244 
Life  of  Robert  Bridges,  M.  D. 
Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
May,  1884. 
not  obtain  a  lucrative  practice.  His  mother  died,  February  19,  1839, 
in  the  fifty-eighth  year  of  her  age,  a  loss  generally  among  the  saddest 
in  man's  experience. 
He  was  elected  a  member  of  the  Academy  of  Natural  Sciences  of 
Philadelphia,  January,  1835 ;  of  the  Franklin  Institute,  January, 
1836;  a  resident  member  of  the  Philadelphia  College  of  Pharmacy, 
December,  1838;  a  fellow  of  the  College  of  Physicians  of  Philadel- 
phia, July,  1842;  and  he  was  chosen  a  member  of  the  American  Phi- 
losophical Society,  January  19,  1844. 
At  the  Franklin  Institute  Dr.  Franklin  Bache  taught  chemistry,  as 
lecturer  and  professor,1  from  September,  1826,  till  1831.  During  the 
whole  period,  five  years,  Dr.  Bridges  was  his  assistant.  After  that 
time  he  did  not  participate  in  the  proceedings  of  the  Society,  though 
he  was  occasionally  present  at  its  meetings. 
As  already  stated,  he  was  an  active  and  prominent  member  of  the 
Academy  of  Natural  Sciences,  but  all  his  time  was  not  given  to  it.  He 
labored  most  earnestly  in  another  institution,  the  Philadelphia  College 
of  Pharmacy,  with  which  his  career  was  so  closely  associated,  that,  to 
understand  it  clearly,  a  statement  of  the  circumstances  which  attended 
the  origin  and  progress  of  the  College  seems  necessary. 
A  National  Convention  of  Physicians  assembled  at  Washington, 
D.  C,  January  1, 18.20,  for  the  purpose  of  devising  a  code  of  formulas, 
and  establishing  it  as  the  sole  standard  for  medicinal  preparations. 
The  object  was  to  have  them  made  exactly  alike  in  composition  and 
strength  by  all  physicians  and  apothecaries  throughout  the  land.  The 
result  of  the  labors  of  the  convention  of  January,  1820,  was  the  pub- 
lication, at  Boston,  Mass.,  December  15,  1820,  of  the  first  Pharmaco- 
poeia of  the  United  States  of  America,  and  since,  of  decennial  revi- 
sions of  it,  the  sixth  of  which  is  now  in  use. 
Dr.  Bridges  was  among  the  most  skillful  of  those  who  labored  to 
perfect  the  Pharmacopoeia.  The  Philadelphia  College  of  Pharmacy 
appointed  him,  March,  1847,  one  of  a  committee  to  revise  the  issue  of 
1840,  and  prepare  the  report  on  it  to  be  given  to  the  National  Con- 
vention of  1850,  the  first  in  which  pharmacists  were  represented.  He 
assisted  on  a  committee  of  the  College  of  Physicians,  appointed  Feb- 
ruary, 1868,  to  report  on  the  fourth  decennial  revision;  was  one  of 
the  delegates  from  the  college  to  the  meeting  of  the  National  Conven- 
1  Dr.  Bache  was  appointed  lecturer  on  chemistry,  September,  1826,  and 
professor,  March,  1828. 
