This week in Revolutionary War history, let’s check up on what was going on 250 years ago in and around the colonial Province of Massachusetts Bay. Last week, Americans are crushed outside Quebec City, ensuring Canadian independence and sovereignty. General Richard Montgomery was killed, Major General Bennedict Arnold is severely injured, 50 Americans are killed and another 400 captured for no British fatalities. At this time, Colonel Henry Knox march east has been halted due to changing weather and thawing rivers.

            On January 7, 1776, General George Washington writes to Governor Jonathan Trumbull, at first thanking the governor for his help and loyalty, he then makes a tactical assessment that foreshadows battles to come. Through his extensive spy network throughout Boston, Washington has uncovered the British are outfitting ships in Boston Harbor for combat, and embarking troops out to sea. He says, “from the season of the year and other circumstances, [the ships] must be destined for some expedition south of this; and having such information as I can depend upon, -if not immediately designed against the City of New-York is nevertheless intended for Long Island; and as it is a matter of the utmost importance to prevent the enemy from possessing themselves of the city of New York.”

            While jumping the gun a bit, Washington’s assessment would seem prophetic, as The Battle of Long Island is about 8 months away from this point, correctly judging the inclination of the British to attempt to capture New York. On January 8, Washington would order Major General Charles Lee to New York City to bolster defenses.

            On January 10, a 47-page pamphlet is published in Philadelphia. Thomas Paine’s Common Sense would ultimately call for the full separation of Great Britian and the “Inhabitants of America.” It also notably pushes ideas of more equal governance, enshrining the ideas of democracies in the colonies. In its first three months of publication, the booklet would sell 120,000 copies. By the end of the Revolutionary War, it would sell 500,000, with the total population of the United States being around 2.5 million. Proportional to population, that makes it the most bought and circulated American publication being read by 20% of them.

            Paine was born in Norfolk, England and would emigrate to Philadelphia in late 1774. After a turbulent journey and a long recovery, he began the publication of the Pennsylvania Magazine and began the release of regular political writings. After only about a year in the area, he would spark a huge flame. The pamphlet was quickly circulated around, through taverns and local squares, boosting Continental Army recruitment dramatically just after many contracts had ended on January 1.

            Paine would write, “For all men being originally equals, no one by birth could have the right to set up his own family in perpetual preference to all others forever.”  He pushed egalitarian ideas, being a true student of the Enlightenment. Not knowing how fervently his message would spread, he also put down, “A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.” He pushed for the use of one’s “common sense” to strive for liberty and equality at a time of increased absolutism.

            On January 13, not yet having read Common Sense nor anything from Quebec, Washington tragically writes to General Montgomery, not knowing he was killed nearly two weeks prior. He says, “our hopes that you will get possession of Quebec, if not already in your hands – I must beg therefore your attention to the wants of the Army here.” Washington would note the needs of the army around Cambridge while, again, not yet knowing the man he writes to is dead and nor his commanding army was functionally dispersed across the fridged north.

This Week in Revolutionary War History

By Sam Bishop

If you have diabetes, are overweight or have bad lipids, you may have MASLD: metabolic-associated steatotic liver disease – or fatty liver to be brief.

            Most of us know that heavy alcohol use is bad for your liver, and years ago, most patients with cirrhosis (advanced liver damage with scarring and loss of function) were alcoholics.

            In 2026, with the world-wide epidemic of overweight and obesity. MASLD has become the commonest cause of liver disease that can progress to cirrhosis. Up to 38% of adults have this! If you have Type 2 diabetes, that rises to 65%!

            The first stage is fatty infiltration of the liver. If nothing is done, scarring and replacement of functioning liver tissue with fibrous (scar) tissue can follow. Eventually the liver loses much of its function, and the complications of a scarred non-functional liver ensue. These include jaundice, swelling of the legs and abdomen and bleeding.

            Untreated MASLD is also the number one cause of liver cancer.

            How can you prevent this cascade of catastrophes?

            First, if you fit the risk profile (diabetic, overweight and/or high triglycerides), ask your doctor to check your liver. While most doctors know they should check your eyes if you have diabetes, many do not think about the liver.

            Standard “liver function tests” are not routinely done and are not always abnormal in early stages of MASLD. While elevated liver enzymes may offer the first clue to the problem, 20-25% of people with biopsy-proven fatty livers have normal liver blood tests.

            A better test is the “FIB-4” value, which is calculated from your age, two simple liver enzyme tests and the count of your blood platelets. If this is abnormal, an ultrasound test should be done to look for any scarring.

            The good news is that getting your lipids and blood sugar under control and losing weight will reliably reduce fat in the liver and prevent you from going on to worse liver disease.

            The GLP-1 drug semaglutide (Wegovy) has been proven to improve MASLD and is FDA-approved for this use. Though not studied for this use, the other GLP-1 agents would probably be equally effective.

            You cannot live without your liver, so look after it!

            Edward Hoffer MD is Associate Professor of Medicine, part-time, at Harvard.

What Does The Doctor Say?

By Dr. Edward Hoffer

            You know you’re really a gardener when:

            – You cancel dates to watch “Gardeners’ World.”

            – You retain plants’ names better than people’s.

            – You’re most comfortable in overalls and Wellies.

            – You hear the elements of nature in Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony.

            – Flattering comments about your garden are like a warm embrace.

            – You delight in the rain.

            – You like the smell of fresh earth and not-so-fresh manure.

            – Your garden precedes your social life in importance.

            – Smith and Hawken’s attire is preferable to Victoria Secret’s.

            – Visits to garden centers stimulate a Pavlovian response.

            – Mud on the kitchen floor doesn’t faze you.

            – Your early “playgrounds” were most likely woodlands, streams and fields.

            – You have a tendency to anthropomorphize plants – that is, give them human qualities.

            – Composting could easily become an obsession.

            – You’re not insulted when your beloved gives you an irrigation system for your birthday.

            – Your idea of a fun date is going to a flower show/tour.

            – Transcendental meditation is an hour in the garden.

            Some or all of the above may describe you. I can vividly recall my earliest preoccupations with nature. The feeling I had in my great-grandmother’s garden “rooms;” my first greenhouse sighting at the Roosevelt Mansion on the Hudson River; a preference for the outdoors, be it climbing trees or pondering the mysteries of the frog pond. Even simple things like noticing the changing vegetation as we headed to the Cape for summer vacation. I can’t remember too much about the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY, but I can still picture the surrounding scenery bathed in the summer sun.

            I have carried this love of the natural world within me never feeling burdened, although sometimes a bit apart from others. Like the time I remarked to fellow co-eds about the beauty of the White Mountains during a ski weekend in North Conway, NH. They had their sights set on other scenery, so I got some queer looks.

            During the early 80s when the world was into computers and electronics, I feigned interest in writing on the subject and used the correct buzz words at trade shows. A subsequent job as a news reporter got me out of tiresome suits and stockings and into earthier subjects. I gravitated toward farmers and 4-H people and away from politicians and police.

            In more recent years, I have devoted myself to gardening and found it a comfort when away from home. I had to wince when an acquaintance remarked that gardening was a temporary interest of new moms that would eventually wane. Oh yeah!!? Come back in 30 years and eat those words.

            So much for an explanation of what constitutes a gardener and how some of us are destined for it. Ever wonder why? Most people will say it’s simply in their genes, but there may be more to it if you believe in the theory of multiple intelligences. The idea that some people are gifted in certain areas was proposed back in 1983 by Harvard University psychologist and educator Howard Gardner, Ph.D. It contends that we all possess distinct and somewhat autonomous intelligences in varying degrees and that each is of equal value. The nine intelligences, which some critics prefer to describe as talents, include linguistic; logical-mathematical; spatial; bodily kinesthetic; musical; interpersonal; intrapersonal; naturalist. and existential.

            Naturalist intelligence is defined as the ability to recognize and classify the numerous species in one’s environment. Those who possess it usually enjoy being outside; like to amass collections; show an instinctual fondness for animals; like to cook or garden; is inquisitive about the names of plants and has a good memory for them; and has an eye for detail, noticing how a newly encountered animal or plant is different from or similar to other such entities. People who seek careers as a biologist, nature illustrator, farmer, chef, gardener, or wild animal trainer are believed to have a strong naturalist intelligence.

            So, the next time you’re out golfing or driving along the highway to some destination – a ball game or a shopping mall or the airport – take note of the landscape in its natural or manmade state. It may bolster your own green giftedness a bit. Even if you are more the kinesthetic type.

            “Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity, and I may say innocence, with Nature herself.” – Henry David Thoreau.

The Seaside Gardener

By Laura McLean