Harlan and two of his colleagues were dispatched to Montreal to observe the response of Canadian physicians, with hopes of devising more effective means of averting or treating the disease.
In many ways, Harlan is a transitional figure between the generation of early national scientists trained in medicine and operating in a field with diffuse disciplinary boundaries and the generation of specialists not only attuned to, but engaged in European currents of thought.
Harlan follows an account of a lavish native wedding, for example, with descriptions of the varieties of jugglers and street performers in Calcutta and of the British Fort William and the Royal Botanical Garden.
Harlan studied medicine in the University of Pennsylvania, but before he completed his program, in 1816-1817 he shipped aboard a vessel to Calcutta as a surgeon.
The plaster cast was “inscribed” in paint to Harlan, for presentation to the American Philosophical Society, in Philadelphia.
Harlan intended to remain in France, but he was disappointed with the state of French medicine; and when news came that his collections had been destroyed in a fire in Philadelphia, he returned home to his medical practice.
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