58 



The Botanist. — Being the Botanical Part op a Course of 

 Lectures in Natural History, Delivered in the University 

 of Cambridge, together with a Discourse on the Principles 

 OF Vitality, by Benj^^min Waterhouse, M.D., Boston, 1811. 



By H. Beaumont Small, M.D. 



There has recently come into my possession a copy of the first 

 botanical lectures delivered in America. Just one hundred years ago, 

 1788, Doctor Benjamin Waterhouse was authorized by Harvard Uni- 

 versity to deliver to " such students as shall obtain permission from 

 their parents or guardians, a course of lectures on Natural History." 

 The book itself was printed in 1811, but the lectures are corrected up 

 to, and dated, 1804. 



It is somewhat out of place to take up the time of the meeting 

 with such a paper, but the fact of these lectures being the beginning 

 of the teaching of botany in this country, and the strangeness of some of 

 the views expressed in them, may give it interest. I shall only refer as 

 concisely as possible to some of the most striking oddities that have at- 

 tracted my attention. 



The lectures follow much the same course as those delivered at the 

 present day. They commence with the seed and continue with a con- 

 sideration of the stem, leaves, buds, blossoms and fruit. Interspersed 

 are a history of the science of botany, sketches of the lives of Linnaeus, 

 and other of the early botanists, and a history of botanic gardens. The 

 last seems to have been suggested by the fact that such a garden was 

 being talked of at the University at the time. 



His opening remarks seem to imply that the lectures on other 

 bx'anches of natural history had been delivered, and that now he entered 

 the field of botany. They also indicate the novelty of the subject : — 



" As natural history is a subject that has excited some attention for 

 more than a dozen years past at the University in this place ; and as 

 that branch of it denominated botany has lately become a topic of con- 

 versation, and likely to become more so, we have thought that it would 

 conduce to good, if we laid before the public a few essays on this pleas- 

 ant department of nature." 



Further on we learn what he proposes : — " Some of the leading 

 principles of this charming science we mean to extend through a series 



