1865.] .121 [Wood. 



Dr. Geo. B, Wood read the following Obituary Notice 

 of Dr. Franklin Bache. 



When appointed by the American Philosophical Society to pre- 

 pare a biographical memoir of its former President, Dr. Franklin 

 Bache, I had already accepted a similar appointment from the Col- 

 lege of Physicians of Philadelphia, of which he was Vice-President 

 at the time of his decease. Believing the latter engagement to 

 have the first claim upon me, I have already written and presented 

 to the College a somewhat elaborate account of the life and charac- 

 ter of our departed friend; and feel myself at a loss how best to 

 prepare another, which shall have the merit at the same time of in- 

 terest and of novelty. Indeed, I am not quite confident that I did 

 right, when invited by the Society to undertake the duty, in not al- 

 lowing it to pass into other and better hands; but I was influenced, 

 in accepting the charge, by a well-founded conviction that Dr. Bache 

 himself would have preferred that it should devolve upon me; and, 

 moreover, by the consideration that, as there were two phases in his 

 life, the scientific, namely, and the professional, so was there oflPered 

 to his biographer the opportunity of presenting him to the future in 

 two different aspects, one as he might be regarded from the stand- 

 point of his connection with this Society, the other from that of his 

 fellowship in the College of Physicians. It is in this spirit that the 

 memoir referred to as having been already prepared was written ; 

 giving a general account of his life, but dwelling at greatest extent 

 and with most emphasis on those incidents which were connected 

 with his profession, and might be supposed to have a peculiar inte- 

 rest for the persons to whom it was addressed. On the present oc- 

 casion, my wish is, in like manner, while giving a brief narrative of 

 the events of his life, to dwell more particularly on such as have 

 sprung from his connection with this Society, and will be likely more 

 especially to interest its members. 



The members of the American Philosophical Society need not to 

 be informed that Dr. Bache was the great-grandson of its founder 

 and first President, Dr. Benjamin Franklin. Sarah, Dr. Franklin's 

 only daughter, was married to Richard Bache, an English gentleman, 

 who emigrated, when a young man, to this country, from near Pres- 

 ton, in Lancashire, and became a citizen of Pennsylvania. The 

 eldest child of this marriage, Benjamin Franklin Bache, was the 

 father of our deceased fellow-member, who was born in Philadelphia 



VOL. X. — R 



