190 HENRY PICKERING BO WDITCH— CANNON. [MbmoiB8 c?o™?£ 



measured at different ages and involved the assumption that large, small, and medium-sized 

 chddren remained in those groups as the years passed. Dr. Bowditch recognized the possibility 

 of error in this assumption and urged the importance of securing reliable observations made at 

 frequent regular intervals on the same children during the period of adolescence. We should 

 then be able, he declared, " to draw fairly accurate conclusions as to the normal range of vari- 

 ation in percentile rank during the period of growth and to determine how far the rate of growth 

 in the earlier years of life is to be regarded as an indication of the size to be subse- 

 quently attained." This suggestion is now being realized and within a short time we should 

 have normal standards of development derived from observations through a series of years on 

 large groups of children. 



Another hint offered by Galton that bore fruit in Bowditch's activities was the use of com- 

 posite photographs as a method of recording typical or generic features. In a popular article 

 published in 1894 he reproduced some of the results of his own studies. At the close of it he 

 pointed out various interesting applications of the method which might be made even by the 

 amateur photographer. 



In 1881, before the section on chUdren's diseases of the American Medical Association? 

 Bowditch presented a communication calling attention to the loss of weight in growing chil- 

 dren just antecedent to the onset of acute or chronic illness. He urged the importance of further 

 studies to determine the relations between growth rate and disease, with the hope that the data 

 thus accumulated might be useful in preventive medicine as applied to childhood. 



A set of rules regarding the mode of collecting information at autopsies, which was prepared 

 by Dr. Bowditch and Dr. F. A. Harris in 1882, was further evidence of his interest in anthro- 

 pometry. In this field, as in physiology itself, his labors were varied and were most suggestive. 

 In many respects the lines of work laid down by him have not been much extended since his 

 pioneer work was done, and offer now as many valuable hints for further investigation as they 

 did when he wrote. 



SERVICES IN THE PROTECTION OF MEDICAL RESEARCH. 



Beginning in 1896, when the antivivisectionists made a vigorous effort to obtain legislation 

 restrictive of animal experimentation in Massachusetts, Dr. Bowditch became an ardent defender 

 of freedom of research within the law. In association with H. C. Ernst and others he appeared 

 repeatedly before legislative committees both in Boston and in Washington, giving reasons 

 for opposing bills directed toward restricting the activities of medical investigators. In an 

 important address before the Massachusetts Medical Society in 1896, he summarized these 

 reasons as follows: "(1) That the men in charge of the institutions where vivisections are 

 practiced in this State are no less humane than those who desire to supervise their actions, 

 while they are, at the same time, vastly better informed with regard to the importance of animal 

 experimentation and the amount of suffering which it involves; (2) that no abuse of the right 

 to vivisect has been shown to exist in these institutions : (3) that the governing bodies of these 

 institutions possess both the will and the power to put a stop to such abuses should they arise: 

 (4) and that the existing statutes furnish sufficient protection against cruelty in vivisection as 

 well as against cruelty in general. " His hostility to any restrictive legislation some of his friends 

 found difficulty in understanding. It was based on two considerations; first, as stated above, 

 that the existing anticruelty laws are adequate to punish any experimenter who is wantonly 

 cruel in the course of experimental procedures; and second, that the passage of restrictive legis- 

 lation in England had not lessened but had increased the efforts of the antivivisectionists. In 

 other words, the aim of these agitators is complete abolition of the use of animals for medical 

 advance — a result which, as he sanely regarded it, would be disastrous to the welfare of both 

 man and the lower animals themselves. In the legislative hearings on this subject his manifest 

 honesty and singleness of purpose added weight to the evidence he brought foiward and to the 

 opinions he expressed. The struggle to preserve freedom of medical investigation in this country 

 has been carried on along lines which he followed and by the open and frank methods which he 

 employed. 



