the care of Dr. Butler, a respectable physician and surgeon of Boston. In a few years he acquired the reputation of great skill in his profession, rose into extensive practice, and accumulated a fortune very considerable for those times. In 1721, when the small pox desolated the town of Boston, and filled the whole country with alarm and terror, Dr. Cotton Mather, a man of extensive knowledge and general curiosity, pointed out to the physicians of Boston, an account of the practice of inoculation for small pox, as used in the east, contained in a volume of the transactions of the royal society. This communication was received with great contempt by the whole of the faculty, who had probably come to the resolution of the physicians in Moliere, always to follow the ancient practice, whether good or bad; essere in omnibus consultationibus ancienni advisi aut boni aut mauvaisi; with the single exception of Dr. Boylston. Although this practice was unexampled in America, and not known to have been introduced in Europe, he immediately inoculated his own son, a child of six years of age, and two servants. Encouraged by the success of this experiment, he began to extend his practice. This innovation was received with a universal clamour of invective and opposition. The physicians of the town gave their unanimous opinion against it, and the selectmen of Boston passed an ordinance to prohibit it. A Scotch physician, Dr. Douglass, a man of narrow mind and malignant passions, particularly distinguished himself by his abuse of Dr. Boylston, whom he denounced as a bold, ignorant, and most dangerous quack. But, supported by a strong conviction of the great utility of this invention, and the firm support of several liberal and intelligent clergymen, he persevered; and in the course of the years 1721 and 1722, inoculated with his own hand 247 persons; thirtynine more were inoculated by others, and of the whole number, (286,) only six died. During the same period, of 5759, who had the small pox the natural way, 844, nearly one seventh, died. Still, however, Douglass and his partisans continued to inflame the public against their benefactor by viru

lent publications and furious declamation. They argued that his practice was nothing more than wilfully spreading contagion, a crime equivalent to that of poisoning-that as the disease was a judgment from God upon the sins of the people, all attempts to avert it would but provoke him the more; and, forgetting that the argument would extend to any exercise of their own profession, they even contended, that as there was a time appointed unto every man for death, it was impious to attempt to stay or to avert the stroke. Religious bigotry, being thus called into action, in addition to the feelings of personal malignity, so exasperated many of the ignorant against Dr. Boylston, that attempts were threatened against his life, and it became unsafe for him to leave his house after dusk. Time and experience at length came in to the aid of truth, opposition died away, and at last the rancorous Douglass reluctantly declared himself a convert to the new practice, without, however, having the magnanimity to confess the merit of Dr. Boylston. Boylston had the satisfaction of seeing inoculation in general use in New-England for some time before it became common in Great Britain.

In 1725, he visited England, where he was received with the most marked attention from the learned and scientific of the metropolis. He was elected a fellow of the royal society, and contracted an acquaintance and friendship with many distinguished men, particularly with the pious and learned Dr. Watts, with whom he corresponded during the remainder of his life. Upon his return he continued at the head of his profession for many years; he yet found time for literary and philosophical pursuits, and contributed several valuable papers to the transactions of the royal society. He died March 1st, 1766.

His only publications, beside his communications to the royal society, are "Some account of what is said of inoculating or transplanting the small pox, by the learned Dr. Emanuel Timonius and Jac. Pylarinus," a pamphlet, Boston, 1721, and "An historical account of the small pox, inoculated in NewEngland," &c. London, 1726.

Dr. Jackson's Eulogy on Dr. Warren.

DR. J. JACKSON, of Boston, has published A Eulogy which he lately delivered on the character of John Warren, M. D. President of the Massachusetts Medical Society. It is neatly and perspicuously written; the praise is high, yet always discriminating, and there is none of that vague exaggeration which so frequently disgusts us in compositions of this class. The following is a summary of the principal facts which he relates.

Dr. John Warren was the son of a respectable farmer in Roxbury, Mass. He was born July 27th, 1753, entered Harvard College in 1767, where he was graduated A. B. in 1771. He passed two years (at that time the customary period) in the study of medicine, with his brother, Dr. Joseph Warren, a man then eminent for his skill in medicine, but now remembered as the patriot and soldier. In 1773, he commenced the practice of his profession in Salem, where he soon gained reputation and extensive employment. With his patriotic brother, he warmly espoused the cause of liberty; and on the day following the battle of Bunker Hill, resolved to enter into the service of his country. Guided on his way by the blaze of Charlestown, he repaired with his arms and knapsack to headquarters, at Cambridge. On the road he met the tidings of his brother's death, but in the universal confusion which prevailed, it was impossible to ascertain for several days whether the report was true.

The state of torture he endured during this anxious interval, was, in the words of his own private diary, "such as none who have not felt, can form any conception of." In the warmth of his zeal he had resolved to enter the ranks as a private, but his professional merit was known, and he was immediately appointed hospital surgeon; in this capacity he accompanied the army for two years, was in the campaign on Long-Island, VOL. V. 3 E No. 19.

and in the battles of Trenton and Princeton. In 1777 he was appointed superintending surgeon of the military hospitals at Boston, and continued in this station until 1783, uniting private practice with his public duties.

In 1780 he began a course of private lectures on anatomy, which was the first ever formally delivered in New-England. Several bequests for the foundation of medical professorships in Harvard College, had been made, and at the close of the war, Dr. Warren, at the request of the corporation, formed a plan of a medical school, which was adopted, and he was appointed to the chair of anatomy. He was probably more selftaught than any man who had taken such an office within the two last centuries, never having had the benefit of personal instruction from any scientific professor. But every difficulty vanished before his zeal, industry, and talents; he delivered his lectures for twenty-six years without interruption or assistance, until 1809, when his son was associated with him. In the meanwhile his practice in Boston became very extensive and lucrative, and he twice proffered the resignation of his professorship, but was dissuaded from his purpose by President Willard. In the hurry of business, he yet found or made time for social and public duties, and even for literary labour. He was not ostentatious in his publications; but his Essay on the Mercurial Practice is pronounced worthy of high estimation among philosophers and practising physicians.

For more than thirty years he was continually, and unremittingly, employed in his professional and public labours. "Probably no man in America," says Dr. Jackson, "has gone through so much business, I will not say in the same time, but even in the longest life." He died after a short illness, in April, 1815.

In private life he was singularly estimable and exemplary.

The most striking feature of his intellectual character was the great and apparently intuitive rapidity of all his mental operations. He was skilled in all branches of medicine, but especially eminent in surgery. His rare eloquence as a lec

turer will not soon be forgotten; his voice was harmonious; his utterance distinct; his delivery full of animation; his language perspicuous and choice-above all, he was warmly interested in his subject, and anxiously solicitous to interest and inform his hearers.-Analectic Magazine.

MEDICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL INTELLIGENCE.

VAUQUELIN has published some observations on the method of precipitating copper from its solutions by iron or zinc. For this purpose, zinc answers better than iron. Unless the zinc be allowed to remain a sufficiently long time in the solution, the whole of the copper is not precipitated; and unless there be an excess of acid in the liquid, a portion of copper is precipitated in the state of oxyd. A portion of the zinc always falls in combination with the copper; therefore the copper, after the liquid is separated, ought always to be digested in dilute muriatic acid, which takes up the zinc without touching the copper.-New Monthly Mag.

Gay Lussac has finished a very laborious and complete investigation of the properties of iodine. During his experiments he discovered that chlorine possesses the property of combining in two proportions with oxygen, and of forming two acids which he calls the chloric and chlorous acids. Davy's euchlorine is Gay Lussac's chlorous acid, but the chloric appears to be the more curious and important compound. We are not yet informed how it is obtained.-Ib.

M. Chevreul, Assistant Naturalist to the Museum of Natural History of Paris, has made some new observations on the change which any fatty matter undergoes by its combination with alkali to form soap. The soap of potash and hog's