Constantine Samuel Rafinesque. ^ 



question but that he was not of sound mind during 

 these latest years. He was not, however, the irrespon 

 sible madman some would have us believe; rather, his 

 was monomania, and took the direction of descriptions 

 of new forms of animal and plant life. But, more than 

 this, his defect was that peculiar form of monomania 

 which believed only in himself; which saw in his own 

 work a value that does not always attach to it; which 

 made him neglect the work of others, or, if it were 

 noticed, impelled him to caustic and unwise criticism. 



It is related of his burial, that when a few men, what 

 ever the motive that prompted them may have been, 

 learned of his death and assembled to give the dead 

 decent entombment, his landlord refused permission of 

 burial; he hoped to find a market for the body in a 

 medical school, and thus obtain the rental Rafinesque 

 could not pay when living. The body had been locked 

 in a room adjoining that in which death had come; the 

 door was forced open in the presence of his last and 

 faithful friend, Doctor William Mease, and an under 

 taker by the name of Bringhurst; and what remained 

 of Rafinesque was let down by ropes into the back 

 yard and then conveyed to its resting-place.* 



*This statement was first published in the Philadelphia Ledger Supple 

 ment, May 5, 1877. It is reproduced entirely in the American Naturalist, 

 1877, Vol. XI, pp. 574, 575. Vide &quot; Rafinesquiana &quot; at the end of this volume. 



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