Letter from George Richards to William Croswell, 1794 September 5

One leaf containing the response of Pastor George Richards to Croswell's September 1, 1794, request for information on teaching opportunities.

1794, Triennial catalogues annotated by William Winthrop, 1794-1812.

Leather and marbled hardcover binding. Substantially annotated. The volume consists of pages from the published catalogues pasted into a blank volume. The bulk of the volume is comprised of the printed list of graduate names found in the Triennial Catalogue accompanied by handwritten biographical information, usually a sentence in length. It begins with a handwritten section titled "Settled Ministers (in the first Parish in Cambridge)." The entries generally contain a residence, date of death (abbreviated ob), age of death (abbreviated ae), and professional information. While the 1794 Catalogue comprises the majority of the volume, names were added from Triennial Catalogues through the 1812 edition. An example of an entry, for John Hancock (Harvard AB 1754), reads “Rep. for Boston, Maj. Gen. Militia. Ob. Octo. 8. 1793 AE 57 Son of Rev. John of Brantree [sic]." A March 27, 1798 letter to Judge Richard Cranch (1726-1818) from Jeremy Belknap (1744-1798, Harvard AB 1762) pasted into the back of the volume. Written only two months before his death, Belknap describes his plan to "go thro’ the whole Catalogue of the graduates of Harvard College, & relate all that’s proper to be related." Four leaves of biographical notes for the classes of 1642-1686 towards the beginning of the volume are in a different hand with the note "Rev Dr. Holmes's handwriting."

Miscellaneous correspondence,

Includes letters from John Jervis, 1st Earl of St. Vincent, to Admiral Isaac Coffin Bart in London, and several other unaddressed or unsigned letters, as well as a copy of William Cullen Bryant’s poem, "Robert of Lincoln."

Student lecture notes on the Theory & Practice of Physic, and patient case histories, of Lyman Spalding, 1795-1799 (inclusive)

Contains notes taken by Harvard student Lyman Spalding from lectures delivered by Hersey Professor of the Theory and Practice of Physic Benjamin Waterhouse (1754-1846) in 1795. The notes cover the history of medicine, theories of contemporary physicians like Herman Boerhaave, William Cullen, and John Brown, and topics like fetal growth, digestion, and circulation. The volume also contains six pages of patient case notes from Spalding’s medical practice in Walpole, New Hampshire, in 1799, which detail the patients’ symptoms and course of treatment he pursued. In the case of a young man who complained of pain in his breast following a wrestling match, Spalding bled him and prescribed a cathartic of soap and aloes. Spalding also operated on a man who cut off part of his ankle with an ax.

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.

Student notebook of Benjamin Waterhouse: 1776

Volume containing notes taken in 1776 by Benjamin Waterhouse (1754-1846) on medical lectures given in Scotland by University of Edinburgh Professor Andrew Duncan (1744-1828). The lectures focused on pathology, with attention given to secretion, absorption, nutrition, excretion, circulation, and respiration. There are also notes on common medicines and their indications and contraindications, such as emetics, cathartics, diaphoretics, and diuretics.

The Mahomedan law of succession to the property of intestates: in Arabick, engraved on copper plates from an ancient manuscript

with a verbal translation and explanatory notes by William Jones.

Letter from William Croswell to George Richards, 1794 September 1

One-page letter from Croswell to George Richards, the Pastor of the Universal Society in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, requesting information about teaching opportunities in the area.

1794, Catalogus eorum qui in Universitate Harvardiana, Cantabrigiae, in republica Massachusettensi, ab anno MDCXLII, ad annum MDCCXCIV. Alicujus gradû laureâ donati sunt.

Modern hardcover binding around original handsewn paper binding. Missing title page and first page of text. Key to abbreviations titled "Explination" on flyleaf with abbreviations for Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Long Island, New York, Martha's Vineyard, New Jersey, Pensylvania [sic], Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, West Indies, Great Britain, Episcopalian, and Baptist. Heavily annotated with residence locations. Asterisks added next to the names of alumni who died after the Catalogue's publication, generally in 1795. Also includes a tipped-in page at front of volume with the names of thirteen alumni of various classes from 1650 through 1756, in one hand, a note "Joseph Lovett was of Beverly, and a minister in a town of Connecticut the name of which I do not recollect. JW" in a different hand, and a final note "I believe there was a Lovett at Norwich" in the original hand.

1794, Catalogus eorum qui in Universitate Harvardiana, Cantabrigiae, in republica Massachusettensi, ab anno MDCXLII, ad annum MDCCXCIV. Alicujus gradû laureâ donati sunt.

Marbled paper cover. The catalogue is annotated with the residence locations for alumni, becoming more sporadic for the later classes. Asterisks are added next to the names of alumni who died after the Catalogue's publication through the end of the 18th century. On inside of cover: "for the first 58 years from 1642 to 1700 inclusive, 448 persons were graduated." Note on last page: "84 died from 1791 to 1794."

Read's Delaware cases, 1793-1794

Contains legal cases transcribed by George Read containing accounts of cases before the Delaware Supreme Court.

Student essay attributed to William Ellery Channing, 1797 June 5

Three-page handwritten essay composed in English and attributed to Harvard undergraduate William Ellery Channing. The verso of the last page is inscribed "Channing 5 June 97." A quotation from Edward Young appears at the top of the first page: "A Competence is vital to content / Much wealth is corpulence, if not disease" and discusses the topic of affluence. The document includes edits and struck-through words.

Letters from Joseph McKean to William Tudor,

Two letters relaying news from Cambridge regarding student clubs and of mutual friends, and discussing their respective views on women.