Horsfield

crease in value as they are farthest from osten-
tation."

[J. and J. A. Venn, Alumni Cantabrigienses, pt. i,
vol. II (1922), but statement that he was minister in
Petsworth and Kingston Parishes, in Gloucester Coun-
ty, is probably wrong (see E. L. Goodwin, The Colonial
Church in Virginia, 1927, p. 279) ; Wm. S. Perry, Pa-
pers Relating to the Hist, of the Ch. in Va. (1870);
Wm. and Mary Coll Quart. Hist. Mag., esp. "Journal
of the Meetings of the President and Masters of Wil-
liam and Mary College/' July i894-Apr. 1897, continued
July 1904-}an. 1905, and additional material in issues
for Jan. 1895, Jan. 1896, Jan. 1897, Apr. 1901, Apr.
1926, and Oct. 1927; Va. Mag. of Hist, and Biog,, Oct.
1898; L. G» Tyler, Encyc. of Va. Biog. (1915), 1, ^3-1

R.L.M—n.

HORSFIELD, THOMAS (May 12, 1773-
July 24, 1859), East India explorer, naturalist,
and physican was born on a farm near Bethle-
hem, Pa., the son of Timothy and Juliana Sarah
(Parsons) Horsfield, and a descendant of Tim-
othy Horsfield, a native of England, who settled
in Bethlehem some time before 1756. Thomas'
early schooling1 was received in the schools of
Bethlehem and Nazareth. In the former town
he also acquired a knowledge of pharmacy under
Dr. Otto. He received his medical degree from
the University of Pennsylvania in 1798. His
thesis, An Experimental Dissertation on Rhus
Vernix, Rhus Radicans and Rhus Glabrum
(1798), published at Philadelphia, is remarkable
for its painstaking clinical description of the
toxic symptoms of the poisoning produced by
sumac and poison ivy, and for the record of well-
conceived experiments, carried out upon himself
and upon animals, concerning the pharmacologi-
cal action of this interesting group of poisons.
It ranks as a pioneer contribution in the history
of experimental pharmacology in America.

In 1799-1800 Horsfield made a trip to Java as
ship surgeon on a merchant vessel. The richness
of the vegetation there immediately roused his
interest, and his attention was drawn to certain
drugs, in common use by the natives, which
were extracted from local plants. He decided to
investigate these substances and went back to
Philadelphia in order to obtain books, instru-
ments, and paraphernalia necessary for collect-
ing. "An Account of a Voyage to Batavia in the
Year 1800," by Horsfield, was published in the
Philadelphia Medical Museum, vol. I (1805).
In 1801 he returned to Java as surgeon in the
Dutch colonial army, and remained in the Island
for eighteen years, collecting and describing the
rich flora which he found on every side. In the
prefaces to his various works he tells the story
of his collections and travels. It appears that be-
tween 1802 and iSn his facilities were discour-
aging and many of his precious specimens de-
cayed owing to inadequate preservation. In the

Horsford

latter part of 1811, however, after the occupancy
of the Island by the British, Sir Stamford Raffles,
the lieutenant-governor, directed Horsfield to
continue his researches for the East India Com-
pany. This connection enabled him to pursue his
studies on a more elaborate scale. In 1819 he
returned to London carrying his enormous col-
lections with him. The East India Company
made him curator of their museum, and he re-
mained in this post without interruption from
1820 until his death in 1859. ft was during this
period that his chief literary activity was carried
out He published five important monographs,
the most important, the Plantae Javcmicae
Rariores (1838-52), was a beautifully illustrated
work, prepared with the assistance of the bota-
nists Robert Brown and J. J. Bennett; in it 2,196
species were described, all of which Horsfield
had collected himself. His other works, elabo-
rately illustrated and drawn from his Javanese
experience, included two catalogues of lepi-
dopterous insects (1828-29, 1857-59), a cata-
logue of mammals (1851), and another of birds
(1854) and joint monographs with W, S. Mac-
leary, Annulosa Javanica (1825), and Sir Wil-
liam Jardine, Illustrations of Ornithology (3
vols., 1826-35).

[See prefaces to Horsfield's works, especially the
catalogues of insects; Proc. of the Linnean Soc. of Lon-
don, May 24, 1860 (vol. V, 1861); J. Carson, A Hist,
of the Medic. Department of the Unit/,, of Pa. (1869) >
H. A. Kelly and W. L. Burrage, Am. Medic. Biogs.
(1920); Pa. Mag. of Hist, and Biog.t July 1909; the
Times, London, July 29, 1859. The Museum of the East
India^ Company has been incorporated into the South
Kensington Museum, London.] IFF

HORSFORD, EBEN NORTON (July 27,
i8i8~Jan. 1, 1893)> chemist, was born at Mos-
cow, N. Y., the son of Jerediah and Charity
Maria (Norton) Horsford. After graduation
from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy,
N. Y., as a civil engineer in 1838, he worked for
a year or more on the geological survey of New
York State. In 1840 he was appointed professor
of mathematics and natural sciences in the Al-
bany Female Academy, where he remained four
years. During this period he also delivered an-
nually a course of lectures on chemistry at
Newark College in Delaware. He went to Ger-
many in 1844 and studied analytical chemistry
two years with Liebig at Giessen. On his re-
turn to the United States early in 1847 he was
appointed Rumford Professor and Lecturer on
the Application of Science to the Useful Arts in
Harvard University, but was almost immediately
transferred to the newly established Lawrence
Scientific School. Here he taught chemistry and
carried on investigations for sixteen years in-

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