Wood.] 1^2 [June. 



Pharmacopoeia, in 1831, Dr. Bache, jointly with myself, undertook 

 the preparation of the Dispensatory of the United States, which was 

 completed and published in 1833. I am precluded, by my share in 

 the authorship of that work, from treating either of its merits or de- 

 merits. This much, however, I may be permitted to say, that it 

 purports to represent the existing state of Materia Medica and Pharm- 

 acy, has been accepted in this capacity to a great extent throughout 

 the United States, and has been used as a guide in relation to these 

 branches of medicine by a large proportion of the physicians and 

 apothecaries of our country. The extensive use of the book rendered 

 frequent editions necessary, and thus gave opportunity for revisions 

 at short intervals, by wKich its character as a representative of the 

 knowledge of the times has been maintained. Indeed, before the 

 decease of Dr. Bache, so many changes had been made, and so much 

 novel matter introduced, that it had become almost a new work, pos- 

 sessing little more than the general features of the original. Between 

 the years 1883, when it was first published, and 1864, when Dr. 

 Bache died, it went through eleven editions, at average intervals of 

 three years; having, during this time, swollen from somewhat more 

 than a thousand to nearly sixteen hundred pages, and containing, 

 from its greater compactness, almost twice as much matter as in the 

 beginning. From this statement it will be understood how great an 

 amount of labor must have been bestowed on it from first to last by 

 Dr. Bache, and how constant a source of occupation it must have 

 been to him during this long period of more than thirty years. 

 Happily the pecuniary results were such as to make his income, much 

 restricted anteriorly to its publication, comparatively easy from that 

 time onward, and quite adequate to his wants. The work was, more- 

 over, a stepping-stone to his appointment to the chemical professor- 

 ship in the Jefferson Medical College, which he received in 1841, 

 and continued to hold as long as he lived. 



The vicissitudes of his life seem to have ceased with this appoint- 

 ment. Made by it not only comfortable but even affluent in his cir- 

 cumstances, he was no longer compelled to search for new and better 

 position; and as his time and powers were sufficiently occupied in 

 the performance of his regular duties, — the care, namely, of his prac- 

 tice, the fulfilment of his professorial functions, and the constantly 

 recurring labor of revising either the Pharmacopoeia or the Dispen- 

 satory, — he had no inducement to new attempts at authorship, or in 

 any other direction to seek for new fields of industry. As a member 

 of the Wistar Party, and the Senior Medical Club, he performed 



