One of the most pressing needs of the early colonists must have been that of physicians and surgeons. In Mr. Savage's remarkable Genealogical Dictionary of the first settlers who came over before 1692 and their descendants to the third generation, I find scattered through the four crowded volumes the names of one hundred and thirty-four medical practitioners. Of these, twelve, and probably many more, practised surgery; three were barber-surgeons. A little incident throws a glimmer from the dark lantern of memory upon William Direly, one of these practitioners with the razor and the lancet. He was lost between Boston and Roxbury in a violent tempest of wind and snow; ten days afterwards a son was born to his widow, and with a touch of homely sentiment, I had almost said poetry, they called the little creature “Fathergone” Direly. Six or seven, probably a larger number, were ministers as well as physicians, one of whom, I am sorry to say, took to drink and tumbled into the Connecticut River, and so ended. One was not only doctor, but also schoolmaster and poet. One practised medicine and kept a tavern. One was a butcher, but calls himself a surgeon in his will, a union of callings which suggests an obvious pleasantry. One female practitioner, employed by her own sex,--Ann Moore,--was the precursor of that intrepid sisterhood whose cause it has long been my pleasure and privilege to advocate on all fitting occasions. Outside of this list I must place the name of Thomas Wilkinson, who was complained of, in 1676, for practising contrary to law. Many names in the catalogue of these early physicians have been associated, in later periods, with the practice of the profession, --among them, Boylston, Clark, Danforth, Homan, Jeffrey, Kittredge, Oliver, Peaslee, Randall, Shattuck, Thacher, Wellington, Williams, Woodward. Touton was a Huguenot, Burchsted a German from Silesia, Lunerus a German or a Pole; “Pighogg Churrergeon,” I hope, for the honor of the profession, was only Peacock disguised under this alias, which would not, I fear, prove very attractive to patients. What doctrines and practice were these colonists likely to bring, with them?