USA > New York > Old New York : or, Reminiscences of the past sixty years > Part 29
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The medical faculty, accordingly, now took a new view of the interests of their profession and the safety of the people. Their determination was fixed, that no degeneracy in that science to which their lives were devoted should follow as a consequence of pernicious legislation. Notwith- standing all restrictions of qualifications for the exercise of the art might be considered as removed, yet the city was not to be dismayed by absurd enactments, or the profession alarmed because the door was opened so wide that all who chose might enter into practice ; a broader privilege than is enjoyed, I believe, by any of the members of the mechanical fraternity. Other circumstances not now necessary to be enumerated strengthened their designs, and favored their deliberations, and there was no reason for delay. The auspicious hour had
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ACADEMY OF MEDICINE.
at length arrived, and the formation of an Acad- emy of Medicine in this city was secured. This timely, this judicious, this important, this neces- sary movement. owed its creation to the wants and honor of the profession, and the perpetuity of its rights. Association, it was reasoned, would pro- tect its claims as the noblest of pursuits, and its divine origin could not be abrogated by the statute book. The year 1846 gave birth to the Academy ; its incorporation was granted in 1852. I cannot now write the history of this successful institution during its first decennial. Our Nestors in Hip- pocratic science, moved by weighty reasons in be- half of public health and individual happiness, laid its foundation, and in this goodly work we find recorded the names of Stevens, Mott, Smith, Stew- art, Wood, Reese, Kissam, Detmold, Gardner, and Stearns.
The Academy has been generously fostered by an imposing number of the erudite and accom- plished of the medical and surgical profession, and order and harmony have characterized all its pro- ceedings. The subject matter of discussion at its meetings, and the communications of its members, have had special interest, and have demonstrated that the faculty of close observation and acute rea- soning is still among the diagnostic marks of the cultivated practical physician. Its printed trans- actions speak in louder accents of the excellence
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of its labors than my feeble pen ean here express. It has contributed largely to the diffusion of the great principles on sanitary laws, medicine, police, and other grave matters in which the public health is deeply involved. It has awakened new interest on other subjects sadly overlooked, medieal topography and topics of special and immediate consequenee to the framers of our municipal laws, and while thus engaged it has with philosophical gratifieation dis- dained not to encourage erudite inquiries into the condition and progress of the Divine art among its earliest eultivators ; thus dignifying the requisites of modern knowledge with the love of antiquarian lore, and with true devotion to the past announeed its verdict in behalf of that wisdom which the pregnant pages of the History of Ancient Medicine has unfolded for our contemplation and delight, by
our learned associate Dr. John Watson."
With
an inflexible intent to keep a watchful eye over the interests of professional learning and praetieal skill, to hold in reverential regard the obligations of sound medieal ethies, to guard against the de- lusions and the medieal heresies of the day, and at all times to eherish the rising merits of the junior associates in the art of healing, no apprehension need be felt that the Academy will prove other- wise than a rich boon to medical philosophy, and
* The Medical Profession of Ancient Times. New York : 8vo. 1856.
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JOHN STEARNS.
a blessing to this great, prosperous, and vastly in- creasing metropolis.
Like the Historical Society, the Academy of Medicine selected at its organization a venerable head as its first President, John Stearns. He had fulness of ycars, weight of character, and cor- responding experience, and could look back with satisfaction on an extensive carecr of professional servicc. He was a native of Massachusetts, and born in 1770. He was graduated in the arts at Yale College in 1786. Hc attended the lectures of Rush, Shippen, Kuhn, and others of Philadel- phia, but did not receive the doctorate until 1812, when the Regents of the University of New York conferred on him the honorary degree of M. D. Hc commenced the practical exercise of his pro- fession at Waterford, afterwards at Albany and at Saratoga, and finally settled in the city of New York, where he maintained the reputation of an honorable, devoted, and benevolent physician, until the close of his long life, in March, 1848. His death, which was greatly lamented, was occasioned by a dissection wound, arising from his zeal to ar- rive, by a post-mortem examination, at more cer- tain pathological conclusions, in a case of singular interest. He met this unexpected disaster with exemplary forbearance, and experienced the conso- lation of a Christian's hope in his final departure. The Academy paid appropriate funeral honors to
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his memory, and the Rev. Dr. Tyng, of St. George's Chapel, of which Dr. Stearns had long been a member, delivered an appropriate discourse on the life and character of the " Good Physician."
Great as was the devotion paid by Dr. Stearns to practical medicine, he was in earlier life cnlisted in political affairs ; and we find him in the Senate of the State of New York in 1812, and a member of the Council of Appointment. Shortly after the organization of the State Medical Socicty, he dc- livcred the annual address, as President. He was for many years a Trustee of the College of Phy- sicians and Surgeons. His name is recorded as one of the founders of the American Tract So- ciety, and he took a deep interest in the welfare of the Bible Society, and the Institution for the benefit of the Deaf and Dumb. The annals of charity include his name in other institutions of a benevolent design. His philanthropic spirit cannot be questioned. His writings on the profession, and on subjects of a kindred nature, are scattered through the periodicals of the times. He is indis- solubly associated with an heroic article of the materia medica, the virtues of which his clinical sagacity first brought to notice. His brief paper on Catalepsy attracted the attention of the learned Dr. Good. This short sketch must suffice to show that the Academy were judicious in the choice of their first officer, and both his inaugural address
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VALENTINE MOTT.
and the manner in which he fulfilled his trust, soon dismissed all doubt as to the wisdom of their suffrage. This vencrable man gave dignity to the meetings ; his courteousness secured deference and maintained authority ; his knowledge and his im- partiality added fairness to debate, and increased the gratification of intellectual association.
The office of President is filled by annual elec- tions. The present head of the Academy is Valentine Mott, whose zeal and assiduity in behalf of the great interests of medical and surgical science, half a century's labors testify. The lustre of his great name seems to have still further swelled the number of friends to the Academy, and excited additional activity among them to promote the expressed designs of its incorporation.
At the commencement of this address I briefly recorded some of the more striking changes which had modified the topographical aspect of the sur- face of New York. Dr. King, in his " Progress of the City," had noticed others, and still addi- tional facts and illustrations were recently given by General Dix, in his public lecture on the Growth, Destinies, and Duties of New York : to these tracts I must refer the curious inquirer. In the astonishing march of improvement no physical obstacle has proved insuperable to the designs of the projectors, and no expense, however great, has been withheld. It has been said, perhaps too
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figuratively, that the whole island has been in the shovel, either to eut down or fill up the surface. Assuredly posterity will never form a true conception of the alterations which have been made on the site of New York, and the onus of taxation which has been borne by the past generation or two. But all seems justifiable by the growth, the wealth, and the increased resources of the metropolis. Here, however, I make a pause, and as an episode to the medieal seetion of this diseourse, subjoin a few observations derived from those very ehanges which have over- turned the physical aspeet of the eity, and pene- trated even the sanctuaries of the dead. The faets brought to light by the opening of church- yards and the removal of the dead to other places of interment, that I have witnessed, during the last half century, have been many. Graveyards, " those populous cities of the dead," as Mr. King remarks, " have not been sacred from the hand of improvement or the foot of progress." Henee the disinterring human remains has taken place in this city to a great extent, and the knowledge thus obtained, as it was ample and direet, has furnished many eurious faets on the subject of human de- composition after death. I may have taken more than ordinary interest in this matter, inasmuch as it was a legitimate subjeet for discussion in medieal jurisprudence, and I have passed no little portion
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CHURCH VAULTS.
of time in observation when these sepulchral tene- ments were dislodged. Every rcader is acquainted with the long durability of bone not subjected to corroding causes ; but I have arrived at the conclu- sion that the diversified forms which the decay of the human body after death assumes, are no less numerous than the immense variety of causes by which life becomes extinct. The evidence of this assertion may be witnessed by any one who will enter a vault containing many bodies, deposited therein at different periods more or less remote, and observe the materials with which he is sur- rounded : season, age, the character of the disease, protracted illness, sudden death, as by lightning or other accident, &c., will all exercise a greater or less influence in facilitating or retarding decom- position. The decayed subject by marasmus will longer retain its constituents than one occasioned by dropsy, for " water is a sore decayer of the dead body." If these positions be correct, we may in part account for the extraordinary preservation of bodies in limestone, or marble cemeteries ; they possess advantages which are denied to vaults of brick, or those in the structure of which proper precautions have not been observed, as a dry or gravelly soil, &c. In reflecting upon the manner in which marble seems to cherish the lineaments of our mortal remains, one feels inclined to adopt the language of old Jeremy Taylor, "after all,
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our vaults are our longest and sincerest mourn- ers."#
When I subjected to manipulation the neglected philosopher, old Christopher Colles, ¡ the more ad- vantageously to present him to the public view, I partially brought forward some occurrences which marked the literary condition of our metropolis. I design at present to enter a little more minutely into some circumstances associated with the ad- vancement of knowledge in this city, particularly as connected with the time somewhat anterior to the establishment of the New York Historical So- ciety, and then to notice a few prominent events of more recent date, which seem calculated to give confidence to the friends of intellectual rank, that the march of mind is a certain fact, and that we may look on with admiration at the achievements that have been already wrought, rather than cherish any despondency for the future. The trifling incidents with which I commence these literary memorials possess an intrinsic interest, in- asmuch as they are decisive of the humble state and embarrassments in which instruction and knowledge generally were involved, and of the feeble powers which the Press, only two or three generations ago, sustained in this country. They
* See Guy's Medical Jurisprudence ; edited by Dr. Lee.
t Knickerbocker Gallery. New York : &vo. 1855.
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STATE OF PRINTING.
are a suitable prelude to the great drama now enacting.
Southey has said that an American's first play- thing is the rattlesnake's tail ; and as he grows up he lays traps for opossums and shoots squirrels for his breakfast. This exaggeration may possibly have had a shadow of truth in it at the time when the pilgrim fathers established their first printing press, or when Bradford first published our laws, or even when the flying coach travelled once a week between New York and Philadelphia. An impartial examination of facts will generally lead to the conviction that elementary education for the most part accompanies the progress of population, and that the requirements of information are pro- portionably furnished. From her very commence- ment, it has seemed to me that New York has been characterized more by her scientific displays than by her literary products. The distinction which has been awarded her eminent men who have labored in the several liberal professions of law, physic, and divinity, would appear to justify the observation. Be this as it may, we have no difficulty in accounting for the absence of learning in our earlier days, when we contemplate the con- dition of the people at different epochs in their country's history, and weigh the force of circum- stances : as for example, that in some instances where the Declaration of Independence being read
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at the head of military detachments, and then ordered to be printed for wider distribution, types could not be found to execute the work. Indeed a like difficulty, that of possessing types, was expe- rienced when it was contemplated to publish the first American edition of the English Bible, at Philadelphia, by R. Aitken. The unsettled state of the country, and the horrors of warfare, causcd the pious design to be protracted from its incep- tion in 1777 to 1782, when the sacred volume ap- pearcd in small duodecimo and in brevier type.
At the date at which I would commence these reminiscences, the old Daily Advertiser, and Mc- Lean's New York Gazette, were the Icading ora- cles. The former, it is curious to observe, was printed with the press and types which had been used by Franklin in Philadelphia, and which, I am told, Poor Richard disposed of advantageously to Francis Childs, of New York. For mercantile purposes these papers did well, and had a corre- sponding circulation ; they betokcned in part the state of mental culture among the masses. If, . however, we except the discussions on the Ameri- can Constitution by the writers of the Federalist, and some few other subjects of national impor- tance, by Rufus King, Noah Webster, Fisher Ames, and a few others, we may affirm that a single issue of some of our most popular papers of the present day, is enriched with more intel-
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THE NEWSPAPER PRESS.
lectual material than a year's file of these old journals. In 1793 was projected the Minerva, which under the control of its editor, Noah Web- ster, at once elevated the character of this species of periodical literature. Webster labored at this service some seven years, when the title of the paper was changed to that of the Commercial Advertiser, which has continued its diurnal course up to the present time, under the supervision of Francis H. Hall, and has attained a longevity greater than that of any other journal ever orig- inated in this city. Among its memorable editors was the late W. L. Stone, a devoted man to his responsible trust, of great fidelity in his political views. It can boast of a succession of editors re- markable for their freedom from violent political aspersion, of extreme jealousy in behalf of moral and religious instruction, and strong attachment to American institutions. Lewis, who succeeded Webster, had been reared a divine, and was hardly adapted to encounter the antagonistic assaults of the party press ; Col. Stone, equal to his prede- cessor in refinement of feeling and charitable im- pulse, with stronger devotion and greater industry, filled the measure of his renown by a perseverance in patriotism and benevolence that won the ad- miration of numerous patrons. To his daily toil he superadded other responsible labors, and wrote the life of Brant, of Red Jacket, on the Canal
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policy of the State, The Uncas, Wyoming, and other volumes of an historical design, besides sev- eral papers for our Association.
Samuel Loudon, who arrived among us about 1775, though stated by Thomas, in his history of Printing, as an Irishman, was born in Scotland. He published a newspaper in New York in 1776, before the British took possession of the city, upon which event he retired to Fishkill, on the Hudson, where he issued the New York Packet, and be- came a printer to the convention which was held at Kingston. He was ardent in the American cause, and adventurous in his career. He was for a time associated with Greenleaf in the publication of the Argus, a journal of extreme political vio- lence and anti-federal in politics. Upon the death of Greenleaf, by yellow fever in 1798, the Argus became the American Citizen, under the editorial government of James Cheetham, a writer caustic and defiant, of surpassing rigor, and of untram- melled license, and whose remarkable death in 1810 I have on a former occasion recorded.# Lou- don's devotion to the country of his adoption was patriotic indeed, but the spirit of sectional con- tention marred his fiscal prospects. I have repeat- edly seen the old man, now advancing to his four- score years, grave, gray, and infirm, perambulating
* Griswold's International Magazine, vol. 5.
*
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CHEETHAM .- COLEMAN.
the public walks, unobserved of even observers, himself indifferent to all but his own inward cogi- tations. He was in 1785 an active member of the St. Andrew's Society, and an elder of the Scotch Kirk of old Dr. Mason.
In this enumeration of the prominent political journals which preceded the formation of the His- torical Society, I shall say a few words on the New York Evening Post. It was projected at the com- mencement of the Jefferson administration, and could justly boast of its lofty parentage, Hamil- ton and Wells being among the most conspicuous of its able writers. William Coleman, an castern man, in the prime of his faculties assumed the editorship, and labored in his vocation until the period of his death in 1829, aged 63 years. The literary tact of this gazette was a striking feature in its columns ; its political acrimony was scarcely inferior to that of the American Citizen, and while Cheetham was its rival, an almost continuous war- fare was maintained between an enlarged democ- racy and the conservative doctrines of federalism. Victory on either side was often sought with little scruples touching the validity of facts. The physical organizations of the two men were not bad repre- sentatives of their mental attributes. Cheetham was some years younger than Coleman, but of robust form, larger frame, and greater height. An English radical, escaped from the Manchester riots
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of 1798, he became the principal of an already radical press, and promulgated with little circum- spection the strongest doctrines in behalf of the widest democracy. He had largely cultivated his mind by choice historical reading, and the poets ; he was remarkable for the personalities of his in- vective, and often with a delicious richness recalled to memory the style of Junius. Coleman, of deli- cate structure and often in feeble health, was less personal in his general spirit and expression, yet far from being deficient in pointed epithets and lacerating remarks. Cheetham was sententious ; Coleman often verbose. Cheetham might fell you at a blow ; Coleman's greater delight was in pro- tracted torture. There was more of policy and prudence in the latter. Their satisfaction at the prostration of their victims might be equally great. These editors seemed to live antagonistically. Cheetham might present himself in the public ways with the bold face and majestic bearing of a great captain ; Coleman might be observed on like occasions, with the grave countenance and pensive look of a thoughtful student. Cheetham might have thrown off his literary missiles at a Table d'Hôte or from the head of a drum ; Coleman profited best in the sequestered library. Cheet- ham's salutation might be a grasp of the hand that made your very knuckles ache, while with Coleman your arm might incautiously fall down
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CHEETHAM .- COLEMAN.
by your side. Cheetham wore a presumptuous front, Coleman betrayed a sinister leer ; Cheet- ham would readily forgive, Coleman long har- bored an imagined injury ; Cheetham made bare his strength, and gloried in encountering difficul- ties ; Coleman found it more congenial to under- mine and lay waste. The temperaments of the two men are pretty well manifested in the stric- tures of Cheetham on John Wood's history of the Administration of John Adams, and in Coleman's prolonged disquisitions on Jefferson's Message. Cheetham united with ample lungs in the pa- triotic bravura with General Gates and his other friends, while Coleman, more attuned to melodious strains, calmly yielded a benignant ear to the welcome notes of a pensive falsetto. Coleman might at times be soothed by a sonnet on the affections ; Cheetham demanded a chapter of Bolingbroke. They were both men of personal prowess and confident aims ; both were duellists, but that was at a period when duelling was a fashionable recreation. The idols of Cheetham were Jefferson and George Clinton ; the idols of Coleman were Hamilton and Timothy Pickering. Burr had no chance with either ; he was offensive to both, though countenanced by the Morning Chronicle, and sustained by the mollifying appli- ances of the resolute William P. Van Ness. I may say I was fairly acquainted with these two
15
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HISTORICAL DISCOURSE.
able editors ; I occasionally attended them pro- fessionally with my preceptor, Dr. Hosaek, and was often oeeupied with them in common business affairs. But I am constrained to affirm that the characters I have given them are mainly drawn from transactions associated with their political voeation. They were assuredly men of personal courage, of warni temperaments, of keen suseep- tibilities, but more or less transformned or deformed by the crafty art of the staid politieian ; for the rot- tenness of party dogmas during the eareer of the philosophie Jefferson was doubtless as great as in this our own day. At the calamities of others they could sorrow and weep as members of the household of humanity. I have witnessed Cheetham, half a mile from his residenec, expending his best energies at midnight to extinguish the flames of the humble residenee of a common eitizen, and Coleman pour out tears at the grievances of the wearied printer boy. With all their faults, they diffused much truth as well as error ; they advaneed the power of the press in talents, and in improved knowledge ; they aided the progress of literary eulture ; there- fore I have made this brief record of them. The Post has survived its half century, and still lives in more than its pristine vigor. Both editors were friendly to the Historical Society.
The New York Magazine, projeeted by the Swords, was the only monthly periodical that re-
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EARLY MAGAZINES.
ceived a becoming patronage, which sustained it for some eight or nine years, when it was succeeded by the American Magazine and the New York Review, whose writers were not unfrequently called the Mohawk Reviewers, from their hostility to the rising Jacobinism of the times. The period of the existence of these periodicals was from 1790 to 1801. The first specified was the chosen vehicle for a series of essays of a literary circle, called the Drone Club. This association, as I have already stated, included many accomplished writers, as Mitchill, Kent, &c. The last survivor of the Drones was the late Chief Justice Samuel Jones, an early member of the Historical Society and a prodigy in black-letter learning. He died in 1853, aged 80 years. In 1797 the Medical Repository was commenced by Drs. Mitchill, Miller and Smith, the first journal of a scientific character the coun- try could boast. The business of instruction in our preparatory schools was, with few exceptions, under the control of inadequate principals ; in many instances the commonest business of life was abandoned on the demand for a teacher, and the responsible duties of an intellectual guide, under- taken by individuals whose chief recommendation was their dexterity with the awl and the hammer. Some qualified for the great trust, were, however, found. Edward Riggs, long the master of a grammar school in this city, published his Intro-
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