40 SOME AMERICAN MEDICAL BOTANISTS 



Colden's public duties did not loosen his grip 

 on science. Much of this knowledge was used in 

 speech and by pen during an epidemic of fever 

 ( 1741-1742) inNewYorkCity, of which he wrote 

 an account inHosack and Francis' .Router, vol. i. 

 He loved botany, too, and from Coldenham came 

 his Plantae Coldenghamiae in Provincia Nove- 

 boracensi Americes sponte crescentes, quas ad me- 

 thodum CLLinnaeiSexualem,anno 1742, obser- 

 vavit Gadwalader Golden. Thacher says the in- 

 timacy with Linnaeus came about through a 

 paper Golden wrote on The Virtues of the Great 

 Water Dock. 



Linnaeus, writing to Dr. James Lind concern- 

 ing oedematous swellings on scorbutics says : * 



" Nor has any cure been found for this state of 

 the disease, except recently in the root of the 

 Water Dock, called Herba Britannica (Rumex 

 aquaticus), which I have introduced on the 

 recommendation of your countryman Golden, 

 who was taught its use by the country people of 

 New York." 



When Golden became acquainted with Lin- 

 naeus' System, he became even more zealously 

 botanical. He introduced it into America a few 

 months after its publication in Europe and sent 

 Linnaeus his description of some four hundred 

 American plants, which was published in his 



1 Correspondence of Linnaeus, vol. ii, 476. 



