Chapter 36
"Here, Sammy; don't you know that is one of the nastiest and most indigestiblest things you could put into your stomach? Give it here!"
Rustic, whose faith in the wisdom of his maturer cousin, though very great, was yet quite counterbalanced by the sweets in the orange, slightly held back, when the other continued,--
"Leastwise, Sammy, let's have a hold of it, and suck the abominable juice out for you."
(For this digression I beg the pardon of the reader; for the idea I thank Frank Leslie.)
George Macilwain, M. D., F. R. C. S., etc., in prefacing the life of the great London surgeon, gives a brief and interesting sketch of his own boyhood, also his early impressions of Abernethy, and his first attendance on his lectures.
"My father practised on the border of a forest, and when he was called at night to visit a distant patient, it was the greatest treat to me, when a little boy, to be allowed to saddle my pony and accompany him. I used to wonder what he could find so 'disagreeable' in that which was to me the greatest possible pleasure; for whether we were skirting a bog on the darkest night, or cantering over the heather by moonlight, I certainly thought there could be n.o.body happier than I and my pony. It was on one of these occasions that I first heard the name of 'Abernethy.' The next distinct impression I have of him was derived from hearing father say that a lady patient of his had gone up to London to have an operation performed by Dr. Abernethy, though my father did not think the operation necessary to a cure, and that Abernethy entirely agreed with him; that the operation was not performed; that he sent the lady back, and she was recovering.
This gave me a notion that Dr. Abernethy must be a good man, as well as a great physician.
"As long as surgery meant riding across the forest with my father, holding his horse, or, if he stopped in too long, seeing if his horse rode as well as my pony, I thought it a very agreeable occupation; but when I found that it included many other things not so agreeable, I soon discovered that there was a profession I liked much better....
"Disappointed in being allowed to follow the pursuit I had chosen, I looked on the one I was about to adopt with something approximating to repulsion; and thus one afternoon, about the year 1816, and somewhat to my own surprise, I found myself walking down Holborn Hill on my way to Dr.
Abernethy's lecture at St. Bartholomew's.
"When Dr. Abernethy entered, I was pleased with the expression of his countenance. I almost fancied he sympathized with the melancholy with which I felt oppressed. At first I listened with some attention; as he proceeded, I began even to feel pleasure; as he progressed, I found myself entertained; and before he concluded, I was delighted. What an agreeable, happy man he seems! What a fine profession! What wouldn't I give to know as much as he does! Well, I will see what I can do. In short, I was converted."
All who ever heard him lecture agree that Dr. Abernethy had a most happy way of addressing students. Notwithstanding he has often been represented as rough in his every-day intercourse with men, he was easy, mild, and agreeable in the lecture-hall, and kind and compa.s.sionate in the operating-room.
After having carefully studied all that has been written respecting his style and manner as a lecturer and delineator, and also studiously listened to and watched the ways and peculiarities of our most excellent lecturer on anatomy at Harvard, I find many striking resemblances between Dr. Abernethy and Professor Oliver Wendell Holmes.
"The position of Abernethy was always easy and natural, sometimes almost homely. In the anatomical lecture he always stood, and either leaned against the wall, with his arms folded before him, or rested one hand on the table; sometimes one hand in his pocket. In his surgical lecture he usually sat. He was particularly happy in a kind of cosiness, or friendliness of manner, which seemed to identify him with his audience, as if we were about to investigate something interesting together, and
He always kept his eye on the audience, except slightly turning to one side to explain a diagram or subject, "turning his back on no man."
"He had no offensive habits. We have known lecturers who never began without making faces;" we might add, "and with many a hem and haw, or nose-blowing."
"Not long ago we heard a very sensible lecturer, and a very estimable man, produce a most ludicrous effect by the above. He had been stating very clearly some important facts, and he then observed,--
"'The great importance of these I will now proceed to show--' when he immediately began to apply his pocket-handkerchief most vigorously to his nose, still facing his audience."
The ludicrousness of this "ill.u.s.tration" may well be imagined. Of course the students lost their gravity, and laughed and cheered vigorously.
Going in to hear Dr. Holmes lecture, at one o'clock one afternoon, recently, the writer was both shocked and astonished, on the occasion of the professor slipping in a pleasing innuendo, by hearing the students cheer with their hands, and stamp with their thick boots on the seats.
I shall have occasion to refer to this splendid man, the pleasing lecturer, the skilful operator, the able author, the ripe scholar, the pride of Harvard and the state,--Dr. O. W. Holmes,--in another chapter.
THE HOMELESS STUDENT.
(Scene from the EARLY LIFE OF A BOSTON PHYSICIAN. By permission.)
Standing on the steps of the Astor House, New York, one cheerless forenoon in early June, with my carpet-bag in one hand and my fresh medical diploma in the other, with a heavy weight of sorrow at my heart, and only sixteen cents in my pocket, I presented, to myself at least, a picture of such utter despair as words are inadequate to express.[4]
My home--no; I had none--the home, rather, of my kind old father-in-law, where dwelt, for the time being, my wife and child, was many hundred miles away. And how was I to reach it? I could not walk that distance, and sixteen cents would not carry me there. I looked up Broadway, and I looked down towards the Battery. I was alone amid an immense sea of humans, which ebbed and flowed continually past me. O, how wistfully I looked to see if there might be one face amongst the throng which I might recognize! but there was none. Strange, pa.s.sing strange, not one of that host did I ever gaze upon before! Where--how--should I raise the money necessary to take me from this land of strangers?
"Pinny, sir? Just one pinny. Me father is broken up, and me mither is sick at home. For G.o.d's sake give me jist one pinny to buy me some bread."
I turned my gaze upon the picture of squalor and wretchedness just by my side. I need not describe her; she was just like a thousand others in that great Babel.
"Here is doubtless a case of distress, but it is not of the heart, like mine. Such poor have no heart. Skin, muscle, head, stomach! heart, none!"
"Where is your father, did you say?" I asked, mechanically.
"In the Slarter-house; broken up from a fall from a stagin' in Twenty-sixth Street, sir," replied the beggar-girl, still extending her hand for a penny.
"What is he doing in a slaughter-house, sis?" I inquired.
"The Slarter-house is Bellyvew horse-pittle, sir; that's what we Irish call it, sir. Will ye give me the pinny, sir?"
[Ill.u.s.tration: "PINNY, SIR? JUST ONE PINNY."]
"O, yes, to be sure. Here are pennies for you. Go!"
I knew of a poor Irishman who was brought in there at the hospital a few days before badly "broken up" from a fall on Twenty-sixth Street. His name was John Murphy; they are all named Murphy, or something similar; so it was useless to ask the child her father's name--probably it would have been Murphy.
The conversation had the good effect of arousing me from my lethargy to action. I must not stay in this metropolis and starve. I could not remain and beg, like the Irish girl.
I went to Professor ----, the dean, and requested him to take back my diploma, and let me have sufficient money to carry me home. He complied--G.o.d bless him!--and I took the Sound steamer that afternoon for the land of my nativity. What cared I if I was a second-cla.s.s pa.s.senger; I would in two days see my wife and my child!
I had reached home, and was in the bosom of my family once more, and amongst my friends, in a Christian land; for which I "thanked G.o.d, and took courage."
"Then pledged me the wine-cup, and fondly I swore Ne'er from my home and my weeping friends to part; My children kissed me a thousand times o'er; My wife sobbed aloud in her fullness of heart."
I had a "call" to practise in a country town twenty-five miles from E----, where my family was to remain a few days till I had secured a house to cover their heads amongst the good friends who were to become my future patrons, as a few of them had been previous to my going to college. The stage, a one-horse affair, called for my trunk, medicine-case, etc., and, having no money with which to pay my fare, I told the driver that "I would walk along," while he picked up another pa.s.senger in an opposite direction, "and if he overtook me on the road before I got a ride with some one going to S----, he could take me in."
I walked bravely along a mile or more, and, hearing the stage coming, I stepped from the road-side, secreting myself beneath a friendly tree till he drove past. Issuing from my hiding-place, I trudged along till noon. My darling little wife had taken the precaution to place in my oversack pocket some doughnuts and cheese, and, when I had reached a clear, running brook, I sat myself down upon a log, under the shade of the woods, and partook of my very frugal meal, quenching my thirst from the waters of the brook, which, like Diogenes, I raised in the hollow of my hand.
Thus refreshed, I picked up my overcoat, and again walked along. Before dark I reached S----, pretty tired and foot-sore from such a long walk.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE PENNILESS PHYSICIAN.]
The people, who were expecting me, were much surprised at my non-arrival in the mail; but the unsophisticated driver a.s.sured them I had probably secured a ride ahead of him, and I would put in an appearance before nightfall.
About midnight the door-bell rang,--I stopped at the hotel that night,--and a young gentleman asked for Dr. C. I answered the call at once, which was to the daughter of one of the most influential citizens of the place. The young man who called me was her intended. They had been to a party, and she had partaken freely of oysters, milk, and pickles.
Never did fifteen grains of ipecac prove a greater friend to me than it did on that occasion; and in an hour I was back to bed again.
The news of the new doctor's arrival, fresh from a New York college, and his first "remarkable cure of the post-master's daughter" that same night, spread like wildfire, and my reputation was nearly established.
[Ill.u.s.tration]