BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 221 



O. W. Holmes asserts that " this remarkable essay has prob- 

 ably had more influence on medical practice in America than any 

 similar brief treatise, we might say than any work ever published 

 in this country. It« suggestions were scattered abroad at the 

 exact fertilizing moment when public opinion was matured enough 

 for their reception." But the reforms inaugurated by Dr. Bige- 

 low were "by no means confined to the overturning the heroic 

 treatment of disease. His printed productions and addresses 

 which record his progressive views on paramount themes of pro- 

 fessional interest cover a period of more than half a century. 

 Most of these writings are collected in two volumes, ''Nature in 

 Disease" and "Modern Inquiries." Dr. Bigelow was the first to 

 fill the chair of llumford Professor in Harvard College, a profes- 

 sorship endowed by the famous Count Rumford for the purpose 

 of teaching the application of the sciences to the useful arts. He 

 is said to have been so fond of mechanical studies that every 

 workshop passed upon his walks, and every mechanic with whom 

 he conversed, were made to yield some new treasure to his stock 

 of information. He was familiar with nearly every trade and 

 nearly every mechanical process. When engravers and methods 

 could not be found for illustrating his medical botany, he himself 

 became inventor, and produced the method of aqua-tinting col- 

 ors, a method which no doubt "would have passed into profitable 

 use had not the invention of lithography soon afterwards super- 

 seded its employment." The results of his labors as llumford 

 Professor culminated in his exhaustive "Elements of Technol- 

 ogy," which appeared in 1829. 



But there was in practice another important error upon the 

 overturning of which Dr. Bigelow concentrated the whole weight 

 of his ability and influence — the existing practice of restricting 

 education to ancient languages and to metaphysics. In the ener- 

 getic stand which he took in this generous cause he excited im- 

 mediate antagonism, and was often charged with bearing no 

 sympathy for the languages, a thrust most wantonly false, for 

 none knew them better than he, and few used them more skil- 

 fully. He objected to the time they usurped in the college 

 courses, however, and his writings and addresses did much to 

 institute a reform. He wrote two important essays upon this 

 topic, "The Limits of E lucation," in 1865, and "On Classical 

 and Utilitarian Studies," in 1866. This latter is said to be "the 

 longest, the most elaborate and the most learned of his written 

 productions." 



Jacob Bigelow will ever be best and widest known, however, 



