The Healing Horticulture of Oliver Sacks

Dr. Oliver Sacks

This botanical history post was featured on The Daily Gardener podcast: Click here to see the complete show notes for this episode. July 11, 1933 On this day, dear readers, we celebrate the birth of a most remarkable individual, Dr. Oliver Sacks – neurologist, naturalist, historian of science, and writer extraordinaire. While his contributions to…

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Zina Pitcher: The Botanist Doctor Who Saved Arms and Thistles

Dr. Zina Pitcher (1797-1872), a prominent American physician, politician, educator, and academic administrator.

The Pitcher’s Thistle April 12, 1872 Today is the anniversary of the death of the American doctor, University of Michigan regent, and amateur botanist Zina Pitcher – who was profiled last week on his birthday, April 5th. In his spare time, Zina enjoyed botanizing, and he’s remembered for the thistle he discovered, commonly known as…

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Walt Whitman’s Birthday: Nature, Healing, and “This Compost”

This Compost

by Walt Whitman Now I am terrified at the earth! It is that calm and patient, It grows such sweet things out of such corruptions, It turns harmless and stainless on its axis, with such endless successions of diseased corpses, It distills such exquisite winds out of such infused fetor, It renews with such unwitting…

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