S.WEIR Mil 
 
 ^FR.S. 
 
GIFT OF 
 
 v>^jiiUv>v>^ ^ S^'^^^-^ 
 
 J. 
 
S. WEIR MITCHELL 
 
 M.D., LL.D., F.R.S. 
 
 1829-1914 
 
 MEMORIAL ADDRESSES 
 AND RESOLUTIONS 
 
 Philadelphia 
 1914 
 
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 (f/' 
 
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CONTENTS 
 
 Special Meeting of the College of Physicians. 
 
 Minute passed by the Board of Trustees of the 
 University of Pennsylvania. 
 
 Minute passed by the Council of the School of 
 Medicine, University of Pennsylvania. 
 
 Minute passed by the Directors of the Library 
 Company of Philadelphia. 
 
 Minute passed by the Board of Trustees of the 
 Jefferson Medical College. 
 
 Joint Meeting: 
 
 The College of Physicians of Philadelphia. 
 
 The American Philosophical Society. 
 
 The University of Pennsylvania. 
 
 The Library Company of Philadelphia. 
 
 The Jefferson Medical College. 
 
 The Academy of Natural Sciences. 
 
SPECIAL MEETING 
 
 OF THE 
 
 COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS OF PHILADELPHIA 
 
 UPON THE DEATH OF 
 
 DR. S. WEIR MITCHELL 
 
 January 6, 1914 
 
Dr. James Cornelius Wilson 
 
 PRESIDENT OF THE COLLEGE 
 
THIS special meeting of the College has 
 been called to commemorate with honor 
 and solemnity the passing away of a Fellow 
 who has long been known not only among 
 us but also throughout the world, in the 
 highest human sense, as a great physician. 
 He was certainly the most accomplished and 
 versatile physician of our times. In science, 
 letters, poetry, history, and every grace of 
 social life he achieved unusual distinction. He 
 served his country and mankind by brilliant 
 original investigations during the Civil War, 
 and from his earliest days devoted himself 
 to original scientific research, and by example 
 and suggestion inspired others to engage in 
 similar work. 
 
 To a broad patriotism he added an untiring 
 interest in civic affairs, and Philadelphia will 
 miss his wise and unselfish devotion to her 
 welfare. As an educator in the highest sense, 
 he stands forth prominently among the Trus- 
 tees of the University of Pennsylvania and 
 the Directors of the Library Company of 
 Philadelphia. But it was as a practitioner of 
 
the art of medicine that he manifested those 
 qualities of mind and heart that enabled 
 him for nearly half a century to command the 
 admiration and affection of grateful patients 
 and appreciative professional colleagues in 
 almost every civilized country. But to us his 
 life has another meaning and the splendid 
 traits of his character a deeper significance. 
 As a Fellow of this College he showed a 
 steadily progressive interest in its affairs and 
 an ever-increasing liberality of means and 
 energy to promote its welfare. But for his 
 conciliatory spirit, his indomitable will, and 
 his power to influence men, this beautiful 
 hall would still be an unrealized hope. If 
 the world could load him with honors as it 
 did, how much more it is for us to pay the 
 homage of our deep appreciation and reverent 
 affection to the dear colleague whom we have 
 lost by death, Silas Weir Mitchell. 
 
TRIBUTE TO S. WEIR MITCHELL 
 By Dr. W. W. Keen 
 
 PRESIDENT OF THE COLLEGE FROM 1900 TO 1902 
 
 11 
 
TN this same hall but a short time ago, 
 -■- at a memorial meeting in honor of Henry 
 C. Lea, I spoke of our ''Philadelphia Trium- 
 virate" of eminent men, Henry C. Lea, 
 Horace Howard Furness, and S. Weir Mitchell. 
 Now the last of this distinguished trio — the 
 most remarkable medical man I have ever 
 known in Europe or America — has passed 
 away. 
 
 My first acquaintance with S. Weir Mitchell 
 was in the first week in September, i860, 
 over fifty-three years ago — a very long time 
 for an intimate friendship unshadowed by 
 the smallest cloud. 
 
 I had just begun the study of the bones. 
 Gray's Anatomy — then quite a new book — 
 lay before me and in my hands was a skull. 
 The window was open and the hot September 
 sun was shut out by Venetian blinds, as in the 
 early afternoon I sat in my preceptor's office 
 where now the Jefferson Medical College 
 building stands. Suddenly I heard the blinds 
 move and turning around I saw a pair of 
 eyes looking between the now horizontal 
 
 13 
 
slats, while a voice outside said, ''Doctor, 
 don't you want to help me in some experi- 
 ments on snakes?" Flattered by a doctorate 
 won by only three days' study, and ardently 
 desiring to make a more intimate acquaint- 
 ance with snakes, I instantly assented. On 
 going to the door I saw a slender young man 
 who introduced himself to me as Dr. S. Weir 
 Mitchell. Though only eight years my senior 
 — he was only past thirty-one — as he had 
 been a graduate in medicine for ten years I 
 looked upon him as far above my ignorant 
 youth. Never even to the last have I been 
 able — nor did I wish — to annul the early 
 habit of my youth and regard him as aught else 
 but my medical father — my beloved master. 
 Soon after the war broke out, when Surgeon- 
 General Hammond, at Mitchell's suggestion, 
 established some special hospitals, including 
 the Hospital for Diseases and Injuries of the 
 Nervous System, I was appointed, at his 
 request, the junior assistant of himself and 
 Morehouse. Years afterward he told me his 
 reason for asking for my appointment — that 
 
 14 
 
he found when I was a student that ''he could 
 never kill me with hard work" — a cherished 
 compliment. 
 
 In the Christian Street Hospital and later 
 at Turner's Lane Hospital for nearly two 
 years I enjoyed the most intimate daily 
 intercourse with him. Still later in the 
 Orthopedic Hospital and Infirmary for Ner- 
 vous Diseases I was his surgical colleague; 
 in the College of Physicians his hearty sup- 
 porter; and always and everywhere his warm 
 friend. 
 
 These intimate relations resulted in the 
 closest medical friendship of my life. I owe 
 to him more than to anyone else the path 
 I have trodden, the literary and scientific 
 impulses I have received, and any success I 
 may have achieved. 
 
 He taught me the important art of eluci- 
 dating the case histories of patients; the im- 
 portance of little hints which were often the 
 insignificant surface out-croppings of a rich 
 vein of facts; the importance and methods 
 of cross-examination to ferret out the truth, 
 
 15 
 
and above all, the ability to interpret these 
 assembled facts in making a diagnosis. 
 
 He had a wonderful faculty of correlating 
 widely separated facts and experiences, often, 
 it might be, years apart. To him one plus 
 one did not make two, but resulted in three 
 — a tertium quid — a new fact or inference. 
 
 Never have I known so original, suggestive, 
 and fertile a mind. I often called him a 
 ''yeasty" man. His mind was ever ferment- 
 ing, speculating, alert, and overflowing with 
 ideas. With these he leavened the minds of 
 his fellows and set their ideas fermenting. 
 He was always desirous of putting everything 
 to the test of experiment, and never satisfied 
 until he had exhausted all possibilities. Almost 
 every research but opened a vista of other 
 and still more interesting problems to be 
 solved. An hour in his office set my own 
 mind in a turmoil so that I could hardly sleep. 
 His was indeed an elevating, stimulating 
 friendship. Ideas scintillated, plans were 
 formed, and almost always took concrete 
 shape. He gave points to the botanists, the 
 
 16 
 
neurologists, the surgeons, the gynecologists, 
 the psychiatrists, indeed to everybody. Nihil 
 tetigit quod non ornavit. 
 
 Even to the last, when approaching his 
 eighty-fifth birthday, his mind was as alert 
 and suggestive as ever. But a short month 
 ago, at the dinner given to the officers and 
 council of the College of Physicians by the 
 president — a custom he initiated — he made 
 three suggestions which I hope with pious 
 affection we will carry out: (i) That the 
 College of Physicians should publish a ''Roll 
 of Honor" — a handsome book containing the 
 many names of the Fellows who have served 
 in the Army, Navy, and Public Health Ser- 
 vice, in the War of the Revolution, of 1812, 
 of the Mexican, the Civil, the Spanish-Ameri- 
 can wars, and of the various Indian wars. (2) 
 That we should publish a catalogue raisonne 
 of our splendid collection of incunabula, to 
 which I would add of our specially important 
 and rare books. It would be a notable con- 
 tribution to medical scholarship and culture. 
 
 (3) That we should publish each month a 
 
 17 , 
 
bulletin or "compte rendu/' including the 
 proceedings of the Sections of the College, 
 with notes on especially important new books, 
 relics, portraits, etc. 
 
 Personally to know S. Weir Mitchell was 
 a passport in any gathering, not only of 
 medical men, but of laymen. When it was 
 announced at Harrisburg a year ago that 
 Dr. S. Weir Mitchell had come to oppose a 
 vicious antivivisection bill, the legislators 
 crowded to meet their distinguished visitor. 
 
 I well remember when dining with Sir James 
 Paget, who as president of the International 
 Congress of 1881, over thirty years ago, enter- 
 tained one hundred guests daily for a week — 
 how pleased I was when that eminent surgeon 
 said to me, ''Dr. Mitchell is one of the most 
 distinguished medical men in your country,'* 
 adding after a pause, ''or in any country." 
 This opinion was emphasized in the case of more 
 than one American patient who had crossed 
 the Atlantic to consult Paget, by his advising 
 them to return to America and consult S. Weir 
 Mitchell, the highest authority on their troubles. 
 
 18 
 
I must leave to others to speak of him as 
 a novelist, a poet, a patriot, or a citizen, of 
 his own original researches, and of his ser- 
 vices to medical education, and confine my 
 remarks especially to his services to our 
 institution. 
 
 His services to this College can never be 
 overestimated. Twice president of the Col- 
 lege — an honor conferred upon only one other 
 of our Fellows in one hundred and twenty- 
 seven years — his friend Dr. J. M. DaCosta — 
 his life was closely identified with its history 
 for fifty-eight years, a period antedating the 
 birth of most of the Fellows of the College. 
 The College was an ever-present object of 
 solicitude. He was continually giving books, 
 curios, paintings, relics, and other riches to 
 our collections, and also stimulating others 
 to join him in presenting valuable gifts. 
 
 In the days of doubt and apprehension, 
 when we were debating the question of re- 
 moval from Thirteenth and Locust Streets, 
 his wise foresight, happy optimism, persistent 
 and wonderful success in raising funds for 
 
 19 
 
what seemed at times an almost hopeless 
 scheme, encouraged even the most doubtful, 
 and finally won the day. This vision of 
 splendor — it is not too strong a phrase for 
 the finest home of any medical society in 
 the world — we owe to him. Appropriate 
 indeed is Wren's epitaph in St. Paul's, '^Si 
 monumentum quceris circumspice,'" 
 
 The gifts in busts, statues, rare books, 
 portraits, and splendid additional endow- 
 ments that have been showered upon us 
 since we dedicated this hall witness his far- 
 seeing wisdom. 
 
 Of honors he received his rightful share. 
 To say nothing of the recognition of his worth 
 by many American universities and learned 
 societies, Bologna, oldest of all universities, 
 at the celebration of the eight-hundredth 
 anniversary of its foundation, gave him an 
 honorary M.D. Edinburgh gave him its 
 imprimatur with an LL.D., and he was 
 elected a Foreign Associate of the French 
 Academy of Medicine, of the Royal Society, 
 and of many other foreign societies. 
 
 20 
 
Very rarely, but then with earnestness, has 
 he spoken to me of his spiritual life; but on 
 these few occasions he has expressed a devout 
 belief in the Christian religion and wondered 
 that men could live without deep religious 
 convictions. Among his most cherished 
 friends were Bishop Phillips Brooks, Bishop 
 William N. McVickar, and Rev. Dr. Charles 
 D. Cooper. 
 
 But he has gone to his eternal rest and 
 reward. Happily* even at such advanced age, 
 while his bodily faculties were gradually 
 failing, his mind was as alert, vigorous, and 
 inquisitive as ever. He has sunk to rest like 
 an unclouded sun in full-orbed splendor. 
 Requiescat in pace. 
 
 21 
 
TRIBUTE TO S. WEIR MITCHELL 
 By Dr. James Tyson 
 
 PRESIDENT OF THE COLLEGE FROM 1907 TO 1910 
 
 23 
 
WITH Dr. Mitcheirs death closes a career 
 characterized alike by brilliancy and 
 usefulness. He was at once a physician and 
 contributor to our knowledge of disease and 
 its treatment, a scientist, a skilled writer in 
 prose and verse, and a public benefactor. 
 This meeting of the College of Physicians is 
 called that we may give expression to our 
 ^teem, our sorrow, and our gratitude for the 
 part he has taken in placing the College on 
 that high plane of dignity and usefulness 
 everywhere acknowledged of it, and for 
 what he has done in securing its material 
 prosperity. 
 
 Doubtless there will be arranged in the near 
 future a memorial meeting for which suitable 
 speakers will be selected who will enlarge on 
 the life and work of this great man; so I will 
 occupy only a few minutes of your time in 
 pointing out more particularly those services 
 which have resulted in associating his name 
 with the history of the College more closely 
 than that of any other man. 
 
 Dr. Mitchell became a Fellow of the College 
 
 25 
 
in 1856, and at the time of his death was the 
 third on our roll of membership. He was 
 elected during the period when the College 
 met in the ''Picture House/* on the grounds 
 of the Pennsylvania Hospital, built fpr the 
 lodgement and display of Benjamin West's 
 great picture of ''Christ Healing the Sick/' in 
 what I have called elsewhere the fourth home 
 of the College. He often alluded humorously 
 to the difficulty he had in securing election 
 on account of the school prejudices of the 
 day. 
 
 His activity began with the more rapid 
 growth of the library, which started with the 
 generous gift of Dr. Samuel W. Lewis in 1864. 
 His first substantial contribution was the 
 establishment in 1880 of the Weir Mitchell 
 Library Fund, endowed with $1000, which he 
 subsequently increased to $5000. This gift 
 was followed by another in 1883 of $5000, 
 subsequently increased to $7000, to provide 
 an Entertainment Fund whence the Fellows 
 could be entertained at such times as the 
 accumulated interest might justify. 
 
 26 
 
The Directory for Nurses, which has been 
 one of the benefactions of the College, he 
 established in 1882. It has become a source 
 of considerable revenue to the College as 
 well as a boon to the community. 
 
 Dr. Mitchell became the President of the 
 College in 1886 and was reelected in two suc- 
 cessive years, and again in 1892, with like 
 reelections in 1893 and 1894. These adminis- 
 trations were characterized by untiring efforts 
 of the President to advance the interests of 
 the College in many ways. The most striking 
 of these was the continued rapid growth of 
 the library as shown in the gifts of books and 
 numerous subscriptions for their purchase. 
 
 The culminating act of Dr. Mitchell's rela- 
 tion to the College of Physicians was the 
 erection of the palatial new college hall 
 which we now occupy. Its cost in round 
 numbers, for lots and buildings, was $365,000, 
 and it is safe to say it would not have been 
 accomplished for many years, if at all, but 
 for his influence and assistance. In addition 
 to his own handsome subscription, he was 
 
 27 
 
instrumental in securing very large sums 
 from others, such as $100,000 from a single 
 person, $75,000 from another, $20,000 from 
 another, and from others smaller but still 
 large sums. 
 
 But more than this. Dr. Mitchell gave 
 himself to the College. He gave of his hope- 
 fulness, of his courage and enthusiasm, of 
 his time as well as his money. He might 
 well have said of himself, as did Sir Jonathan 
 Hutchinson, that he was "a man of hope and 
 forward-looking mind.'' The college hall is 
 at once a product of such a mind and a 
 monument to it. In scores of instances, dur- 
 ing and outside his administrations as Presi- 
 dent, he aided the College in the acquirement 
 of rare and valuable books and curios, adding 
 greatly to the value of the library and 
 museum. Let us pray that we may inherit 
 the undying spark with which to continue 
 the work he has commenced in so many lines. 
 
 With one practice which characterized 
 Dr. Mitchell I am inclined to think few 
 are familiar, because his refinement and 
 
 28 
 
thoroughly patrician instincts would naturally 
 lead him to conceal it. I refer to the practice 
 of rendering financial assistance to younger 
 men in their struggles for success in early 
 professional life. This he would do either 
 by direct loan of money, unsolicited though 
 it might be, or by sums advanced to assist 
 in research and experiment or in compensa- 
 tion for literary work or professional assist- 
 ance. He was indeed one who did not let his 
 left hand know what his right did. The fol- 
 lowing lines published in a recent issue of one 
 of our daily papers, entitled ''An Apprecia- 
 tion," so accurately reflect the truth that I 
 take the liberty of quoting them in conclusion : 
 
 "Whoso are great all hail him great, 
 And honor him as best they may, 
 Each in his own appointed way. 
 But they who judge of height from height 
 Can never have so sheer delight, 
 So true a measure of his worth, 
 As those of lesser birth; 
 Who, looking upward, feel his smile, 
 And knowing, too, the while 
 How far he has to stoop 
 To be so passing kind." 
 29 
 
TRIBUTE TO S. WEIR MITCHELL 
 By Dr. G. E. de Schweinitz 
 
 PRESIDENT OF THE COLLEGE FROM 1911 TO 1913 
 
 31 
 
AT one time or another each member of 
 this collegiate body must have thought 
 of the great emptiness Dr. Mitchell would 
 leave when he went away from us. Now we 
 are looking into it. This is the present vision 
 of our eyes, and there is no tone deep enough 
 for regret, no word fine enough to beguile 
 us from the grief of our loss. And yet, keen 
 though our sorrow is, we hold fast to, and 
 make record of, a solemn pride which is our 
 sustaining right in that with honors thick upon 
 him, with the result of his achievements 
 named and famed throughout the world, this 
 our beloved College of Physicians was ever 
 the favorite object of his heart. Of the love, 
 with which he cherished it, of the thought he 
 gave to it, of the labor he bestowed upon it, 
 we know, and we, the Fellows of the College, 
 are the beneficiaries of the full-measured 
 effort he brought to it. The last words he 
 spoke in this hall were a plea for still further 
 widening our ever-increasing sphere of useful- 
 ness, and ours must be the sacred privilege to 
 do those things which he would have done had 
 
 33 
 
he been spared longer to live and work with 
 us. On some other occasion full record will 
 be made of Dr. Mitchell's worth and work: 
 how he lighted the lamp of his genius and 
 became the salvor of the nervous wreck; how 
 he mended the wear and tear of the over- 
 worked human machine; how he elaborated 
 a method of treatment world-wide in its 
 beneficial results; how he studied and solved 
 the problems of experimental science; how he 
 sweetened the lives of those once bitter with 
 the sorrow of mental and of physical ills; 
 how his songs have flowed through many a 
 heart; how his books have brightened the 
 hours of those who read. But let that biog- 
 rapher tell also of the warmth of his friend- 
 ship, of the stimulus of his example, of the 
 wealth of his suggestions, of the never-failing 
 kindness of his active interest. Let him tell 
 what he did for the young men of our profes- 
 sion ; how the wisdom of his advice smoothed 
 away the ignorance of inexperience; how he 
 steadied feet stumbling along the path of early 
 endeavor; how he started men, young men, 
 
 34 
 
and guided them on the sure road which 
 leads to honorable usefulness; and how he 
 did all these things with a fine generosity 
 that it is a joy to remember and a privilege 
 to record. 
 
 Mr. President, the College has lost its 
 most loved and distinguished Fellow; it can 
 never lose the inspiration of his splendid 
 presence nor the favor of his example. 
 These are, and must always remain, our 
 most treasured possessions. 
 
 35 
 
TRIBUTE TO S. WEIR MITCHELL 
 By Dr. Frederick P. Henry 
 
 HONORARY LIBRARIAN OF THE COLLEGE 
 
 3i 
 
1HAVE been requested by the President 
 to prepare a minute expressive of the 
 deep feeling of bereavement which is shared 
 by every Fellow of the College, and respect- 
 fully submit the following: 
 
 We are met to honor the memory of the 
 most remarkable man in the medical history 
 of this country. We have had many illus- 
 trious men in our profession, and the race 
 is by no means extinct; but I have no fear 
 that my statement will be challenged nor that 
 it would be if I included in it the medical 
 profession of the world. 
 
 I will not compare Weir Mitchell with 
 other great men, for it is not by comparison 
 that we form our estimate of an individual. 
 I will simply mention a few facts in his 
 remarkable career with some of which all 
 present are probably familiar, but with all 
 of which few, if any, are. 
 
 Although never occupying a chair in any 
 medical school. Dr. Mitchell was, through his 
 writings and his active participation in the 
 proceedings of medical societies, the teacher 
 
 39 
 
of those who taught. He was a pioneer in the 
 sciences of experimental physiology and neu- 
 rology. I was familiar with his name as an 
 authority in medicine when I was a medical 
 student, and I was graduated in 1868. His 
 life was a complete refutation of the fallacy 
 that there is any time-limit to a man's 
 capacity for original work. In his eighty- 
 fifth year he added another to his long list 
 of successful novels, successful in the highest 
 sense of the word, for they have secured a 
 permanent place in English literature. 
 
 In his numerous and varied activities he 
 represented the spirit of the age, but he 
 would have represented the spirit of any 
 age in which he might have lived. In the 
 days which we, in our self-sufficiency, regard 
 as primitive, days when poetry and phi- 
 losophy and sculpture and architecture at- 
 tained a degree of perfection that has never 
 been surpassed or even equalled, Weir 
 Mitchell might have had a place in the 
 Pantheon, for the qualities which compelled 
 the admiration and respect of this generation 
 
 40 
 
were the very ones whose possessors were 
 deified by Greece and Rome. By giving a 
 legitimate scope to our imagination we can 
 think of him as a disciple of ^sculapius, who 
 rivalled his master and was accorded equal 
 honor with him, and in that imaginary event 
 we can fancy the noble statue of ^sculapius 
 which adorns our hall replaced by the equally 
 noble figure of Weir Mitchell. It is far 
 better as it is, far better for us who have 
 felt the direct influence of his quickening 
 spirit, and, awakening from our dream, we 
 may thank God that he lived in our day and 
 generation, and that his works are now 
 among our incunabula. 
 
 I am oppressed by the thought that the 
 noble countenance with which we were all so 
 familiar is now but a memory; that I shall 
 no more sit with him at the meetings of 
 the Library Committee, where we delighted 
 to do him honor, where we strove to antici- 
 pate his wishes, and where his suggestions 
 were our commands. 
 
 Although his face is but a memory and his 
 
 41 
 
voice no longer heard, his spirit is still with 
 us, and will remain so long as we maintain 
 the traditions he revered and which have as 
 their basis the virtues of honesty, justice, 
 and truth. These formed the substratum of 
 his own character, and the graces of gentle- 
 ness, sympathy, and tact, which were so con- 
 spicuous in its superstructure, derived their 
 convincing force from the solid foundation 
 on which they rested. 
 
 42 
 
MINUTE PASSED BY THE BOARD OF 
 
 TRUSTEES OF THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF PENNSYLVANIA 
 
 43 
 
WHEREAS, We, the Trustees of the Uni- 
 versity of Pennsylvania, have heard 
 of the recent death of our distinguished asso- 
 ciate, Silas Weir Mitchell, M.D., LL.D., with 
 profound regret, and prompted by feelings of 
 sincere sympathy with the living and of high 
 regard for the lamented dead, desire to make 
 record of our sentiments; be it therefore 
 
 Resolvedy That the sad intelligence of the 
 death of Dr. Silas Weir Mitchell, a death 
 which seems sudden and unexpected despite 
 the fulness of years to which he had attained, 
 has come as a shock to the University, well 
 calculated to awaken in us all emotions of 
 unaffected sorrow and lasting regret. 
 
 Resolved, That the University feels justly 
 proud of the brilliant and distinguished career 
 of a son whose original and valuable researches 
 in physiology and experimental medicine, 
 as well as the fruitful cultivation of other 
 fields of science, enlarged the sum of human 
 knowledge, while his successful work as a 
 practitioner of rare skill and deep insight 
 diminished the sum of human suffering, pro- 
 fessional achievements which, no less than 
 
 45 
 
his remarkable power and eminence in the 
 realms of the imagination which find expres- 
 sion in literature, made the name of Weir 
 Mitchell widely known and highly esteemed 
 both at home and abroad and laid a firm 
 foundation for a fame which will endure. 
 
 Resohedy That we deeply deplore the loss of 
 Weir Mitchell as a man, as a public-spirited 
 citizen, and especially as a Trustee of the 
 University, and as a member of the class of 
 1848, and shall long remember the energy 
 and the far-sighted, keen interest, the zeal, 
 tempered by experience, and the persuasive 
 cordiality which he brought to her service 
 during the long term of thirty-five years as 
 a member of this board, an example to be 
 emulated by us who remain and an inspira- 
 tion to the Trustees that shall come after us. 
 
 Resolvedy That these resolutions be spread 
 on the records of the board and communi- 
 cated to the faculties of the University; and 
 that a copy be sent to the surviving members 
 of the family of Dr. Mitchell as a respectful 
 offering of the sincere sympathy and condo- 
 lence of the Trustees of the University. 
 
 46 
 
A MINUTE OF APPRECIATION AND ESTEEM 
 
 ADOPTED BY THE COUNCIL OF THE 
 
 SCHOOL OF MEDICINE OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA 
 
 47 
 
WE, of the Council of the School of 
 Medicine of the University of Penn- 
 sylvania, profoundly affected by the death 
 of Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, on January 4, 
 1 9 14, desire to make record of our deep 
 sorrow and to bear witness to our personal 
 loss, and, in a larger sense, to the loss 
 which our School of Medicine has sustained. 
 
 For thirty-five years a trustee of our 
 University, he gave to all her departments 
 full measure of the richness of his influence, 
 of his effort, and of his stimulus, but to 
 none of them more liberally and more wisely 
 than to this our Department of Medicine. 
 
 Of his distinguished accomplishments in 
 
 experimental science and their practical 
 
 application the world possesses an admiring 
 
 knowledge, and from them has reaped an 
 
 ample benefit. His work in comparative 
 
 and human anatomy and physiology; his 
 
 researches in toxicology; his study of the 
 
 remote effects of injured nerves, the outcome 
 
 of observations while loyally serving his 
 
 country during the Civil War; his researches 
 
 49 
 
■>.^,4^ 
 
 on the venoms of poisonous serpents; his 
 investigation of the cause of functional 
 nervous diseases and his introduction of 
 rest-cure in the treatment of these disorders, 
 which revolutionized their management, is 
 world-famed in its importance; his recogni- 
 tion of the significance of distant symptoms 
 in their interpretation of disturbed function 
 in individual organs; his establishment 
 of new clinical types of disease and his 
 thorough study of symptoms and their 
 combinations; his lessons in nervous disease, 
 his amazing skill as a healer of the mentally 
 sick, and his never-flagging, systematic, and 
 organized research in all that pertains to the 
 science and art of medicine, constitute a 
 record of achievement to which few men 
 attain. 
 
 *'He was filled with the spirit of scholar- 
 ship, and represented its finest traditions,'* 
 and firm as was his place in the world's best 
 work in science, the large and distinguished 
 output of his literary talent in prose and 
 poetry ever enhanced his commanding posi- 
 
 50 
 
tion, never dimming his medical effort, but 
 emphasized its happy combination with his 
 artistic temperament. 
 
 We of the School of Medicine must ever 
 bear in loving remembrance his high aims, 
 his interest in humanity, his never-failing 
 generosity, his stimulating suggestiveness, 
 and his eagerness to help, encourage, and 
 support him who would enter the field of 
 original and clinical research. 
 
 The Departments of Physiology, Neurol- 
 ogy, and Pathology are in a special sense the 
 beneficiaries of his unflagging efforts. Fore- 
 most among those who recognized the value 
 to the medical student of a preparatory 
 course in biology, he was earnest in energiz- 
 ing the activities of our School of Biology. 
 Research work not only received his endorse- 
 ment and approval, but to it he gave direct 
 and personal attention, taking part with 
 the professor of physiology in some of the 
 most important investigations which have 
 been carried on in the University labora- 
 tories. Through his influence large grants 
 
 51 
 
were obtained for research work by mem- 
 bers of the University faculties, resulting 
 in discoveries which justly have taken a 
 foremost rank in scientific effort. 
 
 Not only was Dr. Mitchell the inspiring 
 spirit in all forms of medical laboratory 
 work, but he also maintained an unceasing 
 interest in the improvement and expansion 
 of clinical work, especially in the domain of 
 neurology and of internal medicine. Indeed, 
 so important and so various were the direc- 
 tions in which he extended his influence and 
 his abilities in all these respects, that the 
 story cannot be recorded without recalling 
 almost every important advance in the his- 
 tory and achievements of the School of 
 Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania 
 during the last forty years. 
 
 A moral force in social and civic affairs, 
 in the front rank of literary excellence, pro- 
 moter and patron of scientific and medical 
 research, the name of Dr. Mitchell takes 
 enduring place in the history of American 
 medicine and of American literature. 
 
 52 
 
MINUTE PASSED BY THE DIRECTORS 
 
 OF THE LIBRARY COMPANY 
 
 OF PHILADELPHIA 
 
 53 
 
ON the fifteenth of the coming February, 
 Dr. S. Weir Mitchell would have com- 
 pleted his eighty-fifth year. Early in the 
 morning of Sunday, January 4, after a quiet 
 illness of less than seven days, he died. He had 
 been a director of the Library Company of 
 Philadelphia since April, 1875. He was born 
 and educated in Philadelphia, and graduated 
 at the Jefferson Medical College in 1850. 
 
 It is not here, in our intimate memories 
 and affection, that we either need or wish to 
 dwell upon him as a great physician, or a 
 distinguished man of letters, or to narrate the 
 steps of his long, illustrious life. That will be 
 done in many places, both within and outside 
 of his own country. Let us remind ourselves 
 merely of this: that he published his first 
 medical paper in 1852, at the age of twenty- 
 three, and that threescore years later he 
 wrote his last novel, WestwaySy which has 
 rivalled in popularity and far surpassed in 
 excellence the tales of authors young enough 
 to be his sons and grandsons. All of us know 
 
 the activity that crowded that span of sixty 
 
 55 
 
years; all of us are aware of its wide, unceas- 
 ing beneficence; he served his fellow-men in 
 countless ways, and his unknown deeds of 
 kindness were as constant as those which 
 brought him public renown and gratitude. 
 He would have died a rich man but for the 
 act of repairing with his private fortune his 
 share of the loss to stockholders and depositors 
 occasioned by the failure of a trust company 
 of which he was a director. This voluntary 
 act set an example of honor and integrity in 
 itself alone enough to make him a memorable 
 citizen. 
 
 It is as a friend we think of him here, loyal, 
 wise, unforgetting; a warm heart, a generous 
 hand. It is hard to imagine the streets of our 
 town without his familiar face. 
 
 .'' 
 
MINUTE PASSED BY THE BOARD OF 
 
 TRUSTEES OF THE JEFFERSON 
 
 MEDICAL COLLEGE OF 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
 57 
 
THE Trustees of the Jefferson Medical 
 College of Philadelphia desire to place 
 upon their records an expression of their sense 
 of the great loss sustained by the medical 
 profession, by literature, and by the commu- 
 nity at large in the death of Dr. S. Weir 
 Mitchell. 
 
 It was his good fortune — ^rarely enjoyed 
 by any man — to win lasting fame in several 
 widely different directions. As a practising 
 physician and the author of many noted 
 works on medical subjects, he was a leader in 
 his profession; and was recognized, here and 
 abroad, as one of its commanding figures. 
 In the domain of literature he won great 
 distinction as a poet and novelist; and his 
 wonderful activity in this field, which com- 
 menced before he had reached middle life 
 and lasted until the close of his days, earned 
 for him a reputation in the world of letters 
 vastly more widespread than that which was 
 purely professional. 
 
 His personal character was as admirable 
 as it was attractive, and his civic duties 
 
 59 
 
were discharged with zeal and with fidelity 
 to the highest standards of morals and good 
 government. 
 
 The Jefferson Medical College has, during 
 its long career, sent out to the ranks of the 
 profession many men who became a great 
 honor to their alma mater. In the list of 
 these alumni. Dr. Mitchell's name may, 
 without discredit to any other, be placed at 
 the head; where, for all time, it will stand. 
 
 Clarum et venerabile nomen. 
 
 60 
 
RESOLUTION ADOPTED BY THE COLLEGE OF 
 
 PHYSICIANS OF PHILADELPHIA INVITING 
 
 OTHER ORGANIZATIONS TO JOIN WITH 
 
 THE COLLEGE IN A MEMORIAL 
 
 MEETING 
 
THE College of Physicians of Philadel- 
 phia, at its meeting on February 4, 19 14, 
 adopted the following resolution: 
 
 Resolved, That a committee be appointed to 
 arrange for a memorial meeting to Dr. S. Weir 
 Mitchell, and to invite such other organizations 
 to join with the College in such meeting as they 
 may deem wise. 
 
 In accordance with this resolution, the 
 President appointed Dr. George E. de 
 Schweinitz, Dr. W. W. Keen, and Dr. Wil- 
 liam J. Taylor a committee to arrange for 
 this memorial meeting. 
 
 At a meeting held for this purpose on 
 February 12, 1914, these gentlemen, with 
 Mr. C. C. Harrison and Dr. Robert G. 
 LeConte, who represented the University of 
 Pennsylvania; Mr. John Cadwalader and Mr. 
 Joseph G. Rosengarten, who represented the 
 American Philosophical Society; Mr. George 
 Harrison Fisher and Mr. Owen Wister, who 
 represented the Library Company of Phila- 
 delphia; Dr. Charles B. Penrose and Dr. 
 F. X. Dercum, who represented the Academy 
 
of Natural Sciences; and Mr. William Potter, 
 the President of the Board of Trustees, and 
 Dr. Dercum, who represented the Jefferson 
 Medical College, arranged for a joint meeting 
 of these various organizations, and full power 
 was given to Dr. George E. de Schweinitz, 
 Dr. W. W. Keen, and Dr. William J. Taylor, 
 who represented the College, to make all 
 arrangements. 
 
A JOINT MEETING 
 
 OF 
 
 The College of Physicians of Philadelphia 
 
 The American Philosophical Society 
 
 The University of Pennsylvania 
 
 The Library Company of Philadelphia 
 
 The Jefferson Medical College 
 
 AND 
 
 The Academy of Natural Sciences 
 
 WAS HELD 
 
 IN MEMORY OF 
 
 S. WEIR MITCHELL, M.D., LL.D., F.R.S. 
 
 ON 
 
 Tuesday Evening, March Thirty-first 
 
 NiNETEEN-FOURTEEN 
 
 IN THE Hall of the College of Physicians 
 Twenty-second Street above Chestnut Street 
 
 DR. JAMES C. WILSON 
 
 THE PRESIDENT OF THE COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS 
 
 PRESIDED 
 
 AND ADDRESSES WERE DELIVERED BY 
 
 MR. TALCOTT WILLIAMS DR. WILLIAM H. WELCH 
 
 OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY OF JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY 
 
 AND 
 
 MR. OWEN WISTER 
 
 OF PHILADELPHIA 
 61 
 
INTRODUCTION BY THE PRESIDENT OF 
 THE COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS 
 
 Dr. James Cornelius Wilson 
 
 63 
 
LITTLE more than four years have elapsed 
 since this building was completed and 
 this hall inscribed with the name of one 
 whom every Fellow of the College delighted 
 to honor. On two occasions in the past 
 it has been the scene of meetings to com- 
 memorate with solemnity the life and services 
 of great citizens who have ceased from their 
 labors. Tonight, for the third time in that 
 short period, it witnesses a united tribute of 
 love and appreciation ; on this occasion to one 
 who was in the highest sense a great citizen 
 and a great physician. 
 
 Lea, Furness, Mitchell! Friends and con- 
 temporaries! Joyous toilers in the rich fields 
 of usefulness to their fellow-men. Unconscious 
 of the passing of the years, since with every 
 decade came new skill in doing the beloved 
 work and a renewed sense of power and 
 success. Young in old age, until in a brief 
 day of suffering, youth became immortality. 
 
 It is well that we are here tonight to do 
 Mitchell the homage of our grateful remem- 
 brance. This assemblage represents the things 
 
 65 
 
that were dear to him — science, the arts, 
 letters, good citizenship, his own beloved 
 profession. In it are those with whom he 
 loved to be joined in rendering service — 
 educators, librarians, public men, journalists, 
 clergymen, and his associates in the great insti- 
 tutions which have come together to render 
 this tribute to his memory. There are others, 
 also, who joyously rise up to call him blessed, 
 two groups of them: those who were sick but 
 by his skill have been made well, and those who 
 by his teaching have learned the art to cure. 
 It is meet that we should be assembled 
 in this place in honoring his memory. The 
 College of Physicians was always in his 
 thoughts. From the time when he became a 
 Fellow in 1856 until his death he was con- 
 stantly active in its affairs. His last brief 
 address concerned the interests of the College, 
 and was spoken to a group of friends in this 
 hall. In every movement of its wonderful 
 progress and development he was an earnest, 
 wise, and enthusiastic leader. He served as its 
 president from 1886 till 1889 and again from 
 
 66 
 
1892 till 1895. His contributions to its 
 scientific business were many, and always of 
 the highest order. They were usually brief, 
 but invariably suggested much more than was 
 said. He gave us of his best. His interest in 
 the books never flagged. His regular attend- 
 ance at the meetings of the library com- 
 mittee was an inspiration. His gifts of rare 
 and curious volumes were without stint, and 
 he inspired others to give. Bibliophile of a 
 very high order, he made those who were 
 near to him also diear lovers of books, just 
 as he aroused in younger men the love of 
 science and the spirit of scientific research. 
 
 In 1878 he placed in the keeping of the 
 Secretary of this College a sealed envelope 
 upon which was written over his signature 
 the words, ''Not to be opened until my death." 
 On the sad day of his funeral it was found to 
 contain this statement: ''I give to the Col- 
 lege of Physicians of Philadelphia the copy of 
 the original portrait of Harvey and that of 
 John Hunter, the gift to become effective 
 upon my death." 
 
 67 
 
If you wish to know what he thought of 
 this College, read his occasional addresses as 
 they appear in the volumes of the Transac- 
 tions, especially those delivered at the cere- 
 monies of the dedication of this building. If 
 you wish to know what he has done for it, 
 behold the building itself, for the success of 
 the movement which brought it into exist- 
 ence is largely due to the broad-mindedness, 
 the indomitable will, and the knowledge of 
 men which were prominent traits in the 
 character of Silas Weir Mitchell. 
 
 I have spoken of him thus briefly as citizen, 
 friend, physician, as though he was not only 
 of us, but ours. But he is not ours alone; 
 he belongs to the illustrious succession to 
 whom the world everywhere accords the 
 unquestioned title of great. 
 
 The orators of the evening will speak in 
 turn to you of Dr. Mitchell's abundant and 
 splendid life, of his distinguished scientific 
 work, and of his rare literary gifts. 
 
 68 
 
The President: The first address is that of 
 Mr. Talcott Williams, of Columbia University, 
 close and familiar friend of many years. 
 
 69 
 
S. WEIR MITCHELL 
 By Talcott Williams 
 
 71 
 
THE ripple of welcome which you have 
 given me at this hour of sorrow, in the 
 place where I was once at home and am now 
 but a stranger, moves me; but this is not a 
 moment when you or I are thinking of our- 
 selves. I look about me and see in ranked 
 ranges in this hall, which carries his name, the 
 faces of those who, like myself, through long 
 years lived in that great life, greatly lived. I 
 am here, as are the many here who knew him 
 well, in this last hour in which, with him as 
 our centre, we meet together to remember 
 and to recall the very heart of the one friend- 
 ship of life which has dominated and inspired 
 us all. 
 
 Each of us can but review and renew a 
 record, unfading and unfailing, whose every 
 thought brings with it, not grief alone, but a 
 note of high triumph, that such a man should 
 have lived, still more that his life should have 
 been shared by us, and, most of all, that it 
 shall remain a perpetual inheritance of us all, 
 of this city, of this College, and of its radi- 
 ating influence and instruction through years 
 
 73 
 
to come, touching many to their heaHng, them- 
 selves unconscious of his share in that great 
 and beneficent tide of the calling to which 
 he belonged. Its lofty traditions he never 
 forgot ; in its honor he gloried ; and to it he 
 added through all his working years. 
 
 Six corporate bodies gather here to do 
 honor to his name. Four of them — the 
 University of Pennsylvania, the American 
 Philosophical Society, this College, and the 
 Philadelphia Library — were organized before 
 the Revolution, when no one thought of the 
 independence of the United States. Two 
 others — the Academy of Natural Sciences 
 and the Jefferson Medical College — were 
 organized by those who knew the men of 
 the Revolution. It is in this background of 
 Revolutionary memories that we should set 
 this life. When he was born the adminis- 
 tration of Washington was no farther away 
 than is for us today the administration of 
 Arthur. In his boyhood days the end of the 
 Revolution was as close to his life as is to us 
 the life of Lincoln. He passed his early days 
 
 74 
 
knowing those who had done the work of 
 the Revolution. Bishop Meade, the son of 
 an aide of Washington, sat often at his 
 father's table. He was, himself, the intimate 
 friend of Bache, the grandson of Franklin. 
 He was born and lived in the colonial quarter 
 of the city, in that day but little changed. 
 In the day of Washington the ''Red City*' 
 ran to Eighth Street. The houses of that day 
 were on the streets he early knew. The men, 
 of sixty or so, whom he knew in his boyhood, 
 in their boyhood had seen Howe and his 
 troops in the streets of Philadelphia. In his 
 boyhood days houses extended only to Broad 
 Street, and he remembered well that "there was 
 good skating at Broad and Walnut Streets,'* 
 and that ''beyond Sixteenth Street no house 
 broke the long road to the Schuylkill." In a 
 century and a half the built city had devel- 
 oped to less than half the narrow limits which 
 Penn and Holmes had marked for it. 
 
 In this little town, so small, so slow in its 
 growth, were still the colonial characters of 
 whom, as James Russell Lowell once at his 
 
 75 
 
table said of those of a like stamp, lineage, and 
 training in Boston, that they seemed to him 
 the most flavored with personal quality of all 
 the men and women that he had met in a 
 wide survey through his lifetime, which had 
 known the best of both worlds, the old and 
 the new. The poet of the smooth, sliding 
 Charles added that Philadelphia shared and 
 represented these colonial characters, original 
 without being provincial, who had never 
 either looked up or down, but saw life level- 
 eyed. Such men and women Dr. Mitchell 
 met. His own days were enriched by their 
 ideal of life. He was, for us all, the last vivid 
 link and reminder of those days, simple but 
 strong, when our land emerged to national 
 consciousness and developed the complex 
 period we know. 
 
 He came of sturdy Scotch stock, which had 
 tarried for a season in Virginia. His grand- 
 father was the Mitchell who gave to Robert 
 Burns the post by which he lived. His 
 mother came from a manufacturing family 
 of wide relation in central England, and a 
 
 76 
 
brother of hers proposed to adopt the young 
 son whom he loved. Death frustrated this 
 purpose. Had London been more kindly to 
 Franklin he would have been lost to us. By 
 chances as narrow as these do cities miss the 
 greatness which great men give when they 
 walk their streets. Had England been his 
 home, Dr. Mitchell was justified in feeling 
 that the success of the merchant and man of 
 affairs would have been his. As Dr. Samuel 
 Johnson said, a man with a strong pair of 
 legs can walk east as easily as west. 
 
 With a candor all his own. Dr. Mitchell 
 in the autobiography which he has left has 
 described his early days. He came of a 
 religious family, in a religious day, when the 
 Church was present in all the affairs of life; 
 and I venture — that the boy still young may 
 be before us — to read a single passage from 
 this autobiography, which to you, as with 
 me when I read it, will suddenly bring before 
 us the vision in early boyhood of one whom 
 we have known only in his maturer years: 
 "When we stayed at Aunt we had to 
 
 77 
 
go to church twice on Sunday and say a 
 text daily, and the Presbyterian services were 
 of portentous length. I found that I could 
 smuggle in with me a small copy of Midship- 
 man Easjy and in a dark corner of the pew 
 comfort myself therewith. A son of my 
 aunt used to stay with us there, and as I 
 disliked him, we not infrequently had com- 
 bats, and such results as were visible had to 
 be laid to diverse causes." 
 
 He felt, himself, that in his early studies 
 he was ill-taught. He developed slowly. 
 His lessons were a wearisome task. To the 
 last he did not so much learn as absorb, 
 finding his harvest in every field along the 
 open road of his life. Bit by bit, in his early 
 years, he pieced together the beginning of the 
 marvelous knowledge which clothed him at 
 the last with a panoply of learning. Even 
 in college he regretted that he obtained less 
 than the opportunity offered, for it is true, as 
 we all know, that while studies are '^pursued'* 
 in college, they are not always overtaken. 
 There is much in college, however, besides 
 
 78 
 
study and books — there are men. There 
 began for him the friendship for years of 
 Henry Wharton. There he first felt the 
 touch of science from Frazier. Through life 
 there was to live with him the passion for 
 literature which he caught from Reed. From 
 the very motto of the University which he 
 attended he learned, as all learn, that knowl- 
 edge and learning and thoughts and works 
 of men are vague without the foundation of 
 morals. There began in those days, when re- 
 ligion was all about, and the habit of weekly 
 attendance was universal, his habit which con- 
 tinued all his days. Through all his years on 
 Easter Sunday he sought Christ Church, and 
 there but a year ago, as in all previous years, 
 he sat through the service which years had 
 made his own. The winds of criticism and 
 the doubts of the day passed him by; he 
 remained through all his life of that simple 
 and sincere faith which he had early known 
 and seen, which he cherished to the end, of 
 which he spoke as infrequently as all men 
 speak of that which is the depth and founda- 
 
 79 
 
tion of their lives. But through all the sor- 
 rows that came — and many came to him — 
 there were moments when he must have felt, 
 as the prophet did: ^^Look upon my sorrow 
 and see if the sorrow of any of the sons of 
 men has been like unto my sorrow;'' he found 
 there the support to which he unhesitatingly 
 turned. Tonight's joint record of his life 
 would be incomplete without this testimony 
 from one who knew him long and loved him 
 well. In years when all of us shall feel mov- 
 ing beneath our feet, weary with the long 
 journey, the shifting sands which men seek 
 to build upon in our days, we shall gather 
 from him inspiration, strong conviction, and 
 the certain footing of the upward path whose 
 end is light. 
 
 The true education of his life came from 
 the societies which here are gathered together 
 in his honor and memory. In his autobi- 
 ography he has recorded that his education 
 began and almost ended in the books of the 
 Philadelphia Library. There he was taken 
 by his father after his mother had locked up 
 
 80 
 
the solitary copy of the Arabian Nights which 
 he found and which she discovered. Neither 
 he nor his brothers were able to learn a line 
 of their lessons while he stood ready to read 
 the tales of Scherezade. 
 
 In the shelves of the Philadelphia Library, 
 and in the folio volumes which he carried 
 to his house when he was so small that he 
 could but spread them upon the floor and lie 
 at full length, he received through young 
 years the training of a lifetime. As I read 
 the titles which he recorded of books he read 
 before he was ten, I suddenly understood 
 how his boyhood was one which was per- 
 petually enlarging. Once in lecturing he gaily 
 told the girls of Radcliffe that the reason why 
 he wrote novels was because having read all 
 there were to be had he desired more. This 
 was almost literally true, of his life so thronged 
 with travail, travel, and libraries. He found 
 time for one or two volumes a week of fiction, 
 and in some amazing fashion added to his 
 life twenty to thirty volumes a year — blend- 
 ings of all sorts and orders, on all subjects, 
 
 81 
 
and no current verse of weight did he miss. 
 English was his reading. Other tongues he 
 used but enjoyed not. 
 
 From the Academy of Natural Sciences he 
 received the first impulse toward the study 
 of Nature. It was as a naturalist and not 
 as a physician that he was elected a member 
 of this early American centre of research, 
 record, and discovery. 
 
 At Jefferson College he records that he 
 first learned concentration of mind, that 
 there he gained the capacity both to learn 
 and to impart knowledge. Was there ever, 
 for any of us, such another teacher as he, so 
 alluring, so electrifying, so capable of inducing 
 thought, stimulating work, and piloting to 
 discovery? 
 
 It was his father's influence which carried 
 him through the 'teens of his early youth 
 and enabled him to break the bar of physical 
 weakness and to lay the strength for the future 
 in four years spent with boat and rod and 
 gun upon the rivers that surround this city. 
 It was from his father's inspiration that he 
 
 82 
 
slowly built the foundation of knowledge 
 which was necessary for his medical train- 
 ing, and it was from his father that there 
 came to him that sense of the long succession 
 of life for the physician, in which genera- 
 tions succeed generation, in which men of 
 this lofty calling housed here live whereso- 
 ever they move in the house of their fathers, 
 of their land and of their vocation, and find 
 in the corporate life of some college like this 
 the sense alike of the inheritance and the 
 perpetuity of the professional life to which 
 they belong. More than half a century has 
 passed since his father departed, and since 
 it is alike a record of his father and an un- 
 conscious record of himself, I read what in 
 his autobiography he says of Dr. Mitchell: 
 "My father was the best physician I ever 
 knew. He never failed in his resources; 
 there was always something in reserve. The 
 social qualities of the man, and a certain 
 buoyancy that helped men made admirable 
 additions to his qualities of mind; and the 
 charm of a modulated voice and of singular 
 
 83 
 
beauty were not wanting. It would not have 
 been easy to find a better example of all the 
 qualities that win success in my profession/' 
 There were many chances open to him, and 
 the father of whom he wrote once told him, 
 as he records in his autobiography, that his 
 son had no qualifications that made the 
 physician. Judgments like these, as Dr. 
 Weir Mitchell records, are those which are 
 constantly made by those who forget the 
 slow, orderly processes by which some lives 
 unfold, and pass step by step from the 
 experiences of youth to maturity by changes 
 which are wholly within and are little due 
 to influences without. Rejecting every other 
 offer, passing by the tempting opening which 
 lay before him in a day when the disparity of 
 life and opportunity between the old world 
 and the new was great, as it is not today, he 
 sought the calling of his father, and he sought 
 it, undoubtedly, because his father had placed 
 it before him; not in precept, but in example; 
 not in injunction, but in life; and he entered 
 upon the practice of his profession with three 
 
 84 
 
periods before him. For a score of years he 
 was to struggle with an arduous family 
 practice in a town still small. For another 
 score of years he was to be known to all the 
 world as a man who had added to the re- 
 sources of medicine, and had made a great 
 field so completely his own that he turned 
 the course of medicine with its boundaries 
 as the foot of the husbandman turns the 
 rivers of water; and for twenty years more 
 he was to be a man known in our world's 
 large affairs, to be a figure in its important 
 phases. In many fields he had sown seed and 
 from each had reaped some harvest which 
 shall remain. 
 
 There is a Hindu saying that a man should 
 be for twenty years a soldier, for twenty a 
 statesman, and that for twenty years he should 
 be a sage, sought for his wisdom. And as we 
 look upon that life we realize that the Hindu 
 was right. For twenty years the man we love 
 fought — for a practice and a livelihood; for 
 twenty years his opinion guided a great call- 
 ing and led in civil life and the larger issues 
 
 85 
 
of his day, and for twenty years he sat as a 
 man whom all men sought and found there 
 the wisdom which made clear to them why 
 the Greek had found in Apollo — the god of 
 wisdom and the god of healing. 
 
 Of those who are here, save a number so 
 small they might all be seated behind me in 
 the spare seats of this platform, none knew 
 him in those days of a family practice. Those 
 who knew his life of abounding success, of 
 the abounding endowment of a learning that 
 encompassed all and flowed in many channels 
 — medicine, science, education, philosophy — 
 forget those arduous years in which, year by 
 year, he struggled for the meager dole of the 
 practitioner. It is recorded in his autobi- 
 ography that in the ten years after he began 
 the practice of medicine his receipts in the 
 year were only a thousand dollars, and in 
 that year he had suddenly thrown upon him 
 the responsibility of caring for his father's 
 family and was approaching his own mar- 
 riage. There were days, he records, in 
 which, besides his office hours, he paid half a 
 
 86 
 
hundred visits, and there was no field for the 
 family practitioner in the small town from 
 which he stood apart. He shared in labors 
 which today are almost exclusively the work 
 of the specialist, and through those years 
 he continued the writing, the discovery, 
 the study which was to mark all his days. 
 I know of nothing, as the records of this 
 meeting are printed in one medical paper 
 and another, likely to bear more fruit and 
 encourage more those who are in the begin- 
 ning of their work, than a knowledge of the 
 obstacles which he faced and overcame. 
 
 The Civil War came and opened to him, as 
 it opened to many, the door of opportunity; 
 and it also took lives dear to him. The early 
 hope of his life was closed in death. He passed 
 through these arduous years to find, as men 
 often do, that the patient toil which he had 
 given to the case of one soldier and another 
 smitten by nervous maladies had spread his 
 name abroad. We turn to the record of his auto- 
 biography for this and learn that the knowl- 
 edge of his work and skill had gone to hamlets 
 
 87 
 
and towns where he could never have gone — 
 and a wide public came to know that the 
 practitioner's life had fruited in assuaging 
 affections dependent upon the nerves. There 
 flowed in upon him, as a result of the scientific, 
 intelligent use of large opportunity, such a 
 practice as changed his life, and the income 
 which had been so small in these days of 
 struggle rose to figures which even in this 
 day would be large, and there began for him 
 that wider life and larger usefulness which 
 we all know. 
 
 The best known use he made of this new 
 freedom was in medical research and dis- 
 covery, but tonight I am not sure but that 
 the best use which he made of it was to 
 divide his work year, and to give half of it to 
 what he loved to call the playground of the 
 mind. Past four-score years, his natural skill 
 was unabated and his mind still full of 
 suggestion, because he was wise enough to 
 part, as he once told me, with half his pro- 
 fessional income that he might enjoy the 
 kingdom of the mind. And this greater life — 
 
the kingdom of the mind — was worth the 
 surrendering for half a year of the most 
 jealous of callings and the most exacting of 
 occupations. He passed on through all the 
 years blossoming in discovery, always in the 
 same mental attitude. 
 
 The character of his discovery I leave to 
 him who succeeds me, able both to record 
 and to judge; and later one more skilled but 
 not more affectionate or admiring will speak 
 to us of Dr. Mitchell's work in letters as can 
 only a craftsman versed and known in our 
 literature. 
 
 This rich and manifold career, child and 
 pattern of the spacious Renaissance rather 
 than of our own specialized days, added to 
 medicine, letters, affairs, and the fine art 
 of friendship, the capacity for organization 
 which has always marked and mastered the 
 loftier labors of this city. Franklin left 
 behind him a parterre of institutions. Three 
 of the six which send their delegations here 
 tonight are of his planting, and these are a 
 scant third of the full list of those still 
 
 89 
 
in existence which that great journaHst 
 began. 
 
 A century ago Philadelphia was the centre 
 of the early organization of science in this 
 country, and the first beginning of special 
 organized charity was here. Here a Shakes- 
 peare society was first organized, with which 
 Dr. Mitchell was long associated. He was 
 conspicuous in organizing and directing the 
 first of the great Sanitary fairs during the 
 Civil War. Of his share in organizing the 
 observation of the medical experience of that 
 struggle another speaks, and of his part in 
 hospital organization. The scientific con- 
 tact of the University of Pennsylvania with 
 medical problems he did much to organize, 
 beginning what was then new in our higher 
 education. His early election to the National 
 Academy of Science brought him in close 
 relation to the widening field of biological 
 research, and here again there came call for 
 his capacity for organizing and directing, 
 suggesting and illuminating the experiments, 
 investigations, and conclusions of others. To 
 
 90 
 
the very close of his life he kept his marvel- 
 ous power of original suggestion and the 
 vision for coming problems. The man who 
 sixty years ago was busy at the opening of 
 his professional life with the new problems in 
 the nervous system of man, in the month 
 before he died was aglow with experiment 
 over analogous problems in the structure and 
 action of plants. 
 
 This long association with the direction 
 and reorganization of research and discovery 
 in science led by natural steps to his ser- 
 vice in the Carnegie Institution of Washing- 
 ton. From its first beginning to his death 
 he was on its executive committee, and it 
 was due to his suggestion and to his wide 
 sympathy with the sciences which draw near 
 to the humanities that the Carnegie Insti- 
 tution published the one continuous manu- 
 script in existence of the Arthurian cycle, 
 turned to the archeology of Central Asia, laid 
 the student of Chaucer under a lasting debt, 
 and at many points reorganized the science 
 of learning as well as the learning of science. 
 
 91 
 
For an instant let us remember that his 
 discoveries came by a certain action of his 
 mind: A man brings to his door a box of 
 rattlesnakes for sale — of all wares, least 
 likely to increase wisdom and discovery — 
 and he takes them in, and for two score 
 years there run the series of investigations 
 which would unravel the secret of venom 
 which had appalled primitive man and had 
 remained unknown through all the centuries 
 of civilization. He is on a vacation and 
 with no laboratory — there are some men who 
 are their own laboratories, as was he — no 
 material but a turtle; no tool but his pocket 
 lancet, and he makes the discovery of a 
 chiasm in the turtle, and a new link is forged 
 in the long chain of evolution, as the whole 
 line of medicine moves along the line of its 
 discovery and seeks to place each human 
 being in the environment in which life forces 
 .can act and trust to them for the symmetry, 
 growth, and progress alike of the individual 
 and of society. 
 
 This mind, which was perpetually seeing 
 
 92 
 
all new relations, had in its methods simple, 
 fundamental principles of daily action — the 
 astonishing order, the amazing precision, the 
 enduring punctuality, the perpetual readiness 
 for every future event days and weeks 
 before its dawn. These are the foundation 
 of a great life. Without them it will remain 
 bent by every storm and buffeted by every 
 hap and mishap which comes and finds it 
 unprepared. 
 
 I doubt whether in all our American life 
 there were any for whom social life so blos- 
 somed, who so succeeded in raising the 
 level of average converse until it felt the 
 motion of the stars and knew the depth 
 of the universe. Never was there a man who 
 so cherished the art of friendship, so practised 
 it, so knew all its ranging, and who perpetu- 
 ally was ready, if another failed or forgot, to 
 forgive and to act. 
 
 At this hour, as we turn in memory to 
 these things, each of us is aware that while 
 we had known what his loss would be, we did 
 not realize that when it came it would leave 
 
 93 
 
us wanderers on a lonely road from which the 
 light had gone. 
 
 As I have said, I speak neither of his work 
 in letters nor in scientific discovery of what 
 he found, wrote, and published. Let me 
 speak instead of the men he discovered and 
 published. The world will know the books he 
 has written, but not all will know the men 
 he has helped. There were those to whom 
 he gave the inspiration of life. He gave ideas 
 as the sun, light. He made life seem a larger 
 and a newer thing; he developed it to new 
 inspiration. And I appeal to the memory 
 of all those to whom I speak — here and there 
 I see a familiar face and see it kindled with 
 these memories — if it were not true that life*s 
 paramount desire was to be worthy of his 
 advice and to be equal to his anticipation? 
 
 94 
 
The President: The next tribute will be paid 
 by Dr. William H. Welch, of Johns Hopkins 
 University, President of the National Academy of 
 Sciences, long friend and co-worker in the common 
 field of biological research as applied to practical 
 medicine. 
 
 95 
 
S. WEIR MITCHELL 
 Physician and Man of Science 
 
 By Dr. William H. Welch 
 
 97 
 
DEEP as is our sense of loss upon the 
 passing of one who has been these many 
 years the foremost figure in American medi- 
 cine, the dominant feeling on this occasion 
 must be one of exultation over a life of well 
 nigh fourscore years and five, marvellously 
 rich in varied achievement in medicine and 
 letters, beneficent and enduring in influence, 
 and closing with mental vigor and activity 
 unimpaired until that brief last attack of the 
 disease which has been called ^^the friend of 
 the aged." 
 
 It has fallen to me on this occasion to pay 
 tribute to Dr. Mitchell as physician and man 
 of science — the larger and more important 
 side of his life and work. I esteem this 
 opportunity a precious privilege, imperfectly 
 as I shall be able to meet its obligations, 
 for his friendship has been to me, as to 
 many others, a dear possession and a strong 
 influence. 
 
 Fortunate and necessary as it is that 
 different speakers should present different 
 aspects of MitchelFs Hfe and work, there 
 
 99 
 
must enter into the picture drawn by each 
 the whole man. No estimate of his medical 
 work can leave out of account the remark- 
 able personality: the traits of mind, of heart, 
 of hand ; the genius for friendship ; the power 
 to stimulate and inspire others; the setting 
 of time, environment, and opportunity. His 
 literary works have much of circumstance, 
 color, insight, and knowledge which came to 
 him as a physician, and not a little of his 
 medical writing has the charm and power of 
 literature. We, of his profession, should not 
 be willing to relinquish all claim to Dr, North 
 and His Friends or to The Autobiography of 
 a Quack and the Case of George DedloWy or to 
 some of the poems, as The Birth and Death 
 of Pain, A Doctor's Century, The Physician, 
 and others read on medical occasions. Many 
 of his novels contain descriptions of doctors, 
 patients, epidemics, and historical events 
 which are of distinct medical interest and 
 value. 
 
 Weir Mitcheirs medical education was 
 such as was customary at the time and in 
 
 100 
 
no way remarkable. Leaving, in 1848, on 
 account of illness the University of Penn- 
 sylvania in the senior year of his college 
 course, he received, after two years of study 
 at the Jefferson Medical College, his degree of 
 doctor of medicine in 1850, his graduating 
 thesis being on **The Intestinal Gases/' 
 One of the two hundred and eleven members 
 of his class was his friend and co-worker, 
 George R. Morehouse. The members of the 
 faculty at that time were among the leading 
 men of the profession, whose names are still 
 remembered: John K. Mitchell, Dunglison, 
 Houston, Pancoast, Mutter, Charles D. Meigs, 
 and Franklin Bache. Such teachers must 
 have done much to compensate for the 
 defects in the system of medical education 
 then existing in this country, and they help 
 to explain why the results were so much 
 better than the system. Young Mitchell's 
 work in analytical chemistry in the spring 
 and summer for two years and a few months 
 in Brown's drug store must have afforded 
 
 valuable training in accuracy. 
 
 101 
 
It is indeed startling to find in some rough 
 autobiographical notes left by Weir Mitchell, 
 for extracts from which I am indebted to his 
 son, Dr. John K. Mitchell, Jr., the statement 
 of the father, Dr. John K. Mitchell: ''You 
 are wanting in nearly all the qualities that 
 go to make success in medicine. You have 
 brains enough, but no industry.'' Then 
 follows the comment: ''He was correct 
 enough. I developed late.*' 
 
 Another interesting note reads: "Surgery, 
 which was my father's desire for me, was hor- 
 rible to me. I fainted so often at operations 
 that I began to despair — but by assisting at 
 the surgical clinics I overcame by degrees 
 my horror of blood and pain." Mitchell's 
 experience as a student in this regard is not 
 uncommon, and affords no more indication 
 as to fitness for the profession of physician or 
 surgeon than does the lack of susceptibility 
 to such sensations. 
 
 The year of medical study in Paris in 1851- 
 
 1852, although much interrupted by illness, 
 
 was a broadening experience. Here he took 
 
 102 
 
courses designed for surgical training, evi- 
 dently keeping in view his father's desire, but 
 he adds in the autobiographical notes: '*I 
 liked better the lessons of Bernard in physi- 
 ology and of Robin in microscopy." To both 
 of these great teachers and investigators 
 Mitchell has expressed his indebtedness. Of 
 the former he says in his memoir of Dalton: 
 ''Bernard strongly influenced the men who 
 sought his courses, and I for one, like Dalton, 
 must gladly acknowledge the educative power 
 of this sturdy genius.'' 
 
 The greatest educative influence, however, 
 upon Weir Mitchell was unquestionably that 
 of his distinguished father, one of the most 
 remarkable and original physicians in the 
 medical history of this country. Of him the 
 son writes in the notes to which I have 
 referred: ''My father was the best physician 
 I ever knew. He never failed in resource, 
 and always had something in reserve. Also 
 for carefulness, watchful attention, and swift 
 decisions he has no equal in my memory." 
 There are remarkable similarities between 
 
 103 
 
father and son. Dr. John K. Mitchell, the 
 elder, was a handsome man of social gifts, 
 an acute observer and reasoner, an experi- 
 mentalist, broadly interested in natural 
 science, endowed with the scientific imagina- 
 tion, a distinguished physician and teacher, 
 who also wrote verse. He said, as well as 
 Henle, all that could at the time be said in 
 support of the germ theory of malarial and 
 other fevers, and anticipated modern theories 
 of immunity. The son has rescued from 
 oblivion his father's account of the spinal 
 arthropathies, clouded, though it is, by 
 some unfortunate speculations and generali- 
 zations. 
 
 The decade following Weir Mitchell's re- 
 turn from Europe was devoted to a growing, 
 but not too engrossing general practice, which 
 left time for those experimental investigations 
 in physiology, pharmacology, and toxicology 
 which laid the foundations of his fame in 
 experimental science. He was the first con- 
 spicuous example in this country of a medi- 
 cal reputation and career based upon and 
 
 104 
 
determined largely by the devotion of the 
 early professional years to the kind of work 
 which we now call laboratory work, although 
 there were no medical laboratories then in 
 America. 
 
 In his address before the Medical and 
 Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland in 1877, 
 Mitchell, while speaking of the value of 
 such work in the training of the physician, 
 evidently draws from his own experience 
 when he says: '*You ask me where, among 
 medical men, we are to find those who have 
 leisure for the work of the laboratory and 
 for its side of scientific therapeutics. And to 
 this I answer, there are long years of but 
 partial occupation in the early life of every 
 physician in which he can find ample time 
 for such employment. Will it help or hurt 
 him in his after life? The day has gone when 
 a man may dare to be just only a pre- 
 scribing doctor. It has gone, I trust, forever. 
 Many years ago the late Prof. Samuel Jack- 
 son said to me most earnestly, 'If you want 
 to practise medicine, do not venture to be an 
 
 105 
 
experimental physiologist. It will ruin you/ 
 I did not take his advice; and I dare now to 
 counsel any young and able man among you 
 that to spend a few years in such work is not 
 only to give himself the best of intellectual 
 training, but is also one of the best means 
 of advancing himself and fortifying his posi- 
 tion when by degrees he becomes absorbed in 
 clinical pursuits and daily practice/' These 
 words are as true today as when they were 
 spoken. 
 
 At the time when Mitchell began his 
 professional career the Academy of Natural 
 Sciences, instituted in 1812, was the most 
 active centre of scientific work in Philadelphia. 
 He was elected a member of this body in 
 September, 1853, and two months later he 
 read before the Academy his second published 
 paper entitled, ''On the Influence of Some 
 States of Respiration upon the Pulse," which 
 was published in abstract in the Proceedings of 
 the Academy and in full the following year in 
 The American Journal of the Medical Sciences. 
 As early as January, 1855, he finds his char- 
 
 106 
 
acteristic place as a member of the library 
 committee. 
 
 Up to this time the contributions to the 
 Academy had been mainly in the fields of 
 descriptive and systematic zoology, botany, 
 geology, and anthropology, but there now 
 appeared a small group of young investigators 
 interested in the experimental biological 
 sciences. They established the short-lived 
 Philadelphia Biological Society, which served 
 its main purpose in leading the more conser- 
 vative members to agree to the creation of 
 a Biological Department of the Academy 
 in March, 1858. Mitchell with Leidy, Ham- 
 mond, Woodward, Morehouse, Hays, Harts- 
 horne, Atlee, J. A. Meigs, Morris and 
 others were among the petitioners for the 
 organization of this department. Leidy was 
 the first director, William A. Hammond the 
 vice-director, and Mitchell was on the physio- 
 logical committee, the following year succeed- 
 ing to the vice-directorship, Leidy remaining 
 in office. 
 
 At the first meeting, in April, 1858, of the 
 
 107 
 
Biological Department, Mitchell presented 
 the first paper on *' Blood Crystals of the 
 Sturgeon/' with colored plates, and early the 
 following year he again reported on blood 
 crystals. It is interesting to recall how this 
 early interest was renewed in recent years by 
 the great work of Reichert on the crystal- 
 lography of hemoglobin, which Mitchell did 
 so much to further. 
 
 In 1854, and for several years following, 
 Mitchell was lecturer upon physiology in the 
 Philadelphia Association for Medical Instruc- 
 tion, an organization for extra-mural teaching 
 of a type for which the city of Philadelphia 
 was once famous. 
 
 In 1857, Mitchell was one of the founders 
 of the Pathological Society, to which he 
 presented the first specimen, of which he 
 reminds us in his toast to the surviving 
 members at the dinner commemorating the 
 fiftieth anniversary of the society. 
 
 If it be true, as he tells us, that he was late 
 in developing — and I can scarcely credit it — 
 he had by his twenty-eighth year surely and 
 
 108 
 
fully arrived. One would like a pen picture 
 from a competent contemporary of this 
 period, but the record suffices to show the 
 ardor, the industry, the fertility, the truly 
 scientific spirit of the student of nature — 
 qualities which remained undimmed until 
 the end. 
 
 Preceding the turning point in Mitchell's 
 career, in 1863, when he assumed medical 
 charge of an army hospital for nervous 
 diseases, he had published not less than 
 twenty-two medical papers and reports, none 
 of them clinical and nearly all in the domains 
 of physiology, pharmacology, and toxicology. 
 The first was in 1852 on the '/Generation of 
 Uric Acid''; all but three fell within the years 
 1858 to 1863 inclusive. The most important 
 of these early publications, three being in 
 association with Hammond and one with 
 Morehouse, were concerned with the com- 
 parative anatomy and physiology of the 
 respiratory and circulatory organs, and the 
 toxicology of arrow and ordeal poisons and 
 of snake venom. The Report on the Progress 
 
 109 
 
of Physiology and Anatomy, published in 1858/ 
 is of great value for the student of the history 
 of physiology in this country. 
 
 We encounter at this early period Mitchell's 
 singular faculty of observing and recording 
 certain curious phenomena, some still await- 
 ing explanation, such as the production of 
 cataract in the frog by the ingestion of cane 
 sugar,2 the effect of mechanical stimulation of 
 muscle, the nerve chiasm on the larynx of 
 turtles, and later the insusceptibility of pigeons 
 to morphine, and certain effects of freezing 
 parts of the central nervous system. 
 
 I find also as early as 1858 an interesting and 
 perhaps the first recorded example of that 
 suggestiveness which was such a remarkable 
 characteristic of Mitchell's mind. In Novem- 
 ber of that year he submitted to the Biological 
 Department of the Academy of Natural 
 Sciences a proposal for a collective investiga- 
 tion of the changes undergone by the white 
 
 1 American Medico- Chirurgical Review, 1858, ii, 105. 
 
 2 Bernard a few months before had made the same observation, 
 but this was then unknown to Mitchell. 
 
 110 
 
race in America and outlined a tentative 
 plan to be followed. The proposal was 
 favorably received and Mitchell was author- 
 ized to create a committee for the purpose. 
 I cannot find that this interesting line of 
 investigation, which in recent years especially 
 has awakened renewed interest, was under- 
 taken by Mitchell, but he has repeatedly 
 touched upon the subject in his writings. 
 
 The most valuable of Mitchell's publica- 
 tions of the period we are now considering 
 is his monograph of one hundred and fifty 
 pages upon the venom of the rattlesnake, 
 published in i860 in the Smithsonian Con- 
 trihutions. Concerning this he says in the 
 catalogue of his works printed in 1894: 
 ''This quarto with its many drawings was 
 the result of four years of such small leisure 
 as I could spare amidst the cares of constantly 
 increasing practice. The story of the perils 
 and anxieties of this research, embarrassed 
 by want of help and by its great cost, is 
 untold in its pages. It was the parent of 
 
 renewed Indian researches. So far as the 
 
 111 
 
habits, anatomy, and physiology of serpents 
 are concerned, no one has bettered this 
 work. An enormous addition was made in it 
 to venom toxicology; . . . many ques- 
 tions of antidotes were set at rest. It con- 
 tained, of course, errors, now corrected in 
 the later researches of its author, and quite 
 recently of the author and Prof. Reichert.** 
 
 The investigation of the venom of serpents 
 and its effects engaged the attention of 
 Mitchell off and on for half a century, and 
 indeed had interested his father, who trans- 
 mitted to his son dried rattlesnake venom, 
 some of which may still be in existence. Of the 
 many valuable results of this prolonged experi- 
 mental study, embodied in twelve papers 
 and monographs, an epochal one is the first 
 demonstration by Mitchell and Reichert, in 
 1883, of the so-called toxic albumins, to which 
 class belong not only the snake venoms but 
 also certain plant and especially bacterial 
 poisons. The later classical researches of 
 Flexner and Noguchi, culminating in 
 
 Noguchi's fine volume on Snake Venoms, 
 
 112 
 
owe their inception to the inspiration and 
 support of Mitchell, aided by grants from 
 the Carnegie Institution. I also owe to the 
 suggestion of Mitchell a small research under- 
 taken in my laboratory by Major Ewing, which 
 led to the discovery of the power of venom 
 to annul the bactericidal power of the blood, 
 thereby explaining the quick onset of putre- 
 faction following death from rattlesnake 
 venom. 
 
 Mitchell's interest and activity in experi- 
 mental science did not cease after he became 
 identified with neurology. After 1863 he 
 published at least ten physiological and 
 about twenty-five pharmacological and toxi- 
 cological papers. In this later period his 
 physiological researches were mainly in the 
 field of neurophysiology, among the more 
 important contributions being those on the 
 physiology of the cerebellum, in which he 
 developed a view which was practically 
 that advocated, much later, by Luciani, on 
 cutaneous nerve supply, thus opening a field 
 so successfully cultivated in recent years by 
 
 113 
 
Head and others, and together with Lewis on 
 tendon jerk and muscle jerk in a series of 
 elaborate researches which have been the 
 starting point for many interesting physio- 
 logical and clinical studies. In Mitchell's 
 purely neurological writings are to be found 
 many observations, facts, and conclusions 
 which are contributions to neurophysiology 
 as well as to neuropathology, such as the 
 influence of nerve lesions on nutrition, on 
 local temperatures, on the various senses; 
 the study of the effects of freezing his own 
 ulnar nerve; the observation of crossed par- 
 alysis of the thermal sense without other 
 sensory loss, and his views concerning fatigue 
 and exhaustion of nerve cells as the result 
 of peripheral irritation. 
 
 I have said these few words concerning 
 the later physiological studies of Mitchell in 
 order to indicate the important position which 
 he holds among the physiologists of this 
 country. 
 
 As the result of an accident, fortunate for 
 physiological science, it fell to the lot of 
 
 114 
 
Beaumont, beginning in 1825, to make a 
 series of experiments upon gastric digestion 
 which constitute the greatest contribution 
 which America has made to physiology. 
 Dunglison was an admirable teacher and 
 author, but not an experimenter. The first 
 systematic and fruitful cultivators of experi- 
 mental physiology in this country were 
 Mitchell and Dalton, whose work was prac- 
 tically contemporaneous up to the death of 
 the latter in 1889. My colleague. Dr. Howell, 
 a most competent judge, in an unpublished 
 paper upon the history of American physi- 
 ology, which he has permitted me to read, 
 states that in the period before the estab- 
 lishment of laboratories by Bowditch and 
 by Newell Martin, in the seventies, '^probably 
 the most significant name from the stand- 
 point of physiological investigation is that of 
 S. Weir Mitchell." 
 
 The creation of the American Physiological 
 Society in 1887, which has greatly advanced 
 this science in this country, was first suggested 
 by Mitchell, who with Bowditch and Newell 
 
 115 
 
Martin signed the call for the preliminary 
 meeting. Among the many debts which 
 physiology owes to Weir Mitchell should 
 not be forgotten his readiness, whenever 
 needed, to come to the defence of the experi- 
 mental method of research upon which 
 depends the advancement of both the science 
 and the art of medicine. 
 
 In 1863, during the Civil War, came the 
 great opportunity which determined Mitchell's 
 subsequent career as a neurologist. For the 
 first time in the history of warfare a number 
 of military hospitals or wards were estab- 
 lished by Surgeon-General Hammond for 
 the study and treatment of special diseases 
 and injuries incident to war. Mitchell and 
 Morehouse, then acting assistant-surgeons, 
 were placed in medical charge of the hospital 
 for nervous diseases and injuries, located 
 first in Christian Street and later in Turner's 
 Lane, Philadelphia. It was Mitchell who sug- 
 gested the establishment of this hospital, and 
 secured the appointment as junior assistant 
 of William W. Keen, then assistant-surgeon, 
 
 116 
 
and his most efficient, devoted, and zealous 
 co-worker. 
 
 The inspiring story of those days has been 
 vividly told in this hall by Mitchell and 
 Keen, and I shall not attempt to rehearse it. 
 One is reminded of the almost feverish 
 activities of the young Bichat in the Hotel 
 Dieu by the work, until late hours of the 
 night, of these three ardent investigators, 
 minutely observing and recording in thous- 
 ands of pages of notes phenomena often both 
 new and interesting, analyzing, conferring, 
 apportioning to each his share in working 
 up the results. The opportunity was unique, 
 and they seized it with full realization and 
 utilization of its possibilities. ^'I think,'* 
 said Dr. Mitchell a few years ago in his 
 ''toast" to the members of the Pathological 
 Society, ''we used well the terrible oppor- 
 tunities of those bloody sixties, and if you 
 are today as enthusiastic, as industrious, 
 and as fertile, you are to be congratulated." 
 
 Beginning with Circular No. 6, on "Reflex 
 
 Paralysis, " issued from the Surgeon-General's 
 
 117 
 
Office in March, 1864, there followed a 
 series of joint publications, the most impor- 
 tant being the memorable volume on Gun- 
 shot Wounds and Other Injuries of Nerves, 
 (1864). That on ''Malingering" (1865), and 
 the experimental part of the paper on the 
 "Antagonism of Morphia and Atropia," both 
 interesting and valuable contributions, were 
 mainly the work of Keen. 
 
 In 1872 Mitchell gathered together his ob- 
 servations, experiments, and conclusions in the 
 largest and, in my judgment, the most signifi- 
 cant and important of all his medical writings, 
 the book entitled Injuries of Nerves and Their 
 Consequences, to which a valuable addition 
 was made by his son, Dr. John K. Mitchell, 
 in a volume published in 1895 containing the 
 subsequent histories of the surviving patients 
 with additional illustrative cases. The study 
 and description of peripheral nerve phe- 
 nomena, especially those resulting from injury, 
 constitute the largest, most original, distinc- 
 tive, and important contribution of Weir 
 Mitchell to neurology, and in this narrower 
 
 118 
 
field his work is comparable to that of 
 Duchenne and of Charcot upon diseases of 
 the spinal cord. 
 
 The lean years and the period of hard 
 struggle were now over. After the war 
 Mitchell rapidly became and afterward re- 
 mained the leading neurologist of America, 
 and one of the most distinguished in the 
 world. In 1870 he was instrumental in 
 establishing the Infirmary for Nervous 
 Diseases as a part of the Orthopedic Hospital, 
 an institution which he has made famous. 
 Here he found ample material for clinical 
 study, and here for over forty years he 
 taught and worked and created a school of 
 able investigators and clinicians who have 
 brought renown to American medicine. 
 
 The mere enumeration of Mitchell's discov- 
 eries and original observations in neurology 
 — such as of postparalytic chorea; erythro- 
 melalgia; the reflex disorders due to eye-strain, 
 in which he was aided by William Thomson; 
 the unilateral hard edema of hysterical hemi- 
 plegia; the relation of pain to weather, and 
 
 119 
 
others — affords no adequate conception of the 
 extent and value of his work in this field. 
 We shall all agree with Dr. Charles K. Mills, 
 who with competent hand has set forth 
 recently a brief summary and appreciation, 
 that a ''thorough and elaborate study of 
 his neurological contributions is due to his 
 memory.'* This will be no easy task and 
 will require much time, labor, and expert 
 knowledge, so prolific was MitchelFs pen 
 and so suggestive, at times almost elusive, 
 are thoughts and observations found often 
 in a few sentences, sometimes a single one. 
 I have collected two hundred and forty- 
 six references to books, papers, and reports by 
 Mitchell from the Index MedicuSy the Index 
 Catalogue J medical journals, and his printed 
 catalogue, which is incomplete even for the 
 period covered, and I have no doubt the list 
 exceeds two hundred and fifty. I classify 
 one hundred and nineteen of these as 
 neurological and fifty-two as physiological, 
 pharmacological, and toxicological, the re- 
 mainder being addresses and historical, bio- 
 
 120 
 
graphical, pathological, and miscellaneous 
 medical papers. 
 
 One of Mitchell's fascinating characteristics 
 was his interest in and study of certain curious, 
 out-of-the-way phenomena, often of as much 
 psychological as neurological interest. His 
 descriptions of ailurophobia, or cat-fear, of 
 disorders of sleep, and of certain peculiar 
 functional neurotic disorders may be cited 
 as examples. 
 
 With what felicity of style, with what magic 
 touch, with what lucid and sharp delineation 
 did Mitchell often adorn his medical writings! 
 Definitions of medical terms are not often set 
 forth in such words as these: '^As we are 
 falling asleep the senses fall from guard in 
 orderly and well-known succession — this in- 
 terval I desire to label the prcedormitium. 
 When we begin to awaken, and the drowsied 
 sentinels again resume their posts, there is a 
 changeful time, during which the mind grad- 
 ually regains possession of its powers — this 
 interval I may call, in like fashion, the post- 
 dormitium.'" Nor does one often meet such 
 
 121 
 
a description of a sensory hallucination as 
 this: ''Nearly every man who loses a limb 
 carries about with him a constant or incon- 
 stant phantom of the missing member, a 
 sensory ghost of that much of himself, and 
 sometimes a most inconvenient presence, 
 faintly felt at times, but ready to be called 
 up to his perception by a blow, a touch, or a 
 change of wind." Hundreds of similar happy 
 phrases and descriptions may be found 
 throughout his medical writings and addresses. 
 
 The admirably descriptive titles which 
 Mitchell gave to his articles may appear to 
 some a small matter, but it will not seem so 
 to the cataloguer and the searcher of medical 
 literature. How grateful to such a searcher 
 is this one which only too often would have 
 appeared under some such rubric as ''a rare 
 case:'* ''Reversals of habitual motions; back- 
 ward pronunciation of words; lip whispering 
 of the insane ; sudden failures of volition ; repe- 
 tition impulses"! 
 
 As Dr. Mills remarks, "Mitchell is one of 
 the few neurologists to whom well-deserved 
 
 122 
 
fame has come because of his contributions 
 to therapeutics." He is doubtless best known 
 to the Jay public, as well as to a large part of 
 the profession, by the introduction of that 
 method of treatment which goes by his name, 
 and consists in the systematic employment 
 of a number of agencies, chiefly rest, seclusion, 
 full feeding, massage, and electricity. When 
 one considers the brilHant success of this 
 treatment in appropriate cases in the hands 
 of Mitchell and others, the immense literature 
 upon the subject, the direct and indirect 
 bearings and implications of the method, and 
 the stimulus which it has given to the study 
 and relief of a large and difficult class of 
 functional neurotic disorders, I believe it 
 safe to say that the introduction of this 
 Weir Mitchell treatment constitutes one of 
 the great advances in therapeutics of modern 
 times, and this I say with knowledge of 
 diverging opinions and criticisms. 
 
 There are many aspects of the professional 
 life and work of this extraordinarily able and 
 versatile man, other than the physiological and 
 
 123 
 
neurological, concerning which I should like 
 to speak, and had expected to speak, did time 
 permit, such as his valuable contributions to 
 medical history, particularly in the remark- 
 able address on the early history of instru- 
 mental precision in medicine, the recollections 
 of the Civil War, and, above all, his fascinating 
 and even surprising additions to our knowledge 
 of Harvey, whom he admired above all men 
 of medicine; his public addresses, unmatched 
 for style, charm, and interest; his instructive 
 talks to nurses; his biographical memoirs, like 
 that of Dalton, to which I have referred; the 
 delightful popular lectures, articles, and books, 
 such as Wear and Tear, or Hints for the Over- 
 workedy which has gone through many editions 
 since its first appearance in 1873, and the later 
 Doctor and Patient; the researches of others 
 stimulated and inspired by him, whereby he 
 greatly multiplied his services to science and 
 medicine; the many honors and recognitions 
 which came to him here and abroad, and 
 distinguished Mitchell above all physicians 
 of America; his great services to medical 
 
 124 
 
education as a member of the Board of 
 Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania, 
 to whose great growth and prosperity he 
 contributed so largely, and other institutions 
 which he served in a similar capacity might 
 also be included. It is needless in this hall, 
 which bears his name, and before this audience 
 for me to dwell upon his inestimable services 
 to the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, 
 of which he became a Fellow in 1856, and 
 which grew to be one of the dearest interests 
 of his life. Here his name is perpetuated and 
 here it will ever be treasured as the chief orna- 
 ment and greatest benefactor of the College. 
 
 Representing officially on this occasion the 
 National Academy of Sciences, I bring our 
 tribute to the memory of the oldest member 
 when he died, his election, due to his con- 
 tributions to experimental science, dating from 
 1865. Through all these years he had been a 
 regular attendant and frequent contributor 
 at the meetings, his presence here, as else- 
 where, always bringing cheer and inspiration. 
 He will be sadly missed from our meetings. 
 
 125 
 
At the fiftieth anniversary dinner of the 
 Academy, last spring, Mitchell spoke delight- 
 fully of the past history of the Academy, his 
 reminiscences of Joseph Henry being particu- 
 larly interesting. At the semi-annual meet- 
 ing in Baltimore, last November, Mitchell read 
 the biographical memoir of his most intimate 
 friend in the profession. Dr. John S. Billings. 
 This memoir of a friend to whom, for over 
 half a century, he had been devotedly at- 
 tached, is significant as the last contribution 
 of Weir Mitchell to medical literature. 
 
 I am commissioned to speak also in behalf 
 of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, of 
 which Mitchell was designated a trustee by the 
 founder in 1902, and in the development of 
 which he was deeply interested. From the 
 beginning he was a member of the executive 
 committee, and a most diligent and active one. 
 He was especially effective in the furtherance 
 of the biological work undertaken by the Insti- 
 tution, and scarcely less so in other directions. 
 The Institution owes a large debt to the wise 
 counsel and suggestive mind of Weir Mitchell. 
 
 126 
 
However the verdict of history may modify 
 contemporary judgments of the achievements 
 of men, it cannot change the place which Dr. 
 Mitchell holds in our affection and esteem. 
 He was a great physician ; our leader, endeared, 
 admired; our friend and counselor, generous, 
 wise, inspiring; a man of singular graces and 
 accomplishments, active in advancing knowl- 
 edge and in good works, a poet and man of 
 letters, a sweetener of life to both sick and 
 well. Happy such a life and happy the mem- 
 ories thereof which we shall ever cherish! As 
 he said of Harvey, we may say of him — ^Weir 
 Mitchell represented all that is best in the 
 physician and the gentleman. 
 
 127 
 
The President: The third and last address will 
 be that of his kinsman and near friend, bound to 
 him by the double tie of blood and love of letters, 
 Mr. Owen Wister. 
 
 129 
 
S. WEIR MITCHELL 
 
 Man of Letters 
 
 By Owen Wister 
 
 131 
 
ONCE, some years ago, as I was crossing 
 Sixth Street at Chestnut, an approaching 
 figure arrested my attention. He was ajDOUt 
 half a square away, opposite the door of 
 Independence Hall. He was a lean man with 
 a lean face, and seemed tall, vigorous, alert, 
 and gray. His rough cap was gray, too, and 
 gray the longish cape that hung from his 
 shoulders; and distinction beaconed from his 
 whole appearance. My curiosity grew as he 
 paused to contemplate Independence Hall. I 
 decided he was a foreigner of note in the same 
 second that whatever scales had been on my 
 eyes fell, and I saw it was Dr. Mitchell. 
 
 We met, spoke for a moment, then went our 
 separate ways ; but I continued to think about 
 him. Owing to some brief preoccupation, it 
 had befallen me to see Dr. Mitchell unlahelled; 
 but merely his appearance fifty yards off in 
 the passing crowd had been label enough. In 
 my turn I looked up at Independence Hall. 
 ''He and it match each other pretty well," I 
 thought. 
 
 The life he had lived had chiselled his 
 
 133 
 
features deep and fine. He had known the 
 wolf at his door and had driven him off; he 
 had carried upon his shoulders a family heavy 
 with misfortune; he had triumphantly lived 
 down patronizing distrust and indifference. 
 To have weathered hardship courageously; 
 to have benefited mankind signally; to have 
 translated noble impulses into noble action all 
 one's life — these golden deeds sculpture the 
 human countenance with golden scars, as Dr. 
 Mitchell's face was carved. What mark was 
 left upon his books ? In Westways, his last 
 novel, Penhallow has gone to visit an indi- 
 gent Baptist preacher; and at the sight of the 
 three shabby volumes which constitute the 
 man's whole library, Penhallow exclaims 
 compassionately: ''By George! that is sad. 
 The man is book-poor ... I will ask 
 him to use mine." Dr. Mitchell himself had 
 known the sadness of book-poverty; when 
 book-riches came to him, he knew the joy 
 of lending and giving. Throughout his 
 tales are touches like this, born of the 
 long, lean, hard years he had lived. 
 
 134 
 
But beneath the generous scars in Dr. 
 Mitchell's face lay something else, very 
 special, plainly to be discerned not in him 
 alone, but in great numbers of his generation. 
 This is the deepest mark of all, this that he and 
 a multitude of his fellow-countrymen bore; 
 and as it was set upon the man, so is it set 
 upon his books; not one is without it; it is 
 mingled with the very essence of his writing. 
 
 Can not some of you remember old photo- 
 graph albums of the sixties? Have you not 
 sometimes, in some drawing-room, while you 
 waited for your hostess to come down stairs, 
 turned the leaves of such an album? I can 
 think of one now. Among its ancient faces, 
 quaint in old fashions, are pictures of soldiers 
 — ^young soldiers generally; mere boys quite 
 often. They wear sabres and visored caps 
 and boots to their knees. Out of these small, 
 dim, carte-de-visite album windows these boys 
 look at us across fifty years. As we gaze at 
 them the strange fancy comes that, could 
 they open their lips and speak, they would 
 all say the same thing; in their silence they 
 
 135 
 
seem to share something of solemn import. 
 Thousands of houses have such albums. If 
 the photographs were colored, some of the 
 uniforms would be blue, some gray, but in 
 whatever color they are clad, the same look is 
 in all these boys. Charleston and Richmond 
 differ not from Boston and Philadelphia. No 
 matter which the uniform of the young sol- 
 diers, the same beautiful, serious light shines 
 upon their faces — the glow of dedication. 
 Not on soldiers only did the Civil War thus 
 set its seal, but upon all patriotic men and 
 women also. And so that generation saw a 
 vision that we see not, and wrote with a pen 
 that never can be ours. Fined in a white-hot 
 furnace, it emerged with eyes which had seen 
 our country battling for her soul with naked 
 sword. Through four long years that genera- 
 tion had witnessed this: how should it not 
 thereafter look at the world, and time, and 
 eternity, with a special gaze of its own? To 
 Dr. Mitchell came hundreds of the maimed 
 and wounded from that conflict. Wounds, 
 blood, agony, and noble courage were for him 
 
 136 
 
a daily sight. In hospitals he helped to save 
 the men, or saw them die. Never could he 
 be the same again. Whatever his thoughts 
 thenceforth, deep down was that memory 
 perpetual. During the last five days of his 
 illness his wandering mind returned to those 
 scenes; his wandering talk was of mutilation 
 and bullets; he conversed and argued with 
 that past. Therefore it is that when we read 
 his tales and poems, no matter what be their 
 subject, all come from a spirit over which had 
 passed the great vision ; every drop of ink is 
 tinctured with the blood of the Civil War. 
 
 More important even than genius to the 
 novelist and the poet is his attitude toward 
 life. We can only mark, we cannot measure, 
 the effect of the Civil War upon Dr. Mitchell. 
 With this first abiding influence is to be 
 counted one other, from his forty-sixth year 
 until the end — the voice which Stevenson has 
 called the Critic on the Hearth. It cannot be 
 known how much both of discretion and 
 inspiration he owed to Mary Cadwalader 
 Mitchell, his second wife. With her discern- 
 
 137 
 
ment, her taste, and her right-mindedness 
 went indomitable courage. He called her his 
 best critic, because she could unmercifully 
 condemn. She also, therefore, is ever present 
 in all save his earliest pages. 
 
 He waited a long while before stepping out 
 into the open with his first volume. While 
 still in his twenties he had sent to a Boston 
 publisher a collection of youthful verse. This 
 was submitted to Dr. Holmes. Dr. Holmes 
 advised the young poet to hide Literature in 
 his desk until Medicine were full grown. 
 Forty was the age he set. The poet waited 
 longer, and most of that early verse was 
 burned. The poet was a person who not 
 only could give good advice, but could take it. 
 He was fifty-one before a volume of three 
 prose tales, bearing his name on its title-page, 
 announced that he had begun the practice 
 of his second profession. He had already 
 been practising it anonymously for some time. 
 About the year 1857 some unsigned verses 
 of his, sent by his father to a daily paper, 
 mark his first appearance in print. They 
 
 138 
 
were entitled Herndon, They celebrated this 
 sea-captain's noble conduct and heroic self- 
 sacrifice in shipwreck. The last verses Dr. 
 Mitchell ever wrote — the very last — cele- 
 brated the last Christmas that he ever saw. 
 Verse was his earliest utterance — and his 
 farewell; he entered literature with a song 
 of heroism, he left it singing to the Star of 
 Bethlehem. Between these two shining gates 
 stretches a road fifty-six years long, marked 
 by more than forty separate publications in 
 verse and prose — thirty-five of these since 
 1880. 
 
 The early stages of this road are naturally 
 less crowded; Dr. Mitchell was sticking to 
 the advice of Dr. Holmes, and he was hard 
 at work day and night as a physician. On 
 December 2, 1861, the Rev. Dr. William 
 H. Furness writes to his friend Emerson: 
 
 My dear R. W. : 
 
 I send you a copy of some verses which, when 
 read to me the other day by Mrs. Wister, struck me as 
 smooth and lively enough to grace the pages of the 
 Atlantic. They are the work of a young doctor here 
 
 139 
 
who makes no pretences (Mitchell by name; he 
 married the only daughter of Alfred Elwyn, whom you 
 recollect). He does not wish to put his name to them. 
 So please regard them as anonymous. If you think 
 them worthy will you send them to the editor — I 
 don't know who the editor is. 
 
 And Emerson replies: 
 
 Concord, 13 February. 
 My dear Friend: 
 
 I passed through Philadelphia very sadly the other 
 day that I could not stop ... I was the more 
 vexed, because I have hived some quite novel expe- 
 riences at Washington for your ear. But the instant 
 errand was to exculpate myself of neglect of your letter. 
 I had at once carried the verses on "Strasburg Clock" 
 to Fields, who agreed to print them, and they were 
 to appear in the March number. But something 
 hindered this, and they are, I understand, to appear 
 in April. 
 
 And Dr. Furness replies: 
 
 February 17, '62. 
 My dear Friend: 
 
 Thanks for your kind care of the "Strasburg Clock." 
 The author, an unpretending and right lovable 
 man, is son-in-law of Alfred Elwyn, whom you re- 
 member. I was taken with the verses partly because 
 they came from so unexpected a quarter. 
 
 140 
 
That word ''unexpected" throws Hght upon 
 how dark Dr. Mitchell was keeping verse in 
 his desk — how well he was taking Dr. Holmes' 
 advice. 
 
 The sinking of the Cumberland^ a disaster 
 of the Civil War, inspired him during this 
 same year of 1862 with a fine lyric. 
 
 Gray swept the angry waves 
 
 O'er the gallant and the true, 
 
 Rolled high in mounded graves 
 
 O'er the stately frigate's crew — 
 
 Over cannon, over deck. 
 
 Over all that ghastly wreck — 
 
 When the Cumberland went down. 
 
 And forests old, that gave 
 
 A thousand years of power 
 
 To her lordship of the wave 
 
 And her beauty's regal dower. 
 
 Bent, as before a blast. 
 
 When plunged her pennoned mast, 
 And the Cumberland went down. 
 
 And stern vikings that lay 
 
 A thousand years at rest, 
 In many a deep blue bay 
 
 Beneath the Baltic's breast, 
 Leaped on the silver sands 
 And shook their rusty brands^ 
 
 As the Cumberland went down. 
 141 
 
In 1864, The Children's Hour^ of which he 
 was part author, and, later, FuzbuZy the Fly, 
 a second fairy-book, were published, both in 
 aid of the Sanitary Commission. His next 
 experiment was a new one — he never grew 
 tired of new experiments — a tale in the 
 Atlantic Monthly for July, 1866. 
 
 While talking with his friend Mr. Henry 
 Wharton, about the Civil War hospitals, he 
 spoke of a man who, in the fight at Mobile 
 Bay, had lost both legs and both arms — and 
 survived. Mr. Wharton whimsically sug- 
 gested that fragments of the torso's psychic 
 self might well have departed with these 
 limbs. From this grew The Case of George 
 Dedlow. While still undecided what name to 
 give the torso, Dr. Mitchell saw one day as 
 he stood on a step in Price Street, German- 
 town, the name Dedlow on a jeweller's shop 
 across the way; and Dedlow seemed to fit a 
 legless man. Like the ''Strasburg Clock*' 
 verses, this story was lent to Mrs. A. L. 
 Wister, who showed it to her father, the Rev. 
 Dr. Wm. H. Furness. Without Dr. Mitchell's 
 
 142 
 
knowledge he sent it to Edward Everett Hale, 
 then editor of the Atlantic Monthly. A 
 check for eighty dollars, with the proof-sheets, 
 was the first that the author knew of his 
 story's fate. It was not the last 1 Dr. Mitchell 
 had written The Case of George Dedlow in a 
 strictly documentary tone until its fantastic 
 conclusion. This ought to have undeceived 
 any one. But in the September Atlantic 
 appeared a leading article on the subject, 
 following which charitable checks began to 
 flow into Philadelphia for the relief of the 
 afllicted but wholly imaginary torso. To trace 
 all the contributors proved impossible, and 
 the money thus remaining unreturned was 
 given to the Sanitary Commission. 
 
 In an essay entitled 'Thantom Limbs," pub- 
 lished in 1 87 1, Dr. Mitchell seriously discusses 
 a real phenomenon which never ceased to 
 interest the medical side of his genius. To 
 this early time belong three other essays, 
 *Wear and Tear," ^'CampCure," and ''Nurse 
 and Patient," all which their author signed; 
 he counted them as doctor's work, not as 
 
 143 
 
belonging to his second profession. To 
 literature, nevertheless, they do also be- 
 long, because of their direct, agreeable 
 style. 
 
 Dr. Mitchell's style in these early medical 
 essays had benefited from the exercise of 
 making verse; from good reading; and from 
 civilized company who possessed the tradition 
 of sound idiomatic English. 
 
 From the printing of Herndon, in 1857, 
 until 1880, he practised literature anony- 
 mously, verses and tales being dotted along 
 through this period more thickly as it draws 
 to its close, most of these being published in 
 the Atlantic Monthly or in Lippincott's Maga- 
 zine. And now, medicine being entirely 
 grown up, and Dr. Holmes' advice faithfully 
 obeyed. Dr. Mitchell signed the volume 
 entitled Hephzibah Guiness, The first of its 
 three tales turns upon the inheritance of 
 insanity; its scene is laid in Philadelphia, in 
 1807. Here is a passage from it, at the point 
 where the hero has just learned of his her- 
 editary taint, news to him supremely terrible, 
 
 144 
 
because it forbids his marrying the lady of 
 his heart: 
 
 ''His walk took him along the willow mar- 
 gin of the river, and at last across the floating 
 bridge at Gray's Ferry, and so up to the high 
 ground which lay back of Woodlands. At 
 first there was in all his heart a sea of nameless 
 passion, pent up for years, and only set free for 
 a moment, to be ordered at the next into quiet 
 by a voice to him as potent as that which 
 stilled the raging waters of Galilee. Then 
 came for a while, or at intervals, that strange 
 sense of being morally numbed which is like 
 the loss of feeling mercifully bestowed on the 
 physical system by the blow of the lion's paw. 
 At last, out of the confusion order began to 
 come, and painful capacity to study in detail 
 his own sensations, and to look, though but 
 unsteadily, at the need for decision. Here also 
 he began to take note of outside things, and 
 to see with curious intensity natural objects, 
 from memories of which would come forth in 
 after-days all the large horror of the sorrow 
 to which they had become linked by Nature's 
 
 145 
 
mysterious bonds of association. Thus he 
 noted, whether he would or not, the miserly 
 little squirrels, and the rustling autumn woods 
 thick with leafy funerals, through which the 
 lated robin flew in haste.'* 
 
 That is a passage written with the pen of 
 the doctor held in the hand of the poet — it 
 reveals the writer's love of local atmosphere, 
 from which he drew so much of his material, 
 early and late; and an attitude toward life, 
 tender, grave, religious, and seasoned with 
 experience and retrospect as no young man's 
 could possibly be. Through passages like 
 this the reader learns that he is in no ordinary 
 presence; and whatever more of the writer's 
 art was learned by its industrious exercise in 
 the many volumes to follow this first one, 
 maturity was already here. Two years later, 
 in the Atlantic Monthly, Dr. Mitchell pub- 
 lished his first novel. In War Time. It was 
 written at Newport, during the summer, 
 which season came to be his habitual time 
 for writing down the tales and verses he 
 had been meditating. He wrote rapidly, and 
 
 146 
 
always with his own hand. Hugh Wynne was 
 written in six weeks; but he had been seven 
 years studying and making notes for it. 
 
 Were it not too long, I should read the 
 beginning of the fourth chapter of In War 
 Time, which dwells for two pages upon the 
 changes wrought upon the medical profession 
 by our Civil War. But I quote some briefer 
 and very characteristic passages, showing 
 again the maturity with which these early 
 books were written. In fact I am tempted to 
 say that construction alone was learned later: 
 
 ''No man knew better than he how to use 
 his intellect to apologize to himself for lack of 
 strict obedience to the moral code by which 
 his profession justly tests the character of its 
 own labor." *'And wiped from his brow the 
 sweat which marks the earning of death, as 
 of bread.'' ''Could we hear all that is said 
 behind our backs, existence would be nearly 
 impossible except for the few, who would then 
 make what is left of it intolerable.'' "There 
 are delicate overtones of unselfishness which 
 belong only to the purest and sweetest natures 
 
 147 
 
refined by the truest good-breeding. They are 
 the very poetry of social conduct/* These 
 comments, meditative and fanciful, plainly 
 herald those two later books. Characteristics 
 and Dr, North and His Friends, in which com- 
 ment is dramatized and strung upon a thread 
 of plot. 
 
 In Dr. Mitchell's thirty or forty short 
 stories, plot is often the main thing, and his 
 invention supplies it freely; in his thirteen 
 novels, plot is mostly of slight concern, inter- 
 est being generally in analysis of character and 
 the atmosphere or the era that he depicts. 
 Sustained architectural development, the 
 working out of a principal underlying theme, 
 such as in Tom Jones, was not easy for him; 
 yet in Constance Trescott he achieved this; and 
 if symmetry is the gauge of excellence, this 
 novel is his best. He thought it so. His 
 construction is apt to ramble: as in Francois, 
 deliberately, after the picaresque pattern; 
 or in a leisureliness sometimes too casual 
 tracing month by month the fortunes of his 
 people. Violent events, such as occur in 
 
 148 
 
Far in the Forest^ are outnumbered by the less 
 accentuated features of average existence. 
 He drew his material from various sources 
 — his own memories of Pike County, of his 
 year in Paris, of the hospitals and the War, 
 of New England holidays; and from diaries 
 and documents, as in The Red City and Hugh 
 Wynne; from anecdotes told him by friends, 
 as in Roland Blake; and from his medical 
 experience. This gave him most of his pene- 
 trating observation and some of his person- 
 ages. He drew but a single portrait con- 
 sciously from life — his sister being the original; 
 but he knew, as any novelist knows, that 
 every character is distilled from the social 
 nourishment of the writer just as directly as 
 our flesh and blood come from the meals we 
 have eaten. 
 
 Dr. Mitchell never quite found himself in 
 his dialogue, which lacks the shading and 
 flexibility of nature; or yet in his narrative 
 prose, which often resembles the prose of 
 essay rather than of fiction; yet in spite of 
 this and the usually quiet action of his novels, 
 
 149 
 
their success increased until with Hugh Wynne 
 it became a popular triumph — and was heard 
 of in Wales, where many real original Wynnes 
 are buried. There, once, in a graveyard, the 
 sexton pointed out their tombs to Dr. Mit- 
 chell, not knowing who he was, and said that 
 the present head of the family now lived 
 in America and his name was Hugh Wynne. 
 
 No tale of our Revolution has approached 
 it, or is so well remembered; and thereafter 
 a wide audience waited for every new novel 
 by Dr. Mitchell. 
 
 They never waited so for his poems; yet 
 in poetry his best is to be found; it holds 
 company with the best our American Muse 
 has sung. His first volume followed his first 
 novel in 1883, and showed him nearer to the 
 heart of verse than of prose. None but a true 
 poet could have written 
 
 "The perfect pearls of life's young dream 
 Dissolved in manhood's tears." 
 
 Four years later his second volume led a 
 critic in The Nation to say that it seemed like 
 
 150 
 
^'the work of a man whose whole soul was in 
 the poetic art, and who never had looked in 
 any other intellectual direction/' Much was 
 written after 1887 — The Cup of Youth, A 
 Psalm of Deaths, The Mother, The Wager, 
 Pearl, The Comfort of the Hills, Barabhas — 
 this in his eighty-fifth year — enough in all to 
 fill two volumes, presently to be published. 
 Of these he spoke to me in the last talk we 
 ever had. In his own judgment, Villon, 
 Drake, the Ode on a Lycian Tomb, The Seagull, 
 and Magnolia are his best. But what an 
 industry, what a Hfe! The mere calendar is 
 vertiginous — here is a piece of it: Hugh 
 Wynne, 1898; Adventures of Francois, 1899; 
 Dr, North and His Friends, 1900; The Wager, 
 1900; Circumstance, 1^01; When All the Woods 
 Are Green, 1901, with seven articles and 
 lectures wedged into this same period — thus 
 through fifty-six years grew a shelf of books 
 larger and better that many a writer's who has 
 done nothing else, and by the side of this 
 another shelf of medical works, and an active 
 practice, and original research and contri- 
 
 151 
 
butions to medical science and treatment, and 
 a permanent international fame! He never 
 talked about the sacredness of labor, but the 
 joy of it. Winter and summer he worked — 
 him, fortunately, the unions could not control! 
 And because he so loved work, thus could he 
 sing of idleness: 
 
 There is no dearer lover of lost hours 
 
 Than I. 
 I can be idler than the idlest flowers ; 
 
 More idly lie 
 Than noonday lilies languidly afloat, 
 And water pillowed in a windless moat. 
 
 And I can be 
 Stiller than some gray stone 
 That hath no motion known. 
 
 It seems to me 
 That my still idleness doth make my own 
 All magic gifts of joy's simplicity. 
 
 A city of good doctors owes to the influence 
 of Dr. Mitchell that high tone which the 
 profession has maintained through an era of 
 declining standards. What is our literature*s 
 true debt to him? 
 
 I cannot suppose that I am the only person 
 here who keeps the books that he has read in 
 
 152 
 
a sort of mental library. Such a room is to 
 be found in the house in my brain, and during 
 wakeful hours and other times of meditation, 
 I am apt to enter it. Sometimes I make a 
 change in the arrangement of the books — but 
 not often. The manner in which they are 
 classified upon the shelves would puzzle a 
 librarian — the novels particularly. What de- 
 termined my grouping formerly, made neigh- 
 bors of Scott, Daudet, Dickens, Tourgenieff, 
 Hugo, Hawthorne, Bronte, and many more, 
 all poets at heart; while in quite another 
 street lived Tom Jones, Barchester Towers, 
 La Chartreuse de Parme, Cousine Bette, with 
 a large company issuing from hearts that 
 were strictly prose. But my present and final 
 system uproots all this. Trollope, for ex- 
 ample, is torn from Balzac to live with Scott, 
 from whom I have felt compelled to remove 
 Tourgenieff and Hawthorne. Where, then, 
 do Hugh Wynne and Westways go? Though 
 written by a poet at heart, they stand with 
 Trollope and Fielding, because they are 
 friendly to mankind. They belong to what I 
 
 153 
 
call the Literature of Encouragement; they 
 are written with sympathy, not with misan- 
 thropy. 
 
 It is preposterous to suppose that any Balzac 
 or Flaubert or de Maupassant knew more of 
 evil and sorrow and pain than Dr. Mitchell. 
 Four years of mutilated soldiers and fifty of 
 hysteria, neurosis, insanity, and drug mania, 
 unrolled for him a hideous panorama of the 
 flesh, the mind, and the soul. But when in 
 one of his books he makes a doctor say : ' ' Who 
 dares draw illness as it is? Not I," he gives 
 the clue to his fiction. He omits nothing need- 
 ful, it is the superflous that he discards. Just 
 as minutely as Flaubert described the horrible 
 arsenic death of Emma Bovary, could Dr. 
 Mitchell have painted a dozen or a score of 
 revolting ends; just as cruelly as Balzac 
 drew the moral deterioration of Pere Goriot, 
 Dr. Mitchell could have gloated over his own 
 victims of deterioration. His novels abound 
 with studies of decay. Hugh Wynne and 
 Circumstance offer us senile change; Roland 
 Blake, hysteria ; Far in the For est , the insanity 
 
 154 
 
of persecution; In War Time and Constance 
 Trescottj the progressive moral rotting of their 
 chief characters — nor does this finish the list. 
 But these studies are not hostile; the author 
 does not take open or secret pleasure in the 
 ills wherewith the face of man is blackened. 
 Consider what we should have had if Balzac 
 or Flaubert or Zola had known what Dr. 
 Mitchell knew about women! 
 
 But he emerges from his own hard early 
 struggle and his long experience of human 
 excrescences, writing the Literature of En- 
 couragement not Discouragement. No mat- 
 ter through what dark alleys his muse passed, 
 what mud she had to cross, she comes to us 
 always with her skirts clean and her heart 
 warm. She wishes us well, not ill; she gives 
 no sneer at the evil in the world, she is sorry 
 for it; her gospel is not of hate but of love. 
 
 The tone of Dr. Mitchell's books is a lesson 
 and a tonic for an age that is sick and weak 
 with literary perverts. 
 
 This is our literature's true debt to him. 
 
 155 
 
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