2  Dr.  Peter  Smith  and  His  Dispensatory.    { ^iu^yfim^ 
energetic  Hessian,  who,  after  the  surrender  of  the  British,  took  his 
pack  on  his  back  and  tramped  over  our  land  in  search  of  American 
medicinal  plants,  had  not  yet  written  his  Materia  Medica  Americana, 
which  is  the  first  systematic  publication  concerning  the  American 
Materia  Medica.1 
B.  S.  Barton,  of  the  University  of  Pennsylvania,  who,  in  1798, 
contributed  the  first  study  of  American  drugs,  from  an  educational 
institution,2  and  Samuel  Thomson,3  the  combative  champion  of 
lobelia,who  fought  the  medical  profession  and  introduced  the  Thom- 
sonian  method  of  medication,  were  contemporaneous  with  Peter 
Smith.  C.  S.  R.  Rafinesque,  that  picturesque,  gifted,  erratic,  enthu- 
siastic scholar,  who  devoted  his  life  to  science,  in  his  guileless  confi- 
dence had  not  yet  been  misled  and  ridiculed  by  Audubon,  the  bril- 
liant bird  painter.  The  great  ornithologist  had  not  yet  played  his 
cruel  practical  jokes  on  his  confiding  guest  when  Peter  Smith  trod 
the  Kentucky  path  that  Rafinesque  and  Daniel  Vaughn  followed 
afterwards  towards  their  miserable  graves.4 
But  enough  of  this  dissertation  concerning  the  men  who,  in  or 
near  the  day  of  Peter  Smith,  helped  to  make  American  Materia 
Medica  history ;  their  trials  and  privations  cannot  more  than  be 
touched  upon  in  this  paper;  the  subject  is  Dr.  Smith. 
Coming  into  the  Ohio  Valley  from  the  South  that  he  hated  be- 
cause of  its  slavery,  preaching  the  Word  of  God  and  practising 
others,  he  started  on  an  exploring  expedition  up  the  Miami  River,  wandered 
away  from  the  party  and  was  never  heard  of  again.  Probably  the  Indians  were 
responsible  for  his  death. 
This  historical  note  concerning  a  man  who  took  no  part  in  medicine  is 
apparently  out  of  place.  But  the  author  fails  to  find  his  record  in  biographical 
works  where  it  ought  to  be  in  place,  and  therefore  ventures  to  thrust  a  word 
into  print  concerning  the  man  who  made  for  General  Washington  the  first 
scientific  description  of  Kentucky,  who  wrote  the  first  history  of  Kentucky, 
who  surveyed  the  site  where  now  stands  Cincinnati,  and  who  gave  to  this  city 
a  picturesque,  original  name,  that  was  rudely  brushed  out  of  existence  by  the 
unfortunate  General  St.  Clair,  Governor  of  the  Northwest  Territory. 
1  "  Materia  Medica  Americana,"  1787. 
2  "Collections  for  an  Essay  towards  a  Materia  Medica  of  the  United  States," 
by  Benjamin  Smith  Barton,  M.D.,  1798. 
3  See  "  A  Narrative  of  the  Life  and  Medical  Discoveries  of  Samuel  Thomson," 
1822. 
4  " The  Life  and  Writings  of  Rafinesque."  Prepared  for  the  Filson  Club, 
Louisville,  Ky.,  and  read  at  its  meeting,  Monday,  April  2,  1894.  By  Richard 
Ellsworth  Call,  M.A.,  M.Sc,  M.D. 
