M E M 0 1 R 
OF 
J. FORSYTH MEIGS, M.D. 
[Extracted from the Transactions of the College of Physicians of 
Philadelphia, 3d Series, Vol. VII.] MEMOIR 
OF 
J. FORSYTH MEIGS, M.D. 
Read before the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, 
March 5, 1884. 
BY 
ARTHUR Y. MEIGS, M.D. 
[Extracted from the Transactions, 3d Series, Vol. VII.] 
PHILADELPHIA: 
1884. COLLINS PRINTING HOUSE, 
705 Jayne Street. MEMOIR. 
Only eleven years ago my father, Dr. J. Forayth Meigs, of 
whose life I am to give you a history, read in this same hall 
an account of the life of his father. He opened his sketch 
by telling of the diffidence he felt lest his filial love should 
tempt him to exaggerate his father’s merits, but said further 
that no one else could have known him as he did. I might 
well quote the first page of his essay, for it is I believe as 
applicable this evening as it was eleven years ago, when my 
grandfather was the subject. The life, however, that I am 
to picture was a very different one from that which he 
described. 
My grandfather’s life was full of excitement and bustle, 
stirring incident and romantic event. Born on the beautiful 
and semi-tropical Island of Bermuda, and passing his boy- 
hood in Georgia, a place then upon the confines of civilization, 
he imbibed many romantic ideas, and the untrammelled life 
he led strengthened his naturally robust constitution. 
When less than twenty-one years of age, he came to Phila- 
delphia, having borrowed money to study medicine at its 
famous medical school. Here he made an early marriage 4 
and after living south only a year or two, returned to fight 
his way to success, surmounting all obstacles, although 
entirely unaided by any influence, relying alone upon his 
own strong will, and natural capabilities and assiduity, 
lie did attain the highest possible success then to be reached 
in his profession. A man of influence in the city, a popular 
and highly esteemed teacher in one of the most famous 
medical schools of the day, his name was in every man’s 
mouth, and he long lived an active life, finally to retire, full 
of years and honors, to a place in the country that he dearly 
loved, to enjoy there, in the society of his wife, the rest for 
which he had so long and so arduously labored. 
The life I am to chronicle was very different. Few men 
who attain such enviable distinction as my father, live so 
quietly, and are so thoroughly out of what is commonly called 
the world. In his earlier days he was filled, as are physicians 
of ambition, with the desire to be a teacher, but after my 
mother’s death, which occurred when he was only thirty- 
eight years of age, a time when most men are only begin- 
ning to reach their best success, he withdrew himself from 
almost everything but the mere practice of his profession. 
Even his pleasures were set aside, and he practised medicine; 
first to earn a livelihood for himself and his seven children, 
and second to find distraction ; for his grief at the loss which 
had befallen him was deep, and he never recovered from it. 
Naturally a rather sober-minded man, and disposed to look 
at life from the most serious side, his great loss, which came 
to him in middle life, made him still more so. As time, 
however, went by, he found more and more, that what he 
at first sought as a distraction, and because he considered it 
his duty, began to give him pleasure, and almost the only 5 
pleasure life at that melancholy time offered. He took the 
greatest interest in the welfare of his patients, and always 
gave his best skill and most patient care in every way 
to advance their interests, and thus tend to gain his end— 
their cure. lie always said a physician should be much 
more than a mere writer of prescriptions. lie was a family 
practitioner in its noblest and highest sense. His first con- 
sideration was always his patient, and after that and far off, 
came the desire for the other things men strive for—wealth, 
ease, social position, the esteem of his fellow-men, and that 
most seductive of all the ends of ambition—fame. Whatever 
of the latter he attained, was simply the necessary sequence of 
his conscientious striving after the former, llis book was 
successful and much read, because men came slowly to find 
that it was the best upon the subject, and he had a large 
practice, because the community learned that there was no 
other physician in whose hands they could, with more safety, 
place the care of their health. 
My father was born October 3,1818, at the corner of Eighth 
Street and Apple Alley, which is above Race, being the 
third of ten children. Ilia father was of a Hew England 
family, and was in the seventh generation from Vincent 
Meigs, who was the first of his name to come to America ; 
he settled at East Guilford, Connecticut, about the year 
1847. Ilia mother was Mary Montgomery, and she was 
descended from the old family of the Montgomerys of Scot- 
land. Of his early childhood and boyhood, I have not been 
able to learn much, for it was a subject upon which he 
never dilated a great deal to us, his children, and I have not 
been able to learn from his brothers or sisters of any very 
striking incidents connected therewith. 6 
From earliest childhood he always wished to be a physi- 
cian, and from this determination he never swerved, so that 
in the family there was no question as to what should be his 
calling. He was a quiet and rather soberly-inclined boy, 
very fond of reading, and not much given to rough or 
boisterous play. Without being sick, or positively unable to 
do all that his brothers could, he was always looked upon as 
comparatively delicate. His first experience in learning was 
at a dame’s school in Cherry Street. Later he made a very 
serious step in life, when he went to the Classical Academy 
of Mr. Samuel Crawford. Many a Philadelphia boy of that 
day remembers Mr. Crawford, and many remember him 
with no pleasure. lie must have been a harsh and cruel 
man, for lie used his rattan most unmercifully, and few boys 
passed through his hands without learning the strength of 
his rod. I think it most characteristic of my father, that, 
although cruelty was a thing he always hated and despised, 
yet in his judgment of men he was so mild, and disliked so 
much to think harshly of any one, that he never admitted 
Mr. Crawford had been cruel. He always said the ter- 
ror of the rod he saw so freely applied to almost all the 
other boys, but of which he himself never experienced the 
lightest touch, was good for him, and drove him to study hard, 
harder than he would have done had he not ever had the 
fear of the rattan hanging over him. “ It was seldom used,” 
he would say, “ unless in some way deserved.” 
When not sixteen years of age he was taken from school, 
and began the study of his profession, attending the lectures 
upon two of the elementary branches at the University of 
Pennsylvania, and at the same time studying music, and 
having a tutor who gave him some further instruction, 
lie studied four years .at the University, and graduated in 7 
1838, when not twenty years of age. At about this time 
he went to Georgia to pay a visit to Mr. John Forsyth, 
who had married his aunt, and after whom he was named. 
The journey was at that time a much more difficult under- 
taking than it is now, for railways had not yet superseded 
the old way of travelling by stage. 
While still at college he was elected to the position of 
resident physician in the Pennsylvania Hospital, and went 
there almost immediately after His graduation on the first of 
April, 1838. Here he had for his colleague and room-mate, 
during the first year of his residence, Dr. Henry II. Smith, 
since Professor of Surgery in the University of Pennsylvania. 
His colleague during the second year (the term of service 
was at that time two years) was Dr. Alfred Stille, now 
Professor of the Theory and Practice of Medicine in the 
University. When he entered the hospital he was less than 
twenty years old, and he has often told me, in later years, 
when I have myself been in difficulty, how he felt and 
feared his responsibilities at that time, how on more than 
one occasion, when summoned to attend an injured person, 
just admitted to the ward, he would, after the nurse was 
out of earshot, cry out in despair, “I cannot, I cannot;” 
but calming himself externally would discharge his duties, 
no one ever suspecting how much it cost him. He also 
told me that, upon one occasion, he became enraged at a 
patient, and losing all control of himself, danced about the 
ward, and swore at the man furiously. For this he was 
reported by some one to the managers of the hospital, and 
was summoned to appear before the two attending managers, 
two solemn members of the persuasion of Friends, in broad- 
brimmed hats, and was given a severe reprimand for his 
unseemly conduct. When he finished this story he always 8 
laughed, and said the rebuke did him good. Much is said 
nowadays of the cruelty of officers and officials of institu- 
tions to the inmates, but the great provocation that has 
constantly to be endured with the class of people who form 
a large portion of the inmates of charitable institutions is 
seldom remembered. When so gentle and habitually con- 
siderate and kind a man as my father could so completely 
lose his temper, it is hardly to be wondered at that most 
men are occasionally cruel. 
I cannot better picture my father as he was at this time, 
and earlier, during his student life, than by quoting from a 
letter kindly written me by Dr. Stilld. He says, “ When I 
saw him on the benches of the lecture-room at' the Uni- 
versity .... I did not at first know his name, but I 
wondered at such an immature boy, as his appearance 
showed him to be, being engaged in a study that demanded 
all possible preparation by mental maturity and cultivation. 
And this deficiency, if he did not realize in itself, he 
certainly did feel after I had the pleasure of being his 
associate in the Pennsylvania Hospital. In the interval of 
three years, however, he had become a man, physically and 
mentally, although the development did not efface in him 
that certain feminine delicacy, in both respects, which was 
no doubt natural to him. I never knew a more modest man, 
one who, without being squeamish or puritanical in the least, 
was more delicate in his language and conduct. I think 
that no one else could have the same right to speak of this 
as I who shared the same room with him for a whole year, 
and who for many years afterwards saw more of him than 
perhaps any other medical friend I had myself gone 
abroad imbued with the enthusiasm of Gerhard and Pen- 
nock, who first brought to Philadelphia the methods of 9 
study of the Parisian school, and I, in my turn, excited the 
ambition of Dr. Meigs to become acquainted with them. I 
remember the deep interest he manifested in my exposition 
of the methods of examining patients, of recording cases, and 
of numerical analysis. And although I cannot now remem- 
ber that he carried it into practice while with me in the 
hospital, I know that he did so afterwards. I think I can 
see him now sitting cross-legged upon his bed as naturally 
as if he had been a born Oriental, and conversing with me 
upon these and similar topics, always grave but never solemn ; 
always earnest but never enthusiastic, having a single eye 
to learn the truth, whatever it might be. Like other young 
men so thrown together, we fell into many discussions of 
topics in no way related to medicine, and canvassed them 
diligently, but never with acrimony even when our notions 
disagreed ; and I confess that I had often to wonder at the 
simplicity, yes, innocence of his character 
I hardly remember a happier year of my life than the one 
spent as the colleague of Dr. Meigs, and that he too found 
it agreeable seems to be shown by the fact that our friendly 
relations continued as long as he lived. I lamented the 
termination of his hospital term of duty (at that time it was 
for two years), but our intercourse was maintained by letter 
during his residence abroad, and 1 know very well that his 
correspondence was always entertaining. I have to regret 
that of all his letters to me the only one that has been pre- 
served I have placed in your hands, but I distinctly remem- 
ber that they had very little relation to medical affairs, 
because the fact surprised me at the time. His foreign 
tour, however, did much for maturing his character, and 
ridding it of that provincialism for which untravelled 
Americans are notorious. On his return he, of course, found 10 
a comparatively straight and easy road to professional success 
before him. His father’s name was a tower of strength, 
and from it he went forth to do battle with disease among 
the infants and children of his father’s families. More 
than once, in later years and before he reached middle life, 
he has lamented to me that he was too much hemmed in 
by psediatry. Yet in this he laid the strong foundations of 
his professional success. All the while he was collecting 
the material for the work upon which his reputation must 
chiefly rest. Every case was recorded, and by degrees a 
mass of material accumulated that formed a mine out of 
which at last was built up his work upon diseases of chil- 
dren. From time to time he conversed with me about 
these papers, read them to me for criticism, and finally, 
taking Rilliet and Barthez as his model, he produced the 
best and most original work upon the subject in the Eng- 
lish language.” 
I have quoted Dr. Stilld’s letter thus at length, because it 
shows better than any words of my own, how my father 
appeared, during the earlier portion of his medical career, to 
that one of his contemporaries who, from their intimacy, 
was best able to judge him. Almost immediately after 
finishing his term of service at the hospital, he went to 
Europe, sailing in April, 1840. While abroad he spent 
some six or seven months in Paris, where he further pur- 
sued the study of medicine. He never said very much about 
his life in Paris, hut did tell me once, that at that time his 
studies were rather in the direction of surgery, as his father 
and he had concluded he was to be a surgeon. He listened 
while in Paris to the teachings of Velpeau, Louis, and other 
eminent French physicians of that day. While abroad he 
visited Italy, Switzerland, France, Belgium, and parts of 11 
England, going east as far as Warsaw and Vienna, and 
south as far as Naples. This was before the days of rail- 
roads, and almost all his travelling was by diligence. 
In August, 1841, he returned home, coming back as he 
went, in a sailing vessel, and then his life opened in earnest, 
as he began the practice of his profession, in his father’s 
house in Chestnut Street above Tenth. His father’s name 
and influence secured for him an introduction, and from the 
very beginning lie had more or less practice. 
In the spring of 1843 he began his career as a teacher, deliv- 
ing an introductory lecture to his course upon Obstetrics on 
April 6th, at the Philadelphia Association for Medical In- 
struction. The lecture delivered upon this occasion, which 
was his first appearance before an audience of any sort, was 
very characteristic of the man, and of his wonderful love of 
truth He begins, “ To-day for the first time in my life I 
appear before an audience in the character of lecturer. It 
is to me, as you will readily believe, a moment of deep and 
intense interest. My position at this moment is like that of 
some adventurous traveller in distant lands, who, standing 
upon the confines of a new and unknown region, into the 
hidden recesses of which he is about to plunge, will natu- 
rally pause,” etc. etc. How few men, when beginning their 
career as speakers, open by announcing to their audience 
that they are new to their position ! The Medical Associa- 
tion was intended to give instruction to the students during 
the spring and autumn, supplementary to the regular courses 
of lectures, at the different medical colleges in the city. In 
this institution my father was associated with the late Drs. 
Joshua M. Wallace, F. G. Smith, John McClellan, and Robert 
Bridges, and Drs. Alfred Stilld, Keating, and various others. 
He delivered courses of lectures at different times upon 12 
Obstetrics, Diseases of Children, and Practice of Medicine, 
and the association must have continued in existence until 
1854 or afterwards, a period of eleven years at least. During 
this time my father was most assiduous and active, if one 
may judge hy the number of written lectures and notes 
found among his papers which were prepared for this 
institution. He was a most conscientious worker, and in 
his lectures speaks constantly of his efforts to do well. An 
examination of these lectures shows that even at that early 
day, his mind had already become impressed with many 
ideas which in after years became even more firmly fixed. 
For instance, he devotes almost the whole of his general in- 
troductory to the course of 1850, to a consideration of “ Habit 
and its Effects,” enjoining the formation of good ones, and 
the avoidance of bad, and impressing upon his hearers how 
wonderful is the effect of habit upon man, and how impossi- 
ble it is to escape from its effects if once established. In a 
lecture upon typhoid fever he says, “ Diet is exceedingly im- 
portant, nothing more so.” He gives an analysis of cases 
treated in private practice, and in a series of sixty-nine 
reports five deaths, and records that in five instances more 
than one case occurred in the same house. A much less mor- 
tality than the ordinarily quoted hospital statistics would 
lead us to expect, lie mentions the occurrence of relapses 
in the disease, and that the fever attacks very young chil- 
dren, facts which have only come to be generally acknow- 
ledged very lately, although he made his observations and 
taught them more than thirty years ago. 
On October 17, 1844, he was married to Ann Wilcocks 
Ingersoll, who died a little more than twelve years after- 
wards, December 30, 1856. They had eight children, the 
oldest and youngest of whom died young. 13 
In the spring of 1845, my grandfather went to Europe for 
his health, leaving my father to take charge of the greater 
part of his patients. From this time, although only twenty- 
six years of age, he had a large practice. 
In 1848 was published the first edition of his book upon 
Diseases of Children ; it appeared as one of the “ Medical 
Practitioner’s and Student’s Library.” This work soon 
established for itself a reputation, although of course it 
elicited some share of adverse criticism. My father often 
quoted one critic, who said, “ Dr. Meigs has rushed in shirt- 
less haste before the public,” and the recollection of this 
mistaken estimate of his work always amused him. A 
second and third edition were soon exhausted and the 
book was allowed to go out of print. In 1869, finding him- 
self so much occupied that there seemed no prospect of his 
being able, unaided to prepare a fourth edition, he associated 
with himself Dr. William Pepper, giving him a full half 
ownership in the book and changing the title to Meigs and 
Pepper on Diseases of Children. One of the most marked 
traits of my father’s character was shown in his thus placing 
upon equal terms with himself, who had written a book 
with an already established fame, so young a man, at that 
time just entering upon the practice of medicine, although 
he has since taken so high a position in the profession, and 
whom he conjoined with himself that he might have some 
one to do the laborious parts of the work which he was him- 
self unable, from his excessive occupation, to accomplish. 
In 1870 the fourth edition appeared under the new title. 
Further editions of the book were from time to time called 
for, and the seventh and last appeared in 1882, less than a 
year before his death. During all this period of thirty-four 
years the book maintained the position which it took almost 14 
from the beginning, as the best work upon the subject in the 
English language. 
As a writer, he perhaps never did himself full justice, for 
after the publication of his book, which was the great literary 
labor of his life, he undertook no work of magnitude, being 
incessantly occupied with practice. He wrote only when he 
felt absolutely driven to give to the world something which 
burned within him, and which he thought of such import- 
ance that he at all costs seized the time to commit it to 
paper. The literary instinct was strong within him, and his 
mind and memory were stored with conclusions and observa- 
tions the result of his great experience. Nothing but liis 
excessive occupation prevented his being a voluminous writer, 
for he wrote with great ease and rapidity, and was very fond 
of literary work, never seeming more happy than when seated 
at his table with paper before him, and surrounded with 
books. 
That he was capable of other literary productions than 
the mere detail of medical observations, to which he usually 
confined himself, is shown by his memoir of his father, Dr. 
Charles D. Meigs, which is a very graceful tribute of a son to 
a father, and is besides a very charming and just piece of 
biographical writing. During his life lie contributed a num- 
ber of articles to various medical journals, some of them 
being of great importance and originality, as for instance, 
“ Remarks on Atelectasis Pulmonum, or Imperfect Expan- 
sion of the Lungs, and Collapse of the Lungs in Children 
“ Heart-clot as a cause of Diphtheria;”and “ On the Morpho- 
logical changes in the Blood in Malarial Fever, with Re- 
marks on Treatment.” He also wrote the “ Address on the 
Opening of the New Lecture and Operating Room of the 
Pennsylvania HospitalMemoir of Charles D. Meigs, 15 
M.D.and “A History of the First Quarter of the Second 
Century of the Pennsylvania Hospital.” 
My father was, however, so incessantly occupied with the 
cares of practice that he took but little time, either for 
literary work, which was always a great pleasure to him, or 
for leisure. This is well shown by a letter he wrote to Dr. 
Stills, then abroad for his health, in 1851. He begins: “I 
am quite afraid to say how long since it was that I received 
j our letter dated at Vienna, for I am perfectly aware of how 
abominable it has been in me not to have answered it long 
ago. My excuses, not my excuse, must be, that I have been 
incessantly, and necessarily occupied. In fact, I have never 
been so busy in my life as I have been during this whole 
winter and spring. My business has been very urgent, for 
I have been paying from eighteen to twenty-six and twenty- 
seven visits daily the whole winter, and during my father’s 
absence of four weeks at the South, I was literally over- 
whelmed and half murdered. My lectures, too, in your old 
position, have been constantly digging me in the side— 
screaming at me with the voice of a locomotive whistle, 
work, work, rest not—so that you must really believe that 
my not answering your welcome and agreeable letter before 
this has been the consequence of a pressure of matters that 
must have the precedence of all others 
“ You have heard, no doubt, of the death of poor 
He died of meningeal apoplexy, and was found to have been 
laboring under enlargement with softening of the heart, and 
to have his right lung greatly reduced in size from the 
pleurisy he had had some two years before his death. So 
that the poor fellow had been practising hard, writing on 
scientific subjects, and discussing unity of races with Bach- 
man, for two years with but one lung. If he had rested 16 
himself, as he ought to have done, and as he would have 
done had he been anything but a doctor, he might have 
been living still in very tolerable health. But doctors must 
work and toil, when all other professions would rest from 
labor, and so he lost his life 
“ How do you feel about returning home to toil and strive ? 
Does not your heart sometimes sink at the thought of sub- 
mitting again to the fatigues and thousand annoyances of 
medical business? Upon my word, I often think that if I 
had but some two or three thousand dollars a year, I would 
spend the coming fifteen or twenty years of my life at 
Geneva, or in Florence, reading language and educating my 
children—but then comes the thought, educating my chil- 
dren—for what ? To come home to this hard-working, bust- 
ling, driving nation. IIow little fitted would they be to fill 
their stations in life did they see me lounging listless and 
inactive through my life ! No, I must work even to set them 
an example, as well as to obtain for them food, raiment, and 
lodging.” This shows the life be led at that time, and the 
effect it had on his mind and spirits. 
In December, 1854, be had a severe attack of pleurisy or 
pneumonia, which threatened his life. After a short holiday, 
however, he went to work again as hard as ever. 
In December, 1856, my mother died, and he then plunged 
himself, if possible, deeper than ever in the vortex of labor, 
seeking distraction. 
In 1859 he was elected one of the physicians to the Penn- 
sylvania Hospital. The duties connected with this position 
were a constant pleasure to him, so long as he continued to 
hold it, which he did for nearly twenty-three years, and he 
took an interest in the hospital, not as physician alone, but 
in its welfare and prosperity in every way. He was the 17 
means of getting large sums of money donated at different 
times, and this fact, as well as his long and faithful services 
as physician, is mentioned in a series of resolutions passed 
by the board of managers, when he resigned his position in 
November, 1881. He wrote, “ A History of the First Quar- 
ter of the Second Century of the Pennsylvania Hospital,” 
which was read before the hoard of managers at their stated 
meeting, held 9th mo. 25th, 1876. His term of service as 
physician was in the summer and autumn, when he was 
least occupied with practice, and he took the keenest interest, 
both in his work in the wards, and his lectures to the class, 
which were, during all the earlier portion of the time he was 
connected with the hospital, continued throughout the 
whole summer, two lectures being given each week. He had 
a wonderfully quick and incisive way of examining patients, 
and would often by one or two questions rapidly put, elicit 
facts that his clinical clerk and resident physician had failed 
to learn after long and laborious cross-questioning. The 
rapidity and precision with which he would make a diag- 
nosis were thus often a cause of astonishment to those follow- 
ing him in the course of his duties in the wards. He never 
seemed to pass by or to neglect any patient under his care, 
no matter how chronic or disagreeable the nature of the 
complaint might be, giving to each one the due and neces- 
sary amount of time and attention. He was uniformly kind 
to all his patients, and ever kept before him, as his first 
object, the cure or alleviation, so far as might be possible, of 
their various maladies, never losing sight of this object in 
the pursuit of any scientific investigation in which he might 
be engaged, and during his whole time of service as a hospital 
physician, he was much occupied in scientific investigation, 18 
constantly striving to add to the stock of our exact know- 
ledge. 
When the great civil war broke out in 1861, it found 
him and all his family, by inheritance, members of the 
Democratic party. His father had lived in Georgia, and 
naturally he and all his sons were Democrats. My father 
was the first of the family to turn to the other party. I have 
often heard him say that before the election of Mr. Lincoln, 
he had thought and read much, trying to learn what would 
be right for him to do, and even the day before the election 
was still uncertain. That evening he went to consult Mr. 
Horace Binney, who was one of his warmest friends, upon 
some of the law and historical points connected with the 
matter, and after hearing Mr. Binney’s answers to his ques- 
tions, went home determined to vote for Mr. Lincoln, which 
the next day he did. 
It was in my father’s office that the scheme for the estab- 
lishment of the Union League of Philadelphia was matured. 
This important organization, which was political in its 
purposes, was the first of its kind to be instituted in the 
country, those of New York and other cities being estab- 
lished afterwards, and in imitation of that of Philadelphia. 
It o;rew out of the Union Club which was organized in 
November, 1862. The following extract from a book 
entitled “Proceedings of a Meeting of the Union Club of 
Philadelphia, held at the League House, December 27,1870,” 
Phila., J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1871, page 25, will show this : 
“The seventh meeting of the Union Club was a memorable 
one. It was held at the house of Dr. John F. Meigs, on the 
twenty-seventh day of December, 1862. At this meeting 
the scheme for the establishment of the League was matured, 
and the articles of association for that purpose were first 19 
read, and they were afterwards generally signed by the large 
company present. During the first year of the existence of 
the club, Dr. Meigs’ professional engagements compelled 
him, to the regret of all, to resign bis membership, and 
therefore his name appears nowhere upon the roll of the 
Union Club which was subsequently printed. lie was not 
the less one of our earliest and most active members.” 
Throughout the war he continued to be most earnest in 
his support of the government, and looked forward to the 
possibility of a disruption of the country as almost certain 
ruin. So unnecessarily anxious, as the event proved, was he 
lest the government should fail to quell the rebellion for 
want of funds, that he at one time seriously contemplated 
having all his family silver melted into money to be given 
to the government, and I remember the silver being all 
brought home from the bank and weighed preparatory to 
the execution of this purpose, which, however, was never 
carried into effect. 
In December, 1863, he had a second attack of pneumonia 
with hemorrhage from the lung, but within a very short 
time he recovered and returned to his practice. 
In 1864, my father applied for the then vacant professor- 
ship of the Theory and Practice of Medicine in the Univer- 
sity of Pennsylvania, but he made no canvass for the place, 
and was only half-hearted in his desire to be elected. He 
received, however, several votes, although Dr. Stille was 
elected. 
Dr. Meigs was a man endowed by nature with a rare 
and seemingly contradictory combination of qualities. He 
could be bold to temerity, although usually he seemed a 
timid man ; he was gentle as a woman, and yet could be 
almost fierce, and absolutely unbending, if roused concerning 20 
things he thought important. He mtide few friendships 
except such as came to him through his professional relations; 
to ties thus formed, he was ever most loyal. It was in this 
manner that his friendship began with the late Mr. Horace 
Binney. They were firm and fast friends for many years, 
and it was only Mr. Binney’s death that severed the tie. 
A deep and lasting effect was produced upon him when a 
boy, by seeing his mother at the head of the family of a 
struggling and rising physician. The family was a large 
one, for his parents had ten children, and the mother’s life 
was one of constant occupation with little leisure. The 
sight of this, together with the effect produced upon my 
father’s then impressionable nature, by the stern discipline 
that was maintained at Mr. Crawford’s school, where he was 
obliged to study almost unceasingly, lest he too should be 
whipped, must have been large factors in forming the bent 
of his mind. Throughout life he was always deeply im- 
pressed with the wonderful and lasting effects of habit, once 
formed and firmly established. He himself formed, very 
early in life, the habit of unceasing labor, and although the 
original motives were gone, the fear of Mr. Crawford’s rod, 
and the desire to do all he could to spare his overtasked 
mother, yet the habit was firmly fixed upon him, and he 
never escaped from it. This turn of mind made him some- 
times impatient in his judgment of innocent pleasure; it 
was not that he thought pleasure itself wrong, but he had 
ever before him the fear lest it should lead astray from the 
paths of good conduct, and this fear pursued him like an 
ugly shadow, and interfered with his enjoyment of his own 
hard-earned moments of leisure, which were ever darkened 
by the dread that he was unduly prolonging them when he 
should be back again in his tread-mill. 21 
In his use of medicines he habitually gave small doses, 
and appeared ever fearful of producing ill effects, but on 
occasion, when prompt action seemed necessary, he would 
give drugs, and doses of them that other men dared not. 
He always seemed to me singularly skilful and happy in his 
treatment, concluding to do, by what seemed an inspiration, 
exactly the thing needful at the moment. He was strongly 
impressed by, and thoroughly knew when to apply the rule, 
which he used to attribute to the late Dr. Parrish, “ when 
you know not what to do in medicine, do nothing,” appre- 
ciating fully that there are times when we must stand help- 
lessly by and wait, trusting for the while to the vis 
medicatrix natures. lie well understood that most diseases 
tend spontaneously toward recovery, and knew when to 
apply this knowledge. 
With his patients he was ever gentle, giving much atten- 
tion to their account of themselves and their condition, and 
in his diagnosis and prognosis giving generally the first 
place to a consideration of what Stokes has well called the 
“ vital phenomena,” and afterwards and secondarily con- 
sidering the physical signs. Of all things he hated a quarrel, 
whether it resulted in words or blows, and I do not remem- 
ber his ever being engaged in one. Although this was true, 
he seemed incapable of fear, either physical or moral, 
assuming his responsibilities as they met him, or going out 
to face them with a calm and immovable front, whatever 
his inward sufferings may have been, and they must have 
been great, for after all he was naturally a timid man, and 
it was only his wonderful moral courage that enabled him 
to triumph over his disposition. 
I well remember in my early student days going to 
the Pennsylvania Hospital to follow him in his rounds 22 
through the wards. Arriving there one morning, I found 
a great excitement within the usually quiet old walls. 
Around one of the basement windows, which was barred, I 
saw a crowd of men and women, and heard a voice occa- 
sionally crying out inarticulately. Approaching, I saw a 
man in one of the cells careering wildly around its narrow 
limits, beating the sides with a heavy brass instrument. 
Saliva ran from his mouth in streams, so that it lay in pools 
upon the floor, and the walls were bespattered with it. I 
shall never forget the terror-stricken faces of those around 
the window, and how they stood far away and looked. 
They told me the man had hydrophobia. The resident 
physician and nurses were terrified, and no one dared go in, 
to quiet the raving man. Presently my father came, and 
learning the situation, quietly directed that a mattress be 
brought to him, and then, finding one of the nurses who 
was willing to accompany him, opened the door, and holding 
the mattress so as to protect himself from any blow, he and 
the nurse entered, and forced the raving man to lie on his 
bed. While effecting this the man spat full in his face and 
eyes ; nothing disturbed by knowing that this quantity of 
one of the most dreaded poisons was upon him, my father 
quietly finished what he had to do before washing his face. 
I remember my terror when I learned what had happened, 
but he did not seem in the least disturbed, and I never heard 
him mention it afterwards, although most men would have 
been long haunted by a fear of hydrophobia. / lie never 
seemed to have the slightest fear of any contagious disease, 
and would frequently inveigh against the modern terror of 
scarlet fever, and belief in its virulent contagiousness. He 
always maintained that it was very slightly contagious, 
much less so certainly than measles, and that the present 23 
custom of ostracizing any family where there might be a 
case, was cruel and barbarous, besides being cowardly and 
useless. y 
With all his gentleness and hesitation ever to think 
harshly of others, he was sometimes very severe in his 
judgment of things he disapproved of, or could not sympa- 
thize with, although they might be harmless in themselves. 
He had no hobby, and his life was a much less pleasant 
one for the want of it. Although fond of books and a 
great reader, and having a great love for boats and the 
water, and seeming to have a taste for zoology, besides 
taking a more than passing interest in many other things, 
he never let any one of them take a strong hold upon him, 
but devoted himself with real assiduity to his profession 
only, taking in a little of the other things from time to 
time as they came in his way. It was for this reason par- 
tially that he never made any serious preparation to retire 
from his professional labors, although he had talked of it 
for many years, and always looked forward to the time when 
he would live a life of leisure. At times he would become 
excessively weary of his life of constant labor, and yet when 
he contemplated the prospect of having no perfunctory work, 
he feared lest the time might hang heavily upon his hands, 
lie had a great love for literary work, and at times pictured 
himself as retired from active practice, and occupied in 
writing of his past medical experiences, which were very 
extensive. 
During the last four or five years of his life he allowed 
himself a little more leisure, taking each summer six or eight 
weeks, during which he travelled ott' to some out-of-the-way 
place where he thought he would be unlikely to be troubled 
by calls upon his professional skill, for he never could refuse 24 
a request for advice; but when at home he worked as hard 
as ever, denying no one, and going at all times and in all 
seasons to any one who asked him. 
On December 9, 1882, he paid his last professional visit. 
For two or three days the weather had been very cold and 
bleak, and he had been constantly chilly, and then had pain 
in the chest, which on the afternoon of the ninth was very 
severe, but still he insisted upon going out. About six in 
the evening he came home, and the pain was so intense that 
he was obliged to go to bed. In a day or two he had a fully 
developed pneumonia, and after suffering absolute anguish 
from diaphragmatic pleurisy with which it was accom- 
panied, he died on the afternoon of December 16, an hour 
or two less than a week from the time when he paid his last 
professional visit. 
How he was beloved and mourned is evidenced by a notice 
of his death which was written by an old friend and patient, 
and which expresses better than any words of mine could, 
the sentiment of the community at his loss. “The 
announcement of the death of Dr. John Forsyth Meigs, 
upon Saturday evening, cast a deep shadow of gloom over a 
very large circle of Philadelphia society. Born, bred, and 
living his life of active usefulness in this city, Dr. Meigs 
had gained so strong a hold upon patients, friends, and the 
public at large, that the sudden news of his loss falls as a 
sharp and heavy blow. Of the thousand families among 
whom his work of professional beneficence has been done, 
there is hardly a member who has not learned to love and 
to revere him. Untiring in effort, prodigal of his time and 
strength, and bringing to the treatment of every case the 
highest skill, the most minute attention to details, the most 
earnest resolves to succeed, Dr. Meigs could not fail to 25 
impress himself strongly upon all affections and judgments, 
lie was one of those faithful physicians for whose coming 
the waiters in the sick-room ever eagerly watched. The 
careful notation of the most apparently trivial symptoms, 
his honest statement of opinion, his genuine expression of 
sympathy, all inspired the strong confidence that what was 
being done w'as the best that human skill could accomplish. 
“ A patient and correct thinker, not only upon the pro- 
fessional subjects which so largely occupied his attention, 
but also upon subjects of wider or more general interest, an 
accurate writer upon several branches of medical science, an 
actively good and patriotic citizen, Dr. Meigs’ domain was 
the sick chamber, his sphere was the contest with the enemy 
ever springing for his prey, which the follies, the ignorance, 
and the misfortunes of humanity keep in unceasing activity. 
In this field he was ever battling, mostly successful, some- 
times baffled and disappointed, but always retiring with the 
consciousness of having fought the good fight, and of having 
struggled manfully for victory. lie has been taken from 
life whilst actively engaged in the exercise of his noble call- 
ing, and his last earthly thoughts, his last wandering fancies 
reverted to those to whom he had always given good 
measure, pressed down and running over. Long, very long 
will it be before the medical profession will produce a more 
perfect model than this gallant, modest, unselfish, blameless, 
civic hero.”