DR. CHARLES FOLLEN FOLSOM. 761 



formed the occasion for the establishment of the National Board of 

 Health, and of this Dr. Billings and Dr. H. I. Bowditch were appointed 

 members. There were thus several ties that bound Dr. Folsom's in- 

 terest to the work of this important Board, and it was only natural that 

 on Dr. Bowditch's retirement, in 1882, Dr. Folsom should be chosen 

 his successor. The work of the Board by that time, to be sure, was 

 already waning under the inanition treatment to which it was sub- 

 jected by the government at Washington, and in the few remaining 

 years of its life it did but little active work. Nevertheless, it served to 

 cement still closer the bond of friendship between Dr. Folsom and Dr. 

 Billings, and also brought the former into wider notice among public 

 men. 



The absorption of the Board of Health into the combined Board of 

 Health, Lunacy and Charity, was a matter of profound regret to Dr. 

 Folsom as to Dr. Bowditch, and to all their colleagues. They felt that 

 the co-operative effectiveness of the small group of men who had learned 

 to work so well together was likely to be impaired, and with no com- 

 pensating benefit. Dr. Bowditch who was appointed on the new Board, 

 but resigned almost at once, partly to gain more time for other labors, 

 partly as a means of expressing his disapproval. Dr. Folsom was made 

 secretary of the new Board, at first with special duties relative to the 

 health department, but resigned in January, 1881, just a year 

 after Dr. Bowditch. He had identified himself with many of the im- 

 portant measures that were adopted by the Board during his brief term 

 of service, and lent his aid to carry into effect a scheme which then, 

 perhaps, seemed to most onlookers to be of much less consequence 

 than it later proved. This was the appointment by the State Board of 

 carefully selected women, from the different towns throughput the 

 State, to act as "Auxiliary Visitors" to the State Board of Health, 

 Lunacy, and Charity, in looking after the girls from the State Primary 

 School at Monson, and the State Industrial School at Lancaster, as 

 well as those committed to the custody of the board itself and placed out 

 with relatives or in other families, while still remaining wards of the 

 State. The appointment of these visitors increased very materially 

 the value of the Board's work in that direction. Similar work had 

 been going on for some years, on a small scale, as an informal outgrowth 

 of the efforts of a few women who had been assisting Colonel Gardiner 

 Tufts, Superintendent of the State Visiting Agency, but it was of great 



citizen, giving time and skilled labor to public interests without a thought of 

 personal benefit — a skilled physician, beloved by his patients, and a gentle- 

 man in all the best senses of that word. I am proud of the fact that he was my 

 friend." 



