CHARLES PICKERING PUTNAM. 917 



one of the first and best among the founders of modern medicine in 

 this commonwealth, who Hved long enough to see his grandchildren 

 attain to a ripe age and to make them familiar with qualities of mind 

 and heart which impressed them deeply. Judge Putnam's wife, 

 Sarah Gooll, belonged to the distinguished Pickering family of Salem, 

 while Dr. Jackson's wife was a member of the Cabot family, which 

 was then eminent, as it has been since, for the public and private 

 virtues of its representatives. 



Dr. Putnam graduated from Harvard College in 1865, and from the 

 Harvard Medical School in 1869. After this he studied abroad, 

 giving special attention to the diseases of children, and in the latter 

 part of 1871 began to devote himself to his profession in Boston. 

 Although he always carried on a general practice, he paid especial 

 attention to pediatrics, and did some excellent pioneer work in ortho- 

 pedics, then a branch of medicine that was but little known. In 1898 

 he was President of the American Pediatric Society. He lectured 

 at the Harvard Medical School on the diseases of children from 1873 

 to 1875, and was clinical instructor in the same branch from 1875 to 

 1879. 



So kindly was his disposition, so full was he of sympathy with 

 others whose lot had been harder than his own, so ready to be a 

 worker and, where need was, a fighter for the embodiment of good 

 principles in good institutions, that he found himself, — almost of 

 necessity, and from the very outset, — plunging more and more deeply 

 into social work. 



The history of his private life and medical labors need not be re- 

 corded here. It is enough to say that it was made up of a never- 

 ending series of acts of untiring devotion, prompted by the warmest 

 of feelings and the highest sense of duty. 



As for his social service work, this was described so well by his 

 relative Mr. Joseph Lee, in a paper first published in the Boston Med. 

 and Surg. Journal for May 7, 1914, that I will complete this brief 

 record by the following quotations from that source: 



"Dr. Putnam had been since the beginning of his practice of medi- 

 cine a leader in charitable and social work,— almost from the begin- 

 ning the most important leader of such work in Boston, the first to take 

 hold and the last to let go of each new and important enterprise. 



Dr. Putnam was one of the founders, in 1873, of the little-known 

 but extremely important Boston Society for the Relief of Destitute 

 Mothers and Infants, which was a pioneer in establishing the policy 

 of keeping mother and child together, and was president of the society 



