1768 and 1778. In the middle and southern States, there was much less disposition to merge the duties of physician and priest in the same hands, than in New England. Indeed, they seem to have been much better supplied at an early period, with well educated physicians from England and Scotland, than the more northern colonies; and in the same proportion did the profession enjoy a higher reputation, both at home and abroad.

East New Jersey appears to be entitled to the credit of making the first attempt to improve the condition of the profession by means of social organization. So early as 1766, a numerous meeting of physicians was held at New Brunswick, and a constitution and by-laws adopted for a permanent organization. Delegates were present from all parts of the State, and the objects, as set forth in the preamble to the constitution, were "Mutual improvement, the advancement of the Profession, the promotion of the public good, and the cultivation of harmony and friendship among their brethren.” These were objects worthy the attention of enlightened minds; and they seem to have been strictly adhered to, and successfully carried out; the society meeting regularly twice in each year, until interrupted in 1775, when not a few of its members left the social circle and the bed-side, to bind up the wounds

of bleeding freemen, or with them, share the deadly strife in freedom's cause. The second important movement in this direction, was in the colony of Massachusetts, a little before the close of the war. In 1781, the Massachusetts Medical Society was incorporated, embracing about thirty members, with the venerable Edward Holyoke, as its President. Among the original members, we find the names of John Warren, Aaron Dexter, Joseph Fisk, Edward A. Holyoke, and James Lloyd.

During the same year, Dr. John Warren, who was then surgeon of a military hospital in Boston, commenced a course of anatomical lectures, which were the first of which we have any account in New England. They were continued several years, and attended by many of the students of Harvard University, until a Medical Faculty was organized in connection with that institution,

Such is a brief view of medical institutions and practice, during the colonial period of our history. And if we consider the condition of the American colonies, the many dependencies on the mother country, on the one hand, and the almost constant aggressions of the French and Indians, on the other, the scattered state of the population etc., we doubt whether any profession, under similar circumstances, ever progressed with greater

rapidity than the medical profession of the colonies, during the twenty-five years succeeding the middle of the eighteenth century. Still quackery, in all its forms and guises, was everywhere flourishing; and the profession itself destitute of that internal organization or associated effort at improvement, which is so necessary to high respectability and permanent prosperity. Even the prohibitory laws of 1760, in New York, and of 1772, in New Jersey, seem to have had very little influence in accomplishing the object for which they were designed, viz.: the elevation of the profession, and the suppression of irregular practice. But the time of their continuance before the Commencement of the war of 1775, which, for a period of eight years, effectually diverted the attention of all classes from all other subjects, was too short to allow any inference of value to be drawn in regard to their success or failure. Notwithstanding the adverse circumstances in which the country was placed, and the admitted degradation of a great proportion of the medical practice of those times, still we cannot but admire the liberal views, the close and patient observation, and the bold cast of originality, exhibited by those whose education had fitted them for the high responsibilities of their calling. And equally must we admire, the broad and liberal basis on which

they planted their infant institutions in Philadelphia and New York; requiring as they did, a preliminary education and a curriculum of medical studies, superior to that of any medical institution now existing in our boasted republic. If, any doubt this, let them compare the regulations of the Philadelphia Medical College of 1768, as already quoted, with those of any of our existing institutions.

During that great Revolutionary struggle, which terminated in the establishment of the Independence of the American colonies, but little time or means was afforded for the cultivation of any science or profession, save that of arms and the arts of war. And perhaps no class were more faithful or vigilant in their country's cause than the practitioners of medicine. They not only followed the military camp, sharing its privations and toils as surgeons, but no small number exchanged the lancet for the sword, and the Esculapian wig for the cap of the military chief; and long will the pages of American history glow with the names of Warren, Mercer, Rush, etc., the two former of whom sealed their devotion to the cause with their lives. During the war, both New York and Philadelphia fell into the hands of