If the older physicians, whose portraits were recently collected at the centenary of the College of Physicians, could step down from their frames, after the fashion of a scene in a well-known drama, we should have before us, _in propria persona_, a number of Dr. Wistar’s guests of the medical fraternity. Presumably among these was Dr. Benjamin Rush, who has been called the American Sydenham, but who combined so many gifts that, like certain plants of various characteristics, it is almost impossible to classify him. Perhaps in a larger sense than it can be said of most men, even of the good physician, he belonged to humanity.[26] A frequent guest was Dr. Adam Kuhn, who studied in Edinburgh, and brought home treasures of learning as his contribution to this “feast of reason.” Here were also the Shippens, father and son,--both Williams, both practising at the same time, and both so eminent that they have frequently been confused by the historian. An honorable line of Shippens, in different callings, but notably in law and medicine, has come from that Edward Shippen of whom Boston was not worthy, and who, after being lashed and driven through the town at the cart’s tail, because, forsooth, good Puritans couldn’t abide good Quakers, came to Philadelphia in 1693, to be its first mayor and the founder of a distinguished family.[27] Here also shone the kindly face of Dr. Samuel Powel Griffitts, who seems to have brought with him, wherever he went, an atmosphere of “peace and good will to men.” And here, these gatherings being formed of men of various callings and professions, came such lawyers as William Rawle, who was ready to discuss theology as well as law,--perhaps a little readier to talk of the one than of the other. One day he is writing his notes on the Constitution of the United States, while upon another such subjects as Original Sin and the Evidences of Christianity engage his versatile pen.