HENRY INGERSOLL BOWblTCH. 315 



man compared with me." la 1842 he wrote a remarkable letter to a 

 Southern physician requesting a consultation, in which he declined to 

 have " commercial relations for pecuniary profit with slaveholders." 

 As soon as the struggle was over, the same impassioned lover of hu- 

 manity, he bent his energies to the restoration of good feeling between 

 the North and the South, a work in which he had an opportunity to 

 do excellent service at the annual meetings of the American Medical 

 Association, which brought together physicians and surgeons from all 

 sections of the country. In his home he received men who had owned 

 slaves with the delightful hospitality of warm friendship. 



Throughout his life, Dr. Bowditch referred to his antislavery work 

 with thankfulness that he was permitted to contribute his part to such 

 a crisis of the country's history, and with gratitude for its influence in 

 arousing his public spirit, in forming his character, and in shaping his 

 life-work. He entered into his professional duties with the same ardor. 

 He was, upon his return from Europe in 1834, admitted into the lead- 

 ing medical society in the city, the Boston Society for Medical Improve- 

 ment. The followmg year he and Professor John Ware organized a 

 Society for Medical Observation, the other members of which were 

 students, which was discontinued in 1838. A few years later, with a few 

 other physicians, he formed private medical classes, in which, in addi- 

 tion to his other duties, he demonstrated autopsies at the Massachusetts 

 General Hospital. It is superfluous to say that, with these opportuni- 

 ties as a teacher, he labored strenuously in extending Louis's methods 

 of careful study, close, exact observation, and rigid inductive reason- 

 ing. His early medical publications, from 1836 to 1838, showed also 

 the bent of his energies, being translations from Louis, and in defence 

 or m praise of his work in the study of disease. Before he received 

 any appointment at the hospital, he was a frequent visitor in the wards, 

 and the value of his examinations of the patients by percussion and 

 auscultation, then new in Boston, is testified to by Dr. Morrill Wyman, 

 who was, in 1836, house physician there. 



In 1838, Dr. Bowditch married Olivia Yardley, of London, whose 

 acquaintance, made in Paris, he regarded as the great blessing of his 

 life. Her character was a beautiful comiilement of his, and her steady, 

 cheerful influence was often a wholesome guide to his impulsiveness. 

 He was in that respect like his friend Wendell Phillips, who even said 

 that he owed his whole career to his wife. 



He became admitting physician, 1838 to 1845, and later, 1846 to 

 1864, visiting phy.sician at the Massachusetts General Hospital; the 

 first visiting physician at the Carney Hospitalj 1863 j visiting physi- 



