The First Medical Transactions in America *

The New Haven County Medical Society was founded in 1784, and in 1788 the members published what Garrison describes as "a thin little volume" entitled "Cases and Observations; by the Medical Society of New Haven County". The volume is of interest to us not only because of its contents, contributed, with one exception, by well-known practitioners of New Haven County, but also because it was the first volume of transactions ever published by a medical' society in the United States. It is true that the New Jersey Medical Society had transactions in manuscript before this time but these were not printed until 1875. The first volume of the Transactions of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia was not published until 1793, five years after the New Haven transactions. The decision to publish transactions is recorded in a vote passed by the members present at a meeting of the Society held January 2, 1788. At the meeting held April 2, 1788, it was voted to open a subscription to cover the expenses of publication, any surplus accruing from the sale of the pamphlet to remain with the Treasurer as a fund for the use and benefit of the Society. At this same meeting it was voted that the publication committee, Leverett Hubbard, Eneas Munson, Ebenezer Beardsley, Samuel Nesbitt and Samuel Darling, "be authorized to annex a suitable Divise to the Pamphlet". The Committee must have acted promptly, for it is on record that seventeen copies were sold to members at the meeting of July 2, 1788. Bronson states that five hundred copies were printed, but there is nothing in the secretary's records which substantiates this statement. It is clear that many copies were sold to the members and that Mr. Robert Hodge of Boston bought fifty. The pamphlet was published at the price of one shilling and sixpence and apparently netted the Society some profit, though the exact amount is problematical.