52 The Life and Writings of 



It should also be remembered that Rafinesque was driven 

 by the necessities of a poverty almost unspeakable, in 

 the midst of a city of plenty, to do some things with 

 his &quot;Pulmel&quot; which he probably never would have done 

 under any ordinary circumstances. The determination 

 to owe no man anything; to secure the publication of his 

 books; to get and arrange new plants and other nat 

 ural history objects; to complete the exploration of the 

 northern Alleghanies, were all - controlling motives with 

 him. It was not sordid gain that drove him to medical 

 concoctions, but a sincere desire to get by fair means, in 

 an honorable way, the opportunity to do good and be of 

 service to mankind. I believe that Rafinesque did good 

 as he understood and felt it; that he had a nature sus 

 ceptible of appreciating kindnesses, and that, in his way 

 and to the best of his knowledge, he was of a philan 

 thropic mould. 



Of this particular episode in the life of Rafinesque it 

 would be well, perhaps, to allow him to speak. He says :* 



&quot;Having cured myself completely in 1828 of my chronic com 

 plaint, which was the fatal Phthisis, caused by my disappointments, 

 fatigues, and the unsteady climate ; which my knowledge in medical 

 botany enabled me to subdue and effect a radical cure: I entered 

 into arrangements for establishing a Chemical manufacture of veg 

 etable remedies against the different kinds of Consumption. This 



*Life of Travels, p. 87. 



