The Medical Reports of John Y. Bassett, M.D. The Alabama Student

Dr. Osler's Alabama Student recalled from oblivion an observant and courageous practitioner as well as a keen critic of the foibles of men and not the less of his own profession. Furthermore, he had to no small degree the philosophic temper of mind which his illustrious commentator so well exemplified. Dr. Daniel C. Elkin's introduction to the text of Bassett's Medical Reports tells the interesting story of how these reports came to be written. This was due to his interest in an ephemeral medical journal, the Southern Medical Reports, 1849-1850, edited by Erasmus Darwin Fenner. This enterprising physician, a graduate of Transylvania College, settled in New Orleans in 1841, started the New Orleans Medical Journal in 1845 and became the dean and professor of the principles and practice of medicine in 1856 in the newly organized New Orleans School of Medicine. As the result of internal disagreements he was forced