200 THE BOTANISTS OF PHILADELPHIA. 



for three years, he graduated with honor, and received his 

 diploma as Bachelor of Arts on July 27, 1826. 



He had now, at the age of eighteen years, completed 

 his collegiate course, which brings him to a most important 

 epoch of a man's existence. Feeling the necessity of doing 

 something for a livelihood, he selected a business life, and 

 was induced to enter the wholesale drug store of Dr. Edward 

 Lowber. He did not, however, remain here long, the daily 

 routine of trade being uncongenial to his tastes and consti- 

 tution of mind. An impulse was given, while employed by 

 Dr. Lowber, to the study of botany, the Doctor being a 

 botanist. 



This study soon filled Mr. Carson's mind, and it was 

 not long before he became an enthusiastic lover of plants, 

 and made frequent excursions for their collection ; he was 

 also led from the study of abstract botany to investigate 

 the medicinal virtues of his floral acquisitions, and while 

 collecting for his herbarium, he made decoctions and 

 infusions of the plants, testing their effects upon his own 

 person. These trips into the country served, no doubt, to 

 relieve the monotony and wearisomeness of his business 

 life. Having made up his mind to study medicine, he 

 entered, as a private pupil, the ofiice of Dr. Thomas T. 

 Hewson, one of the distinguished physicians of his day, and 

 from his preceptor's office he matriculated at the Medical 

 Department of the University of Pennsylvania, and received 

 his degree of Doctor of Medicine in the month of March, 

 1830, having presented for graduation a thesis on animal 

 temperature, an essay (though not marked by originality) 

 exhibiting research, method, clearness of thought, unam- 

 biguous style, and sound reasoning ; all of which qualities 



