**C135** Chap. 6th

Barker relates some unusual cases such as empyema (pus between lung and chest wall) in a fifty-five-year-old minister who was treated, drained, and lived for an additional thirty-eight years. A president of the College of New Jersey (later Princeton University) who had long-standing lung symptoms wrote a letter stating that he was such a devotee of venesection that he bought himself a lancet for self-treatment. In 1811 Barker’s twenty-five-year-old daughter, Eliza, daughter of a consumptive mother, developed chest pain, hacking cough, fever, and wasting. She received standard treatment by a physician acquaintance but rejected her father’s and a consultant’s suggestion to be bled. Eliza deteriorated, finally agreed to be bled, and was cured after five months of symptoms. She married in June and was doing well twenty years later. In Barker’s opinion, prevention should focus on proper clothing for women for “If the breast is left open to facilitate the entrance of Cupid’s darts, it affords a more certain mark for the envenomed shafts of the grisly king of terrors” (Joseph Young, 1809).

JOSEPH HENRY AND GEOLOGY AT PRINCETON

ABSTRACT The first documented geology lectures at Princeton were given in 1825 by John Finch (circa 1790–circa 1835), an English visitor to the United States. In the 1830s, John Torrey (1796–1873) delivered a few geology and mineralogy lectures at the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University), but Joseph Henry (1797–1878), Professor of Natural Philosophy at the College of New Jersey from 1832 to 1848, introduced the first repeated geology course. In the 1830s, the College of New Jersey instituted a handful of short courses on topics outside of the regular curriculum. Geology was assigned to Henry, owing to his geological experience with Amos Eaton (1776–1842) along the recently opened Erie Canal. Henry taught geology for the first time in August 1841, repeated the course in 1843, 1846, and 1847, and probably also in 1844, 1845, 1850, and 1851. Henry typically focused on geophysical aspects of Earth, such as internal heat and Laplace's nebular hypothesis. He also discussed the geologic time scale from Primitive to Alluvium and Diluvium with descriptions of rock types and fossil content of each group. The final lecture was normally devoted to paleontology. Henry relied on Eaton and Edward Hitchcock (1793–1864) for much of his information and took advantage of published cross-sections to explain structural features. The content and timing of the various offerings is reconstructed from Henry's various lecture notes, dated correspondence, and three student notebooks. The impact of Henry's course on students, himself, and the Smithsonian Institution is evaluated.

Literate Piety

Though separated by a century, the lives and work of John Witherspoon and James McCosh are strikingly similar. Both were Presbyterian ministers, leaders of the Evangelical party in the Church of Scotland, presidents of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University), and public intellectuals in America. Both also attempted to unite the philosophy of the Scottish Enlightenment with the Calvinist theology of the Westminster Confession. This chapter examines the theology of both men through their careers and major works, and evaluates their legacy of literate piety.