Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 2.djvu/583

 WITT

cordial welcome. His urbanity, his pleasing and instructive conversation, his peculiar talent in discerning and dis- playing the characteristic merits or acquirements of those with whom he conversed will be remembered with pleasure by all who have ever enjoyed his society and conversation." (Hosack).

In 1816, he was elected president of the American Philosophical Society, and in 1813 he succeeded Benjamin Rush as president of the Society for the Abolition of Slavery.

Tilghman thus describes the chief characteristics of Wistar:

"The understanding of Wistar was rather strong than brilliant. Truth was was its object. His mind was patient of labor, curious in research, clear, al- though not rapid in perception, and sure in judgment. What is gained with toil is not easily lost.

He died in Philadelphia, January 22, 1818.

Wistar's memory is splendidly perpetu- ated by the Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology, established in Philadelphia by Gen. Wistar, and in the corallorhiza Wistereana, the Wisteria frutescens the well-known and beautiful vine Wisteria named after the doctor by his friend Nuttall, the botanist. C. R. B.

Hosack, D., A Tribute to the Memory of Caspar Wistar, Hosack's Medical Essays, New York, 1824.

Tilghman, W., An Eulogium in commemora- tion of Dr. Caspar Wistar. In an appendix to John Golder's Life of William Tilghman, Philadelphia, 1829.

Caldwell. An Eulogium on Caspar Wistar Phila., 1818.

Some Amer. Med. Botanists, H. A. Kelly. Communications from the Wistar family.

Witt, Christopher (1G75-1765).

Dr. Christopher Witt, or De Witt, as he is occasionally named, was born in Wiltshire, England, in the year 1675; he emigrated to America in the year 1704 and joined the theosophical colonists on the Wissa- hickon. He was then in his twenty-ninth year, and in addition to being a thorough naturalist and skilled physician, was well

521 WITT

versed in the mystic sciences and in astron- omy. He was esteemed highly by his fel- low-mystics, his services as a physician were constantly called into requisition. Shortly after the death of Kelpius, Dr. Witt, together with Daniel Geisslcr, moved to a small house in Germantown upon the land owned by Cliristian ^\^•^rmer, who, with his family, looked after the welfare of their tenants.

Dr. Witt was a good botanist, and upon moving to Germantown, he started a large garden for his own profit and amusement. It is probably the first botanical garden in America, antedating Bartram's celebrated garden by twenty years. Dr. Witt corresponded for many years with Peter CoUinson, of London, whose letters to some of the leading men in the province mention the high esteem and regard in which Dr. Witt was held by the Enghsh naturalist. In later years there was a friendly inter- course between Dr. Witt and John Bartram.

Besides being an excellent botanist. Dr. Witt was an ingenious mechanic, con- structing the first clocks made in Pennsyl- vania, and probably in America. He was an artist and a musician, possessing a large pipe organ said to have been made by his own hands. He also practised horoscopy and would cast nativities us- ing the hazel rod in his divination.

When the Doctor was eighty years old his eyesight failed him, resulting finally in blindness. His slave, Robert, care- fully looked after his wants until his death in the latter part of January, 1765, at the age of ninety. He was buried in the Warmer burial-ground in German- town. This spot became known as Spook Hill, as tales were told which have survived to the present time, how upon the night following the burial of the old mystic, spectral flames were seen dancing around his grave.

J. W. H.

The Botanists of Philadelphia, 1899, John W. Harshberger.

Sachse, "The German Pietists of Provincial Pennsylvania, 1895.