Part 64

Said to be Dr. Caldwell, of Philadelphia. See the Port Folio.

Footnote 261b:

Casper Wister, M. D. Professor of Anatomy and Surgery in the University of Pennsylvania, was, for some years before the death of Dr. Shippen, his adjunct professor in the same chair; to which station, this eminent teacher in those branches of medicine was appointed by the trustees of the university, at the request of his late colleague.

Footnote 262:

William Shippen, jun. M. D. just mentioned, was the professor of anatomy; Adam Kuhn, M. D. a distinguished pupil of the celebrated Linnæus, was professor of botany, united with the materia medica; Benjamin Rush, M. D. a learned and able professor of the theory and practice of physick, then held the chemical chair; and Dr. Thomas Bond, an ingenious and eminent physician, gave clynical lectures in the Pennsylvania Hospital. In the year 1789, the trustees of the College of Philadelphia instituted a professorship of natural history and botany; which was then conferred on Benjamin Smith Barton, M. D. Dr. Kuhn had formerly delivered several courses of lectures on botany, in the College of Philadelphia; but natural history had never before been taught there. On the union of the College with the University, in the year 1791, Dr. Barton’s former appointment was confirmed by the trustees of the united institution; and in the year 1796, he was further appointed by them to the professorship of materia medica; that chair having been then vacated by the resignation of the late professor of that branch of medical science.

The other chairs, in the Medical Department of the University, are filled as follows; viz. that of Anatomy, by Casper Wister, M. D.—of the Theory and Practice of Physick, by Benjamin Rush, M. D.—of Chemistry, by John Redman Coxe, M. D.—of Materia Medica, Botany and Natural History, by Benjamin Smith Barton, M. D.—of Surgery, by Philip Syng Physick, M. D. and John S. Dorsey, M. D.—and of Midwifery, by Thomas Chalkley James, M. D.

Among these collegiate-chairs in medicine, appertaining to the University of Pennsylvania, the only one which appears to be deficient in a suitable appendage to its institution—and this, too, such an appendage as may be considered almost indispensably necessary to it—is the Professorship of Botany. To this chair, a Botanical Garden ought to be appurtenant: and accordingly we find, that this requisite for rendering a Botanical Professorship complete, in most Universities, is the establishment of such a Garden, for the use of the Teacher and his Pupils.

The importance that is attached to institutions of this kind, in foreign seminaries of learning, will be perceived from the following sketches of those in three of the most celebrated universities of Europe.

The Botanical Garden (called the “Physick Garden”) of the university of Oxford, contains five acres of ground. It is surrounded by a noble wall, with portals in the rustic style, at proper distances. The passage to the grand entrance is through a small court: this principal portal is of the Doric order, ornamented with rustic work, and adorned with a bust of Henry Danvers, Earl of Danby, the founder; besides statues of the kings Charles I. and II.

The ground is divided into four quarters. On each side of the entrance, is a neat and convenient green-house, stocked with a great variety of exotics. The quarters are filled with indigenous plants, properly classed; and without the walls is an admirable hot-house, filled with various plants, the production of warm climates.

These fine and spacious gardens were instituted by Lord Danby, so early as the year 1632; and this nobleman having supplied them with the necessary plants, for the use of the students of Botany in the university, endowed the establishment with an annual revenue, for its support. The Gardens were afterwards much improved by Dr. Sherrard, who assigned a fund of 3000l. sterling, for the maintenance of a professor of Botany. Over the grand entrance into the Gardens is this inscription: “Gloriæ Dei Optimi, maximi honori Caroli I. Regis, in usum Academieœ et Reipublicæ, Henricus Comes Danby, anno 1632.”

The Botanic Garden, at Cambridge, consists of nearly five acres, well watered. The ground, with a large house for the use of the governors and officers of the Garden, was purchased at the expense of about 1600l. sterling, by Dr. Richard Walker.

An handsome green-house, one hundred feet in length, and having an hot-house (or, what is called a stove,) appurtenant to it, were erected by subscription. These are furnished with an extensive variety of curious exotics: the plants are all arranged according to the Linnæan system, and a catalogue of them is printed.

These Gardens are under the government of the chancellor or vice-chancellor of the university, the heads of three of the colleges, and the regius professor of physick; and they are superintended by a lecturer or reader, and a curator.

There is, besides, a Professorship of Botany, in this university; as there is also at Oxford.

The Botanical Garden belonging to the university of Edinburgh, is about a mile from the city, It consists of a great variety of plants, exotic and indigenous. The Professor is botanist to the king, and receives an annual salary of 120l. sterling, for the support of the Garden. A monument to the memory of Linnæus was erected here, by the late Dr. Hope, who first planted the Garden and brought it to perfection.

The Garden of Plants, at Paris, now termed the Museum of Natural History, comprises a space of many acres. It dates its origin as far back as the year 1640, during the reign of Louis XIII. In 1665, it bore the name of Hortus Regius, and exhibited a catalogue of four thousand plants. From that period, it made but slow progress, until Louis XV. placed it under the direction of the Count de Buffon, the celebrated naturalist; to whose anxious care and indefatigable exertions, it owes its present extent and magnificence: it is now under the patronage of the government.

But this institution comprehends, in addition to the Botanical Garden, an extensive chemical laboratory, a cabinet of comparative anatomy, a cabinet of preparations in anatomy and natural history, a large library, a museum of natural history, and a menagérie well stocked. Besides the lectures delivered in the Amphitheatre, erected in these Gardens, the Professors of Botany give their peripatetic lessons, in good weather, to a numerous train of disciples.

“When I have been seated at noon, on a fine day, in the month of August, or in the commencement of May, under one of the majestic ash of the Garden of Plants, with this Elysian scene before me, in the midst of a most profound silence, and of a solitude interrupted only by the occasional appearance of the Professor of Botany and his pupils, I have almost fancied myself,” says the writer of Letters on France and England—(see Am. Rev. No. ii.) “among the groves of the Athenian Academy, and could imagine that I heard the lessons of the “divine” Plato. Here, as well as in the spacious and noble works and gardens of Oxford, which are so admirably calculated for the exercises both of the mind and body, the fancy takes wing, and readily transports the student of antiquity to those venerable seats of knowledge, where the sublime Philosophy of the Greeks was taught, and the masters of human reason displayed their incomparable eloquence:”—

——“the green retreats Of Academus, and the thymy vale, Where, oft enchanted with Socratic sounds, Ilyssus, pure, devolv’d his tuneful stream In gentle murmur.” Akenside’s Pleasures of Imagination.

The importance of establishing a Botanical Garden at Philadelphia is obvious: it has, in fact, become a necessary institution, towards completing a medical education; according to the system of teaching medicine, pursued in the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania. In this respect, New-York has taken the lead of Philadelphia. Dr. David Hosack, professor of botany in the Medical School of New-York, established a Botanic Garden of about twenty acres, called the Elgin Botanic Garden, in the vicinity of that city, in the year 1801. This Garden is skirted around by forest-trees and shrubs, within the substantial enclosure of a stone wall; and on these grounds are erected extensive, commodious, and well constructed conservatories and hot-houses, which are furnished with a variety of plants, exotic and indigenous. The whole of this establishment was purchased from Dr. Hosack, by the state, in the year 1810: It is now under the direction of the regents of the University of that state.

Six years ago, the general assembly of Pennsylvania made some provision for such an institution: By a law passed the 19th of March, 1807, towards the close of Governor M‘Kean’s administration, three thousand dollars were granted to the trustees of the University of Pennsylvania, “out of the monies they owe the state; for the purpose of enabling them to establish a Garden for the improvement of the science of Botany, and for instituting a series of experiments to ascertain the cheapest and best food for plants, and their medical properties and virtues.” But no application of this fund has yet been made, to the purposes contemplated by the legislature in their appropriation of it.

Mr. John Bartram, F. R. S. a distinguished botanist, though self-taught, is understood to have been the first anglo-American who executed the design of a Botanic Garden in this country. He laid out, and planted with his own hands, on his farm, pleasantly situated on the west bank of the Schuylkill and about four miles below Philadelphia, a garden of five or six acres; which he furnished with a great variety of curious, useful and beautiful vegetables, exotic as well as American. He acquired the greater part of the latter, in travelling through many parts of the continent, from Canada to the Floridas. His proficiency in his favourite science was, at a pretty early period, so great, that Linnæus pronounced him, in one of his letters, to be the greatest natural botanist in the world. This Garden is now in the tenure and under the management of his son, the ingenious Mr. William Bartram, a well known cultivator of Natural History and Botany. Although this respectable man is above seventy years of age, he continues the most sedulous attention to his favourite pursuits. For a further account of Mr. John Bartram, see Dr. Barton’s Medical Journal.

Mr. Bartram was born near Darby, in the (then) county of Chester, Pennsylvania, in the year 1701. He held the appointment of Botanist, for America, to King George III. until his death, which occurred in September, 1777, in the seventy-sixth year of his age.

Footnote 262a:

Since deceased.

Footnote 262b:

Academus was an Athenian hero, from whom the original Academists, or that sect of philosophers who followed the opinion of Socrates, as illustrated and enforced by Plato, derived their name; Plato having taught his disciples in a grove, near Athens, consecrated to the memory of that hero.