444 [Feb. 15, 
Ruschenberger.] 
He assisted Dr. George B. Wood in the preparation of the 
twelfth, 1865, the thirteenth, 1870, and the fourteenth, 1877, 
editions of the United States Dispensatory, a leading work on. 
materia medica and pharmacy of such acknowledged excellence 
and accuracy as to be generally accepted as authority in the 
premises. 
During the last few years of his life, Dr. Bridges endured 
most patiently the constant molestations and frequent pain 
which attend chronic cystitis. His repose at night, broken into . 
a series of hourly naps, did not bring to him for the next day 
the refreshing effect of normal sleep ; and so his physical vigor 
was continuously abated, and his mental pursuits greatly dis- 
turbed. Butin spite of worry from this condition of his health, 
he was serenely cheerful and manifested his usual interest in 
scientific topics. 
Within a few days of the completion of the seventy-sixth 
year of his age, he died, February 20, 1882, in the house he had 
occupied with his brother and family twenty-eight years. 
He wasnever married. His generous and sympathetic kind- 
ness, self-sacrificing spirit and habitual amiability won the 
almost filial love and respect of his brother’s many children. 
Their devotion to him is conclusive evidence of the excellence 
of his domestic qualities and the tenderness of his nature. 
Frugal in his living, punctual and loyal to all duties, accu- 
rate, learned, unremittingly industrious, rigidly self-respecting 
and pure in conduct in every sense, he worked faithfully 
throughout his long life, but did not reap compensation com- 
mensurate with his toil. He lacked of that self-asserting, aggres- 
sive spirit which leads many a good man to fortune under cir- 
cumstances in which one of far greater intrinsic worth often 
fails only because he is too shy, too modest to assert his claims 
to consideration. He was always content to leave to others the 
appraisement of his worth. 
Without being ready in debate or at all eloquent in speech, 
he was an admirable and efficient .teacher, as thousands of his 
pupils can testify. They will teach his lessons and thus long 
é 
