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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIII. No. 851 



on American students. Bowditcli was one of 

 a group of young physicians who strove suc- 

 cessfully to found at Harvard laboratories 

 modelled on those of Germany. The result of 

 their efforts was the medical school building 

 on Boylston Street, which, when it was dedi- 

 cated in 1883 was easily the best for its pur- 

 poses in America. From the time of the open- 

 ing of this building until 1893 Bowditch acted 

 as dean of the medical school, and during this 

 period the school improved with unparalleled 

 rapidity largely owing to his personal influ- 

 ence. He was a man who had visions of bet- 

 ter conditions, and worked to make them reali- 

 ties. It was his vision which first conceived 

 a second new medical school on a magnificent 

 scale of equipment, and it was mainly by his 

 persuasion that the Harvard authorities agreed 

 to attempt to carry out the plan. He threw 

 himself with characteristic ardor into the 

 work. Together with Dr. John Collins War- 

 ren and others he labored, and the magnificent 

 laboratories, opened in 1906, which the school 

 now possesses, commemorate his devotion and 

 success. With the completion of the cluster 

 of five hospitals at present under actual con- 

 struction or soon to be begun, which will sur- 

 round the laboratories, Bowditch's dream will 

 be fulfilled. Fortunately he lived to know 

 that this fulfilment was assured, though he 

 could not see it completed. 



Outside causes, sometimes professional, 

 sometimes civic, often appealed to him. Thus 

 he was one of the principal founders of the 

 American Physiological Society, to the affairs 

 of which, as of the National Academy and 

 other scientific associations, including the 

 International Physiological Triennial Con- 

 gresses, he gave of his time generously and 

 always helpfully. With a small group of col- 

 leagues in Boston he took up psychical re- 

 search, and aided in founding and for several 

 years in managing the American society. His 

 open-mindedness was shown in this matter 

 and was characteristic, but his experience 

 finally rendered him extremely skeptical as to 

 the reality of telepathy and other alleged psy- 

 chical phenomena. He was a trustee of the 

 Elizabeth Thompson Science Fund from its 



foundation in 1886 until 1906. Much of the 

 credit of the success of that fund belongs to 

 him. In Boston he served several years on 

 the school committee, and also as a trustee of 

 the Public Library. Whatever he undertook 

 he tried to do well and with such complete 

 singleness of purpose that every one with 

 whom he was thrown in contact instinctively 

 trusted him. 



The manifold activities, which have been 

 referred to, encroached upon his time, and in 

 later years he occasionally asked a friend 

 whether his life would not have been of 

 greater service, if he had devoted himself ex- 

 clusively to experimental physiology. His 

 success in more extended research would have 

 been great, for in all his actual researches he 

 was eminently successful. Thus, his work on 

 the growth of children remains still the best 

 on the subject. His investigations on the in- 

 defatigability of nerves, on the knee-jerk, on 

 ciliary motion and other subjects are impor- 

 tant and are also models both of thoroughness 

 of experimentation and of clearness of pre- 

 sentation. Nevertheless, one must reply to 

 Bowditch's own question that his life was well 

 and wisely spent, as measured by the value of 

 his services to the general welfare. In view 

 of his great efficiency in promoting not only 

 physiology but science in general and in ele- 

 vating medical teaching, we must admire with 

 grateful appreciation his career, which has 

 been a powerful factor in the advance of re- 

 search and education in America. 



His own researches only partially indicate 

 his range and efficiency as an investigator, to 

 measure which fully one must know the work 

 of William James, Stanley Hall, Southard, 

 Lombard, Porter, Cannon and many others, 

 who worked in his laboratory. 



He received many tokens, both personal and 

 official, of the high esteem in which he was 

 held. He was an honorary member of nu- 

 merous scientific bodies, and received hon- 

 orary degrees from Edinburgh, Cambridge 

 (England), Toronto, the University of Penn- 

 sylvania and his ovm Harvard. 



Dr. Bowditch married Miss Knauth in 1871. 

 She was the daughter of a Leipzig banker. 



