College Book 7, 1750-1778

This volume contains a fair copy of minutes from Corporation meetings held from Sept. 17, 1750 through April 23, 1778. It begins with an alphabetical index and contains entries related to a wide range of topics, including the challenges of operating the Charlestown ferry (due to the river freezing, fear of smallpox, and other issues); increases in "pecuniary mulcts" (fines) for breaches of specific College laws; the establishment of the Dudleian lecture; the selection and financial support of missionaries to various Indian tribes; honorary degrees awarded to Benjamin Franklin and George Washington; gifts to the library as it was rebuilt in the wake of the fire of 1764 (many entries provide the title and author of books donated); the management of land and property belonging to Harvard; Treasurers' reports and other financial accounts; changes in the College laws; gifts to the College, ranging from two Egyptian mummies to a solar microscope; the construction of the First Parish Meeting House in Cambridge and the use of adjacent College property by parishoners; rules of endowed professorships; salaries and appointments; closures due to the threat of smallpox; rules governing Commons and the College Library; reports of various Visiting Committees; class schedules, according to subject; student disorders; the establishment of a designated museum space to display "Curiosities"; the effects of the Revolutionary War on Harvard, including repeated requests to the General Court after the war for compensation for damage to College buildings; the cost of various foods and changes in what was served at Commons; and the danger of the chapel's roof, built of too-heavy slate, falling in. Also of interest are minutes from a May 5, 1761 meeting, which note that the General Court voted to pay for Hollis Professor John Winthrop to travel to Newfoundland to observe the transit of Venus "over the Suns disc."

Diary of John Page, 1757-1781

Manuscript volume. The first thirty-nine pages include diary entries from Page's years as an undergraduate student at Harvard College. Dated July 1757 through March 1761, entries includes short notes about daily activities. Topics covered include expenses, academics, clothing, and travel to and from Cambridge. Twenty-two pages covering 1764 through 1781 contain brief listings of items, generally foodstuffs, received from male and female Danville parishioners identified by name in Danville. The final twenty-six pages contain notes listing area deaths, as well as his own thoughts on topics such as "of light" and "jealousy." The concluding pages include rules "Concerning Grammar."

Diaries of Benjamin Guild, 1776, 1778

These diaries of Benjamin Guild document his travels as a Presbyterian pastor in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. The daily entries describe people Guild met and dined with, the food he ate (including strawberries, currants, watermelon, English cherries, and lobster), the funerals he attended, and the sermons he gave. Many entries relate to his health concerns (the ague and eye trouble), sleeping habits, and widespread public health concerns (including smallpox, dysentery, "nervous fevers," consumption, and "putrid fever"). The diaries also contain passing references to the activities of American, British, French, and German soldiers during the American Revolution; the invasion of Canada and battles occurring in New York are noted. In August 1778, after visiting Providence, Rhode Island, Guild comments on the disordered state of the city after American soldiers passed through it. He also recounts a visit by officers of the French fleet to the Harvard College library in September 1778 and describes his dinner on board the French man-of-war, Sagitaire. One entry describes an elaborate ball sponsored by John Hancock, held for French soldiers and "Boston ladies," and another refers to the "incursion" of Indians. Many of Guild's diary entries pertain to his work as a Harvard College Tutor; these entries describe his lectures at the College, meetings with colleagues, personnel decisions, and the examination of students. He also describes books he is reading and his opinions of them, the purchase and sale of books, and his desire to learn Hebrew and French. In addition, multiple entries refer to a man named Prince, who was perhaps Guild's slave. Prince sometimes accompanied Guild on his travels.

Some account of a paper call'd the Telltale, begun in colledge Sept 1721

The small leather-bound volume holds two sections, a manuscript student periodical, and written tête-bêche, an exchange on smallpox inoculation followed by notes on the rules and activities of a Harvard College student club. The volume begins with thirteen numbered manuscript issues, written in one hand, of the Tell-Tale running from September 9, 1721 to November 1, 1721. Prefaced, "This paper was entitl'd the Telltale or Criticisms on the Conversation & Beheavour of Scholars to promote right reasoning & good manner," the work is modeled after literary periodicals of the time, including the "Spectator," and is considered the oldest student publication at Harvard. The periodical appears to have circulated in manuscript form. The content varies in format and includes letters between Telltale and correspondents, short essays, and advertisements. Topics discussed include conversation, detraction, and flattery. While not specifically about Harvard it does provide some information about the College including evidence of various student activities and organizations at Harvard in the 1720s. The entry explaining the rules of the Telltale Club is heavily faded and nearly illegible. The Telltale records multiple dreams, which are populated by various characters, such as “beautiful” Kate, two “learned Physicians” debating inoculation, “four Fellows” “pushing and shoving one another,” and a “person of a very Dark & swarthy complexion in a Slovenly Dress with 7 patches & 5 sparks on his Face.”

Commonplace book of Benjamin Penhallow, 1721-1724

This leather-bound volume contains excerpts copied by Benjamin Penhallow from books he read while he was a student at Harvard in the 1720s. The volume contains extracts from two texts: Johanis Henrici Alstedii's (John Henry Alsted / Johann Heinrich Alsted) Geometria Domini, and the anonymous text "The Legacy of a dying Father; bequeath'd to his Beloved Children, or Sundry Directions in Order unto a well Regulated Conversation," from 1724 (originally published in 1693-4). The last page of text in the volume contains the hymn "The Sacred Content of Praise" first published in 1734, and added after Penhallow's death.

Mathematical notebook attributed to Thaddeus Mason Harris, ca. 1787

Hardcover notebook containing handwritten transcriptions of rules, cases, and examples from 18th century mathematical texts. The author and purpose of the volume is unclear, though it has been connected with Thaddeus Mason Harris (Harvard AB 1787). Most of the entries include questions and related answers, suggesting the notebook was used as a manuscript textbook and workbook. The extracts appear to be copied from John Dean's " Practical arithmetic" (published in 1756 and 1761), Daniel Fenning's "The young algebraist's companion" (published in multiple editions beginning in 1750), and Martin Clare's "Youth's introduction to trade and business" (extracts first included in 1748 edition).

Thaddeus Mason Harris' working documents regarding subject-based library catalog, ca. 1790

Thaddeus Mason Harris, who served as interim librarian of the Harvard College Library in 1787 and as its librarian from 1791 through 1793, is believed to have created these notes while helping compile the library's first printed subject-based catalog. The catalog, Catalogus Bibliothecae Harvardianae Cantabrigiae Nov-Anglorum, was published in 1790 and represented a significant change in approach to the cataloging of the library's collections, which had formerly been cataloged alphabetically. These documents, many of them on small scraps of paper, contain the titles and bibliographic information of books on a range of topics, from "Anatomici" to "Rhetorica."

Account books of Thomas Cradock, 1786-1818 (inclusive)

Account books listing patients, medicines administered, and fees charged by Dr. Thomas Cradock (1752-1821), primarily in Maryland, from 1786 to 1818. In addition to recording names, Cradock occasionally noted demographic information, the patient's location, or their occupation: from 1813 to 1816, he treated Richard Gent, a free African-American man; in 1813, he attended to John Bell, who lived in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Cradock further noted if the patient was a slave and the name of his or her owner. He would also administer care on behalf of corporate entities, such as Powhatan Factory, which apparently refused him payment. He also sometimes included a diagnosis: in the cases of a Mr. Rowles and Mrs. Violet West, he administered unspecified medicines for gonorrhea at a cost of ten dollars. Commonly prescribed drugs included emetics, cathartics, and anodynes. Cradock also provided smallpox vaccination for his patients. He accepted both cash and payment-in-kind. Tipped into the first volume is an envelope containing a letter from the Medical and Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland to Mrs. Thomas Craddock in 1899 requesting a loan of portrait of Dr. Thomas Craddock [sic]. The three volumes also each contain an index to patient names.

Account book of Benjamin Gale, 1740-1748 (inclusive)

Ledger containing lists of patient names and payments to Dr. Benjamin Gale (1715-1790) of Killingworth (now Clinton), Connecticut, primarily in 1743. Entries mostly included charges for "sundry" items and visits to patients by Gale, who accepted both cash and payment-in-kind.

Notification from William Cutler to the selectmen of Cambridge, Massachusetts, that Dr. Philip Brukowitz and wife were inhabiting his father's house in Cambridge, 1758 April 25

Single page notification addressed to the selectmen of Cambridge, Massachusetts, dated 25 April 1758, in which William Cutler writes that he took into his father’s Cambridge house as tenants Dr. George Philip Brukowitz and his wife, from Woburn, Massachusetts. After the Boston smallpox epidemic of 1721, the town of Cambridge enacted a requirement in 1723 that no resident would receive or admit any non-resident family into their homes for the space of a month without informing the town selectmen. The penalty for failing to do so was twenty shillings.

Small Pocks, 1775-1779 (inclusive)

Ledger containing accounts of smallpox inoculation by Dr. John Jeffries (1745-1819) at Rainsford Island Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, from June to July 1775; at a West Boston smallpox hospital in July 1775; and in Halifax, Nova Scotia, between 1776 and 1779. The accounts include dates, names, ages and physical condition of patients, and details regarding the method of delivery. Among the patients he inoculated was his son, John, at Rainsford Island Hospital on 14 June 1775.

Account books of William Aspinwall, 1776-1812 (inclusive)

Two account books containing entries noting patients visited, fees charged, and small accounts of Dr. William Aspinwall (1743-1823) in Boston and Brookline, Massachusetts, from 1776 to 1812. He includes sections for "Women's Accounts" with charges generally rendered to their husbands or other male relatives. There is also an entry charging the town of Cambridge, Massachusetts, four dollars and fifty cents for medicines and attendance to a boy who contracted smallpox.

Student lectures notes on chemistry and materia medica, and medical recipes, of Lyman Spalding, 1795-1799 (inclusive)

Contains notes taken by Harvard student Lyman Spalding during eleven chemistry lectures delivered by Harvard Professor Aaron Dexter (1750-1829) in the fall of 1795 and recipes prepared and used by Spalding in his medical practice in 1797. The recipes include elixir vitriol, containing liquor, Jamaica pepper, cinnamon, and ginger, and an electuary for a cough, containing oxymel squills (sea onion in honey), licorice, antimonium tartaricum potash (a compound of the chemical element antimony and a potassium-containing salt), and opium. The volume also contains writings about chemistry by Spalding, some of which appear transcribed from published sources, in undated entries, and a diary entry from 1799 regarding an experiment with water.

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 lecture notes on anatomy and surgery, and medical notes, of Lyman Spalding, 1795

Contains notes taken by Harvard student Lyman Spalding (1775-1821) from lectures on anatomy and surgery delivered by Harvard Professor John Warren (1753-1815) in 1795, as well a section entitled “Medical Observations,” which includes entries on “Vernal Debility,” or diseases occurring in the spring, and lung function. It is unclear if these are Spalding’s own writings or transcriptions from a published work. There is also text transcribed from “Elementa Medicinae,” published in 1780 by Scottish physician John Brown.