gentlemen who first established a medical school in America. In 1782 the General Assembly passed an act authorizing the managers to bind out all persons treated for venereal disease, until the expenses were liquidated from the proceeds of their labor. These expenses, it is presumed, averaged about twentyfour pounds, from that amount having been specified on the record, as the sum for which one binding had been made. Between the mortifying annoyance of the disease, the salivation of the doctors, and the limited apprenticeship, the worshipper at the shrine of Venus paid dearly for his whistle.

In 1788 a new organization of the medical department was made by the election of Drs. Samuel Duffield, Samuel. P. Griffits who subsequently became professor of materia medica and pharmacy in the Medical College of Philadelphia; Dr. Caspar Wistar, afterwards professor of chemistry and the institutes of medicine, and still later of anatomy; Drs. J. R. Rodgers, Girardus Clarkson, Michael Leib and John Morris. In less than a year (in April, 1789) Drs. Morris and Griffits, in consequence of their private business, tendered their resignations. Both of these gentlemen were popular, and although their official connection with the house had been short, the managers in accepting their resignations acknowledged, in a very handsome and complimentary manner, the value of their professional services to the house. The same month in which Drs. Morris and Griffits withdrew the medical organization was reduced to six members, by dropping Dr. Rodgers and electing Dr. N. B.Waters and Dr. William Shippen, the latter the founder of medical teaching in this country. On the 29th of March, 1790, the managers addressed a communication to these physicians, acknowledging the value of their services to the poor, and begging they would continue their several offices the coming year. This letter no doubt was intended to be antidotal, for only a short time before they had refused a very reasonable request of the medical attendants, which will receive its proper explanation when the clinical history of our subject is reached. One month after the whole body of physicians resigned, the institution losing the best medical talent in the city.

Shortly after this event, Drs. Duffield and Leib solicited an appointment to the house, and after their election, were required to become the purchasers of all the drugs consumed by the sick. The increase in the population of the Almshouse, together with

the private engagements of these gentlemen, rendered it necessary for them to ask some assistance, for which object, Dr. Cumming, August 10, 1795, was appointed assistant visiting physician. without salary.

Whatever may be thought of the credulity of the present generation, it is no less clear that the people of 1796 were not proof against charlatan imposition. Every age has had some crotchet on which to betray mental imbecility. The whale must have a tub with which to amuse itself. At the period above named, it was Perkinism or the cure of disease by metallic tractors. The most extravagant reports of extraordinary cures affected by this manipulation had been bruited abroad in advance of the doctor's arrival in Philadelphia. The eyes of the blind had been opened; the ears of the deaf unstopped; the lame man made to leap as a hart; and in fine, a universal catholicon for human diseases and infirmities had at length been discovered.

On the 27th of February the visiting committee of the house reported having witnessed several successful operations by Dr. Perkins with his metallic points, and had seen the grateful acknowledgments of many others who had been the subjects of his new method; that the hospital contained numerous cases which might be benefitted by his skill, and proposed that George Davis, one of the members of the board, be authorized to invite Dr. Perkins to attend the institution on the following Wednesday, at 10 o'clock, thus giving the other members an opportunity of being present during his visit. The doctor made his appearance on the appointed day, and managed so successfully to close the eyes of the sage managers as to secure from them the purchase of his patent for the benefit of the hospital; and this house today owns the exclusive right to practice in Philadelphia the cure of disease by metallic points.

Where is Perkinism to-day? That gigantic humbug, which overrun with unparalleled rapidity, towns, cities, villages, and rural districts at home and abroad, and was endorsed by three American universities. Gone to the tomb of the Capulets, where every other ism, system, and device of man, not resting on a substratum of truth, must sooner or later sink, never to be unburied except by the pick of some future fossilist, delving among the caput mortuums of exploded systems for specimens of human folly, either to adorn a cabinet or point the shaft of ridicule. That

Perkinism could not have proved very efficient in the Philadelphia Almshouse may be inferred from the fact that on the 20th. of March the sick had become so numerous as to require an additional number of physicians to aid Dr. Duffield and his assistant in their labors. The gentlemen selected by the board were Drs. Samuel Clements, Jr., Wm. Boyce and Samuel Cooper, at a salary each of one hundred dollars annually. It would appear Dr. Cooper declined the appointment, and the corps remained without any substitute being elected. They were required to visit the hospital three times a week ordinarily, and oftener if the state of the sick demanded it; two were to attend together, and in case an operation was required the operator was to be selected by a majority vote.

In the fall of 1797 Dr. Pleasants died, and on the 23rd of December of the same year Drs. John Church and Thomas C. James, the latter subsequently professor of obstetrics in the University of Pennsylvania, were elected, the former to supply the vacancy occasioned by the death, and the other in the place unoccupied by Dr. Cooper.

Until 1801, there were no changes to notice, when on the 6th of April of this year, Dr. Boyce tendered his resignation, shortly after which Dr. Elijah Griffiths was elected his successor. In August, Dr. Duffield, who seemed to be a necessary appurtenance to the house, having been connected with it for twenty-nine years, was dismissed in consequence of having furnished a certificate admitting a patient with typhus fever into the institution. At this time there seems to have been very close police exercised by the managers over admissions, in consequence no doubt, of the recent epidemic of yellow fever which had desolated so many homes, and produced such wide-spread distress and consternation in the community. After the removal of Dr. Duffield, the number of medical attendants was increased by the election, on September 7, 1801, of Drs. John Proudfit, Philip Syng Physick, the father of American surgery, and Charles Caldwell, familiar to the present generation of medical men as the author of his own biography; a man unquestionably of remarkable intellectual force, combined, however, with such incongruous elements of character, as were calculated to defeat the best appointed plans of ambition. These gentlemen were to receive a salary of twentyfive pounds per annum.

In 1804 a very extraordinary event occurred in view of the very amiable nature of doctors in general. This was a quarrel among the physicians, originating mainly in a private difficulty between Drs. Caldwell and James. The dispute grew to such magnitude, that the managers, as the shortest way to establish the peace of the institution, on the 9th of January proceeded to the election of a new board, consisting of Drs. Philip Syng Physick, John Church, Elijah Griffiths, John Rush, Thomas C. James, Benjamin Smith Barton and Samuel Stewart; each of whom was to receive the old salary of twenty-five pounds, subject to all reasonable out-door calls. Dr. Rush declined the appointment, and on the 19th of the same month, Dr. James Reynolds was elected to take his place.

On the 17th of January, 1805, the same year in which he was elected to the chair of surgery in the University, Dr. Physick offered his resignation. Very soon after its acceptance, Dr. James Hutchinson was appointed his successor. The latter gentleman's name is associated with a modification of the Desault splint for fractures of the thigh. His service was of short duration, his resignation being recorded three months after the announcement of his election. During this year a difficulty occurred between the managers and Dr. Barton, in consequence of the latter declining to attend out-door patients. Their views being irreconcilable, the doctor was dismissed, and to supply the two vacancies now existing, Drs. J. Cathrall and Peter Miller were elected by the board.

It was also during this year Dr. Church died. His place was occupied by the brilliant but short-lived John Syng Dorsey, who in his brief career of professional life, occupied no less than three prominent positions in the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania-first, as an adjunct to Physick; then as a successor to Chapman on materia medica, and last, as a successor to Wistar on anatomy. The next change was produced by the death of Dr. Reynolds in 1807. After this event an additional physician was added to the corps by the election of Dr. Nathaniel Chapman to supply the vacancy occasioned by the death of Dr. Reynolds, and Dr. Joseph Parrish to make up the complement of the staff.

On the 17th of November, 1809, a resolution was introduced and adopted by the managers, constituting the medical officers of

the Almshouse a medical board. They were to meet the first Monday of every month, at 4 o'clock, P. M., and report rules for the government of the hospital department.

The following year, 1810, furnishes us with the first instance, so far as I know, of a hospital in this country receiving a female resident physician. On the first of July, a Mrs. Lavender made application to be admitted to the institution as an assistant midwife, in order the better to perfect her education. Such a charming name as "Lavender" so overcame the physical senses of the members of the board, that they lost their intellectual senses and granted her petition. During my term of service in the winter of 1856, several women from the Female Medical College of this city were furnished with tickets to the clinical lectures without my knowledge. You may imagine my astonishment, when entering the lecture-room to discharge the duties of the hour, I saw seated on one side of the amphitheatre a number of these misguided creatures. I had selected for the instruction of the class that morning a series of cases all illustrating some disease of the genital organs; and as it was now too late to recede, I proceeded to operate for phymosis, and to exhibit and treat some blooming specimens of chancre. Notwithstanding there was a large number of male students present, and the personal exposure necessary for the conduct of the clinic, they never betrayed the slightest evidence of shame, but sat with the imperturbable indifference of primeval innocence. This I suppose some would consider praiseworthy and philosophical, but I confess it exhibited to me a perversion of character utterly below my preconceived views ever entertained of strong-minded women. The occurrence was never repeated, as I at once addressed a letter to the board, when their money was returned and admittance refused.

Two vacancies occurred in 1810, one by the withdrawal of Dr. Griffits and the other by the death of Dr. Stewart. To supply these, Drs. Stewart and Joseph Klapp were elected. On the 2d of September, 1811, Dr. Dorsey tendered his resignation, and on the 9th of the same month, was succeeded by Dr. Thomas Hewson.

The service of various gentlemen now connected with the house was so arranged that one portion were to attend to surgical and the other to medical and obstetrical cases. The surgical staff consisted of Drs. Cathrall, Miller and Parrish; the medical, of