568 DOCTOR W I STAR [1797. 



My dear Friend : 



I have only a few moments to remind thee of my very earnest 

 request, to have seeds, &c, to the amount of sixteen or twenty 

 dollars, supplied to me this year, for a present to the wife of an 

 unfortunate foreigner [A. H. Row ax]. 



Thy attention, and thy worthy nephew's, will particularly, very 

 particularly, oblige 



Thy affectionate friend, 



John Dickinson. 



Wilmington, July 31st, 1797. 



dr. wistar* to h. and m. marshall. 



Respected Friends : 



"With this I send a Treatise on the effects of Foxglove, which I 

 mentioned to friend H. M. when he was last in town. Dr. M. will 

 be pleased to find that he is in possession of a plant of such effi- 

 cacy, and perhaps will cultivate a greater quantity of it. As the 

 book is in great demand, I wish he would return it by the first 

 opportunity that offers, after he has read it. 



If you have any of the plant to spare, I will be much obliged to 



* Caspar Wistar, M.D., a skilful physician, and learned professor in the 

 University of Pennsylvania, was born in 1760. His father was a German, of the 

 Society of Friends, and settled in New Jersey. In 1783, he went to England in 

 order to complete his medical education. His father's death put him in the pos- 

 session of a large fortune ; but he was not induced to relax his exertions for use- 

 fulness and eminence. He returned to Philadelphia in 1787, and was immediately 

 appointed Professor of Chemistry and Physiology in the College of that city. He 

 also commenced the practice of Medicine, and was chosen one of the attending 

 Physicians to the Dispensary and Hospital. In 1808, he succeeded to the Pro- 

 fessorship of Anatomy [having been an adjunct of Dr. Shippen, and doing the 

 chief duties of the chair, for a number of years prior to that appointment]. Such 

 were his talents, and his popular manners, that the Medical School of Philadelphia 

 was much indebted to his influence for the high reputation it has acquired. Dr. 

 Wistar was confessedly one of the first physicians of his time, in this country ; 

 and he was well known by his correspondence with learned men in Europe, as a 

 gentleman of extensive erudition. He was a member of several of the most dis- 

 tinguished literary and scientific societies. On the 6th of January, 1815, he was 

 elected President of the American Philosophical Society, in place of Thomas 

 Jefferson, resigned ; which office he held until his death. His chief work is a 

 System of Anatomy, in two volumes. He died on the 22d of January, 1818. In 

 the same year, a genus of plants was dedicated to his memory, by Mr. Nuttall. 



