Sir James Young Simpson and Chloroform (1811-1870) Part 5

"Why doest thou whet thy knife so earnestly?

... Shylock must be merciful.

On what compulsion must I? Tell me that!"

Victorious in this encounter, he turned to those who urged that anaesthetics were responsible for various kinds of ills such as a tendency to haemorrhage, convulsions, paralysis, pneumonia, and various kinds of inflammatory mischief as well as mental derangement. He combated these contentions until the end of his career; and not only proved that the objections were visionary, but showed that for one of the alleged evils formerly often seen after operations, viz., convulsions, chloroform, far from being a cause, was one of our most powerful remedies.

But the professional opponents of anaesthesia were most emphatic in the denunciation of its use in midwifery. Pain in the process of parturition was, they said, "a desirable, salutary, and conservative manifestation of life-force": neither its violence nor its continuance was productive of injury to the const.i.tution. Strong opposition on these grounds came from the Dublin School, and with characteristic boldness Simpson turned to the statistics of their own lying-in hospital to prove his contention that to abolish parturient pain was to diminish the peril of the process. Again the statistics stood him in good stead; he flourished them triumphantly before his opponents, and proceeded to deal with those who a.s.serted that the use of anaesthetics was accompanied by danger to life. He pointed out that, although unquestionably there were some dangers connected therewith, they were insignificant compared with the dangers in both surgery and midwifery which their use averted. Pain itself was a danger; shock in surgery was responsible for many untimely deaths upon the operating table; by preventing these chloroform saved countless lives. His arguments were characterised by painstaking thoroughness and evidenced wide reading. In addressing Professor Meigs, of Philadelphia, he said:--

"First, I do believe that if improperly and incautiously given, and in some rare idiosyncrasies, ether and chloroform may prove injurious or even fatal--just as opium, calomel, and every other powerful remedy and strong drug will occasionally do. Drinking cold water itself will sometimes produce death. 'It is well known,' says Dr. Taylor, in his excellent work on Medical Jurisprudence, 'that there are _many_ cases on record in which cold water, swallowed in large quant.i.ty and in an excited state of the system, has led to the destruction of life.'

Should we therefore never allay our thirst with cold water? What would the disciples of Father Mathew say to this? But, secondly, you and others have very unnecessary and aggravated fears about the dangers of ether and chloroform, and in the course of experience you will find these fears to be, in a great measure, perfectly ideal and imaginary.

But the same fears have, in the first instance, been conjured up against almost all other innovations in medicine and in the common luxuries of life. Cavendish, the secretary to Cardinal Wolsey, tells us in his life of that prelate, that when the cardinal was banished from London to York by his master--that regal Robespierre, Henry the Eighth--_many_ of the cardinal's servants refused to go such an enormous journey--'for they were loath to abandon their native country, their parents, wives, and children.' The journey which can _now_ be accomplished in six hours was considered then a perfect banishment.... In his Life of Lord Loughborough, John Lord Campbell tells us that when he (the biographer) first travelled from Edinburgh to London in the mail-coach the time had been reduced (from the former twelve or fourteen days) to three nights and two days; 'but,' he adds, 'this new and swift travelling from the Scots to the English capital was wonderful, and I was gravely advised to stop a day at York as several pa.s.sengers who had gone through without stopping had died of apoplexy from the rapidity of the motion' ('Lives of the Lord Chancellors'). Be a.s.sured that many of the cases of apoplexy, &c., &c., alleged to arise from ether and chloroform, have as veritable an etiology as this apoplexy from rapid locomotion, and that a few years hence they will stand in the same light in which we now look back upon the apoplexy from travelling ten miles an hour. And as to the supposed great moral and physical evils and injuries arising from the use of ether and chloroform, they will by and by, I believe, sound much in the same way as the supposed great moral and physical evils and injuries arising from using hackney coaches, which were seriously described by Taylor, the water-poet, two or three centuries ago when these coaches were introduced. Taylor warned his fellow-creatures to avoid them, otherwise 'they would find their bodies tossed, tumbled, rumbled, and jumbled' without mercy. 'The coach,' says he, 'is a close hypocrite, for it hath a cover for knavery; they (the pa.s.sengers) are carried back to back in it like people surprised by pirates, and moreover it maketh men imitate sea-crabs in being drawn sideways, and altogether it is a dangerous carriage for the commonwealth.' Then he proceeds to call them 'h.e.l.l-carts,' &c., and vents upon them a great deal of other abuse very much of the same kind and character as that lavished against anaesthetics in our own day."

Following out the same line of reasoning he brought to the minds of medical opponents how the introducers of such useful drugs as mercury, antimony, and cinchona bark had met with now long-forgotten but stubborn opposition; and he reminded surgeons of the stern obstinacy with which the introduction of the ligature of arteries had been long objected to and the barbarous method of arresting bleeding with red-hot irons had been preferred. But in the history of the discovery and introduction of vaccination by Jenner he found a strong parallel; and he wrote a pregnant article to prove that mere opinion and prejudgments were not sufficient to settle the question of the propriety or impropriety of anaesthetic agents, ill.u.s.trating it from the story of vaccination. The result of vaccination had been to save during the half century since its introduction a number of lives in England alone equal to the whole existing population of Wales; and in Europe during the same period it had preserved a number of lives greater than the whole existing population of Great Britain. And yet Jenner, when he first announced his discovery, had encountered the most determined opposition on the part of many of his professional brethren, who ridiculed and bitterly denounced both him and his discovery; whilst ignorant laymen announced that smallpox was ordained by heaven and vaccination was a daring and profane violation of holy religion. He pointed out that these objections had been slowly and surely crushed out of existence by acc.u.mulated facts, and predicted that the ultimate decision concerning anaesthesia would come to be based, not upon impressions, opinions, and prejudices, but upon the evidence of "a sufficient body of accurate and well-ascertained facts." To these facts, as has been indicated, he subsequently successfully appealed.

Those who objected to anaesthesia on _moral_ grounds directed their attacks chiefly against its use in midwifery. They not only condemned that application as iniquitous, but went the length of a.s.serting that the birth of past myriads without it proved how unnecessary it was, and that Nature conducted the whole process of birth unaided in a greatly superior manner. The pains a.s.sociated with parturition were actually beneficial, they said. Simpson answered this by showing that the proper use of anaesthetics shortened parturition, and by diminishing the amount of pain led to more rapid and more perfect recoveries. The leading exponent of the Dublin School of Midwifery at that time foolishly wrote that he did not think any one in Dublin had as yet used anaeesthetics in midwifery; that the feeling was very strong against its use in ordinary cases, merely to avert the ordinary amount of pain, which the Almighty had seen fit--and most wisely, no doubt--to allot to natural labour; and in this feeling he (the writer) most heartily concurred. Simpson's private comment on this remarkable epistle at once showed his opinion of it, and ridiculed the objection out of existence. He skilfully parodied the letter thus:--"I do not believe that any one in Dublin has as yet used a carriage in locomotion; the feeling is very strong against its use in ordinary progression, merely to avert the ordinary amount of fatigue which the Almighty has seen fit--and most wisely, no doubt--to allot to natural walking; and in this feeling I heartily and entirely concur."

He twitted the surgeons who opposed him with their sudden discovery, now that anaesthetics were introduced, that there was something really beneficial in the pain and agony caused by their dreaded knife. Such a contention contraverted his cherished principle that the function of the medical man was not only to prolong life, but also to alleviate human sufferings. He quoted authorities of all times to show that pain had been always abhorred by physicians and surgeons, commencing with a reference to Galen's aphorism--"_Dolor dolentibus inutile est_"

("pain is useless to the pained"); citing Ambroise Pare, who said that pain ought to be a.s.suaged because nothing so much dejected the powers of the patient; and, finally, reproducing the words of modern authors, who a.s.serted that, far from being conducive to well-being, pain exhausted the principle of life, and in itself was frequently both dangerous and destructive. He brought forward a collection of cases where in former days patients had died on the operating-table, even before the surgeon had begun his work, so great was the influence of the mere fear of pain; and reminded those who attributed occasional deaths on the operating-table to the influence of the anaesthetic of the numerous cases in bygone days where death occurred whilst the surgeon was at work. He recalled also how the great surgeon of St.

Thomas's Hospital, Cheselden, had abhorred the pain which he caused in the process of his work, and longed for some means for its prevention.

"No one," said Cheselden, "ever endured more anxiety and sickness before an operation" than himself.

Simpson did not forget to look at the subject from the patient's point of view, and reproduced the letter from an old patient, which has been already quoted (Chapter VI.).

The soldier and sailor, brave unto heroism in facing the enemy, never fearing the death which stared them in the face in its most horrible form whilst answering the call of duty, would quail like children at the mere thought of submitting to the deliberate knife of the surgeon. Were quibbles about the efficacy of pain to stand in the way of the merciful prevention of such suffering by the process of anaesthetisation?

Those who opposed him with this curious idea, that pain after all was beneficial, were some of them men of no mean standing in the profession. Gull, Bransby Cooper, and Nunn were amongst those whom he had to silence. After replying to their arguments _seriatim_ with all his polemic power, he referred them once more to the evidence of facts and of facts alone as set forth by his statistics. Had he lived but a twelvemonth longer than he did he would have been able to conjure up a picture of the incalculable amount of suffering prevented by the eighteen hundred pounds of chloroform which were forwarded to the rival armies from one firm of chemists alone during the Franco-Prussian war; happily for the wounded within and around Paris, there was then no longer any doubt as to the propriety of employing anaesthetics.

The _religious_ objections to the use of anaesthetics could scarcely be met with statistics. Foolish as they now appear to us after the lapse of time, and with the practice they attempted to repel universally adopted, they were nevertheless urged in good faith by clergy and laity of various denominations. The same kind of bigotry had met the introduction of vaccination, and Simpson himself remembered how many people had opposed the emanc.i.p.ation of the negroes on the ground that they were the lineal descendants of Ham, of whom it was said "a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren." Sir Walter Scott reminds us, in "Old Mortality," of the spirit which met the introduction of fanners to separate the chaff from the corn, which displaced the ancient method of tossing the corn in the air upon broad shovels. Headrigg reproved Lady b.e.l.l.e.n.den for allowing the new process to be used on her farm, "thus impiously thwarting the will of Divine Providence by raising a wind for your leddyship's ain particular use by human art, instead of soliciting it by prayer or waiting patiently for whatever dispensation of wind Providence was pleased to send upon the sheeling hill."

To-day in South Africa the same spirit is seen. Honest countryfolk of European descent are earnestly counselled by their spiritual advisers to submit patiently to the plague of locusts on the ground that it comes as a punishment from Providence. These worthy men stolidly witness their cornfields and their gra.s.s lands being eaten bare before their eyes in a few hours, whilst their more enlightened neighbours, brought up in another faith, resort with success to all sorts of artifices to ward off the destructive little invaders.

It is pleasant to be able to record that Dr. Chalmers, one of the heroes of Scots religious history, not only countenanced chloroform by witnessing operations performed under it in the Royal Infirmary, but when requested to deal in a magazine article with the theological aspect of anaeesthesia refused on the ground that the question had no theological aspect, and advised Simpson and his friends to take no heed of the "small theologians" who advocated such views. This was futile advice to give to one of Professor Simpson's controversial propensities; he entered with keen enjoyment into the fray with these "religious" opponents. His famous pamphlet, ent.i.tled, "Answer to the Religious Objections advanced against the employment of Anaeesthetic Agents in Midwifery and Surgery," fought his enemies with their own weapons by appealing with consummate skill to Scripture for authority for the practice. The paper was headed with two scriptural verses:--"For every creature of G.o.d is good, and nothing to be refused if it be received with thanksgiving" (1 Timothy iv. 4).

"Therefore to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not to him it is sin" (James iv. 17).

The princ.i.p.al standpoint of the religious opponents was the primeval curse upon womanhood to be found in Genesis. Simpson swept the ground from under his opponents' feet by reference to and study of the original Hebrew text. The word translated--"sorrow" ("I will greatly multiply thy sorrow ... in sorrow shalt thou bring forth")--was the same as that rendered as "sorrow" in the curse applied to man ("in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life"). Not only did the Hebrew word thus translated sorrow really mean labour, toil, or physical exertion; but in other parts of the Bible an entirely different Hebrew word was used to express the actual pain incident to parturition. The contention, then, that sorrow in the curse meant pain was valueless. Chloroform relieved the real pain not referred to in the curse, whereas it had no effect upon the sorrow or physical exertion.

If, however, the curse was to be taken literally in its application to woman as these persons averred, and granting for the moment that sorrow did mean pain, their position was entirely illogical. If one part of the curse was to be interpreted literally, so must be the other parts, and this would have a serious effect of a revolutionary nature upon man and the human race all over the face of the earth.

Literally speaking, the curse condemned the farmer who pulled up his thorns and thistles, as well as the man who used horses or oxen, water-power, or steam-traction to perform the work by which he earned his bread; for was he not thereby saving the sweat of his face?

Pushed further, the same argument rendered these contentions more absurd and untenable. Man was condemned to die--"dust thou art and unto dust thou shalt return." What right had the physician or surgeon to use his skill to prolong life, at the same time that he conscientiously abstained from the use of anaesthetics on the ground that they obviated pain sent by the Deity? Nay, more; sin itself was the result of the Fall; was not the Church herself erroneously labouring to turn mankind from sin?

In a truer and more serious religious spirit he reminded his foolish opponents of the Christian dispensation, and pointed out how the employment of anaesthesia was in strict consonance with the glorious spirit thereof.

Some persons broadly stated that the new process was unnatural; even these he condescended to answer. "How unnatural," exclaimed an Irish lady, "for you doctors in Edinburgh to take away the pains of your patients." "How unnatural," said he, "it is for you to have swam over from Ireland to Scotland against wind and tide in a steam-boat."

A son of De Quincey in his graduation thesis humorously supported Professor Simpson. He argued that the unmarried woman who opposed anaesthetics on the ground that her s.e.x was condemned by the curse to suffer pains, broke the command herself "in four several ways, according to the following tabular statement":--

"1. She has no conception.

2. She brings forth no children.

3. Her desire is not to her husband.

4. The husband does not rule over her."

De Quincey himself supported his son in a letter appended to the thesis thus:--"If pain when carried to the stage which we call agony or intense struggle amongst vital functions brings with it some danger to life, then it will follow that knowingly to reject a means of mitigating or wholly cancelling the danger now that such means has been discovered and tested, travels on the road towards suicide. It is even worse than an ordinary movement in that direction, because it makes G.o.d an accomplice, through the Scriptures, in this suicidal movement, nay, the primal instigator to it, by means of a supposed curse interdicting the use of any means whatever (though revealed by Himself) for annulling that curse."

But the Bible furnished Simpson with the most powerful argument of all in Genesis ii. 21, where it is written: "And the Lord G.o.d caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam; and he slept; and He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh instead thereof." He strengthened his position by explaining that the word rendered "deep sleep" might more correctly be translated "coma" or "lethargy." He had taken the full measure of his opponents when he answered them with this quotation; it was a reply characteristic of the man, and completely defeated these self-const.i.tuted theologians with their own weapons. They had attacked him as a man of science, and found that his knowledge of the Scriptures excelled their own. He did not fail to read these people a lesson, and point out the harm done to true religion by such conduct and arguments as theirs, reminding them that if G.o.d had willed pain to be irremovable no possible device of man could ever have removed it.

Such was the great fight--the fight for anaesthesia--which Simpson fought and won. He was the one man who by his own individual effort established the practice of anaesthesia, while Morton has the honour of being the one man without whom anaesthesia might have remained unknown.

Such was the opposition encountered, and such was the timidity of his professional brethren, that but for Simpson's courageous efforts it would have been the work of years to bring about what it was granted to him to accomplish in a brief period; if fear, ridicule, contempt, and bigotry had not perhaps sunk the new practice into oblivion. Of the hundreds who are daily mercifully brought under the influence of chloroform and ether, few are aware what they owe to Simpson, even if they know how great is the suffering which they are spared.

Simpson felt that the victory was indeed complete when in April, 1853, he received a letter from Sir James Clark, physician in ordinary to Her Majesty, informing him that the Queen had been brought under the influence of chloroform, and had expressed herself as greatly pleased with the result. It was at the birth of the late Prince Leopold that Her Majesty set her subjects this judicious example.

Much trouble to the cause was occasioned by enthusiasts who administered chloroform with more zeal than discretion, and without any study of the principles laid down by Simpson. As a result of imperfect trials, some persons went the length of saying that there were people whom it was impossible to anaesthetise at all, and others who could be only partially anaesthetised. Wrong methods of administration were used. Simpson patiently corrected these, and carefully instructed his students, so that the young graduates of Edinburgh University carried his teaching and practice into all parts of the world. Syme also took up the cause, and valuable work was done in London by Snow, and later by Clover. The teaching of Simpson and Syme led to such successful results that their methods are followed by the Edinburgh School to this day practically unaltered. So satisfactory an agent is chloroform in Edinburgh hands, that other anaesthetics are in that city but rarely called into requisition. All the world over it is the anaesthetic in which the general pract.i.tioner places his trust.

Having seen what Simpson did for anaesthesia, we may briefly review what anaesthesia has done for humanity. That it has entirely abolished the pain attendant upon surgery is easily recognised by the profession and patients alike. The patient never begs for mercy nowadays; he dreads the anaesthetic more than the knife; he has no anxiety as to whether he will feel pain or not, but rather as to whether he will come round when the operation is over; happily after one experience he realises that his fears were unfounded, and, if need be, will submit cheerfully to a second administration.

The horrors of the operating-room referred to in the preceding chapter were vanquished with the pain; the surgeon has no longer to steel himself for the task as formerly, to wear a stern aspect and adopt a harsh manner. The patient has no longer to be held down by a.s.sistants; instead of having to be dragged unwillingly to the operating-table--a daily occurrence sickening to the hearts of fellow-patients and students, while it served only to harden the surgeon and the experienced old nurse of those days--he will walk quietly to the room, or submit patiently to be carried there, and at a word from the surgeon prepare

"... to storm The thick, sweet mystery of chloroform, The drunken dark, the little death-in-life."

The operation is no longer a race against time; order, method, cleanliness, and silence prevail, where there was formerly disorder, bustle, confusion, dirt, and long-drawn shrieks. Nothing ill.u.s.trates better the progress of surgery than a picture of the operating-room in the first decade placed beside that of an operating theatre in one of our leading hospitals in this the last decade of the nineteenth century. In the quiet of the patient, in the painlessness of the operation, in the calm deliberation of the operator, and the methodical order of all around him, in the respectful silence that prevails in the room so soon as the patient is laid on the table, we see the direct results of the introduction of anaesthetics. But there are other great, if less direct, results, each making its presence known to the professional spectator. By anaesthesia successful operations previously unheard of and unthought of were made possible after the principle of antiseptic surgery had been established; by anaesthesia experimental research, which has led to numerous beneficent results in practical surgery and medicine, was made possible. Its introduction is an achievement of which the Anglo-Saxon race may well be proud. Wells, Morton, and Simpson are its heroes. The United States has by far the greater share of the honour of its discovery; but to Scotland is due the glory which comes from the victorious fight. No event in surgery up to 1847 had had such far-reaching effects. Simpson himself looked forward to the discovery of some agent, better than both chloroform and ether; and it is still possible that there may be an even greater future in store for anaesthesia than was ever dreamt of in his philosophy.

CHAPTER VIII

HOME LIFE--CONTROVERSIES

The foundations of his fame; Comparison with Boerhaave--Family letters--Home amus.e.m.e.nts--Affection for children--And for animals--Puck--Holidays--Wide area of practice--"The arrows of malignancy"--Squabbles--h.o.m.oeopathy--Mesmerism--Refuses to leave Edinburgh.

Great as was Simpson's contemporary fame, the chief part of it had its origin in his indescribable personal power over his fellows, and in his inexhaustible energy. When to these was added the reputation won by the discovery of chloroform's anaesthetic properties, he stood not only as the most famous physician of his day, but also as a man marked out for posthumous fame. The personal characteristics of the man were speedily forgotten after his death, save by those who had been brought under their influence; the marked prominence given to Simpson and the "discovery of chloroform" in the numerous recent reviews of Queen Victoria's reign on the occasion of the Diamond Jubilee, indicates that it is by chloroform that Simpson will ever be remembered. His lasting reputation depends on this work, not upon the characteristics which made him famous in the judgment of his contemporaries. The only physician in comparatively modern times, whose reputation approached Simpson's in magnitude was Hermann Boerhaave (1668 to 1738), the Dutch physician, whose fame and influence during his own lifetime were immense. Boerhaave's leading characteristics greatly resembled Simpson's: he had an enormous capacity for acquiring information, and a wonderful facility for imparting instruction to others; his energy and industry were indefatigable, and his memory prodigious. He taught from separate chairs in Leyden the Theory of Medicine, the Practice of Medicine, Botany, Chemistry, and Clinical Medicine, and at the same time carried on his large practice. Patients of both s.e.xes flocked to him from all quarters of the globe, and he is said to have acc.u.mulated from his practice a fortune of 200,000 in five and thirty years.

Although his treatment and method were, according to our modern knowledge, unscientific, his success in practice was as great as Simpson's; it sprang from the same cause; a wonderful magnetic personal influence, which commanded confidence and faith, so that he succeeded with the same possibly quite simple means which were fruitless in the hands of others. In his day all Europe rang with Boerhaave's name. To-day he is practically unknown. His books are antiquated, and if known, are neglected by modern physicians. He achieved nothing of lasting benefit to humanity. His fate, at least so far as the public is concerned, would undoubtedly have been Simpson's, in spite of his obstetric and gynaecological work, had it not been for the discovery of chloroform.

The increased fame and greatly increased professional income which followed the successful struggle for anaesthesia did not affect Simpson's homely characteristics. He found time in the midst of it all to enjoy the pleasures of home in the society of those he loved best, and of intimate friends. He took a keen delight in quite the smallest enjoyments of the home circle. A characteristic letter was written to his wife in the summer of 1849; she had gone with the children to the Isle of Man; he told her the great and small events of his daily life:--

"Delighted to hear from you that all were so well. Everything goes on nicely here. I have been looking out for a headache (but keep excellently well), for I have been working very busily, and scarcely with enough of sleep. Yesterday _beat_ (as Clark writes it) any day I ever yet saw in the house. Did not get out till half-past four, and the drawing-room actually filled beyond the number of chairs and seats! Have had a capital sleep, and got up to look at the ducks; but none laying this morning, so I write instead. To-day I have a fancy to run out to Bathgate, and I think I will.... Yesterday dined with Miller, and Williamson, the Duke of Buccleuch's huntsman, enlightened us about dogs. Miller and I go to Hamilton Palace on Sat.u.r.day.... My ducks won't lay any more eggs, at which I feel very chagrined.... Two salmon came as presents last week. I gave one to Mrs. Bennet. We are beginning a new batch of examinations at the college. _Such_ a sleep as I had yesterday morning! I came home by the last Glasgow train, _very_ tired. Tom came to waken me at eight, but I snored so that he didn't. He called me at half-past nine. I don't think I had stirred from the moment I lay down. This morning I have been reading in bed since six. I did not rise till now (half-past seven), because there was no duck laying."

In another letter written on the same occasion he says:--

"... Tell Davie I expect a letter from him. Say to Walter that yesterday Carlo jumped into the carriage after me and saw with me several patients. He usually mounted a chair at the side of each bed and looked in. But Mrs. S. gave him too much encouragement. He leaped into bed altogether and tramped upon a blister! which was very painful."

It was his custom to keep open house at breakfast and luncheon time; but the evening meal was, as a rule, reserved so that he might see and enjoy his own family and intimates. He lived exceedingly plainly himself; he did not smoke; his drink was water: but he delighted in setting a goodly repast before his guests. He loved a romp with his children, and spared an occasional hour from the afternoon for that enjoyment. The same energy entered into his play that was seen in his work. A craze ran through fashionable circles in the fifties for _tableaux vivants_, and was taken up by the Simpson household. He entered with spirit into the new amus.e.m.e.nt, perhaps more keenly because he saw an opportunity of combining in such representations instruction with amus.e.m.e.nt. Historical personages and scenes were represented, as well as ill.u.s.trations of poetry and fiction. With his infective enthusiasm he pressed poets and painters, grave and gay, into service, and there is a record of one highly successful entertainment at 52, Queen Street, in 1854, to which young and old alike were invited. On this occasion most of the scenes represented serious events in Scots history, but Simpson himself seems to have supplied a little comedy. Sandwiched between a scene of "Flora Macdonald watching Prince Charlie" and one of "Rebecca and Eleazar at the Well" came that of "The Babes in the Wood." Simpson and a professional colleague disported themselves as the Babes, and appeared sucking oranges and dressed as children--short dresses, pinafores, frilled drawers, white socks, and children's shoes. They wandered about a while, and then lay weeping down to die to an accompaniment of roars of laughter and to the great delight of the juveniles. It is but a small incident to chronicle, but it shows in his home life the great physician who was beloved by thousands. His deep sympathies made him delight in the society of children. As years increased, and with them work became overwhelming and worries and troubles persistent, he appreciated more and more the refreshment of a frolic with his children. He echoed Longfellow's pure words:--

"Come to me, oh ye children, For I hear you at your play, And the questions that perplexed me Have vanished quite away.