LETTER
TO THE
PRESIDENT, COUNSELLORS AND FELLOWS,
OF THE
MASSACHUSETTS MEDICAL SOCIETY,

     ON THEIR ANNIVERSARY, MAY 31, 1837.
BY
JOHN STEPHEN BART1.ETT, M. D.
FOBMEELT FELLOW OF  THE  MASSACHUSETTS  MEDICAL
   SOCIETY,  OF THE BOSTON MEDICAL ASSOCIATION,
OF THE
ESSEXSOUTH DISTRICT MEDICAL SOCIETY, &C
           i 10 s If.  <>*

            BOSTON:
FOR SALE AT THE  PRINCIPAL BOOKSTORES.

              1837. 
A^ 
LETTER.
                         Marblehead, May 31st, 1837.

 To the President,  Counsellors, and
         Fellows of the Massachusetts Medical Society.

   Gentlemen.   On the last anniversary of the learned
 Corporation  of which you  are the  components, after
 due citation,  the humble  individual who now addresses
 you,  appeared, to listen and reply to, certain  grave
 charges touching his adherence as a  Fellow of the Mas-
 sachusetts  Medical Society, to the  letter of its Laws,
 and the spirit of its doctrines.
   In the  course of  the  investigation of this subject  it
 undoubtedly  appeared manifest, that he had {rj=PUB-
 LICLY (not covertly) aided, abetted and been in consul-
 tation with certain  medical gentlemen,* contemplated
 in  the viii.  Article of the M.  M. S. Laws, viz.
   " Any person who is engaged in the practice of medi-
 cine or surgery in the  Commonwealth, not being a fel-
 low or licentiate of this Society, nor  a Doctor of  Medi-
 cine  of Harvard University, shall  be deemed  by the
 fellows of this Society an irregular  practitioner; like-
 wise any one  who has been expelled from this Society.

  Note.—With reference to the two special counts in  my impeachment, I
 will say of the first that it never struck me that the aiding or abetting of a
 professed and scientific oculist, differed in any wise from  the recomending  a
 proteased and skilful dentist, so long as those gentlemen confined themselves
 to their respective professions.  This was the case with the  justly celebrated
 Mr. Williams.                                  J   J
t With reference to the second count, which was the consultaion with a skil-
 ful professional friend, Patrick Kearny, m. d. &c. it would be only necessary
 to observe that this gentlemen holding two European diplomas, and never hav-
 ing received the  slightest courtesy upon his first arrival in a  foreign country ot
 the professional  customs of which he was entirely ignorant, remained in the
 city without joining the society after he was aware of its existence, and at that
 time not having been naturalized,  he conceived he could not with propriety
become one of its fellows for that reason.     J. S. B. 
4
or who, after being permitted to resign his fellowship,
has been deprived of his privileges, or who has with-
drawn himself from the Society without the permission
of the Counsellors, shall  be deemed by this Society an
irregular practitioner ; and it shall be unlawful for any
fellow in his professional capacity to advance or  con-
sult with any such irregular practitioner, or in any way
to abet or assist him as a practitioner of medicine and
surgery."

  The alleged facts were admitted by the respondent and
the grounds of his extemporaneous defence, were fact;
principle,  example, and supposed legality.  The three
first named (the third, viz.  example, particularly) werej
it is believed by most, abundantly sustained ;—and it
was  with-grief  to myself, although from some previous
occurrences hardly with surprise, that the latter failed.
The lapse of a  year, during which period abundant op-
portunity has been offered for deliberate, dispassionate
and thorough reflection,  and exposition,  is a sufficient
reason for this address.
  This is more especially the case also, in view of the
fact that in consequence of the general pressure of the
day, the anticipated publication has been  deferred of
a more  voluminous,  and perhaps more unpleasantly
minute  appeal,  not  only to  the judgment, liberality,
and censcientiousness, of every fellow of the Society
possessing those attributes, but  to the terminal fiat of
an unprejudiced and  untrammelled community.
  The remarks to follow will, perhaps be understood
with more  facility by the employment  of the first per-
sonal pronoun on the pact of the writer.
  I shall dwell no longer upon the circumstance, that
the first article of my impeachment was founded upon a
public discharge of that duty which as a conductor of a
public journal, I felt bound to perform for the good of my
iellow citizens ; farther than  to state that the fact war-
ranted by me, that John Williams then practicing in this
city as an oculist, did  in my presence  perfornTcertain
cures which had baffled the skill of the Boston Surgeons,
both of the Massachusetts General  Hospital and the
Eye and Ear Infirmary;—that this was demonstrable,
and  is now to  the  great joy of many, demonstrable;
that it was my belief that a diploma did not constitute 
5
 a skilful physician ;  and that the experience of all man-
 kind should  be conclusive evidence that professional
 success was  the most direct  and sure test of profession-
 al merit; that the mass of mankind preferred the relief
 or  cure  of disease  to learned disquisitions upon post-
 mortem phcenomena, farther than to say that these pro-
 fessional heresies, my duty to God and man will not per-
 mit me  to recant.  Indeed I may have  also said that
 " as Quackery according to my view of things, signified
 ignorant  imposture" that some  Quacks agreeably to
 this definition, might have even the same parchment
 credential, and from the same authority as that from
 which the truly learned and skilful, M. D. may have
 obtained  his own testimonial of merit.   For the credit
 of the profession I would I could recant this assertion.
  For the second ground I took last year, viz.  Princi-
 ple ;  I will  briefly present my own views, in order that
 while pleading for liberty I may  not be rashly  judged
 as  guilty of  that professional radicalism, which  differs
 only from aristocratic despotism; by the greater num-
 ber and ignorance of its advocates.
  I would have the course of instruction for a  profes-
 sion so important as outs,full, complete, rigid,—1 would
 have the mind brought into action and its powers of in-
 vestigation,  of deduction of  principles and its capacity
 for their  application, brought into the most vigorous
 action.   To that branch  of the profession for which the
 natural predilection of the student appeared most  dis-
 tinctly manifest, I would direct his chief energy, in or-
 der that he might be eminent in something, always hav-
 ing a vigilant eye  to the utility of his acquirements-
 for loth would I be to entrust the life of a fellow being
 into his hands, who though recondite in pathology, and
 morbid anatomy, would  be excelled in therapeuics by
 an Indian doctress, or in practical surgery by a farrier.
  To avoid dwelling longer upon this I will only  say let
 his  qualifications for license to practice be as perfectly
 rigid, as those in naval tactics should be for a Commo-
 dore,—and then—let his  medical ethics, and his  profes-
 sional intercourse depend on hisownusense  of right
 and wrongs of expediency or inutility.
  I  now appeal, gentlemen,  to your better judgment,
 whether the rigid observance of your by-laws be expedi-
ent in practice, conducive to the welfare of our profession,
 or beneficial to the public at large.  Have  they been so ?
        *2 
6
May not a few moments calm reflection, and retrospec-
tion, convince you that expedient and useful as they were
some half a century since, that within the last quarter of
one, their direct effect has been to promote the very evils
they were intended  to  counteract.  Is  that  principle
just, which excludes us from all professional communion
with a regularly  educated practitioner;  because he
chooses not  to  conform himself  to  our conventional
method of proeeeding;—which enables us to insult and
injure in the opinion of the public, a learned  but con-
scientious man;  who is anxious to employ his talents
and capacities for the relief of human ills, in such man-
ner as  is in his  mature  opinion the best calculated to
produce the  greatest good, without fettering himself
with associations, and subjecting himself to their arbi-
trary rules—rules  in many instances independent as
connected with  the  profession,—can  such  principle
be concomitant  with  pure  views of justice,  of  liber-
ty, of utility?  If you  reply in the affirmative as you
must if you  subscribe to the letter of your laws;—
then I leave you to the tribunal of public opinion.  If
1 am answered in the negative you cannot help coincid-
ing with me in  the deductions to be drawn  from the
preceding and following premises.
  I now in the third place address myself to you gentle-
men  of the Society at large, and in a more direct man-
ner to  the Counsellors of the Society;—to ask of you
the reason that when upon the same counts as those of
my impeachment other and  more  influential  members
of the  Society were presented charged with  the same
violations of its institutions under far more aggravated
circumstances, that they are unscathed by its anathe-
ma ?  Why  has  the wind of its indignation  left the
trees of the forest erect and torn up the reed by ils
roots?  Are the  Counsellors afraid, lest peradventure
more than they wish, though not  more than they well
wot of, should be brought to light?  I am  constrained
to believe that this is not an illiberal construction to
put upon their very extraordinary non proceedings.   It
may be necessary  to remind some of you, gentlemen,
that  an energetic attempt was made to  invalidate the
impeachments here spoken of; but that attempt was
instantly frustrated in the  course taken by  a distin-
guished, unimpeached,  and  unimpeachable Fellow  of
the Society-  He, after the  usual forms for the obtain- 
7
ance of Justice had been used without success ; had re-
course to the  press, and publicly called on you for the
fulfilment of  your duty.  For a long time you were
quiescent;—and when you did venture to comment on,
—(I will not say,—reply to,)  his demand,  you  only
placed yourselves in  a position, which in adding to
your injustice, exposed  the imbecility of your cause,—
the fragility  of your union ;—and—the real motives of
your conduct.   But for a moment I will pass over what
further I have to  say upon this matter until I torch the
4th and most important part of my defence  of last year.
This  was the Legality of the course I pursued.   And
here let me quote for the refreshment of your memo-
ries and the  information of the community my words
on this point as  reported for the B. M. & S. Jour, of
June 8. 36, pp. 281, 282, viz.

  " The second point which  I  shall take in  view, in
which I am justified, is the legality of my conduct.  I
have  violated no pledge given to the Boston Medical
Association, or to the Massachusetts Medical Society.
' Every man who enters into a fraternity, engages by a
tacit  compact not only to  submit to the laws, but to
promote the honor and  interest of the Association, so
far as they are consistent with morality and the general
good  of mankind.'  So far as they are consistent with
morality and the  general good of mankind,  the extract
reads. Now  it would be utterly inconsistent with mor-
ality for me to deny the  truth  of what I have  said with
regard to Williams ; because, I both know  and believe
it to be true.  I cannot,  therefore, retract one  word of
what  I have  said in his behalf.   I will  agree  to abide
by the pledges given to the Boston Medical Association,
to the Massachusetts Medical Society, or to the Essex
District Medical  Society, of which I am a  member, so
long as I conscientiously, before God and man, believe
them  to  be consistent with morality and  the general
good of mankind."
  And now gentlemen, marvel not that I may well in-
deed be grieved,—wonder not that the public may verily 
8
 lift up their hands and eyes, at the reply to this quota-
 tion, by  a Censor,—a Counsellor, a distinguished  of-
 ficer of the Massachusetts jMedical Society.  Abel L.
 Pierson,M. D., the (quasi) head of the profession in the
 county of Essex,—the zealous accuser  of your (quasi)
 victim,  the propounder of the Law,  whose  name in
 all the churches, when  he  says,—vide M. M. & S. J.
 pp. 285, 286.
   " Second, as to the alleged  legality of his (Dr. J. S.
 Bartlett's) conduct.   The  gentleman  has  altogether
 misapprehended the matter : the clause upon which  he
 founds his argument  is not in our books: there is  no
 such article in our by-laws, and it does not relate in the
 least to our affairs."
   Here then in  presence of the M. M. S. at its great
 annual assemblage, we have the formal announcement,
 That DrJ. S. Bartlett in supposing that "morality and the
 general good of mankind" had any bearing on the case in
 hearing had " altogether misapprehended the matter,—
 that such a claim upon which  to found his views as to
 the legality of the proceedings has no place in the books of
 the Society, thai  there is no such proviso in its by-laws,
 and it does not relate in the least to its affairs."
   Gentlemen ; did I suppose that the mass of you as men
 and  good members of society, advocated  these views,
 you  may well judge that any man who valued the good
 opinion of human beings or the future well being of his
 own soul, would consider an expulsion from a body gov-
 erned by such doctrine quite as great a  compliment, as
 would a saint regard his ejectment from Tophet.  True
 the clause is not,—is not in your books,—I have search-
 ed them, and I cannot find it;  I would that at the time
 of my impeachmant and expulsion  for adhering to this
" lex non inventa" it had been possible to have procured
 the insertion of a by-law of some such tenor as this.
   " Be it known  that  the members of this Society are
 not disqualified for membership by a regard for morality
 and the general good  of mankind." But alas! it would
 have been an ex post facto law and therefore unconstitu-
 tional in ail government.
  Enough on this point of legality as touching myself.
 Let us examine very concisely  the same question as af-
fecting the M. M. S. 
9
  It is well known that Harvard University  possesses
by the law of the Commonwealth, the power of conferr-
ing the degree of Doctor in Medicine "with all the rights,
honors, dignities and privileges appertaining to that de-
gree"—and  concedes to its recipient "all the rights of
consultation and the exercises of all those faculties ap-
pertaining to the said degree."
  As this  degree is, ipsa natura, inalienable,  it follows
that unless  the  right of conferring, possessed by the
University, be  by law  abrogated, no subsequently or-
ganized body, whether legally corporate or not, can by
expulsion, suspension, or  censure, deprive any one of
its members possessing the  same degree, from exercising
all  the functions and interchanges of professional inter-
course with his brethren, any more than if he had never
joined or  been expelled from such an association.
  The power of the University has never been abro-
gated ;—it is optional with its graduates to become fel-
lows  of the  M. M. S. or not, and  few would believe
that for such  temporary privileges, any would surren-
der their inalienable rights.  If they do not join they are
entitled to all the privileges of its fellows, (save in the
financial concerns of the M. M. S.) and if they do join it
and upon discovery that in their opinion the principles
of its  organization  are  calculated to subvert morality
and the general good of mankind,—that its official ad-
ministration  has at  head  quarters been a fountain of
bitter  waters, and an engine  for  private  ends ;  upon
good evidence of these facts; and that upon examination
of its very  aet  of incorporation no less than two dis-
tinct legal flaws are apparent, thereby  annulling its au-
thority agreeably to  the constitution of this state,—if
I say, upon seeing these things, such graduates by  pub-
licly declaring  their truth  and acting according to the
dictates of justice and conscience, subject themselves to
expulsion; then  they find themselves  precisely at the
point at which they entered the association.
  Not a jot or title of their professional dignities or  priv-
ileges as conceded by  Harvard University can be ta-
ken from  them ; and  the body of men, who as a  body
refuse to consult with such an one, is liable to the same
course of proceeding at law and to the same  results  of
such proceedings as was seen in the case of the journey-
men Tailors in New York; decided last year by Judge 
10
 Edwards, who ruled such organization a conspiracy.*
   The analogy is perfect, the cases are under such cir-
 cumstances perfectly alike, when applied in a case like
 my own.
   It is not my wish to obtrude myself upon your atten-
 tion, but  as an illustration of  principles it becomes ne-
 cessary for a space.   On my own part I have no favor
 to crave from you ;—according to your laws, you admin-
 istered your justice  to me last year : I then demanded
 while  yet a fellow of your  association that with the
 same measure you meted to the feeble and humble, with
 the  same also that you should measure to the exalted
 and  strong.  I stood  then before you in person, as I
 now do on this paper,—alone,—unaided,—save by con-
 sciousness of right.
   You passed your vote—I was no longer a member of
 your association ;—but I had been discharged from its
 trammels  on the spirit of  truth, liberality,  and justice,
 because I had dared to break those trammels, and would
 not be silenced by the fear of a corporation, subject  to
 the dicta, and trembling at the word of those whose in-
 fluential circumstances, central position, and  power  of
 fashionable patronage, exerted  an indefinable, almost
 imperceptible, yet certain thralldom over  the medical
.community in this commonwealth.
   No imputation on my professional character;—no vi-
 olation ef morality, no instance of malpractice, nothing
 in my  conduct which could be productive of aught but
 good to my fellow men, was alleged against me—and
 though by that expulsion you deprived me of no medical
 privileges  any more than I should have been deprived  of
 by expulsion  from a debating society—and could not
 injure me abroad—yet in this part of the country owing
 to the ignorance of the above fact, you did  do me great
 and  personal injury,—injury which you  know you are
 and were bound to repair by doing without fear or favor
 by others  as you have by me: —or as I last year ex-
 pressed it in the homely proverb, by not making fish of
 me and flesh of yourselves.
   Whether you will do this and prove yourselves hon-
 est men;  the proceedings of this day will show.

  Note.—With how much more force this  case is applicable to the Boston
 Medical Association, every lawyer knows who has ever examined the Constb
 tution of that fraternity,    J. S, B. 
11
  Rest assured however, gentlemen that in any event—
whether  the society continues its existence  under its
present form of  corruption,—or expurgates its abuses,
—or resolves itself into an association for  medical im-
provement—that its private history with other collateral
matter from 1783 to 1837 will in the ordinary course of
events be made as I promised you last year, a topic for
public animadversion.
  I should in this letter transcend my limits were I fur-
ther to illustrate  its character,—and will  only assure
you that "si quis existimat me aut voluntate esse mu-
tata;—aut debilitata virtute, aut animo fracto, vehem-
enter errat."
  Gentlemen of the society at large—you are well a-
ware of the station you hold in the good opinion of the
public, of the influence which the members of our pro-
fession must in the nature of things necessarily exert
upon the community, and of the|constant  attempts of
the ignorant  and worthless to diminish  that good and
salutary effect which the existence of a body like yours,
associated  for the purpose  of mutual  interchange of
medical improvement,  cultivation of social interoursc,
and general fraternal reciprocations of good will should
produce.
   Cannot these  happy effects be  obtained  by an or-
ganization  of your society which, while it  shall aim at
elevating the character and dignity of the profession,
shall unchain its members from that  petty thralldom,
which while it may give and has given rise to innumera-
ble bickerings and unpleasant collisions, and  has been,
and is perverted to the purposes of a  few, has never
 been productive of any good  effect unattainable by a
system, simple in its operation, efficacious as to the at
tainment of its great ends, and free from the dominion
of an interested and ambitious medical oligarchy ?
   I have not, nor can I have, as is well known to most
of you any personal motives in the course I have taken,
as  must indeed be abundantly manifest by the  names of
many of those impeached by me last year, they  being
among my most venerated and constant personal friends.
For the great majority  of you, gentlemen, as citizens
and physicians can feel other other emotions than those
of respect and friendship.—I beg of you only to exam-   •
ine the justice of the  propositions I have thus hastily
and briefly sketched in faint outline .—for their filling
up, I must refer you to a future period. 
12
  While  then  gentlemen, sincerely expressing these
sentiments to you as individual members  of our profes-
sion, and citizens ;  and while  congratulating you  upoa
your gratifying personal meeting; I must not only cor-
dially express the hope that you may enjoy the festivi-
ties of this day, but that the feast of which you will
partake may be, for " the sake of morality and the gen-
eral  good of mankind," the  Funeral Banquet of  the
Massachusetts Medical Society.

           JOHN  STEPHEN  BABTLETT, M. D.
Formerly M. M. S. S.  M. B.  M. A. M. E. C. M. S. (fee,