perfect a state. I shall now be very attentive to examine these processes of the Ethmoid Bone in children of two years of age, being fully persuaded M. Bertin had never met with them of so considerable size, nor of such a peculiar structure.”[1]
As a teacher Dr. Wistar “brought to the Anatomical Theatre his deep and various learning, his habitual feelings, and even something of his colloquial vivacity. Although he was strikingly fluent and truly learned, still, there was something in his eloquence peculiarly his own. His was the eloquence of sentiment rather than of manner; and his persuasiveness owed almost as much to his disposition as to the great importance of the truths that he unfolded.”
“He seemed to have identified Anatomy with his common thoughts, and the language in which he expressed himself seemed like the appropriate expressions of his familiar conversation.”[2]
The specialty which Dr. Wistar cultivated with so much success did not preclude attention to other branches of science. His reputation rests doubtless upon his success as a writer and teacher of Anatomy, but, as has been stated, he commenced his professional career as a teacher of Chemistry, with which branch he had acquired considerable familiarity when pursuing his studies abroad. He was also versed in Botany and Mineralogy, and was so much interested in the discovery of organic remains on this continent, then first attracting the attention of the scientific world, as to institute steps to secure their preservation. The prosecution of this most laudable enterprise, in which so much reputation has been gained of late years, was arrested by his death.
The scientific reputation of Dr. Wistar, as well as the extended information possessed by him, induced his associates in the Philosophical Society to elect him its President in 1815, as the successor of Jefferson. Prior to this he had served the Society in the capacity of Vice-President, to which position he had been chosen in 1795. He was in the habit of receiving his friends and scientific strangers at his house on Sunday
