One morning I happened, for some reason or other, to be in the Doctor's
office. A lady from a near-by town had been consulting him. As she was
about to leave, she said: "Tell me, Dr. Janeway, about Dr. N. in our
town. We have just gone there to live, you know, and we want to be sure
to have the best doctor in case we have to call one in." Dr. Janeway
replied: "You cannot do better than Dr. N. I know him very well. He is a
good doctor. He won't do you any harm." The lady went away and I went
back to my work in the laboratory, but that phrase kept ringing in my
ears. "He is a very good doctor. He won't do you any harm." What had he
meant by that? I kept wondering. Well, the woman seemed to be
satisfied; at least she went away without further comment. Later
on--perhaps two or three weeks later--I heard him make very much the
same remark again: "Dr. R. is an excellent doctor. He won't do you any
harm." I did not understand his meaning then, but the thing got stuck in
my mind, and I remembered it. It was some years, I think, before that
saying, for it would keep coming back to me, commenced to make its real
impression. Then, as time and experience went on, clearer and clearer
became its significance until I have come to see it as an expression of
that wisdom--that deeper wisdom of the man whose simple words often
revealed such subtle truths.
V
Dr. Janeway's relation to his profession and to his fellow physicians
was one of rare felicity, and well it might have been, for his code of
professional conduct stood squarely upon that principle of consideration
for others, on which the hope of a some-time civilization in reality,
must ever rest. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," was
more than his motto; it was his motive; more than his precept, it was
his practice. The revised version: "Do others before they do you," which
has come so largely into recent vogue, both professionally as well as
commercially, would have had little appeal to a man whose real goal lay
so far on beyond personal position and private gain. In no better place
than here, with his simple and straight code of conduct, can I mention
something of Dr. Janeway's religion.
In days when doctors are flying from creeds and more--from faith,
seeking to solace their souls in science alone, this great man's simple
adherence to the teachings of Christ become dramatic proof of his powers
of vision. But it was not the conventional Christ drawing a fashionable
flock to a Sunday morning service to church and a Monday morning service
to self, which gave the angle to this man's uprightness; his religion
was one of action rather than exhibition; he used it to control his own
life rather than to coerce the lives of others.