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Essays and addresses

Any- way, he was born ; and, according to his own account, he took part in the Revolutionary Wars to obtain the freedom of his country.

From the age of twenty, he turned his attention to medicine No, not Medi- cine; he scorned the Schools and Colleges of Medi- cine and turned his mind "to study the great Book of Xaturc, and contemplate the wisdom of natures God, instead of conning over the speculative whims and ambiguous nonsense which encumbers the vol- umes of writers on the laws of medical science" and this was the beginning of his troubles not fully to be realized for more than half a century.

After some fourteen years spent in study in that great college, he was confident of his ability to heal the sick of all kinds by the medicines he was able to manufacture "from vegetable substances, with- out the aid of any chemical proces" He strenu- ously denies having anything in common with Sam- uel Thomson, his School or system; according to his own account, he was a "botanist," a "botanical physician," sui generi I think, however, that no one can compare the respective medical works of the two empirics, without coming to the conclusion that one had a marked influence on the other ; and I am equally confident that it is much more likely that Thomson was the leader ( 1 ).

However that may be, Barber took to himself the title and the role of Doctor, and set out to treat all and sundry.

He tells us that he "for a number of years rode through three of the New England states; and for twelve years from Vermont to Lake Erie, and prac- ticed five years in the village of Auburn, and for five years in the western parts of Massachusetts and Vermont.