76 SOME AMERICAN MEDICAL BOTANISTS 



which was not demanded at that time, nor for a 

 hundred years later, for practice in Pennsyl- 

 vania — but he had good surgical practice in tend- 

 ing the soldiers wounded in the Battle of Brandy- 

 wine, September ii, 1777. 



As it was customary to attend a course of lec- 

 tures, he went to hear William Shippen and 

 Rush at a cost to his father, owing to the de- 

 preciation of paper currency, of £150. His 

 diary at this time shows medicine not wholly ab- 

 sorbing, for frequent mention is made of a cer- 

 tain Polly Howell and of Sally Samson, the latter 

 " behaving for three evenings, especially the last, 

 in a most engaging manner." Then followed a 

 year or two of desultory medical work, including 

 inoculations round about London Grove, Penn- 

 sylvania, and the keeping of an apothecary's shop 

 " which came to nothing and less." The truth 

 was he had not found his true vocation, which 

 was botanizing. His uncle writes to Franklin in 

 1785, and Moses himself to Dr. Lettsom in Lon- 

 don, suggesting a government-supported explora- 

 tion of the western states. That he was competent 

 to lead one was known from the fact that he had 

 already made a botanical trip to Pittsburg, the 

 party travelling in wagons. " We have been," 

 he writes to his uncle, " among the pine mount- 

 ains, where we have seen cucumber trees, rho- 

 dodendrons, mountain raspberries, and yester- 



