MEMOIB OF DB WRIGHT. 141 



The exertions of Dr Wright on behalf of the 

 Botanic Garden at Liverpool, produced a vote of thanks 

 from the committee, which was communicated in very 

 eloquent terms by their Vice-President, Mr Roscoe, 

 the celebrated biographer of Lorenzo de Medici, 

 and the intimate friend of Dr Currie. Mr Roscoe 

 had also delivered a discourse on the occasion of the 

 opening of the garden, in which he noticed the assist- 

 ance which Dr Wright had afforded, in very flatter- 

 ing terms. A printed copy of this discourse was 

 transmitted by Dr Currie to Dr Wright ; and on 

 the 27th of September 1802, he acknowledges the 

 compliment as follows : — 



" Your kind letter of the 23d of May, together with the 

 two pamphlets, came safely to hand. My warmest thanks 

 are due to Mr Roscoe, and to you, for the notice he has been 

 pleased to take of me in the address. I shall study to merit 

 his good opinion, and to cultivate his friendship. 



" I have just returned from a summer tour in Aberdeen- 

 shire, Strath Tay, and Callendar Menteith ; in the course of 

 which, I have seen and conversed with many of the best prac- 

 titioners, and have been glad to find so great a number con- 

 curring in our views on the subject of fever, and in the bene- 

 fits resulting from external cold. Happy had I been, indeed, 

 to have found the box-bed excluded from the wretched habi- 

 tations of the lower orders. 1 1 has been, and still continues, 

 to be a great scourge. Like a jail, it engenders contagion, 

 converts a common catarrh into typhus, and infects all who 

 come within the range of its influence 



" I have made some progress with the specimens, and hope 

 I shall now meet with no farther interruption. I look for a 

 large collection soon from Trinidad and Guiana ; but that 



