316 DR. THOMAS BOND [1738-9. 



DR. THOMAS BOND* TO JOHN BARTRAM. 



Paris, February 20, 1738-9. 



My good Friend : 



As I am writing to my American friends, I cannot forget my 

 good friend Bartram, and send you my best respects, and hearty 

 desire for your and family's health and happiness, than which 

 nothing is more my wish. 



I expected to have given you more pleasure in this letter than I 

 find I shall ; for by the assistance of that good man, our friend 

 Collinson, I have a particular acquaintance with Monsieur Jus- 

 sieu, Professor of Botany at the King's Garden, who is supposed 

 to be one of the greatest men in that way in Europe. He pro- 

 mised to inform me what were the species of those plants you 

 called Incognita, and in others where he thought you were mistaken. 



I gave him all the dry specimens ; five of which were new, and 

 pleased him exceedingly, particularly the Seneka Root, which he 

 then took to be a Polygala. But I could not meet him anywhere 

 this week ; for which reason, I must put it off to the next oppor- 

 tunity. He told me the Virginia Seneka Boot was sent him with 

 a recommendation and method of use in pleurisies, and repeatedly 

 tried with surprising success, and is in the highest esteem with 

 him, and many other physicians ; but that another here, of the 

 same species, was tried for the want of it, with equal advantage. 



The Ginseng is now here common, but in no esteem. It was 

 brought from Canada, and is exactly the same with what you dis- 

 covered. 



I have now spent three months in Paris, the most diligently I 

 ever did any in my life, and, I fear, to the prejudice of my tender 

 constitution ; but if I was almost sure 'twould kill me, I could not 

 avoid tending the curious courses of Anatomy, Surgery, Phy- 



* "Thomas Bond, a distinguished physician and surgeon, was born in Mary- 

 land, in 1712. After studying with Dr. Hamilton, he spent a considerable time 

 in Paris. In 1734 [?] he commenced practice at Philadelphia. The first clinical 

 lectures in the Pennsylvania Hospital were delivered by him. He assisted in 

 founding the college and academy. Of a literary society, composed of Franklin, 

 Bartram, Godfrey, and others, he was a member ; and an officer of the Philoso- 

 phical Society, from its establishment. The annual address before the society 

 was delivered by him, in 1782, on The Rank of Man in the Scale of Being. He 

 died in 1784, aged 72." Blake's Biog. Dictionary. 



