Henry Bronson, M.D

Every student of local medical history realizes the great obligation he owes Doctor Henry Bronson. Our knowledge of the lives of our illustrious forebears and of local history in general would be limited and miscellaneous indeed had it not been for his painstaking research and scholarly writing which provided a record presented in orderly and artistic fashion. It is never possible to tell just how much time must elapse before an event assumes historical significance or before a person becomes a historical character, and it may be too early to expect Doctor Bronson to find a niche in the Hall of Fame, but if for no other reason than to pay a justly deserved tribute it is appropriate that a brief chronicle of the man's own life be again set down for the many who have freely borrowed from his writings and who know little of what manner of man he was. Doctor Bronson was peculiarly fitted by inheritance and training to become a man of letters. His father, Bennett Bronson, was a cultured and well-to-do lawyer and financier of Waterbury, and there Henry Bronson was born on January 30, 1804. As a boy he was given a sensible education in the district schools of his neighborhood and at Hopkins Grammar School. At 17 or 18 years of age his health, never strong, became delicate. Because of this his father cherished the hope that he would become so much attached to country life that he would adopt agriculture for a profession and follow the easy-going career of a country gentleman. But the boy had set his heart on the study of medicine, and ultimately the father agreed with his son, and henceforth every facility for study which the times afforded was placed within his reach. A judicious line of procedure was defined and followed, and in 1824 Henry Bronson was entered as a student in the Medical Department of Yale College under the instruction of such famous teachers as Benjamin Silliman, Nathan Smith, and Eli Ives. In 1827, when 23 years of age, he received his degree in Medicine and immediately commenced practice in West Springfield, Massachusetts, where he acquired considerable reputation and, in 1 831, married Sarah, daughter of the Honor-