Wesleyan University Physiological Society records

This book contains the records of two incarnations of the early Wesleyan University student group, the Physiological Society. The first section begins with a constitution written in 1839 with articles concerning the election of leadership, and goes on to by-laws explaining how meetings should be run, and what form they should take. Next are entries of minutes for the nine meetings held between May and November 1839, and then the account skips to an entry written in May 1842 explaining how the Society disbanded in November 1839. The second section contains a new and more detailed constitution and a comprehensive members list. Minutes of meetings for this later incarnation of the group date from May 1842 to April 1844.

Generally, the first half of this collection is very formal and not entirely informative about the Society's aims. There is much discussion about electing leadership, raising funds to create library, and generally setting the groundwork for a structure. The second half of the record, however, is much more detailed. In the second constitution, the Society speaks of the virtues of physical purity, mental and moral improvement, and the "all controlling sympathies which exist between body, mind and spirit." The Society brought in honorary members such as local physicians and Wesleyan professors to speak and lead meetings, although there was also a great tradition of student oration: topics included Tobacco, Animal Heart and Muscular Action, and "Savage Life Considered with Reference to Health and Longevity."