In 1788 the Medical Society of New Haven County published a pamphlet of eighty-six pages entitled Cases and Observations: By the Medical Society of New-Haven County. This volume is of historical interest because it was the first volume of transactions published by a Medical Society in the United States.1
Dr. Nesbitt, the author of the case report below, was a Scot who probably was trained at Edinburgh. He practiced medicine in New Haven for about 12 years. Modern readers will appreciate the author's candor in admitting his mistaken diagnosis. Dr. Nesbitt's spelling and punctuation have not been changed.
In the winter of 1784, I was called to visit a child of the Rev. Bela Hubbard, Aged two years.