CASPAR WISTAR 83 



America, which appeared in 1776, and was ap- 

 pointed Professor of Chemistry and Physiology 

 in the College of Philadelphia, 1789. From 

 1 793 to 1 8 1 o he was physician to the Pennsylvania 

 Hospital. The work of the American Philo- 

 sophical Society, of which he became president 

 in 1815, interested him greatly, and he did much 

 to stimulate the society into collecting the fleeting 

 materials of American history. After the death 

 of Shippen in 1808, he became Professor of 

 Anatomy in the Medical School of the Uni- 

 versity of Pennsylvania, using such fine descrip- 

 tive powers that the students flocked to listen ; and 

 after the lectures they thronged around him, for 

 his manner convinced them that their interests 

 were paramount to his convenience. He used 

 also to invite them to his house, and Dr. Caspar 

 Morris says, " His urbane manner and happy 

 faculty of engaging them in conversation relieved 

 the frigid formality which usually settles on such 

 assemblages. No sooner would Dr. Wistar enter 

 the room, around the wall of which some twenty 

 or thirty young men but little acquainted with 

 each other were arranged in awful expectancy, 

 than he would draw them into conversation and 

 give freedom to their powers pent up, not so much 

 by ignorance, as timidity." 



His sociability and teaching did not leave him 

 much time for writing, but he got through a Sys- 



