians and that was effected by Para- 
 celsus, a bold and empirical physician, who, having 
 acquired some knowledge of chemistry and chemical 
 remedies, was appointed professor at Basel. He and 
 his followers were called chemists or chemical physi- 
 cians, while those who followed Galen were called 
 Galenists. The contentions between these two sects at 
 one time ran high, and in France, the Galenists, who 
 had antiquity on their side, obtained an edict from the 
 government calculated to put down the chemists by 
 prohibiting the use of chemical remedies. But in this 
 instance it probably happened — as it often does with 
 hot and zealous disputants — that while they both 
 claimed the truth, the truth disclaimed them both. As 
 Galen, like Hippocrates, was ignorant of anatomy and 
 physiology, his theory, though more elaborate than his 
 predecessor's, did not add much to the stock of useful 
 knowledge in a strict point of view. 
 
 I have stated above that it was the doctrine of Hip- 
 pocrates and Galen which greatly prevailed throughout 
 Europe till the time of Boerhaave, but some time pre- 
 
I*J4 Life and Letters 
 
 vious to that, in the latter part of the sixteenth century, 
 the old Grecian doctrine received a shock which, after 
 some struggling, entirely overthrew it. This was the 
 discovery of the true circulation of the blood through 
 the animal body, which was reserved for William 
 Harvey, an English physician. 
 
 Previous to Harvey's discovery the circulation of the 
 blood remained a perfect mystery, and the function of 
 the heart and arteries was entirely unknown. This dis- 
 covery of Harvey's, so all-important in the science of 
 physic and surgery, — instead of being hailed with joy 
 by the medical schools, as we should have expected, — 
 met with decided opposition by the professors and 
 many of the learned faculty of that day; and when at 
 length it began to gain ground and to make some noise 
 in the world, some of the older members of the faculty 
 were so irritated by it that they endeavored to get an 
 additional clause added to the oath which physicians 
 were obliged to take when they took their degree. 
 
 The discovery of the circulation of the blood did not, 
 however, immediately produce that change in the 
 theory and practice of medicine which we should have 
 expected from its very great importance, especially if 
 we consider what a world of darkness and mystery was 
 dispelled by it. But men, having been taught to reason 
 in a certain way and to view a subject from a certain 
 point of view, do not easily relinquish their opinions. 
 It was Hippocrates and Galen who introduced what has 
 been called the humoral pathology or that theory which 
 supposes that disease is introduced by some change in 
 the fluids which render them unfit for the due per- 
 
of Nathan Smith iy 5 
 
 formance of the functions of the body; this change, they 
 supposed, might depend on the quantity or quality of 
 the circulating fluid, or from some matter taken in 
 from without, which circulated in the fluids. After sup- 
 posing this morbific matter to be in the body, they 
 supposed that there was a principle in the animal system 
 which tended to ward off evil and to preserve the body 
 in health and to restore it when impaired, and that this 
 morbific matter raised this principle of defense, by 
 some called nature, the "vis medicatrix natura" to 
 throw off the offending matter and to relieve the system 
 from it. The outlets through which this morbific 
 matter passed were all the emunctories, that is, it 
 passed by the stomach, by the kidneys, or by the skin ; 
 so that disease was by them as a conflict between two 
 forces, the one tending to destroy, and the other to 
 preserve, life; — the more visible symptoms, such as 
 increased heat and action in the blood, which men sup- 
 posed to be the effort of nature struggling with disease 
 or offending matter, while the offending matter carried 
 on its operations in a more insidious manner and more 
 out of observation. 
 
 Imperfect as these doctrines appear to us, they main- 
 tained their ground entirely till Dr. Cullen began to 
 give lectures in the University of Edinburgh. Cullen 
 attacked the humoral pathology, which had been taught 
 from Hippocrates down to that time, and the learned 
 Boerhaave had, not long before and even after the 
 discovery of the circulation by Harvey, contributed to 
 establish it on so respectable a foundation as seemed to 
 bid defiance to succeeding generations to demolish it; 
 
ij6 Life and Letters 
 
 Cullen attempted to show that this doctrine — which 
 considered disease as arising from alteration, defi- 
 ciency, or superabundance, of fluids — did not account 
 for all the phenomena of disease, and thought it more 
 consonant to sound reason to suppose that many dis- 
 eases originated from causes which act exclusively on 
 what he calls the living solids. 
 
 But Cullen, like many other innovators, did not 
 carry his doctrine to the extent to which it has been 
 pushed since. He did not reject the humoral pathology 
 entirely, but explained the phenomena of several dis- 
 eases on those principles; for instance, the smallpox, 
 with other eruptive diseases, on a supposition that, by 
 something taken in, the fluids were changed and that a 
 part of them was converted to the nature of the con- 
 tagion which produced the disease, and this was con- 
 veyed off through the skin, or other outlets of the body. 
 He also gave full credit to what he called the vis medi- 
 catrlx natura. 
 
 The fate of Cullen's writings has been somewhat 
 singular, for, although the time since he wrote is short, 
 yet his particular theory or explanation of disease, 
 excepting so far as it serves to transfer the seat and 
 cause of diseases from the fluids to the solids, is almost 
 entirely obsolete. Yet in this particular Cullen has 
 effected a greater change in medical philosophy than 
 any man who has lived since Hippocrates; for since 
 Cullen's book was published the humoral pathology 
 has gradually declined until, with very few exceptions, 
 no one speaks of disease as depending on the fluids. 
 After Dr. Cullen published his theory of disease and 
 
of Nathan Smith 777 
 
 while he was yet living, Dr. John Brown, who had 
 formerly been his pupil, came out with a book which 
 he called "The Science of Life." The book was 
 intended to refute the theory of Cullen in part, but did 
 not go to disprove his doctrine as to the seat of disease 
 being in the solids; on the contrary, he extended this 
 doctrine further than his master. 
 
 The peculiar features of Brown's doctrine may be 
 explained in a few words. He supposed that in every 
 animal there was implanted a certain something which 
 he called irritability, or a capacity to be acted upon by 
 certain external agents, which he called stimuli, — that 
 the effect of these stimuli was certain, and further that 
 this excitability was exhausted by the use of stimuli and 
 that it accumulated or increased when the stimuli were 
 withheld or withdrawn, and that health consisted in a 
 due degree of excitement kept up by stimuli, and when 
 it failed for want of a due proportion of stimuli, it was 
 a state of direct debility, — asthenia; but when the 
 stimulus exceeded, or from the previous accumulations 
 of the excitability, the usual portions of stimulus pro- 
 duced actions beyond the healthy standard, it produced 
 a state of the system which he called sthenic, which is 
 the same that others had called inflammatory. Besides 
 these two opposite states of the system he surmised 
 another which he called indirect debility, that state of 
 debility which is produced by an overdose of stimuli, 
 and is supposed to arise from exhaustion of the 
 excitability. 
 
 This being the theory of Brown, the practice deduced 
 from it is plain and simple: — if the excitement be too 
 
178 Life and Letters 
 
 great, subtract stimuli till it is reduced to the healthy 
 standard, and if deficient, give stimuli till the actions 
 of the system are brought up to the healthy standard; 
 in cases of indirect debility subtract the stimuli gradu- 
 ally and suffer the exhausted excitability to recover. 
 Upon this plan he formed a scale of disease, in which 
 he placed health in the middle, the highest degree of 
 excitement at the upper end, and death at the lower 
 end. His Materia Medica was made to correspond 
 with his indications, of course; that is, his remedies 
 were such as he supposed either increased or diminished 
 the excitement of the system. Those which increased 
 the excitement he divided into the permanent and dif- 
 fusible. Food was the principal of the permanent 
 stimuli, and opium, wine and alcohol were the chief of 
 the diffusible. The remedies which dominate excite- 
 ment, according to his doctrine, were evacuation or the 
 subtraction of heat from the body. He did not con- 
 sider remedies as having any peculiar or specific actions, 
 but ranked them according to their supposed stimulant 
 powers. 
 
 The Brown theory was, in the main, very defective, 
 yet he brought into view certain properties or laws of 
 the animal economy, which, though not entirely over- 
 looked by those who went before him, yet had not been 
 so fully pointed out, and had received no particular 
 name. I allude to his theory of excitability and the 
 effect of stimulants on that principle. 
 
 As Cullen, by transferring the cause of diseases 
 from the fluids to the solids, introduced a new theory of 
 
of Nathan Smith 17Q 
 
 disease, so Brown introduced a set of new words into 
 medical phraseology which still are continued. 
 
 Besides the authors which I have mentioned, there 
 have at different times appeared a multitude of books 
 on medical subjects which have exhibited some pecu- 
 liarities of doctrine, but none of them have effected any 
 great or permanent change in the theory or practice of 
 medicine. Since the time of Cullen and Brown, medical 
 men have assumed a much bolder and more independ- 
 ent manner of thinking and writing, and these two men 
 have effected the change or contributed materially 
 towards it. They deserve much whether we admit 
 their doctrines as correct or not. 
 
 We seem now to have arrived at the proper point for 
 starting. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Aberdeen, University of, 64. 
 
 Allen, Gen. Ethan, 119. 
 
 Allen, Pres. William, of Bowdoin, 99, 109, 110, 111, 112, 148, 149. 
 
 American Journal of the Medical Sciences, 135. 
 
 Atlee, Dr. Washington L., 130. 
 
 Bell, Dr. J., 122, 124. 
 
 Black, Prof. Joseph, 18. 
 
 Boerhaave, Hermann, 173, 175. 
 
 Bowdoin College, 87, 109, 110, 111, 112, 114, 120, 128, 147, 148, 149, 
 
 150, 153. 
 Boylstone, Dr., 45, 46. 
 Bradbury, Hon. J. W., 150. 
 Brown, Dr. John, 177, 178, 179. 
 Brush, Crean, 119. 
 Chase, Allace, 9. 
 Chase, Allace (Corbett), 7. 
 Chase, Dudley, 7. 
 Chase, Elizabeth, 11. 
 Chase, Jonathan, 8, 10, 11, 106. 
 Chase, Mary Dudley, 13. 
 
 Chase, Philander, Bishop of Ohio and Illinois, 7, 99. 
 Chase, Judge Samuel, 8, 13. 
 Chase, Sarah (Hall), 11. 
 Chase Smith, Sarah Hall. See Smith, 11. 
 Chase, Thankful Sherman, 11. 
 Chauncey, Hon. Charles, 132. 
 Cleaveland, Dr. Nehemiah, 112. 
 Cleaveland, Prof. Parker, 111, 133, 148. 
 Cogswell, Dr. Mason Fitch, 84, 85, 86, 88. 
 Columbia College, 15, 120. 
 Columbian University, 161. 
 Crenshaw, Mr., 136. 
 Crosby, Prof. A. B., 116, 167. 
 Crowninshield, Sec. of Navy, 104. 
 Cullen, Dr. William, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179. 
 Darby, Henry, 49. 
 
i 82 Index 
 
 Dartmouth College, 9, 15, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 30, 31, 32, 38, 39, 40, 51, 
 52, 61, 62, 63, 67, 75, 77, 78, 80, 81, 82, 87, 89, 97, 100, 101, 119, 
 120, 128, 140, 143, 149, 150, 152, 153. 
 
 Davidge, Dr. John B., 135, 158. 
 
 Dexter, Dr. Aaron, 10. 
 
 Dudley, Samuel, 106. 
 
 Dwight, Pres. Timothy, of Yale, 84, 92, 134. 
 
 Edinburgh, University of, 16, 153. 
 
 Edwards, David S., 102. 
 
 Emerson, Brown, 30. 
 
 Flexner, Dr. Abraham, 77. 
 
 Frost, Dr. Gilman D., 77. 
 
 Galen, 26, 27, 172, 173, 174, 175. 
 
 Gallup, Dr., 24. 
 
 Garfield, Pres. James A., 161. 
 
 Goodhue, Dr., 5, 6. 
 
 Gross, Prof. Samuel D., 130, 152. 
 
 Hall, Rev. David, 13. 
 
 Hall, Elizabeth Prescott, 13. 
 
 Harvard College, 10, 15, 40, 53, 64, 82, 120, 153. 
 
 Harvey, Dr. William, 174, 175. 
 
 Hillhouse, James, 92, 96. 
 
 Hills, Dr. H. H., 150. 
 
 Hippocrates, 26, 27, 93, 169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175, 176. 
 
 Hitchcock, Pres. Edward, of Amherst, 104. 
 
 Hoadly, George, 132, 133, 134. 
 
 Holmes, Dr. Oliver Wendell, 10, 64, 77. 
 
 Hubbard, Prof., 99, 100. 
 
 Hubbard, Dr. Oliver P., 10, 23, 24, 32, 40, 76, 82, 93, 129, 149, 167. 
 
 Hunter, Dr. John, 115. 
 
 Ives, Prof. Eli, 91, 97, 139. 
 
 Jarvis, Consul, 67. 
 
 Jefferson Medical School, 130, 134, 135, 152, 158. 
 
 Jenner, Dr. Edward, 25, 143. 
 
 Johns Hopkins University, 163, 164. 
 
 Kimball, Dr. Gilman, 114, 115, 168. 
 
 Kingsbury, Hon. Sanford, 16. 
 
 Knight, Prof. Jonathan, 91, 129, 138, 144, 145, 146. 
 
 Lavoisier, 79. 
 
 Leavenworth, Dr. M. C, 97. 
 
Index 183 
 
 Lectures of Nathan Smith, 26, 27, 79, 93, 94, 169-179. 
 
 Lettsom, Dr., 63, 167. 
 
 Lincoln, Pres. Abraham, 161. 
 
 Lincoln, Gov. Levi, 54, 56, 66, 70. 
 
 Lincoln, Rev. Increase Sumner, 108, 125, 126, 127, 161. 
 
 Lincoln, Dr. Nathan Smith, 161, 162. 
 
 Louis, Dr. Pierre Charles Alexandre, 168. 
 
 Lowe, Dr. Abraham T., 76, 77. 
 
 Maryland, University of, 119, 120, 135, 158, 163. 
 
 McClellan, Dr. George, 130, 158. 
 
 McDowell, Dr. Ephraim, 114, 115, 129, 151. 
 
 Medical and Surgical Memoirs, 83, 146, 168. 
 
 Medical Review, 135. 
 
 Medical Society of London, 21, 53, 63, 167. 
 
 Medical and Chirurgical Society of Maryland, 163. 
 
 Mitchell, Prof. Alfred, 150. 
 
 Monro, Prof. (Secundus), 18. 
 
 Montesque, Monte, 119. 
 
 Morse, Samuel Finley Breese, 113. 
 
 Munson, Prof. Aeneas, 91. 
 
 Mussey, Dr. Reuben Dimond, 30, 140. 
 
 New Hampshire State Medical Society, 38, 53, 150, 167. 
 
 Nesmith, Hon. George W., 93, 94, 95. 
 
 Noyes, Josiah, 30. 
 
 Olcott, Mary, 100. 
 
 Olcott, Mills, 90, 100, 101. 
 
 Osgood, James, 156. 
 
 Paget, Sir James, 159. 
 
 Paine, Judge, 54. 
 
 Paine, Miss, 54, 56. 
 
 Paracelsus, 173. 
 
 Parker, Prof. Willard, 151. 
 
 Parkman, Dr. George, 64. 
 
 Patterson, Isaac, 33. 
 
 Peck, Rev. Robert, 1. 
 
 Penniman, Dr. Jabez, 119. 
 
 Pennsylvania, University of, 15, 35, 120, 134. 
 
 Perkins, Dr. Cyrus, 34, 51, 54, 60, 61, 64, 83. 
 
 Phelps, Daniel, 30. 
 
 Philadelphia Monthly Journal of Medicine and Surgery, 135. 
 
184 Index 
 
 Philips, Dr. A. P. Wilson, 167. 
 
 Plato, 26. 
 
 Ramsey, Dr. Alexander, 39, 45, 46, 63. 
 
 Rush, Dr. Benjamin, 35, 36, 154. 
 
 Shattuck, Dr. George Cheyne, 30, 31, 34, 35, 38, 40, 41, 42, 43, 45, 46, 
 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 54, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 63, 65, 68, 69, 70, 
 71, 72, 73, 74, 104, 105, 106, 109, 111, 121, 123, 124, 130, 132, 133, 
 136, 137, 140, 156. 
 
 Sheffield, Hon. Joseph Earle, 98. 
 
 Shurtleff, Prof. Roswell, 62. 
 
 Silliman, Prof. Benjamin, 83, 85, 86, 91, 92, 105, 113, 119, 151. 
 
 Smith, Dr. Alan Penniman, 35, 159, 163, 164. 
 
 Smith, Catherine Camilla, 107. 
 
 Smith, Dr. David Paige, 162. 
 
 Smith, Dr. David Solon Chase Hall, 13, 17, 18, 19, 21, 61, 62, 89, 96, 
 101, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 119, 124, 131, 134, 137, 157, 158. 
 
 Smith, Elizabeth Ide Hills, 2. 
 
 Smith, Gratia Eliza, 107, 108, 127, 161. 
 
 Smith, Henry, 2. 
 
 Smith, Deacon Henry, 2. 
 
 Smith, Ensign Henry, 2. 
 
 Smith, James Morven, 107, 119, 137, 156, 160. 
 
 Smith, John, 2. 
 
 Smith, John Derby, 61, 107, 119, 132, 137, 140, 160, 161. 
 
 Smith, Judith, 2. 
 
 Smith, Juliette Octavia (Penniman), 119. 
 
 Smith, Laura Matilda, 107, 137. 
 
 Smith, Lucy (Hall), 108. 
 
 Smith, Mary Amanda, 107. 
 
 Smith, Dr. Nathan, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 
 23, 24, 25, 30, 31, 32, 34, 35, 37, 38, 39, 40, 51, 53, 61, 75, 76, 77, 
 81, 82, 83, 89, 90, 91, 93, 94, 95, 97, 99, 100, 101, 102, 107, 109, 
 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 120, 121, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 
 131, 136, 137, 138, 140, 141, 142, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 
 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 164, 165. 
 
 Smith, Dr. Nathan Ryno, 21, 61, 62, 89, 96, 101, 103, 107, 118, 119, 
 120, 130, 132, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 146, 156, 158, 159, 160, 
 168. 
 
 Smith, Rebecca (Atwood), 2. 
 
 Smith, Sally Malvina, 99, 107. 
 
Index 185 
 
 Smith, Sarah , 107, 108, 156. 
 
 Smith, Sarah Hall (Chase), 11, 12, 13, 17, 18, 19, 21, 61, 86, 95, 99, 
 
 107, 156. 
 Socrates, 26. 
 Spalding, Dyer, 7. 
 Spalding, Dr. Jame9 A., 53. 
 
 Spalding, Dr. Lyman, 9, 17, 25, 30, 34, 37, 38, 39, 53, 63. 
 Spallanzani, 79. 
 Thacher, Dr. James, 41. 
 Theobald, Dr. Samuel, 88. 
 Thales, 26. 
 
 Transylvania School of Kentucky, 158. 
 Trumbull, Benjamin, 102. 
 Turner, Thomas, 103. 
 Twitchell, Amos, 30. 
 Vauquelin, 79. 
 
 Vermont, University of, 87, 120, 122, 124, 128, 158. 
 Warren, Prof. John, 10, 43. 
 Waterhouse, Dr. Benjamin, 10, 25, 71. 
 Webber, Prof. Samuel, 10. 
 Webster, Daniel, 30, 81. 
 
 Welch, Dr. William H., 30, 87, 97, 98, 129, 152, 153. 
 Wells, Dr. John Doane, 105, 111, 122, 123, 124, 131, 138. 
 Wells, Sir Spencer, 159. 
 Wheelock, Pres. Eleazar, of Dartmouth, 22. 
 Wheelock, Pres. John, of Dartmouth, 15, 32, 81, 89, 112. 
 Whiting, Rev. Mr., 5. 
 Woolsey, Elizabeth (Dwight), 134. 
 Woolsey, Mary Anne, 134. 
 
 Woolsey, Pres. Theodore Dwight, of Yale, 90, 134. 
 Woolsey, W. W., 90, 125, 132, 133. 
 Writings of Nathan Smith on Cancer, Fevers, Necrosis, etc., 43, 44, 
 
 83, 84, 116, 121, 122, 128, 137, 142, 154, 167. 
 Yale College, 30, 80, 82, 83, 87, 88, 89, 91, 92, 93, 96, 97, 98, 103, 104, 
 
 110, 114, 116, 119, 120, 124, 128, 129, 137, 153, 162, 165. 
 
R154.Sm62 
 Smith 
 
 Sm5 
 
 Life and letters of Nathan Smith 
 
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