The young man who has just squeezed through a medical college, and come out with his “sheepskin,” who thinks all he then has to do is to put up his sign, and forthwith he will have a crowd of respectable patients, is to be pitied for his verdancy. The great Professor John Eberle “blessed his stars” when, after graduating as “Doctor of Medicine” in the University of Pennsylvania, and making several unsuccessful attempts at practice in Lancaster County, he received the appointment as physician of the “out-door poor” of Philadelphia. After that, his writings, attracting public attention, were mostly contributive to his success and advancement.
Energy and determination are better property than even scholastic lore and a medical diploma, for unless you possess the former, talent and education fall to the earth.
Dr. William P. Dewees, formerly Professor of Obstetrics in the University of Pennsylvania, the celebrated author, physician, and surgeon, practised seventeen years before he obtained a diploma. He was of Swedish descent on his father’s side, and Irish on his mother’s. His father died in very limited circumstances, when William was a boy; hence he received no collegiate education until such time as he could earn means, by his own efforts, to pay for that coveted desideratum. We find him, with an ordinary school education, serving as an apothecary’s clerk, a student of medicine, and at the early age of twenty-one years trying to practise medicine in a country town fourteen miles from Philadelphia. Young Dewees possessed great talent and energy, but his personal appearance was scarcely such, at that early age, as to inspire the stoical country folks with the requisite confidence to speedily intrust him with their precious lives and more cherished coppers!
“He was scarcely of medium stature, florid complexion, brown hair, and was remarkably youthful in his appearance,” says Professor Hodge, M. D.
I have before me an excellent likeness “of the embryo professor,” which admirably corresponds with the description given above; but though “youthful,” yea, bordering on “greenness,” I can read in that frank, intelligent countenance the lines of deep thought, and a soul burning with desire for greater knowledge. The too florid countenance and narrow nostrils are sure indications of a consumptive predisposition. Dr. Dewees died May 30, 1841. He was well read in French and Latin, and also various sciences.
A hard Starting.
Sketch of Western Practice.—The following interesting sketch is from the able pen of Dr. Richmond, of Ohio, now a wealthy and eminent M. D. It was originally contributed, if I mistake not, to the “Scalpel.”
“I set myself down with my household goods in a land of strangers. How I was to procure bread, or what I was to do, were shrouded in the mysterious future. Memory came to my consolation; for, in spite of myself, the ‘Diary of a London Physician,’ read in other days, came, with its racy pictures, flitting before my mind’s eye; and I knew not but I, too, might yet wish myself, my Mary, and my child sleeping in the cold grave, to hide me from the persecution that seemed to follow me with such sleepless vigilance....
“My store of old watches now came into play. A gentleman wishing to sell out his land, I invested all the wealth I possessed in the purchase of a ten-acre lot, shouldered my axe, and by the aid of a brother I soon prepared logs for the mill sufficient to erect me a small dwelling. I never was happier than when preparing the ground and splitting the blocks of sandstone for the foundation of my house. One customer, whose wife I had carried through a lingering fever, furnished me a frame for a dwelling, and I fell in his debt for a pair of boots. Another furnished nails and glass, and in the course of eight months I moved into my new house.
“For two years I fed my cow, and raised my own provender to feed my gallant nag, which shared my toil and its profits. My first two years’ labor barely returned sufficient profit to pay for my home and feed my little family.