Thomas Jefferson to David Hosack, 19 January 1817

To David Hosack

Monticello Jan. 19. 17.

I thank you, Sir, for the books you have been so kind as to send me. they will afford me amusement as well as instruction. from a general view I have taken of Thomas’s work, it appears, with your aid, to be valuable for family use. without science in Medecine, I am yet fond of it’s philosophical speculations. with these I observe your Medical Register1 mingles disquisitions in all it’s kindred branches of knolege. I am the more gratified in executing the duty of rendering you my thanks by the occasion it affords me of expressing my sense of your eminence in useful science and of assuring you of my high respect and consideration.

Th: Jefferson

RC (PBm: Letters and Documents Collection); fragment consisting of lower half of a single sheet, with missing text supplied from PoC; at foot of text: “Dr Hosack.” PoC (DLC); on verso of reused address cover of John Prout to TJ, 17 Nov. 1816; endorsed by TJ.

Hosack supplied an appendix to Robert thomas’s work, The Modern Practice of Physic, exhibiting the Characters, Causes, Symptoms, Prognostics, Morbid Appearances, and Improved Method of Treating the Diseases of all Climates (4th American ed. from 5th London ed.; New York, 1817; Poor, Jefferson’s Library description begins Nathaniel P. Poor, Catalogue. President Jefferson’s Library, 1829 description ends , 5 [no. 184]; TJ’s copy in ViU, inscribed “Thomas Jefferson Esqr with the respects of the Editor D Hosack New york Decr 1816”). Hosack’s medical journal was the American Medical and Philosophical Register: or, Annals of Medicine, Natural History, Agriculture, and the Arts, 4 vols. (1811–14; Poor, Jefferson’s Library description begins Nathaniel P. Poor, Catalogue. President Jefferson’s Library, 1829 description ends , 5 [no. 190]).

1. Recoverable text in RC begins with this word.

Index Entries

American Medical and Philosophical Register: or, Annals of Medicine, Natural History, Agriculture, and the Arts search
books; on medicine search
Hosack, David; American Medical and Philosophical Register: or, Annals of Medicine, Natural History, Agriculture, and the Arts search
Hosack, David; letters to search
Hosack, David; sends books to TJ search
Jefferson, Thomas; Books & Library; receives works search
medicine; books on search
The Modern Practice of Physic (R. Thomas) search
Thomas, Robert; The Modern Practice of Physic search

You Are Looking At

Source Project: Jefferson Papers
Title: Thomas Jefferson to David Hosack, 19 January 1817
Author: Jefferson, Thomas
Recipient: Hosack, David
Date: 19 January 1817

Reference

Cite as: “Thomas Jefferson to David Hosack, 19 January 1817,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-11-02-0003. [Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Retirement Series, vol. 11, 19 January to 31 August 1817, ed. J. Jefferson Looney. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014, p. 4.]

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