$)cnrp dwrsoft' (goir>bitc{) [Reprinted from the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal of 
January 21, 1892.] 
HENRY INGERSOLL BOWDITCH, M.D. 
Dr. Henry Ingersoll Bowditch died January 
14th in the eighty-fourth year of his age, after a long 
illness, which he bore with such courage and cheerful- 
ness and manly patience, that it was a benediction to 
be near him. 
Dr. Bowditch inherited from his father, Nathaniel 
Bowditch, the eminent mathematician, and his mother, 
Mary Ingersoll, those sterling qualities which, de- 
veloped by their example and teaching, made him, in 
later years, a leader among men. His child-life was 
fortunate in the companionship of three brothers and 
two sisters, all very like him in having individuality 
and force of character. As a school-boy he was kind, 
generous, sympathetic, truthful, manly, but thoroughly 
a boy, and the shout that there was " a nigger on the 
common " or a fight going on between the boys of the 
opposing sections of the town, brought him quickly to 
the front. From the open-air life insisted upon by 
his father came the healthy mind in the sound body. 
The simple living, the early love of nature, the habits 
of industry and self-denial so common to the New 
England life of his time encouraged a thoughtfulness, 
self-reliance, independence of mind and vigor of action 
which have become more rare with the increase of 
wealth and luxury. 
In college, he was the same warm-hearted good 2 
fellow, straightforward, impulsive, pugnacious, ardent 
- although not an ardent scholar - sensitive and 
popular, always to be depended upon. 
After taking the degree of A.B. at Harvard in 1828, 
and later the A.M., he graduated at the medical 
school in 1832, having also been house-officer at the 
Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Bowditch spent 
two years in Europe studying for the most part with 
Andral, Chomel and especially Louis, whom he fondly 
called his master. It was still the day of dogmatism 
and pedantry and system-making, but Louis, one of 
the first of the iconoclasts, was teaching the close study 
of nature and the careful observation, faithful records 
and accurate analysis of facts as the true basis of med- 
ical knowledge and practice. Dr. Bowditch came 
back to Boston full of enthusiasm for Louis's methods, 
where, indeed, he found Dr. Jacob Bigelow, his senior 
by twenty-one years, already a pioneer in the new 
field. While waiting for practice he devoted much 
time to benevolent work and took great pleasure in 
helping those who needed encouragement or assistance, 
especially the young - interests which he kept up to 
the last. Having by chance been an eye-witness of 
the famous Garrison mob in 1835, his quick sympathy 
and intelligent foresight led him to devote his " whole 
heart to the abolition of slavery." " But," he adds in 
his diary, " even anti-slavery never has taken me away 
from constant labor for the elevation of medicine." 
When he became an abolitionist, church, State, the 
constitution and laws of the country, old friendships, 
social ties were all against him. He was mocked, 
sneered at, passed on the street without recognition by 
his father's old friends ; but his courage never faltered, 3 
his faith in humanity and the final triumph of his 
cause never failed. Without even any feeling of bit- 
terness for his opponents, he worked steadily on, with 
pistol in one hand carrying the runaway slave in his 
chaise to a place of safety; a member of the vigilance 
committee in 1846 and in 1850; working for the fugi- 
tive slave Latimer until his release was secured; a co- 
worker with Phillips and Garrison until the emancipa- 
tion proclamation. When an escaped slave, Anthony 
Burns, was given up to his master (May, 1854), and 
taken in fetters down Court and State Streets with " an 
overwhelming force of soldiers," Dr. Bowditch dashed 
past the police on guard, through the cordon line, at 
the head of a procession of excited citizens, down to 
the wharf, where a devoted band of abolitionists stood 
in horror to see the United States cutter, bearing the 
returned slave, steam away. Vowing that that disgrace 
should never again happen to the soil of Massachu- 
setts, they formed the anti-man-hunting league, at the 
instigation of Dr. Bowditch, who was its secretary. 
Less than a decade later he saw Colonel Shaw march 
down the same street at the head of his negro regiment; 
he lived to see slavery abolished, peace and industry 
established in the South, and himself honored with 
Phillips and Garrison, and loved by his Southern asso- 
ciates. 
With the same qualities he conquered success in his 
chosen profession. He became admitting physician, 
1838 to 1845, and later, visiting physician, 1846 to 
1864, at the Massachusetts General Hospital, visiting 
physician at the Boston City Hospital, 1868 to 1871, 
consulting physician to the Massachusetts General, 
City, Carney and New England hospitals, professor of 4 
clinical medicine in the Harvard Medical School, 1859 
to 1867, a member of the leading medical societies in 
Boston, president of the American Medical Associa- 
tion in 1876. He was a member of the American 
Academy of Arts and Sciences, of the Paris Obstetri- 
cal Society, of the Paris Society of Public Hygiene ; 
and honorary member of the New York Academy of 
Medicine, of the Philadelphia College of Physicians, 
and of the New York, Rhode Island and Connecticut 
State Medical Societies. 
When he was appointed admitting physician, negroes 
were not received as patients in the hospital. He of- 
fered a test case of pneumonia, resigned his position 
when his negro patient was not admitted, and carried 
his point, his resignation not being accepted. 
After he became of the first eminence in his branch 
of the medical profession, and his reputation had ex- 
tended throughout this country and Europe, he was 
still the man before the physician, and kept in close 
touch, through the Thursday Club and constant attend- 
ance on scientific and medical society meetings, with the 
spirit of progress in all branches of knowledge. What- 
ever interested humanity interested him. He gave his 
assistance freely to all movements to elevate mankind, 
regardless of race or creed. When his fame was at its 
zenith, probably even his own family did not learn 
when his quick eye of sympathy had seen so many 
ways to help that after a long day's work he had given 
away far more than the amount of his fees, so little 
did his right hand know what his left hand was doing. 
He gave himself freely and gladly with his gift. 
To his professional associates he was an inspiration ; 
to the younger men his unfailing kindness of heart and 5 
generosity gave strength and courage ; the example of 
his life raised them to a higher plane of living. To 
one who had sought advice from many older physi- 
cians, and had heard how to get practice and fame and 
wealth, Dr. Bowditch's words were: " Never do any- 
thing which will make you think afterwards that you 
have been a sneak." Even before the surgeons, in 
1850, he successfully operated for empyema ; to one 
surgeon whom he considered one of the boldest, but 
not willing to open a perinephritic abscess, he proposed 
himself to push in the scalpel where the surgeon pointed 
out the proper spot. In sanitary science, too, he led 
the way. With the eloquence of sincerity, showing to 
a committee of the legislature his chart indicating the 
prevalence of pulmonary consumption in Massachu- 
setts, he explained to them the law which he discov- 
ered, in 1862, of its relation to soil-moisture, and did 
much to persuade them to create the first State Board 
of Health in this country, an example which thirty 
States have followed. When the board was appointed, 
in 1869, Dr. Bowditch was easily first in the estima- 
tion of the medical profession and the community for 
the arduous and responsible duties of its president, a 
position which he retained, at great sacrifice of his 
time and professional income, until 1879. When the 
powerful interests attacked by the board in the cause 
of the public health resisted, and the politicians threat- 
ened, and other members of the board hesitated, he 
pushed on, ardent and impulsive until the point was 
gained. If his enthusiasm carried him too fast or too 
far, he was always ready to modify his course. If in 
his vehement indignation and scathing rebuke of any- 
thing which he considered mean or unworthy he had 6 
seemed to wrong any one, he was quick with generous 
redress. His simplicity and earnestness were so trans- 
parent that, as one of the members of the board said, 
there could be no real dissension in a board of which 
he was the chairman ; and his sense of humor, love of 
fun, and quick intuition helped him out of many diffi- 
cult places. 
When the yellow fever epidemic of 1878 aroused 
the nation to the need of a National Board of Health, 
the chairmanship seemed the opportunity of Dr. Bow- 
ditch's life. No one else had the personal qualities 
and the reputation to fill the place. Unfortunately, 
the state of his health prevented his accepting it, or, 
indeed, of serving as a member of the board for more 
than a year; and there followed its melancholy wreck, 
which so many thought that he, if he had been chair- 
man, might have averted. 
He was one of the earliest advocates of specialties 
in medicine in this country, freely asking the advice 
of men much younger than himself, and treating with 
respect the sincere opinions of the least experienced if 
given, as he gave his opinions, without assumption. 
He was one of the first to believe in women as physi- 
cians, and thought it but justice to them, as well as 
good policy for the community, to give to them the 
same advantages of study as to men. 
More than 90,000 manuscript pages of records of 
cases of private patients, ten printed papers and sixty- 
six pamphlets printed in twenty-nine journals or soci- 
ety transactions, with numberless short articles on 
various subjects, attest the industry of his life. His 
letters and notes and diaries are full of his work with 
scarcely a mention of his honors. 7 
His epoch-making work in medicine was his thora- 
centesis, his first operation with the Wyman aspirator 
having been done in 1850, some time after Dr. Morrill 
Wyman's " brilliant operation." But his greatest title 
to honor from his professional associates was his charac- 
ter. An earnest searcher after truth, he stimulated and 
encouraged good work in others. Honest, fearless, out- 
spoken, he made friends of his enemies by the sim- 
plicity, purity, sincerity, and unselfishness of his pur- 
pose. He compelled an admiration of the right and 
a hatred of wrong. 
At the meetings of the American Medical Associa- 
tion, at which he was constant in attendance so long as 
his health permitted, men from Maine to California 
caught the spirit of his enthusiasm; they felt the stim- 
ulus of his eager search for the truth; they were so 
filled with admiration of his noble life that they went 
back to their work with a higher sense of persoual 
duty and professional obligation. 
During our civil war Dr. Bowditch was an untiring 
worker in numberless ways. He was enrolling-sur- 
geon, and to him more than to any other single individ- 
ual was due the persistent effort by which Congress 
passed the law creating an efficient ambulance service 
in the army. The ardor of the patriot accepted the 
loss of the son bearing his grandfather's name, killed 
while leading a squadron of cavalry at Kelly's Ford; 
but to the father's love it was a life-long grief, how 
deep few only could know. 
Dr. Bowditch's home-life was ideal. " I think of his 
home as more filled with love than any other home I ever 
knew," writes one of his friends. In one respect Dr. 
Bowditch possessed a remarkably judicial mind: in 8 
that he clearly recognized his own defects. Indeed, he 
was not only always modest and free from assumption, 
but he was his own severest critic even where others 
saw only cause for praise. When he erred in judg- 
ment, he did so from spontaneous self-forgetfulness born 
of a righteous impulse. In the days of chivalry he would 
have been the knight without fear and without reproach. 
Some of his more important medical publications 
are: 
The young stethoscopist; or, the student's aid to ausculta- 
tion. 1848. 
On pleuritic effusions, and the necessity of paracentesis 
for their removal. 1851. 
On paracentesis thoracis, with an analysis of cases. 1852. 
On paracentesis thoracis. An analysis of twenty-five cases 
of pleuritic effusion in which this operation was per- 
formed. 1853. 
On paracentesis thoracis. 1857. 
Paracentesis thoracis: a resume of twelve years' experi- 
ence. 1863. 
Thoracentesis, and its general results during twenty years 
of professional life. 1870. 
Two fatal cases of pleuritic effusion. Would not thora- 
centesis have saved life ? European and American treat- 
ment of pleurisy. 1882. 
Topographical distribution and local origin of consumption 
in Massachusetts. 1862. 
Consumption in New England; or,locality one of its chief 
causes. 1862. 
Is consumption ever contagious, or communicated by one 
person to another in any manner? 1864. 
Consumption in New England and elsewhere; or, soil- 
moisture one of its chief causes. 1868. 
Consumption in America. 1869. 
Open-air travel as a eurer and preventer of consumption, 
as seen in the history of a New England family. 1889. 
Report of the committee on climatology and epidemics in 
Massachusetts, 1868-69. 1869. 9 
Preventive medicine and the physician of the future. 1874. 
Annual address in state medicine and public hygiene. 1875. 
Address on hygiene and preventive medicine. 1876. 
Public hygiene in America. 1876. 
Sanitary organization of nations. 1880. 
Yellow fever epidemic: what should be done? Imper a 
tive need of a national sanitary board. 1888. 
An apology for the medical profession as a means of de- 
veloping the whole nature of man. 1863. 
Letter from the Chairman of the State Board of Health 
concerning houses for the people, convalescent homes, 
and the sewage question. 1870. 
The medical education of women. The present hostile 
position of Harvard University and of the Massachu- 
setts Medical Society. What remedies therefor can be 
suggested? 1881. 
Intemperance in New England. How shall we treat it? 
1872. 
Intemperance, as governed by cosmic and social law. How 
can we become a temperate people? 1872. 
Inebriate asylums, or hospitals. 1875. 
Abuse of army ambulances. 1862. 
A brief plea for an ambulance system for the army of the 
United States. 1863. 
The past, present, and future treatment of homoeopathy, 
eclecticism and kindred delusions which may hereafter 
arise in the medical profession, as viewed from the stand- 
points of the history of medicine and of personal expe- 
rience. 1887. 
Louis (P. C. A.). Pathological researches on phthisis. 
Translated from the French, with introduction, notes, 
additions and an essay on treatment. Bv Ch. Cowan. 
Revised and altered by H. I. Bowditch. 1836. 
Louis (P. C. A.). Memoirs on the proper method of ex- 
amining a patient and arriving at facts of a general na- 
ture. From the French, by H. I. Bowditch. 1838. 
Brief memoir of Louis and some of his contemporaries in 
the Parisian school of medicine of forty years ago. 1872. 
C. F. Folsom.