Letter from James Winthrop to William Bentley, 1784 March 13

Two folio-sized leaves containing a two-page handwritten letter from Winthrop to Bentley briefly mentioning book purchases and discussing Joseph Priestley's Disquisitions relating to matter and spirit.

Letter from James Winthrop to William Bentley, 1784 March 22

Two octavo-sized leaves containing a three-page handwritten letter from Winthrop to Bentley discussing the Royal Society's Philosophical Transactions.

Letter from James Winthrop to William Bentley, 1784 April 6

Two folio-sized leaves containing a two-page handwritten letter from Winthrop to Bentley discussing Joseph Priestley's Disquisitions relating to matter and spirit, and possible references to astronomical phenomena in mythological stories. Winthrop briefly mentions a 1769 Harvard student poem attributed to his classmate Jonathan Williams Austin (1751-1779; Harvard AB1769).

Letter from James Winthrop to William Bentley, 1784 April 11

One folio-sized leaf containing a two-page handwritten letter from Winthrop to Bentley discussing the case of "Capt. H." whose ship was "legally condemned by the French Court.

Letter from James Winthrop to William Bentley, 1784 May 15

One octavo-sized leaf containing a brief one-page handwritten letter from Winthrop to Bentley with a complaint about not receiving the Salem Gazette.

Letter from James Winthrop to William Bentley, 1784 May 17

Two octavo-sized leaves containing a two-and-a-half-page handwritten letter from Winthrop to Bentley discussing Alexander Pope and mythology, and a brief criticism of John Moore's A view of society and manners.

Letter from James Winthrop to William Bentley, 1784 June 12

Two folio-sized leaves containing a two-and-a-half-page handwritten letter from Winthrop to Bentley discussing mythology, a reference to the writing of David Hoar, and miscellaneous news.

Letter from James Winthrop to William Bentley, 1784 June 18

Two folio-sized leaves containing a two-and-a-half-page handwritten letter from Winthrop to Bentley discussing "the disturbances & murders at the Southward," the disciplinary case of Charles Ferguson of Charleston, Carolina who entered with the Class of 1786, and criticism of a new, unidentified Harvard Corporation member, likely John Lowell (1743-1802; Harvard AB 1760) who was elected to the Corporation in April 1784.

Letter from James Winthrop to William Bentley, 1784 July 9

Two octavo-sized leaves containing a two-page handwritten letter from Winthrop to Bentley discussing the Charles Ferguson disciplinary case.

John Warren's copy of votes from a meeting of the Boston Medical Society, 1784 May 3

This document lists the eleven votes cast at a meeting of the Boston Medical Society on May 3, 1784. It was authorized as a "true coppy" by Thomas Kast, the Secretary of the Society. The following members of the Society were present at the meeting, all of them doctors: James Pecker, James Lloyd, Joseph Gardner, Samuel Danforth, Isaac Rand, Jr., Charles Jarvis, Thomas Kast, Benjamin Curtis, Thomas Welsh, Nathaniel Walker Appleton, and doctors whose last names were Adams, Townsend, Eustis, Homans, and Whitwell. The document indicates that a meeting had been held the previous evening, as well (May 2, 1784), at which the topics on which votes were taken had been discussed. The votes, eleven in total, were all related to the doctors' concerns about John Warren and his involvement with the emerging medical school (now Harvard Medical School), that school's relation to almshouses, the medical care of the poor, and other related matters. The tone and content of these votes reveals anger on the part of the members of the Boston Medical Society towards Warren. This anger appears to have stemmed from the perceived threat of Warren to their own practices, exacerbated by a vote of the Harvard Corporation on April 19, 1784. This vote authorized Warren to apply to the Overseers of the Poor for the town of Boston, requesting that students in the newly-established Harvard medical program, where Warren was Professor of Anatomy and Surgery, be allowed to visit the hospital of the almshouse with their professors for the purpose of clinical instruction. Although Warren believed that the students would learn far more from these visits, in regards to surgical experience, than they could possibly learn in Cambridge, the proposal provoked great distrust from the members of the Boston Medical Society, who accused Warren of an "attempt to direct the public medical business from its usual channels" for his own financial and professional gain.

An essay on the universal plentiude of being and on the nature and immortality of the human soul and its agency : manuscript, [1784]

Autograph manuscript, signed, with autograph manuscript revisions.

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.

Nuremberg Region, Germany, 1714 (Raster Image)

This layer is a georeferenced raster image of the historic paper map entitled: Prospect und Grundris der des Heil: Röm. Reichs-Stadt Nürnberg : samt ihren Linien und Gegend auf eine Meil-wegs herumb, edirt von Ioh. Bap. Homann daselbst. It was published by Ioh. Bap. Homann in [1714]. Scale [ca. 1:25,500]. Covers Nuremberg Region, Germany. Map in German. The image inside the map neatline is georeferenced to the surface of the earth and fit to the Deutsches Hauptdreiecksnetz (DHDN) 3-degree Gauss-Kruger Zone 4 coordinate system. All map collar and inset information is also available as part of the raster image, including any inset maps, profiles, statistical tables, directories, text, illustrations, index maps, legends, or other information associated with the principal map. This map shows features such as roads, drainage, towns and villages, built-up areas and selected buildings, fortification, ground cover, and more. Includes index and view of Nuremberg. This layer is part of a selection of digitally scanned and georeferenced historic maps from The Harvard Map Collection as part of the Imaging the Urban Environment project. Maps selected for this project represent major urban areas and cities of the world, at various time periods. These maps typically portray both natural and manmade features at a large scale. The selection represents a range of regions, originators, ground condition dates, scales, and purposes.

Nantucket Shoals, Massachusetts, 1784 (Raster Image)

This layer is a georeferenced raster image of the historic paper map entitled: A chart of Nantucket shoals, surveyed by Paul Pinkham. Survey data was taken from "the light house on Nantucket Point in 1784." It was published and sold by John Norman, Feb. 10th, 1791. Scale [ca. 1:145,000]. Covers Nantucket Sound, Massachusetts and surrounding land. The image inside the map neatline is georeferenced to the surface of the earth and fit to the Massachusetts State Plane Coordinate System, Mainland Zone (in Feet) (Fipszone 2001). All map collar and inset information is also available as part of the raster image, including any inset maps, profiles, statistical tables, directories, text, illustrations, or other information associated with the principal map. This nautical chart shows coastal features such as lighthouses, rocks, shoals, currents, channels, points, coves, harbors, islands, and more. Depths are shown by soundings and shading. Land features include settlements, wind mills, and more. This layer is part of a selection of digitally scanned and georeferenced historic maps of Massachusetts from the Harvard Map Collection. These maps typically portray both natural and manmade features. The selection represents a range of regions, originators, ground condition dates (1755-1922), scales, and purposes. The digitized selection includes maps of: the state, Massachusetts counties, town surveys, coastal features, real property, parks, cemeteries, railroads, roads, public works projects, etc.

Kitāb Maṭālib ahl al-qurbah fī sharḥ duʻāʼ Abī Ḥarbah / taʼlīf al-Shaykh al-ʻĀlim al-ʻĀmil al-ʻAllāmah al-Muḥaqqiq al-Mudaqqiq al-Fahhāmah al-Sayyid Badr al-Dīn Ḥusayn ibn al-Sharīf ʻAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Muḥammad ibn ʻAlī al-Ahdal : manuscript, 1714

Foliated 1-442. Missing f. 441.