a shop, and insisted on the boy Joseph becoming a bookkeeper in this establishment. The boy's heart, however, was not in this work, and he spent his spare time in reading and study, especially along scientific lines. His daughter writes, "He was early interested in Astronomy and the police thought the telescope he made and used was a suspicious object. He discovered one day some large sun-spots and found them visible with only smoked glass, so he sent a note about it to the Philadelphia Public Ledger and had the satisfaction of seeing people on the streets looking through pieces of smoked glass at the sun."[1]
He also studied the ancient languages, including Hebrew, with special tutors, and had his first introduction to chemistry from a Quaker druggist. With a number of friends, also eager for knowledge, he formed a club for literary and scientific study, each taking his turn as teacher. It would be interesting to know the names of others in this group, and to learn if, perchance, the interest which young Wythe soon developed in microscopic studies had its inception here.
Science and languages did not absorb all of his attention, for it was shared to a very marked degree by a deep interest in religious activities, and in 1842, at the age of nineteen, he was licensed to preach by the Philadelphia Methodist Episcopal Conference. On his appointment to a small pastorate in the suburbs of Philadelphia he availed himself of the opportunity to study medicine, in the spare time not occupied by ministerial duties. He graduated from the Philadelphia College of Medicine in 1850, and according to a faculty list of this school from an advertisement in the Philadelphia Public Ledger, was later professor of physiology and pathology.
As a student he appears to have received particularly good training in anatomy from a prosector of the Royal
- ↑ Personal communication from his daughter, Dr. Margaret Wythe.
