Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/623

JACKSON to me of vaccination, so that I got to fear that people would think I could talk of nothing else, and therefore, before my first winter was over, I rather avoided the subject. However, the cox-pox gave me notoriety, and that is a great advantage to a young man if it comes to him fairly, without any tricks."

On October 3, 1801, his twenty-fourth birthday, he married Elizabeth Cabot, at a time when he was $3,000 in debt, the sum borrowed for his education. This step proved a wise one and they lived together "for seventeen happy years"; they had nine children, three dying in infancy or early childhood. The oldest of Dr. Jackson's sons surviving childhood, (q. v.), a remarkable young fellow, graduated at Harvard College, studied medicine, and went abroad where he became a favorite pupil of Louis in Paris, under whom he did original work in the early diagnosis of tuberculosis of the lungs. He also made observation in the clinical history and pathology of cholera during the serious Paris epidemic. A few months after returning to America, in 1834, this promising young man died of typhoid fever; the shock of this loss led Dr. Jackson soon to resign his positions in the hospital and in the medical school. He wrote a memoir of his son published in 1836.

After his wife's death he married her sister, Sarah Cabot, who lived until shortly before his own demise.

In 1802 Dr. Jackson was physician to the Boston Dispensary, serving in the "middle" district, extending from "the north side of Summer and Winter streets to the Mill pond and Creek."

Next came the joint labor with Warren of reorganizing the Massachusetts Medical Society, as the representative body of the entire medical community of the Commonwealth, following the scheme of (q. v.) of Salem, "one of the best physicians of that day."

Meantime, plans for removing the Medical School to Boston, where clinical facilities were more adequate, and for the founding of the Massachusetts General Hospital, constantly occupied the thoughts of Warren and Jackson. The removed Medical School was opened in Boston in 1810, and it became possible to utilize the Leverett Street Almshouse with about fifty sick or infirm persons for clinical instruction.

In 1812 Dr. Jackson was appointed Hersey Professor of the Theory and Practice of Physic, in place of Dr. Waterhouse, and with this move the Medical School was fairly launched in its new form. Dr. Jackson's lectures were didactic, according to the fashion of the day, and his notes, which were printed and are still extant, reveal much thoughtful study.

In 1811 the New England Journal of Medicine and Surgery was established, and up to 1825 Dr. Jackson was its largest contributor.

In 1810 the plans for the establishment of the Massachusetts General Hospital took definite shape, through the appointment of an able Board of Trustees, and in the same year Jackson and Warren drew up an appeal for subscriptions which went far toward assuring success. The carrying out of these plans was interrupted by the War of 1812, and the Hospital was not opened for patients until 1821; at first the applicants came in one by one as the notion of a hospital was a strange one. Dr. Jackson's distinguishing characteristic during his hospital service was a reverential fidelity in observation.

He was a man of medium height, dignified and courtly in bearing. His features were regular, the nose aquiline, the upper lip markedly long and the mouth wide. There is a good bust in the Massachusetts General Hospital.

He continued well into the new century to cling to the older customs which were rapidly disappearing. He wore knee-breeches, and after giving these up he still dressed in a long-tailed coat like the evening coat of today. The stock and the white neck-cloth, a regular part of the dress of a man of his position, always seemed peculiarly appropriate. His hat hung always on the same peg in the hatrack and no one would have been so presumptuous as to remove it. He was an early riser, and when as an old man he went to his dressing-room for his morning bath, his long-time faithful attendant had his foot tub and pitcher respectively placed always on the same pattern of the flowered carpet. A similar impulse made him scrupulously punctual in his professional engagements, and to avoid the chance of being late he carried two watches! As he grew older and largely withdrew from active practice, he continued to call each morning at a certain hour and minute on all of his children within his reach. The writer of this sketch well remembers that the clocks could be set by Dr. Jackson's ring at the front door, when he often found the family at breakfast.

(q. v.), the medical historian of his day, says of him, "He is perhaps the most conspicuous character in the medical annals of Massachusetts No physician in the State ever exerted so large and lasting an influence over his professional brethren or his patients." (q. v.), one of the most affectionate and delightful of his