Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 47.djvu/856

838 resided in the crystalline lens. Hosack maintained the opposing theory that it depended upon the external muscles. His paper contained many original views, and its statements were supported by experiments that he had made upon himself and others.

He returned to New York in 1794 by the ship Mohawk, the passage lasting fifty-three days. On the voyage typhus fever made its appearance and became very general, particularly among the steerage passengers. Dr. Hosack being the only physician on board, was called upon to attend the stricken ones, and was wonderfully successful, not losing a single case. His services were duly appreciated by all, as was evinced by the unsolicited vote of thanks published in the daily papers when the ship reached port.

Taking up his residence in New York city, Dr. Hosack, at the age of twenty-five years, began again the practice of his profession under the most favorable auspices. Mr. Thomas Law, who had been a fellow-passenger on the Mohawk, introduced him to many of his acquaintances, among whom were General Hamilton and Colonel Burr. He soon became the family physician to these distinguished persons. In 1795 he was appointed Professor of Botany in Columbia College, for which position his diligent application to this science in London had admirably fitted him. At the end of his first course he published a syllabus of his lectures, afterward inserted in his Medical Essays. In 1795, also, the yellow fever reached New York, and the violence of the epidemic afforded ample opportunity to young medical men to distinguish themselves. Dr. Hosack at this time attracted the especial attention of Dr. Samuel Bard, one of his former preceptors, who soon after took him into partnership. This was a preparatory step to Dr. Bard's retiring from the profession, which he did three or four years later, leaving Dr. Hosack in the enjoyment of an extensive and profitable practice.

Having lost his infant son during his absence in England and his wife not long after his return, Dr. Hosack married, December 21, 1797, Mary, daughter of James and Mary Darragh Eddy, of Philadelphia. By this marriage he had nine children.

Upon the death, in 1797, of Dr. William Pitt Smith, his chair of Materia Medica in Columbia College was assigned to Dr. Hosack, in addition to the one of Botany already held by the latter. He continued to fill these two professorships until 1807, when the College of Physicians and Surgeons of the State of New York was established, in which he was chosen Professor of Surgery and Midwifery. He soon, however, relinquished this chair for that of the Theory and Practice of Physic and Clinical Medicine. The Analectic Magazine for 1814 contained a notice of an introductory lecture given in the last-named chair, which had been published. It says that, after an opening statement on another