The American Journal of Obstetrics and Diseases of Women and Children

REMARKS BY DR. W. H. CHAMBERLAIN.

"That which has been said here this evening of Dr. Brown, has been spoken with such fulness of knowledge and such fulness of feeling, by gentlemen who have known him so long and so intimately, that it is perhaps unnecessary to add more. Nor among his many friends here is there reason why I should assume to utter that which is so near to the lips and hearts of all. "Yet, when on Tuesday I read the fatal announcement in the morning papers, and when reading it again and again, and noting the initials of his name, the number of his years, and the location of his church, I slowly came to believe what at first seemed so incredible. I felt, as doubtless many here have felt, that it would be a pleasure to bring a word of testimony to the nobleness and the value of the life thus suddenly and, to our thinking, thus untimely cut off. Just a week ago on Thursday last, I saw him full of life and the freshness of life in that church vestibule where to-day we have taken our last look on his face in death. The class-book in the Demilt Dispensary shows that he went straight from that marriage festival back to his professional study and work.

"I had known Dr. Brown somewhat intimately for eight years. For that period, day by day alternately, we had kept charge of the class of Diseases of Women at the Demilt Dispensary; week by week had met in societies and often elsewhere.

"This had led me to watch his aims, his methods, and his progress. The quickness of his apprehension, the tenacity, exactness, and readiness of his memory, and the soundness of his judgment, were indeed admirable. But, even more than these, I had noted the constant industry with which he wrought in every field where the knowledge which he sought was to be won. We sometimes speak to each other of bodily and mental exhaustion; but in all these years, while he has been going all the time from dispensary to clinic, and from hospital to society, in care of his own business and in trust with that of others, his vigor seemed never to abate, and his mental brightness seemed never to be dulled or worn. He had held many positions, some subordinate, some of honorable association, and some of prominence and dignity. At the time of his death he was President of the Obstetrical Society, to whose records as Secretary he had for several years given form and prominence.

"Of late, with well-earned confidence in his large experience, he had often spoken on the floor of this Academy and elsewhere, and hardly any man of his years had been listened to with more attention and respect, or had seemed more surely marked for a long life of usefulness and eminence. He has

gone from us at the bidding of Him whose thoughts are not as our thoughts; but he has left to us a bright example, an honorable record, and a sense of personal loss which time will diminish, but cannot quite efface."

REMARKS BY DR. E. R. PEASLEE

"MR. PRESIDENT: In adding to the remarks of Dr. Thomas respecting our deceased fellow, Dr. J. L. Brown, I may first and in general say, that physically, intellectually, and morally, Dr. Brown belonged to the highest type of our race. Till within the past few days it had never occurred to me, in my intimate relations with him, that that vigorous manly form was not to live to a good old age. It shrank from no amount of labor imposed upon it, and never seemed to feel exhaustion. His intelfect, naturally quick and discriminating, had been thoroughly trained to rigid logical habits of thought, and he therefore had clearly defined views of all the subjects which came before him in professional life. I have never known a physician of his age, I think, who could give a more clear and well-founded opinion on any and every subject within the domain of his special department of gynecology than he, nor one who could defend his opinions by stronger arguments. The fact that at the time of his death he was President of the Obstetrical Society of this city also shows the appreciation of him in that department, by the members of that Society, who so well knew his acquire

ments.

"But Dr. Brown was scarcely less familiar with the other branches of medical science and practice than with his own special department. He had prepared himself for a specialty, as every specialist should, by a previous acquaintance with all the branches of our art; and his breadth of view and his thoroughness as a student were illustrated in the first interview I ever had with him. More than ten years ago, he called on me to request me to appoint him my assistant in the Department of the Diseases of Women in the Demilt Dispensary. To my inquiry whether he intended to make this department of practice a specialty, he replied, 'I do not know; I have already devoted a year or more to each of the other departments in the Dispensary; and after I have acquired a knowledge of this also, I can decide to which to devote my special attention.' I complied with his request, and he remained my assistant until my resignation, and then became my successor in that institution, which position he held up to his decease. During my absences from the city for the past seven years, I have left my patients with uterine affections in the care of Dr. Brown, and in no in

stance has he failed to give entire satisfaction; and no unpleasant word has ever passed between us.

"Such a mind as that of our deceased fellow fears not to express its convictions, nor hesitates to defend them. But if Dr. Brown seemed sometimes, to those who did not know him, to manifest a controversial spirit, he spoke not to achieve a victory, nor to have the last word; but, never forgetting that there are two sides to a question, he could not form an opinion, and therefore could not relinquish one when formed, without balancing all the facts on both sides; and, though tenacious of his convictions, he was always fair in argument, and at once frankly abandoned any position which he could not fairly defend. For mere authority he had very little respect, and he challenged every magisterial assertion as every independent thinker should, and decided for himself. Thus he became an independent and accurate observer, and an excellent diagnostician. Dr. Thomas has illustrated this point; and I have for the past few years always hesitated to question any diagnostic conclusion of his, without a very careful appreciation of his reasons.

"Such characteristics could not fail to make Dr. Brown a manly, concise, and forcible speaker, while his classical acquirements gave him a graceful and perspicuous style as a writer. His paper read before this Academy less than a year since, on Pelvic Peritonitis and Peri-uterine Cellulitis,* has been extensively quoted both at home and abroad; and he was announced to have read a paper here this very evening, which, from what I knew of its plan and scope, would have added still more, I am sure, to his rising reputation as a writer.

"As a practitioner, Dr. Brown was indefatigable, and to his patients kind and faithful to the last degree. His frank and cheerful manner also greatly attached them to him. His success was also very marked, but only within a short year or two had he acquired the class and the amount of practice which adequately compensated him for his services. All the obstacles which obstruct a man who is obliged to rely upon himself alone had, however, been at last overcome and his sky was one of promise, without a cloud, when he was so suddenly removed.

"A prominent trait in Dr. Brown's moral character was his utter abhorrence of all duplicity, and all pretension and sham. He expected and wished to succeed himself, or fail, on his merits alone, and he never hesitated to denounce those who proposed to do so by trickery. But he was incapable of professional jea

* Published in the American Journal of Medical Sciences, July, 1872, pp. 56-73.

lousy, and never said an unkind thing of those more fortunate than he in acquiring a reputation more rapidly through the aid of others. He could say severe things, as he considered them to be deserved, but never an ill-natured thing. He aimed concientiously to do his own duty to himself and to others, day by day, without inquiring into the acts of others; but his incentive to this was not mere policy, but a high moral sentiment.

"Dr. Brown has fallen at the most dangerous epoch of a city physician's life-about the sixth septennium. At forty he fairly begins to realize the natural results of his labor during the preceding twelve or fifteen years. But this only stimulates him to increased efforts to secure the full realization of his hopes of complete success, which still seems to him doubtful. He now feels that every thing depends on a year or two more of incessant labor, and, in acting upon this idea, the silver cord is broken and all is ended, and how frequently by a sudden death.

"But how erroneous is this conviction! Every physician at forty has already, in the main, decided his future reputation and success. If he has thus far been idle, he will never achieve a high position in his profession. If he has already labored strenuously and conscientiously for twelve or fifteen years, he has sown the seeds which will not fail to bear fruit to his honor, in due time, and he has already formed habits of labor which will continue to render him sufficiently a laborer. He should therefore now calmly trust to Providence for the results. Indeed, a brief respite from toil, as by a foreign trip, is much needed at this time of life by physicians of this class; after which they may return to their former laborious habits without danger. How many might thus be saved from death just at the time when the long-wished-for goal is fully in their view! Conant, and Elliott, and Brown will long be remembered and deeply lamented as examples, and I appeal to all my young brethren to bear such examples in mind. Many have acquired the habit of labor, while but few are willing to wait trustingly for its results, or ever think it necessary to acquire this habit also; and to all such I would most emphatically say, in the familiar words of one of our own best poets:

"Learn to labor-and to wait."

CLINICAL NOTES ON THE ELECTRIC CAUTERY IN UTERINE SURGERY.

BY J. BYRNE, M.D.,

BURGEON-IN-CHIEF TO ST. MARY'S HOSPITAL FOR DISEASES OF WOMEN; CLINICAL PROFESSOR OF UTERINE SURGERY TO LONG ISLAND MEDICAL COLLEGE, ETC.

(Continued from page 541.)

In the preceding remarks it has been my aim to deal only with such questions as seemed to have a practical bearing on the subject of galvano-cautery; so that, for the sake of avoiding tedious details, many points of great interest and importance have been barely noticed, or passed over entirely.

With the same object in view, the clinical part of this paper will consist of a tabular record of operations, their subdivision into groups or classes, and such comments thereon as may serve to elucidate the more striking features of each, together with a few illustrative cases.

The whole number of cautery operations thus far occurring within my own observation has been seventy-three, as follows: 19 cases of epithelioma, including cauliflower cancer.