important point. The Doctor immediately gave him a sharp slap on the side of his head, saying, ' Well, go faint then, and come back quickly.' The boy did as he was bid, and never fainted after this. He said he ' was cured by holding the alligator.' " In 1863 his wife died, and he was left childless and alone. When the forces of the Union took possession of Charleston, the medical college in which his collections were preserved was taken for hospital purposes, and his specimens were wantonly thrown away or seized upon for what they were supposed to be worth; his books were stolen, and finally his drawings and manuscripts were lost or destroyed. An old man now, bereft of most of his fortune, discouraged by adversities, and recognizing that a new order of scientific procedure had begun, he reluctantly ceased to even plan for his work. He continued, however, to go in summer to New England, where he had spent his happy youth. Holbrook was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1839 and the National Academy of Sciences in 1868. In the early fall of 1871 (8 September), stricken by apoplexy, saw the end of life, at his sister's residence in Norfolk, Massachusetts, "breathing his last amidst kind and devoted relatives." Holbrook died in Massachusetts on September 8, 1871, and is buried in Magnolia Cemetery in Charleston, South Carolina. Publications Holbrook, John Edwards (1842). North American Herpetology; or A Description of the Reptiles Inhabiting the United States. Philadelphia: J. Dobson. http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k970920. Holbrook, John Edwards (1847). Southern Ichthyology; or, a Description of the Fishes inhabiting the Waters of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. New York: Wiley & Putnam. 1847. [4to, pp. 1–32, colored plates i-iv. ] Holbrook, John Edwards (1860). Ichthyology of South Carolina [Reproduction]. Charleston, South Carolina: Russell. http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k989901. Holbrook, John Edwards (1855). "Fish observed in Florida, Georgia, &c." J. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia 3 (5): 47–58 + plates v, vi. Holbrook, John Edwards, and Reese E. Griffin (1818). John Edwards Holbrook papers, 1819-1860. Travel memoir in two volumes re Holbrook's two years touring Great Britain, 1819-1820, during his four-year visit to Europe; and transcribed letters, 1832-1860. Memoir, 1819-1820, written as a series of lengthy letters in a literary style, addressed to his brother, reporting details of stops at various scientific, educational, and charitable institutions in England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, as well