Legless women excited Nathaniel Ingersoll Bowditch (1805-61) to pity. In 1860 he gave $5,000 to the Massachusetts General Hospital for the purchase of wooden legs. Meticulous, he specified: "I should desire that female patients should be preferred to males." For 69 years the hospital has been obeying his instructions, but the need has been dwindling. Rare is it now that amputations must be made. Hence the hospital recently asked a Massachusetts probate court, and last week was granted, permission to merge the Bowditch leg fund with its general fund.
Rich was Nathaniel Ingersoll...
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