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Madison Co. Medical Society. Drs. D. D. Loomis, Morrisville.

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Ulster County Medical Society Drs. F. W. Ingalls, Kingston.

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On motion of Dr. E. P. K. Smith, regular physicians present were invited to participate in the deliberations of the Society. The following named gentlemen, having been previously nominated, were elected permanent members:

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New York, New York county.
New York, New York county.
Brooklyn, Kings county.
Hudson, Columbia county.
Troy, Rennselaer county.
Schenectady, Schenectady co.
Greenwich, Washington county.
Syracuse, Onondaga county.

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Dr. H. D. Paine, as a question of privilege, offered the following statement and protest:

The undersigned feels called upon, in justice to himself, as one of the members of the publishing committee, whose official endorsement is prefixed to the recently issued volume of Transactions for 1867, to state that the reprint of a paper entitled "The Introduc tion and Progress of Homœopathy in the United States, &c., By S. R. Kirby, M. D.," as a part of those Transactions, was made without his approval or knowledge, but was interpolated into the report after it had been prepared for the press, and after it had been examined by him. That he disapproves of the publication of that paper, and disavows all responsibility for its appearance in connection with the Transactions. How a document, so objectionable as he believes that paper to be, found its way into the volume, he has not been informed, but he has reason to believe that its insertion was unsanctioned by a majority of the committee of publication.

Previous publishing committees had declined to admit the address into the Transactions, although strongly urged to do so, and it is believed that the present committee would have concurred in the judgment of their predecessors, if the question had come before them.

This action on their part is amply justified: First, by the character of the paper itself, which, under cola of an historical discourse, not only perverts well known fats, but impugns the motives and actions of the honored founders of homeopathy in this country; and, Second, by the exampe of the local society

before which the address was delivered, in subjecting some of its statements and charges to a thorough examination by an impartial committee with damaging effect upon their credibility. Extracts from their report are appended to this statement and protest. In view of so complete a refutation of its offensive misstatements, the publication of this paper under the auspices of this Society, if allowed to pass unchallenged and unexplained, exposes us to the imputation of unfairness towards the early fathers of Homoeopathy, most of whom are now dead, which cannot but be contrary to the feelings and sentiments of the profession generally. It is charged that those honored inen, Gram, Gray, Wilson, Channing, Hull, who, in the face of difficulties and discouragements which it would be difficult for us to appreciate, first planted the standard of homœopathy in the city of New York: that these men were either imperfectly acquainted with the system of Hahnemann, or were afraid to avow openly and boldly their principles; and that one, at least, of their number avoided the trial of the system in the first cholera epidemic, by absenting himself from the city.

It is claimed that the real founder of pure Hahnemannian homœopathy in New York, was a man who has hitherto, in the opinion of the best informed among us, been held as unworthy of a place in the profession, that his claim to the title of physician was based upon a forged, or misappropriated, diploma, and was in fact, a foreign pretender without education or valid credentials.

It is claimed that this Dr. Granger announced to the public the doctrine of homoeopathy, as taught by Hahnemann, and established the first institution in the city of New York for the treatment of diseases by homoeopathy; and that he refused to withdraw his publication from circulation, although urged to do so by some who counseled silence on the subject.

These remarkable statements were fully refuted in the report of the committee before referred to, and should not have been allowed to reappear in any official proceedings, at least, without the corrections of that report.

It is due to the truth of history and to the memory of that noble band of pioneers, that the facts and circumstances of the first introduction of our reformed method of cure should be verified and preserved while the means of doing so are accessible; and any attempt to pervert these facts, or disparage the professional character of men to whom we owe so much, deserves severe reprobation. But since, however unintentionally, the Society has

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given the apparent sanction of its endorsement to such misstatements, it is not too much to ask that the same publicity, at least, should be given to the proof of their falsity. To which end, the undersigned desires that this statement, together with so much of the report of the committee of the New York County Homœopathic Medical Society as may be pertinent, be spread upon the minutes and published with the proceedings of this body.

Extracts from the Report of a committee of the Homœopathic Medical Society of the county of New York on Dr. Kirby's Address.

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"Your committee have carefully examined the subject referred to them, and beg leave to report that Dr. Kirby's Address on the Introduction and Progress of Homœopathy in the United States, on page 15, contains the following passage: In the summer of 1832 the cholera prevailed epidemically in this city. Drs. Gram, Wilson, Channing and myself were the only ones who treated that disease chiefly with camphor. Our practice was ridiculed on account of the small doses; it was called the small dose camphor treatment. Dr. Gray was absent from the city.' Dr. Gray protests against this statement as untrue and unjust to him.

"Your committee notified Dr. Kirby of their appointment, and received from him the following explanation: In the summer of 1832 Dr. Kirby heard Dr. Gram say to Dr. Wilson, Gray has left the city.' He believes this was about the time of the first appearance of the cholera in this city. Dr. Kirby further says that from that time he did not see nor hear of Dr. Gray being in the city until the subsidence of the cholera; that believing Dr. Gray to be absent from the city, he so stated, not dreaming of giving Dr. Gray cause of offence, and regrets very much that it is so.

"Dr. Gray proves by letters from distinguished individuals, his patients, or their friends, that he was in the city and in constant attendance upon cholera and other patients during the summer of 1832, with the exception of a short interval of ten days when he took his family to Connecticut.

"Chancey Ayers, M. D., known to your committee as a highly respectable practitioner of homoeopathy, at Stamford, Ct., says: 'In 1832 I was an allopathic physician, residing and practising my profession in the city of New York, in the same neighborhood with Dr. John F. Gray; and he was at that time noted for using small doses of medicine. During the epidemic, people were very

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