Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 47.djvu/859

Rh three volumes of his Medical Essays, containing occasional addresses, introductory lectures to his regular courses, many practical papers on medical subjects, etc. He also published an extensive appendix to a work on the Practice of Medicine, by Dr. Thomas, of Salisbury, England. Adopting the nosological arrangement as a system best calculated to illustrate diseases, he was induced to prepare a work on that subject, which ran through several editions.

Botany was not the only branch of science in which he became interested while abroad. To quote from a sketch of his life by a friend: "He attended in the winter of 1793-'94: the first course of lectures on mineralogy that was delivered in London by Schmeisser, a pupil of Werner. With this additional knowledge of mineralogy, which Dr. Hosack had begun to study at Edinburgh, he continued to augment the cabinet of minerals which he had commenced in Scotland. This collection was brought by him to the United States, and was, we believe, the first cabinet that crossed the Atlantic; it was afterward deposited in Princeton College, in rooms appropriated by the trustees, but fitted up at the expense of the donor, similar to those at the École des Mines at Paris. To render this donation immediately useful, it was accompanied by a collection of the most important works on mineralogy."

Having a large circle of friends and acquaintances, and being fond of company, Dr. Hosack used to set apart his Saturday evenings for entertaining them. "Surrounded by his large and costly library, his house was, the resort of the learned and enlightened from every part of the world. No traveler from abroad rested satisfied without a personal interview with him; and, at his evening soirée, the literati, the philosopher, and the statesman, the skillful in natural science and the explorer of new regions, the archæologist and the theologue met together, participators in the recreation of familiar intercourse." Many a distinguished American and many a foreign visitor, coming with a letter from some European friend of Hosack, has left on record his delightful experience in a visit to the doctor, either at his city house or his place in the country.

Of the scientific honors most prized by Americans in his day—membership in European societies—Dr. Hosack had a goodly share. He also received the honor of having a genus of plants named for him. The various species of Hosackia, of which there are some thirty, are herbs and shrubs growing in the Southern and Southwestern States and in Mexico.

His second wife having died, Dr. Hosack married Mrs. Magdalena Coster, widow of the Holland merchant, Henry A. Coster. Some time after this event he retired from his profession and