Dr. Robert Thaxter has lived too long among us, he has been too well known and too highly respected, to be passed over in silence by this Journal. After a life of more than seventy-five years, and after devoting almost fifty years to the active and responsible practice of our profession, he has gone to his rest. Dr. Thaxter was the son of Dr. Thomas Thaxter, of Hingham. The family of Thaxters were among the early settlers of that town, in 1638, and its members have been, in each of its

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... e generations, among the respected and influential citizens of that place. Dr. Robert Thaxter was born on the 21st of October, 1776. He graduated at Harvard College in 1798. He studied medicine with his father at home. There were no public medical schools in the days of his pupilage, hut he attended the private instruction in anatomy which Dr. John Warren then gave to a few students. Dr. Thaxter entered the study of his profession with zeal, and pursued it with unabated ardor ; and he continued this more than usual fondness for his hereditary and chosen employment to the end of his life. He commenced practice with his father, in Hingham, in June, 1802. There seemed then to be sufficient employment for both. They certainly were sufficiently successful ; but after seven years of joint labor, they thought the field too narrow for the mature and unabated energies of the elder, and the growing fame and ambition of the younger. Dr. Robert Thaxter, therefore, in August, 1809, moved to Dorchester. He was there immediately received into popular confidence, which he retained until his death. He soon was in active employment ; and in a few years his professional practice was extended, not only through Dorchester, but into the neighboring towns of Roxbury, Milton, Quincy, and sometimes even into towns more remote than these. He retained some of bis former practice in Hingham and Cohasset, especially in cases of surgery, in which he had a considerable reputation. From the beginning even unto the end, his life was one of labor ; and during the thirty years, from 1813 to 1843, his life was among the most laborious of the country physicians of Massachusetts. During