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sicians, the illustrious father of the healing art, as the object of veneration and respect. His name and character associate themselves irresistibly with the event and business of the present day. Mild in his appearance, and dignified in his deportment, with gray hairs loosly flowing over his shoulders, the venerable Hypocrates rises to our view, honoured by his cotemporaries, and enriched with the praises of more than two thousand years. The fame of this great and good man, like a stupendous and solitary mountain, seems to have acquired new height, by the wasting effects of time upon the adjacent country. Monuments and statues erected to perpetuate the memories of heroes and conquerors, have perished with the names inscribed upon them, while the name of Hypocrates with no other passport to posterity than his writings, still lives in the admiration and esteem of millions in every part of the world.

Extract from a Lecture on the pains and pleasures of a medical life, delivered Nov. 7, 1803, by BENJAMIN RUSH, M. D.

I PROCEED to take notice of the sources of distress to a physician. These arise, in the first place, from our intercourse with our fellow citizens, being confined chiefly to those times in which they are unhappy from sickness or pain Secondly, from our being frequently obliged to witness the inefficacy of our attempts to arrest the gradual progress of death in certain diseases. The hectic pulse and purulent cough in consumption; the return of dropsy, after the operation of tapping; the wide spreading external, or the deep seated internal, cancer; the black discharges from the stomach in a bilious fever.How severe the pangs which each of these conveys to the heart of the physician! But how shall I describe his feelings when compelled to share in the grief occasioned by his inability to save the life of a favourite or only child? "Oh, save my daughter, or kill me!" said a distracted mother, upon her knees, to a physician of this city. Still more difficult would it be to paint his distress,

when called to attend the death-bed of a valuable head of a family. The clay-cold wrist, with the hand still warm the half closed, or glassy eye; the heaving breast; the faultering speech; the rapid and thread-like, or absent pulse; a bed surrounded with a group of weeping children; and above all, an affectionate wife, gazing, with silent anguish, for the last time, upon the partner of her life; or frantic with grief, rending the air with her shrieks in an adjoining room!-How affecting the scene to a physician! It would be some alleviation to the distress occasioned by it, if it occurred only in the persons and families of strangers; but the subjects of this accumulated and poignant wo, are often his early and much loved friends. To receive from them the last parting look, the affectionate grasp of the hand, the half-formed expressions of gratitude for unsuccessful efforts to prolong their lives-here language is unequal to our subject. But in losing patients for whom we do not feel an affection, we are often distressed in observing the indifference to futurity with which they are permitted by their friends to leave the world. Their only solicitude appears to consist in keeping them ignorant of their impending fate; and their only eonsolation in knowing, or believing, that they died without pain.

Besides the distress which physicians feel from the causes which have been mentioned, they are exposed to share largely in that which is introduced into a city, by the prevalence of a general and mortal epidemic. Citizens, agitated and distracted by the contradictory reports and opinions of physicians; streets crowded and obstructed by carriages conveying whole families, with piles of household furniture, into the country; parents deserted by their children; children deserted by their parents; the sick neglected, or attended only by ignorant and mercenary nurses; our ears assailed in walking the streets, by the groans and shrieks of the dying; and our eyes met in entering the doors of our patients, by a wife or a parent in tears from an apprehension of the fatal issue of the prevailing disease in a husband or a child; gloom and dejection sitting upon every countenance; an awful stillness pervading every street; and finally, nothing seen in them but herses conveying the dead to their

hasty graves. Such are the scenes which many physicians have witnessed in this country; but, affecting as they are, they exhibit but a faint idea of distress, compared with that which the members of our profession have often experienced during the prevalence of pestilential fevers in many of the cities of Europe.

Close of a Lecture on the duties of patients to their physicians, Nov. 7, 1808, by BENJAMIN RUSH, M. D.

HERE I intended to have concluded my lecture, but an event has occurred since we last met in this room,, which it would be improper to pass over in silence. The most ancient, and most prominent pillar of our medical school, is fallen; and the founder of the anatomical instruction in the United States, is no more.* Hung be his theatre in black! and let his numerous pupils, in every part of our country, to whom he first disclosed, with peculiar elegance and perspicuity, the curious structure of the human body, unite with us in dropping the tribute of a grateful tear to his memory! To all the members of his profession, his death should teach a solemn and useful lesson, by reminding them that the knowledge, by which they benefit others, will, sooner or later, be useless to themselves. To me, whom age has placed nearest to him on the list of professors, his death is a warning voice. The next summons from the grave will, most probably be mine. Yes gentlemen, these aids of declining vision, and these gray hairs, remind me, that I must soon follow my colleague and your preceptor to the mansions of the dead. When that time shall come, I shall relinquish many attractions to life, and, among them, a pleasure which to me has no equal in human pursuits: I mean that which I derive from studying, teaching, and practising medicine.

• Dr. William Shippen.

Vindication of Jay's Treaty, by ALEXANDER HAMIL

TON, ESQ.

IT was the public opinion last year, and it is an opinion still maintained among one description of Americans, that Great Britain has been so humbled by France, that she will consent to make great sacrifices for the purpose of securing peace and commerce with this country. It is also believed by many people, that the kingdom is upon the point of an internal revolution: and that, hold-ing in our hands the power of sequestrating the debts of her citizens, we may command, at all times, peace and favourable treatment.

All these opinions, though unquestionably erroneous, have contributed to raise the public expectation, respecting the success of the treaty, to an unwarrantable pitch.

With respect to the humble condition of Great Britain, where are the proofs? That her land forces were defeated, and cut to pieces, the last campaign, is undeniable; and there is no question that any combat by land, would be decided in favour of France. The numbers, the discipline, and the enthusiasm of the French forces on land, render them irresistible. But the best troops, and the best discipline, without other resources, will not maintain the greatness of a state or a kingdom, for any length of time.

France now supports her armies mostly upon her conquered countries. Her finances are exhausted; and what is, if possible, a more serious calamity, her internal dis-sentions debilitate her force, distract her councils, and disconcert her operations.

The plan of Robespierre was a system of despair. By putting every thing in requisition, the persons of men, their goods, provisions, and money, the whole force of France was collected to a point, and the whole energy of that force was exerted to defeat the most formidable combination ever raised against the independence of a nation.

This measure was, perhaps, indispensable in the crisis when it was adopted. But, fortunately, violent exertions in the body politic, as well as in the human body, are

ever followed by debility and langour. The system of requisitions, and the maximum, were calculated to destroy the capital of a country, which, in all cases, ought to be left untouched, as a source of further productions. The interest or income only of a country, can be safely used for national purposes; and when a state is compelled to seize the capital stock, though its exertions may be great, they must certainly be of short duration.

But this is not the only calamity incurred by the system of terror. To enforce such an arbitrary system, recourse must be had to violent punishment, for refusals to comply with it; and the summary mode of condemning, as well as the sanguinary process of executing, tend to excite all the malicious and revengeful passions of men.. The guillotine of France has left every deadly and rancorous passion, waiting only for a favourable moment for vengeance. The surviving friends of those who fell victims to the system of terror, will not easily forget or forgive the injuries they suffered; and thus, that terrible despotism, which for a few months, compelled all men to unite to defeat foreign foes and to crush internal insurrections; that system has spread over France the seeds of faction and dissention, which will afflict the country, and weaken all its exertions, for at least a generation to come. Thus the last season, the victories of France by land, astonished all nations, and spread dismay through Europe, while her frigates scoured the. ocean, and marred the commerce of her enemies. But the present season, her armies and her fleet are inactive, her resources fail, and all is debility and langour.

Great Britain, on the other hand, though her army was destroyed in the Netherlands, retains all her activity and resources. Her territories have not been the seat of war; her lands have been under full cultivation; her manufactures have been carried on as usual; her goods are exported nearly as cheap, and in nearly the same quantities, as in time of peace; her government retains its vigour, and her fleet, notwithstanding a scarcity of seamen, still rides mistress of the ocean. The commerce of Great Britain, though a little impaired, still exceeds that of any other country; and the government has not been compelled to distress her trade to man her navy.

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