were written in Latin, the
character of which might well be denominated _piggish_. In the
following translations by an esteemed friend, the beauty and force
of the originals are well preserved.

_Preface to the Catalogue of 1824_.

"To many, the first edition of the Medical Faculty Catalogue was a
wonderful and extraordinary thing. Those who boasted that they
could comprehend it, found themselves at length terribly and
widely in error. Those who did not deny their inability to get the
idea of it, were astonished and struck with amazement. To certain
individuals, it seemed to possess somewhat of wit and humor, and
these laughed immoderately; to others, the thing seemed so absurd
and foolish, that they preserved a grave and serious countenance.

"Now, a new edition is necessary, in which it is proposed to state
briefly in order the rise and progress of the Medical Faculty. It
is an undoubted matter of history, that the Medical Faculty is the
most ancient of all societies in the whole world. In fact, its
archives contain documents and annals of the Society, written on
birch-bark, which are so ancient that they cannot be read at all;
and, moreover, other writings belong to the Society, legible it is
true, but, by ill-luck, in the words of an unknown and long-buried
language, and therefore unintelligible. Nearly all the documents
of the Society have been reduced to ashes at some time amid the
rolling years since the creation of man. On this account the
Medical Faculty cannot pride itself on an uninterrupted series of
records. But many oral traditions in regard to it have reached us
from our ancestors, from which it may be inferred that this
society formerly flourished under the name of the 'Society of
Wits' (Societas Jocosorum); and you might often gain an idea of it
from many shrewd remarks that have found their way to various
parts of the world.

"The Society, after various changes, has at length been brought to
its present form, and its present name has been given it. It is,
by the way, worthy of note, that this name is of peculiar
signification, the word 'medical' having the same force as
'sanative' (sanans), as far as relates to the mind, and not to the
body, as in the vulgar signification. To be brief, the meaning of
'medical' is 'diverting' (divertens), that is, _turning_ the mind
from misery, evil, and grief. Under this interpretation, the
Medical Faculty signifies neither more nor less than the 'Faculty
of R