Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/1017

NAME ROGERS 995 ROGERS College, eldest son of Robert and £arah Kerr Rogers, was born in Ireland, in 1776. His early education was obtained from an aunt, Margaret Rogers, who taught a school on his paternal estate. The small schoolhouse had walls of clay, a roof of thatch and clay seats covered with a bit of carpet. In spite of these primitive surroundings, he there laid the foundation of a broad education. Later his classical education was carried on by an uncle, who was a clergyman. Growing up, he entered a counting house in Dublin, and in 1798, the year of the Irish Rebellion, he wrote articles hostile to the government and was obliged to flee to Lon- donderry, in order to escape arrest. In those days many Irish refugees fled to Philadelphia, and Rogers went there from Londonderry, arriving at Philadelphia in August, 1798, hav- ing been eighty-four days on the way. He studied chemistry with James Wood- house, famous for commercializing coal for the State of Pennsylvania, and in 1799 studied medicine with Rush, Shippen, Wistar and Bar- ton. His friendship for Barton was so great that he named his son William Barton Rogers. In 1802 he received an M. D. from the Uni- versity of Pennsylvania, his thesis being en- titled "Liriodendron tulipifera." In 1801 he married Hanna Blythe, daughter of James Blythe, of Glasgow, and she is described as "an affectionate, cheerful woman." In 1803 he tried hard to practise medicine, but owed $3,000 in small debts, contracted in studying for his degree. Later in that year his father died and Rogers went back to Ireland to settle his estate. On his return he brought back enough money to pay off his indebtedness, but leaving him with nothing to live on beyond what he could earn. In order to improve his financial condi- tion. Doctor Rogers started a lending library, of several thousand volumes, mostly loaned by friends. This was a failure and at the end of a couple of years he found himself in debt for about $4,000 for rent, advertising, etc. He then started a full course of chemical lectures for popular audiences; this was not successful and undermined his practice. What business had a doctor to talk on chemistry? What good could that do to his patients? He was so low spirited that nothing but sensi- tiveness prevented his seeking relief in be- nevolent charities. Friends at last induced him to try practice elsewhere and he went to Baltimore, but even there was pursued by creditors. In 1819 he was elected orator to the Medical and Chirurgi- cal Faculty of Maryland and on May 21, 1819, applying for a professorship in the University of Virginia, his qualifications and capacity for teaching were finally recognized and he was appointed professor of natural history and chemistry at William and Mary College, Wil- liamsburg, Virginia, in place of Robert Hare (q. v.), who had resigned. He settled in Wil- liamsburg in October, 1819, and lived there the rest of his life, dying of malarial fever, August 1, 1828. He was an earnest teacher, made all of his apparatus for experiments and illustrated them himself and was much helped in this work by his five sons, who were unusally clever with wood working and in fashioning metal for tools. Four of these sons became famous as scientists: William Barton, founder of the Massachusetts Institute q,{ Technology and its first president; James Blythe (q. v.) and Robert Empie (q. v.), holders of M. D. de- grees, professors of chemistry in Philadelphia; and Henry Darwin, Regius Professor of Geol- ogy and Natural History in the University of Glasgow. James A. Spalding. Rogers, Robert Empie (1813-1884). Robert Empie Rogers was born in Balti- more, Maryland, March 29, 1813. The middle name "Empie" was assumed by him "as a lasting token of his grateful appreciation of parental care bestowed upon him at William and Mary College after the death of his mother by the Reverend Doctor Adam P. Empie and his wife." His father, Patrick Kerr Rogers, (q. v.), came to Philadelphia from Ireland in August, 1798. The early education of Robert was directed by his father, and upon his death by his brothers, James and William, at a school con- ducted by them at Windsor, Maryland, where he remained until 1828, when he matriculated at Dickinson College, leaving there to con- tinue his studies at William*and Mary Col- lege. In 1831 he went to New England and was employed in railway surveying and later in delivering lectures on chemistry in New York City, resuming surveying near Boston, Massachusetts, in 1833. In the fall of 1833 he entered the Medical School of the University of Pennsylvania and became a pupil of Pro- fessor Robert Hare, and in March, 1836, re- ceived his medical degree. The title of his graduating thesis was "Experiments on the blood, together with some new facts in regard to animal and vegetable structure illustrative of many of the most important phenomena