USA > New York > New York City > History of New York City : embracing an outline sketch of events from 1609 to 1830, and a full account of its development from 1830 to 1884, Volume I > Part 31
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At this meeting the general arrangements were made. It was resolved to invite the participation in the celebration of the mayor and common council, the judges, charitable and literary societies, mechani- cal and scientific associations, the president, faculty, and students of Columbia College, the scholars of the public schools, the uniformed militia companies of the city, and the natives of France. For each of these objects a committee of seven was appointed. A committee was also appointed to prepare an address to the French people, also a com- mittee to select an orator and a grand marshal. There was a committee of fifty persons appointed as a general executive committee of arrange- ments, of which Philip Hone was chairman.
The chairman of the committee to select an orator was William M. Price ; to receive deputations from mechanics' societies, Robert Walker ; to receive deputations from colleges and public schools. Samuel Stevens ; to seleet a grand marshal, Andrew Jackson ; to pre- pare an address to the French people, Thomas Hertell ; of the music committee, George P. Morris ; to confer with the military, James Watson Webb.
Invitations to participate were extended to the Cincinnati Society, to United States officers of the Revolution and of the late war, to the superintendent, faculty, and cadets of the West Point Military Acad- emy, to the corporation of the " village of Brooklyn," and various other bodies who were specially indicated. Among the veterans of the Revolution was Enoch Crosby, the original of Cooper's " Spy."
Samuel L. Gouverneur (son-in-law of ex-President Monroe) was chosen to be the orator of the day, and Samuel Swartwout, the grand marshal, with twenty-one aids. The dress of the chief marshal and his aids was prescribed as follows : Blue coat, with white facings and gilt buttons : buff vest, with plain gilt buttons ; white pantaloons : chapeau-de-bras, tricolored cockade. and plume : tricolored scarfs ; tricolored badge, with the stripes of the United States flag to be worn on each lapel ; dress sword and gilt spurs.
A number of French residents offered their services as an escort for
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the grand marshal. and were accepted, and many of the natives of France prepared to participate in the grand fête.
As the appointed day approached, the military, firemen, exempt fire- men, fire-wardens, college students, pupils of schools, various societies, the professions and trades. were active in preparations for the grand event. Flags and banners, badges and cockades, scarfs and rosettes. the tricolor rose everywhere and on everything, were made ready.
The autumn was very mild. The Indian summer had made its ad- vent early, and with its delicious haze, its balmy temperature, and its fading glories among the trees, the vines, and the flowers, had given its full measure of enjoyment to the town and country before the momentous day arrived. When it arrived the weather was very in- element, and the celebration was postponed until the next day by the display of a red flag upon the City Hall, at Niblo's, at Castle Garden, . at the Washington Parade-Ground, and at the Liberty Pole in Grand Street, at cight o'clock in the morning.
The storm was over before the dawn of the 28th. The sky was cov- ered with gray clouds, and the atmosphere was bleak and chilly. Be- fore sunrise the notes of preparation for the celebration that day were heard on every side, and at nine o'clock the procession began to form at the Battery. When everything was in readiness it moved up Broad- way to the Washington Parade-Ground (now Washington Square), where certain ceremonies were to be held.
The procession was led by a squadron of cavalry elegantly uniformed. These were followed by the grand marshal and his aids, and eight French gentlemen wearing the beautiful uniform of the National Guards of France, as the marshal's escort. These were all on horse- back. Following them was a barouche containing the orator of the day and the reader of the address to the French people. Ex-President Monroe was expected to occupy a scat in this vehicle, but the feeble state of his health forbade it, and he joined the procession when it approached the parade-ground. Other vehicles followed bearing com- mitteemen, officers of the city government, members of Congress and the State Legislature, judges of the National and State courts, foreign ministers and consuls, and the New York Chamber of Commerce.
In a barouche was Anthony Glenn, a naval officer of the Revolution, with David Williams, one of the captors of Andre : Enoch Crosby, the patriotic spy of the Revolution, and Alexander Whaley, one of the
* Enoch Crosby was a witness in a court of justice in New York in 1827, and was recog- nized by an old gentleman, who introduced him to the audience as the original of Cooper's
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famous Boston tea-party. Captain Glenn bore aloft unfurled the iden- tical standard which was hoisted by him on the flagstaff at the Battery or Fort George on the evacuation of the city by the British on the 25th of November, 1783. By his side rode John Van Arsdale, who, when young, pulled down the British flag from the same staff on that momen- tous occasion. IIe received the halyards from Captain Glenn when he raised the old flag aloft.
The bulk of the grand procession was made up of the faculty and students of Columbia College bearing a medallion likeness of Lafayette, with the legend in Greek, " The glory of this man shall be forever ;"' the members of various professions-law, medicine, science, and litera- ture ; officers of the army and navy, and a vast array of members of the various trades pursued in the city. These, with appropriate and elegant banners, made a most attractive display. Among these the printers and type-founders and persons connected with the New York press in every capacity took the lead, preceded by a beautiful banner displaying a picture of a Clymer printing-press. Their marshal was the venerable John Lang, who had been connected with the press more than forty years.
The fire department, which turned out in full force, was under the direction of James Guliek. The New York pilots made a fine display, having a car bearing a representation of a French ship-of-war. The cartmen of the city numbered about three hundred. They were in white frocks, wearing on their left breast a tricolored cockade and a badge printed on white satin.
There was a grand display of the military organizations of the city in the procession, under the command of the venerable General Jacob Morton. On his staff was Lieutenant-Colonel Andrew Warner, who is now (1883) and has been for many years the recording secretary of the New York Historical Society. All the other members of General Morton's staff on that occasion are dead.
A stage had been erected near the centre of Washington Parade- Ground. Ex-President Monroe, who had consented to preside on the occasion. with the orator of the day and others, awaited the arrival of the procession at the house of Colonel J. B. Murray, near by. Monroe was then taken in a barouche to the stage, where the Chairmakers' Association presented him with an elegant arm-chair, made during the
Harvey Birch in his novel of " The Spy." The fact was noised abroad. The Spy, dram- atized, was in course of performance at one of the theatres. Crosby was invited to attend. His acceptance was announced, and that evening a crowded audience greeted the old soldier.
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progress of the procession. This the venerable statesman occupied on the occasion.
After a prayer by the Rev. Richard Varick Dey, the address to the French people was read by William M. Price, when Samuel L. Gouver- neur was introduced as the orator of the day, who pronounced a most interesting address to the vast throng before him. The oration was followed by the singing of an appropriate ode written by Samuel Woodworth for the occasion, by the entire band of choristers attached to the Park Theatre, led by Mr. E. Richings.
When the music ceased a tricolored flag which had been borne in the procession was presented, on behalf of the natives of France resident in the city of New York. to the First Division of New York State Artil- lery, commanded by General Morton. Then the Marseillaise Hymn was sung by the choir, and the vast audience joined in the stirring chorus. The brilliant affair at the Washington Parade-Ground was closed at three o'clock by a feu de joie by the military.
" The day will long live in story," said the New York Courier and Enquirer the next morning, "and fill up many a pleasant hour when the children of 1830, in the winter of their day, shall speak of the events in olden times, among the least interesting of which shall not be numbered the celebration of the Revolution of France in the city of New York." It is for the purpose of awakening in the memory of the " children of 1830" a vivid recollection of the event which stirred the heart of the great city fifty years ago, and to tell to their children. in a few simple words, how the bosoms of their fathers glowed with patriotic emotion because of the triumph of liberty beyond the sea, that this record has been made here.
In commemoration of Evacuation Day and the Revolution in France banquets were partaken of in the evening in several wards. the work- ingmen and the Literary AAssociation of the Friends of Ireland at Tammany Hall, at all of which there was great hilarity. speech-making. and singing of songs or odes for the occasion, while there were specially appropriate performances at the theatres.
. This decade is a remarkable period in the history of the city of New York for the successful introduction of a new system of treatment of diseases-a system founded upon the positive knowledge of the science of physiology (the basis of all rational medicine), which has been de- veloped within the last three fourths of a century ; a system which has contributed largely in effecting a radical reform in the practice of the healing art of every school.
Previous to this period " the practice of the art, here and there,"
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says Dr. Gray, " consisted, with no really scientific exceptions, in a heroic combat with two mythical demons of medicine, the strong and the weak-inflammation and debility-by means of emetics, cathartics. venesections, vesicatories, sedatives, tonics, and stimulants. The principles' upon which this terrific practice was founded were all deduced from the poor basis of the physiology of the last century ; and that, without having interrogated this physiology as to the real powers of the vast drug apparatus they used, either specific and direct, or reac- tion and revolutionary. Nothing was scientifically known of the action of any drug, by any physiological test : none other than the little derived from its empirical use in disease, and from the scarcity and unarranged memoranda of toxicology. But the profession. even at the period of which we are treating, were, as their literature now and then discloses, by no means satisfied with the uncertain prin- . ciples and distinctive processes of their therapeutics ; there were not wanting in all countries men who looked for as great and radical a reformation in the healing art as had already occurred in the sciences of astronomy and chemistry, or as great a change as had taken place in the art of navigation. Nearly all, indeed, outside the walls of mercan- tile cliques and colleges were discontented with the principles evulgated in medical schools and books ; but not looking in the direction of phar- macology for the new truths waited for, each earnest man repeated the old method of excogitating a new theory, or of compounding an eclectic art from the multitude of extant hypotheses." *
In the fulness of time a radical and learned reformer appeared in the person of Samuel Halmemann, an eminent German physician and philosopher, who so early as 1810 sounded the keynote for an entirely new method in medical logic by the publication of a treatise styled " Organon of Rational Therapeuties." He announced the idea of forming a materia medica upon the rational process of patient physio- logical tests of the powers of drugs. So soon as his work appeared many persons in the profession and votaries of science joined him in making his " drug tests." He collected from the literature of the profession in all ages the scattered fragments denoting the purely physiological power of drugs, and combined them with the new prov- ings. These tests extended over a space of more than a dozen years, and in 1821 he completed his great work which embodied the result of all researches up to that time, entitled " Pure Materia Medica."
The system then introduced was termed Homoeopathy, from two
" The Early Annals of Homeopathy in New York," by John F. Gray, M.D.
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Greek words signifying "similar suffering." It is founded on the Wdlief that medicines have the power of curing morbid conditions simi- lar to those which they have the power to excite, expressed by the words " like cures like ;" in other words, a disease produced in a healthy person by a substance may be cured by administering the same substance to a patient suffering from the same disease.
This was not a new idea, for Hippocrates gave this remarkable pre- "seription for mania : "Give the patient a draught made from the root of mandrake, in a smaller dose than sufficient to induce mania." And Milton, in his preface to "Samson Agonistes," says : " In physic, things of melancholic hue and quality are used against melancholy, sour against sour, salt to remove salt humors," etc. But to Hahne- mann belongs the glory of propounding and enforcing the startling dogma.
One of the early disciples of Hahnemann was John Gram, a native of Boston. His father, a Dane, emigrated to America at the close of our old war for independence. He married an American wife, and died quite young, leaving two or three children. John was the oldest, and when he was about fourteen years of age he went to Copenhagen, Denmark, where he was furnished with a good education by his rela- tions, some of whom were distinguished in public life. Ile studied medicine, obtained a lucrative practice in Copenhagen, acquired a com- petent fortune, and having tested Hahnemann's method and become an enthusiastic convert, he came to his native land, after an absence of about twenty years. He gave up a lucrative practice in Copenhagen, and landed in New York an avowed apostle of the new faith.
Dr. Gram translated one of Hahnemann's most powerful essays, " The Spirit of Homoeopathy," printed it, and scattered it widely and gratuitously among the medical profession in this country, especially in the city of New York. His imperfect use of the English language and the difficulty of conveying scientific knowledge from German into English caused his pamphlet to be unappreciated, even by men like Drs. HIosack and Francis.
Dr. John F. Gray, then a young physician of New York with an extensive practice. was Dr. Gram's first convert. He was introduced to Gram in 1826 by one of his patients suffering with dyspepsia, who had heard of the new system. The apostle of the new faith had " laid his hands" on Gray's patient with wonderful effect. Dr. Gray was astonished, and at once put Hahnemann's method to a severe test. not by his own prescriptions, but by those of Dr. Gram. The first subject was a serofulous girl, the second a maniac whose malady was caused by
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puerperal fever, and the third was a confirmed drunkard. Dr. Gram pro- scribed for all. The first and third cases were cured by a single dose of the remedy prescribed, Dr. Gray arranging the diet and moral conditions.
The second case-mania -- was under diet rule fourteen days, and then a single dose of nur comica was administered. " She fully recov- ered her reason within half an hour after taking the dose of war vomica," says Dr. Gray, "and never lost it afterward." " Within a year Dr. Gray became a full convert to homoeopathy, the first in America.
The second convert to homoeopathy in New York was Dr. A. D. Wilson, in 1829. He was a ripe scholar and in full practice. The next convert was Dr. A. G. Hull, a thoughtful student of medicine and a graduate of Union College in 1828. He had entered Rutgers Medical College, where he found such able physicians and surgeons as Drs. Hosack, Macneven, Mott, and Francis as professors. Gram taught him botany in summer, and reviewed prescriptive anatomy with him in winter. Hull was admitted to practice by the New York Medical Society in 1832. Ile was a convert to homeopathy, and wrote in sup- port of the new school so early as 1834.
In 1832 Dr. William Channing became a convert. He was a man of large culture in letters, thoroughly educated in medicine, and had a large practice. On the outbreak of the cholera in 1832 he perceived the ill-success of the medical treatment of cholera patients in the hos- pitals. Ile tried Hahnemann's prescriptions with wonderful success. They were so efficient that Dr. Channing published in the Commercial. Advertiser, over his own signature, an account of the treatment. Soon after that he was an avowed convert to the new faith. These early converts and one or two others, with Dr. Gram, kept up regular social reunions with great pleasure and profit until the death of the master in 1840.
The translation of Hahnemann's " Pure Materia Medica" into French, in 1532-33, by Dr. Jourdan of Paris, gave a fresh impetus to the spread of homoeopathy in Europe and America. Before that time no physician could test the practice without a thorough knowledge of the German language. This difficulty explains the slowness of the expansion of the system during the first eight years after Gram's advent in New York.
The social relations of the converts with their professional brethren of another school, or with the Medical Society, were not disturbed by
* " The Early Annals of Homoeopathy in New York," by J. F. Gray, M.D., p. 11.
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their heresy. They wisely avoided disputation or discussion. The topie was treated of sparingly. Homoeopathy and quackery were asso- ciated in the minds of a great proportion of the medical profession and of the laity. But its devotees kept steadily on, winning the confidence of the people more and more, and fully persuaded of the value of the great reform they were the almost silent instruments in effecting.
When in 1837-38 Hahnemann's great work was translated and pub- hshed in the chief spoken languages of Europe, they were reticent no longer. They then began a manly and vigorous defence of the system. Dr. Gray revived the publication of the American Journal of Homeop- uthy, which had been suspended, and a distinct Homoeopathic Society was formed. From that hour the conflict waxed warm. The princi- ples of the new school were promulgated and discussed. New converts appeared. Drs. Ticknor, Freeman, Curtis. Taylor, Coxe, Rosman. Vanderburgh, Joslin, and Snow left the old school and joined the new.
About the period of Gram's death homeopathy began to be sup- ported in various cities in the State of New York, as well as in other States. "Regular" physicians earnestly examined its principles, and profited by an acceptance of them in practice, while adhering tech- nically to the old school. Confidence in the system rapidly spread among the laity. Prejudice gave way in the circle of the medical pro- fession. Institutes sprung up in support of the system of homeopathy. Legislators favored it with encouraging laws, and in the city of New York to-day there are flourishing public homeopathic institutions, such as a college, a dispensary, an asylum, an infirmary, and a hospital.
The State Medical Society and county medical societies vehemently opposed the new faith, and made the act of consulting with a homoo- pathic physician on the part of any of the members a misdemeanor to be visited with discipline, and possibly punished by excommunication - dismissal from the society. Gradually, as the progress of medical science diffused new light, and thoughtful members of the medical societies of the old school perceived that the summit of human knowl- edge had not yet been attained by the profession, there appeared a possibility that these despised competitors might become pleasant coad- jutors in the toilsome ascent. Toleration interposed its genial influ- ence, and common-sense asserted its rights.
In 1882 the " regular" Medical Society of the State of New York voted that its members might fully consult with homoeopathic phy- sicians. This liberal measure was vehemently opposed by a large pro- portion of the " regular" profession. and at the annual meeting of the society, in January, 1853, an attempt was made to rescind that resolu-
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tion, and withdraw the invitation to homoeopathic physicians to consulta- tion with " regulars." But the society refused to reverse that decision, by a vote of 105 to 99. An analysis of that vote and a reference to the proceedings show that the more eminent and learned members of the society, such as Drs. Willard Parker, Fordyce Barker (president of the Academy of Medicine), Cornelius R. Agnew, and others, advo- cated (and voted for) the liberal side of the question.
In the Code of Ethics formulated by the American Institute of Homœopathy for the government of its members and of societies in affiliation with it, adopted nearly twenty years ago (1864), is the fol- lowing paragraph concerning the duty of physicians in regard to con- sultation :
" No difference in views on subjects of medical principles or practice should be allowed to influence a physician against consenting to a con- sultation with a fellow practitioner. The very object of a consultation is to bring together those who may perhaps differ in their views of the disease and its appropriate treatment, in the hope that from a compari- son of different views may be derived a just estimate of the disease and a successful course of treatment. No tests of orthodoxy in medical practice should be applied to limit the freedom of consultations."
Dr. Gram, the founder of homoeopathy in America, was the grand- son of a wealthy merchant of Copenhagen. His son, the father of the doctor, came to America when quite young, fell in love with an inn- keeper's daughter in Boston, and married her, and was disinherited by his offended father. The doctor was born in 1786. He is represented as a most exemplary man. Dr. Gray says : " He was an earnest Chris- tian of the Swedenborgian faith, a man of the most scrupulously pure and charitable life I have ever known. The squalid hovel of the sick poor was to Gram ever the most holy temple of religion. . . . No darkness or wintry storm or failure of strength or allurement of the world detained Gram when the suffering poor needed his healing pres- ence. Ile believed in God ; he worked and walked his earthly pilgrimage with his Redeemer. And yet. this good man and earnest believer was often called an infidel, sometimes even by thoughtless Christian ministers, because he abstained from the topic on all occasions and with all people, except when he was called to the performance of his kind of religious worship."
Dr. Gram's first American convert, and the able pioneer in the practice of the homoeopathic system of medicine, was Dr. Grav .*
* John Franklin Gray, M.D., LL. D., was a remarkable man. He was born at Sher- burne, Chenango County, N. Y., on September 3, 1804, and lived a life of great usefulness
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He had then a large and rapidly increasing circle of patients, and families and fame and fortune beckoned him to their embrace. But his new departure -- his wandering in an untraversed wilderness of a strange medical theory, as it was considered by the profession here- lost him the larger portion of his patients. The few who clung to him were of the grateful but unremunerative sort. He was compelled to give up his carriage, which had been needful in his daily duties. His professional brethren regarded him as an outcast, and hardly recognized him as one of their fraternity. They pitied him because of his lunacy.
But Dr. Gray had the courage of his convictions. Satisfied of the truth of the doctrine he had embraced and practised. and with a firm belief that those truths would ultimately triumph, he struggled man- fully against the strong current of prejudice and ignorance, and labored untiringly for the fulfilment, in his own time, of the sure prophecy that gladdened his mental vision. He beheld the promised land from the Pisgah of his own consciousness. Dr. Gram sustained him with his
for nearly fourscore years. His grandfather was one of the first settlers of the township of Sherburne.
Young Gray was left at an early age and with a meagre education to depend upon his own exertions to obtain a livelihood. He earned with his own hands money sufficient to " seek his fortune abroad." He travelled as far as Hamilton, Oneida County, and ob- taine I employment in the office of Dr. Haven as clerk and assistant, with the privilege of studying medicine when he had leisure to do so. He had a receptive and retentive mind, and had conceived a very strong desire to become a practitioner of the healing art.
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