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Fevers and other Medical Subjects, der the signature either of Senex

one volume, octayo; and in 1825, an account of Typhus Syncopalis. The latter has several times been republished entire, or abridged in other works, as in the Medical Re corder, Boston Medical Journal, Potter and Calhoun's edition of Gregory's Practice, and Thatcher's Modern Practice.

As there was no public medical school in Connecticut when I studied physic, of course I began to practice under a license from the Medical Society, and it was not till 1819, that I received the honorary degree of M. D. from Yale College. The following are the principal specimens of the attention with which I have been honored by my professional brethren. Since the organization of the medical school of Yale College, perhaps three tenths of the time I have been one of the censors or members of the examining committee. I was a member of the committee for devising ways and means and forming the plan for the Retreat for the Insane, as a colleague with Dr. Todd, Dr. Woodward, Dr. Tully, Dr. Sumner, Dr. Ives, and others, and with the assistance of Dr. Tully, wrote the committee's address to the public, which preceded our soliciting donations. My name was at the head of the committee, and I was therefore chairman of the body; not from any merit of mine, but from the modesty of Dr. Todd, who did not wish to appear as the official leader of an institution, over which it was expected he would soon preside. In 1832, I was elected vice president of the Medical Society of Connecticut, and in 1834, president. Having held the latter place three years, it is my intention to decline being a candidate at the ensuing meeting of the medical convention, in May next. Many of my fugitive medical essays, besides what I wrote for the Medical Recorder, have been published un

or Celsus, in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, or the United States Medical and Surgical Journal, though a few others have sometimes appeared in different periodicals. The article on the varioloid and small pox, and on the moral effects of prevalent malignant dis eases, in the Christian Spectator, for March, 1830, was written by me; and I have translated a few articles from the French and from the German, for Silliman's Journal.

A few farther particulars may perhaps be worth stating. Like many other young men in early life, I entered pretty ardently into politics, reading not only party productions, but treatises upon the law of nations, history, and various things of the kind. But as early as 1800, I became very heartily disgusted with the subject, and gradually got out of its reach, so that for more than twenty years I have not voted at a single election. In my religious views, I am a Christian, and as far as I understand the subject, I am nearer a Quaker in sentiment than any other sect. I am in favor of defensive war, and consider it as much a duty to arm against a band of robbers or pirates, as against a flock of wolves or tigers; and I do not consider it as a virtue to refuse customary titles of respect, or to use thee and thou, or to wear a broad-brimmed hat and a drab coat, or to number the months and days of the week instead of naming them. With these exceptions, and perhaps a few others of the kind, I think I must be considered as in sentiment a Quaker. This may perhaps account satisfactorily to you, for some peculiarities in my habits, which you may have noticed. As to mental philosophy, though here my ac quirements are rather limited, I am nearer a Kantian than any thing else. In medicine, in general, I coincide with the views of the

school of the Vitalists. My early medical reading was pretty extensive; but of late, I have attended but little to the subject, and in fact, have lost much of my taste for medicine. From the state of my health, being unable to attend closely to any one thing for a long time, a great portion of my information is but little more than smattering, scarcely going deeper than the surface. Perhaps it more nearly resembles the superficial knowledge which we occasionally meet with in an old bookseller, who has picked up here and there a little upon almost every thing about which his

customers converse.

My father, in common with most country clergymen of his day, besides a slender salary, had a small farm of his own, upon which he generally labored more or less, every day through the summer. In the winter, he often had a small school, composed of twelve or fifteen young men, who were the sons of farmers, or young mechanics, who had just gone through their apprenticeship. My mother was a woman of uncommonly good management in her domestic affairs. With the small salary, the little farm, and the school, the family (which usually consisted of my father and mother, three children, and a female domestic, who in many particulars performed the offices of a boy and girl) lived very comfortably and decently. My father had not many books, but he had a share in a good public library in the city, and we had access to a small library in the parish. The family frequently spent their winter evenings in listening to some one who was reading a book of travels, the Spectator, the history of our country and revolution, foreign history, or some interesting work of the kind. Besides attending daily to the duties common to religious families, Saturday evening was spent principally in reading the Bible,

and learning or repeating the catechism. After going to church twice on Sunday, the rest of the time was spent in reading the Scriptures, or such writers as Watts and Doddridge. In the evening, some of our neighbors generally called in, and the time passed in pleasant conversation upon the events of the past week, and other topics of the day. Except that my father from the difficulty of procuring sufficient assistance in the management of his little farm, had occasionally to labor rather too hard, in addition to his regular, weekly preparation for the pulpit, our family may be considered, during the first fourteen years of my life, while I remained at home, as living very comfortably, rationally, and pleasantly. My parents, in common with most of their day, knew very little of the nature and necessity of a proper physical education; consequently, as I was always a feeble child, I was probably injured greatly, by ill directed kindness. I was unable to go very much to the common school, and never became familiar with the common athletic sports of boys. I well recollect, that when I was a large boy, I had been so much confined within doors, that my countenance was as pale and white as milk, resembling those plants which have vegetated in the cellar without the light of the sun. were made to teach me to labor on the farm, but these were rather injudiciously managed. The common tools on the farm were too heavy and clumsy, for one so feeble as I, to use to advantage. My father seems never to have thought, how easy it might have been to furnish me with a light hatchet, hoe, fork, or rake. I believe this is rather a common oversight with farmers, in their first attempts to teach their boys to labor. Those who are sturdy soon overcome the difficulty of using heavy instruments; but they are a great em

Some attempts

barrassment to the slender. As I kept tolerably busy within doors with my books, my deficiency in labor, and other exercises that tend to strengthen and harden the constitution, was not much thought of. The consequence was, that I early contracted a tender and effeminate habit, which continues to this day, and has been the great burden of my life. Every boy in New England, that is born and brought up in the country, ought to be early and habitually taught the use of the axe, the hoe, the spade, and the rake, so that if occasion should require, it would be no great task for him to cut his own wood, and make his own garden, whatever might be his future condition, or profession, or situation in life. Such knowledge is often of great convenience; but its greatest benefit is in giving strength and firmness to the system. In addition to the great and irremediable mistake which was made in my physical education, as great or greater blunder was made in the literary and scientific department. I was sent to college before I was quite fifteen years old, which was one year at least, and probably two years, too early for me to receive the full benefit of the institution. My miscellaneous information from reading history, travels, essays, and such books as are usually found in social libraries, together with a pretty familiar acquaintance with Salmon's and Guthrie's geographies, as well as with the early editions of Morse, was tolerably extensive for a lad of my age, but I was not very well grounded in Latin and Greek, and had no foundation laid in the mathematics. The consequence was, though I passed regularly through the course, without a single public or private censure from any of the faculty, and with even some small tokens of approbation, yet I made no figure as a scholar. I had some standing from the amount of my former miscel

laneous and general information; but that was all for which I was in any way distinguished. Except learning the elementary parts of the mathematics, so as to be able to teach surveying and navigation tolerably well for that day, I knew nothing further of that science.

My mind was not so closely disciplined, and my habits of attention were not so accurately formed, as to have enabled me to make much progress in mathematics, during the rapid manner in which the science was studied by the class. I believe the same was the fact with all the younger part of my associates. They made but little progress in a study for which they either were not ripe, or were not previously prepared. My acquirements in the languages were merely decent, and not such as to merit any peculiar notice, either for eminence or defect. On the whole, the four years of my college life, though they were far from being trifled away or lost, were spent under very great and permanent disadvantages, and I did not acquire half the solid learning, that I might have done had I been two years older, and proportionably better prepared. Many with a real or affected modesty, blame themselves for their misimprovement of early advantages. I have very little of this lamentation to make. The error consisted principally in the mistaken judgment of my friends, in estimating my early acquirements greater than they actually were, and supposing me to have a ripeness of mind, to which I had not attained on entering college.

These are the common mistakes

of parents, guardians, and teachers. If the memory is capacious and tolerably stored with facts-as was the case with mine-the inquiry too often is not made, to ascertain how far the other faculties of the mind are developed. The judgment may still be in embryo. But if the other

faculties are tolerably developed, they have probably not been disciplined, so that they can be applied with facility and rapidity to the higher branches of education, in the manner in which they are usually studied in a common academical course. This is a statement of facts, rather than an apology.

The principal object in almost all my literary, philosophical, biblical and scientific pursuits, has been my own amusement for the time being, taking but little pains to arrange it so as to be serviceable to others. The Rev. Henry Channing, now of New York, Professor Tully, Dr. J. P. Kirtland of Poland, Ohio, Dr. Comstock of Lebanon, Dr. Hooker of New Haven, Dr. Bronson of Waterbury, and Dr. Woodward of Worcester, have been among my principal correspondents. To these I might add Dr. McGregor of Rochester, Dr. Swann of Tennessee, Dr. Calhoun of Philadelphia, Dr. Cartwright of Natchez, and Dr. Fisk of Salisbury, as occasional correspondents. The venerable Noah Webster, LL. D., is among my most respected correspondents. He possesses letters from me upon criticism, etymology, and other philosophical subjects. He also did me the honor, occasionally to send me his manuscripts, soliciting my remarks upon them previous to publication. Among the physicians with whom I have been most intimate, are the names of Coggswell, Todd, Ives, Tully, Woodward, Hough, Ward, Hooker, Comstock, North, Bronson, and various others. My friend, Chester Whittelsey, Esq., of Southington, possesses more of my letters than any other man. Judge Hosmer, and the late Richard Alsop, Esq., were among my earliest and permanent friends in this city. Asahel H. Strong, Esq., Charles Denison, Esq., President Davies, the Rev. Thomas Robbins, and Prof. Silliman, are among my most distinguished college classmates.

The above is the outline of all that I recollect concerning myself, which you would probably feel much interest in knowing. I am conscious of having omitted several names of gentlemen, to whom I have been under much obligation; others have undoubtedly slipped my memory.

As you are an antiquarian, I intend to give you, by way of postscript, a brief family record.

Thomas Miner, the progenitor of all of the name of Miner in Connecticut, came from England, and landed at Salem, Massachusetts, 1630, bringing with him three sons, who appear to have been men grown. The further history of the father is unknown; but the sons, whose names I believe were Thomas, Clement, and John, came to Connecticut, with the colony that settled Windsor, Hartford, and Wethersfield. Either Clement or Thomas, or both of them, were in the Pequod expedition, when one of them was so badly wounded, that he was taken up for dead. He however recovered. From this early acquaintance with New London county, one of them settled at Groton, and the other at Stonington. John went among the first settlers to Stratford, and upon the division of the inhabitants of that settlement, he was one of the party that removed to Woodbury, where they soon founded a new town. He was the first town clerk of Woodbury, and held the office thirty years. years. A son of his, Col. Joseph Miner, was frequently a representative of his town to the legislature, and once was a member after he was ninety years old. He lived till my father was twenty five or thirty years old, and died at the advanced age of a hundred and two years. Thomas, a brother of his, who was my father's grandfather, died rather early in life. Thomas, his son, was my grandfather, and died at the age of ninety

four, when I was about twenty years old. His son, the Rev. Thomas Miner, was born June 20, 1736, O. S., and died April 28, 1826. He was the first minister of Westfield, a parish of Middletown, where he was ordained, December, 1773. He retained his pastoral charge to his death. He

had three sons: Thomas, the subject of this notice, David Brainerd, and Gilbert. The latter two were never married. David B. is supposed to have died in the service of one of the South American republics, about the year 1817. Gilbert died at home, two or three years before his father. My mother was Dorothy Brainerd, daughter of Hezekiah Brainerd, Esq., of Haddam, and niece of the missionary, David Brainerd. She was born Dec. 20, 1739, and died June 5, 1828. Hezekiah Brainerd was town clerk of Haddam for many years, and frequently a representative to the legislature. He was the son of Hezekiah Brainerd, who was one of the king's council for the colony of Connecticut, and died at Hartford, a middle aged man, during a session of the legislature. His father was Deacon Daniel Brainerd, the ancestor of all of the name of Brainerd in this country. He came from England when a boy, and was brought up in the family of Wads

worth, at Hartford. He was one of the first settlers of Haddam, and died there about 1717, aged seventy four. David Brainerd, the missionary, was the son of the first Hezekiah, and brother of my grandfather. My grandfather Brainerd's wife was Mary, daughter of the Rev. Phineas Fisk of Haddam. Her father was one of the tutors of Yale College, while it was at Saybrook. He was son of Dr. John Fisk of Milford, who appears to have been a son of a Mr. Fisk of Massachusetts, who was both a clergyman and physician, a sketch of whose life is in Elliott's biography. The Rev. Phineas Fisk was also a physician. The physicians and clergymen were frequently the same man, in the early settlement of New England. It is said the first Thomas Miner and his sons were all surveyors, having, in this respect at least, rather more education than most of the early settlers. This accounts for John's having the place of the first town clerk in Woodbury. I once saw a record of my family, extending back to an ancestor who died in 1359; but as it was only a barren list of names, it had not much interest, and I did not take a copy.

Yours, with sentiments of respect and friendship,

THOMAS MINER.

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