THE BOTANISTS OF PHILADELPHIA. 257 



JOHN GIBBONS HUNT. 



John Gibbons Hunt, M. D., was bom July 27, 1826, and 

 was for a long time an intimate associate of Joseph Zent- 

 mayer in microscopy. Like Zentmayer, Dr. Hunt was not 

 a prolific writer, although he contributed a number 

 of short articles to the Cincinnati Medical News, and some 

 minor periodicals. As a manipulator of the microscope 

 and preparer of objects he was unsurpassed, but he looked 

 on this skill as only the means to an end — a knowledge of 

 the objects themselves. Having made himself familiar with 

 animal histology, he very early turned his attention to the 

 anatomy of plants of which he acquired an intimate 

 acf|uaintance. He was one of the very first to apply to 

 plants the methods of staining that were in use for animal 

 tissues, having begun before 1850. In 1853 he first com- 

 menced double staining vegetal tissues, by methods after- 

 wards published by Dr. Beatty, of Baltimore, whose articles 

 were widely quoted in the journals of this country and Europe. 

 In 1850 he graduated from the Medical Department of the 

 University of Pennsylvania, and became a member of the 

 Academy of Natural Sciences in July, 1858, and of the 

 College of Physicians in May, 1884. 



It was as a teacher that Dr. Hunt exercised his greatest 

 influence. A practicing physician for many years in Phila- 

 delphia, he still found time to give a great deal of attention 

 to instructing medical students and others in the use and 

 care of the microscope and in the preparation of microscopic 

 slides and objects. He was Professor of Histology in the 

 Woman's Medical College for a number of years. 



Founder of the Biological and Microscopical Section of 

 the Academy of Natural Sciences, and Conservator from 



