GOOD CHEER AND A CHEERFUL HEART.—A MODERN SILENUS.—A SAD WRECK.—DELIRIUM TREMENS.—FATAL ERRORS.—“EATING LIKE A GLUTTON.”—STRENGTH IN WEAKNESS.—A HOT PLACE, EVEN FOR A COOK.—A HUNGRY DOCTOR.—THE MODERN GILPIN.—A CHANGE! A SOW FOR A HORSE!—A DUCK POND.—THE FORLORN WIDOW.—A SCIENTIFIC GORMAND.—ANOTHER.—“DOORN’T GO TO ’IM,” ETC.—DR. BUTLER’S BEER AND BATH.—CASTS HIS LAST VOTE.
GOOD CHEER AND A CHEERFUL HEART.—A MODERN SILENUS.—A SAD WRECK.—DELIRIUM TREMENS.—FATAL ERRORS.—“EATING LIKE A GLUTTON.”—STRENGTH IN WEAKNESS.—A HOT PLACE, EVEN FOR A COOK.—A HUNGRY DOCTOR.—THE MODERN GILPIN.—A CHANGE! A SOW FOR A HORSE!—A DUCK POND.—THE FORLORN WIDOW.—A SCIENTIFIC GORMAND.—ANOTHER.—“DOORN’T GO TO ’IM,” ETC.—DR. BUTLER’S BEER AND BATH.—CASTS HIS LAST VOTE.
If I confine this chapter to modern physicians, it will be brief. Though doctors are usually pretty good livers, they, at this day of the world, too well know the deadly properties of the villanous concoctions sold as liquors to risk much of it in their own systems.
There is a whole sermon on eating in our first text above, and, while we admit that gluttony is reprehensible, we detest “the shrivelled soul” who starves wittingly his body to heap up riches, or under the idle delusion of starving out disease, or “mortifying the flesh.” If not very “mortifying,” it is very depressing, to be bored by one of these “lean, lank hypochondriacs,”—to have to entertain, or be entertained by, such. O, give me the wide-mouthed, theround-faced, or abdomened, the cheerful, laughing man, especially if he’s a doctor.
A GOOD LIVER.
“Ah, doctor,” said a poor, emaciated invalid to me during my first year’s practice at ——, “you do me good like a medicine by your presence. Why, the blue devils leave the house the moment you enter. I don’t believe you was ever blue.”
“Hereafter my patients shall never know that I am.”
Nor is it necessary to gulp down ardent spirits to keep the spirits up. Stimulants produce an unnatural buoyancy of spirits, and the unnatural destroys the natural habit of the system. A good and natural habit does not grow upon a person to his injury; an unnatural one always does, ending in his destruction. A good living gives good spirits;cæteris paribus, a poor living low spirits.
A modern Silenus.
Silenus, of the mythologists, was a demigod, who became the nurse, the preceptor, and finally the attendant, of Bacchus. He was represented as a fat, bloated old fellow, riding on an ass, and drunk every day in the year.
I knew a “bright and shining light” in the medical profession who turned out a modern Silenus. This was Dr. G., of Plymouth, Conn. His father had given him the best medical education which this country afforded. He was a gentleman of superior address, as well as talent, tall, straight, and handsome as an Apollo, with a dark, flashing eye, a massive brow, shaded by a profusion of jet-black locks. How long he had practised medicine I do not know.Throughout the county he had an excellent professional reputation, particularly as a surgeon. His instruments were numerous, and of the best and latest improvements. Alas that such a man should be lost to the community, and to humanity! But his appetite for intoxicating drink knew no bounds. His thirst was as insatiable as Tantalus’.
When I first knew him, he still was in practice, but the better portion of the community had ceased to trust him. He never was sober for a day. He occupied then a little office in the square, containing a front and a back room. In the latter were his few medicines,—there was no apothecary in town,—and a number of large glass jars, containing excellent anatomical and fœtal specimens. This room was not finished inside, and the walls were full of nails, projecting through from the clapboards outside.
One day a Mr. Hotchkiss went after him, hoping to find the doctor sufficiently sober to prescribe for a patient, in a case of emergency.
“What do you suppose I found him doing?” said Mr. Hotchkiss to me.
“Hiding from the snakes in his back room?” I suggested.
“No, sir; he had the tremens, and with his coat off, his hair standing every way, his eyes glaring like a demon’s, he had his case of forceps strewn over the floor, and was diving at the ends of the clapboard nails, which he called devils, that came through the boards, in the back office.”
“Ah, there you are! Another devil staring at me!” he shouted; and with the bright, gleaming forceps he dove at a nail, wrenched it from the wall, and flinging it on the floor, he stamped on it, crying, “Another dead devil! Come on. Ah, ha! there you are again!” and he dove at another. When he broke a forceps he flung it on the floor, and caught a new pair. I tried to stop him, but he only accused me of being leagued with his evil majesty to destroy him.
A DOCTOR KILLING THE DEVILS.
PAYING FOR HIS WINE.
Another day, after having pawned nearly all his instruments for money with which to buy liquor to appease his raving appetite, he was seen to unseal one of the jars containing a fœtal specimen, pour out a quantity of the diluted alcohol in which it had long been preserved, and drink it down with the avidity of a starving man.
His last instrument and case pawned, he sold the coat from his back to buy liquors. He could no longer get practice, no longer pay his board, and he became an outcast from all respectable society, and a frequenter of bar-rooms. A poor and simple old woman in the remote part of the town took compassion on him, and gave him a home. But nothing could chain his uncontrollable passion for intoxicating drinks.
A BAR-ROOM DOCTOR.
The last time I saw him was in the month of December. He was in a grocery, warming himself by the store fire. He wore a crownless hat, a woman’s shawl over his shoulders, and a pair of boy’s pants partially covered his legs; no stockings covered his ankles, and a pair of old, low shoes encased his feet. The light had fled from his once beautiful, lustrous eyes; great wrinkles furrowed his once manly brow; his hair, once dark and glossy as the raven’s wing, was now streaked with gray, uncombed and unkempt, hanging, knotted and snarled, over his neck and bloated face.
“Don’t you recollect me?” he asked, with a shaking voice and a distressing effort at a smile. Ah, it was sickening to the senses.
Alas! Such another wreck may I never behold. What power shall awaken him from his awful condition, and
“Picture a happy past,Gone from his sight,Bring back his early youth,Cloudless and bright;Tell how a mother’s eyeWatched while he slept,Tell how she prayed for him,Sorrowed and wept.“Point to the better land,Home of the blest,Where she has passed away,Gone to her rest.O’er the departed oneMemory will yearn;God, in his mercy, grantHe may return.”
Fatal Errors.
Unfortunately, it is much easier to copy a great man’s imperfections than those qualities which give him his greatness. Too often, also, are their defects mistaken for their marks of distinction,—vice for virtue,—and copied by the young, who have not the ability to imitate their greatness.
“General Grant smokes!”
“PresidentGrant drinks!”
These two sentences, with the lamentable fact of their probable truth, have made more smokers of young men in the military and civil walks of life than all other texts in the English language. General or President Grant is not responsible for the lack of brains in the community, to be sure; but if “great men” will persist in bad habits, young men should be taught the difference between them and their virtues, and cautioned to shun them, or their bark will be stranded far out of sight of their desired haven,—the port of their ambition,—and nothing but a worthless wreck remains to tell what better piloting might have done for them. The voyage ended cannot be re-commenced.
A student of medicine, in New York, brought a bottle ofliquor to our room. I told him where that bottle would carry him.
“Pshaw! It’s only a pint of wine. Dr. Abernethy, the great English surgeon, bought one hundred and twenty-six gallons at once, and he did notdie a drunkard,” was his contemptuous reply.
“But you must remember that Abernethy lived in the days ofgoodport wine, when every man had something to say of the sample his hospitality produced of his popular beverage. The doctor, who never was intemperate, was very hospitable.
“‘Honest John Lloyd!’—what an anomaly when applied to a rum-seller—was a great wine merchant of London, a particular friend of Abernethy’s, and of all great men of his day, who loved wines and brandies.
“One day I went to Lloyd’s just as Dr. Abernethy left.
“‘Well,’ said Mr. Lloyd, ‘what a funny man your master is.’
“‘Who?’ said I.
“Why, Mr. Abernethy. He has just been here and paid me for a pipe of wine, and threw down a handful of notes and pieces of paper, with fees. I wanted him to stop to see if they were all right, and said, ‘Some of those fees may be more than you think, perhaps.’ ‘Never mind,’ said he; ‘I can’t stop; you have them as I took them,’ and hastily went his way.
“In occasional habits we may most safely recollect that faults are no less faults (as Mirabeau said of Frederick the Great) because they have the shadow of a great name; and we believe that no good man would desire to leave a better expiation of any weakness than that it should deter others from a similar error.”
In fact, the doctor was opposed to drunkenness, and also gluttony, although he himself “was a good liver,” as the following anecdote will show:—
A wealthy merchant who resided in the country had beenvery sick, and barely recovered, when, from the same cause, he was again threatened with a return of the like disease.
“I went to see him at home, and dined with him. He seemed to think that if he did not drink deeply, he mighteat like a glutton,” said the doctor. “Well, I saw he was at his old tricks again, and I said to him, ‘Sir, what would you think of a merchant, who, having been prosperous in business and amassed a comfortable fortune, went and risked it all in what he knew was an imprudent speculation?’
“Why, sir,” he exclaimed, “I should say he was a great ass.”
“‘Nay, then, thou art the man,’ said Abernethy.”
The leopard does not change his spots. For the truth of this read the life and fall of Uniac.
O, it is a fearful thing to become a drunkard.
The habit once acquired is never gotten entirely rid of. It sleeps—it never dies, but with the death of the victim.
Young men, avoid the first drink. Never take that first fatal glass; thus, and only thus, are you safe from a drunkard’s grave, and the curse entailed upon your progeny.
Strength in Weakness.
“Sir, I am advised that you have a barrel of beer in your room,” said the president of one of our New England colleges to a student, who, contrary to rule and usage, had actually purchased a barrel of the delightful stuff made from brewed hops, copperas, and filthy slops, and deposited it under the bed, convenient for use.
“Yes, sir; such is the fact,” replied the student.
“What explanation can you give for such conduct, sir?”
“Well,” began the student with the boldest confidence, “the truth is, my physician, in consideration of my ill health, advised me to take a little ale daily; and not wishing to be seen visiting the beer-shops where the beverage is retailed, I decided to buy a barrel, and take it quietly at my room.”
“Indeed! and have you derived the anticipated benefit therefrom, sir?” inquired the president.
“O, yes, sir; indeed I have. Why, when I first had the barrel placed in my room two weeks ago, I could not move it. Now, sir, I can carry it with the greatest of ease.”
The presidentsmiled, and ordered the barrel removed, saying that “in consideration of his rapid convalescence the treatment could safely be discontinued.”
A warm Place for a Cook.
Soon after the completion of the Roberts Opera House, in Hartford, Conn., the Putnam Phalanx held a grand ball within its walls. The music was exquisite; the prompters the best in the state; the ladies were the most beautiful and dressy in the land; and all went splendidly, till the supper was discussed. There had been a misunderstanding about the number for whom supper was to be prepared, and it was found out, when too late, that there were a hundred more guests than plates. The supper was spread in the basement. When the writer went down with friends, the tables, which had already been twice occupied, presented a disgusting scene—all heaped up with dirty dishes, debris of “fowl, fish, and dessert,” and great complaint was made by the hungry dancers, while some unpleasant epithets, and uncomplimentary remarks were hurled at the heads of the innocent caterers.
With our party were Dr. C., a great joker, and Dr. D., his match.
“If you don’t like this fare you can go through into the restaurant,” said one of the waiters. “It is all the same,” he added.
We required no second invitation. We did ample justice to the fare provided, and retired, leaving Dr. C. to bring up the rear. In a half minute he came running after us, saying,—
“The fellow told me I must pay for the supper in there, extra!”
“Well, what did you tell him?”
“Why, I told him to go to h——.”
“Well, you did right; let him go; that is just the place for him.”
On another occasion, the dinner not being forthcoming at a hotel where we dined, the doctor “fell to,” and soon demolished the best part of a blanc-mange pudding before him.
“That, sir, is dessert,” politely interrupted the waiter, in dismay at seeing his dessert so rapidly disappearing.
“No matter,” said the doctor, finishing it; “I could eat it if it were the Great Sahara!”
A Modern Gilpin.
The widow Wealthy lived in the country. She was a blooming widow, fair, plump, and—sickly. She owned a valuable farm, just turning off from the main thoroughfare,—broad acres, nice cottage house, great barn and granary, and she was considered, by certain eligible old bachelors, and a widower or two, as “a mighty good catch.”
Dr. Filley practised in the country. He was a bachelor, above forty. He was a short, thick-set man, with a fair practice, which might have been better, but for certain whispers about a growing propensity to—drinking! That’s the word. Of course he denied the insinuation, and defied any one to prove that he was ever the worse for liquor. The doctor was attendant, professionally, upon the widow, and—well you know how the gossips manage that sort of a thing in the country. But who was to know whether “the doctor made more visits per week to the widow Wealthy than her state of health seemed to warrant”? or who knew that “the widow was ‘sweet’ towards the little doctor, and that she intended he should throw the bill all in at the end of the year—himself to boot?” Never mind his rivals; they do not come into our amusing story.
John, the widow’s hired man, was sent very unexpectedly, one day in autumn, for the doctor to call that afternoon, to see the invalid. Very unexpectedly to the widow, and greatly to her mortification, two gossiping neighbors called at her residence just as the doctor was expected to arrive. “O, she was so glad to see Mrs. —— and Mrs. ——!”
Dr. Filley rode a scraggy little Canadian horse,—a fiery, headstrong beast, but a good saddle horse. Somehow, the unexpected call, at that hour, slightly “flustered” the little doctor; but he threw his saddle-bags over his shoulder, mounted the beast, and turned his head towards the widow’s residence.
“I b’lieve I am a little nervous over this colt; I wonder what’s the matter!” And he tried to rein up the headstrong little beast, to give himself time to—sober off!
“I reary bl’eve I’m a little—taken by surprise—ho, Charley! Why, what’s got inter—pony? Goes like ’r devil. Ho, ho, boy.”
Pretty soon the beast struck into a gallop; and now he reached the lane that led into Mrs. Wealthy’s farm. The pony knew the lane as well as his master, and the barn better. The said lane led by the barn-yard and out-buildings, the house being beyond. The barn-yard bars were down, and the pony made for the opening, in a clean gallop, over the fallen bars, right in amongst the cattle, the sheep, and the swine. A big ox gave a bellow at the sudden arrival, and, with tail and head in air, ran to the opposite side of the yard, intruding upon the comfort of a big old sow, that was dozing in the mud. With a loud snort, the discomfited porker rushed from the mire just in time to meet the horse, and in attempting to pass on both sides at once, she went between the short fore legs of the pony, and brought up with a loud squeal, and a shock that sent the rider over the horse’s head, down astride the hog. The pony reared, wheeled, and ran out of the yard at one pair of bars, andthe sow went pell-mell out of the other, bearing the doctor and saddle-bags swiftly along towards the house.
The hired man witnessed the sudden change of steeds, and gave the alarm. The widow—not so very sick—was just graciously showing her two unwelcome lady callers out, after being worried nearly an hour by their company; and taking an anxious look towards the lane, she saw the doctor coming on a clean—no, dirty—gallop, on her old sow.
She lost no time in giving a loud scream. What else should she do?
“O, goodness gracious! What is that?”
“O Lord, save and defend us! What is it?” exclaimed the two ladies, in chorus.
“A man on a hog!”
“The doctor on a sow!” again in chorus.
Now the pony and the swine met, the doctor still clinging to the sow’s ear with one hand, and to the tail with the other; of course, having turned a clean summersault from the pony, facing towards the sow’s hind quarters. The swine, beset on all sides, sheered off, and made directly through a large duck-pond in the field, scattering the geese and ducks every way, which, crying out, “Quack, quack!” made off as fast as feet and wings could carry them. Half way across the pond the doctor lost his balance, and, with his saddle-bags, fell splashing into the water.
Another scream from the ladies,—only two of them.
The widow, like a sensible woman, when she saw the doctor’s danger, ran for the well-pole. “Here, John, here! Take this well-hook, and fish him out quick, before he drowns.”
John obeyed, and in an instant the doctor was safely landed.
The doctor was sobered.
The widow, seeing no further danger, like a true woman, fainted.
THE DOCTOR ON A SOW.
RESCUE OF THE DOCTOR.
Leaving the muddy and half-drowned doctor, who looked like a well-wet-down bantam cock, John turned to his mistress, whom he picked up from the grass, and carried into the house. The two ladies, who had witnessed her discomfiture, assisted in loosening the stays, and administering some salts, which revived the widow.
“O, did you ever see such a comical sight?”
“Never. O, wasn’t it horrid? The little doctor riding backward, on a horrid, dirty, old pig! O, if I ever!”
And the ladies laughed in unison, in which the widow actually joined.
“But what has become of the poor, wet fellow? And did John rescue the saddle-bags?” inquired the widow.
John, meantime, had returned to the doctor’s assistance. He now fished out the saddle-bags, and the unfortunate doctor started on foot for home, whither the pony had long since fled.
The story, in the mouth of one servant and three ladies, was anything but a secret, and—you know how it is in the country.
········
The widow still holds the farm in her own name, in a town in New England.
Dr. Filley practises physic in California.
A scientific Gourmand.
Our familiar friend, “A Book about Doctors,” which we have before introduced to your notice as the only amusing work in the English language, upon the subject, gives a long list ofbon vivantsof the old school, amongst whom are some eminent names in the medical profession. In fact, the abstemious doctors during the past centuries would seem to have been far in the minority. Even Harvey was accused of being fond of brandy.
“Dr. George Fordyce was fond of substantial fare, likeRadcliffe, who was agormand. For above twenty years Fordyce dined at Dolly’s chop-house. The dinner he there consumed was his only meal during the four and twenty hours.
“Four o’clock was his dinner hour. Before him was set a silver tankard of strongest ale, a bottle of port wine, and a quarter pint of brandy.
“The dinner was preluded by a dish of broiled fowl, or a few whitings. Having leisurely devoured this plate, the doctor took a glass of brandy, and ordered his steak, which was always a prime one,weighing one and a half pounds. Of course, vegetables, etc., accompanied the steak.
“When the man of science had devoured the whole of this, the bulk of which would have kept a boa constrictor happy a twelvemonth, he took the rest of his brandy, drank off the tankard of ale, and topped off by sipping down his bottle of port wine.
“Having thus brought his intellects, up or down, to the standard of his pupils, he rose, and walked down to Essex Street, and delivered his six o’clock lecture on chemistry.” (He lived to the age of sixty-six.)
Another glutton, in contrast with whom Fordyce was an abstinent, was Dr. Beauford. In 1745 he was summoned to appear before the privy council, to answer some questions relative to Lord B., with whom the doctor was intimate.
“Do you know Lord Barrymore?” asked one of the lords.
“Intimately,mostintimately,” replied the doctor.
“You were often with him?”
“We dine together almost daily when his lordship is in town,” answered the doctor, with expressions of delight.
“What do you talk about?”
“Eating and drinking.”
“Eating and drinking! What else?” asked his lordship.
“O, my lord, we never talk about anything but eating and drinking,—except—”
“Except what, sir?”
“Except drinking and eating, my lord.”
The council retired, greatly disappointed, for they had expected to worm some important secret from the doctor.
At Finch Lane Tavern, where Dr. Beauford used to receive the apothecaries at half fee, he was represented as sitting over his bottles and glasses, from which he drank deeply, never offering one of his clients a drop, though they often sat opposite, at the same table, looking with anxious countenances and watering mouths upon the tempting cordials, as the doctor tossed them off.
“Doorn’t go to ’im,” etc.
“Not many years since, in a fishing village on the eastern coast, there flourished a doctor in great repute amongst the poor, and his influence over the humble patients literally depended on the fact that he was sure, once in the twenty-four hours, to be handsomely intoxicated.
“Dickens has told us how, when he bought the raven immortalized in ‘Barnaby Rudge,’ the vender of that sagacious bird, after enumerating his various accomplishments, said, in conclusion,—
“‘But, sir, if you want him to come out strong, you must show him a man drunk.’
“The simple villagers of Flintbeach had a firm faith in the strengthening effect of looking at a tipsy doctor. They usually postponed their visits to Dr. Mutchkins till evening, because they then had the benefit of the learned man in his highest intellectual condition.
“‘Doorn’t go to ’im i’ the morning; he can’t doctor no ways to speak on till he’s had a glass,’ was the advice usually given to strangers not aware of the doctor’s little peculiarities.”
Dr. Butler’s Beer and Bath.
An amusing description is given of one Dr. Butler, of London, who, like the above, used to get drunk nightly. He was the inventor of a beer which bore his name, something like our Ottawa, “with a stick in it,” by one Dr. Irish. We once saw a drunken fellow holding on to a lamp post, while he held out one hand, and was arguing with an imaginary policeman that he was not drunk,—only had been taking a “little of that—hic—beverage, Dr. Waterwa’s Irish beer, by the advice of his physician.”
“ONLY IRISH BEER.”
Dr. Butler had an old female servant named Nell Boler. At ten o’clock, nightly, she used to go to the tavern where the doctor was, by that hour, too drunk to go home alone, when, after some argument and a deal of scolding from Nell for his “beastly drunkenness,” she would carry the inebriated doctor home, and put him to bed.
“Notwithstanding that Dr. Butler was fond of beer and wine for himself, he was said to approve of water for his patients. Once he occupied rooms bordering on the Thames. A gentleman afflicted by the ague came to see him. Butlertipped the wink to his assistant, who tumbled the invalid out of the window, slap into the river. We are asked to believe that the surprise actually cured the patient of his disease.”
CURE FOR THE AGUE.
Water did not cure the doctor, however, but beer did.
Dr. Burrowly was stricken down in his prime, and just as he was about to succeed to the most elevated position in the medical profession.
The doctor was a politician, as well as an excellent surgeon. When Lords Gower and Vandeput were contesting the election for Westminster, in 1780, the doctor was supporting the latter. One Weatherly, who kept a tavern, and whose wife wore the —— belt, was very sick. Mrs. Weatherly deeply regretted the fact of the sickness, as she wanted her husband to vote for Lord T. Late on election day, Dr. Burrowly called round to see his patient, quite willing that he should be sufficiently sick to keep him from going to the polls. To his surprise he found him up, and dressed.
“Heyday! how’s this?” exclaimed the doctor, in anger. “Why are you up, without my permission?”
“O, doctor,” replied Joe Weatherly, feebly, “I am going to vote.”
“Vote!” roared the doctor, not doubting that his wife had urged him to attempt to go to the polls to vote for Lord J. “To bed. The cold air would kill you. To bed instantly, or you’re a dead man before nightfall.”
“I’ll do as you say, doctor; but as my wife was away, I thought I could get as far as Covent Garden Church, and vote for Sir George Vandeput.”
“For Sir George, did you say, Joe?”
“O, yes, sir; I don’t agree with my wife. She’s for Lord Trentham.”
The doctor changed his prognosis.
“Wait. Let me see; nurse, don’t remove his stockings;” feeling the man’s pulse. “Humph! A good firm stroke. Better than I expected. You took the pills? Yes; they made you sick? Nurse, did he sleep well?”
“Charmingly, sir;” with a knowing twinkle of the eye.
“Well, Joe, if you are bent on going to the polls, it will set your mind better at ease to go. It’s a fine sunny afternoon. The ride will do you good. So, bedad, I’ll take you along in my chariot.”
Weatherly was delighted with the doctor’s urbanity, resumed his coat, went to the election, and voted for Sir George, rode back in the chariot,and died two hours afterwards, amidst the reproaches of his amiable spouse.
“Called away from a dinner table, where he was eating, laughing, and drinking deeply, Dr. B. was found dead in the coach from apoplexy, on the arrival at the place of destination.”
THE DOCTOR AS POET, AUTHOR, AND MUSICIAN.
OUR PATRON, OUR PATTERN.—SOME WRITERS.—SOME BLUNDERS.—AN OLD SMOKER.—OLD GREEKS.—A DUKE ANSWERED BY A COUNTRY MISS.—THE PILGRIMS AND THE PEAS.—“LITTLE DAISY.”—“CASA WAPPA!”—FINE POETRY.—MORE SCHOOLMASTERS AND TAILORS.—NAPOLEON’S AND WASHINGTON’S PHYSICIANS.—A FRENCH “BUTCHER.”—A DIF. OF OPINION.—SOME EPITAPHS.—DR. HOLMES’ “ONE-HOSS SHAY.”—HEALTHFUL INFLUENCE OF MUSIC.—SAVED BY MUSIC.—A GERMAN TOUCH-UP.—MUSIC ON ANIMALS.—MUSIC AMONG THE MICE.—MUSIC AND HEALTH.
OUR PATRON, OUR PATTERN.—SOME WRITERS.—SOME BLUNDERS.—AN OLD SMOKER.—OLD GREEKS.—A DUKE ANSWERED BY A COUNTRY MISS.—THE PILGRIMS AND THE PEAS.—“LITTLE DAISY.”—“CASA WAPPA!”—FINE POETRY.—MORE SCHOOLMASTERS AND TAILORS.—NAPOLEON’S AND WASHINGTON’S PHYSICIANS.—A FRENCH “BUTCHER.”—A DIF. OF OPINION.—SOME EPITAPHS.—DR. HOLMES’ “ONE-HOSS SHAY.”—HEALTHFUL INFLUENCE OF MUSIC.—SAVED BY MUSIC.—A GERMAN TOUCH-UP.—MUSIC ON ANIMALS.—MUSIC AMONG THE MICE.—MUSIC AND HEALTH.
Apollo,—the father of Æsculapius, the “father of physicians”—was the god of poetry and of music, as well as the patron of physicians. He presented to Mercurius the famous caduceus, which has descended in the semblance of the shepherd’s crook—he being the protector of shepherds and the Muses—and the physician’s cane and surgeon’s pole. Apollo is represented with flowing hair,—which the Romans loved to imitate, with an effort also at his gracesof person and mind. Students at this day who court the Muses begin by allowing, or coaxing their hair to grow long, forgetting, as they nurse a sickly goatee or mustache, assisting its show by an occasional dose of nitrate of silver, that their god was further represented as a tall,beardlessyouth, and instead of a bottle or cigar, he held a lyre in his hand and discoursed music.
AN EMBRYO APOLLO.
I think Dr. Apollo a very safe pattern for our students to imitate, those particularly who are “fast,” and who only think, withBobby Burns,—
“Just now we’re living sound and hale;Then top and maintop crowd the sail;Heave care owre side!And large, before enjoyment’s gale,Let’s tak the tide.”
It is quite impossible to mention all, even of the most celebrated of our physicians, who have contributed to the literary and musical world. But I shall quote a sufficient number to disprove the assertion that “literary physicians have not, as a rule, prospered as medical practitioners.”
Who has developed and promulgated the knowledge relative to anatomy, chemistry, physiology, botany, etc., but the physicians? The true representation of sculpture, of painting, of engraving, and most of the arts, depends upon the learned writing of the doctors.
Da Vinci owed his success as a portrait painter to his knowledge of anatomy and physiology derived from study under a physician, as also did Michael Angelo. How would our Powers have succeeded as a sculptor, without thisknowledge, or Miss Bonheur as a painter of animals? Dr. Hunter says “Vinci (L.) was at the time the best anatomist in the world.”
Crabbe, to be sure, failed as a physician, but succeeded as a literary man; but then Crabbe was no physician, and was unread in medicine and surgery. Arbuthnot also failed in the same manner, and for the same cause. All who have so failed may attribute it to the fact theydid not succeed in what they were not, but did succeed in what they were—as Oliver Goldsmith. He squandered at the gaming table the money given him by his kind uncle to get him through Trinity College, and though spending two years afterwards in Edinburgh, and passing one year at Leyden, ostensibly reading medicine, he totally failed to pass an examination before the surgeons of the college at London, and was rejected “as being insufficiently informed.” He had previously been writing for the unappreciative booksellers, and authorship now became, per force, his only means of livelihood.
Goldsmith was an excellent, kind-hearted man; and if he had only got married and had a good wife to develop him, he would have been a greater man than he was.
It has been intimated in these pages that Shakspeare was prejudiced against medicine,—throwing “physic to the dogs;” but it is evident from a careful perusal of his works that Shakspeare was ignorant, and also superstitious, as respects this much abused science. Of the superstitions we need not further treat, but refer the intelligent reader to any of his plays for the truth of our intimation.
In Act II., Scene 1, of Coriolanus, he says by Menenius Agrippa, the friend of Coriolanus, “It gives me an estate of seven years’ health, in which time I will make a lip at the physician; the most sovereign prescription of Galen is but empirical,” etc. Coriolanus was banished from Rome, and died in the fifth century before Christ (about 490), and Galenwas not born till six hundred years afterwards, viz.,—A. D. 130.
We should smile to see the Apollo Belvedere with “glasses on his nose,”—as many of our young ape-ollos now wear foreffect; but it would scarcely be less ridiculous than Gloster saying in Lear, “I shall not want spectacles.” King Lyr reigned during the earliest period of the Anglo-Saxon history, and spectacles were not introduced into England until the beginning of the fourteenth century. It is said that the painter Cigoli in his representation of the aged Simeon at the circumcision of Christ, made this same error by placing spectacles on the patriarch’s nose.
More ludicrous than either of the above is the painting by Albert Durer, the German artist (about 1515), of his scene, “Peter denying Christ,” wherein he represents a Roman soldier leaning against the door-post comfortably smoking a tobacco pipe. The pipe, to which Germans are particularly partial, was just being introduced during Durer’s latter years. The tobacco was not introduced into Europe until 1496, and was, when first burned, twisted together.[8]
The Spaniards, in their report on their return from the first voyage of Columbus said that “the savages would twist up long rolls of tobacco leaves,and lighting one end, smoke away like devils.” (The primitive cigar.)
Ancient Greek Authors.
Nearly all the ancient Greek physicians were authors of no mean calibre, considering the age in which they lived.
Pherecydes, a Greek philosopher and physician, wrote a book on diet during the sixth century before Christ. Pythagoras, his illustrious pupil, was said to be the first whodissected animals. He wrote, and taught anatomy and physiology, in the school of Crotona. Herodotus was a great teacher and writer; also Herophilus, his pupil. (B. C. 4th century.) There were four physicians named Hippocrates. The second of that name has nearly eclipsed all the others. The period in which he lived was highly favorable to the development of the qualities of the great Hippocrates. He was contemporary with Plato, Herodotus, who was his teacher, Pericles, Socrates, Thucydides, etc.
The most notable works of Hippocrates are 1st and 3d “Books on Epidemics,” “Prognostics,” “Treatise on Air and Water,” “Regime of Acute Diseases,” and “Treatise on Wounds.”
Heraclitus, of Ephesus, is conjectured to be the first who dissected the human body. “The principle of his theory is the recognition of the fire of life and the ethereal element of wisdom as the ground of all visible existence.” Fragments of his writings, only, have been preserved. He imitated Pythagoras.
Theophrastus wrote a book on plants. He lived to be one hundred and seven years old.
Herophilus first made diagnosis by the pulse, upon which he wrote a book.
Celsus was the author of eight works, yet Pliny makes no mention of him. Galen spoke of him as an excellent physician and writer; also Bostock.
Galen was a man of great talent and education. Suidas—11th century—says he wrote no less than five hundred books on medicine, and half as many on other subjects. His native tongue was Greek, but he also wrote in Latin and Persic.
Besides medicine, the above famous physicians wrote on philosophy, history, religion, etc. Poetry in those days was little more than heroic, or epic, prose.
The Duke answered by a Country Miss.
Since I am not writing a medical history, I need not go on to quote the long list of the names of those who from the old Greek days to the present time have been both authors and successful medical practitioners. Their bare names would fill a large volume, and who would care to read them? To the general reader they would be quite unwelcome. The reason why medical authors are so little known is, that their writings have been too wearisome for the general reader. Such English authors as the satirical Wolcot (Peter Pindar), the courteous essayist Drake, the poetical and nature-loving Davy, and the “single-hearted, affectionate” Dr. Moir, are remembered, while greater and deeper thinkers and writers are, with their works, buried in oblivion.
When the Duke of Kent was last in America (1819), he was one day taking observations in the country, when he entered a cosy little farm-house, where he noticed a pretty young girl, reading a book.
“Do you have books here, my dear?” he asked, contemptuously.
“O, yes, sir,” replied the girl naively, “we have the Bible and Peter Pindar.”
That was a model house. The Bible and fun-provoking “Peter Pindar!” Under such a roof you will find no guile. Here you will avoid the extremes of “allwork and no play,” for the mind, “that makes Jack a dull boy,” and “all play and no work,” which “makes him a mere toy.”
I have visited some houses in New England where the Bible, and “Baxter’s Call to the Unconverted,” were the only books to be seen; others where nothing was to be found upon the shelves but a vile collection of novels, such as Mrs. Partington has termed “yaller-cupboard literature.” These need no comment, in either case.
The Pilgrims and the Peas.
Our only excuse for copying this from Pindar will be found in reading the poem, slightly abbreviated. The pilgrims were ordered by the priest to do penance by walking fifty miles with peas in their shoes.
“The knaves set off upon the same day,Peas in their shoes, to go and pray;But very different their speed, I wot;One of the sinners galloped on,Light as a bullet from a gun,The other limped as though he’d been shot.“One saw the Virgin soon, ‘Peccavi!’ cried,Had his soul whitewashed, all so clever,When home again he nimbly hied,Made fit with saints above to live forever!In coming back, however, let me say,He met his brother rogue about half way,Hobbling with outstretched hand and bending knees,Cursing the souls and bodies of the peas!His eyes in tears, his cheeks and brows in sweat,Deep sympathizing with his groaning feet.‘How now?’ the light-toed, whitewashed pilgrim broke;‘You lazy lubber!’‘You see it,’ cried the other. ‘’Tis no joke.My feet, once hard as any rock,Are now as soft as blubber.’“‘But, brother sinner, do explainHow ’tis that you are not in pain;How is’t that you can like a greyhound go,Merry as if nought had happened, burn ye?’‘Why,’ cried the other, grinning, ‘you must knowThat just before I ventured on my journey,To walk a little more at ease,I took the liberty to boil my peas!’”
THE PILGRIM CHEAT.
Little Davy again.
Sir Humphry Davy lived from 1778 to 1829. Coleridge said of him, “Had not Davy been the first chemist, he probably would have been the first poet of the age.” He made some important chemical discoveries, overworked his body and brain, and took the pen “to amuse” and recreate himself, but too late, telling us of “the pleasures and advantages of fishing,” etc.
The following verses are from the poem of Dr. David Macbeth Moir, on the death of his darling little boy, who died at the age of five years:—
“Gem of our hearth, our household pride,Earth’s undefiled,Could love have saved, thou hadst not died,Our dear, sweet child!Humbly we bow to Fate’s decree;Yet had we hoped that time should seeThee mourn for us, not us for thee,Casa Wappy![9]“The nursery shows thy pictured wall,Thy bat, thy bow,Thy cloak, thy bonnet, club, and ball;But where art thou?A corner holds thine empty chair;Thy playthings, idly scattered there,But speak to us of our despair,Casa Wappy!“Yet ’tis a sweet balm to our despair,Fond, fairest boy,That heaven is God’s, and thou art there,With him in joy!There past are death and all its woes,There beauty’s stream forever flows,And pleasure’s day no sunset knows,Casa Wappy!”
“The sole purpose of poetry,” says the author of the above beautiful poem, “is to delight and instruct; and no one can be either pleased or profited by what is unintelligible. Mysticism in law is quibbling; mysticism in religion is the jugglery of priestcraft; mysticism in medicine is quackery; and these often serve their crooked purposes well. But mysticism in poetry can have no attainable triumph.” Again he says,—
“The finest poetry is that which is most patent to the general understanding, and hence to the approval or disapproval of the common sense of mankind.”
Dr. Moir enriched the pages of Blackwood’s Magazine for thirty years with his beautiful poems, and occasional prose, which, according to Professor Wilson, “breathed the simplest and purest pathos.” He practised medicine and surgery in his native village, six miles from Edinburgh, till the day of his death, which occurred in consequence of a wound caused by the upsetting of his carriage.
I find four physicians by the name of Abercromby, who were excellent physicians, and authors of no little note. One, Patrick, a Scotchman, and physician to James II., hada library second to few physicians of his day. Lancisi, an Italian physician who lived at the same time, possessed a splendid library consisting of thirty thousand volumes. He discovered a set of lost plates of Eustachius, from which he published tables. Lancisi was physician to several popes, and was a master of polite literature, and an author of great distinction.
More Schoolmasters and Tailors.
Dr. Richard Blackmore (Sir)—our “schoolmaster turned doctor”—was an author of no small note. “A poet of the time of Dryden in better repute as an honest man and a physician,” says a biographer.
He should have been a man of importance, since Swift was pitted against him in “brutal verse.” Steele and Pope scribbled about the pedagogue Blackmore. Dryden, who was unable to answer him, called him “a pedant, an ass, a quack, and a cant preacher,” and he was ridiculed by the whole set of “petty scribblers, professional libellers, coffee-house rakes, and literary amateurs of the Temple who formed the rabble of the vast army against which the doctor had pitted himself in defence of public decency and domestic morality.” We have already referred to the “forty sets of ribald verses taunting him of his early poverty, which caused him to become a schoolmaster.”
Amongst his works were “Alfred,” a poem of twenty books; another of twelve books; “Hymn to Light,” “Satire against Wit,” “The Nature of Man;” “Creation,” in seven books; “Redemption,” in six books, etc.
Dr. Johnson says of Dr. Blackmore, “And let it be remembered for his honor that to have been a schoolmaster is the only reproach which all the perspicacity of malice animated by wit has ever fixed upon his private life.”
Heinrich Stilling, “a pseudonyme adopted by Heinrich Jung, in one of the most remarkable autobiographies everwritten,” was born about the year 1740, in Nassau. He was bred a tailor, and with his father followed his occupation until the son, by his own efforts and by the aid of his remarkable natural abilities, raised him to a more exalted position. By great efforts and diligent study he acquired a knowledge of Latin and Greek, and something of medicine, when he proceeded to the University of Strasburg. Here he remained prosecuting his studies with much diligence and zeal until he obtained not only his degree, but succeeded to the appointment of a professorship, and raised himself to eminence both by his ability as a lecturer and as an operator.
He was also an author of considerable renown, not only on medical subjects, but as a miscellaneous writer. His novel named “Theobold” is still read. He wrote a treatise on minerals.
His most remarkable production, however, was his autobiography entitled “Jugend, Junglingjahre, Wanderschaft und Alter Von Heinrich Stilling.”
Cabanis, physician to Napoleon I., was a writer of note, particularly on physiology and philosophy. His complete works were recently published in Paris, and a portion of them have been translated into English.
Bard (Samuel), physician to Washington, was an author, but his writings were principally on medicine. His father was Dr. John Bard, who, with Dr. Middleton, made at Poughkeepsie the first dissection in America.
Dr. Valentine Mott, of New York, was not only the first surgeon in America, but he was an excellent lecturer and a voluminous writer, but, as far as I can learn, having before me a complete list of his writings, almost entirely on medical subjects. Having been to Europe repeatedly, a book of travels ought to have been added to the list.
One day, in Paris, the celebrated surgeon Dr. R. —— asked Dr. Mott to visit his hospital and see him perform his peculiar operation. Dr. Mott assured the surgeon that he accepted with great pleasure.
“But,” said the Frenchman, “on reflection I find there is no patient there requiring such an operation. However, that makes no difference, my dear sir. You shall see. There is a poor devil in one of the wards who is of no use to us, himself, or friends; and so come along, and I will operate upon him beautifully, beautifully,” said the famous butcher. Dr. Mott, being a humane man, declined seeing the operation on such barbarous terms.
A Difference of Opinion.
In “Surgeons of New York” Dr. Francis gives the following:—
“On asking Dr. Batchelder (then eighty-one years of age), if he had to live over his eventful life, if he would again be a doctor, he replied,—
“Yes, sir;” most positively.
Dr. Hosack’s favorite branch of practice has been general surgery. On asking him the question if he would again be a surgeon, his reply was condensed into a comprehensive
“Never!”
Dr. Hosack was present as examining physician to Colt, who committed suicide in the city prison. It is believed to this day, in certain circles, that Colt escaped, leaving another body smuggled into prison over night to represent him. The writer was induced once in Hartford to believe this to be true, as persons stated that they had really seen Colt in California. Dr. Hosack’s testimony makes the case clear. Colt did not escape. “It seems that when the prisoner found, at the last moment, that there was neither possibility of escaping nor the least probability of a reprieve, he induced some friend to send him a coffee-pot of hot coffee in which the dagger was concealed, and which he drove into his heart evenbeyond the handle.”
Dr. Hosack (Alex. Eddy) was also physician to Aaron Burr.
FRANKLIN’S EXPERIMENTS WITH ETHER.
“Do you never experience any contrition, at times, for the deed?” (viz., shooting Hamilton), asked Dr. H. of his patient.
“No, sir; I could not regret it. Twice he crossed my path. He brought it upon himself,” was Burr’s reply.
Mrs. H., the doctor’s mother, not unfrequently took tea and played chess of an evening with Benjamin Franklin. Franklin was a funny old gentleman. He used to amuse himself by giving ether to the children of the neighborhood and letting them out under its influence to laugh at their fellow-playmates.
Some Puritanic Epitaphs.
The most ingenious of the Puritan poets was the Rev. Michael Wigglesworth, whose “Day of Doom” is the most remarkable curiosity in American literature. “He was as skilled,” says one of his biographers, “in physic and surgery as in diviner things;” and when he could neither preach nor prescribe for the physical sufferings of his neighbors,—
“In costly verse, and most laborious rhymes,He dished up truths right worthy our regard.”
He was buried in Malden, near Boston, and his epitaph was written by Mather.
THE EXCELLENT MICHAEL WIGGLESWORTH.Remembered by some good tokens.“His pen did oncemeat from the eater fetch;And now he’s gone beyond theeater’sreach.His body, once sothin, was next tonone;From hence he’s tounbodied spiritsflown.Once his rare skill did alldiseasesheal;And he does nothing now uneasy feel.He to his Paradise is joyful come,And waits with joy to see hisDay of Doom.”
The last epitaph for which we have now space is from the monument of Dr. Clark, a grandson of the celebrated Dr. John Clark, who came to New England in 1630.
“He who among physicians shone so late,And by his wise prescriptions conquered Fate,Now lies extended in the silent grave;Nor him alive would his vast merit save.But still his fame shall last, his virtues live,And all sepulchral monuments survive:Still flourish shall his name: nor shall this stoneLong as his piety and love be known.”
And
“Such graves as his are pilgrim shrines,Shrines to no code or creed confined—The Delphian vales, the Palestines,The Meccas of the mind.”
The One-Hoss Shay.
Mr. Mundella, of the British Parliament, recently said,—
“American authors are now among the best writers in the English language. Among the poets were Longfellow, Holmes, Whittier, Bryant, and Lowell—five men whom no other country in the same generation could surpass, if, indeed, they could match. Never were purer or nobler men than they.” He had the honor of knowing some of the greatest literary men in England, and could say that the American authors could compare with them in every way. O. W. Holmes was the most brilliant conversationalist it was ever his good fortune to meet.
As a poet, “his style is brilliant, sparkling, and terse,” says Hillard.
I can only find space for the following from the pen of Dr. Holmes:—
Have you heard of the wonderful one-hoss shay,That was built in such a logical way,To run a hundred years to a day,And then, of a sudden, it—ah, but stay,I’ll tell you what happened without delay:Scaring the parson into fits,Frightening people out of their wits,Have you heard of that, I say?Seventeen hundred and fifty-five,Georgius Secunduswas then alive,—Snuffy old drone from the German hive!That was the year when Lisbon townSaw the earth open and gulp her down,And Braddock’s army was done so brown,Left without a scalp to its crown.It was on the terrible Earthquake day,That the deacon finished the one-hoss shay.Now, in building of chaises, I tell you what,There is alwayssomewherea weakest spot;In hub, tire, felloe, in spring or thill,In panel or cross-bar, or floor or sill,In screw, bolt, thoroughbrace, lurking still,Find it somewhere you must and will,Above or below, or within or without;And that’s the reason, beyond a doubt,A chaisebreaks down, but doesn’twear out.But the deacon swore (as deacons do,With an “I dew vum,” or an “I tell yeou”)He would build one shay to beat the taown,’n’ the keounty, ’n’ all the kentry raoun’;It should be so built that itcouldn’tbreak down:“Fur,” said the deacon, “’tis mighty plainThat the weakes’ place mus’ stan’ the strain;’n’ the way t’ fix it, uz I maintain,Is only jestT’ make that place uz strong uz the rest.”So the deacon inquired of the village folkWhere he could find the strongest oak,That couldn’t be split, nor bent, nor broke,—That was for spokes, and floor, and sills;He sent for lancewood to make the thills;The cross-bars were ash, from the straightest trees;The panels of white-wood, that cuts like cheese,But lasts like iron for things like these;The hubs of logs from the “Settler’s Ellum,”—Last of its timber—they couldn’t sell ’em;Never an axe had seen their chips,And the wedges flew from between their lips,Their blunt ends frizzled like celery-tips;Step and prop-iron, bolt and screw,Spring, tire, axle, and linchpin too,Steel of the finest, bright and blue;Thoroughbrace bison skin, thick and wide;Boot, top, dasher, from tough old hideFound in the pit when the tanner died.That was the way he “put her through.”“There!” said the deacon, “naow she’ll dew!”Do! I tell you, I rather guessShe was a wonder, and nothing less!Colts grew horses, beards turned gray,Deacon and deaconess dropped away;Children and grandchildren—where were they?But there stood the stout old one-hoss shayAs fresh as on Lisbon Earthquake day!Eighteen hundred: it came and foundThe deacon’s masterpiece strong and sound.Eighteen hundred increased by ten:“Hansum kerridge” they called it then.Eighteen hundred and twenty came,—Running as usual; much the same.Thirty and forty at last arrive,And then came fifty andfifty-five.Little of all we value hereWakes on the morn of its hundredth yearWithout both feeling and looking queer.In fact, there’s nothing that keeps its youth,So far as I know, but a tree and truth.(This is a moral that runs at large;Take it. You’re welcome. No extra charge.)First of November,—the Earthquake day,—There are traces of age in the one-hoss shay,A general flavor of mild decay,But nothing local, as one may say.There couldn’t be,—for the deacon’s artHad made it so like in every partThat there wasn’t a chance for one to start.For the wheels were just as strong as the thills,And the floor was just as strong as the sills,And the panels just as strong as the floor,And the whippletree neither less nor more,And the back cross-bar as strong as the fore,And spring, and axle, and hubencore.And yet,as a whole, it is past no doubt,In another hour it will beworn out.First of November, fifty-five!This morning the parson takes a drive.Now, small boys, get out of the way!Here comes the wonderful one-hoss shay,Drawn by a rat-tailed, ewe-necked bay.“Huddup!” said the parson. Off went they.The parson was working his Sunday’s text,Had got tofifthly, and stopped perplexed,And what the—Moses—was coming next?All at once the horse stood still,Close by the meet’n’-house on the hill.First a shiver, and then a thrill,Then something decidedly like a spill,—And the parson was sitting upon a rock,At half past nine by the meet’n’-house clock,—Just the hour of the Earthquake shock!What do you think the parson found,When he got up and stared around?The poor old chaise in a heap or mound,As if it had been to the mill and ground!You see, of course, if you’re not a dunce,How it went to pieces all at once,—All at once and nothing first,—Just as bubbles do when they burst.End of the wonderful one-hoss shay.Logic is logic. That’s all I say.
END OF THE WONDERFUL ONE-HORSE SHAY.
Healthful Influence of Music.
The curative power of music is little understood. Our medical men would do well to devote more time and attention to music and its beneficial influences upon themselves and patients. In Paris, music is being introduced at the chief asylum for the benefit of the insane, the hypochondriacs, and such like patients. Its introduction at the“Retreat,” at Hartford, Conn., has been attended with happy results.
The writer attributes the primary step towards recovery of several patients of his, suffering under great mental, nervous, and bodily prostration, to his ordering the piano or melodeon reopened.
Not long since I visited a patient at a distance. She was young and fair, and “supposed to be in consumption,” which is usually a flattering disease, while this patient was laboring under great despondency, bordering on despair. Her parents could not account for her dejection.
Determined not to hurry over the case, and seeing a closed piano in the room, I asked if it was not used.
“No,” replied the mother; “she has not touched it for more than three months; she takes no interest in anything.”
I looked upon the sad, fair face, and thought I had never seen a picture of such utter hopelessness in a young maiden. I approached the piano, and raised its lid. The ivory keys were all dusty. The mother dusted them off, and with a great, deep sigh, whispered to me, “The dust will soon gather on her coffin. She will never touch these keys again.”
“Pooh!” I exclaimed. “You, madam, discourage her. Let me sing something that will awaken her from her lethargy.”
No matter how I played, or what I sang. It was the right key, the sympathetic chord. The first notes aroused her. She lifted her great, dark eyes for the first time. Great tears burst their bonds, thawing out the winter-locked senses, awakening the spring-time flowers of hope, that led to a summer season of health and happiness....
I know this was decidedly unprofessional; but what care I? The young girl was aroused from her despondency, and her precious life saved. Medicine, which before was of noavail, now took effect. O, I pity the poor fool whoonlyhas learned to cram drugs by the scruple, dram, and ounce down the unwilling throats of his more pitiful patients because musty books tell him to.
Dr. Mason F. Cogswell, a graduate of Yale, was a man eminent for piety and benevolence, a scholar, and a successful practitioner, which none can gainsay. “In music he was a proficient,” said Professor Knight. While practising medicine in Stamford, Conn., he was said to have instructed the choir in psalm tunes and anthems, and other music, and adapted one to every Sabbath in the year. He possessed a great library, and was for ten years president of the State Medical Society. Dr. Cogswell had a deaf and dumb daughter, and he originated the design of an asylum, which was more fully developed by Mr. Gallaudet, in the Hartford asylum for the deaf and dumb. He died in 1830, at the age of seventy.