[1] He graduated from Harvard College in 1828, earned his medical degree there in 1832, and afterwards studied medicine in Paris for 2 years with leading physicians of the day.

Shortly after returning to Boston from Europe, Bowditch observed the attempted lynching of William Lloyd Garrison and declared himself an abolitionist.

Bowditch resented such culture-driven racist religious institutions, and proclaimed that his "soul arose indignant...to the whole race of priestly sycophants" who refused to combat racism and slavery (115).

Bowditch's efforts led to a massive petitioning of the Massachusetts General Court that resulted in legislation forbidding the use of state and municipal jails from detaining fugitive slaves, a blow to slave-hunters.

Although the league was given no opportunity to prove its efficacy, this society was useful both in uniting anti-slavery men, and preparing their paradigms for the violent opposition of slavery manifested in the Civil War.

He published Preventive Medicine and the Physician of the Future to propagate inductive reasoning as well as Public Hygiene in America to explain the concepts behind State Health.