George Hayward.
The first work printed in this country on Auscultation,--that wonderful
art of discovering disease, which, as it were, puts a window in the
breast, through which the vital organs can be seen, to all intents and
purposes, was the manual published anonymously by "A Member of the
Massachusetts Medical Society."
We are now in some slight measure prepared to weigh the record of the
medical profession in Massachusetts, and pass our judgment upon it. But
in-order to do justice to the first generation of practitioners, we must
compare what we know of their treatment of disease with the state of the
art in England, and the superstitions which they saw all around them in
other departments of knowledge or belief.
English medical literature must have been at a pretty low ebb when
Sydenham recommended Don Quixote to Sir Richard Blackmore for
professional reading. The College Pharmacopoeia was loaded with the most
absurd compound mixtures, one of the most complex of which (the same
which the Reverend Mr. Harward, "Lecturer at the Royal Chappel in
Boston," tried to simplify), was not dropped until the year 1801. Sir
Kenelm Digby was playing his fantastic tricks with the Sympathetic
powder, and teaching Governor Winthrop, the second, how to cure fever and
ague, which some may like to know. "Pare the patient's nails; put the
parings in a little bag, and hang the bag round the neck of a live eel,
and put him in a tub of water.
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