"[Signed] "GULIELMUS SNELLING."
Notwithstanding this confession and apology, the record tells us that
"William Snelling in his presentment for cursing is fined ten shillings
and the fees of court."
I will mention one other name among those of the Fathers of the medical
profession in New England. The "apostle" Eliot says, writing in 1647,
"We never had but one anatomy in the country, which Mr. Giles Firman, now
in England, did make and read upon very well."
Giles Firmin, as the name is commonly spelled, practised physic in this
country for a time. He seems to have found it a poor business; for, in a
letter to Governor Winthrop, he says, "I am strongly sett upon to studye
divinitie: my studyes else must be lost, for physick is but a meene
helpe."
Giles Firmin's Lectures on Anatomy were the first scientific teachings of
the New World. While the Fathers were enlightened enough to permit such
instructions, they were severe in dealing with quackery; for, in 1631,
our court records show that one Nicholas Knopp, or Knapp, was sentenced
to be fined or whipped "for taking upon him to cure the scurvey by a
water of noe worth nor value, which he solde att a very deare rate."
Empty purses or sore backs would be common with us to-day if such a rule
were enforced.
Besides the few worthies spoken of, and others whose names I have not
space to record, we must remember that there were many clergymen who took
charge of the bodies as well as the souls of their patients, among them
two Presidents of Harvard College, Charles Chauncy and Leonard Hoar,--and
Thomas Thacher, first minister of the "Old South," author of the earliest
medical treatises printed in the country,[A Brief Rule to Guide the
Common People in Small pox and Measles.
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