GEORGE ENGELMANN, M.D. 5 



pernicious influence of an unaccustomed climate, and the mala- 

 rial exhalatio'is of a newly settled country with its swamps and 

 forests, gradually produced serious results on the sturdy health of 

 the young explorer, who became infected by one of those terrible 

 swamp fevers, which might have resulted fatally, had he not been 

 saved by the faithful and devoted nursing of a kind Arkansas 

 negro family. This experience did not deter him from making 

 another tour into the interior of Arkansas in the interest of a sil- 

 ver-mining company; but after that, in the fall of 1835, he con- 

 cluded to settle down and commence tlie practice of medicine at 

 St. Louis, which was then only a small frontier town or post of less 

 ■than 10,000 inhabitants, but which had a special attraction and 

 interest for him on account of its situation at the verge of a vast 

 unexplored and almost unlimited territory, of whose enormous 

 wealth he hail been allowed to catch a furtive glimpse during his 

 travels and which had excited his active imagination. He was 

 influenced in his choice, also, by the presence of a considerable 

 number of well-educated Germans, most of whom had left their 

 native country because of political difficulties and annoying per- 

 secutions, and who also, in all likelihood, were driven to the out- 

 posts of civilization by a more or less adventurous spirit. 



While scouring »he country for knowledge he seems to have 

 had no thought of the future and of his financial affairs ; on the 

 contrary, in order to defray the expenses of furnishing his modest 

 office, he was compelled to dispose of his guns and pistols, and 

 in fiict of his whole travelling outfit except his favorite horse and 

 accoutrements, at that time the most necessary requisites for a 

 medical practice at its very beginning. 



During this period he occupied his leisure hours between the 

 prosecution of his scientific researches and his attention to public 

 affairs. He aided in the publication of a German newspaper, the 

 '^Anzeiger des Westens," and became busily engaged in 1836 

 in the establishment of a German school for the benefit of a 



