Identifier: lifelettersofnat00smit (find matches)
Title: The life and letters of Nathan Smith, M.B., M.D
Year: 1914 (1910s)
Authors: Smith, Emily A. (Emily Anna), b. 1840
Subjects: Smith, Nathan, 1762-1829 Smith, Nathan, 1762-1829 Education, Medical Physicians Physicians
Publisher: New Haven, Yale university press (etc., etc.)
Contributing Library: Columbia University Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Open Knowledge Commons

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, or the sympathies of the ten-der-hearted surgeon. An early pupil of Dr. Smith at New Haven, Dr.Abraham T. Lowe of Boston, who, when a student,accompanied him to a distant town to assist him inperforming a capital operation, described to Dr. Hub-bard, as follows, Dr. Smiths deep sympathy for thepatient on this occasion: It was a chilly morning, as we sat by the fire, andthe doctor looked at the patient at the farther end ofthe room. The lad was emaciated and trembling.Dr. Smith was visibly affected, his eyes dropped tearsand his hand trembled as he whispered to me: I shallnot do what they expect. It is a cruel business, and Iwill perform a less severe operation, in the hope itmay have the same effect. On examination it becameapparent that the severer operation (amputation ofthe thigh) could not be avoided. Before we returnedto the room, he said to the attending physician, Hall,you know all about this boys sufferings; at the momentwe begin, bend over and across the bed to hide us from
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of Nathan Smith 77 his sight, and do your best to comfort him, the tearsstill falling from his eyes. At once he became calm,the tremor left him, and in less time than while I writethis period, the operation was completed, and thepatient recovered. Dr. Lowe adds: Dr. Smith was a great and goodman. He never seemed to toil for professional fame,but to do good to his fellow men. The old hall of theMedical Building at Dartmouth was the scene of manyminor operations, and when sufferers were broughtfrom distant places to be relieved from complaintsand injuries, after the wheeling back into the littledressing room of the operating hall, they were oftensubjected to the further ordeal of being transportedto their homes on mattresses in wagons. But, in spiteof the want of later day science, the majority ofpatients recovered and lived long lives. The hall of the old Medical Building is light andairy, and some of the lectures are still given there. Dr.Gilman D. Frost, the present Professor of Anat

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