CASPAR WISTAR 



1761-1818 

 Wistaria speciosa — NUTTALL 



Wistaria, the beautiful flowering vine with its 

 rich drooping spring cluster, is known, of course, 

 to all, and " Wistar parties " to most of us ; so it 

 comes to pass that the memory of one of our great 

 surgeons is conserved in two emblems of festivity 

 rather than, as he perhaps imagined, in his origi- 

 nal observation and Description of the Posterior 

 Portion of the Ethmoid Bone with the Triangu- 

 lar Bones Attached. 



His grandfather, Caspar Wistar, a German, 

 came to Philadelphia in 1717, and Dr. Wistar 

 was born there in 1761. He had the advantage, 

 as a medical student of sitting under Morgan, 

 Shippen, Rush and Kuhn, after which, like most 

 men of his day, he went to Europe, taking his 

 medical degree at Edinburgh University. His 

 inaugural thesis, De Animo Demisso, was dedi- 

 cated to Franklin and CuUen. He studied under 

 Cullen, and, rare honor for a youthful stranger, 

 was twice president of the Royal Medical Society 

 of Edinburgh. 



He was initiated into practice under Dr. John 

 Jones, author of the first work on surgery in 



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