SCHOPF AMERICAN TRAVELS. 



The French physicians and surgeons, here as well as in the West 

 Indies, were very much disinclined to give bark in cases of inter- 

 mittent fever. The Americans were always sooner done with their 

 patients, whereas the French showed a preference rather for enfeebling 

 theirs to the skeleton point ; finally, indeed, brought them round, but 

 very slowly and at the risk of frequent relapses and stoppages of the 

 bowels secjuelae of long-standing fevers very much more certain to 

 occur if hark is not given in time. Dr. Rush learned of a quack doctor 

 the use of blistering plasters for obstinate cold fevers or agues, and 

 his experience convinced him of the value of the treatment. The 

 blisters are applied to both wrists and seldom fail of effect. (Several 

 bands about the hand have long been used by our German country 

 people.) Dr. Rush in this way cured a Virginia doctor of a tertian 

 which he had been dragging about for three months, and he in turn 

 used the treatment in Virginia with good results. . . . 



Dr. Kuhn, of German origin, is the Professor of Botany and Materia 

 Medica. He is a disciple of the lamented Linnaeus, who named an 

 order of plants in his honor, the Kuhnia which Dr. Kuhn himself 

 has not seen, although it exists in Pensylvania. The professorship of 

 Botany is an empty title, since throughout the summer there is neither 

 lecturing nor botanizing. . . . 



I should tax the patience of my readers by an enumeration of all 

 the Aesculapians and learned men of Philadelphia, where the labors 

 of the physician are as richly rewarded as at anv place. The yearly 

 in-take of more than one of these men is reckoned at several thousand 

 pounds Pensyl. Current. But their greatest profit arises from the private 

 dispensation of remedies ;* to which end each physician of large prac- 

 tice has a select stock of drugs and keeps a few young men at hand to 

 prepare prescriptions and assist in visiting patients. By private read- 

 ins: or academical instruction, these young men contrive to increase 

 their knowledge and so fit themselves for practice on their own account. 



. . . Mr. du Sumitiere, of Geneva, a painter, is almost the only 

 man at Philadelphia who manifests a taste for natural history. Also 

 he possesses the only collection, a small one, of natural curiosities 

 and a not inconsiderable number of well-executed drawings of American 

 birds, plants, and insects. It is to be regretted that his activities and 

 his enthusiasm for collecting should be embarrassed bv domestic cir- 

 cumstances, and that he should fail of positive encouragement from 

 the American public. 



During the first days of my stay at Philadelphia I visited among" 

 others Mr. Bartram, the son of the worthy and meritorious botanist 

 (so often mentioned by Kalm) who died six years ago at a great age. 

 Bartram the elder was merely a gardener, but by his own talents 



*There are besides several apothecarys and dealers in drugs at Philadelphia among 

 others a German shop, where the Pennsylvania-Dut?J farmer, to his great comfort, is 

 supplied all the silly doses he has been accustomed ) in the fatherland. 



