The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1913-12-27

by death in st. Louis just few
days ago. There was a sublime hero
ism about the manner in which Jesse
Myer passed from lhis existence.
From the pen of William Marion
Reedy, in his paper, the st. Louis
Mirror, We gain the facts about Jesse
Myer-facts worth knowing; facts
that go to make a, life story that any
! mortal might be proud to leave be-
hind.
Jesse Myer was a doctor He was
man high-very high-in his pro-
lesion. And he was noted labora-
| torian. He particularly endeavored
to find a method by which that
dreaded disease, leucaemia, might be
combatted. 1t is a disease Of mys-
terry, disease that slowly robs the
blood Of it's red corpuscles, leaving
only the white ones-and death. 1t
Is rare disease, but always toxae-
mia comes eventually-andi 1t always
kills.
Jesse Myer found that but little
was known Of leucaemia. What little
was known he learned-and more.
He thought he was on the high road
to the solution of the great mystery.
He worked with the zeal Of the dew
! otee of q noble cause. And between
his hours in his laboratory he was
out among his patients, many of
them patients whose fees were small
or entirely nil. For the doctor loved
to treat the poor people, to heal
them and to start them afresh in
llfe's battle.
And then one day Jesse Myer no.
tees that his old-time vigor was
! leaving him. AS a precauticn he
had a fellow doctor examine his
blood. And now let Reedy, his old
friend, tell the story:
"Leucaemia!. The disease he was
specializing in had seized on himself,
had turned and fastened itself on him
who had been stalking it. He knew
what it meant He said nothing to
anyone and pledged the other doctor
| who had made the examination to Sc
crecy He went on with his work.
incidentally gradually shaping his at
fairs for the end. He conserved his
strength as best he could. He went
! in for rather more social life than
before in order not to give sign OF
failing physical power. He took up
and enjoyed a little golf. And he
| went furtively to be treated regu-
larly by x-ray influence upon the
spleen, or by the new German benzol
method, the only treatments Offering
faintest hope Of relief. Whitening OF
the blood continued and he grew
weaker. He could not crank his au-
tonic longer, so he employed g.
! chauffeur. He tried to get more rest
without too plainly giving sign that
he sorely needed it. And he never
| failed a patient who needed him.
HE had begun life to write a life
of Dr.. William Beaumont, who had
| taught the Wtrld most of what it
knows about the operation OF diges-
| ton, by recording his observations in
| the stomach of a wounded half-breed
! Indian. This biographical work In
| volved. much drastic intellectual la
| bor. DR.. Myer shirked none of it..
! He brought it to completion, and a
| splendid biography it is, the work
| that the profession had long waited.
a romance of the tnvestigatorial sptr-
| it. Physicians the world over ap-
plauded the performance.
'Still he stuck to his round of du-
! ties. No one heard him complain.
Many may have noted that he was
studying in himself the fatal disease
he had hoped to find a remedy for.
He neglected no detail of duty and
! he was treating other people help
fully all the while he could not help
himself. He lightened the gloom for
others while he stood under doom.
Gradually weakness grew upon him
! until at last he took to bed, and
therefrom he sent jolly messages to
| his friends and even advice to pa
| tients, while he died gradually from
| the extremities. a doctor friend
called two weeks ago and DR.. Myer
spoke of the end. Forty years. he
said, isn't much, but yet, If you'll
think, forty years is a long, long time
to one who has put into it all the
work and power and feeling one had.
! Forty years! I think I've had all of
them, the best that was in them
! THE end came and the forty years
were finished. They had given the
world something. Jesse Myers friends
all who know his long brave fight
all who may hear the story told
how their hearts are heightened in
! courage by such a life and death!
I Surely such a life was we'll worth
living, such q death worth dying, for
| by them they are helped to be truer
and Drawer because he was true and
brave, and we are the more assured
of the invincibil:ty of the soul of
man.
| Shall we not some day learn. that
the, highest and. most beautiful Of all
forms OF incentive is that form that
leads us to strive for the good Of all
mankind? Shall we not some day
learn that the very best in men and
| women responds most completely,
most enthusiastically, most sponta-
reously and most tenaciously-that
the very best in human beings re-
| spends most fully to those efforts that
go to increase the sum total of the
well-being of the race?
Shall we not soon learn that those
who rise up to tell us what we must
strive against each other are false
i prophets who find hearers only be-