Randolph, now about fifteen years of
age, in whose education I take a lively interest.
*****
I am not a friend to placing young men in populous cities, because they
acquire there habits and partialities which do not contribute to the
happiness of their after life. But there are particular branches of
science, which are not so advantageously taught any where else in
the United States as in Philadelphia. The garden at the Woodlands for
Botany, Mr. Peale's Museum for Natural History, your Medical School for
Anatomy, and the able professors in all of them, give advantages not to
be found elsewhere. We propose, therefore, to send him to Philadelphia
to attend the schools of Botany, Natural History, Anatomy, and perhaps
Surgery; but not of Medicine. And why not of Medicine, you will ask?
Being led to the subject, I will avail myself of the occasion to express
my opinions on that science, and the extent of my medical creed. But, to
finish first with respect to my grandson, I will state the favor I ask
of you, and which is the object of this letter.
*****
This subject dismissed, I may now take up that which it led to, and
further tax your patience with unlearned views of medicine; which, as in
most cases, are, perhaps, the more confident in proportion as they are
less enlightened.
We know, from what we see and feel, that the animal body is in its
organs and functions subject to derangement, inducing pain, and
tending to its destruction.
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