Geographical Distribution and Leading Characters of the United States Flora." When the United States Exploring Expedition was organized in the autumn of 1838 to sail for the South Seas, Pickering was elected as the principal zoologist, and the fame of that expedition rests chiefly on the work he then did with Professor Dana. Although Pickering retained the ichthyology, he went keenly into the geographical distribution of animals and plants; to the latter especially as affected by the operations and movements of the races of man. A year after the expedition, and at his own expense, he visited Egypt, Arabia, Eastern Africa and Western and Northern India, publishing in 1848 his volume, "The Races of Men and Their Geographical Distribution" (vol. ix, Wilkes' "Exploring Expedition Report"). In the fifteenth volume appeared his "Geographical Distribution of Animals and Plants." He had no better luck than many a scientist, for, in the course of printing, Congressional appropriations stopped and therefore the publication of further Reports. He brought out in 1854 a small edition of the first part of his essay and in 1876 a more bulky one "On Plants and Animals in Their Wild State." These writings and some contributions to scientific journals, notably to the "Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge," constituted his no mean help to the study of natural science, but he had been long and lovingly working on a book yet unfinished when he died, a book edited afterwards by his wife, Sarah S. Pickering, and appearing in 1879 entitled, "Chronological History of Plants, or Man's Record of His Own Existence."
Professor Harshberger says he was singularly retiring and reticent, dry in ordinary intercourse, but to those who knew him well, communicative and genial.
He was a member of the American Philosophical Society and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, to both of which he made contributions.
Picton, John Moore White (1804–1858)
John M. W. Picton, physician, was born in Woodbury, New Jersey, in 1804, and died in New Orleans, in 1858. Graduating in 1824 from the United States Military Academy, and in 1832 from the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania, he settled in New Orleans, where he practised for thirty-two years, acquiring great reputation as an operator. He served for many years as house-surgeon of the Charity Hospital and as president of the medical department of the University of Louisiana. Founder of the New Orleans School of Medicine in 1856, he was professor of obstetrics there until 1858.
Piffard, Henry Granger (1842–1910)
Henry Granger Piffard, author of the first systematic treatise on dermatology in America, was born in Piffard, Livingston County, New York, on September 10, 1842, his paternal ancestors coming from Dauphiné, France, and his mother's being of Dutch extraction.
He was educated at the Churchill Military Academy at Ling and at the University of the City of New York, where he took his A. B. 1862 and A. M. 1865 and his M. D. at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, in 1865, serving as interne at Bellevue Hospital. He specialized in skin diseases. He married, in 1868, Helen H., daughter of Gen. William K. Strong, of New York.
One of his best contributions to medical literature was the translation, from the French of A. Hardy, of the "Dartrous Diathesis" (1868). Following this came "A Guide to Urinary Analysis" (1873); "An Elementary Treatise on Diseases of the Skin" (1871); "Practical Treatise on Diseases of the Skin" (1891).
His appointments included: surgeon to the New York Dispensary for Diseases of the Skin, and professor of dermatology in the University of the City of New York. In 1862 he served for a short time with the Sanitary Commission on the James River, Virginia.
He won distinction as a microscopist, pathologist and electro-therapeutist and had inventive capacity as well as mechanical ingenuity.
His membership included the Medical Society of the County of New York; the New York Academy of Medicine; the New York Dermatological Society, of which he was president in 1876.
Dr. George Henry Fox of New York, in the Journal of Cutaneous Diseases, for February, 1911, gives some reminiscences of Henry Grainger Piffard. Dr. Piffard began to collect foreign works on skin diseases. He was a fair German and a better French scholar, but knew very little of Italian. To supply this deficiency he at once subscribed
