Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/343

DORSEY machine, and if that don't take the gout out of a man's bones, God knows what will."

A hypochondriac labored under the insane delusion that he had swallowed a spider which was consuming his vitals; all efforts to dispel the crazy notion were in vain, when old Dorsey was summoned. He humored the notion and declared the case a bad one, and laid his strategy to oust the noxious tenant. After much pomp, and parade of preparation, and ejecting the inquisitive from the darkened room and bandaging the patient's eyes, the mouth was pried wide-open and a captive blue-bottle fly, held by a thread to his leg, was sent buzzing across the yawning cavity, while the doctor peered anxiously in. From time to time Dr. Dorsey was heard to ejaculate, "I see him!" "He is coming," and the like. At last the sick man tore off the bandage and sprang to his feet, and there stood the doctor triumphant with the spider captured in his hand. The cure was perfect and lasting. No wonder the more ignorant neighbors marvelled that such wisdom and skill were vouchsafed to mere mortals.

While his mother was sick, six miles south of Frederick, a point thirty-eight miles distant, he saw her ever day for upwards of forty days preceding her death (remaining at her home over-night on alternate days) and attended his regular practice.

Often gruff of manner and indifferent to professional etiquette, he was benevolent and warm of heart. He advocated burning all the Christian churches and hanging all the ministers, but contributed liberally to both. He attended horse-racing, cock-fighting and fox-hunting, and when sixty went all the way to New York to be present at a main of cocks; he would sometimes make the same visit from home subserve the ends of an Episcopal convention and a cock-fight.

He was boyish all through a life which seemed filled with youthful enthusiasm and sunshine, and never became old except in the veneration accorded him. He would rise willingly from bed at all hours to journey to remote parts of the county in inclement weather, even though the patient was poor and could not pay a cent. It is declared that he lost more money by securityship than any man who ever lived in the county.

Dorsey was head man at weddings and at funerals, and baptized children in extremis. He was a trustee of St. James's College, and a liberal contributor. Simple and often threadbare in dress, he was unaffected and economical in his ways. "Hospitality was one of his shining virtues. A plate, a bed, a cordial welcome, and a long talk were always ready for his friends." He was a great conversationalist, very social, and abounded in anecdotes, his assortment varying from one to twenty miles in length, to suit different rides and companions.

How often extremes met in his long life: Once he hastened from a funeral to a wedding with the long, black scarf streaming from his hat! But one time did his faithful stomach refuse to do its duty, when after tapping a woman for ascites, he sat down to the meal and saw his milk served in the same bowl just used for the tapping. On one occasion, after nine days and nights of incessant toil, with no chance to go to bed, on the tenth day he presided as chief judge at the great horse race between "Industry" and "Bachelor," and was the merriest man on the ground. His memory was extraordinary, recalling in detail every incident of his long and busy life.

When the Cottrells were executed he secured one of the bodies for dissection, and rode at night from point to point to escape detection, with the body slung across his horse or propped up in front. Says his excellent biographer, John Thomson Mason: "I have known him to ride from Baltimore to Hagerstown, with the same horse, in a single day, a distance of upwards of seventy miles, and on the same night to visit, besides, patients in the country."

He had cholera in 1832 and took by his own prescription over two hundred grains of calomel in less than twenty-four hours.

It is not too much to say that so identified was he with the places he so long had visited in all seasons, over more than two whole generations, that when he quitted the scenes of his labors, the very country itself seemed to have lost one of its greatest charms, and an aching void was created never to be filled for those who knew him well; for the times are different now, and we shall never see his like again.



Dorsey, John Syng (1783–1818).

John Syng Dorsey, surgeon and writer, came of an old English family—the D'Orseys—some of whom had crossed the Atlantic and settled in Maryland.

His father, Leonard Dorsey, was a successful merchant in Philadelphia, where John was born, December 23, 1783.

It is hardly necessary to say he was a bright scholar, for after receiving his classical