Page:History of Oregon Literature.djvu/238

 craft and priestcraft have fattened on ignorance in the world's history." As he said in his preface, it did what no book had ever done before—"gave a complete history of Medical Science as it staggered along its tortuous and be clouded path, since it shouldered the first leper in the time of Moses, down to the time it packed off its last victim to some cemetery." It had a paper cover in bluish gray, contained 178 pages in 8-point type, and was priced at $1.50. Its Oregon references were numerous. The frontispiece was a picture of himself —serious in expression, short whiskers running from ear to ear under his chin, almost equal, in fact, in conventional M.D. appearance to the portraits in the big family doctor books.

He looked like a doctor but he would not concede enough to the impressiveness of that profession to talk like one. He talked like he wrote, pointedly and with originality, his rare gift of exposition giving freshness and clarity even to his medical explanations. We are told that he had an astonishing memory. Names, faces, dates, things that he had heard and things that he had read came to him across a gap of half a century almost as undimmed as happenings of yesterday. He was kind and helpful towards the poor and the sick, and, al though possessing tremendous energy himself, he was toler ant towards the lazy and the amiably worthless. Judge Pratt, one of the earlier victims of his literary pungency, said that his word was as good as any other man's oath. He was twice married and was the father of eight children. Such on the personal side was this good neighbor, good citizen and good Campbellite, who with a pen in his hand was a pioneer Voltaire, characterized by George H. Himes as follows:

"As a master of cutting invective he was rarely equalled and never surpassed. His proficiency in this direction, together with similar qualifications on the part of two of his territorial contemporaries, gave rise to what was locally known as the "Oregon Style". He was fearless and audacious to the fullest degree, had the pugnacity of a bull dog, never happier than when lampooning his opponents, and his efforts were untiring."

His "Breakspear", published in 1852, is still probably the