Henry Perrine (5 April 1797 – 7 August 1840) was a physician, horticulturist, United States Consul in Campeche, Campeche, Mexico, and an enthusiast for introducing tropical plants into cultivation in the United States. Early life Henry Edward Perrine was born April 5, 1797, at either New Brunswick, New Jersey or Cranbury, New Jersey, a son of Peter and Sarah Rozengrant Perrine, and a descendant of Daniel Perrin, "The Huguenot". He taught school for two years while still a youth, studied medicine, and then at age 22 moved to Ripley, Illinois where he practiced medicine for five years, while also helping with the Underground Railroad in the area. In 1821 he was accidentally poisoned with arsenic, from which he never fully recovered. He married Ann Fuller Townsend in 1822 while living in Illinois. Studies of quinine Cold weather particularly bothered Perrine after his arsenic poisoning, and in 1824 he moved to Natchez, Mississippi (leaving his family in Illinois) in the hope that the climate would aid his recovery. He began studying herbs and medicinal plants while in Natchez. Malaria was common in the Natchez area, and Perrine began studying the use of quinine to treat it. He published the results of his research in the Philadelphia Journal of the Medical and Physical Sciences in 1826, and that report remained an important source on the subject for a century. In 1825 Perrine and his family moved to his wife Ann's hometown of Sodus, New York. Believing that he needed to move to a climate even warmer than that of Natchez, Perrine had applied in 1824 for a diplomatic position in a tropical country. In 1827 he sent copies of his report on the use of quinine to Washington. Shortly thereafter he was appointed United States Consul in Campeche, Mexico, where he served for ten years. Mexico to the Florida Keys Soon after Perrine arrived in Campeche, the United States Treasury Department asked all U. S. Consuls to find useful plants that could be introduced to the United States. Perrine began investigating tropical crops for introduction into the United States. He sent seeds and plants to people he corresponded with in the southern United States, some of his specimens now reside at the New York Botanical Garden. Perrine was the only U.S. Consul to respond to the Treasury Department's request, and newspapers in the United States began writing about his work. Through correspondence