BARD
45
ized. New York soon followed a worthy-
example; and in 176S a similar establish-
ment was opened in this city. Dr.
Samuel Bard was immediately appointed
to teach the theory and practice of physic,
the most important branch of all.
On the commencement of hostilities in 1776, Dr. Bard's political principles being odious to the generality of the community, he thought it prudent to retire to Shrewsbury, New Jersey. He there occupied himself in preparing salt but not succeeding to his satisfaction and being unable to support his family comfortably, he returned to New York on its being taken possession of by the British troops. He immediately re- gained the lucrative practice he had left, and was so successful in business that at the end of the war he possessed a handsome independence. The high character which Dr. Bard maintained at this period cannot be better shown than by the fact that, notwithstanding political differences (and party-spirit was the ruling principle of the day), he was the family physician of Gen. Washington during his residence in New York.
After several abortive attempts by the regents of the university to revive the medical school on the restoration of peace, the trustees of Columbia College resolved to place it upon a permanent foundation, by annexing the faculty of physic to that institution in 1792. Dr. Bard was continued as the professor of the theory and practice of medicine, and was appointed dean of the faculty. His exertions were chiefly instrumental in the establishment of the city library, and of the New York Dispensary.
In the year 1795 he took Dr. Hosack into partnership; and in 1 7'JS retired into the country, leaving that gentleman successor to his practice.
In the year 1811 be was elected an hon- orary member of the college of Physicians of Philadelphia; and in 1816, the degree of Doctor of Laws was conferred upon him by Princeton College. Dr. Bard was never ambitious of such distinctions.
BARD
He lived to the advanced age of seventy-nine years. In the latter years of his life he was afflicted with several severe attacks of a stricture of the eso- phagus, which greatly increased the bod- ily infirmities incident to old age. But to his last days he retained the perfection and vigor of his mind. Sensible of his approaching end, he had made it a business to prepare for death. And after arranging his temporal concerns and spending his last hours in devotional exercises, he died after a few hours illness of a pleurisy, on the twenty-fifth of May at Hyde Park, New York.
In whatever light the character of Dr. Bard may be viewed, it must elicit admiration, and exhibit itself in the commanding attitude of a model. Do we consider him as a professional man? We find him among the first physicians whom his country has produced. Dr. Bard was not one of those physicians who content themselves with the elemen- tary knowledge they acquire in their academic studies, and rest satisfied with the slender attainments which qualify them to maintain a reputable intercourse with their brethren. He viewed med- icine as a deep and extensive science, em- bracing almost every department of human learning; continually enriching herself with the accumulating experience of ages; and requiring of her votaries patient, laborious, and unceasing study. Accordingly, we see him at an early age engaging in the study of medicine with an assiduity of which youth is seldom capable.
His first literary production an "In- augural Essay " on the powers of opium, would not have been unworthy of his pen in the brightest period of his fame. At the time he wrote this the powers of opium, the mode of its operation, and its various effects upon the body were but imperfectly understood and were matter of much difference of opinion among the profession in Edin- burgh.
He shortly after this, in 1771, pub- lished "An Inquiry into the Nature,
