STUDYING MEDICINE.
My thoughts were now directed with considerable earnestness and
seriousness, to the study of medicine. It is true that I was already in
the twenty-fourth year of my age, and that the statute law of the State
in which I was a resident required three years of study before receiving
a license to practise medicine and surgery, and I should hence be in my
twenty-seventh or twenty-eighth year before I could enter actively and
responsibly upon the duties of my profession, which would be rather late
in life. Besides, I had become quite enamored of another profession,
much better adapted to my slender pecuniary means than the study of a
new one.
However, I revolved the subject in my mind, till at length, as I
thought, I saw my path clearly. It was my undoubted duty to pursue the
study of medicine. Still, there were difficulties which to any but men
of decision of character were not easily got removed. Shall I tell you
how they were gradually and successfully overcome?
Our family physician had an old skeleton, and a small volume of anatomy
by Cheselden, as well as a somewhat more extended British work on
anatomy and physiology; all these he kindly offered to lend me. Then he
would permit me to study with him, or at least occasionally recite to
him, which would answer the letter of the law. Then, again, I could,
during the winter of each year of study except the last, teach school,
and thus add to my pecuniary means of support. And lastly, my father
would board me whenever I was not teaching, and on as long a credit as I
desired. Were not, then, all my difficulties practically overcome, at
least prospectively?
It was early in the spring of the year 1822 that I carried to my
father's house an old dirty skeleton and some musty books, and commenced
the study of medicine and surgery, or at least of those studies which
are deemed a necessary preparation. It was rather dry business at first,
but I soon became very much interested in the study of physiology, and
made considerable progress. My connection with our physician proved to
be merely nominal, as I seldom found him ready to hear a recitation.
Besides, my course of study was rather desultory, not to say irregular.
In the autumn of 1824, having occasion to teach school at such a
distance as rendered it almost impracticable for me to continue my
former connection as a student, I made arrangements for studying with
another physician on terms not unlike those in the former case. My new
teacher, however, occasionally heard me recite, especially in what is
properly called the practice of medicine and in surgery. His
instructions, though very infrequent, were of service to me.
In 1825 I became a boarder in his family, where I remained about a year.
Here I had an opportunity to consult and even study the various standard
authors in the several departments which are usually regarded as
belonging to a course of medical study. So that if I was not in due time
properly qualified to "practise medicine and surgery in this or any
other country," the fault was chiefly my own.
However, in the spring of 1825, after I had attended a five months'
course of lectures in one of the most famous medical colleges of the
Northern States, I was regularly examined and duly licensed. _How_ well
qualified I was supposed to be, did not exactly appear. It was
marvellous that I succeeded at all, for I had labored much on the farm
during the three years, taught school every winter and two summers, had
two or three seasons of sickness, besides a severe attack of influenza
(this, you know, is not regarded as a disease by many) while attending
lectures, which confined me a week or more. And yet one of my fellow
students, who was present at the examination, laughed at my studied
accuracy!
One word about my thesis, or dissertation. It was customary at the
college where I heard lectures--as it probably is at all others of the
kind--to require each candidate for medical license to read before the
board, prior to his examination, an original dissertation on some topic
connected with his professional studies. The topic I selected was
pulmonary consumption; especially, the means of preventing it. It was,
as may be conjectured, a slight departure from the ordinary routine, but
was characteristic of the writer's mind, prevention being then, as it
still is, and probably always will be, with him a favorite idea. I go so
far, even, as to insist that it should be the favorite idea of every
medical man, from the beginning to the end of his career. "The best part
of the medical art is the art of avoiding pain," was the motto for many
years of the _Boston Medical Intelligencer_; and it embraced a most
important truth. When will it be fully and practically received?
But I must recapitulate a little; or rather, I must go back and give the
reader a few chapters of incidents which occurred while I was a student
under Dr. W., my second and principal teacher. I will however study
brevity as much as possible.