BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF DR. R. J. FARQUHARSON. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF DR. ROBERT JAMES 

 FARQUHARSON. 



BY W. D. MIDDLETON, M. D. 



Dr. Robert James Farquharson was born in Nashville, Tennessee, 

 on the 15th of July, 1824. His father, one of the early settlers of the 

 State, was a Scotchman, and his mother a native of Kentucky. Little 

 can be said here of his early history, save that he was an exceedingly 

 apt scholar as a boy, which was shown in his entering the University 

 of Nashville at the early age of fourteen, and graduating from that in- 

 stitution in 1841, or when only seventeen years of age, m that period 

 having found time to take an extra course in the higher mathematics, 

 at the earnest desire of the professor of that branch of instruction. 



Letters of that date among his papers show high regard for him 

 among those with whom he came in contact in his school life, one 

 from the president speaking of him as "always first in his classes" and 

 as always "most exemplary in his demeanor;" and another from Prof. 

 G. Troost, which testifies to his application and tohis-"love for the 

 natural sciences," as evidenced in his work with him as assistant dur- 

 ing a survey of part of the State of Tennessee. The early leanings of 

 the man in the direction in which most of his life work was done were, 

 perhaps, determined by this contact with Dr. Troost, an old Hollander, 

 of whom, long since deceased, he often spoke with evident affection. 

 He read medicine in the office of a Dr. Jennings, of his native place, 

 repairing to Philadelphia, then the center of medical education in this 

 country, to attend lectures, and graduating from the medical depart- 

 ment of the University of Pennsylvania in the spring of 1844. 



At the age of twenty, we find him entering Blockley Hospital to 

 serve for a year, meeting nearly all the great lights in medicine of that 

 time on an intimate footing, and becoming fully acquainted with all 

 the improvements in the art of healing which the knowledge of the 

 schools furnished. He graduated from the hospital service with honor, 

 and had found time, also, to obtain the diploma of the Obstetric Insti- 

 tute — a hospital institution for practical instruction in that branch of 

 the science. 



There are many letters of that date among his papers showing the 

 uniformly high esteem in which, in those days of his young manhood. 



