1885.1 J. IX [Ruschenberger. 



Dr. Rogers attempted to establish a circulating medical library 

 in the city, and spent considerable part of his patrimony in it. 

 The enterprise failed from want of patronage.* 



Hoping to obtain better compensation for his toil, he settled 

 in Baltimore about the close of 1812, taking with him his wife 

 and their three boys. Some near kinsmen, who were engaged in 

 trade, had been settled there sometime. 



He seems to have been more prosperous in his new abode. At 

 first he lived at Fell's Point, and had an apothecary shop, and sub- 

 sequently in South Charles street. He was elected physician of 

 the Hibernian Society in 1816. The same year it was charged 

 that " Dr. P. K. Rogers, at Fell's Point, persists in the use of 

 variolous matter in preference to vaccine, against the public re- 

 monstrance of Dr. James Smith. "f 



The controversy on this question, carried on in the news- 

 papers, was detrimental to his professional business. His in- 

 come was inadequate to his need ; still, he worked on zealously. 

 In 1819 his qualifications and capacity to teach were recognized. 

 He was elected Professor of Natural Philosophy and Mathe- 

 matics in the ancient College of William and Mary, founded at 

 Williamsburg, Va., 1692, in place of Dr. Robert Hare, resigned. 



Dr. Rogers was soon settled in the Brofferton house, on the 

 college campus, with his wife and four boys. He was earnest in 

 his work. He made all the apparatus required to illustrate his 

 lectures. In this making and mending he was habitually aided 

 by his sons, who thus acquired unusual facility in the use of 

 tools for working wood and metals. He also prepared and 

 printed a syllabus of his course of instruction. 



During the summer of 1820, after the close of ihe session of 

 the college, July 4, Mrs. Rogers was attacked with malarial 

 fever and died, leaving the four boys, the youngest in his seventh 

 and the eldest in his eighteenth year, to the care of their father. 

 The boys became almost foster children in families of the pro- 

 fessors. 



To avoid the malarial fever always prevalent in the locality 



* At this time the College of Physicians of Philadelphia has a library of 35,000, 

 the Pennsylvania Hospital about 12,000, and the Medical Department of the 

 University of Pennsylvania nearly as many, all accessible to the medical pub- 

 lic. 



t Medical Annals of Baltimore. By John R. Quinan, M.D. 8vo,pp. 274. Balti- 

 more, 1881. 



