American Eden

April 15, 2018
A biography of David Hosack (1769-1835), a nature-obsessed doctor who "was convinced that saving lives also depended on knowing the natural world outside the human body."Trivia buffs may know Hosack as the physician who attended the 1804 duel between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr. He certainly deserves a fuller portrait, and in her first book, Johnson (Urban Policy and Planning/Hunter Coll.) writes an admiring account of the energetic physician, who mingled with the Founding Fathers, lectured in medical schools across the country, and created America's first botanical garden. After training in America, Hosack traveled to Britain in 1792 to take advantage of its superior schooling. This included the study of medicinal plants, a more important element in medical practice during that time than today. He became fascinated with botany and brought this passion home in 1794. Settling in New York, he built a prosperous practice and became a university professor in both medicine and botany. Remaining neutral in national politics allowed him to treat both Hamilton and his bitter enemy, Burr. In 1801, he bought 20 acres in then-rural mid-Manhattan and built a huge botanical garden replete with greenhouses and hothouses. Universally praised, it became an educational and research center. However, the expenses were ruinous even for a wealthy physician, and Hosack, supported by influential friends, lobbied for government support. Legislators were unenthusiastic until 1810, when New York state bought it for less than Hosack wanted; then the government showed little interest in maintenance, so it fell into decay. As a physician, Hosack was not ahead of his time. He bled patients, prescribed toxins such as mercury, and administered drugs that produced vomiting, sweating, or diarrhea. This was accepted practice, and Johnson gives his healing efforts perhaps more credit than they deserve, but she provides an engaging tale of an important life in early America.An adroit portrait of an early American physician who became a pioneering horticulturist.

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May 1, 2018

Well into this fine biography, readers learn its subject's favorite saying: "the more a man has to do the better he does it." David Hosack (1769-1835), physician and esteemed lecturer in medicine; founder or member of several scientific, charitable, and cultural institutions; and the person responsible for the first U.S. botanical garden (located where Rockefeller Center stands today), was also an attending medic at the Hamilton-Burr duel. Duelists aside, the cast of characters here represents a veritable who's who of the early republic, as Hosack's drive and talent took him into the orbit of Thomas Jefferson, Sir Joseph Banks, Alexander von Humboldt, and Washington Irving. The story's backdrop is richly drawn: Johnson (urban policy & planning, Hunter Coll.) allows readers to imagine the city's prebuilt landscape as it appeared at the end of the 18th century, and how infectious disease was as dangerous a threat to its citizens as war with Britain. Readers will also delight in the details, as Johnson dutifully names Hosack's prized botanical collections. VERDICT A brilliant evocation of a man and his time. Plant lovers, history buffs, New Yorkaphiles, those interested in early medicine, even Hamiltonians--all will find this engrossing.--Robert Eagan, Windsor P.L., Ont.

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 30, 2018
Johnson, an associate professor of urban policy and planning at Hunter College, dives deeply into the life of David Hosack (1769–1835), whose work as a leading physician and as the foremost American botanist of his time provides a window into the United States’ formative post-Revolutionary years. Johnson first examines Hosack’s early medical training, at Columbia College, Princeton, and the University of Edinburgh, and his efforts to increase the era’s medical knowledge. In parallel, she explicates the political and personal rivalries that consumed the fledgling U.S., experienced firsthand by Hosack as attending physician at Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr’s infamous 1804 duel. Johnson focuses, however, on Hosack’s hard-won creation of the country’s first botanical garden, lacing the text with surprisingly entertaining descriptions of some of the hundreds of plants Hosack enthusiastically acquired, such as the carnivorous roundleaf sundew, used by some Native Americans as a “wart remover... and also a love potion.” Johnson exhibits a welcome eye for the telling detail—noting, for instance, that for 18th-century medical students the “dissection season” began in autumn, when the weather cooled and corpses lasted longer. History buffs and avid gardeners will find Hosack an appealing and intriguing figure who doubles as an exemplar of the qualities of a vibrant and expanding America.