The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1914-01-08
DR.. S. Weir Mitchell.

When DR.. Silar Weir Mltchell passed. away a.
his home in Philadelphia last Sunday morning
the United States lost of its most eXtraor-
binary men. Though in his eighty-fifth year ne
was in active work and known not only as
great physician" but also "the dean of Amer1-
can literature" This double distinction was we'll
earned by the doctor for he achieved notable re-
suits in both these difficult arts.
At TWENTY-FIVE he sent volume Of poems to
Ticknor & Fields; they referred it to DR.. Holmes
who returned it to the author with the advice,
Put these verses away and forget them until
you are forty. In the meantime devote yourself
exclusively to medicine. For this council the
world should be extremely grateful because 1t
led to number of the most fruitful discoveries
in the history Of American therapy.
One of his first undertakings to investi-
gate the venom of serpents. His findings in this
difficult subject led to his being made a member
in 1868 of the National Academy of Sciences, the
only organization of its kind instituted by fed
eral law.
While serving in the Civil War DR.. Mitchell
found rare opportunities to make those research
es in nervous diseases which later enabled HIM TO
develop his rest cure. an achievement when mas
made him authority on neurology the world
over. In recognition of this he was accorded the
highest honor in the world, an assoclateshlp IN
lne flencn AcdCellly vi NtulClHe.
At another time he was made a Fellow of the
Royal Society of England, distinction conferred
on no other living American physician.
But it is as an author that DR.. Mitchell is
best known to his people His characteristics
is a string of table talk that will live in the same
ranks as Seldons or Luthers, or Coleridge's
His "Adventures of Francois has been described
by one historian better transcript Of the French
Revolution than Dickens Tale of Two Cities.
The authors favOrlte was 'Constance Tres
COT work of tragedy comparable to Wuther
ing Heights and specimen OF triumph IN one
of the most difficult fields Of authorship
But it will be as the author of Hugh Wynne
Free Quaker that he will be best remembered
A competent critic adjudged this 'our best his
torical novel" John Hay said lit possesses the
vigor and certainty of genius with the reserve
of gentleman. To this day. though it was writ
ten in 1897, it still holds its among the best
sellers.
AS if such achievements were not enough t(
satisfy ordinary mortal Dr. Mitchell ever
dared the risks of poetry and with what success
only those who have dipped into his six volumes
of verse can appreciate. Charles Eliot Morton
end Thomas Bailey Aldrch agreed that his "Odt
On a Lycian Tomb must take rank in time
among the five six greatest eleges in the
language Many agreed that it far surpass
es his old friends "Chambered Nautilus.
DR.. Mitchell had theory that the truest va
cation is not to quit work, but to change work
1t in trying out this doctrine that he fount
time to achieve such great things in literature
After busy winter Of practice in Philadelphia;
he made it the custom to retire to some favorit
haunt where the salmon rise to the bait and Their
devote himself with unstinted labor to writing
But in all his books poems and stories he re
NAMED the physician still and every page is suf
fused with that charm, that true under
standing of human nature, which seems to com
to so many physicians. His life work is fifth,
monument to the fact too often overlooked tina
{. may deal with humanty's weaknesses am
diseases, may look into the cesspools at the bot
tom Of many natures, and yet retain I'm
dimmed the clear eye of ideasm and d loya
confidence in humankind.