The great mass of Rafinesque's books and monographs, his "tracts," broadsides, and ephemeral papers of all sorts, extending to nearly a thousand titles, must have gone into paper rags, when not used to kindle fires, for he was generous in their distribution, and they are now exceedingly rare. He touched nearly everything, it is true, but little that he touched, especially in this later period of his life, did he ever truly ornament. His best pioneer work, in the opinion of competent students, was that done upon the fishes of Sicily and the natural history of the Ohio Valley; his _Medical Flora_, in two volumes (1828 and 1830), is also admitted to have possessed real value; but his writings are now sought after as literary or scientific curiosities, and as such they are unique. No doubt Rafinesque was often treated unjustly, either through ignorance or intent, while many naturalists were exasperated by the barbed arrows which he shot into the air or direct at the mark. Others through sheer inability to follow him gave up the attempt, one writer[272] saying that such an attitude was justified when it appeared that he had made six species out of one, not to speak of several different genera and two sub-families. If anyone still believes that Rafinesque has been misjudged, says Günther,[273] let him read his letters to Swainson, from 1809 to 1840, fifty-three in number, covering 178 closely written quarto or folio pages, now in possession of the Linnæan Society of London. "Rafinesque," continues this critic, "was a man deeply to be commiserated, not merely on account of the unfortunate circumstances which left him in his youth to himself, without teacher or guide, but still more on the ground of that natural disposition by which his universal failure in life was brought about. He was possessed of a feverish restlessness which entirely disqualified him from serious study of any of the multitudinous subjects which attracted his mind in rapid succession." Rafinesque, bereft of friends and fortune, unknown even to his neighbors, by whom he seems to have been regarded as a harmless herb doctor, was left to struggle on alone, without recognition and without sympathy or support. Reduced finally to abject poverty, he concocted and sold medicines which were advertised much like quack remedies at the present day, especially his "Pulmel," which without a doubt he thought had cured him of the pulmonary consumption. To advertise this he wrote a little treatise, hoping to realize something from its sale and at the same time to avoid any undue appearance of empyricism.