The young doctor went to Paris for a short time after earning his 
degree. He stayed there a few months observing the practice of medicine 
in hospitals but concluded that his destiny lay elsewhere—perhaps in 
the New World. Wislizenus sailed from Paris to New York City, where 
he remained for two years before once again growing restless and electing 
to go west. 
After hearing that many of his compatriots had found good homes 
there, Wislizenus arrived at the small community of Mascoutah in 
Southern Illinois. In three year’s time, however, Wislizenus had grown 
disenchanted with the settled life of a country doctor and made plans 
to relocate in St. Louis. But before moving, he would make a six-month 
journey into the untamed regions west of the Mississippi. 
Wislizenus had long harbored a craving to see the American 
wilderness, so in 1839 he went to Westport, Missouri, and joined a 
St. Louis Fur Company expedition bound for the Rockies. From this 
“‘jumping off’’ point he traveled with the traders, sleeping on the ground 
and feasting on buffalo meat, up the Kansas River to the Platte, along 
the Platte to Fort Laramie, and over the Black Hills and the Wind River 
Mountains to the annual rendezvous on the upper Green River in what 
is now Wyoming. The traders conducted their business there, exchanging 
goods for beaver pelts with thousands of Indians and some mountain 
men, and then departed for Missouri. Wislizenus stayed behind and con- 
tinued westward with a large group of homeward-bound NezPerces and 
Flathead Indians, going as far as Fort Hall on the Snake River, near 
the site of present-day Pocatello, Idaho. From Fort Hall, Wislizenus 
intended to cross the Sierra Nevadas into California. His plans fell 
through when he failed to find a guide willing to show him the route, 
and he returned to St. Louis via the Arkansas River. 
After his arrival in St. Louis, Wislizenus published an account, 
in German, of his travels. Since he took no instruments and made no 
systematic records, he regarded his journey as an adventure, not a scien- 
tific expedition, and he disclaimed any scientific expertise in his book. 
Nevertheless, his descriptions of the plants, animals, geology, and in- 
habitants of the West were rendered in considerable scientific detail in 
the narrative.!3 The book made little impact on the learned community 
who could read it, however, and it had even less popular appeal. 
Wislizenus was disappointed with the reception his book received, 
but he must have been pleased with his decision to move to St. Louis. 
When he returned from the Rockies, he plunged into the practice of 
medicine at St. Louis with characteristic fervor. And in a short time, 
the young doctor enjoyed a large income and a favorable reputation 
among his colleagues and the town’s growing community of Germans, 
who were his principal patients. 
17 
