OP ARTS AND SCIENCES : MAY 27, 18G2. O 



many years an Overseer, — the Divinity School at Cambridge, which he 

 assisted in establishing, — besides other public associations, were large- 

 ly indebted to his prudent counsels and well-directed exertions. He 

 was a member, for several years, of the Legislature of Massachusetts 

 and of the Executive Council. The few specimens which are remem- 

 bered of his qualities as a writer and public speaker are such as to 

 leave no doubt that, had he more extensively cultivated and exercised 

 his gifts, he might have secured an enviable reputation for eloquence. 

 He always enjoyed retirement, and as his strength began to fail he 

 not reluctantly withdrew from the world, and, gracefully gathering his 

 unspotted robe about him, calmly awaited his change. 



Dr. Luther V. Bell was born in Francestown, New Hampshire, 

 Dec. 20, 1806. He was the second son of the Hon. Samuel Bell, who 

 held successively the offices of Chief Justice, Governor, and U. S. 

 Senator of his native State. At the age of sixteen Dr. Bell was 

 graduated at Bowdoin College, and received the degree of Doctor in 

 Medicine at Dartmouth College at the age of twenty, and later in life 

 the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws from King's College, in Nova 

 Scotia. He commenced the practice of medicine in his native town, 

 where he soon acquired a distinguished reputation as a successful 

 physician and skilful surgeon, and especially for his tact in meeting 

 with limited means the emergencies in which country practitioners are 

 so often called upon to act. In 1834 he deceived the Boylston prize 

 for a dissertation " On the Diet best fitted for the Inhabitants of New 

 England," and in the following year he offered for the same prize a 

 second dissertation " On the External Exploration of Disease," a 

 subject which was then just beginning to attract the attention of 

 medical men in this country. The prize was justly awarded to Dr. 

 O. W. Holmes ; but the dissertations of Dr. Bell and of Dr. Haxall of 

 Virginia were considered of unusual merit, and, through the liberality 

 of the late Dr. Shattuck, they were printed in the publications of the 

 Massachusetts Medical Society. Through these dissertations and his 

 professional reputation his name became favorably known thi-oughout 

 New England. 



The establishment of an Asylum for the Insane in New Hampshire 

 having been proposed, Dr. Bell became one of its most earnest advo- 

 cates. The inquiries of several benevolent persons revealed the 

 existence of insanity to an extent wholly unsuspected : still the Legis- 

 lature and the politicians shrank from incurring the expenditure neces- 



