The Beginnings of Aincrican Science. 4^3 



and from Siie in Paris. The beginning was still earlier known, for a 

 collection of anatomical models in wax, obtained by Doctor Abraham 

 Chovet in Paris, was in use by Philadelphia medical students before the 

 revolution.' 



Another of the physicians of colonial days who lived until after the 

 revolution was Doctor Thomas Cadwallader [b. 1707, d. 1779], whose 

 dissections are said to have been among the earliest made in America, 

 and whose Essay on the West India Dry Gripes, 1775, was one of the 

 earliest medical treatises in America. 



Doctor Caspar Wistar [b. 1761, d. 1818] was also a leader, and was at 

 various times professor of chemistry and anatomy. His contributions to 

 natural history were descriptions of bones of Megalonyx and other mam- 

 mals, a study of the human ethmoid, and experiments on evaporation. 

 He was long vice-president of the Philosophical Society, and in 1815 

 succeeded Jefferson in its presidenc}-. The Wistar Anatomical Museum 

 of the university and the beautiful climbing shrub \Vista7'ia are among 

 the memorials to his name.' 



Still another memorial of the venerable naturalist may perhaps l)e worthy 

 of mention as an illustration of the social condition of science in Philadel- 

 phia in early days. A traveler visiting the city in 1829 thus described 

 this institution, which was continued until the late war and then discon- 

 tinued, but has been resumed within the last year: 



Doctor Wistar in his lifetime had a party of his literary and scientific friends at 

 his house, one evenins^ in every week — and to this party, strangers visiting the city, 

 were also invited. When he died, the same party was continued, and the members 

 of the Wistar party, in their tour, each have a meeting of the club at his house, on 

 some Saturday night in the year. This club consists of the men most distinguished 

 for learning, science, art, literature, and wealth in the city. It opens at early 

 candle-light, in the evening, where, not only the members themselves appear, but 

 they bring with them all the strangers of distinction then in the city.' 



The Wistar parties were continued up to the beginning of the civil 

 war, in 1861, and have been resumed since 1887. A history of these 

 gatherings would cover a period of three-quarters of a century at the least, 

 and could be made a most valuable and entertaining contribution to sci- 

 entific literature. 



Packard, in his History of Zoology, •• states that zoology, the world over, 

 has spnuig from the study of human anatomy, and that American zoology 

 took its rise and was fostered chiefly in Philadelphia h\ the professors in 

 the medical schools. 



'This eventually became the property of the university. See Barton's Memoirs of 

 Rittenhouse, 1813, p. 377. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, II, 

 p. 368. 



= Davnd Hosack, Tribute to the Memory of the late Caspar Wistar, New York, 18 iS. 



3 Caleb Atwater, Remarks made on a Tour to Prairie du Chien; thence to Wash- 

 ington City, in 1829. Columbus, Ohio, 1831, p. 238. 



■• Standard Natural History, pp. Ixii-lxxii. 



