Mr. William Dalrymple.
In a brief history of the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital, published by Dr. Copeman, we find the following memoir of the subject of this notice:—
“Mr. Dalrymple was a native of Norwich, his father having removed thither from Scotland. He was born in 1772, and at an early age was sent to the Grammar School at Aylsham, in Norfolk, from whence he was removed to the Free School at Norwich, where he became a favourite pupil of its then head master, the celebrated Dr. Parr. Here he had for a schoolfellow Dr. Maltby, and with both, Dr. Parr kept up a friendly intercourse of visits to the latest period of his life. It affords a strong proof of Mr. Dalrymple’s early talents and his industry in cultivating them, that, although in accordance with the then custom of requiring medical apprenticeship to extend to seven years, he was obliged to leave school at the age of fourteen, he had yet attained such a proficiency in classical reading, and so correct an appreciation of its beauties, that, amidst all the urgent and various occupations and anxieties of his succeeding life, he found the greatest relief to his toils in a recurrence to his favourite authors. His taste was scholarlike as well as scientific; his conversation embued with classical allusion, and his felicity in quotation remarkable. [527]
“Mr. Dalrymple was apprenticed in London, and studied at Guy’s and St. Thomas’ Hospitals under Cline and Sir Astley Cooper. He returned to Norwich in 1793, and opened a surgery in his father’s house; and although for several years his progress in establishing a practice was slow, he at last attained the highest reputation as a surgeon in his native city, and for many years enjoyed the confidence, friendship, and patronage of a very large number of patients of every grade of society and in every district of the county.
“In 1812 Mr. Dalrymple was elected assistant surgeon to the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital, and two years afterwards succeeded to the full surgeoncy, a post which he occupied with great credit to himself and benefit to his profession until 1839, a period of twenty-five years. He was then in the 67th year of his age, his powers were less vigorous, and finding himself no longer equal to his hospital practice, he resigned his position there, receiving a cordial acknowledgment from the governors, of ‘the able, humane, and successful exercise of his official duties,’ and being honoured by a request to accept the appointment of honorary consulting surgeon. In 1844 Mr. Dalrymple finally retired from professional life, and died in London on the 5th of December, 1848, aged 75 years.
“From the year 1831 to 1835, I had ample opportunities, as house surgeon of the hospital, of observing, and profiting by, the mode in which the late Mr. Dalrymple performed his public professional duties in that institution; and remember with pleasure and satisfaction, that I was sometimes able to render assistance, and save trouble, to one so deserving of the gratitude and goodwill of those with whom he had to do. At the period referred to, Mr. Dalrymple was beginning to feel the burden of heavy surgical responsibilities more weighty than his somewhat feeble frame would bear; his naturally acute sensibility was increased by a measure of debility resulting from overmuch professional occupation. The sudden call to perform a serious and difficult operation was accompanied sometimes with a degree of shock to his nerves, which told upon him injuriously; and the desire he had to save the life of the sufferer submitted to his charge (always a predominant feeling in his mind,) would well-nigh overpower him with emotion. I have often heard him say that he was not able to sleep the night before he had to perform the operation of lithotomy, although in such cases his success was great; but he possessed so much sympathy for his patient, and felt his own responsibility so strongly, that he failed to secure to his mind that rest which alone could have enabled him to meet the contingencies of his profession with composure. This nervous sensibility was due in part to original constitution, and increased by professional toil. Sometimes it arises from defective knowledge, or from want of success; but so far from either being the case with Mr. Dalrymple, his knowledge was ample, the result of many years’ industrious application of a mind capable of vast acquirements—sufficient to have given him confidence in the treatment of any case submitted to his care; his success was beyond that of many placed in similar circumstances; such, indeed, as might fairly have been expected from one who had so much sympathy for suffering humanity, and who devoted the whole energy of his mind to devise means to relieve it. For a long period no one but himself, perhaps, was aware of the stress upon his feelings which his professional duties, so well performed, were wont to occasion; and when it did become apparent to others, it was delightful to witness how pleased, how grateful, how kind in expression he was for any attention, encouragement, or assistance offered him; and how highly he estimated the friendship of those who watched an opportunity to perform those little offices of kindness and consideration, which, although difficult to be defined, can always be appreciated by a sensitive mind and a feeling heart.
“The experience of a long and active professional life endued Mr. Dalrymple with the valuable qualification of forming a right judgment in cases of a complex and difficult nature, which was fully appreciated and acknowledged. The firmness and decision of his opinion upon a difficult case, when once formed, could not fail to impress the practitioner by whom he was consulted with confidence, and his patient with the assurance that dependence might be placed upon the result of his deliberations.
“No one who had the privilege of Mr. Dalrymple’s acquaintance can think of him otherwise than as a kind friend, a highly intelligent and well-informed man, an amusing and instructive companion, and a profoundly gifted practitioner of the art and science it was the business and happiness of his life to pursue.”
Mr. John Greene Crosse.
We make the following extracts from a memoir of Mr. Crosse published in Dr. Copeman’s History of the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital.
“John Greene Crosse was the second son of Mr. William Crosse, of Finborough, in Suffolk, and was born on the 6th of September, 1790. In order to make known some particulars of his early life and education, I cannot do better than quote his own journal, which contains many remarks upon the subject evidently intended to have formed part of a history of his life. In April, 1819, he penned the following observations.
“‘I never went to boarding school, which contributed, with many other occurrences of my subsequent life, to fix me in the unsocial habits that hitherto never did and never will forsake me. In my early years, no classical learning, not a line of Latin, was taught at the proximate market town to which I resorted as a daily pupil; and my first lessons of reading, arithmetic, and writing were received from a master of whom I entertained the greatest horror, for the ferocity of his conduct, the severe discipline by which he drove into us the simplest rudimental knowledge. His stern brow, raucous voice, and long cane, are now livelily depicted to my mind: how much I owe to him, I am even now, with a long life in retrospect, unable to tell; but I was glad when circumstances arose that released me from his tutorage.’
“‘Very small matters, and such as we have no control over, and call accidental because unable to trace the chain of causes giving rise to them, influence our mortal destinies. I had attained my 12th (?) year, under such tremendous instruction as is related, when a Welsh gentleman making some mistake at college (not implicating his good character, an informality I should call it) found it well to rusticate; and taking with him his premature wife, sought a living by opening a classical school in Stowmarket. I became one of his early pupils; and but for this good, easy man’s settling in the town, should never have launched into such studies as Latin and Greek; of which, it is true, I did not learn much, nor very accurately. But he was, nevertheless, a plodding, working man; an increasing family made him exert his abilities to the utmost; and I got out of him all the instruction I ever received as a school-boy in the learned languages. When about fifteen years of age, returning from my daily school, in a feat in jumping, I had the accident, I ought not perhaps to say the misfortune, to break my leg. The respectable village surgeon attended me: he was one of the old school; of fine, soft, soothing manners, clean dressed, with powdered head; rode slowly a very well-looking horse; in short, he was a gentleman, and commanded the respect of every one when he entered the house; he was also a skilful and kind surgeon. What wonder that the idea should be awakened in my mind to be of the medical profession! to be as great a man as he—the Village Doctor! to whom every one bowed, and who could relieve pain and cure injuries so quickly and skilfully. I had conceived an object of ambition, and the idea never deserted me. I was in a month upon my crutches, and soon recovered; a surgical case fixed my future destinies.’
“‘I persevered a few years longer at Latin, Greek, French, and Euclid. My father was successful and able now to place me out well; wished me to be a lawyer, and I was for a time under the instruction of a gentleman of that profession—attending bankruptcy meetings, and feasting at midnight at the expense of the already distracted creditors. Those were good times for lawyers. A learned chancellor, whom I met on one such occasion, I well remember complimenting me on my quickness in counting money; but all would not do, my mind was prepossessed—I quitted the law to follow my inclination; I made my own choice; it was a pledge to success. The surgeon who cured my leg agreed to take me as his first and only pupil, and I was accordingly articled in due form for five years.’
“On the 27th of September, 1811, Mr. Crosse went to London for the purpose of studying his profession in that Metropolis, and was the following day introduced to Mr., afterwards Sir Charles Bell, whose pupil he became, with whom he contracted a close intimacy, and of whose merits as a teacher and man of science he always spoke in the highest terms of respect and gratitude. In the following January, he entered to Abernethy’s Lectures; and in April, 1812, became a student at St. George’s Hospital, where his industrious habits and intelligence attracted the particular attention and marked notice of the medical officers of that noble institution. In the following month, he entered as a pupil at the Lock Hospital; and in the course of the year, officiated as House Surgeon during the temporary absence of the gentleman who occupied that situation. In the following winter session, commencing October, 1812, he studied under Brodie, Bell, Brande, Clarke, Home, and others; and remarks in his journal, ‘very industrious all this winter, sitting up constantly till past two a.m.’ In March, 1813, he became a dresser to Sir Everard Home at St. George’s Hospital; attended Midwifery under Dr. Clarke; and on the 16th of April, passed the College of Surgeons in London. After a short holiday, he returned to London on the 13th of May, and attended the Eye Infirmary at Charter-house Square. In June, he resigned his dressership under Sir E. Home; became acquainted with the late Mr. Travers, Abernethy, Sir W. Blizard, and Dr. Macartney, whom he agreed to accompany to Dublin; and much of his spare time during this summer was devoted to the study of German, a language he ever after cultivated that he might enjoy the profundity and research of the professional literature of that country.
“Mr. Crosse left England for Dublin on the 2nd of October, 1813, arriving there the following day. In December he became Demonstrator of Anatomy under Dr. Macartney, and remained there until October, 1814, when he returned to London, having received a very handsome testimonial from the numerous students of the school in which he taught, as to his ability and energy in the capacity of their instructor in anatomy.
“On quitting Dublin, Mr. Crosse returned to Suffolk, and was afterwards introduced to the late Dr. Rigby of Norwich. In December he went to Paris, where he remained until the end of February, 1815, during which period he took French Lessons, wrote his Diary in the French language, and availed himself of every possible opportunity of increasing his professional knowledge.
“On the 29th of March, 1815, Mr. Crosse came to Norwich; and after remaining one year in lodgings, took a house in St. Giles’, in which he resided for many years. He soon after published his “Sketches of the Medical Schools of Paris,” and showed, both by his writings and the industrious pursuit of his professional avocation, that he was destined to arrive at considerable eminence in the locality he had chosen for the arena of his future life. On the 19th of July, 1823, he was the successful candidate for the appointment of Assistant Surgeon to the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital. So great was his desire to become connected with the Hospital, and so strong the competition in which he was engaged to obtain this object, that his health gave way under the exertions he made to succeed; and he was obliged to absent himself for a time, on which occasion he took a trip to Holland, visiting Brighton on his return. The result was favourable, and he returned to Norwich in good health. On the death of Mr. Bond, in 1826, he was elected full Surgeon to the Hospital, and thus attained one of the greatest objects of his ambition.
“The rapid rise and progress of Mr. Crosse’s reputation as a professional man, and the large extent of his private practice, are too well known to require further notice; but notwithstanding the unremitting exertions required to fulfil his private engagements, he never allowed them to interfere with his public duties; and the devotedness of his service to the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital was remarkable. It may be truly said that no private patient received more kindness, skill, and attention at his hands, than did those who were placed under his care in the wards of the Hospital.
“As an operating surgeon, Mr. Crosse had but few superiors, and not many equals. He was possessed of considerable manual tact and dexterity, which, coupled with a sound judgment as to the necessity for the performance of an operation, stamped him as a surgeon of first-rate attainments. In his early professional life he studied anatomy with great assiduity, and his subsequent occupation as Demonstrator of Anatomy at Dublin so impressed the subject upon his memory, that the constitution and form of the human body were always in his mind’s eye; and thus he was rendered equal, at all times and upon all occasions, to the serious emergencies of surgery. In short, he obtained and held for a long period the foremost rank in his profession in this district; and such was the quality of his mind, that he would probably have been pre-eminent in whatever locality it might have fallen to his lot to be placed.
“In 1819, Mr. Crosse published A History of the Variolous Epidemic of Norwich, which has been, and is even now, quoted as an excellent standard work. In 1822 he published Memoirs of the Life of the late Dr. Rigby, prefixed to the valuable Essay which the Doctor had published some years before On Uterine Hæmorrhage.
“In 1835, the Jacksonian Prize was awarded him for his Essay on the Formation, Constituents, and Extraction of the Urinary Calculus; and in the same year he received, in consequence of this Essay, the Diploma of M.D. from the University of Heidelberg.
“From 1822 to the close of his life, Mr. Crosse contributed many valuable Papers to different medical periodicals, which are of deep interest to professional men.
“In 1836, Mr. Crosse was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society—a distinction which marked him for eminence throughout the whole civilized world. In 1845, the College of St. Andrew conferred the Degree of M.D. upon him, and there is scarcely a medical or surgical society in Europe of which he was not a member, as well as being an honorary member of the most eminent societies in Asia and America.
“During the last year of Mr. Crosse’s life (1850), it became painfully evident to his friends that he was gradually losing that vigour of mind and body which had so long characterized him; and at the urgent solicitation of his medical advisers, he was induced to leave home for a few weeks, when he took the opportunity of consulting Sir B. Brodie and Dr. Watson in London, and spent a short time with the late Dr. Mackness at Hastings, of whose kindness he afterwards spoke in the highest terms of gratitude. On his return home, he endeavoured to resume his professional and even his literary avocations; but although in a degree benefited by his holiday, he gradually lost power, and it was clear that his race was almost run.”
He died in his 60th year, having been a resident in Norwich 35 years.
Dr. Hooker.
Norwich and Norfolk have produced an array of distinguished botanists, such as Smith, Turner, Lindley, and the elder Hooker. The president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Dr. Joseph D. Hooker, F.R.S., is the son of Sir William J. Hooker, formerly Director of the Royal Gardens at Kew, and he succeeded his father in that very important post on November 12th, 1865. The present director of Kew sprung from a race of botanists. His paternal grandfather, a citizen of Norwich, devoted his leisure to the cultivation of curious plants. This circumstance, doubtless, helped to create that taste for botany which, in the career of his illustrious father, has borne such ripe fruits. On the maternal side, the grandfather of Dr. Hooker was Mr. Dawson Turner, of Yarmouth. The eldest daughter of this gentleman became the wife of Sir William J. Hooker in 1814. Mr. Turner’s is a well-known name in the annals of British botany; he is the author of various botanical publications, and it was at his suggestion that a narrative of a visit made to Iceland in 1809 by his future son-in-law was given to the world, a work which brought the name of Sir William J. Hooker prominently before the scientific world. So descended Dr. Joseph D. Hooker was born at Halesworth, in Suffolk, on June 30th, 1817. Although thus by birth a native of Suffolk, he is by descent a Norwich man. He has been a great botanical traveller in many parts of the world, and he has added greatly to our knowledge of the plants of Asia and India. On August 19th, 1868, as President of the British Association, when the meeting took place in Norwich, he delivered the Inaugural Address in the Drill Hall before a large audience.