The Earle family : Ralph Earle and his descendants

112 THE EARLE FAMILY [SlXTH
He had already begun the study of medicine, under the direction
of Dr. Usher Parsons, of Providence, who was one of the surgeons
of the American fleet at the battle of Lake Erie, and, in pursuance
of his professional object, he resigned his office at the school in
October of the year last mentioned and entered the medical department
of the University of Pennsylvania. He was graduated M. D.
in the spring of 1837, ano^ immediately went to Europe where he
remained two years — one in the medical school and the hospitals of
Paris, and the other in a tour of both professional and general
observation, in which he visited various institutions for the insane
from England to Turkey.
Upon his return, in 1839, he opened an office in Philadelphia ;
published a pamphlet entitled "A Visit to Thirteen Asylums for the
Insane in Europe," and, in the spring of 1840, was elected resident
physician of the Friends' Asylum for the Insane, near Frankford,
now a part of the aforesaid city. In 1844, he was appointed medical
superintendent of the Bloomingdale Asylum for the Insane, in the
city of New York. In 1849, he again went to Europe, and visited
thirty-four institutions for the insane, in England, Belgium, France
and Germany. From material then collected, he afterwards pub-
lished a book with the title, "Institutions for the Insane in Prussia,
Austria and Germany." In 1853, he was elected as one of the visit-
ing physicians of the New York City Lunatic Asylum, on Blackwell's
Island. Two years afterwards, his health having become
unstable, he withdrew from professional practice and passed some
years in his native town at the old homestead of his grandfather. In
the winter of 1862-63, and again in that of 1863-64, he assisted in
the care of the insane soldiers of the army and the navy at the Government
Hospital for the Insane, near Washington, D. C, an institu-
tion then under the superintendence of his friend and former pupil,
Dr. Charles H. Nichols.
On the 2d of July, 1864, the Trustees of the State Lunatic Hospi-
tal at Northampton, Mass., appointed him to the office of Superin-
tendent of that institution, a position which he held until October 1,
1885, a period of twenty-two years and three months. Upon his
resignation the Trustees of the Hospital passed a series of resolutions,
the last of which is as follows :
—
"Resolved, That the Trustees indulge the hope that Dr. Earle will
continue to make his home in this institution, that they may continue