The doctor was remarkably fond of music, and no mean performer himself upon the clarionet. Being at meeting for the first time since the arrival of Rich on the Sabbath when Deacon Starkweather made his exit, he was mightily tickled with the whole proceedings; said the deacon ought to have his head shaved, and a blister drawn on it, and was consequently inclined to feel more kindly disposed towards Rich. While his prejudices were thus somewhat weakened, he was introduced to the latter by Perk, and was so much charmed with the modest appearance, intelligence, and address of Rich, that he received him with all the cordiality of a parent.
"This young gentleman, Mr. Perkins," said the doctor to Perk the next morning, "is a very different person from the great majority of those who profess to study medicine, having some respect for age and experience, and as amendable to counsel as he is intelligent and refined in his manners."
The doctor was not dependent upon his practice for a living, having inherited an ample property from his grandfather. His library was large, consisting of all the medical works then esteemed, and a complete set of the instruments then used in this country. It is safe to say that the doctor consulted the length of his purse in the choice of books, rather than his mental needs, as Rich, after looking over, found a great portion of them with the leaves still uncut, although they had been ten, and some of them twenty, years in the doctor's possession.
Most physicians at that period were provided with more or less bones for the study of anatomy, generally of the limbs, as they were most liable to be broken or dislocated: very few went beyond this. Dr. Ryan, however, had not even all these—only the bones of the lower extremities; but the deficiency was in some manner supplied by plates contained in the anatomical works in his library; indeed, he felt very little interest in surgery, dreading nothing so much as being called to set a bone, amputate a limb, or reduce a dislocation, and frequently advised his patients to send for Dr. Slaughter, who excelled as a surgeon.
In the course of his long practice, he had rendered many cripples for life by sheer carelessness in bandaging limbs that had been properly set, and once made a blunder that would have proved fatal to one less beloved.
He was called to a man who had recently moved into the place, who was afflicted with a tumor in his ham; the doctor, after examining, shoved his lancet into it. To his terror and astonishment, the blood spurted in his face; he had cut an artery! The new lights represented that he was so frightened the patient bled to death while he sent for his instruments. It was not so; yet not much better. The doctor clapped his thumb on the artery, and instructed the family to arrest the blood, in the meanwhile sent for his instruments and took up the artery; but the coats of the artery, where he applied the ligature, being diseased, sloughed in the night; and in a short time the ligature came away, and the man bled to death.
It was an old false aneurism, in which so many concentric layers of coagulum had accumulated that no pulsation could be perceived. Had the doctor inquired into the history of it, he would have found that it had pulsated in the past; but neglecting to do this, and unable to perceive the throb of the artery, he mistook it for an abscess. Notwithstanding his lack of surgical skill, he was versed in the properties and operation of medicines, a close observer, could detect the nature of disease, and had acquired a great amount of experimental knowledge.
He made an agreement with Rich to superintend his studies, permit him the use of his library, with opportunities to visit patients, for thirty dollars a year.
It was now that Rich began to realize the deep-seated affection cherished for him by his scholars. There were many young men, the sons of farmers, from nineteen to twenty-one, who attended the academy in the winter term; in March they came together, and cut up the whole year's stock of wood for Mrs. Clemens, and put it under cover, thus relieving Rich, and affording him time for study. Dan Clemens and his mates also performed their part in smaller matters, so that Rich had really no more to do than sufficed for exercise.