298 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 
covering 178 closely written quarto or folio pages, now 
in possession of the Linnean Society of London. 
“Rafinesque,” continues this critic, “was a man deeply 
to be commiserated, not merely on account of the un- 
fortunate circumstances which left him in his youth to 
himself, without teacher or guide, but still more on the 
ground of that natural disposition by which his uni- 
versal failure in life was brought about. He was pos- 
sessed of a feverish restlessness which entirely disquali- 
fied him from serious study of any of the multitudinous 
subjects which attracted his mind in rapid succession.” 
Rafinesque, bereft of friends and fortune, unknown 
even to his neighbors, by whom he seems to have been 
regarded as a harmless herb doctor, was left to struggle 
on alone, without recognition and without sympathy or 
support. Reduced finally to abject poverty, he con- 
cocted and sold medicines which were advertised much 
like quack remedies at the present day, especially his 
“Pulmel,” which without a doubt he thought had cured 
him of the pulmonary consumption. To advertise this 
he wrote a little treatise, hoping to realize something 
from its sale and at the same time to avoid any undue 
appearance of empyricism. 
Toward the very end of his life, Rafinesque pro- 
jected a savings bank, and, strangely enough, this seems 
to have been a success, though just how is not clear, 
since it both borrowed and loaned money at six per 
cent. He had already attempted to secure rights on a 
“steam-plough,” a “submarine boat,” “incombustible 
houses,” and similar novelties which abler inventors have 
later perfected. For a long time he led the life of a 
perfect recluse in a garret in a poor quarter of Phila- 
delphia, in the midst of his collections, his books and 
his manuscripts, never the world forgetting but ever by 
