Be sure he let him have it well;—his trusty arm was nerved
With hoarded wrongs and righteous hate,—so it slackened not nor swerved,
Until the old curmudgeon got the thrashing he deserved.
The guinea, John, you gave the lad, is charmed forevermore;
It shall fill your home with blessings; it shall add unto your store;
Be light upon your pathway, and sunshine on your floor.
These are the treasures, too, laid up forever in the sky,
Kind words to solace aching hearts, and make wet eyelids dry,
And kindly deeds in silence done with no one standing by.
And when you tell the story, John, to her, your joy and pride—
The miller's bonny daughter, so soon to be your bride—
She shall love you more than ever, and cling closer to your side.
Content and health be in your house! and may you live to see
Full many a little Browdie, John, climb up your sturdy knee;
The mother's hope, the father's stay and comfort long to be.
These are thy crown, O England; thy glory, grace, and might!—
Who work the work of honest hands, from early morn till night,
And worship God by serving man, and doing what is right.
All honor, then, to them! let dukes and duchesses give room!
The men who by the anvil strike, and ply the busy loom;
And scatter plenty through the land, and make the desert bloom.
[SAMUEL D. GROSS]
Dr. Samuel David Gross, the distinguished American surgeon and author, was born near Easton, Pennsylvania, July 8, 1805. He was graduated from the Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, in the class of 1828, and he at once entered upon the active practice of his profession in Philadelphia. In 1833 Dr. Gross accepted a professorship in the Ohio Medical College of Cincinnati, which position he held until 1840, when he became professor of surgery in the University of Louisville. The subsequent sixteen years of Dr. Gross's life were spent upon Kentucky soil. His Report on Kentucky Surgery (Louisville, 1851) contained the first biography of Dr. Ephraim McDowell, the Kentucky surgeon, who performed the first operation for the removal of the ovaries done in the world. That Dr. McDowell had actually accomplished this wonderful feat at Danville, in 1809, was Dr. Gross's contention, and that he was able to prove it beyond all doubt, and place the Danville doctor before the world as the father of ovariotomy, proves the power of his paper. Dr. Gross was the founder of the Louisville Medical Review, but he had conducted it but a short time when he accepted the chair of surgery in the Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia. This position he occupied until about two years prior to his death. Dr. Gross enjoyed an international reputation as a surgeon. Oxford and Cambridge conferred degrees upon him in recognition of his distinguished contributions to medical science. As an original demonstrator he was well known. He was among the first to urge the claims of preventive medicine; and his demonstrations upon rabbits, with a view to throwing additional light on manual strangulation, are familiar to students of medicine and medical history. His works include: Elements of Pathological Anatomy (1839); Foreign Bodies in the Air-Passages (1854); Report on the Causes which Retard the Progress of American Medical Literature (1856); System of Surgery (1859); Manual of Military Surgery (1861), Japanese translation (Tokio, 1874); and his best known work of a literary value, John Hunter and His Pupils (1881). In 1875 he published two lectures, entitled The History of American Medical Literature; and, in the following year, with several other writers, he issued A Century of American Medicine. Dr. Gross was always greatly interested in the history of medicine and surgery. He died at Philadelphia, May 6, 1884.