ress of his education, he served
a sort of medical apprenticeship in the family of Prof. Eli Ives, of New
Haven. He took his medical degree in 1812, and soon after this commenced
the practice of his profession in Trumbull, in Fairfield County. Here,
for eight years, he had ample opportunity to apply the principles with
which, at the schools, he had been fully indoctrinated. In the summer
of 1820, he removed, by special request, to Derby, nine miles from New
Haven. Up to his second year in Derby, he pursued the usual, or
orthodox, course of practice. The distance from his former field of
labor was not so great but that he retained a portion of his old friends
in that region. He was also occasionally called to the town of
Huntington, lying partly between the two.

On meeting one day with Dr. Tisdale, of Bridgeport, an older physician
than himself, he said to him, very familiarly, "Jennings, are you aware
that we do far less good with our medicine than we have been wont to
suppose?" He replied in the affirmative, and observed that he had been
inclining to that opinion for some time. "Do you know," added Dr.
Tisdale, "that we do a great deal more harm than good with medicine?"
Dr. Jennings replied that he had not yet gone as far as that. Dr.
Tisdale then proceeded to state many facts, corroborating the opinion he
had thrown out concerning the impotency of medicine. These statements
and facts were, to the mind of Dr. Jennings, like a nail fastened in a
sure place.

From this time forth his medical scepticism increased, till he came, at
length, to give his doubts the test of experiment. Accordingly, he
substituted for his usual medicaments, bread pills and colored water;
and for many years--I believe five or six--gave nothing else. The more
rigidly he confined himself to these potions, the better he found his
success, till his business was so extended, and his reputation so great,
as to exclude all other medical men from his own immediate vicinity.

His great conscientiousness, as well as a desire of making known to his
medical brethren what he believed to be true, and thus save them from
the folly of dealing out that which he was assured was only a nuisance,
especially under the shelter of what they supposed to be his example,
led him, at length, to call a meeting of physicians, and reveal to them
his discovery. The surprise was great; but greater or less, according to
their tact for observation, and the length of their ex