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AN ALABAMA STUDENT 1
I
Chief among the hard sayings of the Gospel is the
declaration, 'He that loveth father or mother or son or daughter
more than Me is not worthy of Me.' Yet the spirit that made possible
its acceptance, and which is responsible for Christianity as it
is—or rather, perhaps, as it was—is the same which in
all ages has compelled men to follow ideals, even at the sacrifice
of the near and the dear ones at home. In Varied tones to all, at
one time or another, the call comes: to one, to forsake all and
follow Him; to another, to scorn delights and live the laborious
days of a student; to the third, to renounce all in the life of
a Sunnyasi. Many are the wandbearers, few are the mystics, as the
old Greek has it, or, in the words which we know better, 'Many are
called, but few are chosen.' The gifts were diversified, but the
same spirit animated the 'flaming heart of St. Theresa', the patient
soul of Palissy the potter, and the mighty intellect of John Hunter.
We honour those who respond to the call; we love
to tell the story of their lives; and while feeling, perhaps, that
we could not have been, with them, faithful unto death, yet we recognize
in the power of
1 Read at the Johns
Hopkins Hospital Historical Club, January, 1895. Reprinted from the Johns
Hopkins Hospital Bulletin, No. 58, January, 1896.
OSLER B
2 BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAYS
their example the leaven which leavens the mass
of selfishness about us. These 'mystics' and 'chosen' are
often not happy men, often not the successful men. They see of the
travail of their souls and are not satisfied, and, in the bitterness
of the thought that they are not better than their fathers, are
ready, with Elijah, to lie down and die.
To-night I wish to tell you the story of a man
of whom you have never heard, whose name is not written on the scroll
of fame, but of one who heard the call and forsook all and followed
his ideal.
When looking over the literature of malarial fevers
in the South, chance threw in my way Fenner's Southern Medical
Reports, vols. i and ii, which were issued in 1849 -50
and 1850-51. Among many articles of interest, I was particularly
impressed with two by Dr. John Y. Bassett, of Huntsville, Alabama,
in whom I seemed to recognize a 'likeness to the wise below', a
'kindred with the great of old'. I wrote to Huntsville to ascertain
what had become of Dr. Bassett, and my correspondent referred me
to his daughter, from whom I received a packet of letters written
from Paris in 1836. I have her permission to make the extracts which
are here given.
There are a few men in every community who, from temperament or
conviction, cannot bow to the Baals of the society about them, and
who stand aloof in thought at least, from the common herd. Such
men tread a steep and thorny road, and of such in all ages has the
race delighted to make its martyrs. The letters indicate
in Dr. Bassett a restless, nonconforming spirit, which turned aside
from the hollowness and deceit of much of the life about him. As
a student he had doubtless felt a glow of enthusiasm at the rapid
de-
AN ALABAMA STUDENT 3
velopment of the science of medicine, and amid
the worries and vexations of a country practice his heart burned
with the hope of some time visiting the great centres of learning.
As the years passed, the impulse grew more and more urgent to go
forth and see the great minds which had controlled his hours of
study. All students flocked to Paris in the fourth decade. Nowhere
else was the pool so deeply stirred, and Laennec, Broussais, Louis,
Andral, Velpeau, and others dominated the thoughts of the profession.
One can imagine how carefully the plan was laid, and how for years
the little surplus earnings were hoarded for the purpose. But the
trial which demanded the greatest courage was the leaving of wife
and children, and there are passages in the letters which indicate
that the struggle was hard, not indeed without bitterness. He apologizes
frequently for an apparent cruelty in leaving them for the sake
of his profession; and the neighbours did not make it easier for
the poor wife, whose desertion they could not understand. In one
of the letters he says, 'So people say I have left
you? Well, so I have, and you ought always to put the most charitable
construction on such remarks; the same people when I come back will
possibly say I have returned. Sometimes remarks of this sort are
made carelessly, as men tramp upon worms; sometimes from wantonness,
as boys pull off the wings of flies and pierce them with pins; sometimes
for sport, as hunters shoot inoffensive creatures that are of no
service; sometimes for spite, as we kill fleas; sometimes for experiment,
as philosophers torture dogs; but seldom from wickedness, as pagans
skin saints, and as Christians skin one another.' And in another
he says, 'My expressions put me in mind of a sick man's repentance.
I know, Isaphaena, you have
B2
4 BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAYS
borne much for and from me, and you will have to
do so again, and I hope you may do it pleasantly; and if it is any
gratification to you to know, you have a husband who appreciates
your conduct.'
The letters begin from Baltimore in the last week
of December, 1835. He had lost his diploma, for he applied to Dr.
James H. Miller, the President and Professor of Anatomy of the Washington
Medical College, for a certificate, which is found among the papers,
stating that he is a regular graduate of that institution, but not
mentioning the year.
He took passage by the Roscoe, Capt. Delano
in command, bound for Liverpool. He sailed on Jan. 6, and in an
interesting letter an account is given of the voyage. They reached
the English Channel on the 26th. A glowing description is given
of the fine way in which the passengers lived on these packet-ships.
He entreats his wife to feel sure that all would go well, though
she might not hear from him very regularly, and he begs her in all
matters to remember his motto, 'Peace on earth and good will towards
men.' He expresses great anxiety about the training of his two children,
and bids her not to spare the rod if necessary, saying, 'as the
twig is bent the tree inclines.'
The first long letter, descriptive of Manchester,
York, and Edinburgh, is illustrated by very neat little sketches.
He was very much impressed with York, and says that 'if ever I was
to be born again I would like it to be at York'.
In Edinburgh he visited everything, from the fifteenstory
hovels to the one-story palaces. He gives a description of some
graves at Leith covered with iron grates and locked to keep the
surgeons out; with a watch kept the entire night. He was enchanted
AN ALABAMA STUDENT
with Edinburgh in all matters except one. He says,
'0 Scotland! thou land o' cakes! 0 Edinburgh! thou city of learning,
thou cluster of palaces, thou city with suburbs in the
centre and precincts fit for the residences of princes, thou modern
Athens! whose candles seem to emulate the
stars in height, if not in lustre!!! Could you not invent any other
method of getting your coal out of the mine save on the backs of
females!!!! It is a fact that there are women whom they call bearers,
whose business it is to carry coal out of the pit.'
He was very enthusiastic about the museum of the
College of Surgeons, and the Infirmary, where he witnessed in the
presence of Mr. Syme an operation by 'Mr. Ferguson, a young surgeon.
From Edinburgh he proceeded to Glasgow, then to
Belfast and Dublin, and then on to London, where he spent two weeks,
apparently of great misery, as the weather was atrocious. He shook
the mud of England from his feet at Dover, and departed, hoping
never to be soiled with it again.
He took a through passage from London to Paris
for £ 1, 18s., and he gives an amusing description of the additional
payments. He asked the master of the hotel to give him some information
regarding French travelling, and got, he says, a regular
English account, Johnsonian without his wit. 'They will cheat
you at every step; they will rob you; they will poison you
with dirt; everything is filthy; you will get no mutton or beef,
and nothing but sour wine.' Then he says, 'Though I paid everything
in London, I will give you a list of the little extra charges on
the road, and in eight out of ten cases paid.' He gives an itemized
bill of twenty-eight extra charges in the two days and one night
which he spent in the diligence. One of his items was
6 BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAYS
for walking down a ladder, one shilling. He told
this fellow to go to hell, and jumped over his ladder. 'To the commissioner
of one of the hotels, for seeing that nobody cheated you but himself,
six shillings.' 'The commissioner of the diligence, the most useless
of all damned rascals, for pestering you and telling lies, one shilling
and sixpence.'
He reached Paris and took lodgings in the Place
Pantheon. He writes, 'I am now in the very region of Voltaire and
Rousseau; and the Pantheon, in which one set of bigots deposited
their bodies, from whence another set tore their bones, raises its
classic front before my window. I look on it and feel I am not so
much of an infidel as when surrounded by Christians.'
He attached himself at once to the clinic of Velpeau
at La Charité. On his first day he says he did not understand more
than half he said, but he understood his operations. He says there
was a gentleman from Mobile, Mr. Jewett, who had been there for
three years. Americans were not scarce; there were four or five
from New York, two from Baltimore, and several from Boston and Philadelphia.
He did not mention their names, but it is pleasant to think he may have attended
classes at La Pitié with Bowditch, Holmes, Shattuck, Gerhard, and
Stillé. He began dissections at once; subjects were cheap—six
francs apiece—and he secured a child on the first day
for forty sous.
Some of the lectures were in the evening, at seven
o'clock, and he went to hear M. Helmagrande on midwifery. He
says, 'The hospitals here are conducted on the most liberal terms;
there is nothing to pay but for the private courses, and
the fee is small for them. The facilities for the study of midwifery
are astonishing; there are plenty of cases always on hand, and this
AN ALABAMA STUDENT 7
I determined to profit by.' In a letter of March
16 he mentions his daily routine: 'I get up in the morning at six
o'clock and am at La Charité by seven, follow Velpeau until eight,
see him operate and lecture until after nine, breakfast at ten at
a cafe. At eleven I am at a school of practical anatomy, where I
dissect until two. Then I attend a class of practical surgery until
three; then hear Broussais and Andral until five; then dine.
At seven I attend Helmagrande's class of midwifery, which lasts
until nine; then I come to my room and read or write until eleven,
when I retire.'
He was much impressed by the opportunities for
dissection. In his letter of July 3 he says:
'There is a dissecting school at Clamart for the
summer on a most extensive scale. There is room and material for
200 or upwards, though there are but few there at present;
this place was provided for the inscribed students of the school,
and they get their subjects for a mere trifle. There is not
the least prejudice existing here against dissections; even the
subjects do not seem to mind it, though they are aware of
their fate, for more than two-thirds of the dead are carried to
the l'Ecole Pratique or Clamart. I have private instruction in the
use of the stethoscope for heart complaints in La Pitié. The other
day an old woman bade me adieu as we passed her bed without calling,
and I stopped to ask if
she was going out. Then she said she was going to Clamart,
and that we might meet again.'
He had evidently occupied his time to good advantage,
as early in July he received from Velpeau the appointment of externe
at La Charité. He says in his letter of July 10:
'I have a piece of news to communicate that I know
will gratify you; at least I feel very much gratified myself. This
morning I received the appointment of externe in La Charité
under Velpeau. The duties of an
8 BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAYS
externe require him to be at the hospital
at six o'clock, answer to his name, follow the surgeon round a certain number of
beds, attend to his prescriptions, and dress the patients. For this
service we receive nothing, and for this privilege we pay nothing;
you ought to be gratified at this, because it will convince you
I have not been wasting my time. I was on the eve of starting for
Switzerland, and was only waiting to witness the celebrations on
the 27th, 28th, and 29th; but when
this offer was made me I did what I have been doing all my life—
made another sacrifice for my profession, and determined to remain
and take the service. I have not been more gratified since I have
been in Europe; it is a real benefit and came unsolicited.'
He was very much impressed by the incessant industry
of the French physicians. He says:
'When I look at some of the medical men by whom
I am surrounded, it makes me blush for shame; old men daily may
be seen mixing their white locks with boys, and pursuing their profession
with the ardour of youth. There is not a solitary great man in France
that is idle, for if he was, that moment he would be outstripped;
it is a race, and there are none so far ahead that they are not
pressed by others; many are distanced, it is true, but there are
none allowed to walk over the course. Witness Broussais, lecturing
and labouring daily to sustain himself after having elevated himself
to the pinnacle; Lisfranc, an old bachelor with thousands, who after
making his daily visit and leçon for ten months for
duty, during the vacation of two months gives from choice a course
of operations; and old Rollier may be seen daily supporting himself
from bed-post to bed-post as jolly as if he were not far over sixty.
Velpeau, from a poor boy without money, time, education, or friends,
has by industry made himself one of the first surgeons in Europe.'
In one of his last letters there is this interesting
note about Broussais, who had just finished his course on phrenology:
'The pupils of '36 have struck off his head. It
is in bronze, a little less than our old Washington and Franklin
AN ALABAMA STUDENT 9
in wax. Broussais is a genius, and when he entered
life he saw that something was to be done, or rather that he
must do something, and he seized the science of medicine as
a good old doctor would a bottle of lotion, and shook it manfully;
France, Germany, all Europe, parts of Asia, and America have felt
the agitation. But younger men also feel the necessity of doing
something, and they are now endeavouring to quiet the commotion
he has raised, and in France they have measurably succeeded. When
the giant dies I doubt if he will find a successor—his conquests,
like Alexander's, will be divided and then fall into insignificance.
He fights well while in the ring against awful odds, for the truth
is against him, but some of her brightest geniuses he has put to
rout or silence. Time is now about to enter the field, and I have
no doubt will place a splendid monument over him, to prevent him
from being forgotten.
'I am glad I know what great men are. I am glad
I know of what they are made, and how they made themselves great,
though this knowledge has broken the last of my household gods;
yet it has taken away the flaming swords that stood before the gates
of this Paradise, where may still be seen the track of the serpent
and of the devil himself, so I will keep out of bad company.'
Scattered through his long, often closely crossed
letters, there are here and there some choice bits which indicate
the character of the man. For months he did not hear a word from
home; then letters came at long intervals. He apparently had been
re-reading some of his wife's letters, in one of which she had been
reproaching him for using strong language. He says:
'Isaphaena, you tell me to break myself of swearing,
and not to spend my time about different professions of religion;
that it will make enemies,&c. Now listen to me while I speak
the truth, for on this subject you know that I always do speak what
I think is true. I never did swear much, and I have quit it almost
entirely, for nobody would understand me, and it would be useless
to waste breath when I know I can put it to a better
BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAYS
use. As to religion, there is not much here of
any kind, and I assure you I have not said ten words on the subject
since I left, nor do I expect to; and here, where Voltaire, Rousseau,
and the whole constellation of mighty-minded men lived and wrote
and died, I feel— Isaphaena—not so much an infidel as
when at home surrounded by church-going people. Why is this? I have
never for a moment doubted the sincerity of my immediate friends,
but at home I looked into the evil more closely than the good effects—there
I saw ignorance, bigotry, and deceit ever foremost; they were the
most prominent, therefore the most likely to be seen. Here I still
look on the evil side and find it terrible. God save me from
a country without religion, and from a government with it—I
know you will say Amen also to the next sentence—and return
me safe to a country with religion and a government without it.
I am convinced that the evils of infidelity are worse—ay, much
worse— than any religion whatever.
'Had I the talents of the above-mentioned men I
would not spend it as they did, nor would they, could they see the
effect produced. Their object was good—to correct the evils
of a corrupt priesthood—but their works were like edged tools
given to children. Human nature is not perfect, and their refined
and perfected systems of morals will not apply, and if we were perfect
we would not need them. I speak the words of truth and soberness.
He evidently was of St. Paul's opinion with reference
to the subjection of the wife. He says in one place:
'What if I have spoken cross to you, scolded at
you; if it was not my duty it was at least, my privilege, and I
expect to have the pleasure of doing it again. Are we not told, if our
right hand offends to cut it off, etc.; then surely if our better-half offends
we ought to have the liberty of swearing a little.'
His last letter is from Paris, dated October 16,
and he speaks in it of his approaching departure.
I have no information as to the date of his return,
but his intention was, he states frequently in his letters, to
AN ALABAMA STUDENT II
be back by the first of the year, so that after
this date he probably resumed practice at Huntsville.
The two papers in Fenner's Southern Medical
Reports are the only ones I see credited to him. They are charmingly
written and display in every page the wise physician; wise not only
with the wisdom of the schools, but with that deeper knowledge of
the even-balanced soul who 'saw life steadily and saw it whole.'
The Report in vol. i deals with the topography,
climate, and diseases of Madison County. Dr. Fenner states that
it was accompanied by a beautiful map drawn by the author, and a
large number of valuable statistics.
In an historical sketch of the settlement he thus
depicts the early border life:
'The most of those who did not procure homes at
that time, belonged to a class who, from taste or compulsion, had
separated themselves from the whites, to live on the trail of the
Indians; and who, like tigers, and Judases, were not without their
use in the mysterious economy of nature. They surpassed the natives
in physical force and in genius, and equalled them in ferocity.
They had the piratical appetite for gain natural to the English
race, which they had cultivated among the whites, and they readily
acquired the Indian taste for blood.
'Thus, without any particular standard of morals
of their own, and having fallen out with that which restrained their
Christian brethren, they found their interest in adopting the ancient
one of Moses and of the savages among whom they resided—"An
eye for an eye," and "blood for blood".
'These men, like the fabulous Behemoth that lay
in the reedy fens of the early world, drinking up the abundant waters
and eating down the luxuriant forests, to make way for civilization,
have left little more than a vague tradition of their existence
and exploits, the latter of which has been so embellished that the
former already begins to be doubted.
'Such a race leave but short records of their diseases.
12 BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAYS
Where bloodshed is always epidemic and every man
his own surgeon, the few that recover feel grateful to none, and
hang no "votive tablets" on the natural columns of their
forests; and when a missionary or a novelist is the only historian,
it would puzzle Hippocrates himself to collate the cases; but, as
most things, as well as lions, track the earth in some manner as
they pass over it, these early squatters have also made their mark.'
The good example of Dr. Thomas Fearn, who in the
early days of the regular settlement was the leader of the profession,
is well described.
'The influence of this gentleman's reputation upon
the profession was favourable to the residence of thoroughbred physicians
in the neighbourhood, many of whom he had been directly instrumental
in educating; another consequence followed: quackery and empiricism
abated. Although quackery is indigenous in the human heart, like
thieving and lying, and always will exist, yet it flourishes in
the indirect ratio of the science and general qualifications of
the regular part of the profession. When regular, and extensively
patronised physicians, armed with all requisite diplomas and the
experience of years, suffer themselves to grow so dull in diagnosis
as to bleed a typhoid patient half an hour before death in the evening,
that they had been stimulating through the day; or so far forget,
or compromise the dignity of their high calling, as to practise
"Mesmerism," or prescribe "Mother's Relief"
to a parturient woman, men of smaller pretensions, and more professional
pride, or better in formation, should not, and do not wonder at
quackery springing up around such, like mushrooms in a spring morning,
where a fat cow has lain over night and warmed the soil for their
reception.'
Dr. Fearn is credited with the practice of giving
enormous doses of quinine in the malarial fevers. Dr. Bassett mentions
five or six cases of night blindness caused by these large doses.
Very full accounts are given of epidemics of scarlet fever and of
small-pox, and a discussion on the cold water treatment of the former
AN ALABAMA STUDENT
disease. Dr. Bassett must have had a well-equipped
library, and his references to authors both old and new are not
only very full, but most appropriate.
'In the spring of 1833 we were visited by the scarlet
fever in its most malignant form; during the prevalence of this
epidemic more than fifty infants perished in Huntsville, at the
only age they are not an annoyance here. I treated nine bad cases,
and four terminated fatally; I lost nearly half in almost every
instance. An older practitioner was called in, but I am not certain
that in their own proper practice the y were more fortunate. In
more than one instance there lay more than one dead child in the
same house at the same time. I feel certain that this was a most
malignant disease; but I do not feel certain that in every case
our best physicians remembered the united counsel of Hippocrates
and Ovid, that "nothing does good but what may also hurt ", and which should never be lost sight
of by the man of medicine.'
The following is an extract from the account of
the smallpox epidemic of 1835:
'My treatment was pretty much that laid down by
Dr. Meade: bleeding, gentle aperients, cool air, sub-acid drinks,
mild anodynes, and vitriolic infusion of barks. Although the purgative
part of this treatment embroiled the faculty of the early part of
the eighteenth century to such a degree that the like has not been
heard since the days of Gui Patin and Antimony— shaking the
authority even of the celebrated triumvirate, Mead, Friend and Radcliffe,
who, on their part, embalmed one Dr. Woodward in their gall and
handed him down to posterity, like a "dried preparation ", as a specimen of the folly of small
men who attempt to run against "the throned opinions of the
world"—and a proof that "polite literature does not
always polish its possessors "—yet we of Huntsville were
too willing that our brethren should have our cases, to question
each other's practice.'
Dr. Bassett states that among the 30,000 inhabitants
of the county, thirty physicians practised who were paid
14 BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAYS
about $30,000 a year, 'which,' he says, 'is but
bread, and scarce at that'; and when we contemplate the
50 lb. calomel
and 1,000 ozs. quinine which they swallow, it reminds one of Falstaff's
bill of fare: 'But one half-penny worth of bread to this intolerable
deal of sack.'
There is a very clever discussion on the question,
much debated at that time, of the use of anaesthetics in labour.
The following is a good extract:
'It is truly humiliating to science to have to
stop and rest upon her course until the dullness of the clergy can
frame an excuse for an obvious truth—to see such a man as Dr.
Simpson, of Edinburgh, stopping in the midst of his labour, to
chop logic by the wayside, like a monk of the fifteenth century,
to endeavour to prove a truth at midday, by argument, which he had
proven by practice in the morning, and thereby running at ,least
a risk of losing by night what he had earned through the day. Let
us examine in plain English his new translation of the Hebrew authority
for the use of chloroform and see if in getting one dent out of
his turtle's egg, he does not put another in.
II
At the head of the article by Dr. Bassett in the
second volume of Fenner's Reports stands the quotation, 'Celsus
thought it better, in doubtful cases, to try a doubtful remedy,
than none at all'1;
which he quotes only to condemn in the following vigorous
style:
'In giving my individual experience and opinions,
I desire to censure none. In such cases the best informed fear the
most, and experience but renders us charitable. I will therefore
only say that I have been fortunate, in my own practice, in reversing
the aphorism
1 'Satius est enim anceps
auxilium experiri quam nullum.'
AN ALABAMA STUDENT
at the head of this article. That rule of practice
has found favour in the eyes of every generation of both doctors
and patients, and it is not wonderful that the few able men of every
age that have opposed it have warred in vain,—that the science
of French expectancy, and the quackery of German homoeopathy, have
alike failed; dying men will have pills and parsons.
'When physicians were required, by public opinion,
to follow the dictates of Hippocrates, and his immediate successors,
as closely as Christians now profess to follow the commandments
of Moses and the prophets, they claimed a right to act boldly their
faith in these authorities, and public opinion sustained them; and
however difficult the task, they found it much easier to understand
the written language of Hippocrates than the yet more obscure teachings
of Nature, between which and his followers he stood an infallible
interpreter, making her mysteries so plain that wayfaring men, though
fools, could not err therein. Hippocrates was but our fellow servant,
and we are but ministers of Nature; our whole art consists in understanding
her language and laws; our whole practice, in obeying her mandates:
if we do not understand them, it is either our fault or misfortune;
to act as though we did is quackery. Celsus says of this bold practice
of old, fere quos ratio non restituit temeritas adiuvat; but
shrewdly remarks, that "Physicians of this sort diet other
men s patients more happily than their own".
I doubt, however, if, in the present state of medicine, a
thorough physician is ever, in any stage of any disease, so completely
without rational education as to be thus nonplussed, and driven
to the necessity of dealing a blow in the dark; where there are
no intelligible indications, it is clear there should be no action.
Then, if I have not followed the advice of this
master, it has not been lightly laid aside; nor, as I have stated,
without precedent; and if I have, in a measure, adopted another
of his rules, to make food physic (optimum vero medicamentum
est cibus datus), it has not been upon his mere authority. I
revere authority, believing with the royal preacher, that "whoso
breaketh a hedge, a serpent shall bite"; yet I rejoice that
its fetters are broken in medicine—that we no longer are hedged
with the eternal cry of "Hippocrates
BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAYS
and reason". But
if, in getting rid of the authority of the Ancients, we have discarded
the example of their labour and learning, and turned a deaf ear
to their opinions, it is easier to be lamented than corrected. If
the unthinking part of the profession of old, that followed authority,
and "on the first day of a fever loosened the belly, on the
next opened a vein, on the third gave a bolus ",
etc., are now represented by those who follow fashion, and
give calomel, quinine, and codliver oil every day, we have but changed
authority for fashion, and are yet in bondage; but fashion, though
indomitable, changes with the wind, and if for a time it carries
the small craft, the weak or designing, in its current, it soon
leaves them stranded, as landmarks, at which we can at least laugh,
without fear of professional martyrdom.'
Rarely has the credo of a zealous physician
been more beautifully expressed than in the following words:
'I do not say that the study of nature, human and
comparative, as far as it relates to medicine, is an easy task;
let any one undertake a foreign language, and when he thinks he
has mastered it, let him go into its native country and attempt
to use it among the polite and well-informed; if he succeed,, let
him go among the illiterate and rude, where slang is current;
into the lunatic asylum, where the vernacular is babbled in broken
sentences through the mouth of an idiot, and attempt to understand
this; should he again succeed he may safely say that he knows that
language. Let him then set down and calculate the cost, in labour,
time, and talent; then square this amount and go boldly into the
study of physiology; and when he has exhausted his programme, he
will find himself humbly knocking at the door of the temple, and
it will be opened; for diligence, like the vinegar of Hannibal,
will make a way through frozen Alps; it is the open sesame of
our profession. When he is satisfied with the beautiful proportions
of the interior, its vast and varied dimensions, the intricate and
astounding action of its machinery, obeying laws of a singular stability,
whose very conflict produces harmony under the government of secondary
AN ALABAMA STUDENT
laws—if there be anything secondary in nature! — when he
is satisfied (and such are not satisfied until informed), he will
be led to his ultimate object, to take his last lessons from the poor
and suffering, the fevered and phrenzied, from the Jobs and Lazaruses,—
into the pesthouses and prisons, and here, in these magazines of misery
and contagion, these Babels of disease and sin, he must not only take
up his abode, but following the example of his Divine Master, he must
love to dwell there ;—this is Pathology.
'When such an one re-enters the world, he is a physician; his
vast labours have not only taught him yow little he knows, but that
he knows this little well. Conscious of this virtue, he feels no
necessity of trumpeting his professional acquirements abroad, but
with becoming modesty and true dignity, which constitute genuine
professional pride, he leaves this to the good sense of his fellow
citizens to discover.'
Dr. Bassett developed tuberculosis, and the last
letter in the budget sent to me was dated April 16th, 1851, from
Florida, whither he had gone in search of health. He died November
2nd of the same year, aged 46. To a friend he writes on the date
of April 5th:
'This world has never occupied a very large share
of my attention or love. I have asked but little of it, and got
but little of what I asked. It has for many years been growing less
and less in my view, like a receding object in space; but no better
land has appeared to my longing vision; what lies behind me has
become insignificant, before me is a vast interminable void, but
not a cheerless one, as it is full of pleasant dreams and visions
and glorious hopes. I have covered it with the landscapes of Claude,
and peopled it with the martyrs of science, the pioneers of truth,
the hound-hunted and crucified of this world, that have earned and
then asked for bread and received a serpent — all who have
suffered for the truth. How glorious it is to contemplate in the
future these time-buffeted at rest, with their lacerated feelings
soothed as mine have been this day by the tender regard your wife
has manifested for my future well-being.'
OSLER C
BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAYS
The saddest lament in Oliver Wendell Holmes's poems is for the
voiceless,
for those who never sing,
But die with all their music in them.
The extracts which I have read show Dr. Bassett to have been a man
of more than ordinary gifts, but he was among the voiceless of the
profession. Nowadays environment, the opportunity for work, the
skirts of happy chance carry men to the summit. To those restless
spirits who have had ambition without opportunities, and ideals
not realizable in the world in which they move, the story of his
life may be a solace. I began by saying that I would tell you of
a man of whom you had never heard, of a humble student from a little
town in Alabama. What of the men whom he revered, and for whom in
1836 he left wife and children? Are they better known to us? To-day
scarcely one of those whom he mentions touches us with any firmness
from the past. Of a majority of them it may be said, they are as
though they had not been. Velpeau, Andral, Broussais, the great
teachers whom Bassett followed, are shadowy forms (almost as indistinct
as the pupil), dragged out to the daylight by some laudator temporis
acti, who would learn philosophy in history. To have striven,
to have made an effort, to have been true to certain ideals—this
alone is worth the struggle. Now and again in a generation, one
or two snatch something from dull oblivion; but for the rest of
us, sixty years— we, too, are with Bassett and his teachers,
and
No one asks
Who or what we have been,
More than he asks what waves,
In the moonlit solitudes mild
Of the midmost ocean, have swelled,
Foam'd for a moment, and gone.
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