Dr.
Roberts Bartholow, physician and author, was born in Hartford County,
Maryland, November 18, 1831. His literary education, obtained by great
sacrifices on the part of his parents, and largely by his own efforts, was
completed at Calvert College, Maryland, where he graduated and received the
degree of Master of Arts. He pursued his medical studies at the University
of Maryland, and after graduating in 1852, he engaged in private practice
for a short time; but having decided to compete for an appointment on the
medical staff of the regular army, he spent several years in careful
preparation, partly by attendance on the lectures at the university. The
result of this careful training was exhibited in the competitive examination
before the army medical examining board. The candidates were numerous, and
only five were selected to enter the army, and of those Dr. Bartholow passed
first, and was commissioned to fill the only vacancy then existing in the
medical staff. His military service was for the first few years on the
frontier; in Utah during the Morman rebellion; in Minnesota, and in New
Mexico, where he was serving when the war of the Rebellion broke out. During
the Rebellion he served in charge of general hospital in Baltimore, New York
Harbor, Washington, Chattanooga and Nashville. He had thus a very large and
most varied professional experience. In 1864, seeing that the war was about
to close, and having by this time a young family growing up around him, Dr. Bartholow decided to resign his commission and enter into private practice.
He was offered a professorship in the Medical College of Ohio, which decided
him to remain in Cincinnati. He continued to hold a place in the faculty of
that institution, having his residence at Cincinnati, until his removal to
Philadelphia. He also held the position of professor of the theory and
practice of medicine and of clinical medicine, and was dean of the faculty.
He was one of the physicians to the Good Samaritan Hospital; was a member of
the American Medical Association; of the Ohio State Medical Society; of the
Cincinnati Academy of Medicine, and the American Neurological Society. He
was also a corresponding member of the New York Society of Neurology and
Electrology, etc. Dr Bartholow has been a very successful author. During his
army service he published a work on "Enlisting and Discharging Soldiers,"
which was adopted by the war department, and reached the large sale of five
thousand copies. Since his entrance into civil practice he competed in
several contests for prizes, and was invariably successful, winning no less
than four: to the Connecticut Medical Society, one of the Fiske Fund, and
one of the American Medical Association. In 1868 he published a "Manual of
Hypodermic Medication," from the press of J. B. Lippincott & Company, which
passed to the second edition. One of his most important works is a
"Treaties on Materia Medica and Therapeutics," published by D. Appleton &
Company. A large edition of this work was exhausted, and a second edition
published. This work has been well received abroad by the most authoritative
critics, and has sold largely in England. In this country it has been
adopted as a textbook by the principal medical schools. Whether considered
as a physician or author, Dr. Bartholow's career must be regarded as a very
successful one.
