John Torrey. 413 
At this early age he chanced to attract the attention of Amos 
Eaton, who soon afterwards became a well-known pioneer of 
natural science, and with whom it may be said that popular 
instruction in natural history in this country began. He taught 
young Torrey the structure of flowers and the rudiments of bot- 
any, and thus awakened a taste and kindled a zeal which were 
extinguished only with his pupil’s life. This fondness soon ex- 
tended to mineralogy and chemistry, and probably determined 
the choice of a profession. In the year 1815, Torrey began the 
study of medicine in the office of the eminent Dr. Wright Post, 
and in the College of Physicians and Surgeons, in which the 
then famous Dr. Mitchill and Dr. Hosack were professors of 
scientific repute; he took his medical degree in 1818 ; opened an 
office in his native city, and engaged in the practice of medicine 
with moderate success, turning the while his abundant leisure to 
Scientific pursuits, especially to botany. In 1817, while yet a 
medical student, he reported to the Lyceum of Natural History 
—of which he was one of the founders—his Catalogue of the 
Plants growing spontaneously within thirty miles of the city of 
New York, which was published two years later; and he was 
already, or very soon after, in correspondence with Kurt Spren- 
gel and Sir James Edward Smith abroad, as well as with Elliot, 
Nuttall, Schweinitz, and other American botanists. Two min- 
eralogical articles were contributed by him to the very first 
volume of the American Journal of Science and Arts (1818- . 
1819), and several others appeared a few years later, in this and 
in other Journals. 
Elliott’s sketch of the Botany of South Carolina and Georgia 
Was at this time in course of publication, and Dr. Torrey 
planned a counterpart systematic work upon the botany of the 
Northern States. The result of this was his “Flora of the 
Northern and Middle Sections of the United States, i. e., 
north of Virginia,”—which was issued in parts, and the first 
volume concluded in the summer of 1824. In this work Dr. 
Torrey first developed his remarkable aptitude for descriptive 
botany, and for the kind of investigation and discrimination, 
the tact and acumen, which it calls for. Only those few,— 
now, alas, very few,—surviving botanists who used this book 
through the following years can at all appreciate its value and 
