His own mind was in a
perpetual state of exaltation produced by the stirring scenes in which he
had taken a part, and the quickened life of the time in which he lived.
It was not the state to favor sound, calm observation. He was impatient,
and Nature is profoundly imperturbable. We may adjust the beating of our
hearts to her pendulum if we will and can, but we may be very sure that
she will not change the pendulum's rate of going because our hearts are
palpitating. He thought he had mastered yellow-fever. "Thank God," he
said, "out of one hundred patients whom I have visited or prescribed for
this day, I have lost none." Where was all his legacy of knowledge when
Norfolk was decimated? Where was it when the blue flies were buzzing
over the coffins of the unburied dead piled up in the cemetery of New
Orleans, at the edge of the huge trenches yawning to receive them?
One such instance will do as well as twenty. Dr. Rush must have been a
charming teacher, as he was an admirable man. He was observing, rather
than a sound observer; eminently observing, curious, even, about all
manner of things. But he could not help feeling as if Nature had been a
good deal shaken by the Declaration of Independence, and that American
art was getting to be rather too much for her,--especially as illustrated
in his own practice. He taught thousands of American students, he gave a
direction to the medical mind of the country more than any other one man;
perhaps he typifies it better than any other.
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