Discovering gorilla |
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| Authors: | Richard Conniff |
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| Affiliation: | Richard Conniff, a longtime nature writer, is the author of Swimming with Piranhas at Feeding Time: My Life Doing Dumb Stuff with Animals and The Ape in the Corner Office: How to Make Friends, Win Fights, and Work Smarter by Understanding Human Nature. He also writes for Smithsonian, The Atlantic, National Geographic, and The New York Times |
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| Abstract: | On July 16, 1847, a missionary newly arrived in New York City from West Africa packed a collection of bones in a box and shipped them off to a colleague in Massachusetts. In a letter, Thomas S. Savage (Fig. 1), a graduate of Yale College and Yale Medical School, admitted to being “quite unwell,” probably meaning “utterly wretched.” He had already endured tropical diseases in Liberia off and on for more than a decade, and he'd seen his first two wives languish and die there, probably of malaria. He wasn't the sort to complain lightly. |
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