Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/385

ELVVELL 363 EMERSON with which it did concern itself had not at that time been cuUivated by any other writer with equal assiduity and success. Gen. Elwell was six feet tall and in middle life of substantial build. His complexion was light, his cheeks ruddy till sickness made them sallow. His hair in early life was abundant and of a rich brown, worn rather long; his eyes gray, very gentle and kindly; his manner quick, earnest and impulsive. He was fond of children. He married Xancy Chittenden, by whom he had one son and three daughters, but neither the wife nor any child survived him. On the death of his wife he brought the three children of his younger brother (who had also lost his wife) to his house and adopted them. To these he later left liis entire for tune. He shared his consulting-rooms with several companionable friends, all old men, but as full of good cheer and spirits as if they were boys. Alfred Elwell, the general's brother, was seventy-eight; Dr. H. H. Little was eighty; Judge Darius Cadwcll — drollest of raconteurs — eighty also; and Dudley Bald- win — whose father had been an officer through- out the entire Revolutionary War — 'was ninety one. Fond of stories, among his large fund he used sometimes to tell the following, an actual occurrence: A rather "close" old gen- tleman, being upon his death bed, and sur- rounded by kin and friends, said to his family physician : "Doctor, I have settled all ac- counts but yours. Now, how much do I owe you?" The doctor disliked to make out a bill before the sorrowing relatives, but men- tioned a small amount, which he stated would be satisfactory. "All right," said the old man, "will you take it in mutton?" The doc- tor, in his embarrassment, replied that he would. "Forequarters?" the old man added. "Yes," said the doctor. Then, with a long sigh, he turned over and died. The general, though he lived to be almost eighty, never wholly recovered from the ef- fects of the yellow fever. The day before his death he wrote to his life-long friend, Capt. Levi T. Scofield, of Cleveland, this very sim- ple message: "Captain, come and see me." The friend complied at once. The general, though sick, rose as his old friend entered and placed before the fireplace a rocker. Then he said, "Captain, I am going to die to-night, but please do not tell General Barnett or Major Kendall of my condition. It would pain them greatly to see me suffering so." That night he rose again to do some simple favor for two young men, strangers, who had not known of his condition. Three hours later (March 13, 1900) he was dead. Thomas Hall Shastid. Cuyahoga County Soldiers' and Sailors' Monu- ment, 1894. Amer. Med., Burlington, Vt., 1909, n. ?., vol. iv, 94-96. I^rivate sources. Emerson, Gouverneur ( 1 79.i-1874) . Gouverneur Emerson, traveller, agricnllur- ist and doctor, eldest of the seven children of Jonathan and Ann Beel Emerson, was born August 4, 1795, near Dover, Kent County, Delaware. His grandparents having been re- ceived into the membership of the Duck Creek Meeting of the Society of Friends, Gouver- neur was brought up in their simple faith. Through his mother's ambition he began to study medicine when he was si-xteen, under one of her cousins. Dr. James Sykes, a sur- geon of some note in Dover and one time governor of the state of Delaware. After- wards he attended medical lectures in Phila- delphia. The University of Peinisylvania granted him his M. D. in March, 1S16. In that year, owing to poor health, he moved to and practised near Montrose, Pennsylvania, but after two years accepted an appointment as surgeon on a merchant ship bound for China. His journal gives detailed account of his voyage and a dramatic account of biing held up and robbed by Spanish pirates on the return voyage. When Dr. Emerson returned to America he settled in Philadelphia where a yellow- fever epidemic gave him an opportunity for usefulness which he used so well that he was appointed attending physician to the City Dis- pensary. The Board of Health being without authority to deal with smallpox as it did with other contagious diseases. Dr. Emerson turned his attention, when on the Board of Health, to necessary legislation concerning checking the disease. Statistics relative to smallpox are to be found in his article, "Medical and Vital Statistics," published in The American Journal of the Medical Sciences for Novem- ber, 1827, 1831, and July, 1848. Dr. Emerson made some contributions to the improvement of the agriculture of his na- tive place, editing for the United States, Cuth- bert W. Johnson's "Farmers' and Planters' Encyclopaedia of Rural Life." His interest in agriculture increased until he was entirely occupied with its demands to the exclusion of medicine. He definitely gave up his large practice in 1857 and occupied himself with questions of political economy and social