The Founding of the Medical Institution of Yale College

Two tributary streams of interest and endeavor united to form one of the outstanding developments arising from that union of brave men who, in 1784, banded themselves together in one of the oldest medical associations in the country. One of these tributaries was fed from the spring of deep dissatisfaction with the conditions of practice in the Colony and in the subsequent State. The other had its origin in the deep-rooted aspirations of the people for a wider and deeper culture. The eighteenth century saw a profound alteration in the conditions of living in Connecticut. In the early decades the population was scanty and largely confined to coast and river front. Means of communication were slow and arduous so that each little community tended to become a more or less isolated unit. These small congregations were self-supporting and self-sufficient, finding within their own borders the means of livelihood, and through the Divines of the period, education and spiritual and temporal guidance. In spite of this autonomy, a constant sense of comradeship in a joint enterprise kept the stalwarts in slow but sure communication with each other and with whatever central government existed. Toward the end of the century the population increased to something over 200,000, so evenly distributed over the territory that only two municipalities , New Haven and Hartford, called themselves cities, each with between 3000 and 4000 people. Nearly every man tilled the soil, turning his hands to that wide variety of handicraft requisite for the adequate maintenance of a well-regulated farm. Each family helped to produce the necessities for ordinary comforts of the household and but little was produced in excess of the needs. As a result, there was almost no accumulation of wealth, either private or public, and even less time was left over for the cultivation of the mind and spirit. The rigorous laws concerning behavior on Sunday were quite as much a defense against the encroachments of mere existence as they were a hope of future salvation. Only the children of the more successful could be freed from the household tasks to gain a rudimentary education at the hands of the local clergyman.