DAVID HOSACK. IO3 



1792, leaving my family to the care of my parents, I took pas- 

 sage for Liverpool." 



After spending a few days in Liverpool he proceeded to 

 Edinburgh, where he attended the medical lectures at the 

 university during the following winter. In the spring, after a 

 visit to his father's birthplace, where he met two uncles and 

 other relatives, and to some other places in Scotland, he re- 

 paired to the metropolis and entered as a pupil of St. Barthol- 

 omew's Hospital. He also frequently visited other hospitals 

 when any important surgical operations were performed, sur- 

 gery being the favourite subject of his pursuit ; he nevertheless 

 did not neglect the collateral branches of medical science. 



It was during this stay abroad that his interest in botany 

 sprang up. "Having," as he says, "upon one occasion 

 while walking in the garden of Prof. Hamilton, at Bland- 

 ford, in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh been very much 

 mortified by my ignorance of botany, with which his other 

 guests were familiarly conversant, I had resolved at that time, 

 whenever an opportunity might offer, to acquire a knowledge 

 of that department of science. Such an opportunity was now 

 presented, and I eagerly availed myself of it. The late Mr. Wil- 

 liam Curtis, author of the Flora Londinensis, had at that time 

 just completed his botanic garden at Brompton, which was 

 arranged in such a manner as to render it most instructive to 

 those desirous of becoming acquainted with this ornamental 

 and useful branch of a medical education. Although Mr. 

 Curtis had for some time ceased to give lectures on botany, he 

 very kindly undertook, at my solicitation, to instruct me in the 

 elements of botanical science. For this purpose I visited the 

 botanical garden daily throughout the summer, spending sev- 

 eral hours in examining the various genera and species to be 

 found in that establishment. I also had the benefit once a 

 week of accompanying him in an excursion to the different 

 parts of the country in the vicinity of London. Dr. William 

 Babbington, Dr. Thornton, Dr. (now Sir) Smith Gibbs, Dr. 

 Hunter, of New York, the Hon. Mr. Greville, and myself com- 

 posed the class in these instructive botanical excursions, in the 

 summer of 1793. 



" By Mr. Dickson, of Covent Garden, the celebrated cryptog- 

 amist, the l maximus in minimis,' as Mr. Curtis has very prop- 

 erly and facetiously denominated him, I was also initiated into 



