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 

 (i74i-i742)inNewYorkCity,of which he wrote 

 an account inHosack SLndFriLncis^ Register,vol. i. 

 He loved botany, too, and from Coldenham came 

 his Plantae Coldenghamiae in Provincia Nove- 

 boracensi Americes sponte crescentes,quas ad me- 

 thodum Cl.LinnaeiSexualem,anno I74^> obser- 

 vavit Cadwalader Golden. Thacher says the in- 

 timacy with Linnaeus came about through a 

 paper Colden 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 Colden, 

 who was taught its use by the country people of 

 New York." 



When Colden 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 



' Correspondence of Linnaeus, vol. ii, 4.76. 



