American Eden

by Victoria Johnson

  CHAPTER ONE: “Tear in Pieces the Doctors”

  15DH birthplace and father: Robbins 1964, 5–8.

  15volunteer fireman: Common Council Minutes, vol. 1, 203.

  15piles of volumes: circulation records for Alexander Hosack, 1789–1805, New York Society Library.

  16Washington Irving’s birth: Jones 2008, 2.

  16“naturally very dull”: AEH 1861, 300.

  16“gloomy reflections”: AEH 1861, 300.

  16three awards: AEH 1861, 291.

  17“Is my son Dewitt Dead”: quoted by Cornog 1998, 17.

  17“study—study—study”: DC to David Hosack Jr., 15 May 1824, CU-DC.

  17later become famous: Hosack 1829, 41.

  17needed more doctors: Starr (2008 [1982], 40) has estimated that there were about two hundred physicians with medical degrees in the American colonies on the eve of the Revolution.

  18causes of death in late eighteenth-century New York: see, e.g., Klein and Reader 1991; New-York Gazette & Weekly Mercury, 17 January 1780 and 17 July 1780; Independent Gazetteer, 7 June 1787; New-York Journal, 11 May 1786.

  18“How just is yr observation”: Sarah Livingston Jay to Susannah French Livingston, 17 April 1788, CU-JJ.

  18relationships among these humors: On humoral theory in the early Republic, see, e.g., Rosenberg 1979, Gronim 2006, and Wood 2014.

  19the main precursors: Sonnedecker, ed., 1986, 181ff.

  19plant trade routes in eighteenth century: see esp. Schiebinger 2004.

  19Beekman’s shop: New York Daily Advertiser, 25 May 1789.

  19Peruvian bark: see esp. Achan et al. 2011; Maehle 1999, chapter 4. On the dosing of Peruvian bark, e.g., Andrew Duncan Jr. 1805, 189–94.

  20cold cream: New York Daily Advertiser, 5 January 1790.

  20sal ammoniac: Lewis 1791, 271.

  20calomel’s side effects: Rothstein 1985, 50–51.

  21yellow fever: Blake 1968, 674–75.

  21smallpox epidemic: Wood 2014, 43.

  21smallpox symptoms, epidemics, and inoculation: Gronim 2006; Rothstein 1985, 29–32.

  21smallpox inoculation in Europe: Wootton 2006, 154–58.

  21“good harvests and good times”: New-York Packet, 27 April 1786.

  22Bayley’s career: Anderson 2004, 28.

  22“ardently attached”: AEH 1861, 292.

  22barely tolerated: Anderson 2004, 99.

  23pillaging of a fresh grave at Trinity: New York Daily Advertiser, 26 February 1788.

  23Poughkeepsie in June 1788: Burrows and Wallace 1998, 291.

  23drafting of the Federalist Papers: Chernow 2004, 246–67.

  24“different parts of bodies”: “Extract of a letter from New York dated April 18, 1788,” Charleston City Gazette, 13 May 1788.

  24beat on the doors: Litchfield Monitor, 12 May 1788.

  24“tear in pieces the Doctors”: Sarah Livingston Jay to Susannah French Livingston, 17 April 1788, CU-JJ.

  24“two large holes in his forehead”: Sarah Livingston Jay to Susannah French Livingston, 17 April 1788, CU-JJ.

  24attributed to his exposure: Sarah Livingston Jay to Susannah French Livingston, 17 April 1788, CU-JJ.

  24one estimate: Charleston City Gazette, 13 May 1788.

  24at least three people were killed: Wilf 1989, 513.

  25remained calm: Chernow 2010, 586–87.

  25Dutch façade: Brissot de Warville 1792, 160; Webster 1886 [1786], iv.

  25Harlem name: Burrows and Wallace 1998, 69–70.

  25one Frenchman who visited New York: Brissot de Warville 1792, 156.

  25gilt-edged mirrors: New York Argus, or Greenleaf’s New Daily Advertiser, 18 January 1796.

  26English tailor: Diary or Loudon’s Register, 25 May 1792.

  26harpsichords imported from London: New-York Packet, 26 June 1787.

  26“bosoms very naked”: Brissot de Warville 1792, 169, quoted by Burrows and Wallace 1998, 301.

  26poured into the streets: Burrows and Wallace 1998, 293; Chernow 2004, 268–69.

  26owed their well-appointed townhouses: Burrows and Wallace 1998, 290.

  26only a powerful central government: Chernow 2004, 243.

  26AH and Eliza Hamilton: Brissot de Warville 1792, 165–66.

  27“good nature”: quoted by Chernow 2004, 130.

  27Hamiltoniana: Chernow 2004, 269; Burrows and Wallace 1998, 293.

  27it was feared Congress would pack up: Burrows and Wallace 1998, 292.

  27“safe in this place”: quoted by Burrows and Wallace 1998, 292; see also Chernow 2004, 268.

  27“eternal buzz”: quoted by Meacham 2012, 257.

  28would merge in 1791: see editor’s note in Elihu Hubbard Smith 1973, 7.

  28“looks of tenderness”: quoted by Brodsky 2004, 88.

  29“perpetual stream of eloquence”: Hosack 1814, 52.

  29“garden of Eden”: quoted by Gaudio 2003, 57.

  29“mere spectator”: quoted by Hosack 1814, 50.

  29“all philosophical Experiments”: Van Doren 1943, 280.

  30“daily pitted”: quoted by Meacham 2012, 262.

  30botanical tour: see Wulf 2011, 89–99.

  30“What a field”: TJ to Joseph Willard, 24 March 1789, LC-TJ.

  30“Toppan Sea”: TJ, “Journal of the Tour,” entry for 21 May 1791, FO-TJ.

  30“vast abundance”: TJ to Thomas Mann Randolph, 5 June 1791, LC-TJ.

  30“innocent maple sugar”: Rush 1793, 76.

  31coffee sweetened: https://www.monticello.org/site/house-and-gardens/sugar-maple.

  31“This organ”: Hosack 1791, 9.

  31Snow and Koch: Porter 1997, 413, 437.

  32“painful”: DH in AEH 1861, 294.

  32Robert Burns: DH to John Bostock, 27 August 1815, DH-LB, 123r.

  32twelve hours a day: AEH 1861, 294.

  33“Old Spasm”: Porter 1997, 260.

  33novel structure: Wilson 2010, 442–44.

  33“while Astronomy claims”: quoted by Brodsky 2004, 49.

  34DH wrote Rush: DH to BR, 12 December 1792, HSP-BR, vol. 27, 55.

  34jutting chin and squashed nose: Szatkowski 2007, 118–19.

  34“very much mortified”: AEH 1861, 297.

  35were still struggling: Wilson 2010, 441. On the glacial pace of medical progress by the late eighteenth century, see esp. Wootton 2006.

  35four compounds: Quave 2016, 4.

  36botanical gardens: A growing scholarly literature explores the critical role of botany and botanical gardens in producing and maintaining the political, cultural, and scientific domination of European imperial powers over colonial lands and peoples. On Britain, see esp. Drayton 2000; on France, Mukerji 1997 and 2005. On botanical gardens in North America prior to the Revolution, see esp. O’Malley 1998 and Kevles 2011. On the role of Linnaean binomial nomenclature in the creation and maintenance of these networks of power, see Müller-Wille 2005.

  37professors and students: Fletcher and Brown 1970, v. On the intellectual life of Edinburgh at the time of Hosack’s studies, see esp. Buchan 2003 and Uglow 2002.

  CHAPTER TWO: “An Endless Source of Innocent Delight”

  38Wolf of Badenoch: Byatt 2005, 16.

  39“really unhappy”: quoted by Fisher 1986: http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1790-1820/member/brodie-james-1744-1824.

  40breakneck pace, shy: W. Hugh Curtis 1941, 100–101.

  40“innocent delight”: Curtis 1783, 11; WC studies: Thornton 1805, 3.

  40“putrid air”: Curtis 1803, 2.

  41His job: Field 1820, 72–76. On the history of the Chelsea Physic Garden, which can still be visited today, see Minter 2013.

  41garden in Brompton: Curtis first founded a garden in the London neighborhood of Lambeth, south of the Thames, but he soon realized that the wealthy patrons whose support he needed lived too far away to take much notice of him. He had also placed his garden right in the path of London’s deadly coal smoke, so in 1789 he moved his plants across the river to the fresher air of the Brompto
n neighborhood.

  41“BOTANIC GARDEN, OPEN TO SUBSCRIBERS”: quoted by W. Hugh Curtis 1941, 86. The layout of the Brompton Botanic Garden is given in W. Hugh Curtis 1941 and Curtis 1805.

  42“bouquets of the flowers”: Curtis 1792, 11.

  42three and a half acres: W. Hugh Curtis 1941, 86; there were ten more acres for crops.

  42“frightened”: Linnaeus 1775 [1750], iv, v.

  42“pompous expressions”: Linnaeus 1775 [1750], 271.

  43illustrated guide: Curtis 1777.

  43James Sowerby: Laird (2015, 338) notes that William Kilburn did 32 plates for the first three fascicles.

  43“attract the notice”: Flora Lond., vol. 2, plate 63.

  43“poor dear Fl. Londinensis”: Samuel Goodenough to WC, 8 January 1791, quoted by W. Hugh Curtis 1941, 90; two thousand subscribers: W. Hugh Curtis 1941, 74.

  44DH at Brompton: The following account of the Brompton Botanic Garden is based on the catalogues Curtis published (Curtis 1790b, 1792), as well as on the garden plan given in Thornton 1805 and reproduced in W. Hugh Curtis 1941, 87. For Curtis’s descriptions of particular species, I have drawn on his Flora Londinensis (1777–1798), Botanical Magazine (1787–1800), and Assistant Plates to the Materia Medica (1786). For the medicinal properties of specific plants, I have drawn on contemporary editions of the Edinburgh New Dispensatory and on William Woodville’s Medical Botany (1790–1793), both of which DH consulted regularly.

  44purgative effects: Linnaeus 1775, 408. Morning glories are now classified under the genus Ipomoea.

  45only in a botanical garden: Curtis 1783, 12; Curtis 1786, iv.

  45help the students commit to memory: Curtis 1778, 15.

  45reduce inflammation: Lewis 1786, 129. This plant is now classified in the genus Polygonatum.

  45Cichorium intybus: Lewis 1786, 125.

  45“uterine obstructions”: Lewis 1786, 110.

  46“lax state of the solids”: Flora Lond., vol. 5, plate 32; Lewis 1786, 71.

  46Lobelia siphilitica: Lewis 1786, 173.

  46“powers of the imagination”: Flora Lond., vol. 1, plate 41.

  46sound farming practices: Curtis 1783, 13.

  46“his vegetable foes”: Curtis 1792, 1.

  46“a much neglected tribe”: Curtis 1783, 67.

  46“preferred the Poa procumbens”: Curtis 1790a, 62.

  47Aethusa cynapium: Flora Lond., vol. 1, plate 18.

  47Pulmonaria maritima: Flora Lond., vol. 6, plate 18.

  47“skin of a cat”: Bot. Mag., vol. 2 (1788), 45.

  47room to room: W. Hugh Curtis 1941, 88.

  47hours in the little library: AEH 1861, 298.

  47“a thousand miles from London”: Thornton quoted by W. Hugh Curtis 1941, 89.

  48books in library: listed in Curtis 1790b, various pages.

  48“E. Libris David Hosack”: inscription in Hosack’s copy at NYBG of Tomus II, Part 1 of Linnaeus’s Systema Naturae, edited by Johan Friedrich Gmelin and published in 1791.

  48“Do not however”: Rousseau 1787, Letter I, 21.

  48Antirrhinum triste: Bot. Mag., vol. 3 (1788), 74; Cineraria lanata: Bot. Mag., vol. 2 (1788), 53.

  49“small roll”: Bot. Mag., vol. 3 (1790), 97.

  49“sunk in spirits”: Thornton 1805, 29.

  49“pursue the foxtail-grass”: Curtis 1792, 1.

  49inns and taverns where the class met: Curtis 1792, 2.

  49heavy woolen vest: Thornton 1794, 22.

  50New Illustration of the Sexual System: Thornton 1807.

  50“read in that book”: Curtis 1783, 11; face lit up: Thornton 1805, 29.

  51“rage for building”: Curtis 1777–1798, vol. 1, n.p.

  51Anagallis arvensis: Curtis 1777–1798, vol. 1, plate 12.

  51“glowed with youthful fire”: Thornton 1805, 29.

  CHAPTER THREE: “Ripping Open My Belly”

  53John soon surpassed: My account of Hunter’s work is based on Moore 2005.

  53Edward Jenner: Porter 1997, 276.

  53“every peculiarity”: Sawrey 1815, xxx.

  54“boy’s belly” and other quotations: Marshal 1815, 43, 46, 180–83.

  55“curved trocar”: Savigny 1800, 23.

  55“exquisitely painful” and “horror”: Earle 1791, 39, 41.

  55“than his head”: Earle 1796, 27.

  56“clear straw coloured fluid”: Earle 1796, 48.

  56WC nominated DH: On 15 October 1793, WC signed a letter nominating DH as Foreign Member; nomination put forward same day (LS Minutes 1788–1802, 135). Hosack was elected a Foreign Member on 17 December 1793 (LS Minutes 1788–1802, 139).

  56DH elected Foreign Member: 17 December 1793 (LS Minutes 1788–1802, 139).

  56erstwhile foes: DH to BR, 8 September 1794, HSP-BR, vol. 27, 56.

  56“Voice from the grave”: quoted by Gage and Stearn 1988, 178.

  57“King of Botany”: Samuel Goodenough to JES, 31 March 1794, LS-JES.

  57Banks at the Chelsea Physic Garden: Wulf 2008, 174. On the voyage and the launching of Banks’s scientific career in Britain, see esp. O’Brian 1987 and Holmes 2008.

  57“totally unworthy”: DH to Banks, 27 August 1815, DH-LB, 123v.

  57“imperfect dried specimen”: Hosack 1824b, 23.

  58Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays: AEH 1861, 298.

  58taller: according to [no author] “The Linnean Herbarium,” Hooker’s Journal of Botany and Kew Garden Miscellany (vol. 4 [1852], 219), each cabinet was seven feet six inches tall.

  58shoved loose: Wulf 2008, 57.

  58Linnaeus’s own hand: Benjamin Daydon Jackson 1912, 7.

  58thousands of plants: For the countries and regions from which the specimens came, see Benjamin Daydon Jackson 1912.

  59Kalm’s travels and Swedish Academy: Koerner 1999, 117.

  59letter “K”: On Kalm’s North American specimens, see Juel and Harshberger 1929 and Jarvis 2007.

  59Catesby in North America: Meyers and Pritchard, eds., 1998; Parrish 2006.

  59“different distances”: Hosack 1794, 3.

  60Banks suggested: DH in AEH 1861, 299.

  60listened to Hosack’s paper: proceedings recorded in entry of 1 May 1794, Journal Book of RS, vol. 35 (1792–1795), 291.

  60“widely known”: Gross 1893, 87.

  60promotion to Fellow: 20 May 1794, LS Minutes 1788–1802, 151.

  61fashioned of pine and iron: Lloyd’s Register (1794), n.p.

  61Copies of Jay’s initial dispatches: Baltimore Daily Intelligencer, 1 September 1794.

  61“Kiss our little ones for me”: John Jay to Sarah Livingston Jay, 12 May 1794, CPPJJ, vol. 4; cannonfire and cheers: American Minerva, 12 May 1794. On Jay’s mission, see Stahr 2005, 313ff.

  61“all Vessels of War belonging to Foreign Nations”: American Minerva, 13 June 1794.

  61when word arrived: John Jay to Sarah Livingston Jay, 21 June 1794, CPPJJ, vol. 4.

  62letter to President Washington: Jay to GW, 23 June 1794, in CPPJJ, vol. 4; letter to Secretary of State Edmund Randolph: Jay to Randolph, 23 June 1794, CPPJJ, vol. 4.

  62Law traveling with Duncanson: Clark 1911.

  62families making for Newhaven: Oracle and Public Advertiser, 4 July 1794.

  63“oxygene”: DH to BR, 3 September 1795, HSP-BR, vol. 37, part 3.

  63news of a British attack: London Morning Chronicle, 6 August 1794.

  64“embellishing every story”: DH to BR, 8 September 1794, HSP-BR, vol. 27, 56.

  64not until after: see, e.g., New-York Daily Gazette, 19 August 1794.

  64steer clear of politics: Hosack 1826, 17.

  64typhus symptoms: Raoult, Woodward, and Dumler 2004.

  64“frothy and offensive discharges”: Hosack 1815, 8. Hosack distinguished in this treatise between typhus in particular and “the typhoid state of fever” (a contemporary term for the advanced stage of a number of diseases, including scarlatina). Hosack argued that both typhus and “the typhoid state of fever” result in symptoms such as diarrhea and deliriu
m, and should be treated by doctors with the same medicines. It would be 1849 before a British doctor, William Jenner, provided evidence of a distinction between typhus and typhoid fever, not to be confused with the earlier classification of the “typhoid state of fever” (Porter 1997, 349).

  65typhos: Porter 1997, 26.

  65“dangerous” and “indiscriminate” treatments: Hosack 1815, 7–10.

  66“western disturbances”: Hartford Gazette, 1 September 1794.

  66special militia: Chernow 2004, 471.

  66TJ on right to assemble: Meacham 2012, 289.

  66“I could wish the experiments were repeated”: DH to BR, 3 September 1795, HSP-BR, vol. 37, part 3.

  66old Continental Army fortifications: Yocum 2005, 20.

  66banded together in work teams: see, e.g., New York Daily Advertiser, 2 May 1794; New York Diary or Loudon’s Register, 6 May 1794; New York Columbian Gazetteer, 8 May 1794.

  68“Typhus fevers”: Philadelphia General Advertiser, 8 September 1794.

  68Captain Allen besieged: Allen’s letter to New York Daily Advertiser, 29 August 1794.

  68men and horses: INPS, vol. 1, 401–2.

  68post office at 30 Wall Street: William Duncan 1794, 12.

  68“My d[ea]r Mr. Jay”: Sarah Livingston Jay to Jay, 27 August 1794, CU-JJ.

  68“Having observed”: William Hunter et al. to Allen, letter of 27 August 1794, reprinted in New-York Daily Gazette, 2 September 1794.

  68overjoyed to be home: DH to BR, 8 September 1794, HSP-BR, vol. 27, 56.

  69“blueish colour”: Hosack 1798b, 507–8.

  69“their natural expression”: Hosack 1798b, 509.

  CHAPTER FOUR: “He Is As Good As the Theatre”

  70sixty thousand: The 1790 census counted about 33,000 people in New York City (Sanderson and Brown 2007, 547), and the 1800 census about 60,000 (Pomerantz 1938, 200).

  70goats and cows: e.g., Common Council Minutes, 8 September 1795, 176; New York Daily Advertiser, 2 February 1795.

  70it suited him: DH to BR, 8 September 1794, HSP-BR, vol. 27, 56.

  70LS election: Hosack elected 15 July 1794, LS Minutes 1788–1802, 157.

  71Not even Rush: On the meaning of membership in the RS to Franklin’s generation of colonials, see Parrish 2006, 125–27.