THE FIRST NATURAL HISTORY LECTURES AT , 1786, BY DR. BENJAMIN WATERHOUSE

By J. WALTER WILSON, Ph .D.

PROVIDENCE,

HEN, in 1783, the gery of any medical man in the colony. French soldiers left “the He gave the first public lectures in anat- College Edifice” of the omy in America at Newport.1 Thacher2 College of Rhode Is- says that they treated not merely of land, now Brown University,human it was anatomy, in but the history of anat- aW sad state of repair, and the funds of omy, and comparative anatomy, sub- the College were practically nonexist- jects indicating a much broader out- ent. The only professor the College had look, both historical and philosophical, ever had, David Howell, had given up than would be required in a purely de- hope that the College would survive as scriptive course. The Redwood Library early as 1777, and entered the law. Ap- at Newport was so Hue that the Rev. parently his success was great enough Ezra Stiles, who was later president of so that he had no interest in returning Yale and said to have been one of the to his professorship. The problem of most learned men in the colonies, owed replacing him without funds was solved much to its books. He was the pastor of by the generous action of two members the Second Congregational Church in of the corporation who had scientific Waterhouse’s youth. There were fine interests: Joseph Brown and Benjamin gardens in Newport, some very famous, Waterhouse. They both volunteered to where Solomon Drowne in 1772 saw serve without pay, Brown as professor lemons on the trees, and orange and of experimental philosophy and Water- lime trees, sensitive plants, and pine- house as professor of natural history. apples growing.3 Waterhouse did not Waterhouse thus became the first pro- have a college education; he began the fessor of natural history in New Eng- study of medicine under Dr. Hunter land, if not in any American college, and Dr. Halliburton in Newport. and he claimed that his lectures com- With this background Waterhouse prised the first course of lectures in nat- went to London, just before the Revo- ural history given in any college in lution, to live with Dr. Fothergill, his America. mother’s cousin, and to continue his Waterhouse was a Quaker, whose study of medicine. Here he met, among early life was spent in Newport, just others, Jenner—who later discovered before the Revolution, and Newport smallpox vaccination. How important had been a center of intellectual activ- smallpox must have seemed to medical ity at least from the days of Berkeley men, and this young medical man in in the early part of the century. About particular, can be readily understood 1752 William Hunter came from Edin- from the accounts in Dr. Stiles’ diary4 burgh with a fine medical library and of town meetings called in Newport in the best training in anatomy and sur- 1772 to permit inoculation, then to revoke the permission, and then to grant the first professor of natural history: it again, while Dr. Stiles found it neces- William D. Peck appointed in 1805; sary to send his own son into Connecti- but Waterhouse was appointed at cut with a party who went there to be Brown twenty-two years earlier, and inoculated—all this when the inocu- Smallwood points out8 that, in 1757, lation was with the real disease itself Daniel Treadwell was appointed pro- rather than with cow-pox. Waterhouse fessor of mathematics and natural his- later wrote a letter to Dr. Haygarth of tory at Columbia (then King’s College) London, about the laws and regulations though no record that he actually taught concerning smallpox in America. This natural history has been found. The was printed in 1782.5 In later years information presented here was uncov- Waterhouse became known as the ered in an attempt to discover exactly American Jenner, for he obtained from what Waterhouse did as professor of Jenner and imported to America the natural history at the College of Rhode first cow-pox vaccine, and tried it first Island. on his own five year old son. How, with Flic professorship at Brown did not the help of , he intro- hinder Waterhouse’s work at the Har- duced vaccination and established it as vard Medical School, in spite of the lack a regular public health practice has of fast commuting trains. The daily been adequately told.6 teaching of the students at Brown was In addition to his study with Dr. conducted by the tutors who heard reg- Fothergill he studied also at Dublin and ularly recitations from textbooks speci- Edinburgh and finally in Leyden where fied by the Fellows and Trustees in the he received his Doctor’s degree. Leyden “Laws” of the College.9 Those who to- at this time was still the medical capital day decry the evils of the lecture system of the world. The influence of the great might well study the depths to which Boerhaave continued to be felt though the tutorial system can sink and the he had died forty years before. In these reasons great efforts were made to sub- centers of science Waterhouse acquired stitute for it courses of lectures by schol- not only a medical training, but a grasp arly men. of the spirit of scientific adventure. He It appears that the services of Dr. returned home at the close of the war Waterhouse consisted in giving a course and gained immediate recognition. of lectures just before commencement Idle Harvard Medical School was time of the years 1786 and 1787.10 By being organized, and in 1783 he became opening them to the public, presumably its first professor of medicine (Professor for a fee, and by giving them in the of the Theory and Practice of Physic). court-house (now the old State House) He was elected in 1782 to the Board of which was more convenient to the pub- Fellows of the young College of Rhode lic than the college edifice, he was ap- Island, then struggling to re-establish parently able to acquire a salary to itself after the blow that had almost defray at least part of his expenses in at- killed it in infancy; and he generously tending commencement as a member served as professor of natural history of the Board of Fellows. I have not been without salary while it fought its way able to find any indication that he did back to a healthy existence (1784- anything else in his professorial role, 1791).’ but this alone was a highly significant Harvard is frequently credited with event, for he himself asserts, in his book

“The Botanist’’ that this was the first be evident to anyone familiar with the course of lectures on natural history history of biology in the late eighteenth given in any college in America. century.

It is futile to claim “firsts’’ or to quib- There are two broadsides, the first ble about them. It has been pointed in the possession of the Rhode Island out to me that lectures on botany had Historical Society, the second in the previously been given in the College at Brown Univer- of Philadelphia.11 While botany is ob- sity containing “Heads of a course of viously a phase of natural history, it Lectures on Natural History.’’ The one would be absurd to compare lectures on in the Historical Society Library was materia medica, or on plant collecting published in Providence and represents and classification, with the comprehen- the outline of the course as presented sive course of lectures outlined in Dr. here. Waterhouse’s broadsides. A course of The other broadside says that the lectures given today with the same out- lectures were “given annually (since line would be a liberal education in the 1788) in the University of Cambridge.’’ natural sciences even for the modern But our copy has written on it appar- student. That Dr. Waterhouse was fa- ently in Dr. Waterhouse’s own hand- miliar with the best thought in the bio- writing, “First delivered in Provi- logical sciences of the time, and was dence.” The botanical parts of the thoroughly aware of the significance of lectures were later (1811) published as the advances that were being made will a book, “ The Botanist,” the Brown Uni- versity Library copy of which is in- close the day alter commencement, and scribed, “For the Library of Brown be delivered in the court-house as more University from the author''—appar- convenient to the inhabitants than the ently in the same handwriting. In the college.”

preface of this book he says: “There In the issue of September 9, follow- had never been any lectures on Natural ing the account of commencement, History in the prior to which was held September 6th, this the course referred to. Neither had Bot- item appears: any nor Mineralogy been publickly “Wednesday evening Dr. Water- taught in any part of the Union ante- house, Professor of Natural History in rior to the year 1788; excepting, indeed, the College of Rhode Island, completed a short course of twelve lectures on Nat- for the present season his course of ural History in general, given by the pleasing and instructive lectures, which author in the college at Providence, in were attended by large and very respec- the years 1786 and 1787; he being, at table audiences.” the same time, Professor of the Theory In these “very respectable audiences” and Practice of Physic in the University must have been some of the most sub- at Cambridge.” stantial citizens, for the Rhode Island In the Providence Gazette for August Historical Society possesses a ticket 19, 1786, the following announcement printed on the back of a playing card appeared: and issued to John Howland, who later “Dr. Waterhouse, Professor of Nat- was to play a leading part in the estab- ural History of Rhode Island College, lishment of the public school system of intends to open his lectures next Mon- Providence. The number 35 on the day evening at seven o’clock. They will ticket may serve at least as a minimal basis from which to estimate the size of foreign plants. The latter is discussed the audiences. in “The Botanist” (p. 165) which pur- Parsons’ comment on the broadsides ports to be the botanical part of his lec-

is as follows: [They indicate] “more tures. He himself started the first Bo- study of books than of nature at first tanical Garden in Cambridge and hand, and more disposition to wander among other things imported the Lom- over a sea of varied suggestions than to bardy poplar.14 His extensive efforts in the condensed and systematic statement building the mineralogy collection are of facts and principles.”12 I am not sure also told by Lane. He obviously had a that this criticism is justified. The na- knowledge of the natural history col- ture of his audience, if made up of lections in Europe and at one time ad- townspeople as well as of students, vised the Redwood Library people to would demand a treatment that might start a museum.15 So, in addition to the seem superficial to us. The lecture on book-learning so obviously displayed in the Hortus Siccus and how to make one the broadsides, he must have had bet- (i.e. an herbarium of dried plants) ter than a passing acquaintance with seems close enough to nature. Further- nature herself. more the accounts of the difficulties he Whether or not his own assertion that encountered later in the use of the Phi- these were the first natural history lec- losophy Chamber of Harvard, as told tures in America will stand, matters by Lane,13 indicate that his minerals little. It does seem important that they and stuffed birds were a nuisance. He were given, for they indicate a lively had known the Redwood Garden in interest in science even in such a pri- Newport and Fothergill’s Garden in marily commercial community as Provi- London to which were imported many dence. There are, indeed, many other indi- tures in succeeding years. Waterhouse cations of this interest. Two years be- hail been elected a fellow of the Col- fore Waterhouse’s lectures a Dr. Moyes lege in 1782 and would have been pres- of Edinburgh gave a series of lectures ent at the corporation meeting which on "Philosophical Chemistry, or rather teas always held at commencement on what may be called the philosophy time.1' If the lectures of Dr. Moyes were of nature” in the Providence State much talked of he may even have at- House. This was a course of twenty-one tended one or more of them. At any lectures for which the audience paid rate, it seems possible that the lectures one guinea. They were "illustrated and of Dr. Moyes, which “afforded the high- confirmed by a variety of experiments,” est entertainment as well as pleasing in- and "may be deemed a complete intro- struction, to large and respectable as- duction to the study of Natural His- semblies”18 and must therefore have tory, and will exhibit an accurate view given him a good income, may have of all those astonishing discoveries served as an inspiration to the action which must forever distinguish the of Dr. Waterhouse. That interest in eighteenth century.”16 If the lecturer such lectures did not wane after Dr. attempted to cover completely the topics Waterhouse’s time is shown by a broad- outlined in the pamphlet "containing side in the possession of the John Carter the Heads of the Lectures” in the John Brown Library. It is dated June 24, Carter Brown Library, his advertise- 1790, and announces “a course of Lec- ment was no idle boast! These lectures tures upon Natural Philosophy and As- were given about commencement time tronomy” to be given by the Reverend of 1784, that is, at about the time Wat- Peres Fobes, Professor of Natural and erhouse volunteered his services as pro- Experimental Philosophy in Rhode Is- fessor of natural history, which were to land College—the successor of Dr. eventuate only in a similar series of lec- Waterhouse.

Refer ences 1. Kru mbh aa r , E. B. Doctor William 7. Guild , R. The Early History of Brown Hunter of Newport. Ann. Surg., 101: University. Providence, 1897. 506, 1935. 8. Smallw ood , W. M., and Smallw ood , 2. Thacher , J. American Medical Biog- M. S. C. Natural History and the raphy. Boston, 1828, p. 305. American Mind. New York, 1941, 3. Drowne , S. Manuscript diary in John p. 288. Hay Library, Brown University. 9. The Laws of Rhode Island College en- 4. Dext er , F. B. The Literary Diary of acted by the Fellows and Trustees. Ezra Stiles. New York, 1901, vol. I, Providence, Printed by J. Carter, 1793, p. 278. p. 6. 5. Pars ons , C. W. Some Early Votaries of 10. I have found actual records only for Natural Science in Rhode Island. Col- 1786, other than his own statements. lections of the Rhode Island Historical 11. Mulhe rn , J. A History of Secondary Society, VI1:241, 1885, p. 259. Education in Pennsylvania. Philadel- 6. Hals ey , R. H. How the President, Thomas Jefferson, and Doctor Benja- phia, 1933, p. 170. min Waterhouse Established Vaccina- 12. Pars ons , C. W. Loc . cit. tion as a Public Health Procedure. 13. Lane , W. C. Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse History of Medicine Series, Library and Harvard University. The Cam- of the New York Acad, of Med. No. bridge Historical Society Publications, 5- 1909, vol. 4, p. 5. 14. Thay er , W. R. Extracts from the Jour- the corporation meeting, held Sept. nal of Benjamin Waterhouse (p. 35). 1 st, and stating among other things I'hc Cambridge Historical Society that “Benjamin Waterhouse, m.d . of Publications, 1909, vol. 4, p. 22. the University at Leyden, and Profes- 15. Pars ons , C. W. Loc cit., p. 261. sor of the Theory and Practice of 16. An advertisement in the Providence Physic in the University at Cambridge Gazette, Sept. 4, 1784. (in America) was elected Professor of 17. On the same page of the Providence Natural History.’’ Gazette, Sept. 4, 1784, as the above 18. News item in Providence Gazette, Sept. advertisement, appears the notice of 11, 1784.