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NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE
NLM052984298 
THE GOOD PHYSICIAN.
Dr. JOSEPH   O.  WEST.
Born in Barnstead, X. H., June 21, 1823.
Died in Princeton, Mass., January 28, 1887.
" Thy labors of unwearied love
 By thee forgot, are crowned above." ^
      BOSTON:
Blair & Hallett, Printers.
        1887. 
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NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE

 BETHESDA, MARYIANO 20014' 
DR.  JOSEPH   O.  WEST.
    In  the  beautiful  village  of Princeton, Mass., are
  gathered every summer, from  all parts of the country,
  many people of intelligence,  refinement  and culture,
  and  among  the  native residents there, these  qualities
  are  conspicuous, combined with force of character and
  quick discernment.
    When a young physician finds early practice in such
  a place and continues in it, amid  such surroundings,
  for more than  thirty years,  beloved by many, trusted
  by all, with  an almost universal benediction  from all
  classes, and hearty approval from  persons  of  such
  various habits and diverse views  of  life, there  must be
  something about him  especially worthy  of  enduring
  remembrance and faithful emulation.
    What the poet Whittier said of another was eminently
  true of the late Dr. West:
          " His daily prayer, far better understood
            In acts, than words, was simply doing good;
            So calm, so constant was his rectitude,
            That by his loss alone, we know his worth,
            And feel how true a man has walked
            With us on Earth."

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  Trials, no  doubt,  beset  his path, for the cross,  in
some form, is the family badge of the children of God.
He loved his home, and his union in marriage with Miss
Ellen  M. Gregory, of Princeton, was a source of unfail-
ing happiness to him for many  years.  With  parental
fondness he gathered his  children about him, and in all
the years to come  they will " rise  up and call  him
blessed."
  Outside  of the family circle,  too, he was the same
unselfish,  thoughtful person,  daily  exemplifying  that
charity that '" seeketh not her own,"  and his memory is
sacredly embalmed in the hearts of all who were blessed
with his counsel  or friendship.   When called out in the
night  to face the wintry  blast, with  no expectation  of
pecuniary reward, he said : "I go for the love of  God
and humanity's sake."
  In his quiet talks at the bedside of many a sufferer,
he preached  his sermons, and  now  " his works do fol-
low him."  The  old  Latin motto, " Esse, quam viderV
(" To  be, rather  than to  seem to be"), was  the  watch-
word of his life;  and he wore it,  like the frontlet on his
brow,  or the signet ring on his.right hand.
  His  good deeds ripened for the harvest, and ere we
dreamed of it, the great Husbandman put in the sickle
to gather the golden  grain for the heavenly garner.
  He  was to bid adieu to the hills  and valleys  he loved
so well.  The voices of Nature and  the  song  of birds
had long had a peculiar charm  for  him, but his spirit
was now to be attuned to heavenly melodies.   During
the autumn nights he was often  called  to minister  to
suffering humanity.  Severe cold and storms were  fear-
lessly  braved, till, on the  9th  of  January, he was taken
seriously ill, but  lingered  till the  26th of the same 
s
month, when, after hours of  great suffering, nature was
exhausted and he became  unconscious,  and on the
morning of January 28th he sank to rest.   " A morning
without clouds " in a better world.  A voice was  heard
from  heaven,  " Come up higher."  He was not per-
mitted to give dying testimony to the grace  of  Christ,
but what was far better, he was enabled to give living
evidences of its power.
  His funeral  was largely  attended on the following
Tuesday, at the Congregational Church, the main audi-
ence  room being entirely  filled.   Fellow-townsmen,
summer residents from neighboring  cities, and fellow-
physicians, by whom he was  held in high esteem, joined
in paying the last tribute.
  The views of all were well expressed by one of the
Boylston family (whose ancestral privilege of benevo-
lence still descends to bless), in language  of fine deli-
cacy and force : " He had so identified himself with the
welfare and best interests of the town, and was so  much
beloved by all that  this loss seems  a public calamity.
.....Let  us rejoice and be  thankful that Death
cannot take from us the wealth of  pleasant memories he
has left behind."


  No  sooner was his demise  known than testimonies
to his unusual worth of character  and professional skill
appeared in the public journals.
  The following, from the pen of the eminent lawyer,
and his fellow-townsman, the Hon. Thomas H. Russell,
is a most fitting tribute :
  " Dr. Joseph O.  West,  the highly respected physician
of  Princeton,  Mass.,  died  Friday.   This  unexpected 
6
announcement will cause  a real grief to many widely
separated hearts.  For a generation Princeton has been
a health resort.  Within this period many  thousands
have visited the place, and very  many under conditions
of health in which a good medical adviser was a matter
of the first importance.   During this long  time no one
who has  had occasion for his services but will recall
the quiet, modest mien, and the real service they have
received at the hand of this model physician.   A grad-
uate of Dartmouth in  the class of  1845, he settled in
Princeton, after completing his  education at the Har-
vard medical school, where he was graduated in 1848,
and has been  the sole resident physician there to this
time.   It  is enough  to  say of his life in Princeton that
he has left a friend in every resident as well as in every
stranger who has had occasion for his professional ser-
vices or the  pleasure of his personal acquaintance.  Dr.
West possessed great professional skill, recognized by
the many physicians who have had occasion to entrust
to his care their patients for the summer months; and
yet it was combined with a modesty so great  as  almost
to shadow his merit, a skill that would have commanded
eminent success in any place.  Notwithstanding this he
was content to spend,  and  literally be spent,  in the
service of  a  sparse population, dwelling  in deep  valleys
and on bleak  hills, to reach whom, for many months in
each year, would tax the vigor  of an  Arctic voyager.
He never  seemed to make any distinction in his minis-
tration between rich and poor, save that to the latter it
was his happiness to bring more  than professional rem-
edies.  There is  but  one voice saying:  A physician  of
great skill, yet so modest that he alone seemed not  to
know it; a citizen who  absolutely lived at peace with 
7
all men ;  a man without guile or an enemy;  Christian,
unpretentious, of  the  broadest  liberality  and  charity
towards all men, who, nourishing a spiritual life in ' the
closet,' in the  ' secret  place of  the  Most High,' while
living was ' openly rewarded' with the esteem, honor
and love  of his fellow-men, and dying will long remain
in grateful memory."                      t. h. r.


  Testimonies from the medical profession appeared on
all sides.  From Lowell, a venerable physician writes :
  " At Princeton, Jan. 28th, died  Dr. Joseph O. West,
once a Lowell boy.  His  mother removed here  from
New  Hampshire  when  he was quite  young; he was
fitted for college in our high  school  and graduated at
Dartmouth in 1845.  At that  time he commenced medi-
cal  studies in my  office,  and  graduated at Harvard
medical school in 1848.   Soon afterwards  he settled in
medical  practice  in  Princeton,  where he  has  since
resided.   As this was my  native place, I have  often
met him, and know the high estimation in which he was
there held as a citizen and a  physician.   By education,
genial manners, quick observation and thorough knowl-
edge of human nature, he was admirably fitted for medi-
cal  practice.   Though located in a small country town,
by reading and study  he kept fully abreast in all kinds
of medical knowledge,  and  was  greatly  respected as
well as beloved by his professional brethren wherever
known.  His  education, talent and experience  fitted
him for a larger field  of business  than a small  country
town,  but it was the ' summer company,' which, for a
long time, we  happen to  know, prevented any change
in his residence.   While penning  these lines, an obitu- 
8
ary notice came to us in the Boston Evening Journal,
describing points in his character  better than we can
do  it, and every word of which we heartily endorse.
By the initials, we infer that it is written by Hon. Thos.
H. Russell, who, with his family, spends some  part of
his summer in Princeton."
                                 Nathan Allen.
  From Providence, R. I., Dr. Parsons writes :
  " Providence people, and  they are  not a few, who
frequent the beautiful  town of Princeton, Mass., in the
summer months, will feel a pang  of sorrow at the  sad
news of the death of Dr.  West.   After  an illness which
took on the character of croup and pneumonia he died
on Friday morning.   For many years he has  been  the
only practitioner in  that town, and he gained  very fully
the confidence of residents and  summer visitors.   Cau-
tious, observing and faithful, keeping  abreast of  the
times by medical reading  and by frequent attendance
on medical associations, he was an excellent  model of
the good village physician.  As patients are often sent
to Princeton from the cities he had occasion to measure
his practical  attainments with those of  physicians who
are more widely known, and  he  did not suffer by the
comparison.  As a citizen Dr. West displayed the same
qualities of caution,  friendliness  and practical wisdom,
which  marked  him  in  his  professional relations.   He
was above all  things a  peacemaker.  His  memory will
long live in the hearts of the people of   Princeton, as a
good citizen and a beloved physician." 
9
  Another writes affectionately, though quaintly:  " He
was one of my best friends — tried and true as steel —
no sham."
  The Worcester Medical Society entered upon their
records  the  following resolutions, and  nothing has
appeared more true  and more touching than the per-
sonal tribute  of Dr. T. H. Gage :
                        Worcester,  May 16, 1887.
Mrs. West :
  Dear Madam, — At the  annual meeting of the Wor-
cester District Medical Society,  held May  11,  1887,
Dr. T. H.  Gage, in behalf of a committee  appointed
at the last meeting, read an obituary notice of the late
Dr. West, and presented the following Resolutions :
  "Resolved,  That  the  Worcester District Medical
Society has heard, with unaffected  sorrow, the  official
announcement of  Dr. W7est's death, and avails itself of
the  opportunity  to record an  expression of its high
esteem for his character and services  as a citizen and
as a physician.
  "Resolved, That to his bereaved and  afflicted family it
extends an assurance of respectful sympathy and  affec-
tionate remembrance, such as springs  alone  and  spon-
taneously from a tender appreciation of their great and
irreparable loss."
  It  was  voted  that  the foregoing resolutions  be
adopted  and  entered upon  the  records  of the  Society
and a copy sent to Mrs. West by the Secretary.
                    Very respectfully,
                                   XV. C. Stevens,
                    Secy Worcester District Medical Society. 
IO
  A Tribute  to  the  memory  of   Dr.  West,  by Dr.
Thomas  H. Gage, of Worcester, at a Meeting of the
Councillors of the Massachusetts Medical Society:
  " Dr. West's was  a rare and beautiful character, and
one  that  might  properly  receive  a more  extended
notice.
  "To great  natural abilities, trained, disciplined, and
educated  in the  schools, he added high professional
attainments, and  the richer  graces of a pure and con-
sistent Christian life.  And  such natural  endowments
and acquirements, an intelligent and discerning people
were not  slow to recognize and appreciate.   Thus it
came about that early in his life, and  to  the  end, he
was respected, trusted, honored and beloved, as it falls
to the lot  of very few to be.   Both profession and laity
gave him, without reserve, their confidence and regard.
  "As a physician he was remarkably modest and unpre-
tending, yet judicious and  skillful,  and equal  to any
emergency.   High  professional  attainments and skill,
and the wisdom gained by experience, he held as sacred
trusts,  to be  administered  under a  sense of  great
accountability, and he was faithful to the solemn charge.
  "In his death, the community he had served  so long,
faithfully  and  well, and  the transient  summer visitors
that throng the Princeton Hills, have sustained a great
and  irreparable loss.  He  was for more  than  thirty
years their  trusted medical adviser, their  wise coun-
sellor in  times of trouble, and their friend; and it was
a touching scene as the stricken people, yesterday, mov-
ing in mournful procession,  and in grief and  tears, laid
him under the shadows of the great mountain, tenderly
to rest." 
11
  The Board of Trustees of  the  Goodnow Memorial
Building,  at  Princeton, also passed  most appropriate
resolutions on the loss of one of their number.
  Clergymen, who had known him  well, added  their
testimony,  with hearts sorrowing for  their loss, yet
grateful for such an example of a consistent life.
  The Rev. Geo. M. Howe, his former pastor at Prince-
ton (now of Lewiston, Me.), one equally beloved in
Princeton, and who, with Dr. West, won the hearts of
all with whom they came in contact,  writes: " It seems
as if we had lost a brother, for we had learned  to love
him much.   He was not only a kind physician but a
true  friend and  Christian brother.    God bless  his
sainted memory."
  A minister of the Methodist persuasion  who  had
known him  at Princeton — one of gentle spirit,  and
refined by suffering — wrote to  Mrs. West, in a beauti-
ful  letter of  condolence:  " Go where we may, let our
experience be what  it may, we shall always feel  that
life to us was made richer and  sweeter because of our
acquaintance with Dr. West.  Such, doubtless, was the
influence of his life upon many  others.   It was not only
the personal  service which he cheerfully rendered to
those who needed it, but his quiet mien, noble bearing
and loving heart that made him beloved by all."
                                             C. N.
  An Episcopal  clergyman,  of  Boston,  wrote to his
widow : 
12
  "The righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance,
and dear Dr. West's memory will  never die  out with
those who knew him, and to whom  he ministered so
tenderly, every summer, amid your beautiful hills."
                                            H. G.
  A prominent business  gentleman of  Worcester, with
rare discernment, sent the following appropriate tribute
to one of the public papers :
  " By the death of Dr. J. O. West, which occurred the
28th, the town of Princeton  loses a citizen who will  be
deeply missed, not only by its  own  people but by hun-
dreds from other localities who are accustomed to pass
their summers there.   He will be remembered  by all
as a skillful  and  sagacious physician, and  as a genial,
faithful friend.  For more than thirty years he has been
conspicuous among his townspeople as a wise adviser
in all matters of public and individual interest, and has
never hesitated to do his  full  share to encourage  and
help all who sought his aid.   For this service his intel-
ligence, quickened  by  a liberal education,  and   his
broad, generous views fully equipped him.  In his pro-
fession  his reputation  for rare judgment  and  ample
knowledge was  not confined  to his town  or county
alone.  He was entrusted with the care of grave cases
that came to him for treatment each summer from this
and neighboring states.   He was an esteemed member
of the medical society of  the  county.   While many
men of  his attainments would perhaps have sought a
larger field offering more opportunities for professional
labor and  consequent distinction, he was  content to  ex-
pend the energies of his best  years among the people 
l3
he had in early life  chosen as his friends.  And who
shall say he was not right ?  There was no  one in that
community  better known or  beloved  than he.  The
record of his life is without stain, and the memorv of
his kindly face and voice brings to us an abiding appre-
ciation of his many virtues."
                                  A.  G.  Bullock.
  Worcester, Jan. 28th.
  Prof. Bancroft, of  Brown  University, Providence,
R. I., touched the  cord  which vibrates in many hearts,
saying: " The  news of  Dr. West's death  came  to my
family as a stroke of personal bereavement.  He united
to great skill, in his  profession, a spirit of Christian
kindliness that won all  hearts.   His cheerful  tempera-
ment enabled him to minister to the mind as well as to
the  body.   The sense of  loss  which you feel, dear
Madam, sends its shadows over many a household."
  An excellent portraiture of Dr. West appeared from
the pen of a friend and patient  in  Philadelphia, as
follows :
  " A man with a kindly face and  voice, and of quiet
and  genial manners, of generous views  and wonderful
patience ;  leading a simple, Christian life, always  tak-
ing up the  nearest duty, faithfully fulfilling it in his own
masterful way.  A man of  quick  observation combined
with reflection and determination  ; a patient investi-
gator,  possessing  rare judgment and modesty  withal.
A wise adviser in matters of public  and private interest,
highly esteemed by his professional brethren, and be-
loved by those who were privileged to know him." 
'4
  Responsive echoes were heard from New York  City
and  other places  far and wide.  A valued and  long-
tried friend (Mrs. Newbold), noted for her interest  in
all that pertains to the welfare of her race, and whose
personal magnetism wins for her a wide circle of friends,
says, most truly : " Dr.  West had a rare combination  of
fine qualities of character; so much heart, so much in-
tegrity, simple genuineness of speech and manner, and
so much  acuteness  of  intellect,  he  was a tower  of
strength for Princeton in many ways."
  A significant   testimony  which,  if there  were no
other, covers the whole ground, from one, whose prac-
tical judgment forbids undue praise  and renders it val-
uable to all, appeared from the pen of Judge Bartlett,
of Brooklyn, N. Y.
  Supreme Court Chambers, Kings Co., Brooklyn,
                                January 31, 1887.
Dear Mrs. West :
  I was greatly shocked and  grieved to  find  in the
papers an  announcement of Dr. West's death.  I have
never known Princeton without his  kindly and  benefi-
cent presence there, and it is impossible for me to  real-
ize that he is gone.
  The  appreciation  in which  he was held,  not only at
home, but in the far-away  places all over the Union,
from which many of his summer patients came, testifies
to what ability and character can do, even in  the most
modest corner of the earth.  The respect and affection
which he inspired were such as are bestowed upon few
medical men anywhere, and must have been most precious 
J5
to  him, if  he had any  idea how highly and widely
he was esteemed.
  My judicial duties at this  season are so exacting as
to require my presence here every day, or I should not
fail to be one of those who will come  to Princeton  to-
morrow to attend the funeral.
  I sincerely regret that I  cannot be there thus to man-
ifest the sense of deep personal loss which I  feel in the
death  of  one  of  the  best men  it has ever been my
fortune to know.
  With the sincerest sympathy, I am
                      Truly your friend,
                               Willard  Bartlett.
  What more need be said ?  He sleeps " the sleep of
the just," and his life of patience, self-sacrifice and love,
form  a wreath  of household affection — a story too
precious to put upon paper or on  marble.
  His widow and orphans, when faint and worn in Life's
journey, will find  their Lord  and Saviour to be indeed
" as the  shadow of  a great rock in a weary land," and
can look forward with hope-lifted hearts " until the day
break, and the shadows flee away /"
    " Soon and forever, the breaking of day
     Shall chase all the night clouds of sorrow away;
     Soon and forever we '11 see as we 're seen,
     And know the deep meaning of things that have been ;
     Where fightings without, and conflicts within,
     Shall weary no more in the warfare with sin;
     Where tears and where fears, and death shall be never,
     Christians with Christ shall be, soon and forever."

                               H. GRAY,
                                   i Ashkurton Place.
     Boston, Nov., 1887. 
i6
O blest Communion, fellowship divine,
We feebly struggle, they in glory shine.
Yet all are one in Thee, for all are thine.
                         Allelulia!

And when the strife is fierce, the warfare long,
Steals on  the ear the distant triumph song,
And hearts are brave again and arms are strong.
                         Allelulia!

The golden evening brightens  in the west;
Soon, soon to faithful warriors comes the rest;
Sweet is the calm of Paradise  the bless'd.
                         Allelulia!
 
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