Ruschenberger.] ±*jo [Nov. 6, 



1862, for duty at the West Philadelphia Military Hospital, and 

 served till June 18, 1863. At his suggestion and under his 

 supervision, a steam mangle was set up in West Philadelphia — 

 Chestnut street, east of Thirty-first street — to accelerate the 

 laundry work of the great hospital. The day the machine was 

 ready to be set to work, January 10, 1863, he was present to see 

 it started. It is related that while benevolently showing a 

 woman who was to feed it the dangers to which the work ex- 

 posed her, his own right hand was caught and crushed betwixt 

 the very hot [180° P.] revolving iron cylinders. With charac- 

 teristic alertness he reached out his left hand and instantly threw 

 the leather band off from the revolving drum which gave motion 

 to the machine, and stopped it. Then, in lifting the heavy 

 cylinder [800 pounds] for his release, it slipped from the end of 

 a crowbar in the hands of a workman and fell back upon the 

 hand, thus aggravating the injury already inflicted. 



In his suffering he was considerate of another. He conjec- 

 tured that his wife might be too profoundly shocked, should he 

 appear before her with the hurt hand concealed in bloody wraps, 

 immediately after the sound of rattling wheels in their quiet 

 street had ceased in front of the house. To coi-ivey to her an 

 impression that his injury was less than it really was, he gal- 

 lantly alighted from the carriage in which he was at the street 

 corner nearest his residence and walked home. 



His colleague in the University, Dr. Henry H. Smith, Pro- 

 fessor of Surgery, amputated the injured extremity above the 

 wrist at night, January 24. The result of the operation was 

 entirely satisfactory. Por some time he wore an artificial hand, 

 admirably made for him by C. W. Kolbe,a well-known cutler of 

 the city. 



One day, very soon after the stump had healed, as Professor 

 Smith was about to begin his lecture, Dr. Rogers entered the 

 arena and begged leave to interrupt him for a moment. Then, 

 resting his left hand upon the Professor's shoulder, he ad- 

 dressed the assembled class in his eloquent way, and expressed 

 his grateful sense of obligation to the eminent skill and kind 

 attention of their Professor of Surgery. His speech was re- 

 ceived with rounds of tremendous applause. The scene is not 

 likely to be forgotton by any who was present. 



Almost ambidextrous, prior to the accident, he speedily learned 



