Remedies gave full relief, but I resumed study too soon and remedies gave only partial relief." Whitman ascribes his ill health to cessation of an active life for the relative inactivity, physically, of the student. He gave up his plan of preparing for the ministry and states in the same letter that he returned to medical practice. On December 2, 1834, he is able to write regarding his desire to go to Oregon under appointment by the American Board:[1] "My health is so much restored that I think it will offer no impediment." The pain in his side, however, caused him a good deal of trouble in the early part of his first journey, with Dr. Parker.
It is not clear from Whitman's statements, quoted above, whether he attended the second course of lectures in 1832, just before receiving his degree, or earlier. Presumably it was in 1832, since the only other year in which his name occurs in the lists of students or graduates is 1826, as above stated.
The writer is under obligation to Miss Maude E. Nesbit, medical librarian, New York State Library; to Miss Nellie B. Pipes, librarian of the Oregon Historical Society, and to Mrs. H. Edgar Reese, of Fairfield, New York, for invaluable aid in obtaining material for the present article. Other sources are acknowledged in the references cited.
- ↑ Whitman to Wisner, in Hulbert, 269.
