The History of Cayuga County 1789-1879 page 86
Cayuga County Medical Societies

cal Society. They were Nathaniel Aspinwall, and Ebenezer Hewitt, of Genoa, David Annable, of Moravia, William C. Bennett, of Aurelius, Josiah Bevier, and Jacob Bogart, of Owasco, Nathan Branch, Joseph Cole, of Auburn, Asabel Cooley, of Fleming, frederick Delano, of Aurora, Isaac Dunning, Luther Hanchett, Silas Holbrook, Barnabas Smith and Ezra Strong, all five of Scipio, Consider King, of Venice, Parley Kinney, of Sherwood, and James McClung, John Post and Matthew Tallman, of Scipioville. Frederick Delano was elected President, James McClung, Vice-President, Jacob Bogart, Secretary, and Consider King, Treasurer. At a meeting held in Levi Stevens' tavern, in Scipio, the first Thursday in Novermber of that year, by-laws were adopted, five censors were elected, Doctor Barnabas Smith elected delegate to the State Medical Society, the present seal of the society ordered, and a tax of $4 a year levied on each member, to procure a library and provide medical apparatus. The anniversary meetings were fixed to be held on the first Thursday of November, and the quarterly meetings on the first Thursday of February, May, and August, and dissertations and discussions upon medical and surgical topics were provided for. The licentiates of the society were required to sign the following declaration, and the society archives contain a long file of the declarations signed by men honored in their day and generation for a faithful compliance therewith.

"I ________ do solemnly declare that I will honestly, virtuously, and chastely conduct myself in the practice of physic and surgery, with the privileges of exercising which profession I am now to be invested; and that I will with fidelity and honor, do everything in my power for the benefit of the sick committed to my charge."

As the law required societies to enforce its provisions in their respective counties, Enos T. Throop was appointed law-counselor in August, 1870; thereafter the records show that prosecutions were numerous against irregular practitioners. The by-laws required then, as now, that the place of meeting should be determined from year to year. In November, 1806, the office of Doctor Barnabas Smith, of Scipio, was selected as the place of meeting for the succeeding year. The library also was directed to be kept there, and Doctor Smith was appointed librarian. The selection of the place of meeting occasioned much strife between Auburn and Aurora (Scipio being accepted as a compromise.) from this time until 1818, when the southern towns relinquished their claims, and the meetings have since been held at Auburn by a tacit consent, and until 1848, at Coe's or Hudson' tavern or the Western Exchange. The library ceased its peregrinations and settled there also.

The membership of the society was large, and included most of the leading physicians in the County; many of whose names recall recollections of active, useful and honorable lives. That they maintained a creditable professional standing is evidenced by the following citations from the society records entered in the words of Doctor Silas Holbrook, of Scipio:

"August 3, 1816, Doctors B. King, Silas Holbrook, August Miller, Andrew Groom, and Frederick Delano met at the house of Mr. Roger Kinney, of Scipio, where Doctor Delano performed lithotomy on the daughter of William Kinney, aged 7 years; the stone weighed 13 pennyweights, 14 grains. They then proceeded to Jonathan Winslow's, where Doctor Delano performed the same operation on a daughter of Mr. Winslow, about the same age; the stone weighing 5 pennyweights, 5 grains. The stone in the last mentioned case appeared to be a light porous substance and composed of different laminae, with an intermediate diploe, and nearly the size of the former."

In 1834, Doctor Frank H. Hamilton ws appointed to report on the botanical and agricultural products of the County; Doctor Humphries, on its mineralogy and geology; Doctor Ira H. Smith, on its diseases, and Doctor Lansingh Briggs, on its statistics, &c. In 1836, the society offered a $25 proze for the best essay on the endemic fevers of the Western country. Doctor Frank H. Hamilton obtained the prize, and the essay was published in the medical periodicals of that day.

At the annual meeting in November, 1811, a committee of three was appointed to act in concert with the trustees of Cayuga Academy, at Aurora, to devise the best means to obtain from the Legislature a grant to the academy for the purpose of erecting and continuing an anatomical, surgical and chemical school in said academy, and the committee were empowered to use the authority and influence of the society for that purpose. The project failed at that time, but was not given up. At the annual meeting

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