Box 1

Scope and Contents: Contains text entitled "A Short Compendium of the Theory and Practice of Physick by way of question and answer," describing various organs and their functions. This may be an original work by Hastings or a transcription from a medical textbook. A section follows with prescribed treatment for specific patients but not their diagnoses. Also included is a note to Seth Hastings from Washington, D.C., on 24 June 1789, regarding a treatment for a Mehitable Blakely. She was taking cantharides, a...

Scope and Contents: Folio manuscript containing a patient case history for an unnamed woman afflicted with an unknown illness, notes on the form of treatment, as well as questions posed by Hastings when considering what steps be taken to ease her symptoms. Docketed on the verso by a copy of a letter to the New York state legislature proposing the formation of the Medical Society of the State of New York, which was founded in 1794. The group sought power to enact its own laws governing medical practice in the...

Scope and Contents: Transcription of "Cases related and operations performed By Dr. White of Cherry Valley in 1808," referring to the New York surgeon Joseph White. The cases included tumor removal and treatment of a skull fracture. Also contains notes on medicinal ingredients and their properties, including Arabic, guar, and opium, as well as notes taken from William Cullen's lectures on materia medica. On the back cover is note promising payment of five dollars with interest to Andrew Birchard, witnessed by...

Scope and Contents: Contains a case history of a female patient, who, after the birth of her seventh child, complained of rheumatic pain and developed symptoms of dropsy and diaphoresis (excessive perspiration). Hastings pursued a course of treatment that included administering calomel, digitalis, Madeira wine, and chalybs, an iron-based medicine. There are also copies of two letters of condolence to an unnamed man following the death of his wife. Front and back covers contain mathematical equations and the...

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Transcribed excerpts from Synopsis universæ Medicinæ practicæ, a medical textbook by John Allen that was published in 1719. Contains entries on apoplexy, asthma, consumption, cancer, epilepsy, leprosy, and vertigo, among other conditions.

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Contains transcribed entries on apoplexy, asthma, consumption, cancer, epilepsy, leprosy, and vertigo, among other illnesses. Most entries describe symptoms of an illness, and the medicines and medical care to be delivered to the patient.

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Notebook containing information on the possible causes of puerperal fever, symptoms, and disease progression. Puerperal fever is a post-partum bacterial infection of the female reproductive tract. Hastings writes that treatment may include scarification and cupping, or applying leeches to the area of the abdomen that is affected; gentle vomits; and other medicines and teas.

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Contains lists of ingredients, and recipes for a throat distemper, broken bones, and others for unnamed afflictions, some for specific patients. Also includes a recipe for saltpetre (potassium nitrate).

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Contains notes on John Gregory's ideas on the physician's ethical obligations: to maintain humanity, patience, attention, discretion, secrecy, and honor. Also includes notes taken on the published lectures of Herman Boerhaave regarding the five internal and five external human senses, and on fevers. There are several pages containing lists of debts and payments, although it is unclear if these relate to medical treatment, and a list of wheat consumed by Hastings' family.

Scope and Contents: Contains excerpts possibly from Philadelphia physician Benjamin Rush's 1774 oration, "An enquiry into the natural history of medicine among the Indians in North-America, and a comparitive view of their diseases and remedies, with those of civilized nations." The notes focus on the Native American diet, female health, and childbirth and child rearing. Also contains notes, likely transcribed from a medical text, on illnesses including bilious remitting, or remittent fever, believed to be...

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Two pages of notes torn from a notebook, on ophthalmia, its causes and treatments, and two autopsies Hastings attended in 1801.

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Title page is inscribed, "Extracts principally from the Encyclopedia, upon Medicine." Contains notes on causes, symptoms, prognoses and cures for illnesses including pyrexia or febrile diseases, remittent fevers, continued fevers, typhus fever, typhus gravior, putrid fever, angina maligna, and pneumonia.

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Title page is inscribed, "Extracts upon Medicine taken from the Encyclopedia." Contains notes on causes, symptoms, prognoses and cures for illnesses including enteritis, hepatitis, hysteritis, rubeola (measles), and hamoptisis (spitting blood). There are a number of blank pages following, and the last two pages contain a poem entitled "Esculapian song," author name illegible, and the name Caleb Abernathy inscribed below.

Scope and Contents: Contains notes on medical theories of the methodic sect, a note about a loan of two dollars to or from Richard Judd, and an entry on British physician Francis Balfour's theory that fevers are influenced by the moon. Also contains several pages of notes and a map of the orchard on the Hastings property, with lists of types of trees and when they were planted. There are two patient case histories, as well as notes on the properties of air from a unknown publication, and notes on venereal...

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Contains notes probably taken by Hastings during a lecture on the "Theory [and] practice of Physic" by Dr. Nathan Smith at the Yale School of Medicine, where Smith was a professor. Topics covered in the lecture included influenza, erysipelas, and gangrene.

Scope and Contents: Contains notes on volvulus (obstruction caused by twisting of the stomach or intestine), case histories of patients with dysentery, and description of a "new disease" afflicting children in Clinton in winter and spring. The symptoms were sudden excruciating pain in the lower extremities, usually commencing in the limbs and spreading to the sides and bowels. Hastings writes the illness appeared to be rheumatic, and calomel was prescribed. Additional notes are on cantharides and blood root....

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Notebook titled "Extracts. A Small Present to Abigail [and] Permelia Young." Contains translated excerpts from "The Imitation of Christ," first composed circa 1418-1427 and attributed to Thomas à Kempis (1380-1471), a Dutch Canon Regular and scribe. Also includes excerpts from "Journal of the Life, Travels, and Gospel Labors of That Faithful Servant and Minister of Christ, Job Scott," published in 1797. Job Scott (1751-1793) was an American Quaker minister.

Scope and Contents: Manuscript address on topics including the origins of the human race. Hastings rejects Erasmus Darwin's theories on evolution, instead claiming humans descended from Adam and Eve. He also discusses the theory of animal magnetism developed by Franz Mesmer (1734-1815) and touches on the proliferation of celebrity doctors and quacks. He focuses on several people in particular, including Elisha Perkins (1741-1799), who marketed metallic tractors to treat inflammation and rheumatism in the United...

Scope and Contents: Remarks most likely given at the Oneida County Medical Society annual meeting. The speech focuses on "diseases of the mucous membranes which are peculiar to the female sex." According to Hastings, the delicacy of the female nervous system leads women to be "more susceptible to disease of body and mind than men." He further offers his thoughts on using certain "cures" that may cause more harm than good, urging physicians to use their own judgment in treating patients rather than following the...

Scope and Contents: Contains descriptions of organs and fluids, most likely transcribed from a medical text. There is one section on phthisis pulmonatis, or pulmonary consumption, and its causes, symptoms, and treatment. Includes patient case histories, such as a man who was bled and given a bolus of sal nitre, camphor, and calomel, and a syrup containing digitalis. No improvement was seen, and he was then given columbo root and Mucquett root, bark, wine, and balsalm of tolu. It is unclear if the man was a...

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The cover page is inscribed 1772 August 2, Hatsfield. Page three is titled "Hippocrates Prognostic" under which are descriptions of "good symptoms" and "bad symptoms." The remaining pages in the book contain an account of the American Revolution, including a list of officers killed in action, a chronological timeline of events and outcomes of battles, and a chart listing names of soldiers and where they died. One page is missing.

Scope and Contents: Contains a list of texts studied by Hastings by physicians including William Chelselden, James Cooke, and Herman Boerhaave, as well as notes and transcriptions taken from those texts. There are notes on surgical cases involving an ulcerous leg and cancer, as well as descriptions of the heart and resuscitation. Hastings also includes notes on Voltaire's Ancient and modern history. One section is transcribed from the works of Scottish physician Robert Whytt, and one section includes excerpts...

Scope and Contents: Contains notes taken from published lectures or works by other physicians, including Hermann Boerhaave, a Dr. Gregories (possibly Scottish physician John Gregory), and William Cullen. There are also notes on "Schomberg's Van Swieten," a single-volume abridgement of a three-volume work entitled Van Swieten's Commentaries on the Aphorisms of Boerhaave, authored by Ralph Schomberg in 1762. Topics include the human organs and body parts, such as the brain, arteries, spleen, and gall bladder, and...

Scope and Contents: Contains notes on various diseases and conditions and recommended treatments, possibly transcribed from a textbook or published work by another physician. For rheumatism, the recommended medicine consists of common centaury, black cherry tree bark, and white oak bark, infused with cider and distilled. There is a section on childbirth and instructions for midwives, as well as notes on treating swollen legs in pregnant women, and postpartum swelling and fever. The notebook is bound with a...

Scope and Contents: Notebook entitled "Hystory of Cases." Contains information on patient symptoms, diagnoses, and recipes for medicines administered by Hastings. For a woman with pleurisy, he prescribed a syrup containing roots of fennel, parsley, asparagus, and young burdock, as well as a gentle emetic, among other medicines. Also contains notes on treating women with puerperal fever (postpartum infection). Includes an account of an outbreak of dysentery in early 1783 and notes on his method of treatment,...