The History of Dartmouth College Part 31

"'1. That each person, previous to becoming a member of the Medical inst.i.tution, shall be required to give satisfactory evidence that he possesses a good moral character.

"'2. That it be required of medical students that they conduct themselves respectfully towards the executive officers of the college, and if any of them should be guilty of immoral or ungentlemanly conduct the executive may expel them, and no professor shall receive or continue to receive as his private pupil any such expelled person, or recommend him to any other medical man or inst.i.tution.

"'3. That the executive officers of the college be, and hereby are authorized to visit the rooms of the medical students whenever they think proper.'

"In the year 1812, some important changes were made in the economy of the inst.i.tution. Up to this time the degree of Bachelor of Medicine only was conferred upon recent graduates, while the degree of M.D. was only allowed in course three years after graduation. This was now changed, and the degree of Doctor of Medicine was conferred upon all medical graduates. The term of study was again changed, and fixed at the present standard. Another of the new regulations and perhaps the least agreeable one to the students, compelled candidates to read their theses publicly in the chapel.

"The Faculty was also strengthened by the appointment of Rufus Graves, Esq., as lecturer on Chemistry, making this department, for the first time, a separate branch. Colonel Graves, although a good lecturer, was an unsuccessful manipulator, which caused his dismission in 1815, three years later. During the same year [1812, at Dartmouth] we find that Mr. Reuben D. Mussey, a name thoroughly identified with the success of the school, and with medical progress in New Hampshire, was created a Doctor of Medicine.

"In 1814, Dr. Smith having been absent for a year, it was voted that the salary and emoluments pertaining to the chair of Medicine, be paid to Dr. Perkins, and at an adjourned meeting the resignation of Dr.

Smith was received and accepted. The Board then proceeded to elect Dr.

Mussey professor of Theory and Practice and Materia Medica. In 1816, Dr. Perkins was excused from lecturing on Surgery, and Obstetrics was added to his chair, instead, while Dr. Mussey a.s.sumed the department of Chemistry, in addition to his other labors. In the meanwhile Dr.

Smith was reelected professor of Surgery, but declining to accept, Dr.

Ma.s.sey added a course of lectures on this branch to his already laborious duties. The following year he was somewhat relieved by the choice of Dr. James F. Dana, as lecturer on Chemistry, which office he continued to hold until 1820, when he was elected to a full professorship. In August, 1819, Dr. Perkins resigned his chair.

"By vote of the Board of Trustees, in 1820, they accepted the proffered fraternization of the New Hampshire Medical Society, by sending delegates to attend the annual examinations. The statutes were also altered very materially. By these amendments the Medical Faculty were allowed the sole control of the discipline, etc., of their department. Students coming to attend lectures were not required to give evidence of the possession of a good moral character, as under the old laws. The invidious have alleged that this latter amendment enabled a larger number to avail themselves of the advantages of a medical education than might otherwise do so. The requirements for graduation were at the same time lessened, being now limited to a knowledge of Latin and Natural and Experimental Philosophy, while the examinations were to be private, instead of public, as heretofore.

"It was determined that the Medical Faculty should henceforth consist of:

"1. The president of the College.

"2. A professor of Surgery, Obstetrics, and Medical Jurisprudence.

"3. A professor of Theory and Practice and Materia Medica.

"4. A professor of Chemistry and Mineralogy.

"5. A professor of Anatomy and Physiology.

"Dr. Mussey was elected to the first of the professorial chairs; Dr.

Daniel Oliver, of Salem, Ma.s.s., to the second; Dr. James F. Dana, to the third, and Dr. Usher Parsons to the fourth. Dr. Parsons remained but two years, when Dr. Mussey was appointed professor of Anatomy, in addition to his other branches. No further change occurred until 1826, when Dr. Dana resigned the chair of Chemistry, which was filled by the election of Professor Hale, who continued to lecture until 1835, when his connection with the college ceased. The following year Dr. John Delamater was chosen professor of the Theory and Practice of Physic, and the present inc.u.mbent, Dr. O. P. Hubbard, professor of Chemistry, while in 1838 a great change was made in the Medical Faculty by the resignation of all the lecturers except Professor Hubbard. By the election of the Trustees, the Faculty now consisted of Elisha Bartlett, Oliver Wendell Holmes, John Delamater, Oliver Payson Hubbard, Dixi Crosby, and Stephen W. Williams. Dr. Bartlett resigned in 1840, and was succeeded by Dr. Joseph Roby. Dr. Delamater also left, and Dr. Holmes tendered his resignation. The next year, 1841, Dr. Phelps and Dr. Peaslee commenced their long and useful connection with the school. No farther change was made until 1849, when Dr. Roby resigned and Dr. Albert Smith was elected. In 1867 Dixi Crosby resigned the chair of Surgery, and A. B. Crosby, who had served as adjunct professor of Surgery since 1862, was elected to fill the vacancy. In 1869, Dr. Peaslee, having resigned the chair of Anatomy and Physiology, was transferred to a new chair of the Diseases of Women, while Lyman Bartlett How, M.D., was elected to fill the vacancy. And finally Dr. Dixi Crosby has sent in his resignation of the chair of Obstetrics, to take effect at the ensuing commencement (1870), thus terminating an active connection of thirty-two years with the school.

"Nathan Smith, the founder of the school, was without dispute a great man. He was born at Rehoboth, Ma.s.sachusetts, September 30, 1762.

Incited to enter the profession by witnessing an amputation in Vermont, he devoted himself to acquiring the best preliminary education his means afforded, and eventually entered his profession full of zeal and ambition, resolved to act no secondary part in his chosen vocation. To found a medical college at Dartmouth was the chief desire of his early manhood. Regardless of his own pecuniary interests, he borrowed money to buy the necessary apparatus and appliances with which to commence his course of instruction. When the increasing demands of the inst.i.tution required a building for its accommodation, it was through his personal efforts that it was secured. The means were raised and the project carried out by Dr.

Smith, who, himself, on his own responsibility, furnished a large part of the money. A part, as shown by the records, was also secured by the same gentleman from the Legislature of New Hampshire.

"Dr. Smith was a man of genius. I hazard nothing in saying that he was fifty years in advance of his profession. He was one of those characters who was not only an observing man, but, rarest of all, he was a _good observer_. Nothing escaped him, and when he had seized on all the salient points of a given subject, he astounded his listeners with the full, symmetrical character of his generalizations.

"As intances in point, let me briefly advert to one or two ill.u.s.trations. When Dr. Smith entered the profession, everything in the way of continued fever in the valley of the Connecticut was termed typhus. Dr. S. soon became convinced that while true typhus did prevail, there was yet a continued fever essentially different in its character, and so he came to differentiate between typhus and typhoid.

Noting carefully the symptoms in these cases, making autopsies whenever a chance occurred, and observing the morbid changes thus revealed, he soon found himself master of the situation. Then he wrote an unpretending little tract, in which he embodied his observations and his inferences. This brochure was undoubtedly the first comprehensive description of typhoid fever written, and covered in a wonderfully exhaustive way not only the clinical history, but the pathology, of this most interesting disease. This n.o.ble record of results, obtained by observations made mainly at Norwich, Vermont, and Cornish, New Hampshire, was almost the '_Vox clamantis in deserto_.'

"Many years later, in the great hospitals of Paris, Louis made and published his own observations in regard to the same disease, and the whole medical world rang with plaudits of admiration at his genius and learning. But in the modest little tract of Nathan Smith, the gist and germ of all the magnificent discoveries of Louis are antic.i.p.ated. And thus it is again demonstrated that men of genius are confined to no age and to no country, but whether in the wilds of New Hampshire or in the world's gayest capital, they form a fraternity as cosmopolitan as useful.

"I have recently learned an incident that still further ill.u.s.trates Dr. Smith's sagacity. While residing in Cornish he had a friend who was a sea-captain, and who, on his return from foreign voyages, was wont to relate to him whatever of interest in a medical way he might have chanced to observe while abroad. On one occasion he told Dr.

Smith that on his previous voyage one of the sailors dislocated his hip; there being no surgeon on board, the captain tried but in vain to reduce it. The man was accordingly placed in a hammock with the dislocation unreduced. During a great storm the sufferer was thrown from the hammock to the floor, striking violently on the knee of the affected side. On examination, it was found that in the fall the hip had somehow been set. This greatly interested Dr. Smith, and he questioned the narrator again and again as to the exact position of the thigh, the knee and the leg, at the time of the fall.

"From this apparently insignificant circ.u.mstance, Dr. Smith eventually educed and reduced to successful practice the method of reducing dislocations by the manoeuvre, a system as useful as it is simple, and as scientific as the principle of flexion and leverage on which it depends. Had this incident been related to a stupid man, he would have seen nothing in it, or to a skeptic, he would have discredited the whole account, but to a man of genius it furnished a clue by which another of Nature's labyrinths was traced out. This system is by far the best ever devised, symplifying and rendering easy the work of the surgeon, while reducing human suffering to its minimum.

"I do not propose to recall to your minds how much he did for Medicine and Surgery; that were the work of days, not a single hour.

"Time would fail me to relate the well authenticated traditions of his skill, his benevolence and his practical greatness. But almost from the inception of his professional life until he left for New Haven, he was the acknowledged leader of his profession in the State, and his reputation came soon to cover the whole of New England. He was the father of several sons, who have since been distinguished in the same profession. The venerable Professor N. R. Smith, of Baltimore, is the eldest, and perhaps the most celebrated, of the survivors."

The venerable Dr. A. T. Lowe adds the following valuable paragraphs:

"In the organization and early history of the Medical department of Dartmouth College Dr. Nathan Smith occupied a preeminent position. For ten or twelve years he was the actual manager and the only professor in the inst.i.tution, giving three lectures each day, for five days in the week, through the term of ten to twelve weeks. He lectured with great acceptance in all the branches of the profession then taught in the few kindred inst.i.tutions existing in the country, and he contributed liberally to the pecuniary support of the inst.i.tution, frequently to his great personal inconvenience. With these acc.u.mulated duties to discharge, he faithfully attended to a large practice in Medicine and Surgery, which was daily increasing, and severely tasking his physical as well as his intellectual powers, and his fame, in the line of his profession, soon placed him at its head; and his skill and the history of his remarkable success, so frequently announced, and so well attested, was early recognized and acknowledged, not only throughout his State, but was scarcely limited to New England. By a seeming universal consent Dr. Smith's name stood among the highest in the medical temple of fame.

"Dr. Smith was not what the world would now call a learned man. We may say of him, in this respect, what Ben Jonson said of Shakespeare: 'He knew little Latin and less Greek,' but he had a mind and a power of intellect which as eminently fitted him for a physician, as Shakespeare's genius qualified him to become a dramatist of the highest character; and whatever the occasion, whether it related to the lecturer or teacher, to the surgeon or physician, Dr. Smith could readily exercise his whole moral force for the enlightenment of his pupil, or the health of his patient.

"The writer of these lines became his pupil in 1816; attending him almost daily in his professional visits, to witness his practice and listen to his clinical instruction."

After giving one or two instances of his quick diagnostic ability and his highly successful practice, he continues:

"Dr. Smith was a great and good man. He never appeared to toil for professional fame, but to do good to his fellow-man: and in view of his virtues as a citizen and his justly preeminent skill as a physician, one of his surviving pupils of those early days, who now counts more than four-score years, feels impelled to exclaim,--Honored be the memory of Nathan Smith, the founder, father, and for many years the sustainer of the Medical Department of Dartmouth College; ever recognized by all his friends and acquaintances--and their name was legion--as an honest man and most useful citizen."

Professor Smith married successively, Elizabeth and Sarah, daughters of Gen. Jonathan Chase, of Cornish, N. H. He died at New Haven, Conn., where he had been some years a professor in the Medical Department of Yale College, January 26, 1829.

A commemorative "Address," by Professor A. B. Crosby, contains the following account of Professor Smith's successor:

"Reuben Dimond Mussey was born in Pelham, N. H., June 23, 1780. His father, Dr. John Mussey, was a respectable physician and an excellent man.

"Determined to have an education, although too poor to immediately attain it, he labored on a farm in summer and taught a school during the winter. This he continued to do until, at the age of twenty-one, he entered the Junior cla.s.s in Dartmouth College, in the year 1801. He continued to teach for his support while in college, and acquitted himself creditably as a scholar, being reckoned in the first third of his cla.s.s.

"He was graduated in August, 1803, and immediately became a pupil of Dr. Nathan Smith, the founder of Dartmouth Medical College. The following summer young Mussey taught an academy at Peterborough, and studied with Dr. Howe of Jaffrey.

"He completed his studies with Dr. Smith, sustained a public examination, and read and defended a thesis on Dysentery. The degree of Bachelor of Medicine having been conferred upon him in 1806, he commenced practice in Ipswich, now Ess.e.x, Ma.s.s. Here he practiced successfully for three years, when he settled his business and went to Philadelphia, where he engaged in medical study for a period of nine months. While at Chebacco, now Ess.e.x, Ma.s.s., he married Miss Mary Sewall, who survived the marriage only three years. He subsequently married Miss Hetty Osgood, a daughter of Dr. Osgood of Salem, who served as a surgeon in the army during the Revolution. Under the instruction of Benjamin Smith Barton, he attended a full course of lectures in the University of Pennsylvania, and was graduated as a Doctor in Medicine in the year 1809. The professors at that time were Rush, Wistar, Physic, Dorsey, Barton, and Woodhouse.

"Drs. Chapman and James gave the course in Obstetrics. Dr. Mussey here distinguished himself by a series of experiments tending to rebut some of the generally received physiological doctrines of the time.

"On his return from Philadelphia he settled in Salem, Ma.s.s., and soon afterward formed a partnership with Dr. Daniel Oliver, subsequently a professor in the Dartmouth Medical College.

"These gentlemen gave popular courses of lectures on Chemistry, in Salem, with great acceptance. Dr. Mussey remained in this field between five and six years, and attained a large practice during the last three years, averaging, it is said, a fraction over three obstetric cases a week. He had already distinguished himself as a surgeon, and in the autumn of 1814 he was called to the chair of Theory and Practice at Dartmouth. He gave in addition a course on Chemistry, most acceptably to the students, and engaged in an extended and a laborious practice.

"In 1822, Dr. Mussey was appointed professor of Anatomy and Surgery.

Until the close of the session of 1838, he held this chair, and also lectured on Materia Medica and Obstetrics, to meet occasional exigencies in the college.

"In the summer of 1818 he lectured on Chemistry in the college at Middlebury, Vt. In December, 1829, Dr. Mussey left Hanover for Paris, where he remained several months. He pa.s.sed several weeks in London, visited the great hospitals and museums, both there and in the provinces, and became acquainted with many distinguished men.

"Not far from this time he was invited to fill the chair of Anatomy and Surgery at Bowdoin College, which he did for four years in succession. In 1836 and 1837, Dr. Mussey went to Fairfield, New York, and gave lectures on surgery at the Medical College in that place.

During the year 1837 a professorship was tendered him in New York city, Cincinnati, and Nashville, Tennessee. He decided to accept the call to Cincinnati, and for fourteen years was the leading man in the Ohio Medical College. He then founded the Miami Medical College, labored a.s.siduously for its good six years, and then retired from active professional life, though still retaining all his ardor and enthusiasm for his chosen profession. At the close of his professorial duties in 1858, Dr. Mussey removed to Boston, where he spent the remainder of his life, and died from the infirmities of age, June 21, 1866.

"He had ever been from his youth a consistent, devout Christian, and his record is without spot or blemish.