"As intances in point, let me briefly advert to one or two illustrations. When Dr. Smith entered the profession, everything in the way of continued fever in the valley of the Connecticut was termed typhus. Dr. S. soon became convinced that while true typhus did prevail, there was yet a continued fever essentially different in its character, and so he came to differentiate between typhus and typhoid. Noting carefully the symptoms in these cases, making autopsies whenever a chance occurred, and observing the morbid changes thus revealed, he soon found himself master of the situation. Then he wrote an unpretending little tract, in which he embodied his observations and his inferences. This brochure was undoubtedly the first comprehensive description of typhoid fever written, and covered in a wonderfully exhaustive way not only the clinical history, but the pathology, of this most interesting disease. This noble record of results, obtained by observations made mainly at Norwich, Vermont, and Cornish, New Hampshire, was almost the 'Vox clamantis in deserto.'
"Many years later, in the great hospitals of Paris, Louis made and published his own observations in regard to the same disease, and the whole medical world rang with plaudits of admiration at his genius and learning. But in the modest little tract of Nathan Smith, the gist and germ of all the magnificent discoveries of Louis are anticipated. And thus it is again demonstrated that men of genius are confined to no age and to no country, but whether in the wilds of New Hampshire or in the world's gayest capital, they form a fraternity as cosmopolitan as useful.
"I have recently learned an incident that still further illustrates Dr. Smith's sagacity. While residing in Cornish he had a friend who was a sea-captain, and who, on his return from foreign voyages, was wont to relate to him whatever of interest in a medical way he might have chanced to observe while abroad. On one occasion he told Dr. Smith that on his previous voyage one of the sailors dislocated his hip; there being no surgeon on board, the captain tried but in vain to reduce it. The man was accordingly placed in a hammock with the dislocation unreduced. During a great storm the sufferer was thrown from the hammock to the floor, striking violently on the knee of the affected side. On examination, it was found that in the fall the hip had somehow been set. This greatly interested Dr. Smith, and he questioned the narrator again and again as to the exact position of the thigh, the knee and the leg, at the time of the fall.
"From this apparently insignificant circumstance, Dr. Smith eventually educed and reduced to successful practice the method of reducing dislocations by the manœuvre, a system as useful as it is simple, and as scientific as the principle of flexion and leverage on which it depends. Had this incident been related to a stupid man, he would have seen nothing in it, or to a skeptic, he would have discredited the whole account, but to a man of genius it furnished a clue by which another of Nature's labyrinths was traced out. This system is by far the best ever devised, symplifying and rendering easy the work of the surgeon, while reducing human suffering to its minimum.
"I do not propose to recall to your minds how much he did for Medicine and Surgery; that were the work of days, not a single hour.
"Time would fail me to relate the well authenticated traditions of his skill, his benevolence and his practical greatness. But almost from the inception of his professional life until he left for New Haven, he was the acknowledged leader of his profession in the State, and his reputation came soon to cover the whole of New England. He was the father of several sons, who have since been distinguished in the same profession. The venerable Professor N. R. Smith, of Baltimore, is the eldest, and perhaps the most celebrated, of the survivors."
The venerable Dr. A. T. Lowe adds the following valuable paragraphs:
"In the organization and early history of the Medical department of Dartmouth College Dr. Nathan Smith occupied a preëminent position. For ten or twelve years he was the actual manager and the only professor in the institution, giving three lectures each day, for five days in the week, through the term of ten to twelve weeks. He lectured with great acceptance in all the branches of the profession then taught in the few kindred institutions existing in the country, and he contributed liberally to the pecuniary support of the institution, frequently to his great personal inconvenience. With these accumulated duties to discharge, he faithfully attended to a large practice in Medicine and Surgery, which was daily increasing, and severely tasking his physical as well as his intellectual powers, and his fame, in the line of his profession, soon placed him at its head; and his skill and the history of his remarkable success, so frequently announced, and so well attested, was early recognized and acknowledged, not only throughout his State, but was scarcely limited to New England. By a seeming universal consent Dr. Smith's name stood among the highest in the medical temple of fame.
"Dr. Smith was not what the world would now call a learned man. We may say of him, in this respect, what Ben Jonson said of Shakespeare: 'He knew little Latin and less Greek,' but he had a mind and a power of intellect which as eminently fitted him for a physician, as Shakespeare's genius qualified him to become a dramatist of the highest character; and whatever the occasion, whether it related to the lecturer or teacher, to the surgeon or physician, Dr. Smith could readily exercise his whole moral force for the enlightenment of his pupil, or the health of his patient.
"The writer of these lines became his pupil in 1816; attending him almost daily in his professional visits, to witness his practice and listen to his clinical instruction."