Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 1.djvu/118

 ANDERSON

ANDERSON

from medical books. His father perceived this proclivity with pleasure, and depre- cating the lad's manifest love of art, he allowed him to make preparations for the profession of a physician. In May, 1796, at the age of twenty-one years, he received the degree of Medical Doctor from the faculty of Columbia College. The subject of his address on that occasion was "Chronic Mania;" and the theories which he then advanced concerning its cause and cure have now been long- established facts in medical science.

Soon after young Anderson commenced his professional studies, when about seventeen years, his proficiency in art had become so great, notwithstanding the many difficulties that lay in his way, that he was employed by William Durell, a bookseller, to copy the illustrations of a popular little English work entitled "The Looking-Glass for the Mind." The engravings that adorned it were made on wood by Bewick, the father of modern wood-engraving. Up to this time Anderson's engravings had been made on type-metal and he had no idea that wood was used for the purpose. When he had completed about half the illustrations he was informed that Bewick's pictures were engraved on boxwood. He immediately procured some pieces of that wood from a rule- maker's shop, invented proper tools, ex- perimented, and, to his great joy, he found the material much more agreeable to work upon and more easily managed than type-metal.

In the first year of his practice of medicine Dr. Anderson drew and engraved on wood, in a most admirable manner, even when compared with the art at the present day, a full-length human skeleton, from Albinus's "Anatomy," which he enlarged to the length of three feet. This, it is believed, is the largest fine and care- fully elaborated engraving on wood ever attempted, and has never been excelled in accuracy of drawing and characteristic execution.

When Dr. Anderson was at the age of twenty-three years his family all died of

the yellow fever He was attacked while in attendance upon the physician with whom he had studied, and who had been prostrated by it. Both recovered; and Anderson made a voyage to the West Indies to visit a paternal uncle, Alexander Anderson, who was " the king's botanist" at St. Vincent. On his return he resolved to abandon the medical profession as a business and devote himself to engraving, for which he had conceived an irrepres- sible passion. At that time John Roberts an eccentric Scotchman and friend of Anderson's deceased father, who painted miniatures, etched and engraved on cop- per, was a clever musician and mathema- tician, and a competent draughtsman, became his instructor. Anderson pre- ferred wood-engraving, but the demand for it being small he practised on copper, and, under Robert's instruction, gained great proficiency. His skill was well attested by the frontispiece to Robertson's " History of Charles the Fifth," and a portrait of Francis the First. These he engraved in the year 1S00 for an edition published in New York by Hopkins. But Roberts' habits were so irregular that Anderson did not remain with him long, and finally his master's intemperance compelled him to give up the advant- ages which he might have derived from that artist's practical suggestions.

Anderson established himself as an engraver soon after leaving Roberts, and up to the year 1S20 he used both wood and metal, as occasion required. He illustrated the earliest editions of "Webster's Spelling-book," which for about seventy years has been a leading elementary book in the schools of the United States. Its sale has been enor- mous, and at one time amounted to about a million of copies a year. In 1S57 a new and more fully illustrated edition of that work was published, the engravings executed by Anderson from drawings by Morgan, one of his pupils, who was about eight years his junior.

During his long and busy life Dr. An- derson engraved many thousands of sub- jects. In the year 1799 he engraved sev-