ANZT


AD4-
sea  W


PAPERS OF THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF DELAWARE.



                XIX
Delaware  Doctors.
Wr   >
"^iT*.
^
Tk:
BY
THOS. C. STELLWAGEN.^MA., M.D., D.D.S.,



—-n. ._^ PROFESSOR OF PHYSIOLOGY, PHILADELPHIA DENTAL (pOLLBGE.




      V
.,i0,
Read before the Historical Society of Delaware, February, 1896.
THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF DELAWARE,


          WILMINGTON1.


            1S97.
•'& r0H,>";
^ 
WZ 140 AD4 S8d 1897




56510480R
NLM  052=11056  M    F^'^-
NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE
 
%>
' a ,—.  X T J*.—, a \_    J* A--- x
 
t 
PAPERS OF THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF DELAWARE.
XIX.
Delaware  Doctors.
              BY

THOS. C.J^IELLWAGEN, M.A., M.D., D.D.S.,
   PROFESSOR OF PHYSIOLOGY, PHILADELPHIA DENTAL COLLEGE.
Read before the Historical Society of Delaware, February, 1896.
THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF DELAWARE,
          WILMINGTON.
I897. 
Wz.
 140
 i\d4-

 1637
Press of J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia. 
DELAWARE  DOCTORS.
  As a nursery and training-school for great men, it is evi-
dent to even a casual observer that the climate, the food, the
surroundings of Delaware, must be particularly well adapted
by nature for producing the  highest intellectual and moral
attainments.   Singularly enough, the shape of your State
on the map bears such a resemblance to the old-fashioned
cradle that to one who is not attracted as much by glitter
as by  human  grit, it is no small matter of surprise  that it
has not been called the " cradle" rather than the " diamond"
State.  The political, industrial, and moral influence of your
men and women has been beyond all proportion to the size
of your State.
   It seems useless to remind this learned body that insular
and peninsular people have, in the  past, played a mighty
part in the government  of  the world.  Ancient Babylon,
Assyria, Egypt, and Palestine were  countries traversed by
mighty rivers and pierced  by gulfs or seas.  To these
doubtless they were  greatly indebted  for the commerce
which broadened their views and made their kingdoms and
empires the residence, and their rulers the protectors of the
more  intelligent  and  enlightened  of mankind.  Grecian,
Roman,  Mohammedan,  Spanish,   Portuguese,  French,
Dutch, and English, people  largely peninsular, have, each
                                               3 
4
DELAWARE DOCTORS.
 in their turn, swayed the sceptre of greatest power at some
 time during their existence.
   Delaware may be compared with Greece as to the climate
 and general conditions of the peninsula of which she forms
 a part.   Surrounded on three sides by great political neigh-
 bors, with the fourth open  to the sea and bay, she, like
 Greece, has maintained a position  always independent, and
 often controlling;  like Greece, when compared with her
 neighbors, she is famous; like Greece, she is fertile, agri-
 culturally and mentally.   Many are the names of her sons
 and daughters that are written in brilliant tints upon the
 roll of fame.
  Fortunately, it fell to my lot to look up that portion of
 her history which relates to the medical profession of your
 State.  The richness of what, at first,  appeared to be a field
 of limited possibilities, soon made  the work a delight.  The
 noble deeds, the scientific  attainments,  and the intelligent
 pursuit by her devotees in the healing art were unfolded
 before my eyes. The  pleasure of rendering homage  to
 Delaware's most modest  worthies repaid, many fold, the
 labor and the time demanded by the research.
  Soon perturbation  disturbed the serenity of the work,
 from fear that my weak efforts would not be  sufficient for
 the occasion.  Then came a consciousness that made  it
 seem to  be a duty to the  silent dead whose  very delicate
 humility  during  life  had much concealed  their true merits.
 Finally, the hope arose that by the  sounding of the call
 some slumbering  giant might be awakened  to fittingly
 recount the grand lessons of scientific charity and humani-
tarian love that your State's history unfolded. 
DELAWARE DOCTORS.
5
   The  intelligence of a community and the  accomplish-
 ments and  culture of its  professional  men  may be fairly
 estimated by the  differentiation of the occupations of the
 individuals  that compose it.  Although great  wealth  does
 not, per se, always indicate the  grade of mental enlighten-
 ment of the body politic, still  thrift, capability,  responsi-
 bility, prosperity, and financial solidity are invariable attri-
 butes of a  State  wherein  the community of  the learned
 professions is supported with sufficient  liberality of emolu-
 ment to encourage men of notable ability to cast  their lot
 there and become citizens.
   The  Colony of Delaware was very  early the  home of
 distinguished disciples of ^Esculapius.   Her record shows
 that in  1654 she had Dr. Tyman  Stidham as a settler, one
 hundred and twenty-two years before his adopted country
 issued the Declaration of Independence.
   For twenty years this good man labored  in his chosen
 field with  marked success, for the annals  of the Colonial
 government  show that at  his death  he was possessed of
 considerable estate.  His  family, together with their  de-
 scendants, whose names grace the archives  of the settle-
 ments,  were people of  note and  of great  respectability.
 Many of the latter are still found within the vicinity of New-
 castle and Wilmington.
   To J. Thomas Scharf, A.M., the compiler, and Dr. Lewis
 P. Bush, the  author of the work devoted to the history of
the medical  fraternity of Delaware, it is a pleasure to ac-
knowledge obligation.  The accuracy of the biographical
sketches has  been verified in many cases by  the testimony
of Delawareans, by correspondence with George M. Stern- 
6
DELAWARE DOCTORS.
berg, Surgeon-General of the United States Army, and by
others  in positions  that  entitle  them  to  be authority of
greatest merit.
  Dr. Henry Fisher, who came from Ireland in 1725, was a
well-educated  physician.  He was the father of  several
children, among whom a son, Henry, became noted for his
patriotic devotion to the cause  of  the Revolution.   His
efforts materially supported his struggling country, and the
success  of the war, in your section, was in no small degree
assisted by and due to his personal service  in supplying for
the patriot army vessels for river defence and pilotage.  He
was the progenitor of an influential  family of your State,
which, by fortitude and patriotic example, combined with
personal thrift, trustworthiness, and  satisfactory discharge
of responsible duties, together with charity to their fellow-
men, have won respect and success.
  Frequently  has Delaware honored herself  by selecting
her most trusted statesmen from this  body of her specially
educated men.  Of the numerous examples that  may be
quoted as evidence of the appreciation  by  your country of
this profession's eminent scholars, we cannot omit the names
of the first President of the State, Dr. John McKinley; Dr.
Joshua  Clayton,  its  last President, and Governor  for two
terms, who closed his earthly career so full of honors while
serving  as a United States Senator.  In its  Legislature, Dr.
Henry Latimer likewise attained  distinction that gained for
him the envied position  of a seat in the United States
Senate,  where Dr. James Sykes also served our country for
fifteen years, and was finally elected  Governor.  Dr. W. T.
Burton,  Governor; Dr. Saulsbury, Speaker of the United 
DELAWARE DOCTORS.
7
States Senate, and Governor; and in the State and United
States Senate, Dr. Arnold Naudain  was another whose en-
trance into public life was originally through the doors of a
medical college.  In your own city there have been chosen
as chief magistrates men renowned for their skill, as Drs.
James  H. Hayward, J. P. Wales, Evan G.  Shortlidge, and
Charles R. Jeffries.
  The history  of your  State shows that it was the third
to recognize the importance of and to establish a State
Medical Society.  This was  inaugurated by twenty-eight
physicians as early as 1789.  Later acts of the legislature
empowered this Society to  form a Board  of Medical Ex-
aminers, with authority to  regulate the practice  of their
profession, and without whose  endorsement parties prac-
tising  medicine were liable to  penalties and fines.  Now
we find in the various  States laws  based  upon those en-
trusted  to this initial  society.   The  first  President was
Dr.  James  Tilton, of whom  we shall  have occasion  to  J
speak as  one of  the most important factors in the war  of
the Revolution.
   The  study of the diseases peculiar  to your locality was
very materially advanced by the labors of  the  members of
this Society, notably Drs. Snow, Barratt,  Capelle, Tilton,
Wilson, David Bush, and  Edward  Miller.  The  last con-
tributed largely to the treatment  and successful combating
of  intermittent and yellow fever by  means of  the  then
novel remedy, Peruvian bark, the  alkaloid of which, qui-
nine, is to-day one of the most universal  and  generally
trusted remedies of the Pharmacopoeia.  His correspond-
ence abroad was presumably in his day the most volumi- 
8
DELAWARE DOCTORS.
nous, and his reputation the most world wide of any one of
his profession in this country, except, probably, Professor
Benjamin Rush, a distinguished Philadelphian and  signer
of the Declaration of Independence, who paid the greatest
tribute to Dr. Miller, saying that  he was "second to no
physician in the United States."  The first medical journal
of this country was founded  by Dr. Miller, in New York,
where he was appointed to the important position of  Port
Physician, Professor of Practice of Physic in the University
of that city, and attending physician to its Hospital.  As a
member  of  the  Philosophical Society of Philadelphia he
was well  known.  He was among  the first  to  advise the
drinking of water in fevers, which  probably has alleviated
the sufferings of mankind in  this direction more than  any
other one remedy.  He likewise was an ardent advocate of
vaccination,  together with  Dr. Samuel  Henry Black, of
your State, Dr. J. Redman Coxe, of Philadelphia, and  Pro-
fessor William  Handy, of Baltimore.  The last two were
so enthusiastic in their advocacy of this practice, that  they
each  exposed a son to the  dreaded  disease to convince
their  contemporaries  of the  almost  absolute  immunity
gained by the use of this virus.  Dr. John Vaughan, a son
of a physician, and a member of a number of famous scien-
tific bodies,  lectured upon chemistry and natural philos-
ophy  in your city as early as  1790.
  In  literature, as might be  expected from  such a body,
eminence was early attained by your physicians.  Several of
these, among whom might be mentioned Dr. Robert R. Por-
ter  and  Dr. Samuel  H. Black, possessed  private  libraries
which were proudly pointed to by their fellows as examples 
                 DELAWARE DOCTORS.               9

of choice selections, and also among the largest private book
collections in your State.
  Dr. P. Brynberg Porter, who was born here, was formerly
the editor of Gaillard's Medical Journal, and now is the New
York correspondent of the  Medical News, of Philadelphia,
the Journal of the American Medical  Association, and  the
Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, etc., etc.  Dr. Robert
Montgomery Bird, born in Newcastle, in 1805, was an asso-
ciate editor and publisher of The North American and United
States Gazette, of Philadelphia.   He was likewise Professor
of  Materia  Medica in the Pennsylvania Medical  College
from 1841 to 1843.  As the author of " Nick of the Woods,"
and many novels, and  the  dramatizer  of the " Gladiator,"
" Metamora," and other plays, he is well known throughout
this country.  Dr. Lewis Potter  Bush, of Wilmington, was
likewise a prolific author, and his papers upon the history of
medicine in  your State have made him a name throughout
the profession in this country.  In recognition of his labors,
in 1886 he was elected President of the American Academy
of Medicine.
  Of the famous medical men of your State, many living
to-day, I dare not attempt mention, except of those who in
my own city are so widely known that it seems  a work of
supererogation to speak, and yet it would be an injustice and
a positive neglect of my duty if I failed  to mention  Dr.
James P. Lofland, associate of Dr. Franklin Bache, Professor
of Chemistry in the Jefferson Medical College; Theophilus
Parvin, M.D.,the  honored and world-wide known Professor
of Obstetrics, author of numerous treatises, who  to-day is
loved and  admired by all who  know him.  Professor  W.
                           *
\ 
10
DELAWARE DOCTORS.
James Hearn, M.D., who stands second to none in our great
cities for his ability, honesty, and absolute trustworthiness,
fills the chair of Clinical Surgery in the same college.  Dr.
E. O. Shakespeare,  the histologist and bacteriologist, Dr.
Louis Starr, the author of works on the diseases of children,
and the late Professor T. L. Buckingham, M.D., D.D.S., one
of the founders of two dental colleges in Philadelphia.  Mar-
tin W.  Barr, M.D., the head of that  noble and intellectual
charity, the Pennsylvania Training-School for Feeble-Minded
Children, which has been a blessing  to those afflicted with
that  most sad of all ailments, imbecility.
  Dr. W. G. A. Bonwill, born in your State, holds the credit
of the practical adaptation of electrical force to  automatic
mallets, which probably were the forerunner of the  modern
wonders of electrical trip-hammers and machines for  rock
drilling and tunnelling, to which the modern railroad owes
an imperishable debt.   Like Dr. Physick, who invented the
surgical needle, with  its eye at  the  point, without which
sewing-machines would probably have been  long  delayed
in their arrival at their present state of perfection, this man
was the progenitor of many modern inventions.  H. C. Reg-
ister, M.D., was also  the inventor and improver of  many
delicate appliances for dental and surgical engines.
  The late Professor James E.  Garretson was born in  your
city  in  1828,  where he passed his  boyhood.   Moving  to
Philadelphia, he pursued a course in dentistry,  and  grad-
uated when twenty-nine.  Two years later he passed suc-
cessfully the examination for the degree of Doctor of Med-
icine in the University of Pennsylvania.   From early life  he
had  been  an  earnest  student, with a  strong   inclination 
DELAWARE DOCTORS.               II
towards surgery, in which he became deeply interested, and
in 1861  his  association with Dr. D. Hayes Agnew in the
Philadelphia  School of Anatomy ripened his attainments,
so that he gradually created the new specialty known as
oral surgery.   In this department he was the accepted au-
thority in this country and throughout the English speaking
world.   His  operations were of the most bold and terrible
character, and yet  singularly free from fatal endings.  As
the inventor  of procedures for  the removal of bone and
tumors about the head and  face, without leaving deforming
scars, he was eminently successful.  He filled, at various
times, chairs  in the Philadelphia Dental College and  Phila-
delphia School of Anatomy, of which former institution he
had been dean for many years.  In the school of the philos-
ophers he had excited considerable comment by a series  of
lectures  for several winters in succession.  Young men and
women,  mostly students of the colleges with which he was
connected, flocked  to his Tuesday night discourses, wherein
his avowed object was the seeking  for the deeper truths  of
life.  He was prominent as one of  the practical founders  of
the Medico-Chirurgical Hospital and the Medico-Chirurgical
College, in both of which institutions he served as the pres-
ident. Their success under his administration soon became
phenomenal.
   Ceaseless  as was his activity, he also gained fame as a
literary  man.   His  philosophical writings,  designed   to
teach self-control  and restraint as means  to  the highest
end,  were  published in a series of  volumes under the nom
de plume  of John Darby.  In addition to this  herculean
task, he wrote the "System  of Oral Surgery," which  is 
12
DELAWARE DOCTORS.
considered the crowning work of his life, the  present being
the seventh edition.  Through its  agency, as I have been
informed  by a gentleman lately returned from  abroad, he
is probably as well known  in Edinburgh as in  Baltimore.
As a humanitarian and philosopher he was  probably less
widely known than as a surgeon.   His love  for humanity
and  his desire to aid it were such  that he realized within
himself the ideal of human  brotherhood.  None  were so
poor or so sinful that they might fear to claim from  him a
brother's  loving sympathy and help.   Few but  those who
enjoyed  his charity have any conception of its  breadth.
Firm in his belief in a divinity, he endeavored  to implant
high conception of the wonders of the All-knowing  God,
and  yet,  inasmuch  as there  were those who  could not
encompass his  broad  outlook, they questioned what his
belief really was.   Probably but few modern  thinkers have
so completely harmonized the various  tenets and creeds of
the Christian church as  did he.  His  social life  was the
embodiment of virtue  and  earthly satisfaction.  No words
can adequately express the  refinement and  depth of his
devotion to duty, love, and purity.   Frugality, caution, and
far-seeing preparation  for  the rainy day made  him inde-
pendent of that world which  he  never  failed  to  assist, and
it  may be said of him, in his pursuit of pleasure as a phi-
losopher, he rarely allowed  it to divert his attention  from
earthly  work  to  the  disadvantage of provision  for his
family.  When the  temptation to give  up the world in the
physical sense for the metaphysical is considered, his  life is
an exhibition of the most remarkable and refined unselfish-
ness.  I quote the following opinion from a religious jour- 
                          DELAWARE DOCTORS.               13

          nal: " The finer side, the real man was little known, even to
          many  who  were in daily contact with him.  While Dr.
          Garretson was prominent as a surgeon, a  teacher, a writer,
          and a  deep thinker, and a truly religious man, with  qual-
          ities of mind and heart, the crowning one was his abound-
          ing love for humanity.
           " To know the inner man was to have seen him at the bed-
          side of the  sick, the poor, the sorrowful, and the sinning.
          There  he seemed God-inspired  to try and save,  and his
          tenderness and sympathy were Christ-like.
           " Through forty years  of arduous professional  work  he
          was never too busy to respond to appeals for help, and they
          were multitudinous."
           Distinctions as to charity and self-denial are so numerous
          and so patent throughout  the medical profession that we
          have come  to look  upon them  as natural and necessary
          qualifications of  the physician.  Your State's history is cov-
          ered with glory in this  direction.  Dr. Nicholas Way,  in
          1793, welcomed  to his private house in your city those who
          fled  in  terror from  Philadelphia, and were dreaded by  your
          townspeople lest they should bring  with  them that awful
          disease, the  yellow fever, which was hurrying hundreds to
         their last resting-places.  His example of unbounded hos-
v        pitality and fearless love  caused his fellow-citizens to soon
         throw open their houses as refuges for the fugitives.  How
         strange is fate!  In  the  great epidemic of 1797, Dr. Way
         died in Philadelphia,  a shining  mark, whose death was un-
         doubtedly caused by  his personal and  unflinching, steadfast
         devotion  to  those  to whom he ministered.   In  1802, Dr.
         John Vaughan was the only physician in  Wilmington  to
\ 
14
DELAWARE DOCTORS.
fight this fever.  Dr. William Draper Brinckle, likewise, in
the cholera epidemic  of 1832, distinguished himself so
markedly at the Buttonwood  Street Hospital, Philadelphia,
that some of his many admirers had the Commissioner of
Spring  Garden  present  him  with a  magnificent  silver
vase.
  Patriotism, by no  means confined to any class or pro-
fession in our great country, has, however, flourished  and
been nurtured in hearts and families of doctors  throughout
the world.
  Probably few, if any,  have more truly  deserved  public
recognition of their great works  than Dr. James Tilton,
before referred to as the first President of the State Medical
Society of  Delaware, who graduated in  1771, at Philadel-
phia.   His eminence as  a physician was,  if possible, ex-
celled by his  devotion as a patriot.  Entering the Revolu-
tionary War as a  lieutenant, he served with distinction, as
also in his professional capacity as an  army surgeon with
Washington at Long Island, White Plains, and the retreat
to the Delaware.   At Princeton he found the army in a sad
plight.  Its efficiency was almost paralyzed by  the enor-
mous number of men sick in  the hospital, and the cause of
American freedom was languishing and seemingly about to
be  completely extinguished  by the prevalence of typhus
fever.  To Surgeon Tilton fell the  task of preparing  for
these sick  ones, who, by reason of their  poor food, con-
fined  quarters, and the  general depression of spirits, were
being carried  off more  rapidly by disease  than by bullets
of  the  enemy.   As  surgeon  in  charge  he  quickly  re-
modelled the entire hospital  service, breaking up the large 
                 DELAWARE DOCTORS.               15

hospitals, and dividing the sick into parties of six in a hut;
each hut thoroughly ventilated and purified by the nascent
creosote from the fires which were placed  in  the middle of
the clay floors.
  Probably without this device at that time Washington
would have been defeated;  and we know only too well to
what  great  straits the country had been reduced, and be-
lieve that there would have been no hope of success if this
scourge had not been arrested.  It is but fair to claim that /
American independence would  very likely  have  suffered
either  total extinction or a long delay, had it not been for
this son of  Delaware.  At the close of the war, when the
number of army medical officers was being reduced, Wash-
ington personally advised the retention of Surgeon Tilton.
After the final surrender of the  British  at  Yorktown, in
1782, he returned to practice in his State, from which he
was sent to  Congress, and after holding several positions of
public trust he was appointed the first Surgeon-General of
the United States Army, doubtless in recognition of his in-
calculable service at Princeton.  Although a  great sufferer,
he energetically inaugurated and  carried out  many reforms
in the Army Medical  Corps.  After an amputation of the
thigh when nearly seventy years old, he lived some seven
years more, to enjoy the  honors and  love  of his fellow
countrymen, who delighted  to  pay him respect.  His  col-
leagues of the  Delaware State Medical Society erected a
monument over his remains, as an  humble  tribute to  his
works  and his eminent services, both to the profession  and
to his country.   It seems probable that  his success  was
very early  provided  for by his  study on the subject of 
i6
DELAWARE DOCTORS.
respiration, which he wrote upon in his examination for the
degree of B. M.
   Delaware inscribed on  her  roll of honor the names of
many who were heroes of the  wars of the Revolution and
of 1812.  Dr. Jacob Jones, known to every  school-boy as
Commodore  Jones, commanded  the  U.  S.  S. " Wasp" in
that ever-memorable battle which terminated within forty-
three minutes  in  the  capture of H. B. M. S. " Frolic."
When the hearts of the  soldiers of  our struggling little
republic were sickened and saddened by repeated defeats,
this, with a series of other glorious naval victories, revived
the hopes and  renewed and redoubled the  efforts of our
patriots, both afloat and ashore.  To  this  may be added, at
a  second  fortunate  juncture, such a victory by our  fleets
that it  may be said to have  virtually closed the war of
1812.  From the very jaws of defeat and death the battle
of Lake Champlain may be  said to have  snatched  the
oriflamme of victory, and thus  led  the  way to  the final
overthrow of all attempts  and  long-cherished hopes of  the
Mother Country to regain  by force of arms her sovereignty
in our land.
   Commodore  Thomas Macdonough was  the  son  of a
physician who,  in his youth, was one of the  stanch Revo-
lutionary patriots who served his country in the army as a
volunteer.  Like many others of his day,  it appears that he
left but little for his son save an honorable name  and that
love of his country which made him the winner of that
country's  most  profound  admiration, which was publicly
attested by well-deserved  votes of thanks of State Legis-
latures and the  United States Congress. 
                 DELAWARE DOCTORS.               \J

   This gallant officer, as you  well  know, has never been
 duly appreciated by the majority of those who have written
 the histories of our country.  As Delawareans, I trust you
 will pardon me for dwelling for a few moments  upon the
 importance of this victory against  a combined invading
 English army and fleet near Plattsburgh, and off Cumber-
 land Head on Lake Champlain.  All who have read United
 States history know that he met twelve thousand men of
 the English army, under Sir George  Provost, and seventeen
 vessels carrying ninety-five guns and about one thousand
 men under Commodore Downie, of the English navy.  Our
 hero  conquered with a  force of only eight  hundred and
 twenty men, with eighty-six guns  and fourteen vessels,
 some of the latter having  been constructed and launched
 within forty days of the felling  of the timber of which they
 were built.
   To Macdonough, his  officers and  men, was due the suc-
 cessful building and equipment of this fleet.   To them be-
 longs the  glory of having completely defeated a well-disci-
 plined and carefully organized force in what was pronounced
 by all judges to be the only scientific battle between a fleet
 of the United  States and of Great Britain.  To the energy,
 courage, and training that accomplished the manoeuvres that
 decided the victory, our whole  country is everlastingly in-
 debted.   It was an almost providential repulse and total
 overthrow of an enemy and capture of a  fleet of invasion
which were designed  to  seize and hold a  line of military
posts extending along the chain of Lakes  and the Hudson
 River.   Had the British succeeded in this  project, they
would have severed from the United  States the eastern sec- 
18
DELAWARE DOCTORS.
tion of this country.   Probably they would have destroyed
our independence, or at least effected the subjugation or
alienation of New England.   In parts of the Eastern States,
at least, it  is a question as to whether the  war was not
already sufficiently unpopular for this blow, if completed, to
have compelled the patriots of this section to succumb to
dark fate,—a condition which would at the very best have so
seriously crippled our infant Republic as to  have made a
mighty change, the result of which, happily,  we are saved
from even  speculating upon.  This, therefore, was  one of
the greatest  and most  momentous turning-points in the
world's history, and  its success was due to the victorious
leadership of a son of a Delaware doctor.
  The  hour grows late, and  yet the task before me is far
from finished; many are the names omitted of those richly
deserving, whose lives  have merited  immortal blessings.
Such, however, in the calm enjoyment  of their heavenly
recompenses, have passed  beyond the border where the
tongue of earthly praise can afford them a moment's thought.
Lifted to the highest moral, intellectual, and heavenly joys,
associated with the spirits of the good of all ages, their lives
are fully occupied in  pressing forward with that innumerable
host of angels whose joys can never cease, grow dim, sleep,
flag, or waver.
  As you  see, my task was confined  to members  of one
profession of your State.  Imagine, if we can,  what it would
be if one had the time and the  ability to justly portray the
merits, virtues, and  deeds  of the  rest of this truly  great
people.   Surely no one born or living in Delaware can lack
for examples upon which to model his life for the  accom- 
DELAWARE DOCTORS.
19
plishment of greatness.  Three times have you seen in this
very limited field the destiny of the whole nation balanced
upon the scalpel and the swords of three of Delaware's born
and reared sons,—once  in the Camp Hospitals, once upon
the high seas, and once upon the historic lake.  How pleas-
ant  it  would be, did time permit, to spend a portion in
reminiscence of another whose character was as true and
pure as his valor was unquestioned.
   But  I must stop myself, for the subject is as fascinating as
my powers are mediocre, and I fear that while the theme
could never weary you,  the narrator has. 
 
 
 
   PRESSBOARD   •«
■ PAMPHLET BINDER ,
!        ^-        ■<#•
   Mmnmfaatamdbv   J .
 «AYlOW>MOS. !.*.»
,   'Syr.c..., KT.    !
   Sto«Uo», C«M.
 
WZ 140 AD4 S8d 1897
56510480R
NLn  055^056  M
     NATIONAL LIBRARY Of MEOICINE

m

.■■'•i:iv.v,:,
NLM052990584