Deep-furrow'd wrinkles, frosting age,
And Death's unconquerable rage,
Are strangers to delay."
Francis.
We have already observed that Abernethy had begun to feel the wear and tear of an anxious and active life, when, after a tenure of office for twenty-eight years as assistant, he was appointed surgeon to St. Bartholomew's Hospital. After a few years, he took a house at Enfield, where he occasionally went at leisure hours, on Wednesday and Saturday; and, as the Spring Course of Lectures came near to a conclusion, and in the summer, sometimes on other afternoons. At this season, he had been accustomed to doff the black knee-breeches, silk stockings, and shoes, sometimes with, sometimes without, short gaiters, and refresh one's rural recollections with drab kerseymeres and top-boots; in which costume he would at that season not unfrequently come down to lecture. He was fond of riding, and had a favourite mare he called Jenny; and many a time have we seen her jogging along on a fine summer afternoon, and her master looking as happy as any schoolboy that he was escaping from the botherations of Bedford Row and the smoke of London. Jenny was a favourite mare, which Abernethy had for nearly twenty-five years. She was a great pet, and her excellent qualities had been associated with almost every little excursion of relaxation or pleasure. All things, however, must have an end. At last, the poor animal became affected with a kind of rheumatism, attended with much suffering. After various hesitations, the pain of which those who are fond of animals can very well understand, the order was given that she should be destroyed. This took place in the stables behind Bedford Row. The family were all in one apartment, except Mr. Abernethy, who was heard pacing up and down his private room. A short pause, and the coachman is seen running from the stable to say that Jenny was no more. One of his daughters ran to Mr. Abernethy's room to say, "it is all over, papa." "Good girl," said he, patting her head, "to come and tell me so soon." He is said to have suffered greatly on this occasion.
Some years before this, he met with what might have been a serious accident: in stooping forward, his horse threw up his head and struck him a violent blow on the forehead and nose; as Mr. Abernethy first thought, breaking the bones of the latter. He rode up a gateway, and, having dismounted, was endeavouring to adjust the bruise and staunch the blood, when some people ran to assist him, and, as he said, very kindly asked him if they should fetch him a doctor; "but," said Abernethy, "I told them I thought they had better fetch me a hackney coach," which they accordingly did. He was conveyed home, and in a short time recovered from the accident.
His taking the house at Enfield was probably a prudent measure; he seemed to enjoy it very much, and especially in getting a quiet friend or two down on a Saturday to stay over till the Monday; amongst whom, a very favourite visitor was our respected friend Mr. Clift, of whom we have already spoken. Abernethy had always, however, had what he used aptly enough to term a fidgetty nervous system. From early life he had been annoyed by a particularly irritable heart. The first time he ever suffered materially from it was while he was yet a young man. He had been exceedingly depressed by the death of a patient in whose case he had been much interested, and his heart became alarmingly violent and disordered in its action. He could not sleep at night, and sometimes in the day it would beat so violently as to shake his waistcoat. He was afterwards subject to fugitive returns of this complaint, and few, unless by experience, know how distressing such attacks are.
We suspect that surgeons are more frequently thus affected than is generally supposed. A cold, half-brutal indifference is one thing, but a calm and humane self-possession in many of our duties is another, and, as we saw in Cheselden, not obtained always without some cost; the effects of this sometimes appear only when the causes have ceased to recur, or are forgotten. A lively sensibility to impressions was natural to Abernethy; but this susceptibility had been increased by the well-known influence of the air and excitement of crowded cities on people who are engaged in much mental exertion. His physical organization, easily susceptible of disturbance, did not always shake it off again very readily. At one period he suffered an unusually long time from the consequences of a wound in dissection.
These not uncommon accidents occur perhaps a hundred or a thousand times without being followed by any material results; but, if they happen in disordered conditions of health, either of mind or body, they are sometimes serious affairs, and usually of a more or less active kind—that is, soon terminating in death or recovery. Not so in Abernethy. The complaint went through various phases, so that it was nearly three years, he used to tell us, before he fairly and finally got rid of the effects of it. One of the most difficult things for a man so actively engaged in a profession in London as was Abernethy, is to get the requisite quantity of exercise; whilst the great mental exertion which characterizes a London, as distinguished from almost any other kind of life, requires that the digestive organs should be "up to" pretty good living.
Then, again, Abernethy lived in the days of port wine; when every man had something to say of the sample his hospitality produced of that popular beverage. Abernethy, who was never intemperate, was very hospitable, and always selected the finest port wine he could get, which, as being generally full and powerful, was for him perhaps the least fitted.