Chapter 35
Energy and determination are better property than even scholastic lore and a medical diploma, for unless you possess the former, talent and education fall to the earth.
Dr. William P. Dewees, formerly Professor of Obstetrics in the University of Pennsylvania, the celebrated author, physician, and surgeon, practised seventeen years before he obtained a diploma. He was of Swedish descent on his father's side, and Irish on his mother's. His father died in very limited circ.u.mstances, when William was a boy; hence he received no collegiate education until such time as he could earn means, by his own efforts, to pay for that coveted desideratum. We find him, with an ordinary school education, serving as an apothecary's clerk, a student of medicine, and at the early age of twenty-one years trying to practise medicine in a country town fourteen miles from Philadelphia. Young Dewees possessed great talent and energy, but his personal appearance was scarcely such, at that early age, as to inspire the stoical country folks with the requisite confidence to speedily intrust him with their precious lives and more cherished coppers!
"He was scarcely of medium stature, florid complexion, brown hair, and was remarkably youthful in his appearance," says Professor Hodge, M. D.
I have before me an excellent likeness "of the embryo professor," which admirably corresponds with the description given above; but though "youthful," yea, bordering on "greenness," I can read in that frank, intelligent countenance the lines of deep thought, and a soul burning with desire for greater knowledge. The too florid countenance and narrow nostrils are sure indications of a consumptive predisposition. Dr. Dewees died May 30, 1841. He was well read in French and Latin, and also various sciences.
A HARD STARTING.
_Sketch of Western Practice._--The following interesting sketch is from the able pen of Dr. Richmond, of Ohio, now a wealthy and eminent M. D. It was originally contributed, if I mistake not, to the "Scalpel."
"I set myself down with my household goods in a land of strangers. How I was to procure bread, or what I was to do, were shrouded in the mysterious future. Memory came to my consolation; for, in spite of myself, the 'Diary of a London Physician,' read in other days, came, with its racy pictures, flitting before my mind's eye; and I knew not but I, too, might yet wish myself, my Mary, and my child sleeping in the cold grave, to hide me from the persecution that seemed to follow me with such sleepless vigilance....
"My store of old watches now came into play. A gentleman wis.h.i.+ng to sell out his land, I invested all the wealth I possessed in the purchase of a ten-acre lot, shouldered my axe, and by the aid of a brother I soon prepared logs for the mill sufficient to erect me a small dwelling. I never was happier than when preparing the ground and splitting the blocks of sandstone for the foundation of my house. One customer, whose wife I had carried through a lingering fever, furnished me a frame for a dwelling, and I fell in his debt for a pair of boots. Another furnished nails and gla.s.s, and in the course of eight months I moved into my new house.
"For two years I fed my cow, and raised my own provender to feed my gallant nag, which shared my toil and its profits. My first two years'
labor barely returned sufficient profit to pay for my home and feed my little family.
"My nag had died, and the terrible drought of 1846 forced me to relinquish the horse I had hired, and for five months I performed all my visits on foot, often travelling from six to ten miles to see one patient....
"These were trying times; but what if the elements were unpropitious? I had food and shelter for myself and family,--blessings about which I had often been in doubt,--and I was fully prepared to let 'the heathen rage, and the people imagine' what they chose!... The first winter was one of great severity; the weather was very changeable, and the most awful snow-storms were often succeeded by heavy rains, and the roads so horrid as to be impa.s.sable on horseback or in carriages. I had a patient five miles distant, sick with lung fever, and, in an attendance of forty days I made thirty journeys on foot (three hundred miles to attend one patient!) His recovery added much to my reputation, and I received for my services a new cloak and coat, which I much needed, and a hive of honey bees!...
"An old horse
ABERNETHY'S BOYHOOD.
Seated upon the outside of an ancient London stage-coach, to which were attached four raw-boned, old horses, just ready to start for Wolverhaven one pleasant afternoon, you may easily imagine, kind reader,--for it is a fact,--a chubby-faced, commonplace little boy, some ten years old, with another like youthful companion,--"two Londoners,"--while comfortably ensconced within, in one corner of the vehicle, is a large, stern-looking old gentleman, in "immense wig and ruffled s.h.i.+rt."
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE POLITE QUADRUPED.]
The stage-horn is sounded, the driver cracks his whip, the sleepy old nags wake up, the coach rocks from side to side, and in a moment more the team is off for its destination.
Why! the reader is readily reminded of the scene of "_Old Squeers_,"
taking the wretched little boys down to his "Academy," in Yorks.h.i.+re, "where youth were boarded, clothed, furnished with pocket-money," and taught everything, from "writing to trigonometry," "arithmetic to astronomy," languages of the "_living_ and _dead_" and "diet unparalleled!" Nevertheless it is another case, far before "Old Squeers"
time.
The elderly gentleman, in top-wig and immense ruffles, was Dr. Robertson, teacher of Wolverhampton Grammar School, and the chubby little boy was Master John Abernethy. Who the "other boy" was is not known, as he never made his mark in after life. Says Dr. Macilwain,--
"We can quite imagine a little boy, careless in his dress, not slovenly, however, with both hands in his trousers pockets, some morning about the year 1774, standing under the sunny side of the wall at Wolverhampton School; his pockets containing, perhaps, a few s.h.i.+llings, some ha'pence, a knife with the point broken, a pencil, together with a tolerably accurate sketch of 'Old Robertson's wig,'--which article, shown in an accredited portrait now before us, was one of those enormous by-gone bushes, which represented a sort of impenetrable fence around the cranium, as if to guard the precious material within; the said boy just finis.h.i.+ng a story to his laughing companions, though no sign of mirth appeared in him, save the least curl of the lip, and a smile that would creep out of the corner of his eye in spite of himself."
[Ill.u.s.tration: YOUNG ABERNETHY.]
"The doctor" was represented as being a pa.s.sionate man. Squeers again!
One day young Abernethy had to do some Greek Testament, when his glib translation aroused the suspicion of the watchful old doctor, who discovered the 'crib' in a Greek-Latin version, partially secreted under the boy's desk. No sooner did the doctor make this discovery than with his doubled fist he felled the culprit with one blow to the earth. Squeers again!
"'Why, what an old plagiarist Mr. d.i.c.kens must have been!' you exclaim.
"But the case in 'Nicholas Nickleby' is worse, far worse, for 'the little boy sitting on the trunk only sneezed.'
"'Hallo, sir,' growled the schoolmaster (Squeers), 'what's that?'
"'Nothing, sir,' replied the little boy.
"'Nothing, sir!' exclaimed Squeers.
"'Please, sir, I sneezed!' rejoined the boy, trembling till the little trunk shook under him.
"'O, sneezed, did you?' retorted Mr. Squeers. 'Then what did you say "Nothing" for, sir?'
"In default of a better answer to this question, the little boy screwed a couple of knuckles into his eyes, and began to cry; wherefore Mr. Squeers knocked him off the trunk with a blow on one side of the head, and knocked him on again with a blow on the other."
Robertson was a fact; Squeers was a fable. That's the difference.
As Dr. Robertson taught neither arithmetic nor writing in his school, the pupils went to King Street, to a Miss Ready, to receive instruction in those branches. This lady, if report is true, wielded the quill and cowhide with equal grace and mercy, and when the case came to hand, did not accept the modern advice, to "spare the boy and spoil the rod."
When the great surgeon was at the height of his fame, in London, many years afterwards, Miss Ready, still rejoicing in "single blessedness,"
called on her former pupil. In introducing his respected and venerable teacher to his wife, Abernethy laconically remarked, "I beg to introduce you to a lady who has boxed my ears many a time."
An old schoolmate, when eighty-five years old, wrote to the author of "Memoirs of Abernethy," saying, among other things, "In sports he took the first place, and usually made a strong side; was quick and active, and soon learned a new game."
It was contrary to his own desire that John Abernethy became a physician.
"Had my father let me be a lawyer, I should have known by heart every act of Parliament," he repeatedly affirmed.
This was not bragging, as the following anecdote will ill.u.s.trate:--
On a birthday anniversary of Mrs. Abernethy, mother of John, a gentleman recited a long copy of verses, which he had composed for the occasion.
"Ah," said young Abernethy, "that is a good joke, pretending you have written these verses in honor of my mother. Why, sir, I know those lines well, and can say them by heart."
"It is quite impossible, as no one has seen the copy but myself," rejoined the gentleman, the least annoyed by the accusation of plagiarism.
Upon this Abernethy arose, and repeated them throughout, correctly, to the no small discomfiture of the author. Abernethy had remembered them by hearing the gentleman recite them but once!
"A boy thwarted in his choice of a profession is generally somewhat indifferent as to the course next presented to him." Residing next door neighbor to Abernethy's father was Dr. Charles Blicke, a surgeon in extensive practice. This was very convenient. Sir Charles is represented as having been quick-sighted enough to discover that "the Abernethy boy"
was clever, a good scholar, and withal a "sharp fellow." Thus, between the indifference of the parent, and the selfishness of the surgeon, the would-be lawyer, John Abernethy, was apprenticed to the "barber-surgeon"
for five years. He was then but fifteen years of age.
"All that young Abernethy probably knew of Sir Charles was, that he rode about in a fine carriage, saw a great many people, and took a great many fees; all of which, though presenting no further attractions for Abernethy, made a _prima facie_ case not altogether repulsive."
We must not forget to mention that young Abernethy was of a very inquiring mind. "When I was a boy," he said in after years, "I half ruined myself in buying oranges and sweetmeats, in order to ascertain the effects of different kinds of diet on diseases."
Whether he tried said "oranges and other things" on himself or some unfortunate victim, my informant saith not; but I leave the reader to decide by his own earlier appet.i.tes and experiences. "When I was a boy," I think is significant of the probabilities that it was his own digestive organs that were "half ruined."
Be it as it may, it reminds me of the case of a little country boy, who, on his first advent to the city on a holiday, was chaperoned by his somewhat older and sharper city cousin,--"one of the b'hoy's,"--who exercised a sort of vigilance over the uninitiated rustic, that the little fellow might not surfeit himself by too great a rapacity for peanuts, gingerbread, candies, and oranges, often generously sharing the danger by partaking largely of the small boy's purchases in order to spare his more delicate stomach.
Finding the ignorant little rustic about to devour a nice-looking orange, his cousin pounced upon him just in time to prevent the rash act.