are just people, Carroll. You will do wonderfully. Best get used to the rich—this is hardly the last time that you will attend an affair of this sort. Hospitals don’t build themselves, eh? In modern medicine, the ability to chat amiably over dinner is almost as important as recognizing scarlet fever.”
I was relieved to hear that among the guests would be Weir Mitchell and Hayes Agnew, the Professor’s closest friends in Philadelphia. I had met each man previously; perhaps their presence might lend at least a semblance of familiarity to the occasion.
Mitchell, in addition to being one of the world’s leading authorities on nervous diseases, was also a noted novelist and had recently taken to writing poetry, but his manner with patients could be eccentric in the extreme. Once he had been asked to see a woman whose condition was sufficient to convince her attending physician that she was dying. After a cursory examination, Mitchell dismissed everyone from her room, and then walked out himself a few minutes later. Asked whether the patient would live, he replied, “Oh yes, she will be coming out in a moment. I have set her sheets on fire.” When the terrified but obviously robust woman burst out of her room and ran down the hall, Mitchell nodded and said, “There! A clear-cut case of hysteria.”
Agnew, the man who had tried unsuccessfully to oust Burleigh, was an eminent surgeon and esteemed professor of anatomy at the university. Eight years earlier, he had attended James Garfield in a doomed attempt to save the President’s life after the latter had been shot. Just turned seventy, Agnew had recently announced his retirement.
“And then, of course, there will be the women,” the Professor added, mischief playing at the corners of his eyes. “The presence of a couple of bachelors like us will require the balance of two attractive and charming ladies.”
“I’m always happy to share a table with attractive and charming ladies,” I replied without enthusiasm. On Rittenhouse Square, among the millionaires, chatting amiably at dinner might prove daunting. I was certain to be paired with someone who knew less about rural Ohio than I knew about Patagonia.
“As am I,” Dr. Osler agreed, unable to mask his eagerness. “When I arrived in Philadelphia after accepting my chair, everyone seemed quite astonished when I stepped off the train alone. They had somehow gotten the notion that I was a married man. Agnew later told me that he had come to the station more to meet Mrs. Osler than me, because he had been told that she was a Buddhist. I have never quite deduced how that rumor got started. My colleagues quickly overcame their disappointment, however, and replaced it with what seems to be a competition to see which one of them will succeed in introducing me to my future wife. Tonight, Mitchell tells me that my dinner companion is to be young Gross’ widow, Grace.”
Dr. Samuel W. Gross had recently died of sepsis at age fifty-two. Although a noted physician and surgeon in his own right, he had toiled in the shadow of his father, Samuel D. Gross, who himself had died at age seventy-nine only five years before. The elder Gross had been the dominant figure in American surgery and medical education for four decades.
“Mrs. Gross is a direct descendant of Paul Revere, youknow,” the Professor observed, “although that is not as significant in the wilds of Ontario as here.”
“Perhaps you should carry a single lantern, since you come by land,” I offered. “Do you know who has been invited as my companion?”
“I believe you will be seated next to Abigail Benedict, the old boy’s daughter. Do you know of her?”
I admitted I did not.
“Well, Carroll,” he said, reveling in my ignorance, “it might have been best to wear armor.”
All too soon, we pulled up to the Benedict home, a wide-fronted, granite Greek revival with a small second-floor balcony over the entrance on Walnut Street, facing south on
I was relieved to hear that among the guests would be Weir Mitchell and Hayes Agnew, the Professor’s closest friends in Philadelphia. I had met each man previously; perhaps their presence might lend at least a semblance of familiarity to the occasion.
Mitchell, in addition to being one of the world’s leading authorities on nervous diseases, was also a noted novelist and had recently taken to writing poetry, but his manner with patients could be eccentric in the extreme. Once he had been asked to see a woman whose condition was sufficient to convince her attending physician that she was dying. After a cursory examination, Mitchell dismissed everyone from her room, and then walked out himself a few minutes later. Asked whether the patient would live, he replied, “Oh yes, she will be coming out in a moment. I have set her sheets on fire.” When the terrified but obviously robust woman burst out of her room and ran down the hall, Mitchell nodded and said, “There! A clear-cut case of hysteria.”
Agnew, the man who had tried unsuccessfully to oust Burleigh, was an eminent surgeon and esteemed professor of anatomy at the university. Eight years earlier, he had attended James Garfield in a doomed attempt to save the President’s life after the latter had been shot. Just turned seventy, Agnew had recently announced his retirement.
“And then, of course, there will be the women,” the Professor added, mischief playing at the corners of his eyes. “The presence of a couple of bachelors like us will require the balance of two attractive and charming ladies.”
“I’m always happy to share a table with attractive and charming ladies,” I replied without enthusiasm. On Rittenhouse Square, among the millionaires, chatting amiably at dinner might prove daunting. I was certain to be paired with someone who knew less about rural Ohio than I knew about Patagonia.
“As am I,” Dr. Osler agreed, unable to mask his eagerness. “When I arrived in Philadelphia after accepting my chair, everyone seemed quite astonished when I stepped off the train alone. They had somehow gotten the notion that I was a married man. Agnew later told me that he had come to the station more to meet Mrs. Osler than me, because he had been told that she was a Buddhist. I have never quite deduced how that rumor got started. My colleagues quickly overcame their disappointment, however, and replaced it with what seems to be a competition to see which one of them will succeed in introducing me to my future wife. Tonight, Mitchell tells me that my dinner companion is to be young Gross’ widow, Grace.”
Dr. Samuel W. Gross had recently died of sepsis at age fifty-two. Although a noted physician and surgeon in his own right, he had toiled in the shadow of his father, Samuel D. Gross, who himself had died at age seventy-nine only five years before. The elder Gross had been the dominant figure in American surgery and medical education for four decades.
“Mrs. Gross is a direct descendant of Paul Revere, youknow,” the Professor observed, “although that is not as significant in the wilds of Ontario as here.”
“Perhaps you should carry a single lantern, since you come by land,” I offered. “Do you know who has been invited as my companion?”
“I believe you will be seated next to Abigail Benedict, the old boy’s daughter. Do you know of her?”
I admitted I did not.
“Well, Carroll,” he said, reveling in my ignorance, “it might have been best to wear armor.”
All too soon, we pulled up to the Benedict home, a wide-fronted, granite Greek revival with a small second-floor balcony over the entrance on Walnut Street, facing south on
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