HENRY INGERSOLL BOWDITCH. 321 



and impulsive, he pushed on until the point was gained. His very im- 

 patience was often a virtue, and a power for good. If his enthusiasm 

 carried him too fast or too far, he was ready to modify his course. If 

 in his vehement indignation and scathing rebuke of anything which he 

 considered mean or unworthy he had seemed to wrong any one, he 

 was quick with generous redress. His apologies for his own haste 

 were as frank as his magnanimity was noble. His simplicity and ear- 

 nestness were so transparent, that, as one of the members of the board 

 said, there could be no real dissension in a board of which he was the 

 chairman; and his sense of humor, love of fun. and quick intuition 

 helped him out of many difficult places. He liberally contributed san- 

 itary papers to the reports of the board. Every subject considered 

 by them bore the marks of his conscientious study. After the political 

 timidity excited by a Butler campaign had swamped the board in a 

 Board of Health, Lunacy, and Charity, in 1ST'.), he felt obliged to re- 

 sign his membership in it, "as a protest" against the "grotesque alli- 

 ance," as soon as a sufficient experience of the new board had failed 

 to change his opinion of the folly of it all. He still labored for the 

 repeal of the obnoxious law, as he had worked to prevent its enact- 

 ment, and he did much, not only for the restoration of the old State 

 Board of Health, but for placing it upon a higher plane of usefulness 

 than ever before. This he accomplished by appealing to and arousing 

 public sentiment, in the intelligence and honesty of which he never 

 lost faith. 



When the yellow-fever epidemic of 1878 aroused the nation to the 

 need of a National Board of Health, the chairmanship seemed the op- 

 portunity of Dr. Bowditch's life. No one else had the personal quali- 

 ties and the reputation to fill the place. Unfortunately, the state of 

 his health prevented his accepting it, or indeed of serving as a num- 

 ber of the board for more than a year ; and there followed its melan- 

 choly wreck, which so many thought that he might have averted if he 

 had been chairman. 



He was one of the earliest advocates of specialties in medicine in 

 this country, freely asking the advice of men much younger than him- 

 self, and treating with respect the sincere opinions of the least experi- 

 enced, if given, as he gave his opinions, without assumption. lie was 

 one of the first to believe in women as physicians, am! thought it hut 

 justice to them, as well as good policy for the community, to give to 

 them the same advantages of study as to men. 



More than ninety thousand manuscript pages of records of cases of 

 private patients, ten printed papers, and sixty-six pamphlets printed 

 vol. xxvin. (x. s. xx) 21 



