All this time I was a student of medical science under a truly eminent
man, Thomas Hodson, the highest authority in his profession within
the bounds of Sussex. His career and station gave him every claim
to be classed with the worthies of his age. He was the friend and
fellow-student of Astley Cooper, and the other aristocrats of surgical
art. All acknowledged him as their equals, though his skill and abilities
were in a measure hidden from the admiration of the world. He was
numbered among the leading lithotomists, having extracted the stone by
means of the greatest operation in surgery, somewhere about a hundred
times, with unvarying success.
It was in reflecting on the skill of such men that I always regarded
surgery as a science far above all that physic can attain to.
Thomas Hodson is a name not to be forgotten. He loved his art
passionately, and he would discourse on it with all the fervour it
deserved. It is an art; but look at its foundation! The human frame is a
transparency to the surgeon’s eyes. He is never in the dark, but sees his
way clearly, with a perfect knowledge of what has to be done from first
to last. It is otherwise with physic: the physician can fulfil certain
indications, with certain remedies; these very few in number. For the
rest, how these operate, what work they perform in modifying function
he can never fully foresee. Nor will science ever reach such a pitch as
to enable him to trace the changes which occur in the system, under the
influence of a single dose.
He can swim, but he is mostly out of his depth, and that too often in
troubled waters.
On the other hand, physicians generally used to receive a better
education than surgeons; such of them as respect their position, make
themselves acquainted with every branch of knowledge, whether in
literature, science, or art; in social life all doubtful questions, when
all others are at a loss, are referred to them; and it is fully expected
of them that they will have a ready reply.
Hodson was one of the most amiable men I ever knew, and his manners were
sweet and elegant to such a degree as to make it deserving of mention
that on being thwarted he became the most passionate of men. The world,
then, seemed hardly large enough to hold him. Such a trifle as the loss
of a letter, or of a book, would set him off. Smiling, pale with anger,
he would exclaim, “Will you look about for me?” Then, rapping on the
table with his bent forefinger, forcibly enough to crack the mahogany,
he would shout, “I have looked high, I have looked low; I have looked
uphill, I have looked downhill, and I have looked on level ground. Help
me for my sake; if you won’t do so for my sake, help me for God’s sake;
and if you won’t help me for God’s sake, do so for Jesus Christ’s sake;
for they say he was a good ⸺!”
Hodson was a man of middle stature, fair, although old; bald, with a
finely shaped head, and silvery hair; with classic features, and a most
intelligent expression. His manner was courteous and, in its particular
fashion, graceful. It is no wonder that such a man, gifted as he was,
should have been the delight of the neighbouring gentry, and of the
greater men of the town. When summoned to Glynde or Firle, the residences
of Lords Hampden and Gage, he was always a desired guest at the table of
those nobles; and no more genial and amusing one was anywhere to be found.
Glynde, the inheritance of the late Speaker, Lord Hampden by creation,
sad to say at this hour dead, a descendant of the great patriot, is the
most charming house, perhaps, of any in the south. A large Elizabethan
mansion, a pleasant park, downs covered with the choicest breed of sheep
in the known world, was even made more celebrated by the tenant farmer
John Ellman, than by the lords of the soil.
In those times there was such a thing as south-down mutton!
John Ellman, of Glynde, was a man known to the whole agricultural world.
To those who never saw him, he was known by his full-length portrait, as
was Coke of Norfolk, and other celebrities of his day, to be seen in the
window of a corner shop, between St. James’s Street and Pall Mall, kept
by a gentleman who had the aspect of George the Fourth, and was supposed
to be a son of the monarch; giving one a good idea of what the king would
have been, had he been born a commoner.