livered lectures on the several branches assigned to them; and though the number of students who usually attend them is comparatively 'small, yet they are annually increasing; and the erudition and talents of the professors afford a satisfactory pledge that the institution will, at no distant period, reach a much higher station both of respectability and usefulness.

The fourth medical school formed in the United States is that connected with Dartmouth College, in the state of New Hampshire. This establishment for instruction in medicine was founded in the year 1798; when Dr. Nathan Smith was appointed professor of Medicine, to lecture on Anatomy, Surgery, Midwifery, and the Theory and Practice of Physic; and Dr. Lyman Spalding, professor of Chemistry and Materia Medica. A considerable number of young gentlemen have attended the lectures, and several have received the honours of this institution.

The last medical school established in the United States is that of Lexington in Kentucky. This was founded in 1798, when Dr. Frederick Ridgely was appointed professor of the Practice of Physic, Obstetrics, and Materia Medica; and Dr. Samuel Brown, professor of Anatomy, Surgery, and Chemistry. Its present state is not known.

The establishment of Medical Schools in the United States may be considered as forming a grand æra in our national progress, and as producing important effects on the character of our physicians. The happy influence of these institutions has also been much aided by the formation of Medical Societies in almost every state, which

have all come into being within the last forty years. The effect of such establishments in exciting a thirst for the acquisition of knowledge; in producing a spirit of generous emulation; in cultivating a taste for observation and inquiry; and in combining the efforts and the skill of physicians in every part of our country, must be obvious to every attentive mind. Many of the Inaugural Theses, defended and published by the students in the American medical schools, would be considered as honourable specimens of talents and learning in the most renowned universities of Europe*.

Within the last fifteen years of the century under review, medical publications have greatly multiplied in the United States; many of which do equal honour to their authors and their country †. Among these the numerous and valuable works of Dr. Rush hold the first place; and to no individual are we more indebted for promoting, both by precept and example, that laudable and enlightened zeal for medical improvements, which has been so happily increasing, for a number of years past, among American physicians. In a catalogue of our medical writers, also, Drs. Maclurg, Mitchill, Barton, Ramsay, Caldwell, Currie, and several others, would be entitled to particular notice, did not the limits of

* Within the last ten or twelve years, all the medical schools in the United States have concurred in permitting their medical graduates to write and defend their Inaugural Dissertations in the English language. Whether this is to be considered as an improvement, or a literary retrocession, is a question which it is proposed to discuss in another place.

+ See Additional Notes-(F F),

the present sketch forbid an attempt to do justice to their respective merits.

In the year 1797 a periodical publication, under the title of the Medical Repository, was commenced by Drs. Mitchill, Miller, and Smith, which, from the peculiar circumstances of the country, may be considered as an important event, in noting the successive steps of medical improvement in the United States. In the premature death of the lastnamed gentleman, who bade fair to attain the most honourable eminence in his profession, this work sustained a great loss. It is still, however, pro

* Dr. Elihu H. Smith was born in the year 1771, at Litchfield, in the state of Connecticut, where his father, a respectable physician, still resides. He entered Yale college at the age of eleven; and after leaving that institution, completed his education under the care of the rev. Dr. Dwight, since president of Yale college, who at that time presided over an academy of distinguished reputation at Greenfield. After this he pursued a regular course of medical studies under the direction of his father; commenced the practice of physic at Weathersfield in 1792, and removed to the city of New York in 1793, where he remained until 1798, when he fell a victim to the yellow fever, which raged with so much violence in the city in the autumn of that year. The surviving editors of the Medical Repository speak of their deceased colleague in the following honourable terms:

"As a physician, his loss is irreparable. He had explored, at his early age, an extent of medical learning, for which the longest lives are seldom found sufficient. His diligence and activity, his ardour and perseverance, knew no common bounds. The love of science and the impulse of philanthropy directed his whole professional career, and left little room for the calculations of emolument. He had formed vast designs of medical improvement, which embraced the whole family of mankind, were animated by the soul of benevolence, and aspired after every object of a liberal and dignified ambition. His writings, already published, incessantly awaken regret, that the number of them is not greater.

secuted with undiminished excellence and success; and furnishes at once very reputable specimens of the learning, talents, and zeal, of many American physicians; and a highly useful vehicle for conveying to the public a knowledge of every improvement in the science of medicine.

They displayed singular diligence and acuteness of research, the talents of accurate and extensive observation, great force and precision of reasoning, and the range of a vigorous and comprehensive mind."-Medical Repository, v. ii, pp. 214, 215, second Edition.

CHAPTER V.

GEOGRAPHY.

As few sciences are more interesting than Geo

graphy, so few have received more attention, or been more improved and extended during the period under consideration. At the beginning of the century, more than half the surface of the globe was either entirely unknown to the enlightened inhabitants of Europe, or the knowledge of it was so small and indistinct, as to be of little practical value. Since that time such discoveries and improvements have been made, that geography has assumed a new face, and become almost a new science*. A spirit of curiosity has stimulated mankind to unprecedented activity in exploring remote regions of the earth. Individual voyagers and travellers, and private associations, have done much to extend our acquaintance with the globe. Beside the exertions of these, the governments of Great Britain, France, Spain, Sweden, Denmark, and Russia, have severally directed or encouraged xpeditions of discovery and of scientific research.

By Geography here is meant not only what the word strictly imports, viz. a description of the extent, divisions, and aspect, of the surface of our globe, but also some of the other statistical inquiries, which modern writers, however improperly, have gene rally agreed to include in geographical treatises.