History · · C.B. Greenberg
Medicine in the Lewis and Clark Age: Part VII
By “homeschooling,” Lewis acquired the requisite skills to be “physician” to his Corps of Discovery.
In Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson found many of the traits required to prepare for and lead an Expedition from nearly one end of North America to the other, over about 8000 very rough miles. In scientific respects Lewis was lacking initially, but he was eager, a good observer and educable, and who better to provide all means but Mr. Jefferson himself, scientist, inventor, member of the American Philosophical Society of Philadelphia, Librarian-in-Chief at Monticello, and much more. At the start of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, Lewis lacked sufficient scientific knowledge in botany, biology, astronomy, cartography and so forth. He lacked know-how of the scientific enterprise, the rigorous recording and interpretation of data. By 1804, however, the American Philosophical Society …