Letters from Nathaniel Amory to William Tudor,

Four letters from the Boston merchant relaying news about mutual friends and associates, including John Quincy Adams, details about Amory’s real estate losses, and thoughts on Yankee sea captains.

Quitclaim, 1746 April 5

Handwritten quitclaim by David Wadsworth as beneficiary of the estate of Benjamin Wadsworth, acknowledging payment by Andrew Bordman.

Quitclaim, 1746 April 10

Handwritten quitclaim by Bryant Parrot as beneficiary of the estate of Benjamin Wadsworth, acknowledging payment by Andrew Bordman.

Quitclaim, 1746 April 10

Handwritten quitclaim by Sarah Wadsworth, widow of George Wadsworth, as beneficiary of the estate of Benjamin Wadsworth, acknowledging payment by Andrew Bordman.

Quitclaim, 1746 May 24

Handwritten quitclaim by Samuel Wadsworth as beneficiary of the estate of Benjamin Wadsworth, acknowledging payment by Andrew Bordman.

Quitclaim, 1746 June 3

Handwritten quitclaim by Samuel Pellet as beneficiary of the estate of Benjamin Wadsworth, acknowledging payment by Andrew Bordman.

Quitclaim, 1746 July 18

Handwritten quitclaim by Joseph Wadsworth as beneficiary of the estate of Benjamin Wadsworth, acknowledging payment by Andrew Bordman.

Receipt, 1746 April 26

Handwritten receipt signed by John Barrett acknowledging payment by Andrew Bordman with money granted him by the General Court due to "his sickness since he Returned from Cape Britton" and delivered by Captain Osburn and others from the Committee of War.

Bliss, Nathaniel, 1622-1654, autographed letter signed to John Winthrop; Springfield, Mass., 1 side (2 pages), 1652 December 21

Correspondence regarding an illness Bliss was suffering; he writes that the medicines Winthrop had given him were ineffective and he has been suffering fits. The letter, which was finished in an unknown hand, reports further symptoms had developed, including headache and blindness, and requests Winthrop again send instructions for taking the medicine he originally sent Bliss, and any other medicine he would recommend.

Ward, George, autographed letter signed to John Winthrop; Brainford, 1 side (3 pages), 1652 June 15

Correspondence seeking advice on treatment of a urinary condition.

Ward, John, 1606-1693, autographed letter signed to John Winthrop; Cotohit [sic], Mass., 1 side (2 pages), 1652 May 29

Correspondence requesting advice for treating occasional fits of pain and cold Ward was suffering.

Mathematical notebook, and commonplace book, circa 1689-1769

Manuscript notebook, possibly kept by Harvard students, containing 17th century English transcriptions of arithmetic and geometry texts, one of which is dated 1689-1690; 18th century transcriptions from John Ward’s “The Young Mathematician’s Guide”; and notes on physics lectures delivered by John Winthrop, the Hollis Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy at Harvard from 1738 to 1779. The notebook also contains 18th century reading notes on Henry VIII, Tudor succession, and English history from Daniel Neal’s “The History of the Puritans” and David Hume’s “History of England,” and notes on Ancient history, taken mainly from Charles Rollin’s “The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Medes and Persians, Macedonians and Grecians.” Additionally included are an excerpt from Plutarch’s “Lives” and transcriptions of three articles from “The Gentleman’s Magazine, and Historical Chronicle,” published in 1769: “A Critique on the Works of Ovid”; a book review of “A New Voyage to the West-Indies”; and “Genuine Anecdotes of Celebrated Writers, &.” The flyleaf contains the inscription “Semper boni aliquid operis facito ut diabolus te semper inveniat occupatum,” a variation on a quote of Saint Jerome that translates approximately as “Always good to do some work so that the devil may always find you occupied.” In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Harvard College undergraduates often copied academic texts and lecture notes into personal notebooks in place of printed textbooks. Winthrop used Ward’s textbook in his class, while the books of Hume, Neal, and Rollin were used in history courses taught at Harvard in the 18th century.

Sermon : manuscript, 1768

Sermon on John 15:1-2.

Student notes from medical lectures by Benjamin Rush, undated

The volumes contain student notes on a course of medical lectures given by Dr. Benjamin Rush (1746-1813) while he was Professor of the Institutes of Medicine and Clinical Practice at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, likely in circa 1800-1813. The notes indicate Rush often referenced the works or teachings of contemporaries such as Scottish physicians William Cullen, John Brown, John Gregory, and Robert Whytt, and Dutch physician Herman Boerhaave. He frequently included anecdotes and case histories of his own patients, as well as those of other doctors, to illustrate his lecture topics. He also advised students to take notes on the lectures after they ended to allow them to focus on what they were hearing. Volume 1 includes notes on: physician conduct during visits to patients; human and animal physiology; voice and speech; the nervous system; the five senses; and faculties of the mind. Volume 2 includes notes on: food, the sources of appetite and thirst, and digestion; the lymphatic system; secretions; excretions; theories of nutrition; differences in the minds and bodies of women and men; reproduction; pathology; a table outlining the stages of disease production; “disease and the origin of moral and natural evil”; contagions; the role of food, drink, and clothing in producing disease; worms; hereditary diseases; predisposition to diseases; proximate causes of diseases; and pulmonary conditions. Volume 3 includes notes on: the pulse; therapeutics, such as emetics, sedatives, and digitalis, and treatment of various illnesses like pulmonary consumption, kidney disease, palsy, and rheumatism; diagnosis and prognosis of fever; treatment of intermitting fever; and epidemics including plague, smallpox, and yellow fever, with an emphasis on the yellow fever outbreaks in Philadelphia in 1793 and 1797.