ADAM KUHN 71 



Kuhn arrived in London in 1764 and studied 

 there a while. In 1767 he was in Edinburgh, 

 where he took his M. D. at Edinburgh University 

 the same year. His thesis De Lavatione Frigida, 

 or the use of cold bathing in fevers, was dedi- 

 cated to his friend Linnaeus. 



John Ellis, writing to Linnaeus from London 

 in 1765, tells him, " Poor Kuhn has been very ill 

 of a pleuritic fever, but is now crawling about " ; 

 and in the same year, " Our friend, Adam Kuhn, 

 is now at W. Pitcairn's, a merchant in Edin- 

 burgh, Scotland : I do not doubt but he will pro- 

 mote the subject of Natural History there." 



Ellis does not seem so much in favor of Kuhn 

 in 1770, for he says to Linnaeus : 



" Dr. Kuhn is one of those American chiefs 

 that despise us Englishmen. I sent him some 

 seeds of the Rheum palmatum by a friend and he 

 had not the decency to thank me ; but his German 

 pride will do him no service, for, thank God, we 

 shall now humble those American revolters. He 

 is, to my knowledge, infinitely obliged to you: 

 without your care in cultivating his mind he 

 would have been a mere savage." 



After this explosive statement Kuhn figures no 

 more in the Correspondence. 



In 1768, after his return to Philadelphia, he 

 became professor of materia medica and 



2 Correspondence of Linnaeus, vol. i. 



