Wood. J 222 [June. 



on the 25th of October, 1792, and, in consequence of the early death 

 of his father, was, with several younger brothers, left to the care of 

 their mother, aided, for a considerable portion of their minority, by 

 her second husband, William Duane. 



The early education of Dr. Bache was similar to that of most other 

 youths destined for a liberal profession. He graduated in the de- 

 partment of arts of the Univer-sity of Pennsylvania in 1810, and en- 

 tering immediately on the study of medicine, went through a regular 

 course of instruction, and received the degree of doctor of medicine 

 in the medical department of the same school in 1814. In the pre- 

 ceding year, he had been appointed surgeon's mate in the army, and 

 in the course of service, after his graduation, became surgeon; a po- 

 sition which he continued to hold until the then existing war with 

 Great Britain closed, and for a short time subsequently. In 1816, 

 however, he resigned, in order to engage in the practice of his pro- 

 fession in Philadelphia. 



Dr. Bache exhibited a very early predilection for chemistry. Soon 

 after commencing his medical studies, in the year 1811, he published, 

 in the Aurora newspaper, an essay on the probable composition of 

 muriatic acid, a question which long agitated the scientific world, 

 and which, even after the discovery of chlorine, remained for many 

 years unsettled. Dr. Bache seems to have been an early convert 

 from the old hypothesis, which regarded chlorine as a compound of 

 muriatic acid and oxygen, and the acid as yet undecomposed, to the 

 new doctrine of Sir Humphry Davy, which taught that chlorine 

 was simple, and muriatic acid a compound of it and hydrogen. 

 Until the discovery of iodine and bromine, the close analogy of 

 which with chlorine rendered infinitely probable a similar analogy in 

 their relations with other bodies, no experimentum crucis had been 

 made sufficient to satisfy all minds of the truth of the elementary 

 doctrine; and it is a singular fact, that, in the almost countless rami- 

 fications into which the inquiry was pushed, explanation was in every 

 instance possible as well upon the one as upon the other of these so 

 different and even contradictory hypotheses. There are very few 

 coincidences so remarkable in the whole history of the science. 



In 1813, before his graduation in medicine, Dr. Bache published 

 three chemical papers in the " Memoirs of the Columbian Chemical 

 Society;" but of their special subjects I can say nothing, as I owe my 

 knowledge of the fact solely to the private memoranda left behind by 

 him, having never seen the book referred to. He appears to have 



