Personal Reminiscences of the New York Hospital (Classic Reprint)

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Excerpt from Personal Reminiscences of the New York HospitalHis office was at the corner of East Broadway and Market Street (and they were fashionable streets then). Here he held once a week a sort of clinic for his numerous students. Thither I went in due time and was ushered into his sanctum. He examined my stripped toe and while explaining to the embryo medicos the nature of my trouble, slyly took up a pair of pincers and quickly placing one jaw of this under the nail, clamped the upper jaw to and pulled the nail out. I gave a jump and a wild yell, but it didn't hurt as much as I thought it would, since the nail had been considerably loosened by the prolonged inflammation and suppuration. I went home relieved, and telling my father of it said, Id like to be able to do like that. This impression was a few months augmented when my father slipped on the ice on the sidewalk and broke his leg. This fracture was called by Dr. Wood, who had been sent for, a Potts fracture at the ankle with considerable turning and dislocation of the foot outwards. With much gentleness Dr. Wood raised and examined the foot, and then, with a sudden and strong twist, forced the bones into place. The patients pain was great, but momentary, and a splint deftly applied allowed everything to progress smoothly.The next day I announced my firm determination to become a surgeon and in brief was placed later by our family physician, Dr. Benjamin Ogden, formerly resident physician of the Bloomingdale Asylum for the Insane, in the office of Dr. Gurdon Buck, who was then one of the surgeons of the New York Hospital and also of St. Luke's Hospital. He received me as a free pupil on condition that I was to assist him at his operations and dressings, and to look after his city collections, and I later found out there was included, when I became a senior pupil, the duty that I should quiz or instruct the junior students in his office. Dr. Buck was a large man with a face somewhat German in aspect, slow in action and in speech, but having a thoughtful mind and fertile in surgical expedients. He was a very reticent person and, though I remained with him nearly three years and was considered his favorite among his eight or ten later pupils, yet when riding with him in his buggy, which he drove himself, to see his patients or to go with him to the hospital, he seldom spoke unless to reply to my inquiries, which were but seldom made, for I was a shy youth. I remember driving with him from 10th Street, where his office was, to St. Luke's Hospital in 54th Street, and thence to the New York Hospital, in all a distance of six or seven miles, during this time he never said a word to me. I respected and admired his merits then and after, as a teacher, friend and colleague. An occurrence during these student days brings even yet a smile to my lips.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.