324 HENRY INGERSOLL BOWDITCH. 



serter from the Union army. To him more than to any other single 

 individual was due the persistent effort which, strange to say, was 

 necessary in order to compel Congress to pass the law creating an 

 efficient ambulance service in the army. The ardor of the patriot 

 accepted the loss of the son bearing his grandfather's name, killed 

 while leading a squadron of cavalry at Kelly's Ford ; but to the 

 father's love it was a lifelong grief, how deep few only could 

 know. 



Of Dr. Bowditch's home life, one of his friends writes, " I think 

 of his home as more filled with love than any other home I ever 

 knew." It was so full of the spirit of generous and charming hospi- 

 tality as to make it one " which all who were privileged to enter it 

 must ever remember with admiring and grateful love." In one re- 

 spect Dr. Bowditch possessed a remarkably judicial mind, in that he 

 clearly recognized his own defects. Indeed, he was not only always 

 modest and free from self-assertion, but he was his own severest critic, 

 even where others saw only cause for praise. He was charitable in 

 his estimate of everybody but himself. When he erred in judgment, 

 he did so from spontaneous self-forgetfulness born of a righteous im- 

 pulse. He was so genuine and so human that " his very faults were 

 endearing." 



The perspective of years will be needed to estimate justly Dr. Bow- 

 ditch's life and work. He did not possess the striking originality, the 

 uuiformly calm judgment, the brilliant intellectual genius, the keen 

 therapeutic insight, or the rigid presence of mind and patient self- 

 control, of one or another of his contemporaries. But he had a kind 

 of wisdom, a directness of intuition, foresight, breadth of view, and 

 largeness of nature, with absolute independence, uncompromising hon- 

 esty, energy, enthusiasm, and marvellous industry, joined to the genius 

 for investigation and to the scientific and humane spirit, that place 

 him as the great man of the medical profession of New England in 

 his day, as he was, at the height of his reputation, our most eminent 

 physician. 



The following memorandum of Dr. Bowditch's " life-work," abbre- 

 viated from Mr. Winsor's Bibliographical Contributions, although pre- 

 pared by himself for his class-book, is not absolutely complete ; but 

 probably the omissions are not many, except possibly of letters and 

 short articles for newspapers, etc. His comments on one title after 

 another are characteristic, and full of interest, but too long to be 

 reproduced here. 



