whom he was on most friendly terms. On stating his purpose regarding Billy to Dr. Whitman, Tom McKay was strongly advised to send the boy to Fairfield and "make an American of him." The plans were changed and Billy went to Fairfield. The New York State Library does not have a copy of the 1839-40 catalogue of Fairfield Medical School,[1] in which McKay's name should be listed. His registration, therefore, cannot be checked at present. In 1841-42 he is listed among the students at the Medical Institute at Geneva College as "William Cameron McKay, Ft. Vancouver, Or. Ter., Hiram Hadley, preceptor." McKay subsequently followed one of his teachers to the new medical school at Willoughby, Ohio, where he apparently remained until his return to Oregon in 1843.
W. H. Gray had only one course of medical lectures, and that during the winter of 1837-38, when he returned from Oregon for reinforcements. Apparently he had very little of the apprenticeship expected of medical students at that time. On his return to Oregon with his bride, he evidently undertook to use such medical knowledge as he had. With proper professional zeal Dr. Whitman writes to David Greene, secretary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, under date of October 22, 1839, regarding William H. Gray, physician: "I cannot conceive how you have been so much imposed upon as to report him as a Physician. What can a man learn in sixteen weeks of public lectures (which is barely all he can boast) to entitle him to that distinction. It cannot be regarded in any other light in this country than a slur upon the Board & this Mission."[2]
Gray's willingness to use such medical knowledge as he has is in contrast to the statement of H. H. Spalding, who had obtained about an equivalent amount of instruction in medicine before leaving for his mission post. Spalding writes:[3]
"I am no physician, but have more or less sickness to look after, sometimes 8 or 10 cases on my hands at once, usually bowel complaints caused by eating bad food or too much of it ... requir-
