GEORGE EDWARD POST 193 



The Protestant Hospital was then a small, 

 struggling institute with few students. Dr. Post 

 lived to see it with an enrollment of eight hun- 

 dred, representing some twelve or fourteen 

 nationalities. 



He had no light task; for class room, the hos- 

 pital, private practice and missionary as well as 

 scientific duties all clamored for him. The teach- 

 ing was in Arabic, which Post had mastered 

 when in Tripoli, before going to Beirut. Of the 

 preparation of text-books in Arabic he had also 

 to bear a large share. One was on Structural and 

 Systematic Botany, and a Flora of Syria, Pales- 

 tine, Sinai and Egypt 1 (not to be confused with 

 his much larger and more complete Flora, in 

 English, published many years later). From 

 the time he landed in Syria he began collecting 

 the plants of the country, and this herbarium, 

 which steadily grew in size and value until, at 

 his death, it numbered over 15,000 species, was 

 his pride and joy and the foundation for all his 

 subsequent work in botany. One of the last 

 botanical tasks that he undertook was the careful 



1 " Post's Flora of Syria, Palestine, and Sinai has no date on the title- 

 page. It was printed on the Mission Press in Beirut, and consumed 

 about fourteen years (1883-1896) in the printing; but I can find no 

 evidence that it was issued in parts. The entire work seems to have 

 first come into the hands of the public in 1896. Perhaps there may be a 

 later edition, but as far as I know this was the only one." (J. H. 

 Barnhart.) 



