be  achieved  in  so  short  a  life,  what  great  benefits  would  science  not
have  derived,  what  remarkable  steps  in  advance  might  not  have
been  made,  had  it  been  given  to  such  a  great  mind  to  work  on  for
the  good  of  his  race  during  a  lifetime  of  ordinary  length!

John  D.  Godman  was  born  at  Annapolis,  1794.  Being  left  an  orphan  and
very  poor,  he  received  only  the  rudiments  of  an  English  education.  He  was
then  apprenticed  in  Baltimore  with  a  printer,  but  ran  away  during  the  war  of
1812  and  joined  the  American  fleet  in  Chesapeake  Bay.  He  began  the  study
of  medicine  with  Dr.  Luckey,  of  Elizabethtown,  Penna.,  and  by  the  generous
interest  of  the  Faculty  was  enabled  to  continue  it  at  the  University  of  Md.
After  graduating  he  spent  a  short  time  in  the  country  and  then  went  to  Phila-
delphia. There  he  organized  a  very  successful  School  of  Anatomy.  He  held
several  professorships  and  lectureships,  edited  two  or  three  medical  journals
(among  them  the  Am.  Jour,  of  the  Med.  Sciences),  was  a  voluminous  con-
tributor to  periodical  literature,  and  wrote  a  number  of  works,  the  most
important  of  which  were  his  Natural  History,  3  vols.  ;  Rambles  of  a  Naturalist ;
a  work  on  Anatomy  ;  a  volume  of  Addresses,  etc.  He  also  edited  several
works  of  foreign  authors  and  contributed  some  poetry.  He  died  in  1830.  He
married  a  daughter  of  Rembrandt  Peale,  who  with  her  children  moved  to  the
West  after  his  death.  He  wrote  with  great  vigor,  simplicity  and  elegance,
and  his  style  might  well  serve  as  a  model  still.
