Page:Early History of Medicine in Philadelphia - George W Norris.djvu/46

 among the good citizens of the place. Mobbing was talked of, and not a little dreaded. Indeed, on several occasions the house in which the dissections were carried on had its windows broken by the populace. In one of these attacks the doctor himself made a narrow escape by passing out through an alley, while his carriage, which stood before the door with its blinds raised, and which was supposed to contain him, received, along with a shower of other missiles, a musket ball through the centre of it. More than once he was obliged to desert his own dwelling and conceal himself, in order to avoid the tyrannical exactions of the people. Several times he addressed the citizens through the public papers, assuring them that the reports of his disturbing private burial-grounds were absolutely false, and stating that the subjects he dissected were either of persons who had committed suicide, or such as had been publicly executed; except, he naively adds, "now and then one from the Potter's Field." By his tact and conciliatory deportment, however, joined to the countenance given to him by some respected citizens and the authorities, the excitement against him and his occupations gradually subsided.