HENRY INGERSOLL BOWDITCH. 317 



Boston Society for Medical Observation, and the meetings for orgauiza- 

 tion were held at his house. The object of the society was the reading 

 of original papers, and such unsparing criticism that at least one mem- 

 ber resiofued because he could not stand it. It was after the plan of 

 the Society for Medical Observation in Paris, of which Louis was Pres- 

 ident, " to make its members good observers of disease, to collect and 

 arrange accurately recorded facts in furtherance of the cause of medi- 

 cal science, and to publish from time to time the results of the exami- 

 nation of such facts." In the Boylston Medical School,* where he 

 taught auscultation and percussion from 1852 to 1855, the instruction 

 was so excellent that the school was in danger of becoming an impor- 

 tant rival to the Harvard Medical School, and ceased to exist by being 

 to a great extent absorbed in it. In his private office Dr. Bowditch 

 was always to his assistants the same high-minded friend as to his pu- 

 pils in the Medical School, ever trying to help them, especially those 

 most needing assistance of any kind. He taught them not only how to 

 diagnosticate diseases, but also, incidentally by his example, how to 

 talk to and treat people, although he lacked to a fault the faculty of 

 adapting himself or his advice to the individuality of his patients. He 

 was so lirm in his own strength that he was not always patient with 

 weak people, or with the weaknesses of strong people. He was too 

 honest and direct to study their whims and peculiarities of temper or 

 temperament as a means of increasing his practice. The privilege of 

 being with him as assistant was eagerly sought for by medical students. 

 He was essentially a physician and a teacher of medicine. His call- 

 ing, which he regarded as the noblest work that man might do, was 

 so deeply impressed upon his whole being that it could not be wholly 

 lost sight of even in his character as a public-spirited citizen or as a 

 zealous and intense reformer. One can hardly place a limit to his 

 interests, or measure which was larger, his great heart or his active 

 brain. Few physicians have lived whom so many have delighted to 

 call their friend. He showed the same large sympathy as in his pro- 

 fession while he was one of the Directors of the Boston Co-operative 

 Building Association for improving the dwellings of the poor, and the 

 same spirit of helpfulness in passing evenings at the notorious old tene- 

 ment called the " Crystal Palace," to teach the rudiments of what 

 later developed into greater proportions as our system of industrial 



* The Faculty of the School consisted of John Bacon, Jr., Charles E. Buck- 

 ingham, Henry G. Clark, Edward H. Clarke, John C Dalton, Jr., George H. 

 Gay, and Henry W, Williams. Several of these men became Professors in the 

 Harvard Medical School. 



