ing as I suppose, cathartics. These I issue ..." He adds that pulmonary troubles are frequent among the Indians during the winter.
The various biographies of Whitman state that he graduated from the Fairfield Medical School in 1824. This is evidently incorrect. He is not included in the lists of students until the session beginning January, 1826. According to a photostat copy in the New York State Library made from the Fairfield circular of 1839-40, Marcus Whitman graduated with the class of 1832.[1] This is confirmed by a statement in Drury's recent book on H. H. Spalding, from documents in the possession of Professor F. C. Waite, of Cleveland. It must be recalled that the medical training of a hundred years ago in this country consisted usually of two courses of lectures given, as a rule, during the winter and continued for six weeks or more. Lectures in anatomy, chemistry and the other subjects indicated above, were acompanied by dissection. The students made the rounds, visiting patients, with established physicians during the remainder of the year, or at such times as could be arranged, in a master and apprenticeship system. After completing the second course of lectures, which were largely a repetition of the first, and presenting the proper statements regarding his apprenticeship, the student was entitled to examination and candidacy for the medical degree. Many practiced before receiving their diploma, as was evidently the case with Marcus Whitman. He writes to the Reverend B. B. Wisner, who preceded David Greene as secretary of the American Board, under date of June 3, 1834:[2] "In my profession I studied and practiced regularly with a good physician and attended the lectures two full courses and graduated at the Medical and Surgical College at Fairfield, N. Y." In another letter to Wisner, dated June 27, 1834,[3] he writes: "In the fall of 1830 I gave up the practice of my profession and entered upon a course of study ... for the ministry ... I found my health becoming impaired by a pain in the left side which I attributed to an inflammation of the spleen ...
