An autobiography

3

4
A

4

Exchange
from

Rudolph Matas Medical Library
Tulane University

COLLEGE OF OSTEOPATHIC PHYSICIANS
AND SURGEONS • LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

®®®®©®®©®®©®©®®®®®®®©®®®©®®©®©®®®®©®

Digitized by the Internet Archive

in 2007 with funding from

Microsoft Corporation

http://www.archive.org/details/autobiographyOOtrudiala

? £. <^Z4AcliLmA

AN

AUTOBIOGRAPHY

BY

EDWARD LIVINGSTON TRUDEAU, M.D.

'£■*♦=*

"*-";,!

* *c!:

Published for the

National Tuberculosis Association

By

DOUBLEDAY, DORAN & COMPANY, Inc.

GARDEN CITY «fe NEW YORK

Copyright, 1915
LEA & FEBIGER

All rights of translation reserved
PRINTED IN U. S. A.

DEDICATED
TO MY DEAR WIFE

EVER AT MY SIDE

EVER CHEERFUL AND HOPEFUL AND HELPFUL

THROUGH THESE LONG YEARS

DURING WHICH

" PLEASURE AND PAIN
HAVE FOLLOWED EACH OTHER
LIKE SUNSHINE AND RAIN."

^

U)2.

FOREWORD

Mr. Gilbert K. Chesterton, in his review
of Mr. Graham Balfour's "Life of Robert Louis
Stevenson", says:

"When Robert Louis Stevenson was a little boy,
Mr. Graham Balfour tells us, he once made the
following remark to his mother: 'Mother, I've
drawed a man. Shall I draw his soul now' ? . . .
The only biography that is really possible is
autobiography. To recount the actions of another
man is not biography, it is zoology, the noting
down of the habits of a new and outlandish animal.
It may fill ten volumes with anecdotes, without
once touching upon his life. It has 'drawed' a
man, but it has not 'drawed' his soul."

(S)

I HAVE never been veiy partial to autobiog-
raphies, and if there is one thing I thought I
would never do, it is to attempt to write about
my own life! Nevertheless here I am, falling
into what in so many cases has seemed to me in
others the great mistake of a man's trying to
describe his own experiences and speak of his
own work, instead of allowing these to tell their
own story, or letting others tell it after he is dead.

Autobiographies must of necessity run peril-
ously near the fatal precipice of egoism, and too
many of those I have read have reminded me of
the plain old ladies who so often tell us what
belles they were in their youth, and what con-
quests they achieved.

Then why write? First, perhaps, because
many autobiographies are certainly of intense
interest, instructive and inspiring to others, and
because the experiences they describe are in a
great measure known to the writer alone, and
must perish with him; and because many of my
good friends, whom I trust, tell me that the main
facts of my life are such as to be of interest to

others, and to prove inspiring and stimulating

(7)

to younger men. In addition, I imagine another
reason is that I am human, and that as a man
nears the end of the earthly journey, and "the
evening comes and the shadows lengthen," and
"the work is done"; when there is no longer any
future to look forward to in this world and much
of the joy of life has disappeared from the present,
he naturally turns his face not unwillingly to the
past, and is not at all averse to living over again
for others some of the days of sunshine and
shadow, of pleasure and pain, and of strenuous
activity through which he has passed.

/ I was born in New York City on October 5,
/1848. I had a markedly medical ancestry. My
/ father, Dr. James Trudeau, was a member of a
\ well-known New Orleans family, and my mother's
\father, Dr. Francois Eloi Berger, was a French
physician whose ancestors were physicians for
many generations, as far back as they could be
traced. My mother, Cephise Berger, was Dr.
Berger's only daughter. I had a brother and a
sister, both older than myself. My father and
mother separated shortl}- after my birth. He re-
turned to New Orleans with my sister, and when
three years old I went abroad with my mother,
my brother and grandparents, when Dr. Berger
retired from his extensive New York practice,
where for many years he held a very prominent
place in the early medical history of New York
City. While we were abroad my mother

(8)

obtained a divorce, and married a French officer,
a Captain F. £. Chuffart. She and her husband
lived in Fontainebleau together until her death
in 1900.

/ 1 can remember little about my father. I know

/that during the great Civil War he was an officer

in the Southern Army, and for a time had charge

I of Island No. 10; and that he was wounded and
brought back to Mew Orleans, where he partly
recovered and practised his profession for a few
years before his death. Before the War he mar-

\ ried a Miss Marie Bringier, who belonged to a
well-known New Orleans family, and who survived
him, dying in Baltimore in 1909.

After her death, Miss Felicie Bringier, her
sister, sent me a large oil painting of my father
in Indian hunting costume, which she said was
painted in the early Forties by John J. Audubon.
The distinguished naturalist was a great friend
of my father's, who accompanied him on many
of his scientific expeditions, and went with him
on the Fremont expedition to the Rocky Moun-
tains in 1841. Miss Bringier states in her letters
to me that my father often helped Audubon with
the anatomy of his ornithology work, and drew
illustrations of birds and eggs for him.

My father not only drew and painted weD,
but he had a marked talent for modelling in day
and making bas-reliefs, and I have in my pos-
session some of his work cast in bronze. I re-
member my grandfather, Dr. Berger, often saying

(9)

that my father's talent for caricature had done
him an immeasurable amount of harm profes-
sionally in New York, for he made a set of
statuette caricatures of the medical faculty,
which were so well done and such telling carica-
tures that many of the gentlemen never forgave
him.

The love of wild nature and of hunting was
a real passion with my father — a passion which
ruined his professional career in New Orleans,
for he was constantly absent on hunting expedi-
tions. As mentioned in Miss Bringier's letters,
in 1 84 1 he spent over two years with the Osage
Indians, who presented him with the buckskin
suit in which he was arrayed when Audubon on
his return painted the portrait which is now in
my possession. This certainly could not have
helped him retain his practice.

It would seem that from my father as well
as from my mother's ancestors I must have
inherited a strong leaning toward medicine as
a profession, for after many vacillations and
failures in early life, this inherited bent guided
me to the choice of a medical career.

This same love of wild nature and hunting,
which was a passion in my father, was reproduced
in his son, for when stricken with tuberculosis
in 1872 it drove me, in spite of all the urgent
protests of my friends and physicians, to bury
myself in the Adirondacks — then an unbroken
wilderness, and considered a most dangerous

(10)

climate for a chest invalid — in order to lead
an open-air life in the great forest, alone with
Nature and those who were dear to me.

It is curious that this passion for the wild out-
of-doors existence which wrecked my father's
professional career, saved my life by enabling
me to live contentedly in a wilderness during the
first five years of my illness just the sort of life
that was best adapted for my restoration to
health.

Both of my sons apparently inherited the same
leaning toward medicine and the love of wild
nature that I did, for, in spite of my suggestion
that they take up some other career, both chose
medicine as a profession, and both have loved
the woods and the hunting as their father and
grandfather did before them; and some of the
happiest days of my life have been spent in the
woods with them and their mother.

The following extracts from letters of Miss
Felicie Bringier contain all I know about my
father's portrait now in my possession.

"Baltimore, Md., October 16, 1910.

"One of the things I mentioned to your boy
was your father's stay with the Osage Indians
during two years (in 1841), and about the por-
trait in Indian costume (painted by John J.
Audubon), the one you write of. I will surely
do all in my power that you should have it;
none has more right to it than you and your

(li)

children. It is not in Baltimore, as we were
compelled to intrust most of our belongings to
the care of our relatives in New Orleans when
we came here to visit my sister, not knowing
how long we would remain. Our cousin Mr.
L. A. Bringier has the portrait. I will write to
him very soon. Believe me,

"Very truly yours,

"Felicie Bringier."

"Hills Forest, Md.,
"July 28, 1911.

"Dear Eddie:

"I was so delighted to hear that the portrait
had got to you in good condition and was a source
of pleasure. I am sorry I cannot tell you the
date when it was painted; but from some state-
ments of your dear father's that I recall, I should
surmise it was in the forties, as he was with
Fremont on his expedition to the Rocky Moun-
tains, and stopped on his return with the Osage
Indians (where he remained two years), they
having sent a deputy of their young bloods to
meet and invite him to visit their settlement
when they learned that a Trudeau was of the
party. Your great-grandfather, Mr. Zenon Tru-
deau, when Governor of 'Les Illinois', in sailing
down the Mississippi in his barge from St. Louis
to New Orleans, had rescued an Osage chief
who had been wounded in a fight on the banks
of the river, taken him to his plantation, had

(12)

him cared for, and when restored to health,
helped him to get back to his wigwam and
friends. On leaving your parent he had said:
'Indian never forgets'; therefore your father
was honored. He always mentioned that his
stay with the tribe had been most agreeable
and enjoyable, affording him an opportunity
to study their customs and manners, learn their
language (which he spoke quite fluently) and
an ability to ride and use their arms as they did.
The costume with which he is represented, was
embroidered and presented to him by the squaws
of the Osages, and may now be in one of the
French Museums, if the 'Prince de Joinville,'
who was quite a visitor and friend of your uncle,
Mr. Jules de Gay Lussee (who was at the time
a resident of New York City), kept his word
and deposited it there. I have heard your father
relate that he actually begged it of him for the
purpose; as your father was loath to part with
it, as can well be conceived.

"Audubon was also with Fremont's expedi-
tion; they hunted and painted much together.
Audubon mentions your father frequently in
his work; several birds are named for him. He
often told us that most of the anatomy work of
the ornithology was his. If my memory is cor-
rect, Audubon died in 1850; that is why I have
come to my conclusions.

"Truly yours,

"Felicie Bringier."

(13)

II

WE arrived in Paris in 1 851, and my brother
and I lived there with our grandparents for
nearly fifteen years, when we all returned to New
York in 1865 at the close of the war.

While in Paris my brother and I were sent to
a French school, where I learned little in the way
of lessons and a great deal that was bad for me.
The influence of the French school at that time
was upon the whole bad for the formation of the
boys' characters. Cowardice, lying, cheating and
deception of all kinds were in vogue among them
and little frowned upon by the masters. The
boys' main idea was not to get caught; it mat-
tered not what methods you employed to escape
that calamity.

Mrs. Louis Livingston, who in after years
befriended me to such good purpose when alone
in New York, brought her two sons, Lou and
Jim Livingston, to Paris, and my grandfather,
who thought she spoiled them and that they
needed toughening, advised her to send them to
the same school where my brother and I were.
The Livingstons were a fair sample of wild Ameri-
can lads, and they soon had thrashed many

(15)

of the French boys so unmercifully that Mrs.
Livingston was sent for by the principal and
implored to place them elsewhere. I can well
remember the scene: the indignant principal,
the astonished and distressed mother, the lamb-
like offenders. I remember the distracted prin-
cipal saying:

"Mais, Madame, Monsieur le docteur Berger
m'a dit que ces jeunes-gens etaient eleves dans
du coton!! Eh bien, mon Dieu, ce sont de vrais
sauvages!"

In after years the Livingston boys lived up
to their early reputation for wildness, imparting
some of it to me in the eyes of my staid New
York friends and relatives, and it is true we had
many thrilling adventures together as young
men. They proved true friends, however, and
when I was taken ill in 1873 it was Lou Living-
ston who took me to the Adirondacks and re-
mained with me for a month. When he was
obliged to go back to New York, Ed. Harri-
man and Jim Livingston each came up in turn
until I was well enough to return to my family.
From the first I have had the best friends a man
ever had.

My grandfather's apartment was in the Rue
Matignon, just off the Champs Elysees. It had
a "porte cochere" entrance, after the manner of
the better class of French apartment houses,
where carriages drove in to turn around or to
wait in the large courtyard at the back. We

(16)

were on the second floor; the first floor was
always hired by the French Government as the
residence of one of the Generals of the French
army.

This fact was of great interest in my life,
for the General's horses and orderlies, with all
of whom I was always on intimate terms, occu-
pied the stables at the back of the big square
courtyard. Whenever a military review or any
public fete took place, requiring the official pres-
ence of the General, the courtyard was suddenly
thronged with cavalrymen of various types,
generally lancers or "cuirassiers," and our excite-
ment was intense when in the midst of the clatter
of sabres and horses' hoofs the General's horse,
caparisoned with gold trappings, was led out
unto the middle of the court. Shortly after-
wards the General himself, resplendent in gold
lace, covered with decorations and wearing white
buckskin riding trousers, lustrous black boots
and a plumed hat, would mount the prancing
horse and the whole cavalcade would clatter
out of the courtyard, through the "porte cochere,"
into the street — to our intense delight.

General Bazaine for many years occupied the
apartment, and after the manner of boys, I grew
as intimate with him as such a grave man would
allow an admiring boy to become.

Those were halcyon days for General Bazaine
as well as for his Emperor, Napoleon III, for the
French Empire was in the zenith of its glory

(17)

at that time. General Bazaine, prancing at the
head of the French soldiers at one of the gorgeous
reviews in the Champs de Mars, where all Paris
flocked to see the Emperor review the troops,
was, however, more within his capabilities than
when suddenly brought face to face with the
grim game of war and such a formidable foe as
the German army. When, in 1871, through
General Bazaine's tactical errors or treachery,
Sedan was cut off and surrounded, and Napoleon
III and the French army surrendered to the
Germans, leaving France and Paris at the mercy
of the invaders, I could not but feel a pang of
grief for my old friend, the General, who had
seemed so magnificent and unconquerable to my
admiring boy's eyes.

My grandfather must have rendered some dis-
tinguished service to some member of the Imperial
Court or of the Imperial Family, for the Emperor
decorated him with the Cross of the Legion of
Honor while we were in Paris. I was greatly
excited one day when a gorgeous equerry rode into
our courtyard and handed the butler a parcel:
when I pressed the butler for an explanation he
told me that it was a Cross of the Legion of Honor
the Emperor had sent my grandfather. I was
shown the wonderful cross in its box by my grand-
mother, and I noticed my grandfather afterwards
always wore in his buttonhole a little red ribbon
decoration. I never, however, learned just for
what service he had received this distinction,

(18)

though I often asked him why he wore the red
ribbon; but the old gentleman would only smile
and say, "Pour faire parler les curieux, mon
enfant!"

Our apartment was well fitted for small enter-
tainments, and was a meeting-place for many
Americans travelling abroad as well as for those
who were living in Paris as we were. Cordial
relations always existed between my grandparents
and the American Embassy.

Our parlor was lighted with beautiful sperm-oil
lamps on ordinary occasions, but when company
was expected to dinner or in the evening the candles
in the gilt candelabra in the center of the room
were always lighted, producing a brilliant illumi-
nation. I speak of this because I remember dis-
tinctly some gentleman coming from the Embassy
one day and showing my grandfather and grand-
mother a curious little glass lamp which he lighted,
and everyone stood about and admired the clear,
strong light it gave. The lamp was exactly like
the common glass lamps one sees everywhere in
country homes nowadays, even to the piece of
red flannel in the oil ; but to us it was a weird and
strange object then and everyone was impressed
with the bright light it gave. This gentleman told
us that the lamp burned kerosene, which could
be pumped from the earth in America in great
quantity, and that many far-seeing men had pre-
dicted it would entirely supersede the sperm oil,
as the supply was unlimited, its cost was trifling,

(19)

and the light much stronger than that of whale
oil. My grandfather was dubious, however,
about the safety of this new product, and we kept
on with sperm-oil lamps and candles as long as
we remained in Paris.

The Civil War brought all Americans in Paris
who sympathized with the North closer together,
and the American Embassy became more a meet-
ing place for them than ever. Mr. Dayton was
Ambassador at the time I write of. His son, a
lad of my own age, "Ned" Dayton, I knew inti-
mately and we, together with many American
boys, met in the Champs Elysees daily and played
games there together. Great were the discussions
of war news, but as we were all on the Northern
side there were no battles to speak of on the
playground.

We never saw anything of any of the few Ameri-
can Southern boys then in Paris, except when we
sailed our toy boats in the large basins of both the
fountains in front of the Tuileries. There we had
to meet, and the Confederate ships, which were
greatly in the minority, were not, I am afraid,
always treated strictly according to international
laws of warfare by the owners of the more numer-
ous craft which flew the stars and stripes.

My boat, in addition to a big cannon which
fired real powder and shot with a fuse which hardly
ever went off at the right time, carried at the tip
end of its bowsprit a device which I thought cal-
culated to damage greatly the enemy. It was a

(20)

large steel ink eraser which I had sharpened with
the utmost care, so that when my craft ran afoul
of the enemy the ropes and sails would be cut
and torn by this sharp weapon. The great trouble
with this arrangement, however, was that, as it
was impossible to steer the little vessels accurately,
my boat several times ran afoul of and damaged
friendly vessels, and brought much trouble on its
owner by so doing.

It was about the time I write of — 1864 —
when Messrs. Slidell and Mason were sent over
by the Confederate States to try to induce France
and England to recognize them, and we all knew
when these gentlemen arrived in Paris. We
boys soon found out that Mr. Slidell late in the
afternoon walked through the Champs Elysees
on his way home from the Palais Royal, and we
tried in a feeble way to express our disapproval of
him by standing together with our boats under
our arms and waving as much as possible the Stars
and Stripes on the little boats as he went by.

Mr. Slidell, as I remember him, was a stout,
elderly man with a florid complexion and a large
white moustache. On one memorable afternoon
we were returning from the pond with our boats
when we espied Mr. Slidell coming toward us on
his way home. As he passed we all waved the
little flags on the boats violently, but more than
this we dared not do. He walked by us with a
scowl on his face, and we all giggled, of course. I
was always somewhat more venturesome than my

(21)

fellows and frequently paid the penalty. After
Mr. Slidell had passed us and was well down the
block I put my boat hastily on the ground, took
a dozen steps toward the retreating figure, and
drawing from my pocket my trusty "catapult"
— a weapon dear to all boys' hearts from time
immemorial — I adjusted a large piece of hard
putty in the little leather sling, drew the strong
elastic as far back as I could, measured the eleva-
tion with my eye, and let go the sling. The projec-
tile became invisible as it described a slight upward
curve, and then to my horror I saw it bounce off
the middle of Mr. Slidell's broad back. I was
terror-stricken, and thrusting the sling-shot in
my pocket I put on an unconcerned air and walked
toward the boys, who had not noticed this episode.
As I neared the group one looked up. I saw his
face suddenly change, and he called out, "Run!"
At the same moment a heavy hand seized me by
the coat collar and a large umbrella came down
on my head and shoulders with a resounding
whack. Quick as a flash I wriggled out of the
coat and ran. As I turned to look back I saw the
excited old gentleman, purple with rage, beating
my coat with his umbrella, and heard his sulphurous
remarks to the boys who, too awed to laugh this
time, kept at a respectful distance. I waited to
see no more, but in my shirt sleeves sped straight
home at top speed, seeing in my imagination the
minions of the law in pursuit and a dungeon cell
awaiting me.

(22)

When I reached my room in safety I began to
reflect upon the enormity of my offence, and con-
cluded I would say nothing about it at home unless
questioned. It occurred to me, however, that it
would be hard to explain the absence of the coat,
which, with the tell-tale catapult in the pocket,
was still in Mr. Slidell's possession; and then I
remembered my grandfather was never very severe
with me, so I decided to make a clean breast of it.
I crept downstairs, and by peeking through the
keyhole ascertained that the old gentleman was in
his usual seat in the parlor, reading the newspaper;
so I knocked gently, walked in and climbed up in
his lap. The confession followed! I saw the cor-
ners of my grandfather's mouth twitch, while he
told me I had been a bad boy and what I had done
was very wrong; to go upstairs and he would
decide what punishment I should have.

The punishment never came, and to my intense
relief no reference was made to the incident at
dinner. The following evening was Saturday,
the usual reception evening at the Embassy, and
my grandfather told me he wanted me to accom-
pany him there. This gave me quite a shock, and
I had some misgivings as to what was going to
happen, but went as cheerfully as I could. When
the door of the parlors of the Embassy was thrown
open, and my grandfather was announced in a
loud voice by the liveried butler, a hush at once
fell over the assembled guests. Then Miss Dayton,
in a beautiful evening dress, walked rapidly across

(23)

the floor, took me by the hand and said, "So
you are the young man who shot at Mr. Slidell
on neutral territory. Come and let me introduce
you to my father!" Mr. Dayton received me very
cordially, but he was too much of a diplomat to
express any opinion as to what I had done. Many
of the guests were not as cautious, however, and
shook my hand and patted me on the back; and
the men said, "Bully for you!" and the women
smiled at me with every sign of approval. Cer-
tainly I was the lion of the evening on that occa-
sion; but I never saw or heard anything more of
my coat or of Mr. Slidell.

Shortly after this we boys had another war
excitement. The news reached us that the United
States Cruiser Kearsarge had attacked the famous
privateer Alabama off the coast of France and
sunk her. The next day, at the pond in the garden
of the Tuileries, the United States vessels were in
full force and more bedecked with Stars and Stripes
than ever, but no Confederate ship put in an
appearance on that day.

(24)

Ill

MY grandfather's health had been steadily
failing, and after the end of the war we
left Paris and came over to New York, where my
grandfather had very many friends and my grand-
mother many relatives. Mr. James Aspinwall, my
grandmother's brother, had always managed Dr.
Berger's affairs and my grandfather was greatly
dependent upon him. Mr. and Mrs. Aspinwall
and their family of two girls and three boys then
lived on Eighteenth Street just out of Fourth
Avenue, and for the remaining years of my grand-
father's and grandmother's lives we resided in
this neighborhood so as to be near them. We spent
the winters in New York, and for the summer
months we went to Nyack, on the Hudson, where
the Aspinwalls had a country place, and much of
my time was passed with my newly found cousins
and their friends. When I arrived in New York
I spoke only broken English, and I remember
wondering why my girl cousins laughed when I
said "Ze English language is a very hard language
to prononciate ! "

America was a revelation to me. Everything
was new and full of intense interest. The thing

(2S) WW*

that above all made the deepest impression upon
me, however, was the freedom given to young
people, and especially the freedom between young
people of both sexes. Although I was seventeen
I had known little or nothing of young girls in
France. Whenever I met any of them or spoke
to them it was always in the presence of some older
person, but young men and women were never
given any opportunity for free interchange of
ideas and impressions, or allowed to enjoy harmless
pastimes together. To find myself all at once
thrown intimately and unrestrictedly with my
girl cousins and their girl friends, in winter to
walk and ride and dance and skate with them, and
in summer to drive and sail and row and swim
and dance again with them, was a new revelation
to me, and I think I made the most of my oppor-
tunities.

Those were joyous play-days indeed, especially
in the glorious summer time spent at Nyack, when
I had a horse and wagon and a sail-boat, but no les-
sons, and the absence of all the young men during
the daytime at their business in New York gave
me an unrestricted field with the girls and brought
my wagon and sail-boat into constant requisition.
I had many love affairs, and I am afraid I was
rarely off with the old love before I was on with the
new. But they were not very serious love affairs,
though they often seemed so to me at the time.

It was on a trip to Nyack that I met my wife.
My cousin, Minnie Aspinwall, had frequently

(26)

described her dearest friend, Lottie Beare, to me
in such glowing terms that I was impatient to meet
her. My cousin Minnie and I had arranged that
we should go up to Nyack together that day.
When I called for her on Eighteenth Street I
found her talking to a tall, very slender young
woman, dressed in black, whom she at once intro-
duced to me as Miss Lottie Beare.

Minnie informed me Miss Beare was to accom-
pany us on the boat to Nyack to spend a few days
with her at their country house, and we all started
at once. On the boat I talked to both the girls,
and though Miss Beare was pleasant enough I
thought her cold and dignified. When we reached
Nyack we decided to walk to the Aspinwall house,
which was on a high hill. I seized Miss Beare's
travelling bag with alacrity and we started. It
was a hot afternoon and the hill was long and
steep, the bag large and heavy, and Miss Beare
did not seem to me very gracious. When we
reached the house she at once went to her room,
and my cousin rushed back to me and said,

"Well, what do you think of Lottie Beare?"
and I answered:

"I don't know much about Miss Beare, but I
can say positively that she has an enormously
heavy travelling bag. "

Nevertheless it was the tall, slender girl in black,
with the heavy travelling bag, who soon inspired
me with a love which made me in time give up
all the wild mode of life into which I was fast slip-

(27)

ping in New York, and work for three years to
obtain a medical degree, and for a lifetime to try-
to be worthy of her. I am often asked if I would
be willing to live my life over again, and as I
look back on most of it I can say very positively,
"I have my doubts;" but that part which has
been lived in contact with the "tall and slender girl
with the heavy travelling bag" I would gladly live
over again indefinitely. Miss Beare, however, did
not for a long time look on my advances with
favor, and I came perilously near going to the
dogs in New York in the meantime.

My sister had come up from New Orleans and
was living with us, and my brother soon found
employment with a business firm. I began to
think I must settle on some kind of work soon,
and the glamor of the war must have still been
in the air, for I decided, for some unknown reason,
to go into the United States Navy. Another
uncle of mine, Mr. William Aspinwall, at that
time had influence with the Government in
Washington, and in order to please my grandfather
and also, I think, to get me away from New York,
he promised to secure for me an appointment as
midshipman. So it came about that I was packed
off to a preparatory school at Newport, as the
Naval Academy and the old ship Constitution, on
which the cadets lived, were then at Newport.
I was just about to enter the Academy when
an unexpected event brought about an entire
change in my plans.

(28)

My brother's health began to fail from the
time he took the office position, and he was obliged
to give up work. From childhood he had been
delicate, having a congenital heart trouble, and
any over-exertion, excitement or fatigue caused
his heart's action to become irregular and his
nails and lips to turn blue. For this reason, though
some years younger than he was, I had always
cared for him and helped him and fought his
battles with the French boys at school, who took
advantage of his lack of strength to torment him.
He, on the other hand, was a very strong, unselfish
and beautiful character, deeply religious, and con-
stantly trying to help me in the straight and nar-
row path from which I was apt to wander. He
always insisted on our saying our prayers and
reading the Bible together daily, and it was through
his influence that I joined him and that we were
confirmed together in the American Episcopal
Chapel in Paris by Bishop Mcllvain.

We were much closer to each other than most
brothers are, and as soon as he found he was ill
he came straight to see me in Newport. I was
shocked at his appearance, and when he told
me the doctor said he had consumption I at once
threw up my appointment and returned with
him to my grandfather's house.

My brother had a rapidly progressive type of
tuberculosis and my time was soon entirely taken
up in caring for his needs. We had no trained
nurses in those days, and I took entire care of

(29)

him from the time he was taken ill in September
until he died on December 23, 1865. We occupied
the same room and sometimes the same bed. I
bathed him and brought his meals to him, and
when he felt well enough to go downstairs I
carried him up and down on my back, and I
tried to amuse and cheer him through the long
days of fever and sickness. My sister and grand-
mother often sat with him in the daytime and
allowed me to go out for exercise and change, but
he soon became very dependent upon me and I
had to be with him day and night. The doctor
called once a week to see him and usually left some
new cough medicine, but the cough grew steadily
worse. Not only did the doctor never advise
any precautions to protect me against infection,
but he told me repeatedly never to open the win-
dows, as it would aggravate the cough; and I
never did, until toward the end my brother
was so short of breath that he asked for fresh
air.

In the light of our present knowledge as to the
mode of infection in tuberculosis, I shudder to
think of what condition that room must have been
in. Even my vigorous young body during the
last month of my brother's illness began to show
the ill effects of the constant confinement and
the prolonged mental and physical strain. How
strange that, after helping stifle my brother and
infect myself through such teaching as was then
in vogue, I should have lived to save my own life

(30)

and that of many others by the simple expedient
of an abundance of fresh air!

I remember that during the last week he lived
I had to drink green tea every night in order to
keep myself awake, but I held out to the end. He
died one night, and after all I had seen him suffer
the first feeling I experienced was one of thank-
fulness that he was at rest.

This was my first introduction to tuberculosis
and to death, with which I had never come in
contact before. Little I knew then how many
hundreds of such death-bed scenes I should
attend in years to come, in a life which has been
spent in the midst of a perpetual epidemic of
tuberculosis.

It was my first great sorrow. It nearly broke
my heart, and I have never ceased to feel its
influence. In after years it developed in me an
unquenchable sympathy for all tuberculosis
patients — a sympathy which I hope has grown no
less through a lifetime spent in trying to express
it practically. Even now I love to think that
my work has been in a measure a tribute from me
to the brother I loved so well.

For many months, in spite of the buoyancy of
spirits which was ever natural to me, I felt like
one who is stunned by a blow on the head, and I
tried to forget my heartache by plunging into all
sorts of occupations and amusements. My cousins
did all they could to cheer me; my good friend,
Mrs. Louis Livingston, invited me to her house

(31)

and was like a mother to me in her efforts to console
me, and my friends, the Livingston lads, took me
on wild expeditions and adventures in their
efforts to divert me. After all, however, I got
more help from the visits I paid to Miss Beare
at her home on Long Island than from anyone
else. Miss Beare's mother and sister had died
a couple of years before, and she and her father,
an Episcopal clergyman, who had been in charge
of the church at Little Neck for nearly forty
years, lived in the little rectory cottage on the
turnpike to New York.

As time passed, I found that the hours spent
in the little cottage by the roadside, inhabited by
the saintly old clergyman and presided over by his
charming daughter, who helped her father with
his parish work, played the organ on Sunday, and
was beloved by the rich and poor of the neighbor-
hood far and wide, brought more peace to my
sorrowing spirit than I could find anywhere else.

My grandfather died February I, 1866, and
my sister and I continued to live with my grand-
mother at Nyack during the summer, and in New
York in a house on Twentieth Street during the
winter.

All this time I was trying to get some occupation
and settle on some career. I studied for three
months in the School of Mines, took a position for
awhile in a broker's office, and tried various
other occupations spasmodically, but soon gave
them up, as I was a failure at everything I under-

(32)

took. This, I think, was due partly to my lack
of interest in, and fitness for the work I started
on, and partly to the constant temptations to
amuse myself with my friends the Livingstons,
who did not have to work and were only too glad
to have me go about with them. Had it not been
for my love for Miss Beare, and the religious
ideals imbibed from childhood from my good
brother, which had been fanned into new life by
the influences at the Little Neck cottage, I should
certainly have fallen into a life of amusement and
dissipation. I realized, however, that if I was
ever to win the girl I loved, I must demonstrate
my ability to be steady enough to make some
sort of career for myself and earn some sort of
living.

It was about this time that I had a rupture
with my grandmother which brought things to a
climax. The old lady and I had never got on well
together, and had had many battles royal. She
knew that I was dependent on her, for my grand-
father had left most of his property in trust to
her for her lifetime. By his will a small trust had
also been created for me, which gave me about
seven hundred dollars income a year, but this
was only about enough for my clothes and spend-
ing money. One day I came home and found
someone had taken what seemed to me unwarrant-
able liberties with some of my personal property.
I taxed my grandmother with having done it,
and she admitted it and told me she intended to

(33)

do as she pleased in her own house; that I was
entirely dependent upon her and would starve
without her. I certainly was in a white rage that
day. I told her I would get out of her house within
an hour, and that I never would take another
cent from her as long as I lived; and I never did.
I went straight to Union Square and hired a
truckman to come for my trunk, which I packed
hastily, and we walked from house to house look-
ing for a boarding place, until on West Eighteenth
Street I found a hall bedroom on the fourth floor
at eight dollars a week, which I took at once.
Within an hour I was sitting on my trunk in the
little boarding-house room, wondering what to do
next. I decided to go down to my friends, the
Livingstons, and tell them what had happened.
The young men were out, so I went up to Mrs.
Livingston's room and told her. She was as kind
as ever to me. She told me she owed a debt
of gratitude to my grandfather she could never
repay, and that she would be only too happy if
I would come and make my home with them. I
was overcome with gratitude, but too proud to
accept such an offer; so finally she pressed on
me an arrangement which I was only too glad
to acquiesce in. She told me she wanted me to
have some sort of home influence, and that she
would always have a place set for me at her dinner
table, and I could come or not as I chose to do
each day. Mrs. Livingston's confidence and
motherly interest, the many interviews with her

(34)

in the little sitting-room, when she encouraged
me to open my heart to her, and the remembrance
of the seat always ready for me at the table, many
times recalled me to my better self and helped
steady me in those days of reckless youth, when
so many other places seemed more attractive
than the little hall bedroom in the boarding house.
Ever afterwards, although I frequently visited
my grandmother at her home and the old lady in
the kindness of her heart did all she could to have
me return there, I always declined as graciously
as I could. She pressed money on me repeatedly,
even to leaving it on my table in an envelope in
my little hall bedroom at the boarding house;
but though I needed it badly I always returned
it with thanks. We never had any more quarrels,
and our relations were very cordial until she died
suddenly March 27th, 1870.

(35)

IV

I WAS a member of the Union Club all this time
and had many friends there besides the Living-
stons, who led easy, gay lives, and I made up my
mind that unless I did something radical soon I
never should "pull out" or do any work. I knew
no doctors or anyone connected with a medical
college, but I often did things purely on impulse,
which came to me as a sort of auto-suggestion,
and perhaps the blood of my ancestors was the
cause of the auto-suggestion this time. Be that
as it may, in the fall of 1868 I decided to become
a student in the College of Physicians and Sur-
geons, and matriculated.

So little faith did my friends at the Club have
in my doing any work at all that I remember when
my decision to study medicine was announced
to a group of men in the Club, Mr. Dan Moran
said, "I bet five hundred dollars he never gradu-
ates;" and no one was found to take the bet!

The requirements for a medical student in those

days were of the simplest. There was no entrance

examination. All the student had to do was

to matriculate at the college and pay a fee

of five dollars, attend two or more courses of

(37)

lectures at the college, and pass the very brief
oral examinations which each professor gave
the members of the graduating class on his own
subject. In addition, the law required that every
student enter his name with some reputable
practising physician for three years as a student
in his office — a rather hazy and indefinite relation,
for which he paid the physician one hundred
dollars each year. If these requirements were
met the long-hoped-for sheepskin was forthcoming,
and the new M.D. was turned loose on the world
to meet as best he could the complicated respon-
sibilities of a medical career.

I chose as my preceptor Dr. H. B. Sands, who
then lectured at the college on surgery, and that
gave me the great privilege of being a member
of the Professor's Quiz, which was composed
of all the Professor's own students, and they
were examined once each week by every professor
on his own subject.

When I returned from my first visit to Dr.
Sands, after entering my name in his office as one
of his students, I carried under my arm a new
Gray's Anatomy and, wrapped up in a piece of
brown paper, two venerable human bones Dr.
Sands had given me to study. By their dark
appearance and high polish they had evidently
been already used by generations of medical
students, but I felt quite proud of them neverthe-
less. In after years I often brought much more
unsavory and objectionable anatomical curiosities

home for study, until finally my landlady objected.
One of these dark yellow bones I decided at
once was an arm bone, but the other, which
looked like the flange of a propeller, I was utterly
at a loss to place anywhere in the human body
at first. Finally with the aid of my Gray's
Anatomy I concluded it must be a shoulder blade,
and began to try to memorize the extraordinary
names of its parts and processes and of its mus-
cular attachments, until they finally overcame
me and I went to bed. This was the first step
in my medical career, and the turning-point
between an easy life of pleasure to one of work
and responsibility. After this my evenings were
generally spent in the little hall bedroom with
my anatomy instead of at the Club with my
boon companions.

The College of Physicians and Surgeons was
then a not very imposing institution on the corner
of Twenty-third Street and Fourth Avenue, and
very appropriately had a drug-store and an ice-
cream saloon occupying the basement of the
high-stooped three-story brick building which
was devoted to the uses of the College. The
dissecting-room was on the top floor.

There was very little clinical or bedside teach-
ing in those days, although the professors of
medicine held public clinics occasionally at
Bellevue and the New York Hospitals, and all
the students were notified of the daily operations
by a notice on the bulletin-board of the College.

(39)

The teaching was all done by lectures and charts
on the wall. The charts, which were hung up
just before the lecture by the professor's pet
student — often under a pitiless fusilade of mis-
siles— were generally of a gigantic size and strik-
ingly and vividly drawn and colored. I can see
some of them distinctly now, so strong an impres-
sion did their exaggerated characteristics make
on my receptive mind.

The lectures on Practice of Medicine and Sur-
gery were didactic and descriptive. What the
professors taught was well taught, especially the
clinical side, and was up to the knowledge of the
day; but there was much less to teach then than
now, and theories were accepted and taught
without proof when definite knowledge was lack-
ing, as laboratory and animal experimentation
were still in their infancy.

Pathology was taught by the Chair of Medicine
as a side issue. No laboratory microscopic studies
were required of the students. The theories as
to the causation of disease were discussed and
criticized in the lectures, as well as the classifica-
tion, which was based entirely on the gross and
microscopic pathology; but the exciting causes
of these diseases remained necessarily theoretical.

This was true of tuberculosis. Dr. Alonzo
Clark taught that it was a non-contagious, gen-
erally incurable and inherited disease, due to
inherited constitutional peculiarities, perverted
humors and various types of inflammation, and

(40)

dwelt at length on the different pathological
characteristics of tubercle, scrofula, caseation,
and pulmonary phthisis, and their classification
and relation to each other. How absolutely
different is our present conception of the disease,
owing to the light thrown on its causation by
animal experimentation and bacteriology! But
bacteriology was an unknown science in those
days.

The clinical side of medicine, however, was
wonderfully accurate and well presented, and the
treatment, based on the lecturer's personal obser-
vations, could not be criticised.

While in the College one of the students devel-
oped symptoms of tuberculosis of the lungs, and,
with my brother's case ever before me, I felt
deeply for him and wanted to help him. I decided
to brave Dr. Clark in his office and lay my friend's
case before him. The interview, like all interviews
with Dr. Clark, was a brief one and to the point.
He listened to me attentively as I described my
friend's case, and then rising from his chair said,
"Tell your friend to go to «the mountains and
become a stage driver for a few years. Good
evening." If Dr. Clark's teaching seems obsolete
to us now, his treatment certainly was up to date.
Driving a stage in the mountains means an open-
air life, rest, and a good climate, and embodies
the main features of our modern treatment of the
disease.

We had some most distinguished men on the

(41)

faculty: the venerable Dr. Alonzo Clark, Dr.
Willard Parker, Dr. John Dalton, Dr. H. B.
Sands, Dr. William H. Draper, Dr. T. Gaillard
Thomas, Dr. Fessenden W. Otis, with whom I
subsequently entered into partnership in New
York, Dr. James L. McLane and Dr. H. B. St.
John. I have most pleasant recollections of all
the professors whom I grew to know personally
during the two and a half years when I sat on
those hard benches and heard the lectures. My
favorite lecturer was Dr. John Dalton, and his
lectures on physiology seemed to me, and really
were, wonderfully thorough and well presented.
Dr. William H. Draper was my ideal of an educated
and refined physician and gentleman, and for
Dr. H. B. Sands, my preceptor, I had unbounded
admiration, and he was, I think, the most popular
professor with the students at that time.

Dr. Alonzo Clark was admired for his learning,
though feared by the students on account of his
gruff, short manner, and his, at times, pitiless irony.
The other professors all quizzed their students
once a week at their offices, but Dr. Clark always
held his weekly quiz in the upper lecture-room at
the College and invited the entire class to be
present. We were all in dread of being called up,
as our mistakes were commented on sometimes in
what seemed to us an unnecessarily severe manner.
I was fortunately never specially held up to ridi-
cule, but I resented Dr. Clark's apparent unfriend-
liness to the students.

(42)

I remember on one occasion the laugh of the
class was turned on a timid friend of mine, a man
by the name of Little; and this aggravated my
antagonism to Dr. Clark. It was a public quiz
evening, and as Dr. Clark called out Little's
name he added, "'Man wants but Little here
below nor wants that Little long'; so make your
answers as brief as possible, Mr. Little." Poor
Little was covered with confusion and failed in
his answer. I remember I nearly got myself into
trouble by trying to get even with Dr. Clark. He
was lecturing on dysentery the next day, and in
speaking of the treatment inadvertently said that
"ice injections into the bowel should be used."
Questions were often written out and passed up
unsigned to the professors to answer. So under
cover of my note-book I wrote on a piece of paper,
"What kind of a syringe do you advise for injecting
ice?" The paper was passed up to the Professor,
who put on his glasses, looked at it, tore it up and
went on with his lecture. I thought, however, he
suspected me, for his keen black eyes gave me a
sharp look.

When I came up for final examination Dr.
Clark's manner was so severe and his questions so
searching that I made up my mind he guessed
that I had been the offender on that occasion. I
was almost in a tremor with fear when I was
admitted to his bare and dusty sanctum under
the stairs of the college. The old gentleman sat
with his fur-lined coat on his knees and nodded to

(43)

me as I entered, then began to look down his list
of the student's names. In my anxiety to be on
pleasant terms with him I volunteered, "My name
is Trudeau, sir." "I know it," was the only
reply, followed by a dreadful pause. Then he
said, "Mr. Trudeau, what is pain a symptom of?"
At first I was floored and did not know what to
answer: then I pulled myself together and began
with the inflammations, neuralgias, etc., and men-
tioned as many as I could. Another pause.
"You have omitted one long pain." "Sciatica,"
I answered. "Well, Mr. Trudeau, what is hemor-
rhage a symptom of?" and then, "Well, Mr.
Trudeau, what is fever a symptom of?" and so on.
I was glad to escape when the ordeal was over, but
as no other student reported having been asked
such searching questions, I have always felt the
old gentleman had been getting even with me for
trying to poke fun at him about the ice injections.
As fellow-students with me in Dr. Sands's office
I came in contact with many men who made their
mark in medicine afterwards: Dr. William T.
Bull, Dr. John G. Curtis, Dr. Francis P. Kinnicutt,
Dr. Matthew D. Mann, and many others whose
names became well known as great physicians
and surgeons. I formed a strong friendship
with Dr. Luis P. Walton, an English student,
a personal friendship which lasted throughout
his life. Among my intimates were William T.
Bull, Francis P. Kinnicutt, Matthew D. Mann,
Allan McLane Hamilton, Thomas R. French,

(44)

and Luis P. Walton. We formed a little clique
with a few other members of the Professor's
Quiz, sat together at lectures, and knew very
little personally of the rest of the students.

William T. Bull, John G. Curtis and Francis P.
Kinnicutt were the star students in the Professor's
Quiz. We were not much awed by their knowl-
edge, however, for I can remember that William
T. Bull did all Dr. Sands's dissections, and when
the dissected body was brought into the lecture
room, followed by the lecturer, in whose wake,
with a smile upon his handsome face, walked
W. T. Bull who probably had sat up all night
doing the dissecting, we greeted him generally
with cat-calls and a shower of cigarette stumps,
paper balls and other missiles. This was the
medical student's method of showing approval
and admiration, as he was certainly the most
popular man in the class. Many years after-
wards the echo of the wonderful operations he
had done reached me even in the midst of the
Adirondack wilderness, and I had him come up
from New York in consultation once on a distant
lake in a case of shotgun wound of the hip- joint.

The change in my mode of life and breaking
away from my old associates was very hard
at first, for my former companions did their
best to induce me to go to entertainments,
theatres and parties with them. When they
found, however, that I really meant my refusals
they soon let me alone to do as I pleased. My

(45)

finances had improved since my grandmother's
death and I received more money from my
grandfather's estate, so I took a better room on
West Twenty-first Street and went for my meals
to the Club. I found this no more expensive,
if my orders were moderate, than eating at restau-
rants, and the food was much better.

I still kept up my friendship with the Living-
stons, who looked upon my study of medicine as
a passing fancy, and I often occupied the seat
Mrs. Livingston kept at her dinner table for me.
The summers were spent almost altogether at
Grassmere, the Livingstons' country place near
Rhinebeck, and I went as often as I could get
invitations to the Little Neck cottage.

Though slender, I was quite athletic, very
active, and had wonderful endurance. I owned
a racing shell boat and rowed a great deal with
the Livingstons and their friends on the Hudson
River. At times I kept my boat in New York
on the Hudson River side, and, undeterred by
the dangers of the crowded harbor, on Saturdays
in the Spring I would row around the Battery,
down through Hell Gate to Little Neck for a
visit to the Rectory. My shell boat, like all
such racing craft, would carry almost nothing
but its owner and on one occasion, I remember,
this proved awkward. I had rowed down to
the Rectory in the boat one Friday afternoon, and
on Saturday we all had an invitation to dine with
Mr. John A. King and his family, who lived in

(46)

their country place on King's Point, at Great
Neck. It was arranged that Miss Beare and her
father should drive down in their little carriage
and I was to row down in my shell boat. All I
wore in the shell was a pair of trousers and a
thin, sleeveless undershirt, so I put the rest of
my clothes in a bag in the little carriage with
the clergyman and his daughter, with the in-
struction that they should send the things down
to the b^athouse as soon as they got there. It
was a beautiful day and I rowed along at a good
rate. When I reached King's Point, Mr. King,
who had seen me, was standing on the shore
waiting for me. He told me Mr. and Miss Beare
had not arrived yet, but he urged me to come
ashore and wait for them. I came ashore, but
explained to him that as I had no clothes with
me it would be impossible for me to go up to the
house and see his wife and daughters. My help-
lessness seemed to amuse him greatly, and he
told me it was absurd how dependent we were
for our dignity upon our clothes. Had I ever
thought how undignified a gathering the House
of Bishops would be if deprived of their trousers?
My bag soon came, however, and I was able to
present a reasonably dignified appearance at
dinner.

From Rhinebeck I rowed at different times
from almost one end of the Hudson River to the
other with the Livingstons and their friends, and
no matter what happened on those trips they

(47)

always developed situations and adventures which
to us brought fun. The summer holidays after the
hard work of the winter were full of pleasure to
me. The joy of life and youth certainly ran in
my veins then — as it always has, more or less,
for the matter of that, in spite of years and the
ills of the flesh — and I might well have said,
"Give me youth and a day and I'll make the
pomp of emperors ridiculous."

On one of our trips I gave my companions a
real fright for a time, though when we got home
we all reached the conclusion that on the whole
we had had lots of fun. On this occasion we
decided to go for a long row down the river and
return next day. The two Livingstons, Billy
Remsen and Harry Olen rowed a four-oared
shell, and I went in my single scull. We got off
late, and when we reached Poughkeepsie, fifteen
miles down the river, we landed for a little rest
and had our tintypes taken in scant rowing attire.
We got into our boats again, and by sunset had
reached New Hamburg, where we decided to
stop for the night. After supper at the little
hotel we smoked our pipes and then all turned
in. I had a little room to myself; the other four
men occupied a big room with two double beds
across the hall.

I was tired and was soon asleep, but it must
have been a couple of hours when I was brought
back to consciousness by a strange tingling feel-
ing in many places of my tired body. I got up,

(48)

LlfciKAKY OF THE

Orleans Parish Medical Society

lit the light, and a search of the bed revealed
the unpleasant truth that it was full of vermin.
That ended all idea of rest for me, so I put on my
clothes and ventured into the dark hall. I saw
a glint of light coming from the room occupied
by the other men, so I gently opened the door
and looked in. All four men and the lamp were
on the floor, on which was pinned a sheet with
charcoal lines on it. They never noticed me, so
intent were they on their amusement which con-
sisted, I gathered from their remarks, in racing
the little insects they had obtained from their
beds for a dollar a head from one black mark
on the sheet to the other. Jim Livingston's
racer was in the lead, and he was prodding it
on with his scarf-pin and offering five to one
on his winning when, in his zeal to hasten the
insect's imperceptible advance, he jabbed the
scarf-pin through its body and thus lost the race
and his money, to the noisy delight of his antag-
onists!

I waited to see no more, but shut the door
gently and walked out into the night and down to
the boat landing. It was a glorious night; a
full moon was reflected from the broad river and
covered the landscape with its silvery sheen.
Too good a night to waste, I thought; and after
some difficulty I succeeded in getting at my boat,
and was soon in the middle of the river, rowing
down stream.

What a gorgeous night it was! I remember

(49)

distinctly now how the river glittered in the
moonlight, and the dim and graceful outlines of
the hills stood out on either side in their hazy
softness. Lights were twinkling in the streets
as I went by Newburg but, fascinated by the
grandeur and stillness of the beautiful scene, I
went on until abreast of West Point, when a
streak of light in the east caused me to turn in
to the little landing at Garrison 'sv forty miles
from our starting-place the day before. I pulled
out my boat, went up to the hotel, got a room
and was soon asleep. I slept until about half-
past three in the afternoon, when I decided to
leave my boat and take the train back to Rhine-
beck. As I boarded the train I ran into Jim
Livingston, who greeted me with expletives which
were more forcible than parliamentary. Where

in H had I been? They had been running

up and down the river all day in a tug-boat
looking for me but could find no trace of me,
and thought I must have upset my shell and
been drowned.

However, we all reached Rhinebeck safely on
the train.

I was a very fast walker, and had often proved
my speed and endurance on short races. During
my second winter at the College the Livingstons,
who had a good opinion of my athletic capa-
bilities, induced me to walk against time on one
occasion. They had made the wager of a din-
ner with a number of men at the Club that I

(SO)

could walk from Central Park (Fifty-ninth
Street) to the Battery inside of an hour. I had
had no practise and had lived an indoor life
most of the winter, but I wanted to prove that
their confidence in my powers was not misplaced.
So one night at midnight we all went up in car-
riages to Fifty-ninth Street and I started. I had
not realized my want of condition nor what a
test such a long walk at top speed would be.
By the time I reached Twenty-third Street I
was in great distress. I remember the lights
of the Fifth Avenue Hotel all looked red in my
eyes as I raced by, but I kept on. At any rate,
I held out until the Battery was reached, and
covered the distance, I believe, in a little over
forty-seven minutes; but it did me up badly and
for a long time afterwards I felt ill.

I finally went to a doctor who examined me
and found an abscess beginning to form, which
he thought was the result of the strain of the
walk. It proved to be a cold abscess and had to
be operated upon several times before it healed,
as all such abscesses do. In those days the rela-
tion of such cold abscesses to tuberculosis was
not understood, and no one even hinted to me
that it was of the least importance. Had they
done so I should have known that it was the first
manifestation of tuberculous infection, and I could
have altered my mode of life and regained good
health.

Many years afterwards, on one of my visits to

(51)

New York, my friend Dr. Walter B. James asked
me to speak to his class at the College of Physi-
cians and Surgeons on the subject of tubercu-
losis. Hoping to save others from the same
mistake, after describing the usual symptoms
of early tuberculous infection, I emphasized to
the students that if a patient came to them with
a dry pleurisy, blood-spitting or a cold abscess,
it was wise to consider him as tuberculous and
treat him as such until the contrary could be
proved. I hope some of the young doctors who
listened to me on that occasion saved some of
their patients from the same error that I was
allowed to commit through ignorance.

I had evidence that some of the students lis-
tened and that my appeal for an early diagnosis
made some impression. About fifteen years
later I was in bed at my home with one of my
exacerbations of fever which were then becom-
ing more and more frequent, when the servant
came to my room and told me there were two
gentlemen downstairs who wanted to see me for
an examination. I asked if she had told them I
was sick in bed and could see no one. She said
she had, but that one of them replied that they
had come all the way from Australia to see me
and must see me as soon as possible. I thought
if they had come from Australia to see me I cer-
tainly must see them, and so they were admitted.
It proved to be a doctor with his patient, a young
Englishman. The doctor told me that fifteen

(52)

':n3JJ

years ago he had been a student at the College and
heard my lecture, and that it had made a strong
impression on him. After graduation he went
out to Australia and had been in practice there
ever since. Two months before he had been sent
for to examine the son of a very prominent
English resident. He found the young man
showed evidences of tuberculosis. The father
asked the doctor what he considered the best
chance to save his son's life, and the doctor
advised that the young man be sent to my care
at Saranac Lake and said that was what he
should do were he in the patient's place. The
father made an arrangement that the doctor
should come at once with his son to Saranac
Lake to consult me, and they had just arrived.
The young man stayed in Saranac Lake two
years, and the last I heard of him was a post-card
saying he had gone from Australia to the great
European war.

In some of my frequent visits to the Little
Neck Rectory during the first winter I studied
medicine, I found that Mr. Beare's horse had
given out and that if Miss Beare wanted to drive
or ride she had to use a poor horse, and one I
did not consider safe. I had always been rather
familiar with horse-flesh through my friends the
Livingstons, who always kept trotting horses, and
bred horses on their country place at Rhinebeck;
and the idea occurred to me that by strenuous

(53)

saving I might be able to give Miss Beare a sur-
prise on her birthday in the shape of a good horse.
The Livingstons had a wide-awake young Irish
coachman who was known to us only by the
name of Patsy and had been with horses and
horsemen since he was a child. I confided to
Patsy my ambitious plan to buy a good horse
for Miss Beare, told him I wanted the horse
to be perfect, and that two hundred dollars was
all I thought I could possibly raise. I didn't
see how such a perfect animal as I wanted could
be bought for any such sum, but I had great
faith in Patsy's ability to produce any kind of a
piece of horse-flesh from his many horse-dealing
acquaintances; and he certainly lived up to my
expectations. One day he came to me and told
me he had found a perfect horse, a beauty, and
one without a fault, worth at least one thousand
dollars, but that his friend was hard up and he
thought it could be bought for five hundred.
The horse was described in such glowing terms
that in spite of the fact that the price was far
beyond what I could afford I couldn't resist the
temptation of looking at him. Patsy's friend
brought him to the Livingstons' stables, and
he certainly seemed perfect in every way. He
was a beautiful bay with black points and a tail
that touched the ground. I asked the privilege
of trying him, so he was saddled and I went out
in the park for a ride on him. He seemed per-
fectly broken for a lady's saddle horse; would

(54)

single-foot, lope, trot or gallop at the rider's will,
and was very gentle. I pictured Miss Beare's
delight when she saw him, and how she would
enjoy riding him. I made up my mind I must
have him if it took my last cent. To my sorrow,
however, I found that three hundred dollars was
the very utmost I could possibly hope to scrape
together. I confided this unfortunate circum-
stance to Patsy, who told me he would see his
friend and find out what could be done. After
much talk he told me that he had seen his friend
who, he thought, in view of all the circumstances,
could be induced to take three hundred dollars;
so my last cent went in a check for that amount
arA the horse was bought.

Miss Beare's birthday was the following week
and I wrote her I would ride down and spend
it with her, but never said a word about the
horse. I was so joyful in anticipation of Miss
Beare's pleasure when, after she had admired
my mount, I would tell her that the horse was
for her birthday, that I could hardly wait; and
many times went down to the Livingstons'
stable and looked at the beautiful animal with
my friend Patsy.

It was a fine, clear day when I started on
horseback for Little Neck and I was bursting
with pleasurable anticipation. I rode slowly for
the first few miles; then the exhilaration of the
circumstances got the better of me and I decided
to try my handsome animal's speed. I called

(55)

on him and he responded by a fine burst of speed,
a test I had never put him ' to before. As I
reached Flushing, five miles from Little Neck, I
began to think his gait was not as easy as it had
been. I rode a little further; surely, he was
lame. I got off, looked at his front legs, but
could see nothing. The lameness was in his
shoulders. The dreadful truth flashed upon me
then. Patsy and his "horsey" friend had "done"
me! The beautiful animal, had he not been a
patched-up, foundered horse, could never have
been bought for three hundred dollars. The
burst of speed had brought out the truth, and
a more bitter disappointment I never had in my
life. He grew lamer and lamer, and as I went up
the Little Neck hill I had to get off and lead
him. Miss Beare met me at the Rectory gate —
but how different from the meeting I had so
long anticipated! The only comfort I could
get was that, when I told her my story, she was
so full of kindness and sympathy that she made
up to me for much of my bitter disappointment.

The horse had been well doctored up, but he
never was good for anything again and I
exchanged him for a common, useful animal,
getting only seventy-five dollars for the hand-
some bay.

A year before I was graduated from the Medi-
cal School Miss Beare allowed me to announce
our engagement. Her friends and family evi-
dently thought she was sacrificing herself, and

(56)

treated me very coldly. My friends and my
uncle's family, I know, wondered how she could
take such chances as to marry a man who went
with such a fast set and had little prospect of
earning a living, but their disapproval didn't
worry me in the least. I was certainly care-
free in those days, and the horizon and the future
were always brilliant and rose-colored.

About this time I unexpectedly received a pay-
ment of twelve hundred dollars from my grand-
father's estate. Lou Livingston had for two years
owned the finest pair of little mares I had ever
seen. He drove them to a light Brewster trotting
wagon, and the turnout had long been my admira-
tion and envy. Many were the good drives we
had had together behind the beautiful little pair,
both in the summer at Rhinebeck and when in
New York through the Park to Harlem Lane,
where we raced with the best and stopped at
Johnny Florence's, near High Bridge, for refresh-
ments. Lou Livingston, I knew, was very hard up
and had talked of selling his turnout, and when the
money came in unexpectedly it seemed to me the
most natural and satisfactory use I could possibly
make of it would be to buy Lou's turnout with it.
I pictured to myself how pleased and proud I
should be to take Miss Beare out driving behind
these fine animals. The turnout had cost Lou
Livingston over two thousand dollars, but I
bought it for my twelve hundred. The cost or its
future maintenance didn't weigh at all heavily

(57)

on me; that would take care of itself somehow.
And it did, as I received more money from my
grandfather's estate a few months later.

When I went to the hospital I kept the mares
near by, and when Miss Beare was in town at
her aunt's, would call for her there on fine after-
noons and take her to the park with my new
turnout. I imagined with what disapproval her
staid friends and family must have looked on
when she appeared in an up-to-date trotting rig
with me; but as the little mares picked their
way through crowded Fifth Avenue, and later
when we flew up Harlem Lane at a two-forty
gait, no one could have been prouder or happier
than I was.

When we were married, from Mr. William P.
Douglas's place at Little Neck on June 29, 1871,
the little mares, harnessed to a borrowed coupe
and driven by my Irish boy, James Burke, in
livery, took us to New York on our wedding
journey.

One of the little mares broke down two years
later and I sold her to old Mr. Livingston as a
brood mare; the other I took to the Adiron-
dacks with me, and she drew our cutter on a
memorable trip from M alone to Paul Smith's when
I brought my little family into the mountains in
January, 1875. Six of the seven horses in our
party gave out in the deep snows and had to be
unharnessed and left to follow as best they could,
but the little mare held out and drew my wife

(58)

and me in the cutter, coming in with her head up
on the night of the third day, when we reached
Paul Smith's.

As I reached the end of my college work I
could not make up my mind to try for a hospital
position at the New York Hospital or Bellevue,
for that involved eighteen months of service and
I really could not wait eighteen months longer to
be married. I was in a state of indecision as to
what I should do, when Dr. Sands told me a
Mr. Kaiser had built a small hospital on the
corner of Tenth Street and Avenue A, called The
Strangers' Hospital, which was to be opened on
January I ; and that as it was a new hospital,
all three positions — House Physician, Senior
and Junior Assistants — would be open for com-
petitive examination and the positions awarded
at once, according to the standing of the suc-
cessful candidates. Although I was not to be
graduated until March I, I decided to try for
this hospital. If I got the position of house
physician or senior assistant I would serve, as the
first would be for six months and the second for
one year only. If, however, I got the junior's
assistant's place, which would keep me eighteen
months, I would resign it and get married with-
out a hospital experience.

The examinations were to be given orally at
the offices of the four physicians who composed
the Visiting Staff— Dr. William H. Draper, Dr.
H. B. Sands, Dr. T. Gaillard Thomas, and Dr.

(59)

Fessenden Otis. It required all the courage I
could summon to ring the doorbells of these
prominent men and, when shown into the office,
to announce calmly that I was a candidate for
the house staff of The Strangers' Hospital. I
lived through the ordeal, however, and Dr.
William H. Draper, who was the first one I called
upon, was especially kind to a terrified young
man and conversed with me a few minutes to
put me at my ease before asking me any ques-
tions. I was much elated when, a few days
later, I received an official note stating that I
had passed the best examination and had first
choice of the open positions. Of course I took
the one of House Physician, which would keep
me on duty only six months. Dr. Matthew D.
Mann got the place of Senior Assistant and Dr.
Hugo Kunstler that of Junior Assistant.

(60)

V

THE Strangers' Hospital covered half a block on
Tenth Street and had been built by remodel-
ling and converting former business buildings into
a hospital building. It accommodated about a
hundred and twenty patients; had two wards
for surgical cases, in charge of Dr. H. B. Sands;
two for medical cases, which constituted Dr.
William H. Draper's service; a genito-urinary
ward, a ward for diseases of women and a lying-in
ward as well, under the charge of Dr. Fessenden
Otis and Dr. T. Gaillard Thomas respectively.

When I qualified as House Physician, January
i, 1 87 1, I had not yet passed my examination
for M.D., which took place in March. I found
myself at once in charge of all the wards, and yet
it is quite true that I had never before that time
had the slightest practical experience in seeing and
treating illness and injuries at the bedside. I
realized my unfitness for the place the first time
I was called up by the night nurse in the women's
ward for a case of hemorrhage. As I entered the
ward a stream of blood was running across the
floor from under the woman's bed, and I had
never seen anything of the kind before. I remem-

(61)

bered, however, what I was to try to do, and
whether I did it, or nature was kind to me and
the patient, I don't know, but the hemorrhage
stopped, and I was quite pleased with myself
as I left the ward.

The patients may have suffered somewhat,
but I certainly got a good deal of valuable expe-
rience during my six months in the hospital,
because I was thrown on my own resources and
had to do the best I could in emergencies with
no other aid in most cases at first than my assis-
tants, neither of whom had any more medical
experience than I had.

The hospital work was at times pretty strenu-
ous, but after the last attending physician had
taken his departure, I would several times a week
rush down to Little Neck and spend the evening
with Miss Beare. This necessitated a five-mile
drive back to Flushing at twelve o'clock at night
to catch the one o'clock train to New York,
and often on returning to the hospital I would
find Dr. Mann asleep in my room, while a newly
made ether cone and a box of instruments on the
table showed me he was waiting for my return
to do some operation or put up a fracture, and I
wouldn't get to bed before three or four o'clock
A.M.

All this constant and intense activity, loss of
sleep and indoor life began to tell on my health,
and I was very thin and worn out when I ended
my hospital service. I must have had excellent

(62)

resistance to have kept perfectly well so long,
under such trying conditions, after the positive
evidence of tuberculous infection given by the
cold abscess eighteen months before.

The rules at the hospital gave the resident
physicians two weeks' holiday every six months.
I was so anxious to get married at as early a date
as possible that I took my holiday at the end of
my service, left the hospital about the twentieth
of June and we were married on the twenty-ninth.

Mr. W. P. Douglas, whose country seat was
at Little Neck and who had known Miss Beare
since she was a child, offered his beautiful place
at Douglaston to Mr. and Miss Beare for the
wedding reception. The rectory was part of Mr.
Douglas's estate and only a short walk from his
country home, where he entertained constantly.
Miss Maxwell, my Aunt Aspinwall's sister, pre-
sided over the Douglas Manor household, as Mr
Douglas was her nephew. From childhood Miss
Beare had been a great favorite of Miss Maxwell's
and she was constantly invited to all the dinners
and parties at Douglas Manor — festivities in
which I was also often invited to share.

A more attractive place for a country wedding
could hardly be imagined. The grounds stretched
along the shore of Little Neck Bay up to the fine
old-fashioned mansion, which commanded a beau-
tiful view of Long Island Sound.

Willie Douglas's yacht, the "Sappho," was often
anchored at some distance out, as the water in

(63)

the bay was too shallow; but we young people
had some good trips on her when Miss Maxwell
would ask my girl cousins and Miss Beare, as
well as her inevitable young man, on sailing trips.
To me, who loved every rope in a good boat,
every minute on such a grand yacht as the
"Sappho" was a keen joy.

I remember during one of Dr. Clark's lectures
in my last year at college when, having already
listened to four lectures that day, life seemed
rather wearisome, I was handed a brief note from
Willie Douglas, and life suddenly became any-
thing but wearisome. The note read as follows:

"The 'Sappho' is to race with the rest of the
Yacht Club tomorrow against the English yacht
'Cambria' to defend the America's Cup in the
International Race. Would you like to go? If
so, be at Forty-second Street, North River, at
8:00 p.m. where a boat will meet you."

Would I like to go? I thought Dr. Clark's
lecture never would end, but it did finally and at
7:00 P.M. I was on the deck of the "Sappho" at
anchor in the Horseshoe. We had a pleasant
evening, and the next morning before daylight
I was up on deck conversing with the captain.
The challenging English yacht "Cambria" and all
the boats of the Yacht Club that were to take
part in the race were anchored about us, and
one by one I saw them trip their anchors, make
sail and drop down the bay to the starting-point
off the light-ship. I began to be impatient, and

(64)

appealed to the captain. Why did we not
start? He informed me Mr. Douglas was still
asleep and he could not start without Mr.
Douglas's order. I dove down the companion-
way, and Willie Douglas was soon awake. He
came on deck in his pajamas, looked around for
a few seconds, told the captain to get under way,
and then went back to bed.

When we reached the Sandy Hook lightship
the wind was rising, and the blue sea was covered
with all the yachts of the Club under their tower-
ing white canvas. Most of them, including the
"Cambria," had already started, and to my cha-
grin we were the last boat to cross the line. When
I expressed my regret at this to the Captain he
only smiled, and said twenty miles to windward
was a long bit and we wouldn't be the last to turn
the windward stake-boat.

Soon we were on the open ocean; the sheets
were trimmed flat and the great schooner, then
the fastest sailing vessel in the world, heeled over
on her side, with her lee rail awash as the strength-
ening breeze filled her big sails. The twenty
men who composed her crew lay flat on the deck
under the windward rail; the hiss and rush of
the waters drowned our voices, and the spray flew
over us as we dashed through the great swells
at top speed. At every tack we dropped several
yachts, and long before reaching the stake-boat,
which we had to turn before heading back, we
passed the "Cambria." After we turned and

(65)

began to run for home before the wind, we had
only two yachts just ahead of us — Mr. James
Gordon Bennett's large schooner "Dauntless"
and Mr. Osgood's "Fleetwing." The big balloon
kites were crowded on, and within half an hour
we were well in the lead, and the "Sappho" crossed
the line a very easy winner.

The next morning I was on the College benches
as usual, wondering if it had all been a dream.

The wedding came off on the twenty-ninth of
June, 1 87 1, in the Little Neck Church whose
Rector Mr. Beare had been so long, and was a
grand affair. Not only did all the Long Island
people come — old and young, poor and rich,
who had known Mr. Beare and Miss Beare for
many years — but my friends and the Aspinwalls'
friends came from the city on a special train.
Douglas Manor was decorated with the flags from
the "Sappho" and the yacht herself was decked
out in bunting. After the wedding breakfast
in the large dining-hall at the Manor, my wife
and I stood up for two mortal hours and shook
hands with, and were kissed by, scores of men and
women of all classes and ages. I drew the line
only at big, black Eliza, who wept very wet tears
as she kissed "Miss Charlotte," whom she had
cared for from childhood, and who seemed on
the point of including me in her muscular and
voluminous embrace.

My wife, however, finally escaped, soon re-

(66)

appearing at the foot of the stairs in travelling
dress. My little trotting mares, with white
rosettes in their head-stalls, attached to a little
coupe borrowed from Mr. Douglas's stable and
driven by Jim Burke resplendent in a borrowed
livery, were waiting at the door. We raced to
the coupe amidst a shower of rice and old slippers,
and were soon making good time toward the
city on the New York turnpike; and this was
the red-letter day of my life!

After a short trip to the White Mountains we
sailed for Europe on the Cunarder "Russia," re-
turning in October on the "China." We went to
London first, and then to Paris, Switzerland and
Germany. While in Paris I took my wife to show
her my grandfather's apartment in the Rue Matig-
non where my boyhood had been spent. The porte
cochere and the courtyard looked just as they did
when we left for America. The concierge's wife
had died but he was still living, a decrepit, deaf
old man. When I told him who I was and intro-
duced my wife he turned to her, and putting up
both hands said, no doubt referring to me and my
friends, " lis etaient tous mauvais — mais celui la!!"

My wife was delighted with everything she saw,
as she had never been abroad, and we both
greatly enjoyed the three weeks we spent in
Switzerland. Heidelberg was full of interest, but
neither of us could speak German and the people
did not seem especially cordial, so we made a
very short stay in Germany.

(67)

Our return voyage on the "China" was a very
trying one. We had a series of gales from the
time we started and were fourteen days in cross-
ing. My wife was terribly frightened, I know,
but with her usual wonderful self-control never
gave any evidence of it. At one time we shipped
so much water that our little steamer trunk
floated about the stateroom. We were both
standing then on the little lounge to escape the
water. I jumped down and put the little trunk
in the upper berth. My wife merely remarked,
"What did you do that for? We shall never
want it again!" Soon the water ran out under
the door and I heard a steward in the hall. I
called to him, and he seemed much amused to
see us both standing on the lounge. I asked him
if the ship was going to the bottom. A broad
grin overspread his jovial British face and he
said, "Go to the bottom, sir? — Why, don't you
know you can't sink a Cunarder!"

After that we had better weather, but between
my general run-down condition and fourteen days
of seasickness I was a wreck when we reached
New York.

While in England I had had some swelling of
the lymphatic glands on the side of my neck, but
so ignorant were we about the mechanism of
tuberculous infection at that time that this symp-
tom gave me no alarm. My wife, however,
urged me to see a well-known English physician
in Liverpool. He told me the glands were an

(68)

evidence of a run-down condition and a tendency
to scrofula; advised me to paint them with
iodine, eat plenty of bacon at my breakfast, and
gave me a tonic with iron in it. This second warn-
ing of tuberculous infection went as unheeded as
the first, and I never realized that I was already
infected with the same disease that had run
so rapid and fatal a course in my brother's
case.

As we both loved the country we hired the
little cottage at the gate of Mr. Douglas's place
and I decided to try to get some practice on
Long Island. My wife had some money of her
own, and by that time I had received all that
was coming to me by my grandfather's will, and
we could live comfortably, though very modestly,
in the country on our joint income. Our little
daughter Charlotte, always known as "Chatte",
was born in the Douglas Cottage, and we spent
a very happy and peaceful year there. I soon
tired, however, of the monotony of country prac-
tice and the lack of opportunity for advancing
in my profession, and a year after our return from
Europe we moved to New York.

I realized that we could not live in New York
on our income, but decided to spend some of my
principal until I got started in practice. After
a long time I secured a three years' lease of a six-
teen foot house, No. 8 West Forty-sixth Street,,
as the price was low, owing to its being next to-
a livery stable, but the location was excellent*

(69)

We furnished it, and had not been settled there
two months when one of my attending physicians
at the hospital, Dr. Fessenden Otis, offered me
a partnership which I gladly accepted. He was
retiring from practice and would send me in his
place whenever he could, giving me one-half the
fee which he collected. I was soon making from
three to six calls daily for him, and had a class for
diseases of the chest at the Demilt Dispensary
with my friend Dr. Luis P. Walton, where we
examined and prescribed for patients together for
two hours, three times a week. Besides, I attended
clinics at the hospital.

While at Little Neck I had had on two or three
occasions attacks of fever, but as nearly everybody
had malaria I was told it was malaria and took
quinine which, however, did little good. After
we moved into town I felt tired all the time, but
thought it was the confinement of city life and
paid but little attention to it. One afternoon
I was at the dispensary with Dr. Walton, and he
insisted that I looked ill and took my temperature.
To my astonishment it was ioi.° Walton advised
me to go to Dr. Janeway and have my lungs
examined, but I laughed at the idea. Of course
there could be nothing the matter with my lungs!
His insistence worried me, however, and next
morning as I went by Dr. Janeway's office on
West Fourteenth Street the idea struck me that
I would go in and have my lungs examined, so that
next time Walton berated me about my health

(70)

I would be able to tell him there was nothing the
matter.

Even at that early date Dr. Janeway's great
skill in physical diagnosis was recognized, and he
had a class at Bellevue for physical diagnosis to
which I belonged. He received me cordially and
began the examination at once. When this was
concluded he said nothing. So I ventured, "Well,
Dr. Janeway, you can find nothing the matter?"
He looked grave and said, "Yes, the upper two-
thirds of the left lung is involved in an active
tuberculous process."

I think I know something of the feelings of the
man at the bar who is told he is to be hanged on
a given date, for in those days pulmonary consump-
tion was considered as absolutely fatal. I pulled
myself together, put as good a face on the matter
as I could, and escaped from the office after thank-
ing the doctor for his examination. When I
got outside, as I stood on Dr. Janeway's stoop, I
felt stunned. It seemed to me the world had
suddenly grown dark. The sun was shining, it
is true, and the street was filled with the rush and
noise of traffic, but to me the world had lost
every vestige of brightness. I had consumption —
that most fatal of diseases! Had I not seen it
in all its horrors in my brother's case? It meant
death and I had never thought of death before!
Was I ready to die? How could I tell my wife,
whom I had just left in unconscious happiness

with the little baby in our new home? And my

(71)

rose-colored dreams of achievement and profes-
sional success in New York! They were all
shattered now, and in their place only exile and
the inevitable end remained !

How little I could have realized then how many
thousand times it would fall to my lot in a long
professional life to tell other human beings the
same dreadful truth! I think my own experience
that day in Dr. Janeway's office was never for-
gotten and helped, every time I made a positive
diagnosis of tuberculosis, to make me as merciful
as was compatible with truthfulness and the wel-
fare of the patient. Besides, it was not many
years before a new hope, a hope which it was part
of my life's work to help develop and demonstrate,
could honestly be held out to patients; for the
diagnosis of tuberculosis does not now carry the
sinister meaning that attached to it in the early
seventies.

(72)

VI

I WAS still stunned when I reached home, and
though I tried to make the result of Dr. Jane-
way's examination as encouraging as possible, my
wife soon realized the ominous import of what he
had found, and together we discussed the future
calmly. We were in the month of February and
Dr. Janeway had advised me to go South at once,
so we started for Aiken within a few days. I had
been told to live out of doors and ride on horse-
back, and no doubt I made matters much worse
by the horseback riding, for I developed daily
fever and was no better when I returned to New
York early in April.

I was allowed and even urged to exercise daily,
in the misguided belief that it would improve my
appetite and keep me from losing strength; but
the result naturally enough was that my fever
kept up and that I lost weight and strength
steadily.

Another baby was expected soon in our house-
hold and we decided to make no plans for the
summer until after its arrival. My friend Dr.
Walton was a great help in these days, and by his
interest and daily calls did what he could to cheer
us both. I had to give up work, however, and

(73)

as sickness was a new experience to me at that
time I rebelled and struggled against it and
was thoroughly unnerved by it. I have had
ample opportunity in the past forty years to get
used to illness and suffering; but it took me a
long time to learn, imperfectly though it be, that
acquiescence is the only way for the tuberculous
invalid to conquer fate. To cease to rebel and
struggle, and to learn to be content with part of
a loaf when one cannot have a whole loaf, though
a hard lesson to learn, is good philosophy for
the tuberculous invalid, and to his astonishment
he often finds that what he considers the half-
loaf, when acquiesced in, proves most satisfying.
It was many years, however, before I learned this
great lesson, but when once learned it made life
fuller and happier.

Lou Livingston did all he could to cheer me up
in his own way, which was generally to take me
off somewhere and amuse me. I remember on
one beautiful spring day he called with the stirring
announcement that I was to drive down with
him to Union Track, Long Island, where a wonder-
ful shooting match was to take place between
Paul Smith, the well-known guide and hotel
keeper, and, as I remember it now, a gentleman
called Harry Park, who was prominent on the
Stock Exchange. Neither of the contestants,
both middle-aged men, had ever shot a bird on
the wing, and the match was to be for one thousand
potatoes, and followed by a dinner and a general

(74)

pigeon-shooting sweepstakes, open to all comers
at the entry of five dollars, "miss and out."
Lou Livingston was a crack pigeon shot and
expected to take part in the sweepstakes and win
some money.

On a trip to the Adirondacks two years before
with my good friend Mrs. Livingston and Lou
Livingston, I had been at Paul Smith's and knew
him personally; so though I felt miserably ill I
got into the trotting wagon with Lou Livingston
and we started. A goodly collection of sports
had gathered on the main track for the event,
and much fun was occasioned by Paul Smith's
and Mr. Park's futile efforts at stopping the swift
pigeons as they flew from the traps. Liquid
refreshments were in order, and a glass of cham-
pagne seemed to obliterate my ill feelings. I had
never shot pigeons from a trap, and had no idea
as to whether or not I had any skill with a shot-
gun, except that I had killed a fair proportion of
ducks and snipe on the few occasions I had been
hunting with the Livingstons. Mr. H. D. Pol-
hemus, a big, warm-hearted sportsman whom I
had met at Paul Smith's on my trip to the Adiron-
dacks two years before, seemed very sympathetic
as to my evident illness, and insisted that I take
a wonderful gun he had and enter the sweepstakes
with the rest, and finally I consented. It was
a handicap match, and as I had never shot pigeons
before, I was put at sixteen yards, while Lou
Livingston had to stand at thirty-two yards from

(75)

the traps. It was five dollars for each man to
enter, and as soon as a man missed his bird he
went "out," the last man "in" taking the stakes.
From eight to ten men entered the first sweepstake
and, to my astonishment, the "miss and out"
business didn't seem to apply to me, for I didn't
miss any of my birds and was handed the stakes,
much to Lou Livingston's and Mr. Polhemus's de-
light. I was moved four yards back and we began
another sweepstake, which ended in the same
way. I was so weak I could hardly stand, but
the excitement of my unexpected success and an
occasional glass of champagne seemed entirely
to steady me, and it appeared to me easy to cover
the fast flying pigeons.

After I had won the third sweepstake I was
put back six yards further. Lou Livingston came
to me and said some of the men thought he had
played a trick on them by presenting me as a
novice while I probably was an old hand at the
traps, and he advised that I should spend the
money I was winning as freely as I could for food
and drink for the participants. I announced that
food and wine would be free for the rest of the
afternoon, and, with assurances from Mr. Pol-
hemus and Paul Smith, who knew me, good feeling
was again restored. I shot one more sweepstake
and won that and then we went home. Although
I won a number of matches in my life afterward,
I don't think I ever shot so well as I did on that
day, sick as I was.

(76)

Of course I was exhausted the next day and had
to remain in bed with a high fever. I grew steadily
worse and had to keep my bed most of the time.
My doctor friends all urged an immediate change
to the mountains, but I decided to stay until the
baby was born and my wife safely through the
ordeal. Lou Livingston stood by me as usual,
and said he was ready to take me to Paul Smith's
as soon as I would go and stay with me until I
was better.

Our boy was born on May 18, 1873, and a week
later Lou Livingston and I set out for Paul
Smith's. Dr. Walton was the greatest comfort
at that time, and assured me he would look after
my wife and "those dreadful little Trudeau brats",
and he certainly kept his word. After my wife
and babies were moved down to her father's
rectory at Little Neck, Walton all through the
summer made regular pilgrimages to Little Neck
and reported to me of their welfare, while assuring
me what a nuisance it was to have to look after
another man's family. His friendly watchfulness
of my dear ones and his letters were the greatest
comfort.

I was influenced in my choice of the Adiron-

dacks only by my love for the great forest and the

wild life, and not at all because I thought the

climate would be beneficial in any way, for the

Adirondacks were then visited only by hunters

and fishermen and it was looked upon as a rough,

inaccessible region and considered a most inclement

(77)

and trying climate. I had been to Paul Smith's
in the summer on two occasions before on short
visits with my friend Lou Livingston and his
mother, and had been greatly attracted by the
beautiful lakes, the great forest, the hunting and
fishing, and the novelty of the free and wild life
there. If I had but a short time to live, I yearned
for surroundings that appealed to me, and it
seemed to meet a longing I had for rest and the
peace of the great wilderness.

It was a sad home-leaving, as my wife and my
friends considered me most seriously if not hope-
lessly ill, and she was still in bed with the baby at
her side and little Chatte in the nurse's arms.
Dr. Walton saw me off and comforted me by his
promises to look after "the wife and kids", and
help my little family to move down to the rectory
at Little Neck for the summer. I finally tore
myself away and was helped into the cab by my
friend Lou, who at once began to dilate on what
sport we should have at Paul's; but my heart
was heavier than it had been since by brother's
death.

The first day we went to Saratoga by train and
rested there overnight, and the next day by train
to Whitehall and by boat through Lake Cham-
plain, reaching Plattsburg at supper time. I
had a raging fever all day, went to bed at once
on reaching the Fouquet House, and was too ill
and weak the next morning to attempt the long
trip into the wilderness to Paul Smith's, so we

(78)

had to wait at Plattsburg two days. Lou Living-
ston told me afterwards that the hotel people
had tried to dissuade him from taking me on such
a long journey and to such a rough and remote
place as Paul Smith's, and had urged him to induce
me to return home. Whenever he hinted at a
return home, however, I was evidently so upset
at the idea that he decided to go on with me.

On the third day we started on a little branch
iron-ore road for Ausable Forks where the mines
were, and from there we had to drive forty-two
miles to Paul Smith's, most of which was over a
rough corduroy road. While I was resting Lou
hired an old-fashioned two-horse stage-wagon,
put a board between the seats, and with a mattress
and a couple of pillows arranged me so that I
could lie down all the way quite comfortably.
All day long we crept up the hills at a snail's
pace, and trotted down the hills and on the level
road until I thought we must have gone fifty
miles at least. I stood the jolting pretty well
until afternoon, when the fever and the fatigue
made the rough shaking of the wagon almost
unbearable. Lou Livingston smoked innumer-
able pipes, conversed with the driver, with whom
he made friends over occasional little nips from
his flask, and they seemed very happy and com-
fortable; but for me it certainly was an afternoon
of misery.

The sun was just setting as I caught sight of
the great pines around Paul Smith's, and in a

(79)

minute we were driving up to the door of the
hostelry, a swarm of guides and fishermen were
clambering off the steps and the horse-block, and
many hands extended in welcome. Fred Martin,
Mrs. Paul Smith's brother and one of the most
splendid, sturdy specimens of manhood I have
ever seen, was about to give my hand a squeeze
that would, no doubt, have finished me, when I
whispered to him I was sick and wanted to be
carried up to my room. He picked me up as if
I had been an infant, and went up two flights
of stairs, two steps at a time, opened the door of
a room I had occupied before, and put me down
on the bed with a pained expression and the com-
forting remark,

"Why, Doctor, you don't weigh no more than
a dried lamb-skin!"

We both laughed, and indeed I was so happy
at reaching my destination and seeing the beautiful
lake again, the mountains and the forest all
around me, that I could hardly have been depressed
by anything Fred Martin could have said.

During the entire journey I had felt gloomy
forebodings as to the hopelessness of my case,
but, under the magic influence of the surroundings
I had longed for, these all disappeared and I felt
convinced I was going to recover. How little I
knew, as I shook hands with the great, strong men
who came up to my room that evening to say a
word of cheer to me, that forty-two years later
most of them would be dead and that I should still

(80)

be in the Adirondacks and trying to describe my
first arrival at Paul Smith's as an invalid !

Soon Katie Martin, Mrs. Paul Smith's pretty
sister, came in with a word of welcome and cheer
and a tray on which were eggs, brook trout, pan-
cakes and coffee, and I ate heartily and with a
real relish for the first time in many a long week.

Paul Smith's at that time was a very different
place from what it has become in these days of
Pullman trains, automobiles, speed launches and
parlor camps. Things were very primitive but
most comfortable. There was no running water
in the hotel, and a trip to the spring under the
bank with a pail supplied the drinking water;
but Mrs. Paul Smith's influence was seen every-
where in the house, in the clean and comfortable
rooms, the good beds, the excellent cooking which
she did or supervised herself, and the feeling of
welcome and home with which she impressed all
her guests.

Paul Smith's strong personality also pervaded
the place. He had a keen, incisive sense of humor
and was a jovial host, abounding in jokes and
good stories which he told at the expense of guides
and sportsmen alike. He divided his time then
between his duties as host, and, especially during
the hunting season, his duties as guide. His
duties as host sat very lightly on him, however,
as he had learned that with Mrs. Smith at the
helm his responsibilities need give him no anxiety;
but he derived much pleasure from his guiding

(81)

experiences, not so much because he was keen
about the sport as because he enjoyed the com-
panionship, the peculiarities and the mistakes of
the city sportsmen he guided, whom he looked
upon as curious specimens of mankind. I can
see him in the center of the little dining-room,
after having put out his hounds in the morning
hunt, beaming with good nature and standing
in his shirt-sleeves, with four or five dog-chains
still slung over his shoulders, carving the venison
or roast for his guests and joking with everybody
around him. This was before his shrewd land
transactions had made him a rich man; but his
riches never altered his personality in the least.

Paul Smith was no respecter of persons, though
he was very fond of his fellow-men. He was
always inclined rather to laugh at their faults
than to condemn them, and this was because his
estimate of humanity was not very high. He
thought that in most men, as in most things in
life, there was a good share of humbug. Most
men might be honest or might think they were,
but as a rule his estimate of his fellow-beings was
like that of the Irishman who said his friend was
"perfectly honest but would bear watching".

He had little respect for the learned professions:
clergymen, lawyers, doctors were in his opinion
more or less inclined to humbug the public. He
had little faith in any of them, or in high education.
He thought a man was born "smart" and that no
amount of "book-learning" could make him smart,

(82)

though it might enable him to hoodwink the
public into thinking him so and thus redound
to his advantage. His low opinion of "book-
learning" was admirably shown one day when
a gentleman well known in New York society —
who had been graduated from several universities
and had every advantage education could give
him — came up to us as we sat talking on the
verandah, and began to point out to Paul what
mistakes he had made in the management of
several matters connected with his business and
how he could rectify them. Paul shut one eye and
nodded his head in apparent acquiescence; but
when the gentleman had gone he turned to me
and said, " Doctor, there is no fool like an educated
fool". Paul, though not highly educated, was
certainly no fool, and his business ventures proved
him a match for the shrewdest and best-trained
minds.

His land speculations and his buying of all the
water powers on the Saranac River before anyone
else had suspected their value, was a striking
example of his far-sightedness.

A man of unusual physical strength, he was
rather apathetic and indolent in temperament,
but when once aroused, the personification of
vigorous and forceful activity. In a memorable
journey through the snow from Malone, in 1875,
with my family, had it not been for his resource-
ful energy we certainly would have all suffered
terribly.

(83)

When death and sorrow came to us, and Chatte
and Ned were taken, Paul and his sons made us
feel they were indeed true friends. My wife
and I will never forget their acts of friendly and
helpful sympathy at these times.

Paul Smith's was then only a sporting hostelry,
the resort of hunters and fishermen, and few
ladies and no children were ever seen among
the guests. When Lou Livingston and I reached
there about the first of June, W. C. Prime and
his friend, W. Bridge, two picturesque sporting
figures, were at their usual post doing their spring
fishing; and most entertaining companions they
proved to be, for Mr. Prime had travelled all
over the world and had seen many strange coun-
tries.

I slept well and woke full of hope and anticipa-
tion and interest in my new surroundings. The
first thing I did was to secure a guide, and Warren
Flanders was engaged by me and George Martin
by Lou Livingston. The old Adirondack guides
were most striking personalities and an interest-
ing lot of men, like children about many things,
a happy, easy-going lot, who took no care for
the morrow and enjoyed life for life's sake.
Although as in all other callings there were good
guides and poor guides, they generally knew their
business pretty thoroughly in those days. Some
of them, however, never could learn to find their
way in the woods, as this seems an attribute
that a man is born with, which cannot well

(84)

be learned. In one well-known family at St. Regis
several of the young men were good guides in
every other respect, but not one of them could
"put out dogs" — that is, travel in the woods all
day in constantly varying directions and return
at will. On the other hand, some of the most
uneducated seemed to know always just where
they were and in which direction to travel to reach
camp in a straight line. Most of them carried
compasses to help them keep their direction I
had a guide the first winter I spent at Paul
Smith's who, like many of his mates, would
occasionally drink more than was good for him.
So keen was his sense of locality that several
times while hunting for me, after walking for
half a day, starting each dog after a separate
deer and celebrating each event by a drink from
his flask, he would be overcome by his indul-
gences and could walk no further. He would then
lie down and sleep wherever he happened to be
late in the afternoon, but he never lay out all
night. He would come straight back, through
miles of unbroken forest, guided only by an
instinct which was born in him and which even
his confused wanderings while under the influence
of alcohol could not efface.

He was a strange personality, always poor,
and thoroughly ignorant and superstitious. A
good idea of his reasoning powers and methods
in life was shown by the way he treated his
hounds. I noticed during the winter I was at

(85)

Paul Smith's that the six dogs he had were very
thin and always ravenous, and I spoke to him
about it. He gave me, as a perfectly good reason,
the information that his wife always baked one
pan of corn-meal each day for the dogs. Last
year he had only three and they did very well,
but this year he had six and the corn-cake cut
in six pieces made a thin meal for the hungry
hounds; but then he said, "You know if my dogs
can't live on that pan of corn-cake, why they
Gan starve if they choose!" I don't think it
ever occurred to him to cook two pans of corn-
meal instead of one when he had six dogs.

Each guide had his specialty. Some were bet-
ter fishermen and others, who were the real
woodsmen, better hunters. A really good guide
could contribute greatly to the success and com-
fort of a hunting or fishing trip, while a poor guide
would make it a discomfort and a failure. Really
good guides were certainly experts at their busi-
ness, and easily earned their two and a half or
three dollars a day. A good guide was first of
all a truthful man whose word could be relied
upon; he was a skilled oarsman, and often car-
ried his boat on his back for miles from one lake
to another; a thorough woodsman, with all that
implies of fishing, hunting and wood-lore; a
good cook, resourceful in emergencies, and an
excellent companion. One or two of them —
Fitz Greene Hallock and Albert McKenzie —
besides possessing all these qualities to the full,

(86)

have been for a lifetime the best and truest of
personal friends to me.

Warren Flanders came to my room after break-
fast and told me he had fixed the boat ''comfort-
able" with balsam boughs and blankets so that
I could lie down in it, had put my rifle in, and if
I felt up to it we would row down the river to
Keese's Mill "kind of slow" and see what we
could see. My hunting blood responded at once
and I was soon in the boat. It was a beautiful
sunny June day, the sky and water were blue,
and the trees resplendent in their spring foliage;
and as I lay comfortably on the soft boughs in
the stern of the boat, with my rifle in reach
across the gunwale, my spirits were high and I
forgot all the misery and sickness I had gone
through in the past two months.

The guide kept looking ahead from time to
time. All at once he stopped, suddenly turning
the boat sidewise. On a point about two hun-
dred yards away I saw two deer: a buck and a
doe were feeding. I never sat up, but rested my
rifle on the side of the boat and fired at the buck
who, after a few jumps, fell dead at the edge of the
woods. Warren went ashore, loaded the deer in
the boat and we returned to the hotel. If any
game laws existed in those days they didn't apply
to the Adirondack wilderness, for it was the cus-
tom to shoot game and catch fish at any season,
provided they were used as food and not sent
out of the woods for sale.

(87)

I got back quite triumphant to the hotel, and
Lou Livingston, Paul Smith and the guides,
who were very sympathetic about my illness,
seemed delighted that I had had such good sport
on the first day of my arrival.

(88)

VII

THIS was my first personal experience as a
patient in the Adirondacks, and rather differ-
ent from the first day spent by most patients who
come now to Saranac Lake as ill as I was then!
The change, the stimulus of renewed hope and
the constant open-air life had a wonderful effect
on my health. I soon began to eat and sleep, and
lost my fever. At that time we had no idea of
the essential value of rest, but as I often spent
the entire day in the boat, fishing or being rowed
about from place to place or watching the lake
for deer, I unconsciously was kept at rest. My
anxiety about my family was entirely relieved by
frequent letters from my wife and good friend
Walton, who sent me regular reports of "the
brats" every two weeks, in which he fulminated,
after his usual manner, on the nuisance of having
to go out into the country to see them; but
the reports were all good, and my improvement
day by day became more manifest.

At the end of July Lou Livingston had to
return home. I saw but little of this good friend
of my youth in after life, though he came to see
me for two days during the winter we spent at

(89)

Paul Smith's. He continued to live in New York
for many years and as far as I know never had
a day's illness, but died suddenly of heart disease.
How different our experiences in life ! This strong
man, who never came in contact with illness or
knew what it means to be ill, has been dead many
years, while I have spent forty years in the midst
of the sick, ever in poor health, and for the past
ten years so ill as to be entirely incapacitated
for months at a time.

Another friend of mine and the Livingstons,
E. H. Harriman, offered to come up and look
after me and spend most of the month of August
with me. A telegram which read, "Head me —
here I come. E. H. H." preceded his arrival by
a few hours. Paul Smith had purchased some-
where a gilt ball which with great pride he had
had placed on the flag-pole in front of the hotel.
I told Paul that I knew if Ed Harriman caught
sight of that ball when he arrived the first thing
he would do would be to shoot at it. As the stage
stopped Ed Harriman jumped out, rifle in hand,
caught sight of the bright ball at the top of the
flag-pole, and put a bullet through it before shak-
ing hands with us all.

This was before Mr. Harriman had begun his
wonderful career as a railroad organizer and a
great financier — for I believe he still was a clerk
in the office of D. C. Hays & Company at that
time — and a more light-hearted and better com-
panion and friend I could not have had. Many

(90)

were the joyous, beautiful summer days we spent
floating over the lakes in our boats, hunting,
fishing, and camping together wherever we fan-
cied to stop for the night. Mr. Harriman was an
excellent shot with a rifle and we soon became
rivals, especially in the sport of loon hunting.
The loon is a sort of avian submarine when
hunted from a boat, never flying, but diving
and coming up unexpectedly at constantly vary-
ing distances, and then showing only his head
above the water for a few seconds before diving
again. The loon is as elusive a mark to shoot
at with a rifle from a moving boat as anybody
could possibly wish for.

We were both light-hearted young men in
those joyous days, and little did either of us
know what responsibilities and struggles the
future held in store for us and how absolutely
divergent would be the paths Fate had marked
out for us to walk in. Many years afterwards,
when the financial and railroad world was ring-
ing with Mr. Harriman's name, he came to
Paul Smith's in his private car to see me, and
at Dr. Seward Webb's invitation he went down
to inspect some of the lakes on Dr. Webb's won-
derful forest preserve, taking me along with
him. A special engine was sent up by the New
York Central at his order to take the car where-
ever he wanted to go, and Dr. Webb's guides
and saddle-horses were to meet us when we
arrived. As I remarked upon the beauty and

(91)

comfort of his car some recollections of the old
days must have crossed his mind, for he looked
up at me with his keen smile and said,

"This is not half as much fun, Ed, as the
way we travelled about in the old days that sum-
mer at Paul Smith's." And he was right, for
it certainly was not.

However divergent our paths and interests in
life proved to be, and in spite of the fact that we
saw each other only at rare intervals, the old
friendship between us through a lifetime ever
remained the same, and he never neglected an
opportunity to show me that it was so. In spite
of his fame and power and riches, his manner
toward me never changed in the least. If I
called on him when I went to New York, and
found as usual many influential financiers and
great railroad presidents waiting for an inter-
view with him, he would keep them all waiting
no matter who they were, until he had taken
time to greet me and hear how things were going
in the Adirondacks. His friendship for me was
always expressed in deeds and not in words.
At intervals in life when great sorrows swept
over me and nearly crushed me, I felt at once his
helpful hand and strong and sustaining person-
ality, and all that a good friend could do to help
he quietly did for me.

When my health broke down almost completely
in 1902, he urged me to go to California in February
for a two months' trip. He placed at our disposal

(92)

a private car, in charge of one of the best stewards
on the Union Pacific Railroad, provisioned it
thoroughly, put orders on board to other roads
to convey us wherever we might want to go,
and told me to go and rest and amuse myself
awhile. Unfortunately I was taken ill in Red-
lands, and though we enjoyed every minute of
the trip, it seemed to do my health little good.

Beset on all sides by keen enemies who plotted
his overthrow, and by seeming friends who were
too often ready to betray his confidence, Mr.
Harriman no doubt learned the wisdom of keeping
his own counsel and trusting very few men. He
showed me, however, on many occasions that he
trusted me, and I believe he never had any reason
to think that his confidence had been misplaced.
People often tried to learn his views on financial
matters by questioning me, but I could always
tell them frankly, what was really true, that if
there was one thing that we did not discuss when
together it was his business and his railroads.

He had a keen sense of humor, and I think was
often much amused at my ingenuousness about
business matters. We both belonged to a little
hunting and fishing club at Little Rapids, with
two other friends of mine. Mr. Harriman rarely
went there, but insisted, as did my other two
friends for the same reason, on holding his member-
ship for many years, paying his share of the
expenses of the little Club, because he knew I
loved to go there with my family for rest and

(93)

recreation when the strain of my work was too
much for me. On one occasion I wanted to add
to our small land holdings so as to get more hunt-
ing and fishing ground, and asked him if he would
care to invest a few thousand dollars in such wild
land. He said he would, and listened to me as I
enthusiastically dilated on the advantages of the
proposed purchase. When I ended by saying,
"It seems well worth the money to me, but you
must decide, as I don't want you to 'get stuck'
if you buy it," he smiled as he touched me on the
arm and said, "Ed, don't you ever worry about
my getting stuck."

He left for Alaska a few days later with the
expedition he had organized, which he had invited
Mrs. Trudeau and me to join, taking my son Ned
with him. To show how keen his memory was
for detail and how good a friend he was to me,
in spite of the pressure of the great responsibilities
to be adjusted and arranged for before his depar-
ture for so long an absence and the cares of
preparation for his large expedition, he did not
forget me. A few days after his departure I had
a note from his secretary, saying Mr. Harriman
had left instructions that if I decided to buy any
land I could draw on his office for any sum needed
up to forty thousand dollars. I was afraid of
"getting him stuck," however, and did not avail
myself of his friendly offer.

I never knew a calmer or more self-contained
man than Mr. Harriman, and until physical com-

(94)

plications broke down his health he seemed abso-
lutely unruffled by the stress and strain of the
great business struggles in which he constantly
took so prominent a part. I remember I happened
to be in town on the day before Wall Street's
great panic in 1907, and I got a telephone message
from him saying he was going down to his country
place at Arden early in the afternoon to stay over
night, and asking me to accompany him and we
could have a good drive together. We spent the
afternoon driving and the evening smoking and
talking, and at ten o'clock started for bed. Not
a word had been said about business, but I knew
from scare headlines in the newspapers that a
panic was imminent. As we parted at the foot
of the stairs I said,

"Good night to you; I hope you will have a
good night's sleep and that things will straighten
out in Wall Street tomorrow. " He smiled, and said,

"Ed, I never stayed awake a night in my life
about business and I'm not going to begin now."

Next morning at the breakfast table he was as
fresh and cheery as usual, though he knew better
than anyone that the very foundations of great
business concerns and of Wall Street itself would
totter on that day, and that ruin might come to
the most powerful.

He became a trustee of the Sanitarium at my
request in 1891, and remained on the board until
his death in 1909. He always gave the work while
on the board his time, interest, advice and sup-

(95)

port, and on several instances induced his friends
to join him in subscriptions to the Endowment
Fund. He loved a joke, and always pretended
to me that his responsibilities as a trustee of the
Sanitarium were a great burden — greater than
any others he had — and that he must sacrifice
all other business to be present at these meetings,
which he nevertheless always found time to attend
no matter how pressing his engagements. He
would always make it a great point to come from
New York to Paul Smith's to attend the summer
meetings which were always held in the Adiron-
dacks, and after the meeting he usually remained
and visited me for a few days. On the one occasion
when he was in Japan during the summer he sent
me a cable on the day of the meeting which was
characteristic of him:

"Sorry I cannot come to meeting. It is a long
way around to you, but not so far in a straight
line through the earth. Best wishes."

Mr. Harriman was obliged to return to his
business in New York toward the end of August,
and James Livingston volunteered to come up
and take his place in looking after me, though
by that time I was feeling almost well again.
Jim Livingston remained with me three weeks,
and about the end of September I decided I was
so well that I would go down and join my wife
and babies at the Prospect House, Catskill,
where she and her father had gone for a little

(96)

change. I was sunburned, had gained fifteen
pounds in weight, was apparently in my usual
health, and was so anxious to see my little family
again that I could hardly wait for the day set
for my departure for Catskill. It was a happy
reunion at the Catskill hotel, where I became
better acquainted with little Chatte and Ned and
the faithful nurse, Annie Gaffney.

After we all got back to town again I tried hard
to get my physicians and friends to let me stay
at home, but a return of the fever soon showed me
the folly of such a course. The doctors decided
for some reason to send me to St. Paul, Minnesota,
which was considered by some an excellent place
for pulmonary invalids in the winter on account
of its large proportion of sunny days, and we
started at once. The winter at St. Paul was not
a success, and as I was allowed to drive and walk
and go duck hunting when I felt equal to it, I
had some fever most of the time. By spring I
was nearly as sick as the year before and the
Adirondacks seemed my only hope; so we left
St. Paul in May, and early in June, accompanied
by my wife, the two children and two nurses, I
arrived at Paul Smith's to my intense joy, for I
always loved the place.

Of late years on several occasions I have been
taken to Paul Smith's from Saranac Lake in the
spring so ill that my life was despaired of; and
yet little by little, while lying out under the great
trees, looking out on the lake all day, my fever

(97)

has stopped and my strength slowly begun to
return. Last spring — 19 14 — at Saranac Lake
I was so ill and weak that I had ceased, for the
first time in my life, even to care to live any longer.
I arrived at Paul Smith's at the end of June on
a mattress, which had been placed in the auto-
mobile of a good friend, and the same feeling of
hope and courage came back when I was carried
up to my airy porch in the little cottage, with the
stillness of the great forest all about me, the lake
shimmering in the sunlight, and a host of recollec-
tions of many happy days and many good friends
crowding in on me from every side. Again, imper-
ceptibly the fever began to fall, and strength —
and with it the desire to live — to return. During
the previous two months in the spring at Saranac
Lake I did not want to live from day to day; much
less did I ever dream I should be willing to live
over again in retrospect the long years of the past
and write about them. The magic spell of the
old place, however, seemed again able to restore
the failing spark of existence, and must be respon-
sible for whatever may result, even my writing
my autobiography.

Many of the sportsmen at Paul Smith's criticised
me for bringing such young children to so rough and
remote a place, but the children seemed to thrive all
summer. It was different with me, and this time
I did not improve as I did the first summer. The fall
found me still having fever and able to do very little.

(98)

It was then that I first met Dr. Alfred Loomis,
who was in camp with a hunting party at Bay
Pond. When he returned to the hotel on his way
to New York I asked him to examine me, and his
report was most discouraging. I told him I was
tired of going from place to place; that I loved
the Adirondacks; that I would like to stay all
winter and take my chance. He seemed to think
there was no reason why I should not try it, and
told me he had advised a Mr. Edgar, who was a
patient of his and wanted to stay through the
winter, to remain also. I heard indirectly after-
wards that he felt little or no hope of my recovery
and thought I might as well spend the remaining
days of my life where I was happiest.

I lived, however, to induce him to become a
trustee of, and to examine patients in New York
for, the Adirondack Cottage Sanitarium, when I
opened that institution in 1884 at Saranac Lake.
He always took a keen interest in my experiment,
and gave the Sanitarium the support and approval
of his great name up to the date of his death in

1895.

The good result of the winter's stay in my case,
as well as in that of Mr. Edgar who stayed at
Saranac Lake during the same winter I spent at
Paul Smith's, drew Dr. Loomis's attention to the
value of the Adirondack climate for tuberculous
patients and induced him to advise other such
patients to remain through the winter. In 1876
he published a paper in The Medical Record, draw-

(99)

ing attention for the first time to the climatic value
of this region for pulmonary invalids.

When with some hesitancy I proposed to my
wife my plan of our remaining in the Adirondacks
all winter she acquiesced at once, though in those
days wintering in the Adirondacks was much like
wintering in the Klondike now. I never realized
until later how selfish my decision to remain in
such a remote place was, and how hard it must
have been for her. If this plan were carried out,
not only would she be cut off from all intercourse
with friends, but in my precarious state of health
she knew if I were taken very ill no help could be
secured, and she must carry the anxiety alone.
The nearest doctor was at Plattsburg, a sixty-
mile drive, often through unbroken roads. My
wife, however, has never been the nervous, over-
anxious type, but always self-contained, meeting
quietly and bravely all the ills and sorrows that
have come to us in life. We were young and happy
together with our children, and were not inclined
to borrow trouble; thus it came about, thanks
to her quiet courage, that we decided to face the
terrors of an Adirondack winter, sixty miles from
a doctor or a railroad and entirely cut off from
all connection with the outside world. We could,
however, send for the mail, which was carried by
a stage sleigh three times a week to Bloomingdale,
a ten-mile drive from Paul Smith's.

The first difficulty we met in carrying out our
plan was a positive refusal from Paul Smith and

(100)

his wife to take us for the winter. The little hos-
telry usually closed at the end of October, when the
last hunter took his departure. Paul and his
wife, their three little boys, Henry, Phelps and
Paulie, a man to look after the barn and a woman
to help Mrs. Smith with the cooking and house-
keeping, were the only human beings who remained
through the winter. No ' 'outsider' ' had ever passed
a winter at St. Regis Lake before.

The truth, I imagine, was that Mrs. Smith feared
I never would live through the winter, and I know
they both thought it a most rash and foolish thing
for such a sick man to do. In those days the belief
that cold and storm were the two things to be
avoided by the consumptive, and that he should in
winter seek a warm and sunny climate, was so gen-
eral and deep-rooted that my staying in so rough
a climate seemed to them little short of suicide.

First I got Paul to say that he was willing to
keep us if Mrs. Smith would consent; and then
I got my wife, whom Mrs. Smith was very fond of,
to do her best to win her over, and finally she gave
a reluctant consent.

Mrs. Smith was a wonderfully fine character,
a very hard worker, capable, just, and with fine
ideals which she certainly lived up to. Before the
winter was over we both had learned to respect
and love her, and she did all she could to help us
and make us comfortable. We found Paul Smith
an excellent companion, always taking everybody
and everything in life as a joke.

(101)

VIII

ABOUT this time I received a letter from my
2JL dear mother, who for many years had lived
in her little cottage home in Fontainebleau, saying
she felt most anxious about me and would take
the next steamer and come and spend a month
or six weeks with me, wherever I might happen to
be. Such a long journey in the beginning of winter
was at that time a great undertaking for a woman
alone, but Mother was a brave woman. The ties
of affection in spite of separation had ever bound
us to each other very closely, and I looked forward
to seeing her again with the keenest anticipation.
My wife was to go down with the children at the
beginning of November and visit her father at
Little Neck, and my mother was to come up and
spend six weeks with me while they were all away.
This plan we carried out; and what a pleasure
it was when, after what seemed to me an inter-
minably long wait, my dear, brave, little mother
drove up with Paul Smith and I helped her out
at the old horse block!

She had lived in France so long and travelled
and seen so much that she was a perfect type of a
refined French lady, and a most agreeable com-

( 103 )

panion. In a few days she had completely won
Paul and his wife over, so that they came into
my room every evening to listen to her, and she
would entertain them with stories of her experi-
ences and her travels in foreign lands. They
formed the habit of coming every evening after
supper, and we would play whist until bedtime.
These whist parties were continued throughout
the entire winter, after my mother left and my
wife returned, and I still have most joyous recol-
lections of those happy evenings when, by a big
wood fire in the cozy little room, the great snow-
covered wilderness extending for miles around us
and the mercury many degrees below zero, we
would play cards and listen to Paul's yarns. Paul
was a keen whist player, but he did not hesitate
to cheat a little if he thought he could do it safely.
I found this out for the first time on one occasion
when we had played whist all the evening, and it
suddenly occurred to me as I was going to bed that
I had not dealt once that evening.

My mother was delighted with the wild beauty
of the snow-covered woods and mountains, and as
she had a good deal of talent and had painted all
her life she at once got out her paint tubes and
palette. The first thing she painted was the old
hostelry as it was then, with the gigantic pines on
all sides of it and the frozen lake in front of it.
Mrs. Smith took such a fancy to the picture that
Mother gave it to her, and it still hangs in the
parlor at Paul Smith's.

(104)

Of course I thought I should like to paint also,
and Mother, after the manner of mothers who
readily see an embryo genius in their sons, gladly
began to teach me, so that every day we had
painting lessons together. She kept a hideous
white hare which was my first production, and I
still have an absurd painting of St. Regis Mountain
at sunset which I executed at that time, and which
I prize for its association and for its very ugliness.

We had very many happy days together, Mother
and I, in our wild and remote environment, and
it is well we had. Their recollections warmed
my heart for many years afterwards, for after she
left Paul Smith's and returned to Fontainebleau
I never saw her again. In spite of an enforced
and unbroken separation of nearly a quarter of a
century which followed, however, the ties of
affection never loosened between us, and I wrote
her a long letter, describing our interests, our
sorrows and our joys every Sunday night, with
only one or two exceptions, through all those
long years, until she passed away in 1900 in her
little cottage at Fontainebleau.

My love for hunting had free play from that

winter on, as the Adirondacks then were a real

hunter's paradise. I tried all the hounds in the

neighborhood and bought the best one of them,

a beautiful, long-eared black and tan with a voice

like a fog-horn; and every morning I would walk

right out in the woods about the house, start a

big white hare with him almost at the very door

(105)

of the hotel, and stand about, changing my posi-
tion a little from time to time, until he drove the
game in sight.

It is a good long stretch of time from those
days in the winter of 1875, when I stood every
day almost in sight of the hotel and listened
to the music of my hound as he chased the big
white hares over the new snow, to November,
I9i3> when I killed my last deer at Little Rapids
from a chair in which I had been carried to my
runway. I had hunted whenever I could manage
to do so during those forty years. I never lost
my keen interest in hunting, and it has remained
an ever-enduring pleasure and relaxation of which
I did not allow my physical infirmities to deprive
me. As an instance of this, when I killed my last
deer, in 19 13, 1 had been brought so low by months
of continuous fever that an operation which
collapsed one of my lungs was done, and although
it stopped the fever at once, I was so short of
breath, as I could use but one lung, that I could
not walk or move about to any extent. When the
fall came, however, and I knew my old friend
Fitz Hallock was waiting for our usual fall hunt
together at Little Rapids, I could not resist the
temptation of going.

The guides tied poles to an old rocking chair
and carried me to the different watch-grounds
by this comfortable but unsportsman-like method
of progression. Fitz had told me that morning
that he had tracked a big buck that had crossed

(106)

a lumber road and gone into the swamp, and
prophesied that at sundown the buck would
cross the lumber road again at the same place
while starting out for a night forage. The guides
carried me to the lumber road and I sat for two
hours in that rocking chair just where Fitz placed
me, and he behind me. As usual neither of us
said a word, and I enjoyed to the full the melodious
stillness of the great forest, while the sun began
to slant and then disappeared behind the tree
tops. It was beginning to get dark and I had
given up all hope of a shot that day, when right
in the middle of the lumber road a ghost-like
looking deer suddenly appeared in the gathering
twilight, as if by magic, just where Fitz had told
me to watch. The old thrill went through my
nerves. I raised my rifle slowly, put a bullet
through the point of the buck's shoulder, and
he dropped right in his tracks. Fitz, beaming
with pleasure, said, "Well, Doctor, you must
love to hunt, and you haven't forgotten how to
do it yet!"

I hunted hares by myself that first winter at
Paul Smith's, and when I varied that sport by
fox hunting I usually sent for Ben Monte. He
would appear with three lean and yelping hounds
and we would have a fox hunt together. I found,
however, I could not walk enough to stand much
chance for a shot without feeling sick and feverish
the next day, and this was the first intimation
I had as to the value of the rest cure, which in

(107)

after years I applied so thoroughly and rigidly
to my patients. I walked very little after this,
and my faith in the value of the rest cure became
more and more fully established.

I had brought with me to Paul Smith's one of
the little trotting mares I had bought from Lou
Livingston, and Paul had a trotter of his own, so
we had a track cleared of snow on the lake and
we trotted many races without any audience but
the tall pines on the shore. We were entirely cut
off from the world, except that one telegraph
wire from Plattsburg reached over the sixty
miles of wilderness to us; but in the fall, after
the summer operator had gone, there was no one
to use this wire. I decided, therefore, that I would
learn the Morse alphabet, and wrote the operator
at Plattsburg soliciting his interest and help.
He had little to do in winter evenings, and con-
sented to practise with me for half an hour after
the business of the day was over. I soon grew
moderately proficient, and my evening talk with
Plattsburg brought us all the outside news of
any interest.

Coasting, snow-balling, reading, painting, tele-
graphing, playing cards, hunting, fishing through
the ice for trout and driving the little mare, in
all of which Mother joined, made the days fly,
though we never saw a face from the outside
world until Christmas, when my friend Lou
Livingston turned up for a couple of days to take
a look at me and have a little hunt. When he

(108)

left us he went off on a snowshoe trip somewhere
with the guides, and it was many years before I
saw him again, and then only for a few minutes
in New York.

Finally, about the middle of January, the day
fixed for Mother's departure came. I was to drive
her in my cutter with the little mare to Malone,
a small station on the Ogdensburg Road, a good
forty miles away and we were to wait there until
my wife and family arrived the next afternoon.
Paul was then to come for us with two sleighs,
and the whole party, after Mother's departure,
was to return to St. Regis. I have often wondered
why Paul was not afraid to start Mother and me
off in a cutter by ourselves on a forty-mile drive
through such a wilderness, for the roads were
almost unbroken and for six or seven miles in
places not a habitation — not even a wood-chopper's
cabin — was to be encountered. Had I got in a
drift, upset or broken the cutter or harness,
neither of us would ever have been able to reach
shelter! But I was young and never borrowed
trouble in those days; and so we started.

The drive through the many long miles of snow-
covered woods, in a country dotted with lakes and
mountains, wild in their loneliness, impressed my
mother deeply, and she often referred to it in her
letters in after years.

No accident happened, and we reached Malone
safely about dark. The next day my little family
arrived and we had a very happy reunion, as

(109)

Mother had never seen the children before. Paul
and the teams turned up that evening and Mother
took the train that night. This was the last time
I ever saw her, but three weeks later I had a
letter from her, written in Fontainebleau, saying
she had reached home safely.

(110)

IX

THE weather had been threatening and the wind
rising. That night it stormed and snowed all
night, a veritable blizzard; and next morning the
snow looked very deep in the streets of M alone.
On account of the snow we decided not to start
back until afternoon and then to go only to Duane,
a comfortable, farm-like hotel fourteen miles from
Malone, and spend the night there. Paul drove
the two black horses and carried in his sleigh the
children, the faithful Annie Gaffney, who had
cared for little Chatte since she was born, and
another nurse who never went by any other name
than Mary and who looked after little Ned, not
yet two years old. Brink, the teamster, drove
two big horses to a pair of lumber sleds on which
the trunks were placed, and the little Livingston
mare drew me and my wife in the cutter.

We were in high spirits and made a brave start,
but little did we know what was before us. As
we drew clear of the houses and began to climb
the hills I noticed the wind was rising and that
it was getting colder. Once or twice Paul's team,
which led the party, seemed to get into deep snow,
and we had to walk a great share of the way.

(ill)

At that season it begins to grow dark about four
o'clock in the Adirondacks, and I was just wonder-
ing how much farther we had to go, when the
teams ahead stopped at the foot of a long, steep
hill. Paul and Brink got out and trampled the
snow ahead of the horses, then tried to start them
again, but it was no use; they were soon wallow-
ing up to their shoulders and could go no farther.
The icy wind was drifting the fine snow into our
eyes. The horses had been covered with sweat
and in a few minutes they were covered with ice,
and I had hard work to keep my face and ears
from freezing. The children began to cry, and
the nurses — or rather Mary — began to wail and
call on the Saints for help, when Paul strode up
to the cutter and said,

"Doctor, the hill is solid with snow all the way
up. If we don't get these children in shelter they'll
soon freeze. Brink and I will dig a place in this
drift, put you all in, and we will unharness the
horses and do what we can to get them through
the drift. We can leave the trunks where they
are." And then as usual a twinkle came in his
eye and he said, "I don't think anyone will steal
them trunks before morning."

The horses were blanketed, shovels were pro-
duced from the baggage sleigh, and the two men
soon had dug a large hole in the side of the drift
away from the wind. Robes were put in this
improvised cave, and we all were glad to take
shelter there from the bitter wind that was blow-

(112)

ing. The children stopped crying, and we were
quite comfortable while inside the big drift.
Meanwhile Paul and Brink unharnessed the horses
and, each man leading a horse, they struggled
to the top of the hill until the four horses had
been taken through the drift. Then they managed
to drag Paul's sleigh, which was a light one, to
the top, taking advantage of the track they and
the horses had broken. Returning to the drift
where we were, they each carried a child in their
arms and the nurses followed in their footsteps
as best they could. As I saw the track was pretty
well broken by these maneuvers my wife and I
got in the cutter, and though the little mare
floundered and stopped several times we managed
to get to the top of the hill in safety. By that
time it was dark and snowing fast. The horses
were harnessed to Paul's sleigh, the crying chil-
dren and frozen nurses were put in and wrapped
up as well as possible. Brink rode one of his
horses and led the other, and so we moved on.
Paul upset his sleigh twice in the drifts, and the
darkness added to our troubles; but to my great
relief we soon saw a light through the trees, and
before long we were all in front of the hospitable
Duane Farm and willing hands were carrying
the children into the warm sitting-room where
a big fire was blazing. The children's spirits as
well as our own soon rose, and it was a happy party
that sat down at the supper table half an hour
later. I don't think any dwelling ever seemed to

(113)

me as comfortable as that hospitable Duane
Farm did that night.

We all slept like tops, and the next morning
broke clear and cold (twenty degrees below zero).
Paul thought it would be foolish after our experi-
ence with the snow the day before to start without
knowing something about the condition of the
road. It was therefore decided that we should
remain at Duane through the day, and that Paul
and Brink should get a fresh pair of horses from
the farm, go over the road for ten or twelve miles
and dig out any bad drifts, so as to facilitate our
progress the next day. When they returned in
the evening they reported the snow deep, but
they had had to dig out only one or two drifts;
and so next morning we all started again.

The distance to Paul Smith's was about twenty-
eight miles. The first ten miles were mostly
through the woods where the snow did not drift,
and we made fair but rather slow progress. After
we passed Meacham Lake the road showed that
no one had travelled it since the storm, two days
before, and the snow was very deep ; but we finally
reached McCollum's Farm seven miles from Paul
Smith's by one o'clock, had dinner, rested the
horses an hour, and then started on. For six
miles from McCollum's the road ran across recently
burned ground, and we began to encounter drift
after drift. It seemed as if we had no sooner
struggled or dug the horses through one than we
were stuck in another.

(114)

Paul's sleigh with the nurses and children
upset constantly while in these drifts, and yells
from the children would announce the fact.
I would stop the mare, wade through the snow,
comfort them, and put them back in the
nurses' laps, there to remain until another
upset occurred.

Finally the progress became so slow that I saw
Paul was getting anxious. Brink's team was now
plodding along breaking the road, as one of Paul's
blacks had shown signs of giving out. Paul told
Brink to drive the blacks, and jumped up on the
baggage load in an attempt to carry the big team
through if possible. We were then nearing Bar-
num Pond and within three miles of Paul Smith's
Hotel, but it was snowing hard and growing
dark.

I can see Paul's huge figure, clad in a big buffalo
coat with a red woolen sash tied around his waist,
standing on top of the trunks and urging the
horses on; but as they drove down on Barnum
Pond the load stopped, and I got out of the sleigh
to find out what was the matter. The big horses
had both simply given out and were lying on their
sides, breathing hard. One of Paul's blacks was
lying down also. Paul got the whip, loosened
the big horses' traces and neck yokes and beat
them several resounding whacks, but they took
no notice: they had done all they could. I
confess I was anxious as to what was going to
happen to us now when Paul, turning to me, said,

(115)

"Doctor, don't you know Napoleon said 'The
dark regions of Russia is only fit for Russians to
inhabit'?"

Then he laughed and lit the stump of an old
cigar. His cheerfulness helped me wonderfully.
He told me the horses would lie there for awhile
and when rested would get on their feet again,
but that none of them would be good for another
drift, and we were still two miles from home.

Half a mile from Barnum Pond a guide named
Lant Wilcox lived, and he had a team of horses,
so Paul left us all on Barnum Pond and started
to get the new horses. It was a long wait, but
the children slept in the nurses' arms, and we all
kept as warm as we could until, to our relief, a
lantern appeared through the woods. Paul and
Lant Wilcox had harnessed the new team to the
front bobs of a lumber sleigh ; the nurses and chil-
dren were placed in this sleigh, which Paul drove
himself. I followed with the little mare; behind
us straggled at long intervals as best they could
the poor, worn-out horses, whose instinct taught
them they were not far from shelter and food ; and
thus we reached Paul Smith's at ten p.m., three
days after we started from M alone.

My little mare was the only one of the horses
that drew her load from start to finish. We
were all thoroughly worn out, chilled and hungry;
but oh, so thankful to see Mrs. Smith and the
hospitable old place once more!

Next morning I drove down with Brink to

(116)

Barnum Pond to get the trunks, and we found
the loaded sleigh where we had left it in the dark
the night before, within twenty feet of a big air
hole.

Many times in late years I have travelled in
an hour on the New York Central from Malone
to Paul Smith's, and as I looked out of the com-
fortably heated Pullman over the same snow-
covered wilderness I have thought, though not
without pleasure, of how different the journey was
when I brought my little family to Paul Smith's
in 1875!

The snow in February became deeper and
deeper, and by the end of the month was five
feet deep in the woods. The man who took care
of the animals had to put on snowshoes to go to
the barn, and we could drive to Bloomingdale no
longer, but sent a guide on snowshoes after the
mail once or twice a week.

Mrs. Smith made us all very comfortable in our
quarters, and as she was a wonderful cook the
meals she gave us were excellent. We always
had venison, trout and partridges which the guides
were only too glad to dispose of, and as long as
the roads were available Paul's team would
bring in a load of provisions once in ten days —
beef, mutton, eggs, chickens, groceries, etc.

The children would often cry with cold hands
and feet while playing on the floor, but they were
perfectly well all winter and had none of the
troublesome colds which they constantly suffered

(117)

from in the steam-heated apartments in St. Paul
the winter before. I kept well and rarely had
any fever, and on the whole I think my wife and
I had a very happy winter in spite of our rough
and remote surroundings.

We began to long for the spring, however, and
the advent of a face from the outside world ; and
when in the early part of May I heard over my
wire that a fishing party was coming in on a
stage- wagon, we were full of excitement and antici-
pation. The party turned out to be Edmund and
William Hall Penfold and their sister. I soon
became acquainted with them, and my wife with
Miss Penfold. They were astonished to hear
we had wintered at Paul Smith's. We all seemed
most congenial, and they have told me many
times since that I talked with great fluency and
seemed eager to know any news, which is not to
be wondered at. This was the beginning of a
life-long friendship between our two families;
the kind of friendship that grows deeper and
stronger and closer with long years, and which
nothing ever can shake. They came to the
Adirondacks every summer and sometimes in
winter, and we visited them in their beautiful
home in New York during the winter months.

William Hall Penfold was one of the first
trustees of the Sanitarium, and served on its
Board until his death in 19 12. He was one of the
closest and best of the many good friends I have
had in life. His brother was elected a trustee of

(118)

the Sanitarium in his place, and is a member of
the Board now.

The hotel began to fill up and the regular summer
guests to arrive, and many of these also became
life-long friends of ours, and helped me financially
through long years when I was trying to build and
develop my Sanitarium.

Up to this time I had almost forgotten I was a
doctor. I neither read medical literature nor
practised my profession, except on the rare occa-
sions when some of the guides were injured or
sick and could get no other medical aid. I was so
imbued with the idea that life for me was to be a
short experience that I had apparently lost all
interest in perfecting myself in a profession I
should never live to practise. The summer guests
at the hotel, however, occasionally needed a physi-
cian, and I got a supply of medicines and began
to do a little more work as time passed.

(119)

X

MY health did not improve the second summer
and the fever came back. When Dr. Loomis
came in for his hunting trip in the fall I asked
him to examine me, and he said I was no worse
than the year before, but had made no material
progress toward recovery. He approved of my
remaining another winter, and he evidently was
surprised that I was no worse.

We found we could not remain at St. Regis
another winter, however, as Paul Smith bought
the Fouquet House at Plattsburg that fall and
he and Mrs. Smith were to leave St. Regis to a
caretaker and run the Plattsburg house through
the winter. This was a great blow to us, and
I began to look about for some place to spend
the winter. Finally we decided my wife should
go down to her father's with the children in Octo-
ber, and I would go into camp for a fall hunt;
then I would look about, and when I had found
a place in the Adirondacks where we could spend
the winter, she would join me there. I had as
guide at that time Douglas Martin, Mrs. Smith's
brother, and Paul had offered to let me take a
couple of his horses wherever I went for the
winter; so when I returned from the hunting camp,

(121)

Douglas and I drove about the country looking
for a place where I could bring my family.

We tried Bloomingdale, but no suitable house
was to be had there, so we drove on to Saranac
Lake. At that time Saranac Lake village con-
sisted of a saw-mill, a small hotel for guides and
lumbermen, a school-house, and perhaps a dozen
guides' houses scattered about over an area of an
eighth of a mile. There was one little store kept
by Milo B. Miller where flour, sugar, a few grocer-
ies, tobacco and patent medicines were sold and
where the clerk was the telegraph operator. The
two best houses were owned by "Lute" Evans,
an old guide, where Mr. Edgar, Dr. Loomis's
patient, boarded; and opposite was a fairly
comfortable little clapboarded house owned by
Reuben Reynolds, also a guide. This was about
the only house in the place at that time large
enough to take in my little family, and I managed
to hire it for twenty- five dollars a month, unfur-
nished, for the winter. Mrs. Paul Smith had
promised to help us out if we needed some furni-
ture, so I sent Douglas over to St. Regis with the
team and he returned with a generous load of
furniture, bedding and crockery, which made the
little cottage quite habitable.

That afternoon, after we unloaded the furniture,
I remember I went out with "Dug" rabbit hunting
and killed a big hare ahead of my hound, exactly
where the station of the New York Central
Railroad was built in later years.

(122)

It was in November, 1876, that my little family
joined me at Saranac Lake, and we have lived
there ever since. This was the beginning of the
now famous health resort known as Saranac Lake,
which developed at first through a few pulmonary
invalids that Dr. Loomis sent me from time to
time to try the effect of the winter climate, and
subsequently through my founding at Saranac
Lake two institutions, the first of their kind in
this country — the Adirondack Cottage Sanitarium,
and the Saranac Laboratory for the Study of
Tuberculosis, The pioneer work of these two
institutions for the study and treatment of tuber-
culosis was not without influence in initiating
the great tuberculosis crusade in the United
States, and helped to focus the attention of the
medical profession and the public on Saranac
Lake as a health resort.

We had a quiet and uneventful winter in the
Reynolds cottage. I raised a subscription to
subsidize the two-horse stage to Ausable Forks,
which Fitz O'Brien drove in those days, to run
daily instead of three times a week, and in this
way we got the mail regularly, except in the early
spring when the roads were almost impassable
and the stage ran somewhat irregularly.

For forty years my wife and I have spent the
winters at Saranac Lake and (with only one excep-
tion, when my daughter was very ill) the sum-
mers at Paul Smith's. I began to gain in weight
and strength, and practised medicine a little

(123)

more as the years went by. In winter I had a few
tuberculosis cases Dr. Loomis had sent me, and
in summer I did a good deal of work among the
guests at Paul Smith's and the other hotels of the
region, as I became better known as a physician.
It was early in May of this year that our third
baby was born. Although we had no nurse,
and Mrs. Smith, the cook and I were the only
available attendants, my wife was as calm as
ever. It had been a very dry season in the woods
and forest fires had been of unusual severity and
very close to the hotel. The baby was three days
old when a strong south wind one morning began
blowing the smoke and the flames toward the
hotel. By noon the smoke was so thick that it
was quite dark and nothing could be seen of the
lake. Paul and Mrs. Smith were alarmed, and
thought the hotel, which was surrounded on two
sides with woods, surely must burn, and they
began moving their more valuable things to the
edge of the lake. I certainly was anxious enough
that day. I got Fred Martin to put my big boat
on the edge of the lake, and made him promise
that he would stay there and keep little Chatte
and Ned with him as long as there was any danger.
My wife was as calm and self-contained as usual.
I told her the children were safe; that I didn't
want to disturb her unless it was absolutely neces-
sary, but that if the hotel caught fire anywhere,
two of the guides whom I could trust had promised
to come straight to our room and carry her to

(124)

the boat. Then I sat by her side and we tried
to make talk as best we could. From where I
sat I could see the sparks falling on the barn roof,
and the guides on the roof throwing water on it,
and I feared the house must soon go. Just about
that time the wind began to veer into the west,
the sparks ceased to fall, the smoke began to blow
away, and Paul came in and said he didn't think
the old place would burn this time; and he was
right, for although it has been on fire from within
several times in the past thirty-nine years, the
same wing where my wife and little baby lay
through that awful afternoon is standing just as
it did then.

I kept pretty well that summer, and in the fall
when we moved over to Saranac Lake we went
straight to Mrs. Evans's cottage, where we
boarded with her for the next seven winters.
The cottage was very comfortable, though some-
what primitive in its arrangements. Of course
we had no running water in Saranac Lake in
those days. A big barrel was kept behind the
kitchen stove, from which with a dipper we filled
our pitchers, and from time to time "Lute"
Evans would walk down to the river with two
pails suspended from a neck-yoke and replenish
the barrel. I built a large fire-place in the sitting-
room, and many long, happy winter evenings we
spent around that fire-place with the children.

Mrs. Evans was an excellent housekeeper and
cook, and became very fond of the children.

(125)

She disliked dogs intensely, but she was so good
to us that my hounds were always allowed in
the house, and permitted to sleep, after their
return from a long hunt, in front of the fire-place
in the parlor. These first Saranac winters were
all hunting winters, and I always kept two or
three hounds.

The next summer we spent at Paul Smith's
again. I was quite miserable at times that sum-
mer, and had fever a good deal of the time, so
did little hunting and fishing.

During the long winter at Paul Smith's my wife
and I greatly missed any opportunity to attend
church services. So strong was my desire to supply
this need as far as possible for the guides' families,
that during the long winter months I used to go to
the little school-house on the road to Bloomingdale
and hold Sunday School for the children. I don't
believe I was a very competent teacher, but it
quieted my conscience to try to do something
to carry the blessed message to those children
who had so little opportunity to hear it.

Through the summer months the Reverend
W. A. Leonard, Reverend Boyd Vincent, both
bishops now, and Dr. John Lundy held services
in the parlor of the hotel, during their visits to
Paul Smith's, for the guests and guides. The
possibility of building a chapel near by, where
any clergymen who came to the hotel during the
summer could officiate, was discussed from time

(126)

to time, and in the fall of 1876 I started a sub-
scription list for a little log chapel. I also wrote
to my old friend, Mrs. Louis Livingston, who I
knew loved the place, and asked her to help.
She responded by holding a fair in her parlors
in New York, and sent me fourteen hundred
dollars as the result of her efforts. The rest of
the money came from appeals to the guests.

This was the beginning of a lifetime of begging
money from my friends, an occupation I have
carried on unceasingly, and, thanks to the con-
stancy of their friendship, rather successfully for
forty years.

Paul Smith gave the land and the logs — and
what logs they were! — the finest of white pine,
of full growth. Mrs. Rosman donated the chancel
window; Mr. and Mrs. A. A. Low, an end window
in memory of an old guide; the Reverend T. C.
Norton, the bishop's chair; Mrs. R. M. Townsend,
the bell; the Reverend W. A. Leonard, the reading
desk; Miss Rosman, the surplice; and the com-
munion service was given by the Reverend and
Mrs. John P. Lundy. Other gifts, such as a
brass book-rest, linen, a font and an organ, were
added as years passed.

The little chapel was designed by Mr. Hathorne,

a New York architect, who gave the plans. The

exterior was of oiled logs with a shingled roof,

almost square, with a chancel at the north end.

The interior walls were stone-colored plaster,

wainscoted with black walnut, and the roof a

(127)

dome, tinted in dark blue. The chancel window,
which was single, was given by Mrs. Rosman as
a memorial to her only child, and is now the
central one of the three chancel windows.

When first built the little chapel seated only
about forty people, and services were held only
when a clergyman was a guest at the hotel or
when one could be secured; but finally the Rev-
erend C. S. Knapp, an invalid clergyman, was put
in charge for the summer. When completed the
property was deeded to the Board of Missions
of the Episcopal Church, and was consecrated
on September 13, 1877, by the Right Reverend
William C. Doane, D.D., who preached, as I
remember, from the text, "Lo, we heard it at
Ephrata and found it in the wood."

Soon the congregations outgrew the seating
capacity of the little chapel, and it was decided
to alter and enlarge it. I succeeded, by appeals
to the guests and my friends, in raising the neces-
sary funds. The carrying out of this rather
delicate architectural problem was intrusted to
my cousin, Mr. J. Lawrence Aspinwall, who
gave his services and who made a striking suc-
cess in the transformation of this unique log
chapel. All that remains of the original little
chapel is the nave at the north end. Mr. Aspin-
wall added a transept on each side and enlarged
the chancel, so that the chapel is now cruciform
and can seat one hundred and fifty worshippers
comfortably.

(128)

St. John's in the Wilderness is known far and
wide for the originality of its construction and the
beauty and simplicity of its design. An excellent
effect is produced in the appearance of the interior
by the contrast between the simplicity of the
church-like and gracefully arched white wood
beams, the unvarnished, shingled walls, and the
varied and rich tones of some of the fine stained-
glass windows which have been put in by loving
friends as memorials of my children, and of their
dear ones gone before.

I have been warden of the mission ever since
the original little chapel was erected thirty-eight
years ago, and the Bishop has left the adminis-
tration of its affairs in my hands during all these
years. Every Sunday my wife has herself cared
for the adornment of the church, with flowers
or autumn leaves, and prepared the altar for
service. Here many great divines have preached
sermons which have opened glimpses of the
Heavenly Vision to crowded congregations.

On July 7, 1914, my son, Dr. Francis B. Tru-
deau, brought his bride, Miss Helen Garretson,
of Morristown, New Jersey, to the altar of the
little log church, where he had worshiped since
boyhood.

On July 25 of the following year, 19 15, the
young married couple brought their baby boy,
Edward Livingston Trudeau, 2d, to the font of
St. John's in the Wilderness for baptism. My
good friend, Dr. Edward R. Baldwin, and Miss

(129)

Josephine Garretson stood as godfather and god-
mother for the smiling infant, while, seated in
the body of the little rustic edifice, the grandfather
and grandmother pondered on the great and
mysterious meaning of existence!

Three of my children are buried under the pines
near the eaves of the little building, and when
my wife and I sleep "the long sleep" it will be,
we both hope, in this peaceful spot, teeming
with tender memories, which has meant so much
to us both through the storm and stress of life.

It was not in the remodeling of St. John's alone
that my cousin Mr. Aspinwall came into my life,
but ever since those early days, through many,
many long years, he has done all that the very
best friend could do to carry my burdens for me.

When we returned to Saranac Lake that fall
several invalids who had consulted Dr. Loomis
were there for the winter, and the place was
beginning to grow.

Our baby boy, Henry, had always seemed well,
but during the winter he was taken suddenly ill
with convulsions and died two days later. This
was the first great sorrow my wife and I had to
meet together, but not the last. We laid the
little body at rest under the tall pines in the
churchyard at St. Regis.

During the winter I did more practice, not
only among the visitors, but among the guides
also. I never charged the guides or their families,

(130)

however, and owing to this and a common interest
in the hunting, we were always on the best of
terms. They were constantly taking me out
for hunts where they thought I would have a
good chance. In 1879 the Saranac Lake men
"chipped in" and gave me a fine Waltham gold
watch, which I now have, and which Al McKen-
zie had written and asked Mr. Harriman to
purchase for them. Al wrote, "We want to give
the Doctor a gold watch, as he has only an old
tin one now." On the inside of the hunting-case
cover is the simple inscription, "E. L. Trudeau,
from the Saranac boys, 1879."

When, in 1883, I made up my mind to attempt
to build a sanitarium at Saranac Lake for patients
of moderate means, the guides- again "chipped
in," and having found out from Fitz Hallock the
piece of land I wanted, they bought sixteen acres
and presented me with the deed.

It was during those early years at Saranac
Lake that I met the well-known Adirondack
guides, Fitz Greene Hallock and Albert McKenzie,
and this was the beginning of many happy days
spent in the woods with them, and of a life-long
friendship. On the subject of hunting we cer-
tainly were a congenial trio, and I am sure they
enjoyed those days as much as I did. I remember
the first winter I was at Mrs. Evans's, I had
hired Al McKenzie for the entire year and so
Fitz was free in the winter. I told him I would
recommend him to a gentleman, one of the first

(131)

patients Dr. Loomis had advised to stay through
the winter, and he received a position with this
gentleman at once. Shortly afterwards he came
to me and said he had decided not to hire out this
winter; that this gentleman, he thought, didn't
really love hunting, and that instead of working
for him he would just board in the village and
hunt with Al McKenzie and me when we went out.

Al McKenzie, after a few years, went West
and bought a ranch there, and I have never seen
him since. I was able, however, very unexpectedly,
many years after he left Saranac Lake, to be of
help to him at a most critical period of his life.
For many years I had heard nothing from him,
when, in 1912, I received a most pathetic letter
from him, written in a tremulous hand. In it
he told me he had now suffered with neuralgia of
the face for years; it had grown steadily worse,
and recently he had suffered the tortures of the
damned. He had spent all his money on doctors:
everything had been tried, even the injection
of alcohol into the nerve as it emerges from the
skull; and this had paralyzed his face on one side
but had not relieved the terrible pain. He feared
he would kill himself while in a bad paroxysm,
and was writing to say good-bye and to tell me
how he had thought of the happy days we had
spent hunting together in the Adirondacks.

I realized the situation at once. Light-hearted,
joyous Al McKenzie, my old friend and com-
panion on so many hunting trips, always cheery,

(132)

always happy, was stricken with the most terribly
painful disease known. He evidently had the
real "tic douloureux", a disease which is due to
changes in the root of the nerve as it emerges
from a small ganglion (the Gasserian ganglion)
situated at the base of the brain, and which causes
such frightful suffering that twenty per cent, of
its victims take their own lives. The only hope of
relief is a most difficult and dangerous operation
by which the ganglion is laid bare and the root
of the nerve cut. So difficult is the operation
that only the great specialists in brain surgery
care to attempt it, for it requires great skill and
experience to reach and destroy this little deposit
of brain substance without doing irreparable or
fatal injury to the surrounding brain tissues.
All this I knew well, and I knew that one of the
few men who could save my old friend was Dr.
Harvey Cushing, who was then doing brain sur-
gery at the Johns Hopkins Hospital.

I wrote to Al by return mail and told him not
to give up; to trust me and do what I said, and
he would surely get relief. I told him to write
to my son Francis, who was at the Johns Hopkins
Medical School completing his course there,
inquiring how soon, and by what train, he could
reach Baltimore from the West, and that my son
would meet him and tell him what to do. Then
I wrote Francis, enclosing Al's letter, and told
him to read it to Dr. Cushing and let me know
what he said. I got a prompt answer from

(133)

Francis, saying, "Dr. Cushing said, 'Tell your
father if he wants me to I will operate on his
guide without any charge.'" Meanwhile I had
received a letter from the ranchman urging me
to do something soon, as Al was getting desperate.
He said Al had little ready money left, but that
a Mr. Z. Hollingsworth, who lived somewhere in
•or near Boston, was devoted to Al and would
Tielp him financially if he knew the critical cir-
cumstances.

I was sick in bed with fever when I got this
letter. How could I reach Mr. Hollingsworth
without any address? Next to my bed, however,
was the telephone, and with little hope of suc-
ceeding I called up Central and said I wanted to
speak to a Mr. Z. Hollingsworth "in or near
Boston." In less than three minutes the answer
came back "Mr. Hollingsworth is on the phone."
The initial "Z" must have saved the day. I
told Mr. Hollingsworth of Al's desperate condi-
tion; that he needed money; that if Mr. Hol-
lingsworth would send him a check I would see
to the rest, and that I thought Al could be saved
only by prompt work. Mr. Hollingsworth was most
responsive and generous. Al had guided him out
West many times. He promised he would send a
check at once, and he sent a very generous one.

When my son met Al upon his arrival in Balti-
more he found him in a pitiful condition and took
him to the hospital at once. The pain was so
bad he had neither eaten nor slept, but he tried

(134)

to smile in his old way when he saw the six-foot-
four man he had left a child in the Adirondacks.
When they reached the hospital Francis was so
moved by Al's appearance of terrible suffering
that he went at once for Dr. Cushing and brought
him to the patient's room. Dr. Cushing told
Francis he never did but one such operation a
day, and that he had five patients on his list ahead
of Al; but he said, " I cannot let such a man suffer
that long. I'll operate tomorrow." The next
day he exposed and destroyed the nerve as it
emerges from the Gasserian ganglion after a
long and delicate operation. The following
morning Francis went to see Al, who looked up
at him with his one unbandaged eye, smiled a
broad smile and said, "Those doctors have got
my head tied on, but I have no more pain."
And he has never had another attack since,
though three years have passed.

I know few things that have happened to me in
life that have given me more pleasure than this
incident, and I shall always be grateful to the
great surgeon whose wonderful skill could save
a human being from such intolerable suffering
and who gave it so freely, without money
and without price. Al McKenzie returned to
Colorado, where he is living at present.

I wrote and asked Al if I could write this episode
about him in my book and got a characteristic
answer: "Yes, you can say all the mean things
you choose about me!"

(135)

XI

UP to 1880 I did little but hunt and fish, but
after that my interests and activities began
gradually to be divided equally between medicine
and hunting. In the nineties I hunted only when
I could get away from my work and, later, on
the rare occasions when we all went down to Little
Rapids for a few days' rest and sport.

I have often been asked how I could hunt so
much without fatigue or injury to my health,
but I rarely had fever then unless I tired myself,
and the hunting required only slight exertion
and kept me out of doors all day. In winter I
would hunt foxes or rabbits every day with Fitz
Greene Hallock, and in the fall Al McKenzie
and I would join some friend from Paul Smith's
and go into camp, deer hunting. Fitz Hal-
lock would occasionally join us also on these
trips.

The deer hunting in those days was done with
hounds, which drove the deer to inlets, lakes and
runways, and as I was usually rowed to my
watch-ground I rarely had any walking to do or
tired myself at all. In the winter Fitz and I
drove in a cutter to the hunting ground and I

(137)

moved about only a little. I remember one
winter, besides innumerable rabbits, we killed
twenty-one red foxes ahead of our hounds, and
the next winter, twenty-two.

When the snow lies thick and white in the
woods and every green bough in the swamps is
powdered with white flakes, hunting the Adiron-
dack hares with a hound is first-rate sport. The
scenery is like fairy-land, every twig sparkles,
and the musical notes of the hound echo on the
stillness of the frosty air, while the big white
rabbits appear and vanish like ghosts in the open-
ings of the dense snow-laden evergreens.

Many good days did Fitz and I spend hunting
rabbits in the long winter months. The first
requisite is a good rabbit hound, and they are
rare. Any dog may run a rabbit, but few ever
reach perfection; and of this I have had ample
experience. The first requisite is that the dog
must pay no attention to a fox track; and the
second — a rare quality — he must not shift rabbits,
but having started one he must keep to that one,
no matter how many fresh tracks of other rabbits
he crosses. I had many dogs, but the best dog
in all these years was a cross between a beagle
and a fox-hound, called "Bunnie. " He was
absolutely perfect. He would not look at a fox-
track, and when he started one rabbit in a swamp
full of other rabbits he would never change, but
run that particular rabbit all day. This enables
the hunter to choose a stand intelligently, and not

(138)

merely trust to accident, as when a poor dog
stirs up a fresh hare every few minutes.

When temporarily off the scent I have often
tried to start Bunnie on a fresh rabbit I had seen
a little while before; but after one or two careful
sniffs he would refuse to follow the track, go back
to where he lost his game and work it all out
patiently until he was in full cry again. I owned
him from the time he was a puppy until he died
of old age, and I hope in the place where good
dogs go the ghosts of the hundreds of hares I
killed ahead of him do not haunt him.

During the winter of 1880 the visitors formed a
little gun club, and on fine afternoons we often used
to shoot pigeons and glass balls from a wooden
stand back of Mrs. Evans's house. One day
someone proposed that we make a rabbit sweep-
stakes, and the proposition was enthusiastically
received. Each sportsman was to put five dollars
in a pool, and as there were eight of us the total
reached forty dollars. The club was to offer
this as a prize to the man who killed the biggest
rabbit from January 1 to April 1. Everyone in
the village entered into the spirit of this curious
competition. The rabbits were all weighed at
the store by the store-keeper, Milo Miller; the
figures as to the weight were written on a little
placard with the name of the successful sportsman
and attached to the rabbit, which was then hung
in full view of the village in front of the store.

Curiously enough, we seemed to begin with

(139)

small rabbits — three and a quarter; then a week,
and three and a half pounds was reached; then a
month, and three pounds eight ounces was for a
long time the champion. The competition seemed
to lie between Mr. E. J. King, Mr. E. Curtis and
myself. We all killed many rabbits, but it was
March 15 before King killed a four-pound rabbit.
Curtis and I crept up by ounces — four pounds two
ounces, four pounds three ounces, four pounds five
ounces; and on March 28 Curtis took down my
rabbit, which tipped the beam at four pounds five
ounces, and to my great disappointment hung up
a rabbit weighing four pounds six ounces. Every-
body said this would take the prize. It was the
biggest of hundreds of rabbits killed during the
contest. Fitz was terribly disappointed ; he thought
our four-pound-five-ounce rabbit would never be
beaten ; but we wasted no time, and hunted almost
all day for the last three days. Both of my best
rabbit dogs were worn out and their feet, cut by
the crust on the snow, were bleeding and sore, but
Mr. Curtis's rabbit still hung up as the champion.
I can see Fitz now during those last three days:
a little hatchet in one hand with which, after I
had chosen my stand, he cleared some of the
brush and boughs which obstructed my view; a
spring scale in the other hand with which to weigh
the rabbit; his face stern and set as he listened
to the music of the approaching hound. Curious
as it may seem, this was earnest work for us both,
as we certainly wanted to win, and Fitz was

(140)

hardly on speaking terms with Mr. Curtis's guide.
Fortunately I missed few shots in those days, but
I never got any commendation from Fitz but
once, when I killed a rabbit that bounded most
unexpectedly across a little opening in the thicket
to my right. I had no time to aim, and I shot
without even putting my gun to my shoulder. Fitz
sprang forward to weigh the game. I heard him
mutter, "I don't see how he does it!" and that
was enough for me, though the rabbit turned
out to weigh only a little over three pounds.

On the morning of the thirtieth of March, Fitz
brought the sleigh to the door, with Bunnie lying
on the robe licking his feet, and we started. Dur-
ing the drive Fitz informed me that John Benham
had told him of a little swamp at the foot of a side
hill of poplar trees; that the rabbit tracks in these
poplars were the biggest he had seen, and that
was the place we were bound for. Bunnie's
feet were so sore he could hardly walk, but as soon
as he got scent he forgot all about his feet and
drove his game in his usual vigorous style. I had
shot two rabbits on the side hill and they both
turned out small. It was snowing and I was cold
and discouraged, but dared not suggest to Fitz
our going home, when Bunnie started a third
hare. After a little turn in the swamp the rabbit
took to the side hill, and such a long turn did he
make that the dog was soon out of hearing. Fitz
moved me to where they had left the swamp, and
there we stood, I shivering and wishing myself

(141)

home, Fitz just as intent as ever. The dog was
just coming in hearing again when I caught sight
of the rabbit bounding down the hill. It seemed
to me I never saw a rabbit take such long jumps,
and as he went by me I killed him. Fitz was on
him in a minute. I saw him raise the spring
scale to his eye, then in a most commanding voice
he simply said, "Come on!" and strode toward
the place where the horse was tied. I followed as
best I could. He had the horse unblanketed and
was in the cutter when I reached there. He
handed me the reins and said, "Run your horse;
he is the biggest rabbit yet." We flew home, as
the rabbit was bleeding. As we entered the vil-
lage on the run the guides came to their doors,
guessing something unusual had happened, and
many of them were waiting on the porch of the
store, into which Fitz disappeared at once. He
soon reappeared among the laughing, shouting
men, with my rabbit, to which was tied a tag with
my name and the legend, "Four pounds eight
and a half ounces."

That was a proud moment for Fitz and for me!
That afternoon and for many following after-
noons the entire side of The Berkeley Hotel was
decorated by a gigantic white paper rabbit on
which was written "Four pounds eight and a
half ounces. " This was done by a friend of mine,
Mr. A. W. Durkee, to celebrate the great event
and must have been a puzzling sight to visitors,
but everybody in the village understood it.

(142)

Fox hunting with a good hound is a fine sport,
for, as Fitz used to put it, the fox has all America
to run in, and the hunter has to use judgment
and experience to decide which stand to choose,
and skill to be near enough for a shot. A red fox
in such a wild country is rarely pushed by the
hound, and is full of the most cunning tricks to
throw the dog off the scent. A first-class hound
with plenty of experience is generally a match
for him, but occasionally an old fox proves too
cunning for the best of them. When the snow is
deep, running a road is an old trick of the fox's,
for a frozen, beaten road carries no scent.

On one of our hunts we heard the hound come
straight into the travelled road and then stop
barking. We went to the place where he struck
the road, but although the snow had fallen recently
neither of us could discover where the fox left
the beaten path. Meanwhile the old hound,
after the manner of all good hounds, went back
to where he had lost the scent, then began to run
in widening circles, knowing that in this way he
must soon cross the track somewhere. After a
long hunt, however, he came back to us, and sat
in the road and howled and howled his perplexity.
Certainly we were all at fault that day; and yet,
as Fitz said, the fox could not have flown, and if
he hadn't he must have left the road and made
a track somewhere in the fresh snow; but we
found no track. The following day we solved
the mystery ! Fitz put me in a field where I could

(143)

see the place where the fox came to the road, and
he went up on the hill with the dog. Soon the
echoes of the hound's bark told me he had again
started the fox. I saw the cunning old Reynard
come to the road, run down the icy, beaten track
about a quarter of a mile, then take a flying leap
from the road and land on top of a rail-fence
without ever touching the snow. He then ran
on top of the fence two or three hundred yards,
jumped to the ground, and disappeared behind
a little knoll. To my delight, however, he came
in sight again, jumped up on a big rock about
sixty yards from where I stood, curled himself
up comfortably and lay down, deliberately facing
the direction from which the dog was coming.
I could see his ears and his head move as, from the
retreat which had in the past no doubt saved him
from many a troublesome hound, he followed the
sound of the dog's bark and waited to see the
hound's discomfiture. There was such a crust I
did not dare move, as one jump would land him
out of sight, and sixty yards is a long shot; but
I slipped in a thread-wound cartridge and ended
his enterprising career on the spot.

It is easy to see why Fitz and I could not find
in the snow any evidence of his having left the
road, and why even the old hound's cunning
failed; for though his widening circles crossed the
fox's track, the dog went through the rail-fence
and the track was on the top rail.

Another trick of an old fox is to run on a frozen

(144)

river, and at every opportunity take in the very
edge of the swift-running water where the ice is
necessarily very thin. The fox weighs about
seven pounds and the dog between forty and fifty,
so that the ice is pretty sure to give way with
the dog and the swift current to carry him under
the ice. The intention of the fox is plain, for he
goes out of his course to take in every air hole.

This happened one day when Fitz and I were
hunting near the river. The fox took to the ice
and all at once the baying of the hound stopped
suddenly. Fitz knew what had happened, and we
climbed into the cutter and ran the horse to the
swift water. Sure enough, there was our old
hound in the rapid water, struggling helplessly
to get up on the thin ice again. I begged Fitz
not to venture in such a dangerous place, but
his only answer was, "Hold my gun." I watched
him lie flat and crawl out carefully on the treach-
erous ice, reach for the dog's collar and steady
him enough to enable him to climb out. The old
dog shook himself, rolled in the snow a few times,
struck the trail again, gave a long, joyous bark
and was off at full speed. We had the satisfaction
of killing the fox an hour later while he was trying
to lose the dog by running the road.

The characteristics of the hounds make just as
interesting a study as those of the fox. I had two
hounds once whose hunting was so different that
the appearance of the fox ahead of them would
have told me at a glance which dog was chasing

(145)

him even if I had not known the difference in
their bark. "Scream" was a long-eared, silver-
tongued, crooked-legged harrier, that ran true
every inch of the track and never neglected to put
a good round measure of music with every step
he took. Foxes were apparently not in the least
afraid of him; they knew just where he was all
the time by his constant music, and I have seen
a fox he was chasing run out in a field, listen to
the dog a little while, then jump on a stray mouse
and run off with the mouse in his mouth! Old
"Watch," on the other hand, was a tall, strongly
built, pure white hound with a black patch over
one eye. He barked only occasionally, but he
ran so strong and steadily that when the fox came
in sight his tail was generally dragging, his mouth
open and his tongue hanging out. Old Watch
had short runs, for the fox either had to get to his
hole, which he generally did as soon as possible,
or he ran the risk of getting caught.

On the other hand an old fox soon knows when
a puppy is after him, and I have seen the puppy
get discouraged and start for home, and the old
fox run toward him as though to persuade him
to keep on with the chase.

My dogs were always a great pleasure to me
and if I was ever tempted to extravagance it was
in the purchase of a noted hound. Dogs have
passed entirely out of my life with one small
exception. A good friend of my wife's gave her,
five years ago, a most beautiful Pekingese pup,

(146)

and, as I have been confined to my room and
much of the time to my bed during these years,
"Ho Yen" became my devoted companion. Lying
on a soft bed suited him admirably, and a master
who was always in bed was to his mind the kind
of master to tie to. So it has come about that
for the past five years I have never moved with-
out this absurd little play dog. I never saw any-
thing incongruous in doing so until one day last
winter, wrapped up in furs, I sat in the sleigh with
the little fellow in my lap as usual. Billy Ring,
one of my old hunting guides, walked by. He
stopped, and taking his pipe out of his mouth
nodded at the little dog and said, "Have you come
to that, Doctor?" Certainly circumstances alter
cases, for in the old days I should have despised
such a little toy dog, who now is a real pleasure in
my bed-ridden days.

(147)

XII

IN answer to the demand for winter accommoda-
tions the first step in the upbuilding of Saranac
Lake had taken place, and a small hotel, facetiously
named The Berkeley, had been built on the main
street and Charles Gray put in charge of it. The
Berkeley accommodated fifteen or twenty guests,
and for a long time was adequate to care for all
the visitors at Saranac Lake. The first guests
were Mr. E. J. King, Reverend and Mrs. John P.
Lundy, D.D., Mrs. Ogden Hoffman and her
daughters, Mr. and Mrs. Jack Morris, and Mr.
and Mrs. E. J. Tytus.

The Reverend Dr. Lundy held Episcopal ser-
vices through the winter in the parlor of The
Berkeley, and not only the visitors but many of
the Saranac Lake residents attended them. Dr.
Lundy and the Berkeley colony started a sub-
scription to build an Episcopal church during
the winter, and many of the residents subscribed
money, labor, and material. Again I was made
treasurer. A committee of the visitors to which I
belonged had many meetings that winter to dis-
cuss just what steps should be taken to erect the
chapel, but opinions on many essential points
differed so that nothing was decided by early

(149)

spring, when the visitors all separated for the
summer. One gentleman had held out that he
would have nothing to do with the building of the
church until every cent necessary for its comple-
tion was subscribed. I told him that he would
never build the church in that way, and that if it
was started the money was sure to come in. But
I failed to convince him, and the project was
abandoned.

After the visitors had scattered for the summer
a committee from the residents and the guides
called on me and offered to make good their sub-
scriptions and add to them if I would undertake
the building of the church. About half the
necessary funds had been subscribed then. I
told them I would do as they requested under one
condition, namely, that I was to have entire
charge, and that I was to be allowed to build the
church steeple downward and the foundation
upward if I saw fit. This they agreed to. When
I told my wife of this she smiled, and said she had
often noticed that I was fond of having my own
way. My own way seemed to answer the purpose,
however, for the work was begun at once, the
money forthcoming, and the church built within
a few months without the slightest friction.

I began at once to beg money from my Paul
Smith friends. Mrs. Thomas Smith, of Brooklyn,
gave me five hundred dollars, and many others,
smaller sums. Work was begun May, 1878, and
the church was finished January, 1879. The

(150)

first service was held January 12, 1879, and the
Church of St. Luke the Beloved Physician, was
consecrated July 10 of the same year by the Right
Reverend Wm. C. Doane, D.D., Bishop of
Albany. The property was transferred to the
Board of Missions of the Protestant Episcopal
Church in the Diocese of Albany. Mr. R. M.
Upjohn, the celebrated church architect, gave the
plans. The three stained-glass chancel windows,
representing the figures of Faith, Hope and
Charity, were given by Mrs. R. M. Townsend in
memory of her husband, who died at Saranac
Lake. The front window was the gift of Miss
Susie Paton. All the other windows are of ground
glass, with a colored border.

The land was given by Miss Arvilla Blood, of
Saranac Lake; the bell by Mrs. Edgar, of New
York; the altar and priest's chair by the Reverend
and Mrs. John P. Lundy; the Communion linen
by Miss Mary King, while Mrs. Ogden Hoffman
gave the font, and the organ was presented by
the young people of Saranac Lake.

The first minister in charge was the Reverend C.
S. Knapp. For the past thirty-five years services
have been held continuously at St. Luke's, and its
ministrations have meant much, not only to the
residents but also to the thousands of invalids
who, sick, far away from their homes and friends,
have sought health in Saranac Lake. I have been
warden of the vestry ever since the church was
built.

(151)

After the building of St. Luke's, new houses
began to spring up in the village and a few more
people stayed during the winter months. The
number of summer visitors at Paul Smith's
increased. I had more patients to attend, and
began to take more interest in my profession. I
subscribed to The American Journal of the Medical
Sciences, the Medical News, the Medical Record,
and Dr. Walton sent me, after he had read them,
his copies of the English Practitioner, edited by
Anstie. My health improved steadily; I lost my
cough almost entirely and gained weight, though
my endurance to fatigue never became normal
and any active exercise made me very short of
breath. This was well shown by Al McKenzie's
spontaneously given opinion of my physical con-
dition at that time. We were hunting together
and trying to get to a road we expected the fox
to cross. It was a little uphill, and the hound's
bark was getting nearer and nearer. Al was
ahead, but I had to stop constantly as my breath
had quite given out. Al saw we were going to
be too late to intercept the fox, but resigned him-
self with the remark, "Oh, Doctor, if you were
only half as good as you look!" How true this is
of many cases of arrested pulmonary disease!

It was that fall that Mr. C. M. Lea, who had
brought his wife to the Adirondacks during the
summer for her health, decided to have her remain
through the winter. Mrs. Lea was a most attrac-
tive and refined young woman, and she and my

(152)

wife proved very congenial companions. The
Leas had one little girl, Marjorie, and were a
great addition to our winter colony. Mr. Lea was
devoted to his young wife and daughter, and
though he managed in some way to keep up his
active interests in the large publishing business
of the firm of Lea Brothers & Co., the well-known
medical publishers, he spent much time in Saranac
Lake. This necessitated constant trips back and
forth, but his devotion never faltered at obstacles,
and many times through the long winters he
drove in an open sleigh either sixty miles from
Plattsburg or forty-two miles from Ausable
Forks, through blizzards and snowdrifts and
intense cold, to spend with his wife and child
the few days he could snatch from his business
engagements.

He and I had many interests in common, espe-
cially medicine and hunting; he knew all about
doctors and medical books, and was the only man
with whom I could discuss medical subjects. On
the other hand it was no doubt a comfort to him
to leave Mrs. Lea with such friends during her
enforced absence. A strong friendship grew up
between us — the kind of friendship that is one of
the best things in life, and that neither time nor
space nor prolonged separation can obliterate;
a friendship which continues as warm today as it
was thirty-five years ago.

Mr. Lea was one of the four original trustees
of the Sanitarium, and he and I are the only ones

(153)

now living. From the first he encouraged me and
helped me to carry out my plan, which then seemed
quixotic enough to almost everybody else.

The idea of building the Sanitarium originated
on my reading, in 1882, in Anstie's English Prac-
titioner, which Dr. Walton sent me regularly,
an account of a visit to Brehmer's Sanitarium in
Silesia and a discussion of Brehmer's views as to
the value of sanatorium treatment in pulmonary
tuberculosis. Brehmer was the originator of the
sanatorium method, the essence of which was rest,
fresh air and a daily regulation by the physician
of the patient's life and habits. Brehmer, however,
had an idea that tuberculosis of the lungs was
somewhat dependent on, or at least related to,
a small heart, and after the fever had fallen he
attached much importance to graded climbing
exercises for his patients to strengthen the heart.

Dettweiler, a patient and pupil of his, built
a sanatorium at Falkenstein in Germany, where
he followed Brehmer's method, except that Dett-
weiler was an ardent advocate of complete rest,
and he did not believe that a small heart had
any special relation to pulmonary tuberculosis.

I was much impressed with the articles I read
on the subject in the English Practitioner, and
though I saw no reference to either Brehmer's
or Dettweiler 's work in my American journals, I
became desirous of making a test of this new
method in treating some of my tuberculous
patients.

(154)

I was also much impressed at that time with
the difficulty of obtaining suitable accommoda-
tions in the Adirondacks for patients of moderate
means. The rich and well-to-do could hire one
of the few guides' cottages in Saranac Lake or
pay them well for taking them to board, but
there was absolutely no place for the working
men and women who came here with short purses.
It therefore occurred to me that a good piece of
work could be done in helping these invalids, for
whom my sympathy ever since my brother's
death had always been keen, by building a few
small cottages where they could be taken at a
little less than cost, and where the sanatorium
method could be tried.

With my usual enthusiasm about money mat-
ters, it seemed to me it would be quite easy during
the summer at Paul Smith's for me to induce
some of my patients there to subscribe something
toward the running of such an Adirondack insti-
tution, and, as I decided from the first to give my
own work free, I could ask for money to carry out
my plan.

About this time Mr. D. W. Riddle came to the

Adirondacks for his health, which was most

seriously impaired, and became a patient of mine.

I talked over with him from time to time my

sanitarium project, and from the first he took a

great interest, and offered to help in any way in

his power. As he was a good business man and

had had much experience in building, his help

( 155 )

proved to be most practical and acceptable. He
was familiar with the part of the work about
which I knew nothing. He recovered his health
in a great measure, and for thirty years gave me
his efficient help whenever called upon.

This was the beginning of a strong friendship
between us which lasted unbroken to the day of
his death; a friendship which even now is helpful
to me to look back upon on the many occasions
when I miss his presence. He brought his family
and took up his residence continuously in the
Adirondacks, while all my other friends who
were trustees only came occasionally, and he was
thus ever on hand and available to assist me in
any emergency during the early struggles of the
Sanitarium, and in meeting the practical prob-
lems of finances, building and administration
which were constantly coming up. From the
very first to the day of his death in June, 19 13, he
was Treasurer of the Sanitarium, administered its
finances, kept its books, and presented the accu-
rate and careful financial reports which I pub-
lished with the general report each year.

One of the greatest services Mr. Riddle rendered
the Sanitarium was to watch over its finances,
especially in the early days when the existence
of the struggling little institution seemed to
everybody most precarious. In the very early
days, and later with the assistance of Mrs. Charles
R. Armstrong, who gave the institution her most
devoted work for many years as Superintendent,

(156)

Mr. Riddle so conserved the slender resources
of the institution that it was saved from financial
wreck: a calamity that I fear would have over-
taken it without their painstaking watchfulness.

In after years, when I began to raise an endow-
ment fund, I would often approach Mr. Riddle as
to the advisability of taking some of the interest
of the fund for some cherished plan or improve-
ment that I had in view; my old friend would
always say he would do as I pleased, of course,
but that if I took his advice the interest of the
endowment fund should be allowed to accumulate
if the institution was ever to be established on a
firm, financial basis; and this advice, in spite of
constant needs for money, I followed for twenty-
five years. Today the Sanitarium is reaping the
benefit of his good judgment and friendly insis-
tence.

My friend, Mr. George S. Brewster, consented
to step into the breach left by Mr. Riddle's death,
and to my intense relief became Treasurer, shoul-
dering cheerfully this thankless and not incon-
siderable burden of responsibility and work.

In the summer of 1882 I again met Dr. Alfred

Loomis at Paul Smith's, and told him it seemed to

me too bad, owing to the high prices and the lack

of cheap accommodations, that some of the poor

sick people in cities could not have the chance of

improvement I had had by coming to the Adiron-

dacks. I then unfolded to him my plan of building

a few cottages at Saranac Lake, where such an

(157)

opportunity could be given these patients at less
than cost, and where I could test Brehmer's and
Dettweiler's rest, open-air and sanatorium methods
as well. He approved at once, and said he would
be glad to send me such patients as they applied
to him in the city, and that he would examine
them free of charge. This he did to the day of
his death in 1895, and gave the institution the
support of his great name.

I also spoke of my plans to several of my patients
and friends, and they took an interest and offered
to help me in a general way, but the first subscrip-
tion I received was from Mr. Anson Phelps Stokes.
It was a beautiful September day, and we were
sailing back to my camp on Spitfire Lake in his
boat, the "Delos". We spoke of the wonderful,
bracing character of the air and the beauty of
the woods, the mountains and the lakes, and I
expressed the wish that some of the poor invalids
shut up in cities might have the opportunity for
recovery which the climate offered and which had
done so much for me. I then told him of my plan
to build a little institution at Saranac Lake where
such cases could come for less than cost and remain
as long as necessary. He seemed much struck
with the idea, and told me that if I carried out
my plan I could call on him for five hundred dollars
at any time. This was the first subscription I
received, and from that time I got a little book
and solicited subscriptions at every opportunity —
and am still doing it. In 1900 Mr. Stokes became

(158)

a trustee of the Sanitarium, and served in this
capacity until his death in 191 3.

Mrs. Stokes always gave the institution her
most loyal support and substantial help, and by
her efforts in raising funds relieved me for many
years of harrassing financial anxieties in meeting
the yearly deficit in running expenses. The sum-
mer after my conversation with Mr. Stokes in
the sail-boat she held an open-air fair at her
camp for the benefit of the institution, and estab-
lished a precedent for an annual fair at Paul
Smith's— with the help of Mrs. A. J. Milbank and
a band of ladies, all loyal and devoted friends of
the Sanitarium — which was held for many years
and from which always has been derived the prin-
cipal support of the growing work. Later, as the
necessity for trying to accumulate an endowment
fund became more and more manifest to me, I
spoke to Mrs. Stokes of this essential need, and
she at once undertook to raise money for this
fund, and through her influence and her efforts
many substantial subscriptions were added to it.

We all began at this time to go to New York
for a visit of about two weeks, once or twice each
year, usually in the fall and occasionally in the
spring also. When I went down that fall I took
my little book with me and, putting my pride in
my pocket, called while in town on all the people
I thought would be likely to help me and asked
them for a subscription. Most men would have
shrunk from such a disagreeable task, but I was

(159)

always keenly interested in everything I under-
took and was by temperament an optimist, so I
never hesitated. As a matter of fact I had no
unpleasant experiences, and a few very pleasant
ones. Most people couldn't understand just what
I wanted to do, because, they always argued,
consumption couldn't be cured; an aggregation
of such invalids would be so depressing that no
one would stay in such a place, and besides, the
region was so inaccessible — forty-two miles from
a railroad — and the climate so rough that my
plan seemed to them entirely visionary. I think
they all thought I meant well, however, for they
generally gave me something, even if it were only
a small amount; and when they refused they
were usually very pleasant about it.

Occasionally I had a surprise. I had been
advised to call on Mr. D. Willis James, who had
the reputation of being very generous; but as
I did not know him and dreaded going, I had put
it off. Finally I went. As I walked up the big
brown-stone stoop and rang the door-bell I had
anticipations of a reception such as must often
be accorded to a troublesome book agent. I was
shown into a beautiful parlor, and a kindly,
middle-aged gentleman came forward with an
outstretched hand to meet me. This was Mr.
James. I stood up and tried to explain as quickly
and clearly as possible who I was, and that I
had come to ask for money to build a little hospital
for consumptives in the Adirondacks. Mr. James

(160)

smiled pleasantly and told me to sit down and
tell him all about it. I imagine I did, and when
I stopped for want of breath he put on his glasses
and asked me to let him see the names on my
book. The subscriptions ran from five dollars to
five hundred dollars. He took out his pen and
wrote down his name for twenty-five hundred
dollars! He treated me as if I had done him a
favor by giving him the opportunity of subscribing;
walked to the front door with me, shook my hand
again and wished me all success. I never saw him
again, but his generosity and pleasant reception
were long a source of encouragement to me.

I walked home on air! It was my first discovery
of the pleasure of successfully begging for others.
The fact that there are pleasant experiences to
be derived from such a usually unpleasant task
as begging money, even when for a good cause,
was revealed to me for the first time then, and has
been often amply confirmed during an experience
of thirty years in the same direction.

Some time after my visit to Mr. James I had
an even more cheering episode of the same charac-
ter. It was at a time in the early struggles of the
institution, when there was everything to be done
and no money to do it with. I wanted land, and
water, and sidewalks, and a laundry, and a
hundred things that seemed absolutely indispen-
sable, and yet I saw that all we could hope to do
was to meet our annual deficit on running expenses
that year. I was so discouraged that in driving

(161)

down the hill from the Sanitarium with my wife
the week before, I had expressed the desire that
some one should put a keg of dynamite under the
Main Building and blow the whole thing in the
air. At that time I was hoping to get a subscrip-
tion from Mrs. Charles E. Sprague, of Boston,
who had shown much interest in my work, and
had she given me two hundred dollars I should
have been wonderfully pleased. When I received
a check from her I rubbed my eyes and looked at
it again, for there seemed to be too many ciphers.
I suggested that there must be some mistake in
the check, but she said there was no mistake.
And yet the check was plainly written for twenty
thousand dollars! I asked what she wanted me
to do with all this money, and she capped the
climax to her princely gift by saying, "Do just
whatever you please with it." It is not hard to
imagine what pleasure I had in doing as she sug-
gested.

The generosity and readiness with which people
have given me money has ever been and is even
now a matter of wonderment to me. It is no
doubt greatly accounted for by the fact that
my contact with peoples' lives has generally been
in a relation which often enabled me to be of help
to the sick ones they loved, and at a time when
they themselves were in trouble. The gifts to
the Sanitarium have been in a great measure a
tribute to their loved ones, and an expression of
their desire to help others in their struggle with

(162)

illness. I hope also that gratitude from patients
with whom I have had intimate contact through
the long struggle of chronic and often hopeless
illness, and the appreciation of their friends for
what I have tried to do to advise and cheer and
comfort those they loved, has had a certain
influence in the liberal and constant response my
appeals for the Sanitarium have always met. The
personal element must enter to some extent into
such work, for all appeals to the public, no matter
where or how well presented, which have been
made at different times in print by friends of the
institution, have never met with the least response.

The constancy of the Sanitarium's friends in
giving has also made a deep impression upon me
now that ill health and enforced withdrawal from
active life prevent my coming in contact with
new people as I formerly did, making new friends
and securing new contributors for the Sanitarium.
Truly the old friends have been good friends
indeed, for almost all the original subscribers of
thirty years ago who are still living continue to
send their checks each year for the support of the
work.

When we returned to Saranac Lake from our
New York trip I had collected over three thousand
dollars, and kept on steadily adding to my sub-
scription list; so I felt that by the next spring
we would be warranted in making a start and in
putting up a little building.

(163)

XIII

THE first thing to do was to choose the site. Mr.
Riddle favored a beautiful plateau of about
eighty acres several hundred feet above the river,
and now closely built up as a residential district
of Saranac Lake. From my fox-hunting experi-
ences I knew how little sheltered this beautiful site
was, for it was swept by both the south and west
winds — the prevailing winds — and for that reason
I never could stand there in winter while hunt-
ing. Just beyond this site, and beyond a
jutting projection of the hill, was a little level
piece of ground, my favorite fox runway, where
I had spent many days while hunting with Fitz
Hallock, which was always perfectly sheltered
from both the south and west winds. Here the
mountains, covered with an unbroken forest,
rose so abruptly from the river, and the sweep
of the valley at their base was so extended and
picturesque, that the view had always made a
deep impression upon me. Many a beautiful
afternoon, for the first four winters after I came
to Saranac Lake, I had sat for hours alone while
hunting, facing the ever-changing phases of light

and shade on the imposing mountain panorama

( 165 )

at my feet, and dreamed the dreams of youth;
dreamed of life and death and God, and yearned
for a closer contact with the Great Spirit who
planned it all, and for light on the hidden meaning
of our troublous existence. The grandeur and
peace of it had ever brought refreshment to my
perplexed spirit.

This spot always has had a wonderful influence
on me, and it is not to be wondered at that I
decided almost at once to place the first little
wooden building of my proposed Sanitarium on
it. After thirty years' experience I can say that I
have never regretted it, and the view from the
Sanitarium has been one of its most valuable
assets.

There are two places in the Adirondacks which
have ever been constantly and intimately con-
nected with all that has been best to me in life;
one, the old fox runway on the side of Pisgah
Mountain, now the site of the Adirondack Cot-
tage Sanitarium, and the other the little church-
yard near St. John's in the Wilderness at Paul
Smith's. One has for over thirty years been asso-
ciated with the most strenuous struggles and
experiences of my working days, and about the
other center all the highest aspirations and the
most tender memories of my life and of my dear
ones gone before.

Mr. Riddle, Mr. Penfold and Mr. Lea, as well
as Fitz Hallock, all agreed with my decision,
although Fitz expressed to someone the opinion

(166)

THE LITTLE RED

that it was too bad to spoil a good fox runway by
building a sanitarium on it.

The guides gave me a most pleasant surprise
by purchasing sixteen acres of " Preacher Smith's
pasture" (the coveted site) and presenting it
to me for the purpose I had in view. The land
itself had a most unattractive and rugged ap-
pearance at the time, as it was covered every-
where with huge boulders and looked more like
a pasture for goats than a building site. These
boulders, however, though not at all ornamental,
turned out to be very useful, as they always
furnished on the spot all the stone I wanted for
the new buildings put up each year.

The price of land has not been unfavorably
influenced by my building the Sanitarium, for
my friends the guides paid twenty-five dollars an
acre for this choice site, and the last addition to
the Sanitarium property was made by a gift of
five acres from Mr. D. Lome McGibbon, of
Montreal, for which he paid five thousand dollars.

I had no knowledge whatever of what sort of

buildings to plan for such a sanitarium, nor was

such information to be found in books then.

Although at that time tuberculosis was not looked

upon as a transmissible disease, consumptives

freely occupying the medical wards in general

hospitals side by side with all other non-contagious

cases, I felt that aggregation should be avoided,

and that segregation, such as could be secured by

the cottage plan, would be preferable for many rea-
der)

sons. By adopting this plan an abundant supply
of air could be secured for the patient, the irrita-
tion of constant close contact with many strangers
could be avoided, and I knew it would be easier
to get some of my patients to give a little cottage
which would be their own individual gift, rather
than a corresponding sum of money toward the
erection of larger buildings.

I decided to begin with one wing of a main
building, with a little sitting-room, a dining-room,
a kitchen, and accommodations where the adminis-
trative department could be housed, and then to
build two small cottages and add to the number of
these as time passed. When later the transmissi-
bility of tuberculosis by the tubercle bacillus
became generally accepted, I had reason to be
thankful that I had from the first adopted the
cottage plan.

After securing a site and some crude plans for
the proposed humble little structure, I put the
building business into Mr. Riddle's helpful hands
and turned my attention to the matter of securing
someone to run the place. I had no more idea
about what sort of a staff I needed or could pro-
cure with the limited means at my command
than I had about the architectural requirements
of a sanitarium for the open-air treatment of tuber-
culosis. I finally waded in, as usual, and hired
M. J. Norton, a man who had been a small farmer
in the region, and made an agreement with him
for a year for his services in doing the outside

(168)

work of the place, and for the services of his wife
and two daughters, one eighteen and the other
fifteen, to take charge of the housekeeping and
inside work. He was also to furnish his horse and
cart. Of course none of these people had ever
heard of a sanitarium, or had the slightest idea
of what it was intended to do, except to furnish
board and lodging to a few invalids.

The building of a little rough-board barn and
a portion of the main building had progressed
sufficiently by the middle of the summer of 1884
to enable Mr. Norton to move his family in and
live on the place, and late in the fall Dr. Loomis
sent up the first two patients — two sisters, both
factory girls; one, Alice Hunt, had pulmonary
tuberculosis, and the other, Mary Hunt, had had
Pott's disease and now showed slight evidences
of pulmonary tuberculosis as well. Dr. Loomis
had found someone willing to pay their expenses
and had sent them up on this account, as nothing
would have been done for them at their home,
a crowded tenement. They were both in wretched
health, poorly clad to stand the Adirondack winter
cold, and were nearly dead with fatigue when
they reached the Sanitarium after a forty- two
mile drive from Ausable Forks. Mrs. Norton and
her daughters took them right into the family
circle, my wife got some warm clothes for them,
and I examined them and advised them as to
what to do, and encouraged them to the best of
my ability.

(169)

At that time only the foundations and frame of
the first little cottage had been built, and the
cottage was not completed and occupied until
February I, 1885. In looking at it now it seems
rather curious why it should have been delayed
so long, for it certainly was a most modest under-
taking; but with neither men nor money avail-
able, I imagine Mr. Riddle did all that could be
done under the circumstances. This first cottage
consisted of one room, fourteen by eighteen, and
a little porch so small that only one patient could
sit out at a time, and with difficulty. It was fur-
nished with a wood stove, two cot-beds, a wash-
stand, two chairs and a kerosene lamp, and cost,
as I remember, about four hundred dollars when
completed. The money was obtained by Mr.
C. M. Lea from a Mrs. Jenks, a lady in Phila-
delphia.

This humble little building has become some-
what historical now, and has always been known
at the Sanitarium as "The Little Red." Humble
as it undoubtedly is, it was nevertheless the
pioneer cottage in the development of the sana-
torium treatment in America, and has stood for
a great principle of treatment which will long
survive the little building. At present it is kept
in repair as a relic, and used as a little museum
for other relics connected with the history of the
institution.

"Memory and mental imagery" are certainly

a wonderful piece of human mechanism, for now,

(170 )

looking back over the long span of thirty years,
I can distinctly see the Adirondack Cottage
Sanitarium in all its incongruous details, in the
midst of its beautiful natural environment of
mountains and unbroken forest. The grounds
were a rough hillside covered with scant grass,
through which everywhere jutted boulders of
varying sizes, a few rising four or five feet above
the ground. Not a sidewalk, not a path anywhere!
The buildings, a small rough-board and shingle
barn, one unpainted wing of the main building
without any porch, and one small unpainted
cottage! The patients, two frail, ill-clad factory
girls ! The staff, a farmer, his wife and two daugh-
ters— all this humble agglomeration situated in
an unbroken forest forty-two miles from the
nearest railroad! Truly, I must have been an
optimist by nature, and the joy of life and youth
must have run in my veins then, for I was not in
the least discouraged as I viewed my old fox run-
way, now ruined for hunting purposes. I don't
know what Fitz Hallock thought of it, but I am
quite sure that under the circumstances he hardly
shared my enthusiasm.

Last year I was standing with Dr. Hermann
M. Biggs on the porch of the Medical Building,
when he made a remark to me which I have
treasured ever since:

"Doctor, I think it is the most beautiful insti-
tution of its kind I have ever seen!" I am glad
Dr. Biggs did not see it thirty years ago.

(171)

The mountains now look down on a different
scene. The old boulders and the rough pasture
have disappeared, and macadamized roads, slop-
ing grass lawns, flower beds and ornamental
shrubs have taken their place. The Sanitarium
has grown to be a picturesque little village.
It comprises thirty-six buildings scattered over
the entire hillside between the north and south
gates, a distance of about three-quarters of a
mile. The patients' cottages are grouped about
the large Administration Building, and other cot-
tages for the heads of departments are clustered
together at the south entrance, near which are
the stables, barns, and the big fire-proof laundry.
In addition to the patients' cottages, there are
many other buildings which represent various
activities: a nurses' home for the Training
School, an infirmary for bed-ridden patients, a
post office, a colonial brick and marble library
building, a reception and medical building with
offices, laboratory and X-ray department, a
recreation pavilion for amusements and enter-
tainments, a workshop building where the patients
are taught fancy leather work, bookbinding, brass
work and frame- making as a recreation and as
graded exercise, and a beautiful stone chapel.

I think by this time Fitz Hallock is fully appre-
ciative of the development the institution has
attained, and now that neither of us can hunt
foxes any more, and all the foxes on the hill
have been poisoned, he is quite reconciled to the

spoiling of the fox runway.

(172)

XIV

A FEW more invalids were beginning to come to
the Adirondacks, and while at work in starting
the Sanitarium I had been practising more, and
had read everything I could find about tuber-
culosis. In 1882 Koch published in Germany his
epoch-making paper on "The Etiology of Tuber-
culosis," and I read in my medical journals one or
two abstracts of the long and painstaking experi-
mental work which had led him to the startling
conclusion that a specific germ, the "tubercle
bacillus," was the cause of this wide-spread disease.
There was every reason why this announcement
of Koch's should make a deep impression on me.
I was already familiar with Tyndall's and Pasteur's
work on the origin of life, and Pasteur had only
recently asserted, as a result of his observations,
not only that all life came from preexisting life,
but that putrefaction was caused by living germs,
which could be cultivated and studied at will.
Lister had applied Pasteur's discovery as to
putrefaction to surgery, and the results were a
startling demonstration of the truth of his con-
clusions. Lister found that if wounds could be
kept free from contamination by germs by the

(173)

use of carbolic acid they would heal without any
suppuration. I also had read a statement of
Pasteur's belief that all infectious diseases came
from living germs, and of his work and Koch's
on anthrax, a disease of sheep, in which Koch had
demonstrated the germ of the disease and culti-
vated it outside of the body.

This time in medicine was the dawn of the
achievements of the new experimental method — a
method which was casting so much light on dark
places — and the glamor of its possibilities in
the prevention and cure of disease took a strong
hold on my imagination. If I could learn to grow
the tubercle bacillus outside of the body and pro-
duce tuberculosis at will with it in guinea-pigs,
the next step would be to find something that
would kill the germ in the living animal. If an
inoculated guinea-pig could be cured, then in
all probability this great burden of sickness could
be lifted from the human race. Even if this
proved impossible, much could be learned as to
the best method of preventing the disease, and
every fact that could be acquired about this
invisible little microbe must prove of immense
importance to mankind.

I confided all this to my friend, Mr. Lea, and
sorrowfully told him as I could not read German
there would be no use of my trying to obtain
Koch's paper. He promised to find out from the
doctors in Philadelphia what they thought about
it — but alas, the physicians in this country

(174)

for many years remained calmly indifferent to
Koch's discovery, or ridiculed it. When I talked
to Dr. Loomis about it he merely said, he "didn't
believe much in 'germs'." For several years he
persisted in his unbelief, and when I showed him
my animals which had died of inoculation with
my cultures, he would laugh and say it was a
cold night which probably killed them. Finally,
however, he became convinced, and when a new
edition of his Practice of Medicine was printed
in which he accepted Koch's theory, he sent me
a copy, on the inside cover of which he had written,
"Read the article on Tuberculosis. I hope you
are satisfied now!"

Though Mr. Lea found the physicians apathetic,
he was such a good friend that he gave me one of
the pleasantest surprises I ever had in my life.
He had a very full translation of Dr. Koch's
famous paper made in English for me and presented
it to me at Christmas. Surely I never had a
Christmas present that meant more to me than
that big hand-written copy-book! I read every
vord of it over and over again.

Koch's paper on " The Etiology of Tuberculosis"
is certainly one of the most, if not the most, impor-
tant medical papers ever written, and a model
of logic in the application of the new experimental
method to the study of disease. Every step was
proved over and over again before the next step
was taken, and the ingenuity of the new methods
of staining, separating and growing the germs

( 175 )

read like a fairy-tale to me. It took Koch three
years to work out and verify his deductions before
he published a word, but every word of his paper
stands today as it did when he wrote it, and the
thirty-odd years that followed have added com-
paratively little to his great achievement.

I became strongly convinced of the soundness
of his deductions and the far-reaching importance
of his discovery, and intensely anxious to test
his experimental results. But I knew nothing of
bacteriology; had never heard the name before.
I lived in a remote region which made access to
books, scientific apparatus, or other physicians
impossible. I had my microscope, however, and I
decided the next time I went to New York to
devote all my efforts to learning how to stain and
recognize the tubercle bacillus under the micro-
scope. I could then test Koch's conclusions as
to the presence of the germ in the patients' secre-
tions, and could plan to learn how to cultivate it
outside of the body as time passed; but the first
thing to do was to learn to find and recognize the
germ.

I was so intent on this plan that during my
entire visit to New York my time was given to
its accomplishment. I consulted all my physician
friends as to who could teach me what I wanted
to learn, but none of them knew or took any
interest. I heard that Dr. George Peabody, whom
I knew, was acquainted with a physician who had
worked in Koch's laboratory, and when I called

(176)

on him he gave me his card and told me to go
to see Dr. T. Mitchell Prudden, who then taught
pathology at the College of Physicians and Sur-
geons. The college was still located at the old stand
on the corner of Twenty-third Street and Fourth
Avenue, and as I went up the steps many joyous
memories of my student days came crowding back
to me. In those days there had been no laboratory
at the college, but since then pathology had
grown in importance as a study, and the trustees
had somehow secured a large, dark room, with a
high ceiling, next to the drug-store and ice-cream
saloon. This place had been in use as a laboratory
for some time, and a more gloomy, ill-smelling
place can hardly be imagined. Dingy, dust-
covered windows let in a little feeble light, but
there was no provision for any kind of ventilation.
Every kind of pathological specimen, representing
every deadly disease humanity is heir to, was
constantly brought to this place, and after having
been examined was not always thoroughly
removed. Students came to make microscopic
sections and study them under Dr. Prudden's
direction at a long, low table, where a few micro-
scopes were kept.

The most curious arrangement was the sanctum
of the Professor. It was reached by climbing up
a pair of steps as steep as any ladder, and was a
small room perched in the air and partitioned off
at a height of twelve feet or more from the labora-
tory. • No doubt in desperation Dr. Prudden had

(177)

adopted this ingenious method of obtaining a little
privacy for the serious pathological studies he
was constantly carrying on and which have made
his name famous, but it certainly was a queer
outfit. It must be remembered, however, that
the scientific side of medicine and the experimental
method had not then won the all-important place
they now occupy, and the pioneers had of neces-
sity to put up with what facilities they could
secure from a conservative Board of Trustees who
no doubt thought a laboratory an unnecessary
and uncalled-for innovation.

With my card of introduction from Dr. Peabody
in my hand, I climbed the ladder and for the first
time met Dr. Prudden, who has ever since been a
good and most helpful friend to me. Though his
striking personality made a most favorable impres-
sion on me, I must say he was rather short with
me. He no doubt was constantly annoyed by
all sorts of applications. Yes, I could come to
the laboratory and he would teach me how to
stain the tubercle bacillus; I could have one of
the microscopes when the class didn't use them;
he would ask Dr. Hodenpyl to show me how to
make the stains: and that was all. I was bowed
down through the trapdoor in the floor, and
disappeared down the ladder to the main labora-
tory.

I got a microscope and a place at the long
table. I was given a specimen said to contain the
tubercle bacillus, and Dr. Hodenpyl showed me

(178)

where the stains were and wrote some simple direc-
tions for each step to be taken. Then naturally
enough I was left to my own devices, as Dr.
Prudden was constantly too busy to do more
than ask me at long intervals how I was getting
along. I had never done section staining or
any similar work, and I certainly was a tyro at
it. During the first three days I worked unremit-
tingly, and stained my fingers, my clothes, even
my shoes; and if I stained the bacillus I decolor-
ized the specimen either too much or too little,
so that the germ remained invisible under the
microscope. Several times I became discouraged,
and had it not been for a certain amount of natural
persistence, and Dr. Hodenpyl's keen sense of
humor in criticising and laughing at my failures,
I should have fled from the laboratory and never
returned.

At first Dr. Prudden took little notice of me,
and I hardly dared climb the ladder and disturb
him in his elevated sanctum; but after several
days had passed and he still saw me at my micro-
scope he asked me to show him my slides, and, no
doubt won by my persistence, he sat down beside
me and pointed out to me where my mistakes had
been. At last I succeeded, and remained that
day until late, repeating my attempts on different
specimens until I was quite sure I could bring
out the bacillus on the slides. Like the pilot who
when asked if he knew the harbor, said to the
captain he certainly did, for he had been on every

(179)

rock, my knowledge had not been acquired easily,
but I knew thoroughly what to avoid doing to
insure success; and now I could return to Saranac
Lake, study some of my doubtful cases by this
test, and begin to repeat Koch's work in growing
and inoculating the germ.

I thanked Dr. Prudden and departed. The
next time I saw him he was established in his
spacious laboratory in the new College of Physi-
cians and Surgeons building on Fifty-ninth Street,
and the old Twenty-third Street laboratory and
the Professor's sky sanctum were but grotesque
memories of the past — now forgotten mile-stones
in the onward progress of scientific medicine.
Dr. Prudden 's new quarters seemed to me palatial,
and so cordial was the welcome he and his assis-
tants, among whom was my good friend Dr.
Hodenpyl, always gave me that in years to come,
on every visit I made to New York, many hours
of my vacation were spent there. On these occa-
sions Dr. Prudden taught me the principles of
bacteriology, and in after years ever gave me his
friendly interest, help and advice in my work.

Dr. Prudden and his associates always seemed
glad to see me, but it was not till misfortune
overtook me that I was made to realize the depth
and sincerity of their feelings toward me. In
December, 1893, when my house and little labora-
tory were burned to the ground, I was lying very
ill in a New York hotel. My house and labora-
tory had gone and the outlook for getting over

(180)

my violent illness was, I knew, rather hopeless.
As I lay sick and discouraged one evening, and
my wife was trying to help me pass the weary
hours of misery by reading to me, there was a
knock at the door and to my surprise Dr. Hoden-
pyl's tall form, carrying a large mahogany box
in one hand, approached my bed. He looked
much embarrassed, as he always did when doing
someone a good turn, and tried to explain the
object of his visit in as deprecatory language as
possible. "The boys" at the laboratory had
heard of the burning of my house; they knew
from Dr. Baldwin my microscope was gone, and
that the first thing I should need would be a
microscope; so they all "chipped in" and here
was the microscope! I opened the case with
trembling hands, took out a fine instrument of
the best type fitted with all necessary objectives
and adjuncts complete, and in the box the follow-
ing note from Dr. Prudden which I have treasured,
as I have the microscope, ever since:

"My dear Doctor Trudeau:

" We men at the laboratory want to make you
a Christmas present, and we are so eager in want-
ing to that we cannot wait till the proper time.

"I don't think we have decided whether we
want to do this most because we appreciate the
good work you are always doing, in our line and
others, or because you have had more pluck than
anybody we know, or because you have been so

(181)

often helpful to us and made us always glad to
have you here, or because — well, the fact is, old
fellow, we like you and want you to know it and
so here we are in a row, bowing our early Christ-
mas greeting. "

I was overcome, and unable to write my thanks
or express what was in my heart, and Dr. Hodenpyl
to a certain extent, I think, shared my embarrass-
ment. After a few encouraging remarks about
my coming to the laboratory soon and trying the
new microscope, he bowed himself out of the
door with the utmost alacrity.

Dr. Hodenpyl, through much overwork and
confinement, broke down in health at one time
and had to give up work. He came at once to
Saranac Lake, and a six months' stay so restored
him that he was able to resume his old position
at the college, continuing in good health for
many years. In 1909 he was engaged in cancer
research work, when he made some observations
which raised strong hopes even in his ever-judi-
cious and critical mind. He had succeeded in
obtaining striking results in the absorption of
cancerous tumors in mice, and his new method
promised to do the same for human beings. As
he began to see evidences of success in sight he
threw himself with all the devotion of his earnest
nature and clear intellect into this absorbing work,
and his friends who watched him began to fear
he would break down under the strain. Their

(182)

premonitions proved only too well founded. Early
in 1 9 10 he suddenly developed an acute septic
pneumonia and died in a few days, a victim to his
unremitting zeal and devotion to science. When
he died I lost one of my best friends.

The following summer I put my newly acquired
knowledge about the bacillus to practical use, and
I think the demonstration of the value of the
bacillus in the diagnosis of tuberculosis must
have appealed most forcibly to such a clinician as
Dr. Loomis, and hastened his long-deferred accep-
tance of Koch's discovery. I remember the first
instance of this kind which occurred at Paul
Smith's in the summer of 1885. A young college
student had come there while on his vacation to
consult Dr. Loomis for a slight but persistent
cough and some loss of weight and strength. Dr.
Loomis was away in camp, and somehow the
young man asked me to prescribe for his cough.
On examination of the chest I could find nothing
positive, but I was so keen about my newly
acquired knowledge in staining the tubercle bacil-
lus that I subjected every patient who coughed
to this test. To my astonishment I found the
germ present in the expectoration, and told the
patient he had tuberculosis and should not return
to college in the fall, but go West and lead an
outdoor life for a time. Naturally his family
was much alarmed, for he was a big, strong man
and they had had no idea there would be anything
serious the matter with him. He awaited Dr.

(183)

Loomis's return at Paul Smith's in order to get
his opinion. Dr. Loomis, who of course attached
no special importance to the presence of the bacil-
lus, examined him thoroughly. He could find
nothing definite the matter with his lungs, and
said he could see no reason why the young man
should not continue his college course, and so he
went back to Harvard. Four months later one
of my patients at Saranac Lake told me he had
just heard that this young man had had a serious
hemorrhage in the class-room, and been sent at
once to Colorado.

It is curious how slow physicians were in this
country to accept Koch's discovery or realize its
practical value in the detection of the disease.

As late as in 1890, a young Columbia College
rowing man came to Paul Smith's for a trouble-
some cough he could not throw off, and I detected
the bacillus on the first examination and told
him he had tuberculosis. He smiled and said I
must be mistaken, for he had rowed a good race
on the crew that spring, and had just been insured
by two of the best insurance companies in New
York for a large sum. I made another examina-
tion, found the germ and reiterated my opinion.
This brought a letter from one of the insurance
companies asking me on what I based my diag-
nosis. I answered that the symptoms were very
suspicious, but that the presence of the bacillus,
to my mind, was irrefutable evidence of the
presence of a tuberculous process as their cause. An

(184)

interval followed, then a very nice note came from
the insurance company asking me whether, if they
sent up one of their doctors, I would show him my
method of detecting the bacillus and making such
a diagnosis. The doctor arrived: I showed him
how to find the bacillus and he departed the next
day. Within a couple of days I received a nice
note of thanks from the insurance company and
a check for one hundred dollars. The patient
died several years later of tuberculosis.

I had many opportunities to convince the
unbelieving. Dr. D'Avignon had practised medi-
cine and surgery many years at Ausable Forks,
and was called upon in consultation and to
operate all over the mountains. He was a shrewd,
resourceful and skilful surgeon, and thoroughly
interested in his profession. On one of his visits
to Saranac Lake he called on me and found me in
the little laboratory. He asked me about "the
germs," in which he had as yet little faith; but
he said, "Will you take the trouble to convince
me?" I asked him what test he required, and he
said, "I will send you five numbered samples,
and if you can tell me which ones came from tuber-
culosis cases and which ones did not, I will believe
it all." I agreed, and he left, evidently thinking
he had me cornered.

The samples came, with only a number on each
one, and I reported on them at once. Three con-
tained bacilli and I wrote him the result and gave
him the numbers. A more convinced and enthu-

(185)

siastic man than he was when he made his next
visit I never saw. He had lost his contempt for
"germs," and the little ironical smile he wore
on his last visit as he looked at my culture tubes
had disappeared. After that when he had doubt-
ful cases he often sent me the samples for examina-
tion, and the results left his new faith unshaken.

We had been at Mrs. Evans's cottage since 1876,
and had boarded with her for seven years when I
decided that, as it began to look as though we
might have to live in Saranac Lake for some time,
I would build a small cottage and we could have
a home of our own. Mr. Lea had just put up a
most comfortable house for his wife and daughter,
and I bought an acre of ground near the Episcopal
Church and opposite Mr. Lea's house. During
the summer I built a little Queen Anne cottage
and a small stable, and we moved in the fall of
1883. Our children, Chatte and Ned, were grow-
ing, and we had to have a governess or a tutor
to teach them, and all this made a home of our
own much more satisfactory.

When I returned from New York with my
newly acquired knowledge as to how to detect
the tubercle bacillus, I began at once to equip
my small office in the Queen Anne cottage — a
room twelve by eight feet, having two small
closets at one end — with what simple apparatus
I could devise and procure. In this little room I
at first kept my microscope and stains and made
my numerous examinations of the secretions of

(186)

patients, inoculated my guinea-pigs, and began
my attempts at making blood-serum tubes. My
little home-made thermostat was placed in one
of the small closets, and it was there that I
first obtained a pure culture of the tubercle
bacillus.

These quarters were so cramped, however, that
I soon built a little addition off my office, and this
became the laboratory in which I worked until
the house was destroyed in 1893 by fire originating
from my little thermostat. As I knew nothing
about the architectural requirements of a sana-
torium, so I knew nothing about the requirements
of a laboratory; but had the simple apparatus,
which consisted of a dry sterilizer and a ridiculous
little thermostat, made in the village, and the
glassware came from New York.

As I can remember today just how the Adiron-
dack Cottage Sanitarium looked when it first
began its humble career, I can see equally clearly
the room opening from my little office, which was
really the beginning of the Saranac Laboratory
for the Study of Tuberculosis. One side of this
room was occupied by a long, high, stationary
shelf- table set against the wall under three little
half-windows, with shelves underneath the table
for glassware, a dry and a steam sterilizer, an oil
stove, etc. A little home-made thermostat, heated
by a minute kerosene lamp, without any regulat-
ing apparatus, stood on a bracket-shelf next to
a sink for washing glassware. This sink was as

(187)

primitive as the thermostat, as there was no run-
ning water in Saranac Lake in those days. At one
end on a broad shelf stood a big pail with a dipper
and this supplied the water (there was of course no
hot water), and the waste from the sink was carried
off by a leaden pipe which led to a big pail on the
floor, this pail being emptied out of doors when dan-
ger of its overflow made this imperatively necessary.
At the other window was a small table with my mi-
croscope on it, some bottles of stains, and slides in
boxes. By the side of this stood a shelf of books,
on top of which was always Mr. Lea's precious
translation of Koch's paper, to which the Saranac
Laboratory has owed its existence.

The "Professor's" equipment was as meagre as
that of the laboratory, and consisted only of
what he had learned from Koch's paper and the
laboriously won knowledge he had just acquired
from Dr. Prudden as to staining the tubercle
bacillus. As I have said before, I must have been
an optimist, for I was much pleased with my
little laboratory, and could see nothing but great
achievements ahead.

With this humble outfit I began with much
enthusiasm, in my imagination, the conquest of
the tubercle bacillus, and if I have never come
"within sight of the castles of my dreams," I
at least have made some progress along the road
leading to them and started others in the same
direction, for I was, as far as I can ascertain, the
first in this country to cultivate the tubercle

(188)

bacillus and confirm Koch's brilliant discovery.
From the ashes of the little room has sprung the
Saranac Laboratory for the Study of Tuberculosis,
where for twenty years the work of my associates
has steadily advanced our scientific knowledge of
tuberculosis, and will, I hope, continue to do so
for many years to come.

Even in procuring such simple apparatus as
I needed I met with many difficulties. The first
question to be solved was to get a thermostat in
which the high temperature needed for the growth
of the germs could be constantly maintained. I
had seen only one thermostat for growing bacteria,
and that was in Dr. Prudden's new laboratory.
This was an imported instrument and had a self-
regulating apparatus — a column of mercury turn-
ing the gas on or cutting it off, as the heat fell or
rose beyond the required temperature. In Saranac
Lake in those days, not only had we no gas to
heat the thermostat, but we had no coal to keep
up the temperature of the room. At night the
fire in the wood stove would go out, and on very
cold nights everything in the room would freeze
hard. I had the tinsmith at the hardware store
send for some sheets of copper and make a thermo-
stat, which consisted merely of a small copper
box about eight inches square inside of a larger
copper box, the space between the two being filled
with water heated from beneath by a minute
kerosene lamp. A tube allowed a large thermom-
eter to be placed in the inner box, and its readings

(189)

to be taken outside as it emerged through a
perforated cork at the top of the apparatus.

I soon found this answered fairly well in the day-
time, when the temperature of the room varied
little, but at night when the fire in the wood stove
went out the violent loss of heat in the room soon
caused a corresponding fall in the little apparatus.
To obviate this I put the thermostat in three or
four wooden boxes, each a little larger than the
other, and packed the space between these with
wool and sawdust. These boxes all had doors,
and by opening and shutting these, according to
the temperature outside of the house, I could
maintain a fairly regular heat in the inner thermo-
stat. On cold nights when the thermometer
was below zero I would close all the doors, or leave
one or two open, according to the outside tem-
perature. After some practise I grew quite expert
in keeping my thermostat near the right heat,
and indeed, it was with this little home-made
apparatus that I first succeeded in growing the
germ in pure cultures outside of the body.

Later I bought in New York a more pretentious,
imported instrument, one which was heated by
kerosene, and had a rubber diaphragm which
bulged more or less as the imprisoned water in
the thermostat grew hotter or colder. By operat-
ing through a set of levers these variations pushed
a brass roller back and forth over the long flame
of the kerosene lamp, increasing or decreasing
the burning surface and the heat automatically.

(190)

I mention this, because it was this ingenious
apparatus which went wrong one night some years
later, the flame jumped behind the roller, and
then grew bigger and hotter until it set fire to the
wooden shelf, and at three o'clock one morning
burned my house and laboratory to the ground.

In 1884 Mr. George Cooper was sent by Dr.
Loomis to Saranac Lake and became a patient of
mine. Mr. Cooper and his three sisters belonged
to the old New York family of that name, were
charming people, and a great addition to our
colony. A strong friendship developed between
us very soon. He was quite ill when he came and
his sisters were perfectly devoted to him, so they
cheerfully gave up their beautiful town house on
Twenty-first Street, and at first boarded at a
nice cottage next to Mrs. Evans's, and afterwards
hired the best house they could procure and kept
house. In the spring and fall they would return
home, but the summers were spent in their camp
at Paul Smith's and the winters in Saranac Lake,
They took a deep interest in all my work, and
were ever ready to help me with generous sub-
scriptions for any object which appealed to them.
Mr. Cooper took a great interest in the Sanitarium
and in my little laboratory room.

(191)

XV

WHILE I was starting my little laboratory
and doing experiments all through the late
eighties, the Sanitarium was making little progress
in its struggle for existence, but nevertheless was
growing. The Main Building had been finished
and enlarged, and in 1 886-1 887 two cottages were
built; a double one, given by Miss Ella Reed
and Miss Folger, and a single one — that is, a
cottage for two patients — by Miss Caroline Stokes.
In 1 887-1 888 two other cottages, each for four
patients, were given, one by Mr. C. M. Lea and
the other by Mr. George Cooper.

I was having many difficulties to contend with.
My first serious one was that I had no water sup-
ply, and in 1886 Mr. Cooper bought sixteen acres
of land on which was a fine spring, and gave the
land to the Sanitarium. This answered for drink-
ing water, but as there was no coal and we had no
running water, the drainage problem was a con-
stant source of annoyance to me and complaint
from the patients. Things did not go well,
and I was much discouraged. No one seemed
interested in the struggling little institution but
my immediate friends, and I fancied they showed

(193)

interest only to encourage me. I had no definite
idea just what to do and very little money with
which to do anything. I could not afford a doctor
at the institution, and had to do the medical work
myself, driving in summer fourteen miles from
Paul Smith's and fourteen miles back at each visit.
I had no nurse nor anyone to direct the patients
and encourage them. When they were taken
acutely ill with complications I had no infirmary
to send them to, and no one to carry their meals
and nurse them in their cottages. I used to hire
lumbermen and guides to care for the bed-ridden
men patients, and any old woman I could get to
\ook after the women, and these were very expen-
sive and not very efficient help. In cases of severe
hemorrhage these improvised nurses would become
panic-stricken and escape from the sick-room,
and often no amount of eloquence on my part
would induce them to return. On the rare occa-
sions when anybody died I had to come over and
take charge of the situation in person, as the
entire establishment was thrown into such a panic
that I feared they would all desert in a body. The
usual complaints about the food were a chronic
annoyance, and difficulties about employees were
constant. These were dark days; days when I
longed for dynamite or an earthquake as the
shortest way out of all my troubles! I had to
go on, however, and a good hunt would make
me forget all my troubles for a time.

Mr. Norton and his family were in charge of

(194)

the Sanitarium until the fall of 1888, when they
retired to a little home near Saranac Lake and
Mrs. Julia A. Miller became Superintendent.
The institution was growing less like a big family,
and Mrs. Miller had run one of the most successful
boarding houses for invalids in town, so that she
was well fitted for her duties. She turned out to
be a great comfort and most reliable and efficient
during those trying years of the Sanitarium's
existence. She resigned in 1903, and died at
her home in Saranac Lake in June, 19 13.

I had another and unexpected helper at this
time — Mr. Frank Ingersoll, a medical student.
Though very ill, he at once took in the situation
and filled a big place at the Sanitarium. The
patients looked upon him as a doctor, and no one
could have taken a more devoted or unselfish
interest in everything connected with the in-
stitution. He taught me the first great lesson
I learned in the conquest of Fate by acquies-
cence. Alone in the world, among strangers,
poor, stricken with what he knew to be a fatal
disease, in constant physical weakness and suffer-
ing, he never complained, and forgot himself in
helping others. Always cheerful, always helpful,
he worked uncomplainingly until his sudden death
from hemorrhage. His example taught me a
great lesson, and was a great stimulus to me at
this discouraging time. If he was not discouraged,
why should I be? I shall ever cherish his memory.

I only wish he could see the Sanitarium now; but

( 195 )

he has had a full share in whatever it has accom-
plished and in what it has grown to be.

Many years later — about 1901 — while Dr.
Lawrason Brown was resident physician at the
Sanitarium, another invalid served the institution
with much the same spirit as Ingersoll. Ernest
Pope, an educated Englishman and an expert statis-
tician, was a very sick man when we decided to
take him and let him earn his board at the Sani-
tarium by helping Dr. Brown with his statistical
work of the cases. He asked for nothing but his
board and some tobacco for his pipe, and we gave
him at his request a little tent- shack to live in.
A happier, cheerier and more contented individual
would have been hard to find. Poor, alone,
stricken with mortal disease, he labored cheerily
and helpfully to all about him for several years,
when the end came suddenly. He was another
excellent example of the conquest of Fate by
acquiescence.

With Mrs. Miller and Ingersoll at the Sani-
tarium things began to look up and run more
smoothly. I was doing more practice all the
time and able to interest more people, and get
some of my patients and friends to give us cottages
from time to time.

In 1888 the first fair was held at Saranac Inn
for the Sanitarium, and, thanks to the continued
interest and devotion of many friends at the Inn,
where Mr. Riddle brought the needs of the institu-
tion to the attention of the generously inclined

(196)

guests, fairs have been held there regularly.
When for any reason this has been impossible, a
substantial amount has always been raised from
tableaux, entertainments, or subscriptions.

The Sanitarium never has had any organized
board of lady managers, any regular subscription
list, or any auxiliaries pledged to raise money
for it. For twenty-five years the two fairs at
Paul Smith's and Saranac Inn were the main
sources of support for the work of the institution,
in addition to what I could raise by personal
appeal.

As more money began to come in much progress
was made from 1888 to 1890. Mrs. John W.
M in turn, Mr. George Dodge and Mr. Nathan
Straus each gave a new cottage, and a Free Bed
Fund and an Endowment Fund were started.

The charge for board has always been the same
for everybody. It was five dollars a week in 1885
and, owing to the increasing cost of living, the
more exacting requirements demanded by the
development of the methods of treatment, as well
as the improvement in accommodations given
each patient, it rose gradually to the present rate
of eight dollars a week. The deficit per week on
each patient increased also, and rose gradually
from two dollars a week in the earlier days to
between three dollars and a half to four dollars
a week at the present time. This has given a
deficit of from $12,000 to $29,000 each year to
be met out of contributions to the General Fund.

(197)

I found, however, that in many instances, in
spite of the low price charged for board, some of
the patients would become stranded financially
before they left the institution. To meet this
difficulty in specially urgent cases, I started in
1888 a Free Bed Fund, which I could draw on to
meet for a short time the expenses of the stranded
patients, and raised six hundred and forty dollars
for the purpose that year. This was the beginning
of the Free Bed Fund, which for twenty-five
years has helped so many who otherwise could
not have had the advantages of a stay at the
Sanitarium. Mr. Charles M. Lea has been Treas-
urer of the fund ever since it originated; he, his
mother and his sister have taken a special interest
in its work and contributed freely each year to
its support.

Mr. Riddle's conservative influence induced
me also to start an Endowment Fund at this time.
I secured one thousand and ninety dollars in cash
for this purpose. This was the beginning of the
Endowment Fund.

As it began to grow larger I tried to get some-
one to take the thankless position of Treasurer of
this Endowment Fund, but I could find no one.
Finally I went to Mr. Harriman and asked him
to help me. He said he would go around with
me to see Mr. Stephen Baker, at the Bank of the
Manhattan Company, and I could ask him myself.
Mr. Baker was interested, but said he really had
more on hand than he could attend to and I must

(198)

excuse him. I told him I only wanted to get
an endowment fund of fifty thousand dollars,
and when that amount was reached he could
turn it over to someone else, and finally he con-
sented. He has administered the Endowment
Fund now for about twenty years, and under his
skilful management it has grown, in a great
measure by accretion, to more than ten times
the amount I at first aimed to reach. Mr.
Baker seems undismayed by his increased
burden, which he bears as cheerfully and effi-
ciently as he does his share as trustee in the
management of the affairs of the Sanitarium.

(199)

XVI

IN the fall of 1885, as soon as I had equipped
my little laboratory-room, I began to work. At
first my knowledge was limited to the detection of
the tubercle bacillus in the secretions of patients,
and my observations to verifying Koch's claim
that this bacillus was the cause of the disease and
was always found when tuberculosis was present.
I made examinations of all my cases, and as a
result found only one patient in whom, while the
symptoms of consumption of the lungs were
present, I could never detect the bacillus. I made
a study of this case and proved that it could not
be tuberculosis, as the expectoration would not
kill animals, while expectorated matter which
contained tubercle bacilli always produced gen-
eralized tuberculosis in the guinea-pigs. I pub-
lished this study under the title of "An Experi-
mental Research upon the Infectiousness of Non-
bacillary Phthisis," in The American Journal of
the Medical Sciences for October, 1885, and this
was my first publication from my little laboratory
room. I am afraid I have been guilty of many
others since!

The thing I craved to do, however, was to suc-

(201)

ceed in cultivating the tubercle bacillus outside
of the body and then produce the disease with it
in animals. It was the early winter of 1885 when
I attacked this problem with great earnestness.
I had learned from Dr. Prudden how to make
artificial media — beef gelatin, beef agar and
other media — but the first growth of the tubercle
bacillus direct from animal tissue I knew could
be obtained only on solidified blood serum, and
then with difficulty. I bought a small sheep for
three dollars and a half, and from the sacrifice
of this animal I procured the required amount of
blood, which, thanks to the pure air and the snow
on the ground, remained tolerably free from con-
tamination and was transferred at once to the
ice-box to coagulate. I am afraid my associates
at the laboratory today would hardly consider
the technique I then employed up to date, but
after many accidents I succeeded in getting some
fair slants of blood serum in tubes.

I made plants on this blood serum from a tuber-
culous gland removed from one of my inoculated
guinea-pigs, and put all the tubes in my home-
made thermostat. For the next two weeks I
watched the temperature of my absurd little
oven with jealous care, and I remember one very-
cold night getting up in the night and going down
stairs to look at the temperature. Many of the
tubes turned out at once to be contaminated,
and a variety of growths appeared on them;
but after ten days I still had four tubes free from

(202)

contamination and these looked much as when
I first put them in the incubator. On the eigh-
teenth day I thought I detected a little growth
in the corner of one of these. With every precau-
tion against contamination, with my platinum
spade I removed a little of the suspected growth
and rubbed it on a couple of clean slides, dried
it and stained it. My first intimation of success
was when one or two large masses on the slide
refused to decolorize when treated with the acid.
I washed the slide, put it under the microscope,
and to my intense joy I saw nothing but well-
stained culture masses and a few detached tubercle
bacilli. I at once planted some fresh tubes from
the one I had examined, and I knew now I had
pure cultures to work with. This little scum on
the serum was consumption in a tangible form.
With it I could inoculate animals and try experi-
ments to destroy the germ.

The world has been trying to do for thirty
years what I had in view at that time, and is
still as far from success as I was then; but to
me the future was full of promise. As soon as
I had made some subcultures I sent a tube off
to Dr. Prudden, as I knew he would be glad to
show the students this recently discovered germ
which kills one in seven of the human race. I
also later sent a tube to Dr. William H. Welch
at the Johns Hopkins Medical School, as he had
always befriended me and helped me with his
advice, and I continued to send them to both

(203)

these laboratories whenever they applied for
them.

As soon as I had pure cultures I began to
inoculate rabbits and guinea-pigs, and started
some experiments to try to kill the germ in their
tissues by the injection of various germicides,
such as creosote, carbolic acid, and other sub-
stances known to destroy germs. These experi-
ments of mine all failed, and I found, as I expressed
it to the students one day at the College, that
"the tubercle bacillus bore cheerfully a degree
of medication which proved fatal to its host!"

One of my great problems was to keep my
guinea-pigs alive in winter. The rabbits stand
the cold very well, but the guinea-pigs require
constantly a warm place to live in. As we had
no coal, and in winter it froze in every house in
Saranac Lake when the mercury fell below zero
at night, it became evident I should have to keep
my guinea-pigs, as I did my potatoes, below
ground. I had a big hole dug in my yard, and
its imprint is still visible near where the Sara-
nac Laboratory now stands. I put a kerosene
lamp in this little cellar to heat it, and kept my
guinea-pigs in boxes on wooden shelves in this
place. This, though most inconvenient when
the animals had to be handled or treated, turned
out to answer fairly well. The rabbits I kept
in warm hutches outside.

As I was busy all this time working out the
application of the new method of treatment in

(204)

pulmonary tuberculosis on patients at the Sani-
tarium, I naturally began to wonder, if tuberculosis
was a germ disease and the germs had already
gained access to the body, how a change of climate,
rest, fresh air and food could influence the dis-
ease. In seeking an experimental answer to this
question I decided on the following experiment:

Lot I, of five rabbits, were inoculated with
pure cultures and put under the best surroundings
of light, food and air attainable.

Lot 2, of five rabbits, inoculated at the same
time and in the same way, were put under the
worst conditions of environment I could devise:
and

Lot 3, of five rabbits, were put under similar
bad conditions without being inoculated.

Lot I, I turned loose on a little island in front
of my camp at Paul Smith's, where they ran wild
all summer in the fresh air and sunshine, and were
provided with abundant food. Lot 2 and Lot 3
were put in a dark, damp place where the air
was bad, confined in a small box and fed insuffi-
ciently. The results showed that of the rabbits
allowed to run wild under good conditions, all,
with one exception, recovered. Of Lot 2, the
same as Lot I, but put in unfavorable surround-
ings, four rabbits died within three months and
the organs showed extensive tuberculosis. Lot 3,
uninoculated animals, were then killed and, though
emaciated, they showed no tuberculous disease.

This showed me conclusively that bad sur-

(205)

roundings of themselves could not produce tuber-
culosis, and that when once the germs had gained
access to the body the course of the disease was
greatly influenced by a favorable or an unfavor-
able environment. The essence of sanitorium
treatment was a favorable environment so far
as climate, fresh air, food, and the regulation of
the patient's habits were concerned, and I felt
greatly encouraged as to the soundness of the
method of treatment the Sanitarium represented,
even though it did not aim directly at the destruc-
tion of the germ.

As we look back thirty years it is curious to
see how the many widely heralded specific methods
aimed at the destruction of the germ in the
tissues have proved futile and are now forgotten,
and how the simple principles of treatment repre-
sented by the first little Sanitarium cottage have
survived, have saved and prolonged many lives,
and are constantly being applied more and~rnore
extensively and intelligently all over the world.

Dr. Alfred Loomis had always been very friendly
to me and had always taken an interest in my work,
both at the Sanitarium and in my little labora-
tory. I had a new proof of this when he wrote me
in the fall of 1886 that he had presented my name
for membership in two societies — the American
Climatological Association and the Association
of American Physicians; that I had been elected
to both, and that he wanted me to write a paper
for the Climatological Association which met in

(206)

Baltimore the following May (1887). I had never
belonged to any medical society or attended
medical meetings, but I was much pleased at
Dr. Loomis's interest and decided to write a short
paper for the Climatological Association, describ-
ing the influence of extremes of environment on
my inoculated rabbits. In the winter I wrote
the paper, which was entitled, " Environment in
its Relation to the Progress of Bacterial Invasion
in Tuberculosis," and we went to town in May
so that I might be present at the meeting of the
Climatological Association.

I left my wife and children in New York and
went down on the afternoon train to Baltimore
with Dr. Loo mis. It was the beginning of
June, and terribly hot when we reached Baltic
more that evening. I hardly slept at all that
night. I don't think this was entirely due to the
heat, however, as I was beginning to dread the
idea of speaking in public before a large audience
of doctors, and I am sure this kept me awake.
The next day it was just as hot and I could eat
no breakfast. I went to the meeting and found
a large hall packed with medical men. I sat next
to Dr. Loomis and listened to the papers on the
program, but it seemed a long session and the
dread of having to speak before such an audience
increased.

It was almost time for my paper when I began
to feel dizzy and faint. I leaned over to Dr.
Loomis and said, "Doctor, I feel badly." He

(207)

turned around and looked at me and said, "Get
up and go out." I tried to, but just before I got
to the door darkness overtook me and I fainted.
The next thing I remember I was lying on the
floor in the hall just outside of the meeting-room,
and I could hear the hum of the voices. Dr.
Loomis was leaning over me and saying, "Where
is your paper?" I gave it to him, and then lay
there in a sort of half-conscious state listening
to Dr. Loomis's strong voice as he read my paper.
Then came loud applause, and soon Dr. Loomis
came back and handed me the paper and said,
"That was a good paper." Other men crowded
around me and shook hands with me, and spoke
of the paper and hoped I was feeling all right
again. I got on my feet and walked out into the
street while somebody held my arm, and I soon
began to feel much better.

That was my first experience at a medical
meeting and the way I read my first paper. I
was thoroughly ashamed of myself, but there
was no help for what had happened, and I tried
to lay my fainting entirely to the excessive heat.
I found some comfort, however, later in the fact
that my paper was noticed by many of the medical
journals in this country, and that abstracts of
it appeared in two or three of the well-known
medical publications abroad.

When I got back to New York that night I
vowed I would never go to a medical meeting
again, but I have done so nevertheless on very

(208)

many occasions. I was a long time overcoming
my stage-fright when speaking in public, and
and I am not so sure that I have quite done so yet.
The last time I spoke in public was in strange
contrast to my first experience. In May, 1910,
I delivered the presidential address in Washington
at the Congress of American Physicians and Sur-
geons, and although I was very ill and miserable
with fever and had to get out of bed to do it,
the warmth of the reception accorded me by my
professional brethren from all over the United
States so overwhelmed me that I was not at all
aware of any nervousness, and have looked back
on that evening as one of the red-letter experiences
of my life.

It was at the meeting of the Climatological
Association, where I fainted, that I first met Dr.
William Osier and Dr. William H. Welch, and
subsequently I came in contact with both of
them when I attended the meetings of the Asso-
ciation of American Physicians in Washington,
and when our visits to Dr. Thomas's home in
Baltimore became very frequent. Both of these
great physicians, who had already made reputa-
tions which were not confined to this country,
took an interest in my experimental work and
from the first gave me their advice and support.
Dr. Welch, who had worked in Koch's labora-
tory, took a special interest in my attempts to
cultivate the tubercle bacillus, and it was a proud

(209)

day for me when I sent him a tube containing a
pure culture of the germ for demonstration to
the students at the Johns Hopkins Medical
School. This I continued to do for several years.

Dr. Osier was also keenly interested in my
sanitarium experiment and always gave the
obscure and struggling little institution the sup-
port of his approval. In the first edition of his
famous Practice of Medicine, published in 1893,
he did not hesitate to refer approvingly to the
Adirondack Cottage Sanitarium and the principles
of treatment it stood for. The support of his
great name no doubt did much to attract atten-
tion to its work both here and abroad.

When the National Association for the Study
and Prevention of Tuberculosis, in which Dr.
Osier was so prominent, was formed, I met him
regularly at the early committee meetings, and
it was no doubt greatly through his influence
that I was elected the first president of this
splendid national movement against tuberculosis.
It was another red-letter day in my life when,
at the first meeting of this National Association,
in Washington on May 18, 1905, I stood on the
platform with Dr. Osier and Dr. Hermann M.
Biggs and addressed the great, earnest body of
physicians and laymen before me.

I only hope that the wonderful spirit of enthu-
siasm and unity which animated that meeting may
survive many years, and that selfish motives and
medical politics may not prevent this great asso-

(210)

ciation from accomplishing its magnificent destiny
for the relief of suffering humanity.

When I got back to Saranac Lake, humbled
by my fiasco in attempting to read my paper in
Baltimore, though I fully resolved never to
attempt to read another paper at a medical meet-
ing, I was just as keen as ever to continue work
in my little laboratory. For awhile I kept on with
the same idea of trying to kill the living germs by
antiseptic substances in the tissues of infected
animals, and besides I tested experimentally
the new "cures" founded on the same principle
which were beginning to be advocated in the
medical papers for the treatment of tuberculous
patients. I tested in animals sulphuretted hydro-
gen and the vapor of hydrofluoric acid, both of
which had been put forward as killing the bacilli
and curing the disease, and the result of my
experiments proved that sulphuretted hydrogen
would not kill the bacilli, even when they were
brought in direct contact with it in its undiluted
form and for long periods of time; and that
inhalations of hydrofluoric acid had no effect
in destroying the germs in inoculated animals.
I also found that the hot-air inhalations which
were proposed as a means of killing the germs in
the patients' lungs had no effect whatever in
destroying the bacillus. These observations I
published at once, and they no doubt helped to
relegate these supposed cures to deserved oblivion.

(211)

I began to realize about this time that the
direct destruction of the germ in the tissues by
germicides was a hopeless proposition and, inspired
by Pasteur's work on anthrax, chicken cholera
and hydrophobia, I sought to produce immunity
in my animals by dead germs, or preventive
inoculations of substances derived from the liquid
cultures from which the bacilli had been filtered.
I published the results of this work in the New
York Medical Record as early as November 22,
1890, describing my experiments in detail, and
giving as my conclusions that neither the dead
germs nor the soluble poisonous substances derived
from liquid cultures of the tubercle bacillus pro-
tected rabbits and guinea-pigs against subsequent
inoculations.

My publication of this work at this early date
seems especially interesting, because it was in
August, 1890, that Robert Koch, at the Inter-
national Congress in Berlin, announced his dis-
covery of a substance which he stated would
completely immunize guinea-pigs against subse-
quent inoculations with tubercle bacilli, and
would cure the disease in human beings. He did
not give out until January, 1891, that this sub-
stance was a boiled glycerin extract of the tubercle
bacillus, which he called tuberculin, and which is
practically the same substance as my filtrate of
liquid cultures of the tubercle bacillus with which
I had failed to immunize my animals.

It would be hard to exaggerate the intense

(212)

excitement that pervaded the little colony of
invalids at Saranac Lake when Koch's first
announcement of his specific was published in
the daily press, and I had all I could do to prevent
several of my patients from rushing over to Berlin
at once to be cured. Mr. George Cooper offered
to send me to Berlin and pay my expenses, but
Dr. Prudden, who knew the conditions advised
me not to go and I took his advice.

The first tuberculin I received came in a small
glass bulb and was sent me by Dr. Osier, who,
with his usual generosity, shared with me the
first bottle of the priceless fluid he had just
received from Germany. This small bulb, which
was supposed to contain a liquid capable of giving
life to hopeless invalids, was gazed at with deep
emotion by many.

I at once began the injections on a few selected
cases at the Sanitarium, and watched the results
with keenest interest. Koch had not at that time
revealed the nature of his specific. Had I but
known that the precious fluid was a glycerin
extract of the tubercle bacillus, I could have
carried out my observations on a much larger
scale, for in my little laboratory many flasks of
liquid cultures of the tubercle bacillus were
growing.

The bitter disappointment which within a few
months followed the failure of Koch's treatment to
bring about the miraculous cures which were
expected from it was shown very soon in a wide-

(213)

spread and violent condemnation of the remedy,
and for many years I had the utmost difficulty
in obtaining the consent of patients and their
physicians to the most cautious use of the injec-
tions. Nevertheless, so great was my faith in
Koch, so convinced was I that whatever degree
of immunization could be produced must be
attainable by the poison of the germ or the germ
itself, and so impressed had I already become
with what I had seen of the specific effect of tuber-
culin on animals and at the bedside, that I con-
tinued its study in the Laboratory and its cautious
use in patients who were willing to submit to
the treatment. Thus it came about that through
many long years, during which the bitter preju-
dice against Koch's specific remedy continued
unabated, tuberculin has been used continuously
and cautiously at the Sanitarium ever since Dr.
Osier's little vial of magic fluid reached Saranac
Lake in 1890.

Today tuberculin is a treatment that, though
still on trial, may be said to have won a place
analogous to that held by many other vaccines
employed in chronic infections. By its intelli-
gent use some of the latent defensive resources
of the living organism may be successfully stimu-
lated in chronic cases, when the disease tends to
localize and the infected individual is still capable
of responding to the stimulation, and an arrest
of the onward progress brought about.

To what may we ascribe the fact that tuber-

(214)

culin as a specific remedy for tuberculosis has
not fulfilled the expectations of its distinguished
discoverer? That Dr. Koch at the time of the
International Congress had been pressed to make
an announcement based on conclusions which he
had been obliged to frame on evidence which as
yet was insufficient, seemed at first very possible.
This can hardly have been the case, later, however,
as in his "T. R. " paper published in 1897, he
reiterates his assertion as to the immunizing
effect of the new tuberculin on guinea-pigs in
no uncertain words: "I succeeded in rendering
a large number of guinea-pigs completely immune,
so that they submitted to repeated inoculations
with various cultures without being infected."
If we look into the animal evidence on which
Koch's claims of the immunizing and curative
value are based, those of us who have tried to
follow in his footsteps are struck with the fact
that in his tuberculin communications he departs
from the rigid methods of presenting scientific
evidence which in his previous work he had always
adhered to so strictly, and does not give the details
of experiments in immunizing or healing guinea-
pigs. In a matter of such crucial importance this
is greatly to be regretted, for without such details
it is difficult for others to repeat his work and
verify his favorable conclusions, and this is the
corner-stone on which the value of tuberculin
as a specific is founded.

As a matter of fact, up to the present time all

(215)

other observers who have repeated my early
attempts have failed, as I did, to produce a real
immunity in guinea-pigs by any method; and if
ever this can be done successfully we may begin to
think the great specific, so patiently and ardently
sought, has at last been discovered.

In 1908, as president for America at the Inter-
national Congress on Tuberculosis held in Wash-
ington, I had the great privilege of sitting next
to Dr. Robert Koch and telling him how excellent
his work must have been to enable a tyro like
myself, under such unfavorable circumstances and
guided only by the accuracy and clearness of his
descriptions as gleaned from a pen-written abstract,
to repeat all his cultural and inoculation experi-
ments on which his great discovery of the tubercle
bacillus as the cause of tuberculosis was based —
a discovery of such far-reaching importance to
humanity. He seemed much amused at my
description of the home-made apparatus and the
makeshifts I was obliged to make use of.

(216)

XVII

IN December, 1892, a slender and pale young
man rang my door-bell one morning and told me
he was a doctor, had contracted tuberculosis,
and wanted to go to the Sanitarium. Little
did I know then how much the coming of this
strange young man would mean to me personally,
to my work, to Saranac Lake, and to the world
at large! He told me his name was Edward R.
Baldwin, that he was from New Haven; and
when I asked what made him think he had tuber-
culosis, he quite floored me by his answer: that
he had used his microscope and knew he had it.
Truly Koch's teaching was beginning to bring
practical results. I admitted him to the Sani-
tarium.

Through many long years of friendly fellow-
ship, through many long years of work side by
side, through many long years of physical misery
and suffering my debt to Dr. Baldwin has steadily
grown, until it has become a debt which I can
never hope to repay but by affection and grati-
tude; a coin in which many debts, I find, are
paid to him, because it is a coin he cannot possibly
refuse to accept. Riches, fame and praise he

(217)

scorns, but he cannot escape the heritage of
affection and gratitude he so unconsciously and
abundantly calls forth.

Dr. Baldwin had to wait six weeks before he
could get into the Sanitarium, as the waiting list
which has grown to be a permanent feature of
the institution was beginning to develop even
then. At my invitation he came to the Labora-
tory the day after he arrived in town, and offered
to help me there in any way. I was overjoyed
to find such a congenial companion. A well-
educated physician who wanted to work in my
laboratory was a find for me indeed; for not
only could he help me with the work, but I could
discuss my experiments and my problems with
him, and this proved to be an unfailing common
interest to us both. Dr. Baldwin in those days,
of course, knew even less than I did about the
new science of bacteriology, and I gladly taught
him all I knew; and as gladly does he teach me
now the latest advances in a branch of medical
science in which he is an expert and an acknowl-
edged authority. Many happy hours did we
spend working in the Laboratory together; and
now that I cannot work with him any more he
brings to my bedside the latest literature, and
tells me of the work he and the others are
doing.

Dr. Baldwin soon became a more or less constant
presence in my little laboratory, and I learned to
lean more and more on him until the time came

(218)

when I finally turned this branch of my work over
to him entirely.

Until Dr. Baldwin's arrival in Saranac Lake
I had had no one to discuss my work with, and
I had no help of any kind but the manual assis-
tance of a poor Irish patient of mine, John Quinlan.
John was a character. He was a most pompous
and solemn individual. He had three serious
diseases which he bore uncomplainingly — epi-
lepsy, tuberculosis, and a well-known blood dis-
ease ; but except when he fell in a fit in the labora-
tory he was able to do light work, and did it
most conscientiously. I could always rely upon
his doing what I told him to do. He delivered
messages to the letter, washed the glass, cleaned
the instruments, fed and cared for the animals,
kept the temperature regulated in the little
thermostat when I was away for a long time;
and though solemn as an owl, and a regular watch-
dog about keeping people out of the Laboratory,
he was always willing and contented to work.
I think he had a most indefinite idea as to what
I was trying to do and what it was all about, but
he kept his counsel. I came in once to find a
farmer, who wanted to sell me potatoes for the
animals, waiting for me in the Laboratory. He
had tried to extract some information from John
as to what all the pots and pans and bottles and
thermostats meant, but John had considered
such a man too much beneath him to give him
the least information. Finally the farmer turned

(219)

to me and said, "Be you taking photographs?"
John never cracked a smile, but I did! One
day I sent a doctor from Paul Smith's, who wanted
to see some of my experiments, with a card to
John. On his return he told me he asked John
how the animals got along, and John's answer
was, "They do do pretty well, sir, until the
Doctor begins to fool with them!" Truly a
satire on science, and ammunition for the anti-
vivisectionist !

Twelve years had passed since the birth of a
baby had blessed our household, when in 1887
another little boy arrived. The prospect of
bringing up another baby was not very alluring.
Chatte and Ned were now well grown and an
addition to our little family could hardly help
disturbing long-established habits both of thought
and behavior. But Providence plays strange
tricks: and it is not always given to us to perceive
in today's trial the comfort of tomorrow. The
new baby was called Francis, after my brother,
and became, as is usual under such circumstances,
the pet of the household. And now that death
has taken the others, that illness has laid its
heavy hand upon me, and advancing years have
made us aware that the sun is setting for us and
the end of the road is growing rough and dark,
the not over-welcome baby, who has become the
rugged, six-foot-four man, is our main interest and
a good prop to lean on.

(220)

As we look out over the stretches of the long
journey of life, on which for us

Pleasure and pain

Have followed each other

Like sunshine and rain,

in the far distance we see another baby, Francis's
tiny baby boy, his smiling face set to the glowing
dawn, starting out over the same road we have
traversed, to meet the changes we have met on
our pilgrimage.

We are told " It is an ill wind that blows nobody
good," and it may have been an "ill wind"
for Dr. H. M. Thomas that blew him to the
Adirondacks, broken in health, in the fall of 1888;
but for the Trudeau family it proved anything
but an ill wind. As he drove up from the station
his driver almost ran over Baby Francis, who
was being pushed by his old nurse "Jeje" in his
little carriage; but after Dr. Thomas reached the
house he soon dispelled the unpleasant impression
produced by the baby's peril, and before many
days all the Trudeau family, including Jeje her-
self, was glad of his coming. This strange young
doctor with the red hair was soon quite at home
with all of us, and to my wife and to me for
twenty-seven years he has been one of our very
best friends; a friendship which has been one
of the good things to me in life — and his wife is
as dear to us as he is. One of their boys is called

(221)

Trudeau, and the days spent with the Thomases
in their Baltimore home are among the happiest
recollections we look back upon.

Soon after his arrival Dr. Thomas was knocking
the ball to Chatte on the piazza, helping my wife
in the parlor teach Francis his first steps, coasting
with Ned on the hills, hunting rabbits with me in
the daytime and working with me evenings in
the Laboratory. I have had many good friends in
my life — no man ever had better — and they have
gone deep into my heart; but none quite so deep
as Harry Thomas. Surely it is an ill wind that
blows nobody good !

Dr. Thomas was sent here by Dr. Francis Dela-
field, with a brief note ending in a sentence charac-
teristic of Dr. Delafield's summary way of occa-
sionally disposing of a case: "He has red hair
and both lungs are involved, so I think there is
no hope for him." In spite of this gloomy prog-
nosis, based on two such divergent factors, Dr.
Thomas recovered his health completely and has
practised medicine in Baltimore, and taught
neurology at the Johns Hopkins Medical School
ever since.

Many years afterward — in 1904 — the same kind
of an "ill wind" that blew Dr. Thomas to Saranac
Lake was responsible for the coming of Dr. J.
Woods Price. It proved to be a balmy breeze,
laden with sunshine and cheer and comfort so
far as Saranac Lake and the Trudeau family
were concerned. Dr. Price's coming has brought

(222)

joy to those who are well and been a benediction
to the sick, and the health he so quickly recovered
he squanders now to cheer and help others. When
the dark days of illness press heavily upon me my
wife and I turn to him constantly, and never in
vain.

(223)

XVIII

ON October 3, 1887, Robert Louis Stevenson came
to Saranac Lake for his health, accompanied
by his mother and Lloyd Osbourne, and remained
until April 18, 1888. The little village has had
perhaps no more illustrious visitor — or at least
none in whom the public took a deeper interest —
than Robert Louis Stevenson; and Andrew
Baker's cottage on the outskirts of the village,
where he spent the fall and winter of 1 887-1 888,
has become an object of historical interest. It is
now proposed to put up at the Baker cottage some
tablet or memorial to make a permanent record
of the famous writer's stay here.

It was while here that Mr. Stevenson wrote
some of his best essays — Pulvis et Umbra, The
Lantern Bearers, A Christmas Sermon, and some
portions of The Master of Ballantrae.

Mr. Stevenson was my patient, but as he was
not really ill while here I had comparatively few
professional calls to make on him. He was so
attractive, however, in conversation, that I found
myself, as it was growing dark, very often seated
by the big fireplace in the Baker cottage having
a good talk with my illustrious patient.

(225)

Mr. Stevenson was very democratic in his
ideas, simple in his mode of life, and disliked dress-
parade entertainments and the restraints and glitter
of society etiquette, as the following anecdotes will
show. My friends the Coopers, who lived very
handsomely in New York, had surrounded them-
selves with some of their home comforts. They
had brought up their old butler from town, and
some silver, and the sisters tried to make the
Saranac Lake atmosphere as much as possible like
the New York home life to which the sick brother
was accustomed. I remember on one occasion
I went to dine there with Mr. Stevenson, and
Mrs. Custer, the wife of General Custer, was the
only other guest besides my wife. When dinner
was announced, as we walked through the hall
we got a glimpse of the dining-room table, which
was set as usual with lighted candles and their
colored shades, with flowers, glittering glassware
and silver. I thought it a very attractive pros-
pect, but Mr. Stevenson, who walked by my side,
took my arm and said: "This sort of thing always
gives me stage-fright; does it affect you that way? "

We had a most interesting dinner, as can be
imagined. Mrs. Custer and Mr. Stevenson were
both well worth listening to. I couldn't help
smiling, though, when in the course of conversa-
tion Stevenson remarked that a certain acquain-
tance of his was so timid that he thought he would
be "afraid of a mouse." Mrs. Custer said, "Of
Mr. Stevenson, I am deadly afraid of a mouse!"

(226)

Yet Mrs. Custer's experience .on the plains had
given ample proof that she was afraid of neither
Indians nor death!

All the visitors in Saranac Lake were anxious
to meet Stevenson, and I think in order to relieve
him of the annoyance of frequent calls, Lloyd
Osbourne gave out that the great writer would
see callers on Saturday afternoons between four
and five o'clock. Our friends, the Cooper ladies
and Miss Folger, joined my wife and me on the
first Saturday after this, and we all went to call
at the Baker cottage together. When we knocked
at the front door a voice from within called out,
"You cannot come in this way; the wood is up
against the door. Go around by the kitchen."
So we all filed in through the kitchen to the
little sitting-room with the big fireplace, where
Mr. Stevenson received us. After awhile Mr.
Osbourne asked the ladies if they would have a
cup of tea, and as they assented he departed
toward the kitchen. Soon he returned, with a
broad smile on his face: "I am sorry, but you
cannot have any tea; the cook scouts the idea!"
And we didn't have any.

We had a very pleasant call, however, and I
remained after the others to have a little profes-
sional talk with Mr. Stevenson. The visitors
all left but one enthusiastic lady, who harassed
Stevenson with all sorts of questions; but finally
he escorted her to the door and bowed her out.

I noticed he shut the door rather forcibly, and

( 227 )

then he strode up to me, put his face very near
mine, and said with much emphasis, "Trudeau,
it is not the great unwashed whom I dread; it
is the great washed!"

Mr. Stevenson and I had many interesting and
at times heated discussions by the fireplace in
the sitting-room. It was really a great privilege
to meet him in this informal way, and even if we
didn't always agree, the impression of his striking
personality, his keen insight into life, his wondrous
idealism, his nimble intellect and his inimitable
vocabulary in conversation, has grown on me more
and more as the years roll by. It is hardly to be
wondered at that we did not agree on many topics,
for our interests and our points of view on many
subjects were utterly at variance. My life interests
were bound up in the study of facts, and in the
Laboratory I bowed daily to the majesty of fact,
wherever it might lead. Mr. Stevenson's view
was to ignore or avoid as much as possible
unpleasant facts, and live in a beautiful, strenuous
and ideal world of fancy. He didn't care to go
to the Sanitarium with me or see the Laboratory,
because to him these were unpleasant things.
He evidently felt this, for, after he had written
The Lantern Bearers, I got him one day into
the Laboratory, from which he escaped at the
first opportunity with the words, "Trudeau,
your light may be very bright to you, but to me
it smells of oil like the Devil!" On the other
hand, I know quite well I could not discuss intel-

(228)

ligently with him the things he lived among and
the masterly work he produced, because I was
incompetent to appreciate to the full the wonderful
situations his brilliant mind evolved, and the
high literary merit of the works in which he de-
scribed the flights of his great genius.

To a temperament like Stevenson's, who shrank
from the cruel and inexorable facts of life —
disease, suffering and death — which were part
of my daily existence, and who lived in an ideal
world painted and peopled by his own vivid
imagination, I represented, I am afraid, a not
very cheerful or inspiring companion. He could
not, as I could, look over and beyond these pain-
ful associations with which I lived in daily contact
at the Sanitarium and the Laboratory, and see,
as I did in my ideals, the glorious hope of future
relief to humanity from sickness, suffering and
death which lay in the study of disease at the
bedside, and of infection and germs and sick
animals in the Laboratory. This was the light
which was so bright to me that I never noticed
the smell of oil which overcame Stevenson.

Nevertheless we were excellent friends, and I
regret constantly that I didn't make more of my
opportunities of intimate contact with a man
whose writings have meant so much to the world.

When he left Saranac Lake he sent me a beau-
tiful set of his works which he had had bound with
a special binding for me, and in each book he
had written in his own hand a verse dedicating

( 229 )

the volume to some member of my family and to
me, and even to my dog Nig.

In Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde he had written:

Trudeau was all the winter at my side:
I never spied the nose of Mr. Hyde.

To Mrs. Trudeau he had dedicated The Dyna-
miter in these words:

As both my wife and I composed the thing,
Let's place it under Mrs. Trudeau's wing.

To my daughter, Virginibus Puerisque, in these
words:

I have no art to please a lady's mind,

Here's the least acid spot,

Miss Trudeau, of the lot.
If you'd just try this volume, 'twould be kind!

To Ned, Treasure Island, in these words:

I could not choose a patron for each one:
But this, perhaps, is chiefly for your son.

To the baby (Francis), A Child's Garden of
Verse, in these words:

To win your lady (if, alas, it may be),

Let's couple this one with the name of Baby!

And to Nig, Memories and Portraits, in these
words:

Greeting to all your household, small and big,
In this one instance, not forgetting — Nig!

This invaluable gift, alas, was destroyed when
my house and laboratory were burned to the
ground in 1893.

(230)

XIX

THE arrival of the new baby was a Godsend to
us before many years, as sickness, sorrow and
death were soon to cast their dark shadow on our
household.

Chatte was a strong, athletic girl, with a vig-
orous body and eyes as black as coal. She was very
fond of rowing, tennis, riding horseback and all
violent exercise, and had never shown any sign
of illness. Ned was slighter, but very wiry and
active. We had had either a tutor or a governess
for the two children, but when Chatte reached
the age of sixteen my wife and I decided she
should have more opportunities in her education
and in coming in contact with other young people,
and so in the fall of 1887 we sent her to a girls'
school in New York City.

At first her letters and the accounts we received
showed us she was homesick and not very happy,
but in January she wrote she didn't feel well
and our friends said her appetite had fallen off
and that she had indigestion. I laid all this
to the confinement of school and city life, but
as she did not seem to get any better I began
to be anxious, and finally wrote her to come

(231)

home for Easter and let me take a look at her.
I met her at the train and brought her home, and
In ever shall forget the shock her appearance
gave me. From a plump, robust young woman
she had changed to a pale, listless girl, and as she
went upstairs to see her mother I went into my
office and shut the door. The terrible truth
flashed upon me as I remembered how my brother
appeared when he was taken ill and came to see
me in Newport. I knew it was the same old story,
and I felt stunned and had to wait a long time to
get hold of myself again before joining the family
circle. I at once made up my mind I must know
the truth, and alarm her as little as possible.
It was my responsibility and I could share it with
no one, so I did a piece of acting that day which
I shall never forget, with a smile on my face and
a breaking heart; for before night I knew the
truth in all its shocking details. And yet no one
in the school, none of our friends who saw her
constantly, had suspected it! I told my wife at
once. I have always told her everything, and we
have always borne together whatever we have had
to bear. As usual, in spite of the terrible shock,
she was calm and hopeful. For some mysterious
reason I was much less so. I felt from the first
this was the same type of disease my brother
had; the type that progresses rapidly and against
which treatment is of no avail.

After Chatte's return home my wife and I
were drawn closer together than ever by our

(232)

common and ever-present grief, as for nearly
three years we watched helplessly her young life
fade away under the relentless attacks of her
disease. To be cheerful and always helpful to her
was our first thought, and she tried to spare us
by hiding her feelings; but she understood only
too well, poor child, the meaning of her symptoms,
and the yearning for life and its joy was as strong
in her as it ever is in the young. During these
sad years of Chatte's struggle for life my wife
and I ever lived with heavy hearts, though we
tried to show her only smiling faces. It was
easier for me, because I had to work. I had to
listen to the daily appeals of the sick, I had to
keep the work at the Sanitarium and Laboratory
going, and to that extent I could forget. But for
my wife it was much harder, for she was almost
always with Chatte, always trying to guide her
in her daily life, amusing her, reading to her,
trying to make her forget; and I was lost in
wonder and admiration as I watched her through
these long, trying years, always serene, helpful
and cheerful, though I often knew that her heart
was breaking.

The following summer we spent at Paul Smith's,
and Chatte was a little better, but after we
returned to Saranac Lake the fever gradually
became higher and more continuous. In the
spring she was so ill we decided that we could
not go over to our camp at Paul Smith's as usual,
and that I could not leave her as frequently as I

(233)

should have to do if I had all the practice at St.
Regis and the work at Saranac Lake to look after;
so we took a cottage near the Ampersand Hotel
and spent the summer there.

To make matters worse at this trying time
Francis came down with whooping-cough and i
caught it from him, so during all the spring and
summer I went about hanging on to anything
I could reach when the strangling paroxysms
seized me.

Our troubles taught me, however, how many
and how good were the friends we had, and there
is absolutely nothing they did not offer to do,
or actually do, to try to help us. In one instance,
a dear friend, Miss Kinney Kirby, actually left
her New York home the first winter of Chatte's
illness and took charge of the little infirmary at
the Sanitarium, ostensibly to relieve me there, but
principally that she might be near to help us with
our invalid. The following winter, when for a long
time Chatte was so very ill, Miss Kirby remained
in Saranac Lake and nursed her night and day
when we would allow her to. The doctors in New
York and Saranac Lake, and especially my good
friend, Dr. Baldwin, did all that tender helpfulness
could do to help and comfort us.

The last winter of Chatte's life she suffered
so constantly that it was a terrible strain to us
all. As I worked in the little laboratory I could
always hear her constant and harassing cough,
and for the last three months of her life my wife

(234)

and I were with her for some part of every night.
My one consolation was that with drugs I could
relieve her when necessary, but it was a terrible
strain to withhold the relief when we thought it
unwise to give it. She died on the night of March
20, 1893, and after she had gone my wife and
I, though stunned by the blow we had been ex-
pecting so long, could not but be thankful that her
suffering was at an end.

We decided to have the funeral at St. Luke's,
and lay Chatte in the little churchyard at St.
Regis by the side of the baby, who was sleeping
there under a little white cross.

I was worn out mentally and physically, and
the night before the funeral I could not sleep.
So, although it was quite dark, I got up at half-
past five o'clock, went down to my little labora-
tory and tried to busy myself with things there.
At six- thirty I heard the whistle of the train, and
I put on my hat and went out for a little fresh
air. The snow lay deep over the sleeping village
and the street was deserted. It was quite dark,
but life seemed to me still darker. As I looked
at the gloomy prospect I saw a tall figure walking
rapidly toward me, and in a moment my good
friend, Dr. Hodenpyl, whom I first met in Dr.
Prudden's laboratory, was shaking my hand. He
had read the notice of Chatte's death in the
paper the afternoon before while at the College
laboratory, and had decided to come up at once

on the night train, drive over to St. Regis with

( 235 )

us and return to New York from there. He told
me he thought other people had come up and gone
to the hotel, and after breakfast Mr. and Mrs.
Bayard Smith, my wife's cousins, who had come
to attend the funeral, arrived at the house.

The funeral was at St. Luke's, just across the
street, and some of the young men who were
Chatte's friends carried the coffin, covered with
flowers, from the house to the altar. We started
for St. Regis in sleighs as soon as the ceremony
was over. The snow was four feet deep on the
level and drifted in many places, and the drive
over was a trying one. Six strong men had to
walk by the coffin and steady it when drifts were
encountered by the struggling horses. As we
neared St. Regis I could not but go back in
memory to the trying trip through the snow from
Malone in January, 1875, when Chatte was
brought in Annie Gaffney's arms to St. Regis;
and she was now being carried in her coffin through
the same deep drifts, to the same place, to sleep
the "long sleep" by the little log church where she
had worshipped all through her innocent young
life. These were the surroundings amid which
she had lived and which she had loved. I felt
she would rest more peacefully under the tall
pines than anywhere else, and a great peace seemed
to come to me with the thought that "all is well
with the child. "

When we reached the little log church again
we met evidences of the love of those who had

(236)

known her in life. Paul Smith and his two sons,
Phelps and Paul, now grown to be men, were
waiting there with many of the St. Regis guides,
to carry the coffin to its last resting place. They
had cut evergreen boughs and covered the snow
from the church to the grave, so that the little
journey was made over this green lawn, and the
grave itself was a bed of fragrant balsam and
cedar, into which Paul and his sons helped to
lower the flower-covered coffin.

My wife and I sat silently as we drove home
through the darkness and the deep snow, and I
derived some comfort from repeating to myself
these words: "What I do thou knowest not now,
but thou shalt know hereafter."

(237)

XX

DURING these years so full of sadness to our
household, the work at the Sanitarium had
steadily progressed. From 1889 to 1894 nine
new cottages were built. These were given by
Mr. Thomas Stokes, Mr. Nathan Straus, an
anonymous giver, K. M. M., Mr. George Dodge,
Mr. Wm. W. McAlpin, Mrs. Alfred Loomis, and
Mr. Wm. Hall Penfold and Miss Josephine
Penfold. An open-air pavilion for recreation,
amusement and billiards, was presented to the
institution by Mrs. Anson Phelps Stokes, and
an infirmary cottage, where the very ill could
be taken and properly nursed and cared for, was
given by Mrs. John H. Hall. A small five-year
laboratory fund was established by two anony-
mous givers, a library wing was added to the
Main Building by the brothers and sisters of
Mr. Charles Kahnweiler as a memorial to him,
and a large cottage for the Resident Physician
was built in 1893.

The acquisition of the Infirmary cottage and
the home for the Resident Physician was a great
help in the development of the medical work of
the Sanitarium. Whatever physician we could

(239)

procure had hitherto had a room and his office
in the Main Building. This did well enough
for a bachelor or for a doctor who made a short
stay, but a home for the Resident Physician had
become a necessity. I felt much relieved when
Dr. Irwin H. Hance and his wife moved into
the cottage, and I knew that the patients would
be constantly under his medical supervision,
and that if he did not get any salary to speak of —
three hundred dollars a year — he at any rate had
a comfortable home.

The Infirmary, too, was a great blessing and
enabled us to care properly for sick patients and
nurse them more conveniently. It was this
infirmary that my friend Miss Kirby took charge
of in 1892. When she asked me if she could take
the place I thought it was a mere temporary act
of devotion with her which she would soon weary
of, and told her so, but said I was perfectly willing
she should try it. I called at the Infirmary soon
after she arrived, and found her carrying pails
and meal-trays, and washing the face and hands
of a big Irishman who had hemorrhages, as if
she had never done anything else all her life. I
began then to think she was in earnest, and indeed
she was. At the sacrifice of personal comfort,
without money and without price, she did that
winter all the nursing of the Infirmary up to the
full time of her proposed stay, and was a real
help and comfort to me as well as to all the patients
she cared for.

(240)

Last fall our little new Training School for
Tuberculosis Nurses at the Sanitarium graduated
its first pupils, and I presented the diplomas.
Curiously enough, Miss Kirby, whom I had not
seen for years, turned up in Saranac Lake on a
visit the day before, so I took her up to the
graduating exercises with me. As I spoke to the
nurses of the early days of the Sanitarium and the
difficulties I had had to meet to get the nursing
done, I told them of the lady who had volunteered
to come up and nurse the bed-ridden patients
at the Infirmary so many years ago, thus inaug-
urating the nursing at the Sanitarium, of which
the Training School was the outcome; and I
added, "This lady is with us today and sitting
right behind me." Miss Kirby was covered with
confusion, but I was glad she could be present
and see what had developed from her disinterested
work so many years ago.

Our first little Infirmary soon came under the
care of Miss Ruth Collins, who presided over it
for years, until it became too small for our needs
and we moved into the beautiful Childs Memorial,
a gift of Mr. Otis H. Childs, of Pittsburgh, to his
wife's memory, where the sick have been cared
for, with every convenience and in the utmost
comfort, ever since. Miss Collins for years
presided over the Childs Memorial Infirmary,
and did devoted and excellent work there for
the sick, who all loved her. I learned much of
the practical workings of the gospel of unselfish-

(241)

ness from her. Indeed, my associates and subor-
dinates have taught me many valuable lessons
in the great things of life.

One morning Miss Collins came into my office
and told me she had a favor to ask of me: would
I grant it? I said I certainly would if I could.
She knew a sick man in the village who had been
struggling for three years to regain his health,
and now he was failing rapidly; he had not a
dollar, he had no friends. Dr. Baldwin had told
her he could not live over two or three months.
She knew very well I did not like to take hopeless
cases at the Infirmary, for it did much to depress
others, and such cases could as well be cared for
elsewhere. She would put this man in her own
room and bed, where he would not come in
contact with the other patients, and she would
sleep on the lounge in the sitting-room. It would
not interfere with her work. I told her to do as
she wished, and for three months she slept on the
lounge and cared for this poor fellow until he
died. When I went upstairs that day I said to
my wife, "I used to think I tried at times to do
my share for the consumptive, but certainly I
had never thought of getting out of my bed and
room and caring for months for a dyirg man
while I slept on a lounge!"

As early as 1880 when I sat on the old fox
runway and first dreamed of the possibility of
building a little institution for tuberculous pa-
tients, the only idea I had in my mind was to

(242)

help financially the poorer class of invalids who
could not afford to stay in Saranac Lake. In
other words, I wanted to put within reach of
others the same opportunity for restoration tp
health which I had enjoyed. As time passed and
I became familiar with Brehmer's work, I decided
to test his rest and open-air methods at the
same time that I was helping my patients finan-
cially, and thus the two main features in the policy
of the proposed institution became fixed in my
mind. It was not only to be charitable in its
intent, but it was to attempt to arrest and cure
the disease as well.

Up to the time I opened the Sanitarium no
institution had been presumptuous enough to
try to undertake anything beyond offering the
consumptive a home where he might be cared
for during his last days. For this reason all
types of cases, and patients in any stage of the
disease were admitted to those hospitals. In
fact, it was a general belief that a patient was not
to go to a consumptives' hospital until so ill
that he could no longer care for himself.

I realized at once that if I was to try to obtain
curative results I must confine the admission of
patients to incipient and favorable cases as
much as possible, and refuse to take the acute
and far-advanced ones. This brought me any
amount of criticism from physicians who thought
I was trying to make a personal reputation for
myself for cures by treating only selected cases.

(243)

Even now much dissatisfaction and bitterness
is shown against the Sanitarium by both physi-
cians and patients when the applicant is refused
admission as an unsuitable case. I have learned,
however, that unjust criticism is inevitable in
this world, and must be borne calmly so long as
one's conscience is clear.

In the early days I used to take physicians
through the Sanitarium, and after they had visited
most of the cottages they would occasionally
ask me facetiously if there was anything the
matter with any of the people I had shown them.
Nevertheless, if there is one thing we have learned
since those early days when I framed the policy
of the Sanitarium, it is that the keynote of suc-
cessful treatment is the early detection of the
disease. The tuberculin test, the X-rays and the
autopsy table all confirm the well-observed facts
which prove that after forty years of age most
human beings have at some time in their lives
had a little tuberculosis and recovered from it
without ever having been aware of its presence.
After the disease has gone beyond a certain stage,
or is of an acute type, sanatorium or any other
known treatment may prolong life, but it rarely
brings about a permanent or even a satisfactory
arrest.

Through all those years when I examined appli-
cants for the Sanitarium, the hardest thing I
had to do was to refuse patients admission; but
I persisted in so doing, because I knew that the

(244)

opportunities which the institution offered for
restoring the tuberculous to any degree of health
would be wasted unless discrimination and skill
in the selection of the cases were exercised. The
limitations of sanatorium treatment have been
recognized by State institutions and by most
sanatoria whose aim is to restore as many patients
as possible to a life of usefulness, and separate
institutions have been created for the advanced
cases.

Refusing admission was ever a sore trial to me,
as no doubt it is now to my associates who shoul-
der the onus of these thankless and unpaid exami-
nations in my place. I used to try to help those
whom I had refused, and who usually settled down
at some boarding place in the village, by seeing
them as often as possible in my office, and at their
boarding places, without making any charge.
This all grew to be a heavy burden, from which
I was relieved in time by Dr. Baldwin, Dr. Charles
C. Trembley, Dr. David C. Twichell, Dr. W.
H. Jamieson and Dr. Lawrason Brown, and later
by Dr. Brown's organization of the Examination
Office in the village.

In New York Dr. James Alexander Miller and
Dr. Linsly R. Williams have borne for many
years the thankless, unpaid and most exacting
task of examining patients for the Sanitarium,
which involves their refusal of about five out of
six applicants, and Dr. Henry James and Dr.
Frederick J. Barrett have more recently also

(245)

fallen heir to this unremunerative service in
New York to the Sanitarium. In other cities,
Dr. Francis H. Williams and Dr. Cleaveland
Floyd in Boston, Dr. J. C. Wilson in Philadelphia,
and Dr. H. M. Thomas and Dr. Louis Hamman
in Baltimore, have cheerfully shouldered the
same burden to help the tuberculous.

Besides the unpaid services which my associates
have ever rendered the rejected cases that can-
not gain admission to the Sanitarium, an agency
for their relief has for many years done noble
work for the advanced cases — a field which few
have the courage to deal with. I refer to the
Reception Hospital.

In the late nineties I had a patient, Miss Mary
R. Prescott, who has long ago become a very
dear friend to my wife and to me, and who
recovered her health completely in Saranac Lake.
With her return to health, her active mind and
warm heart chafed under the ease and enforced
inactivity of a well-to-do patient's life, and in
spite of her restored strength her spirits began tc
flag and life to seem meaningless to her. I saw at
once that what she needed was an active interest
of some kind, and as she had ample means, I
suggested that she hire a cottage, put a nurse in
charge, and start a little hospital of her own,
where a few advanced cases, and those who
were refused admission to the Sanitarium and
needed rest in bed and nursing, could be taken
and cared for at a nominal cost. I told her I

(246)

Dr. knew Baldwin and some of the other physi-
cians would gladly do the medical work; and thus
she would bring relief and encouragement to a
class of invalids in sore need of it, for whom
little or nothing was being done.

She at once became interested in the plan,
hired a cottage, placed a nurse in charge and
cared for four patients at first, at a nominal cost
to them of six or seven dollars per week. Dr.
Baldwin and some of the younger physicians
volunteered their services in visiting the patients
without remuneration; and this was the starting-
point of the Reception Hospital, which Miss
Prescott built in 1905. She raised a good share
of the funds for building and equipping the
institution by appeals to her personal friends,
and supplemented this from her own purse.
She has herself met the deficit in running expenses
ever since, asking the public to help her only to
accumulate a free-bed fund for the destitute.
Dr. E. R. Baldwin has directed the medical work
ever since the institution was opened.

The Reception Hospital is a model of its kind
in plan, construction and equipment, with its
cheery rooms, its sleeping-out porches, and its
atmosphere of home. The devoted souls who
preside over this abode of cheer and peace
are two Canadian trained nurses, Miss Sophie
Hoerner, who took charge of Miss Prescott's
first little cottage, and Miss Ethel Mathias.
Under their ministrations, many a storm-tossed

(247)

and discouraged human being has here found
welcome, cheer and good nursing, while the
doctors have ever given them most skilful medical
care. A certain number of patients, after a time,
are found to be favorable for admission to the
Sanitarium.

For the Reception Hospital, as for the Sani-
tarium, there is always a waiting list; and this
illustrates the magnitude of the tuberculosis
problem.

In the upbuilding and supporting of her admi-
rable charity, Miss Prescott's bank account has
been steadily and often heavily taxed; but her
unrest and depression have long ago vanished,
and her life of helpfulness to others has been full
of keen interest, satisfaction and peace.

During these years I did much hard medical
work, especially in the summer seasons. When the
Sanitarium and Saranac Lake began to attract the
attention of the medical profession, I was about the
only specialist in Saranac Lake until Dr. Baldwin
and some of my other associates became well
known, and all the patients, rich and poor, came
straight to my house and insisted upon seeing
me. At certain seasons almost every train would
bring someone who wanted to consult me or
wanted to go to the Sanitarium.

Saranac Lake and the Sanitarium were looked
upon as a new treatment, and a new treatment
in tuberculosis has always been synonymous
with a new hope. For this reason both the sick

(248)

and their doctors wanted to make a trial of the
climate, the Sanitarium, and the new rest methods
which I advocated.

So it came about that for several years I was
deluged with patients of all kinds. Unfortunately
I never was educated to do things with system
and I didn't know how; so I just waded in and
worked, and did all I could as best I could without
any system or in any way limiting my hours.
The result was that I no doubt slighted some
of the work in my attempt to please everybody
and see every patient whenever he wanted to
see me. I wore myself out thoroughly. I
can even now remember with dread some of
the terribly long office hours during the summer
months when I came over from Paul Smith's
for consultations.

Everybody in the village always had a curious
idea that the three months I spent at Paul Smith's
were entirely a holiday for me, but nothing was
further from the truth. For twenty-five years
I did all the summer practice at Paul Smith's
and in the camps, and though this was at times
pretty strenuous I was glad to have it, as it
helped very materially to meet the growing
expenses of my family, toward which, of course,
the Sanitarium and the Laboratory contributed
nothing.

Besides, it was from among my patients at Paul
Smith's that I made the friends who gave so
largely toward the yearly running expenses of

(249)

the Sanitarium as well as toward its growth and
development.

On two days each week I went to Saranac Lake
for consultation hours in my office, and those
two days were active indeed. After doing
what was necessary at Paul Smith's, often having
to get up at an early hour to accomplish this,
my wife and I would start at eleven o'clock in
an open buggy (I never had a top buggy), and
drive over to Saranac Lake, fourteen miles, often
through intense heat or storm, reaching there
after one o'clock. My office hour was at two,
but often by the time we arrived my waiting
room, the piazza, and even the lawn, were fre-
quently occupied by the patients. A hasty
lunch, and then five hours of office work! Rich
and poor, young and old, were in that waiting
crowd, and by seven o'clock I usually managed
to see all of them and give them some sort of
advice as to their cases and their mode of life.
I am sure toward the end of those long hours
I must have slighted my work, for I could
hardly keep my mind on the patients' cases,
and I was numb with mental and physical
exhaustion.

The waiting room, which one lady always
spoke of as my "menagerie" must have impressed
others, for on going into the patients' cottages
at the Sanitarium one day I came across an
excellent caricature of myself which a patient,
the Reverend Mr. Westcott, a brother of the

(250)

author of David Harum, had drawn. I was
depicted sitting behind a high picket fence with
a double-barreled shot-gun on my lap, waving
back an excited crowd who were all shouting
impossible questions at me about their health,
while underneath was written, "The Penalty of
Fame!" The thing struck me as so funny that
I begged it of him, and I still have it as a remem-
brance of those strenuous office hours.

Of course, through all the monotony, weariness
and pathos of the long office hours, I had many
interesting experiences, saw many queer people,
and learned much of human nature when under
the strain of disease, and often of poverty as well.
Patients often tried to deceive me and test me in
many ways. I remember once I was examining
a man, when, after he had removed his clothes,
I found his right side painted nearly black with
iodine, while only in the left lung could I find
signs of disease. I asked him why he had painted
his right side when the trouble was on the left.
His only answer was a smile and, "Well, I wanted
to see whether you would know!"

Many of the women objected to removing their
waists and undervests when I examined their
chests, and I had to plead with them, when every
moment was precious, as to the absolute necessity
of their doing so if they wanted me to find out
what was the matter. It often taxed my patience
when some middle-aged spinster, upon being
implored to "remove her things," would unbutton

(251)

the top button of her dress and then refuse to
unbutton the next until I had exhausted my
breath and eloquence, and ten or fifteen valuable
minutes had been wasted before I could begin
my examination. Fortunately the thing happened
rarely. Then occasionally, though not often, I
had the other experience. I remember once a
young woman, a reporter for some paper, who
came in after office hours were over and wanted
to be examined. I was writing at the time, was
tired and anxious to get through, so I told her
I would examine her if she would step behind me
and take off her things quickly. I kept on writing
while she began undressing behind me, and when
I turned around with my stethoscope in my ears,
she had taken off all her clothes!

I remember after one unusually long afternoon
I was tired out and irritable. I thought the last
patient had been disposed of and I was through,
when I looked out and saw a wretched man
waiting; so I opened the door, and in no very
pleasant tone told him to walk in. He was a
tall, emaciated tramp, the picture of the last
stages of pulmonary tuberculosis, and my heart
softened. He sat down, put his hands in his
pocket and stared at me.

"Be you Dr. Trudeau?" I said, "Yes." "Well
now you don't look none like a doctor; you look
like one of them bicycle fellows!" The change
in my habits from hunter to physician had not
yet made me discard the knickerbockers and

(252)

leather leggings of hunting days, and it was my
costume that called forth his remark.

"Well," I said, "what is the matter with you?"

"What is the matter with me! Why, can't
you see I am almost dead with the consumption?"

He was certainly plain spoken. He told me he
had been sent to one of the large tuberculosis
hospitals of Brooklyn.

"But I looked about me," he said, "and sized
things up a bit. There were about fifty sick
'blokes' in that ward, and after I had been there
three days and seen many carried out feet first,
I realized that that was what was going to happen
to me soon if I did not get out of that place, so I
lit out. I had heard speak in that ward of you
and Saranac Lake, and that you ran a place where
people really did get well if they wasn't too far
gone, so I made up my mind to strike out
for Saranac Lake. I hadn't a cent and I was
pretty weak, but I begged enough for a fare to
Yonkers, and when I got there I went down the
street and rang every door-bell, and begged cold
victuals until I got something to eat; but I was
soon rounded up and put in the poor-house. When
they had looked me over, however, they made
up their minds I was likely to die on their hands,
and that it would be cheaper to buy me a ticket
to the next place and let me die on someone else's
hands, so they gave me a ticket and packed me
off, and in that way I finally got here. Now what
can you do for me, Doctor?"

(253)

What a tale! My horse was waiting at the
door, so I told this poor fellow I would take him
to some cheap boarding place and would see him
through until I could think of something else to
do. He got in the wagon, and I asked him "What
has brought you to this — drink?" "Oh, no,
Doctor. I have tried to drink several times, but
it don't agree with me."

He never uttered any complaint, but took his
hard fate as rather a curious experience. He
decided he could support himself by selling fruit;
so through my telling of his wants to some of
my patients, he got enough money to build a
little rough-board shanty on a vacant lot. There
he slept on a straw bed, and the hotel proprietor
allowed him to come for scraps off the table, on
which he lived quite contentedly all summer.
He remained eighteen months and improved in
health. He supported himself entirely, and was
a most interesting and grateful patient. I used
to take him about with me in the wagon occasion-
ally while making my calls. One night he sud-
denly disappeared from Saranac Lake, and I have
never heard a word from him since. The only
inkling I had of his reason for going was his
telling me that he thought it was getting too cold
for him, and that he would prefer wintering in
the South. I have often wondered how he man-
aged to get South, but I don't doubt he accom-
plished it.

(254)

XXI

THE summer after Chatte's death we spent in
our camp at Paul Smith's as usual, and I threw
myself unreservedly into the medical work there,
at the Sanitarium, and in Saranac Lake. I had
not been at all well since Chatte's death. All
the summer I was nervous and sleepless, had
constant headaches and was tired most of the
time; and when we went back to Saranac Lake
for the winter I was feeling wretched. Dr.
Baldwin was working away in the Laboratory
every day, and we were trying experiments in
making different kinds of tuberculin then, and
studying their effect on animals. I spent much
time working there with him, often until late at
night.

We went to town, as usual, at the beginning
of November. Our little cottage was closed — all
but the laboratory end — and Dr. Baldwin, whose
house was across the street, worked there daily
and kept the cultures and experiments going
while I was away. We stopped in New York at
a little apartment hotel, where I got accommoda-
tions reasonably, and we were engaged as usual
in seeing our friends and enjoying our visit, when

(255)

one night I was taken suddenly with a violent
chill, followed by a very high temperature, and
within a few hours I was more acutely ill than I
had ever been before. My friend, Dr. Walton,
came to see me and called in Dr. Loomis. They
got me a nurse, and for a long time the diagnosis
was very obscure. I believe they finally decided
I had an abscess of the kidney, but it was a
painful attack, and although I lived through
it I never recovered from it, and it has never
ceased to harass and disturb me more or less,
so that I have never slept more than an hour
or two at a time ever since. At any rate it was
something new and was not my lungs this time.
I had a good trained nurse from the Presby-
terian Hospital, but for weeks the fever continued
high and the diagnosis obscure.

It was during the first week of the attack that
one morning at nine o'clock there was a rap at
the door, and my wife was told there was a gentle-
man downstairs in the parlor who wanted to see
her. After she left the room I wondered who
the gentleman could be and what he wanted at
that time in the morning. My wife went down-
stairs, and there she met Dr. Loomis, who said
he had just had a telegram from Dr. Baldwin
saying my little laboratory lamp had set fire to
my house at four o'clock that morning, and that
the house and its contents were a total loss. Dr.
Loomis told my wife I was entirely too sick to
be told what had happened, but he felt she ought

(256)

to know. As usual, my wife faced the shock
squarely. She said she always told me everything;
that if she tried to hide it I would be sure to find
out something was the matter, and that she
thought it would be better for Dr. Loomis to come
in and tell me at once, and finally he agreed.

When the nurse opened the door I wondered
why Dr. Loomis had left his office at nine o'clock
in the morning, but I could see he looked very
solemn and I realized something had happened.
In an instant the thought flashed through my
mind that Ned, who had gone to Yale, was dead.
Dr. Loomis had a telegram in his hand, and as
he came to my bedside he said, "Trudeau, I have
bad news for you. Dr. Baldwin has just wired
me your house was entirely destroyed by a fire
originating from the little lamp in the Laboratory;
very little was saved." I had expected to hear
Ned was dead, and the news was rather a relief
than a shock. I said, "I am so glad that is all.
We can get another house." Dr. Loomis looked
much relieved and soon left.

I thought of Baldwin's responsibility and
anxiety, and wired him not to worry about the
house or the Laboratory; as soon as I could get
well we would build another. In a letter received
the next day from him he gave me the details. All
was well that night when he left the Labora-
tory at ten o'clock. He woke at four in the
morning to see a red glow at his window, and
on looking out he saw the fire coming through

(257)

the roof of my house. The little flame in my
new thermostat had no doubt jumped behind
the roller and set fire to the wooden stand, as
the Laboratory burned before the rest of the
house. A few rugs and pictures and a little fur-
niture were saved from the lower floor, but every-
thing else was destroyed. Among other things,
my precious pen-written translation of Koch's
paper, and the set of Robert Louis Stevenson's
works, bound specially for me, in each volume
of which he had written the autograph dedication
to each member of my family and to me.

Telegrams, letters of condolence and cheer,
and offers of help poured in for the next few days
from many friends. One brief but striking note
from my good friend Dr. William Osier, who
often had helped, cheered and encouraged me
with my work, was characteristic and to the
point. This was the entire letter:

"Dear Trudeau:

"I am sorry to hear of your misfortune, but take
my word for it, there is nothing like a fire to make
a man do the Phcenix trick."

As I read it, little did I realize how soon Dr.
Osier's prophecy was to be fulfilled.

Our good friends, the Coopers, called constantly
at the hotel, and as soon as I was well enough to
see anyone Mr. Cooper came to see me. After
talking a little while he looked embarrassed and said :

(258)

" I am sorry about the Laboratory and the house,
and I want to do something about it. You have
no house to go to when you return. I have a
lease of the cottage opposite your house; just as
soon as you are well enough to go back you can
have that cottage for as long a time as you want
it. As to the Laboratory, I want you to begin
to plan a good stone and steel laboratory; one
that will never burn up. Plan it just as you want
it, complete, and I will be glad to pay for it and
give it to you personally. "

Laughing and coughing and bowing, Mr. Cooper
then beat a hasty retreat, leaving me overcome
by this evidence of his friendly interest in me and
in my work. Dr. Osier was indeed a true prophet,
for the ink on his letter had scarcely had time
to dry when a fire-proof laboratory was assured
to me, before the ashes of the burned one were
cold! It was the following evening that Dr.
Hodenpyl brought me the microscope from the
men at the College Laboratory and all this cheered
me and encouraged me greatly.

My illness in New York continued a long time,
and it was many weeks before I could get out of
bed and sit up. Our many friends, among them
Mr. Cooper and his sisters, were unremitting in
their attentions. The Cooper carriage was at
our disposal, and my wife got some fresh air in
this way. The Misses Cooper made us promise
that just as soon as I could be moved we should
all be taken to their beautiful house in Twenty-

(259)

first Street, so my wife and I, with Francis and his
nurse, were soon established in most luxurious
quarters in Gramercy Park, and Francis played
in the park all day. No friends could have done
more that they did to nurse me back to life, and
as soon as I was able to travel, which was quite
late in December, we all returned to Saranac Lake
and occupied the Cooper cottage.

All that was left of our former home was a
chimney stack, the rest having been burned to
the ground. Before long, however, my wife and
I were planning a new home, and Baldwin and I
a new laboratory, both of which my cousin,
Lawrence Aspinwall, was designing for us.

We couldn't make up our minds to stop the
experiments altogether until the new stone lab-
oratory was built, which would naturally be
many months, so I put up a little shed next to
my barn. A water pipe was carried to it, a big
stove put up, and before very long we had another
thermostat and the cultures and experiments
were going on as usual. The money for labora-
tory purposes ran out, but thanks to checks from
Mr. John Garrett and Mr. Horatio Garrett and
Mrs. Robert Hoe, I was able to get what apparatus
we needed, and pay for animals, chemicals, and
glassware.

Our house was insured for a moderate sum,
but when the insurance men had made their visit
to the ruins and had had one or two conferences,
the agent called on me and told me I had entirely

(260)

forfeited my insurance, first by leaving the house
untenanted without permission, and also by leav-
ing a kerosene lamp burning there constantly
when no one was in the house. This I expected;
and I was much surprised when he added that
all over the country my loss had become known ,
and that much indignation had been shown when
it was given out that the insurance companies
considered the insurance forfeited, and much
sympathy was expressed. He said the insurance
companies had decided they would pay my insur-
ance, provided I would write them a note they
could publish stating that they had treated me
most liberally. This I was very glad to do, and
they paid every cent, which was a great help
toward building the new house.

(261)

XXII

WE moved out of Mr. Cooper's cottage into
the rectory cottage in February, and there
we remained until the spring, when we went to
Paul Smith's as usual. During the summer there
I worked hard and my health was very miserable,
as ,1 was still suffering from my New York illness
from which I recovered very slowly. Indeed, I have
never recovered from it; and it gradually wore on
my general health to such an extent that the pul-
monary symptoms, with the intermittent attacks
of low fever, returned, and between the two I
have been an invalid for the past ten years.

While at Paul Smith's I did all I could every
summer to interest new people in the Sanitarium
and keep up the interest of my old friends, for the
responsibility of raising the money for the needs
of the growing institution and of continuing its
development weighed a good deal on me.

It was in 1894 that I first met Mr. Samuel
Inslee at Paul Smith's, when he consulted me
for a trifling illness. He was a successful business
man, with a big heart, ready to help all about
him; and as he listened with interest to what
I told him about the Sanitarium, I asked him if

(263)

he would drive over with me some day and look
at it. This he readily agreed to do, and when
we reached the Sanitarium he made me show
him everything. On the way home he said to
me, "What is there that you want that nobody
else will give you?" I answered, "We have no
laundry, and certainly nobody wants to give me
a laundry." He said if one thousand dollars
would build a little laundry he would give it,
and I was well satisfied with my day's trip with
him. We built the little laundry and it served
its day; and now, after twenty-one years, we
are building another, a cement, steel and slate
building, which, with all the needed modern
machinery, will cost nearly twice as many thou-
sands as our first little wooden laundry did hun-
dreds; but it will be more than one lifetime
before my successors will have to worry about
building another.

The next year I repeated my trip to the Sani-
tarium with Mr. Inslee, and he went over every-
thing in the institution and criticised what he
could find to criticise. Then he repeated the same
question as the year before, "What do you need
most that no one is likely to give you?" and I
said, "Water- works and fire protection." "Very
well," he said, "I will give them; and in order
that you may not have any care about it, I will
send my own engineer to oversee the work."

The engineer came. It was found that a trench
six feet deep, often traversing hard pan and rock

(264)

for long distances, would have to be dug for nearly
a mile in order to carry a large main to connect
with the splendid water- works of Saranac Lake;
but Mr. Inslee paid for it all, and during the
summer drove over himself many times and
superintended the work. I don't know just what
the fine water-works and fire protection at the
Sanitarium cost Mr. Inslee, but I know the
expense of the ditching and the mains reached
the sum of over ten thousand dollars. It has
given us an abundant supply of pure water, with
all that that means.

The following year Mr. Inslee died suddenly
of pneumonia and the Sanitarium lost a good
friend. His brother, Mr. Edwin W. Inslee, erected
a cottage to his memory in 1897.

When we returned to Saranac Lake in the fall of
1894 we occupied our new house, which had just
been completed, and we have lived there ever since.

During the spring and summer of 1894 work
had been steadily progressing on the new Labora-
tory Mr. Cooper was building for me, and by
fall it was nearly completed. I facilitated matters
somewhat by presenting the land on which it
was placed, which was part of my house lot on
Church Street. This situation was convenient
for Dr. Baldwin and for me; it was central, and it
has proved an excellent site in every respect.
The building is a most substantial and dignified
structure. As nothing but cut stone, glazed brick,
slate, steel and cement entered into its composi-

(265)

tion, it is absolutely fire-proof and it has not
been necessary to insure it. The inside is all
finished in white, glazed brick, and it looks abso-
lutely indestructible — as if it were built not for
time but for eternity! The Phcenix trick will not
have to be repeated soon so far as the building
is concerned. It is equipped with fine, self-regu-
lating thermostats, gas, electricity, and every
modern appliance for facilitating laboratory work.
No name has been written on the outside of
this compact little structure to indicate its uses,
but in the inner hall, over the door of the main
room, a small brass inscription has been placed,
which reads:

Saranac Laboratory

for the Study of Tuberculosis

Erected a.d., 1894.

Presented to

Edward L. Trudeau, M.D.

by

George C. Cooper.

We had no opening ceremonies and never
have had any. When everything was ready, Bald-
win and I merely began to move the apparatus
we already had in use from the little shed near
the barn to our beautiful new quarters, and to
continue the work we were doing. This was the
opening of the first laboratory devoted to the
study of tuberculosis in this country.

As the Laboratory was to be purely a research
laboratory, we agreed there should be no com-
mercial side to it. In other words, no labora-

(266)

tory product would be sold under any conditions;
and this rule has been adhered to all these
years, during which constant applications have
been made from many sources to purchase cul-
tures, tuberculins, serums, etc. If the demand
comes from a known source for purely scien-
tific purposes, it is always acceded to and the
required material sent free; otherwise the request
is refused.

The finances proved a difficult problem for
me to meet for a long time, as the Laboratory
had no endowment of any kind; but thanks
to the help, from time to time, of my friends,
among whom were Mr. Horatio Garrett, Mr.
John Garrett, Mrs. Robert Hoe and Miss Julia
Cooper, I managed to eke out enough money to
pay for our animals, chemicals and apparatus,
and continue our work, until my good friend
Mrs. A. A. Anderson, came to my help. She
gave generous checks at first, and finally assumed,
twelve years ago, the entire support of my Labora-
tory herself, and has paid all its expenses each
year ever since, to my intense relief.

Little by little other matters in my practice
and at the Sanitarium took up more and more
of my time, and I was only too glad to place the
Laboratory entirely under Dr. Baldwin's direc-
tion; and he has given it much of his time, his
interest and his work, for many years without
remuneration. During the past six years Dr.
Allen K. Krause has relieved him of all routine

(267)

matters at the Laboratory, and Dr. Krause has
devoted his entire time to researches relating to
the complex problems of tuberculous infection,
and to keeping up the other branches of the
Laboratory work.

Apart from the researches which my associates
have steadily carried out and published during
all these years, the Laboratory has had a strong
educational influence on the many physicians
who come to Saranac Lake for their health, and
has offered them an opportunity for study which
has brought them together and created a keen
interest in scientific medicine among the numerous
doctors here. Physicians who are staying in
Saranac Lake, even temporarily, and are disposed
to do a piece of work meeting with the approval
of Dr. Baldwin and Dr. Krause, have the facili-
ties of the Laboratory placed at their disposal
and are assisted in carrying out their work, which
of course they are free to publish or not, as they
see fit, under their own names.

Besides this, the Laboratory has inspired the
formation of a medical society in Saranac Lake,
which meets in the building every two weeks
during the winter, and where papers are read by
some of the most distinguished workers in the
field of clinical and scientific medicine, who
generously come on invitation for this purpose.
These meetings bring all the medical men in
the neighborhood of Saranac Lake into contact
in a friendly way, give them an opportunity for

(268)

free expressions of opinions on medical subjects,
and offer on many disputed or obscure topics the
best and most advanced instruction obtainable.

Having reached this point will the evolution
of the little laboratory room in my cottage con-
tinue, and will it some day extend its usefulness
by becoming a teaching department for advanced
students and specialists? This the future alone
can answer.

How much original work my associates have
done was revealed most pleasantly to me on my
sixtieth birthday, when, after a very pleasant
dinner they gave me, they presented me with
two most beautiful volumes bound in red morocco,
containing seventy papers representing their own
studies, which had been published in various
medical journals both here and abroad, from 1887
to 1908. These volumes I keep among my treas-
ures, and I prize them more and more as the
years roll by.

At the end of the dinner my good friend, Dr.
J. Woods Price, in the guise of Father Time, with
a long, white beard, and a bottle of chloroform,
appeared suddenly to claim me as having passed
the age limit of usefulness. Dr. James rose to
protest, but Father Time said he would not listen
to him, as he was too near the age limit himself
and would be prejudiced ; but if one of the younger
men would speak he would listen. An impassioned
and most clever plea to spare me followed, spoken
by the late Dr. Albert H. Allen. Father Time

(269)

relented, and gave me a big parchment diploma
with a huge seal attached, permitting me to con-
tinue to live as long as I could; and I have been
doing my best to avail myself of his gracious
permission.

(270)

XXIII

IN the fall of 1892, when Chatte was so ill,
Ned went to Yale. Ned was a slender, active
boy. He had had four years at St. Paul's School,
Concord, and had made a good record there both
in his studies and among the boys, among whom
he was ever popular and a natural leader. Though
slender, he was very quick and athletic, and his
proficiency in field sports greatly helped his popu-
larity with his school-mates. He was a wonderful
shot with a rifle even when a mere boy, and could
throw a snow-ball straighter and harder than
any boy in Saranac Lake, thus bringing trouble
on his father many times from injured and en-
raged citizens.

When he came home for Christmas he told me
the captain of the Yale base-ball nine had seen
him at the station and had said to him, "Now
remember, young man, don't throw any snow-
balls when you are home." I told him that
evidently the captain was considering putting
him on the base-ball team; and this proved to
be the case, for on his return he was made pitcher
on the Freshman team. The next year he pitched
second to "Dutch" Carter, the well-known Yale

(271)

pitcher, on the University team, and the last
year Ned pitched Yale to victory in some of the
great intercollegiate matches. I remember once
it was the deciding match for the championship
between Princeton and Yale, which was being
played at Princeton. The score stood 7 to I in
favor of Princeton when Ned was put in the
box. Princeton never made another hit, and
Yale won 8 to 7. Even our Princeton friends
sent us telegrams of congratulation on that
occasion.

I was told by a Yale man that during the last
year of his college course Ned did over half of
all the pitching for Yale in the intercollegiate
games; and yet, though thin, he seemed abso-
lutely tireless. He was so quick that in all the
long base-ball battles he participated in he never
had the slightest injury, even to his fingers.

He possessed that wonderful gift of a most
attractive personality, which made friends for
him with everybody with whom he came in con-
tact. He was a Skull and Bones man at Yale
and president of his class at the College of Physi-
cians and Surgeons, where he was graduated in
1900.

After his medical course Ned served his full
time as interne at the Presbyterian Hospital in
New York, and then came up to us at Saranac
Lake. He intended to settle here and help me
with my work, but I did all I could to dissuade
him from this. With his wonderful charm, his

(272)

very thorough education, and his vigorous health,
I saw a much more brilliant future for him else-
where. I was beginning already to realize the
stigma with which the world stamps everything
and everybody connected with tuberculosis, and
I saw no reason why Ned should voluntarily
assume this burden. I was therefore overjoyed
when my good friend, Dr. Walter B. James offered
him a place in his office in New York City, with
every opportunity there for advancement in his
profession; and it seemed to me and to all my
friends that a very bright future was before him.

I had met Dr. James in my early visits to New
York and at the meetings of the Association of
American Physicians in Washington. Our acquain-
tance slowly deepened into a closer friendship,
and a better friend than Dr. James has been to
me for half a lifetime no man ever had. I found
myself writing to him oftener and oftener, and
seeking his advice and help on every occasion;
and he ever gave me both, and both of the best
quality. Every time we went to New York he
would set aside from his very busy days time
enough for us to lunch together at the University
Club, and discuss all my medical and personal
problems in Saranac Lake; and the luncheons
at the Club grew to be like "the laws of the Medes
and Persians which altereth not," and remained
in force as long as I was able to go to New York.

My talks with Dr. James meant much to me,
and I always brought from them cheer and much

(273)

wisdom, and the joy which comes from close
communion with a tried friend; and I am thank-
ful to say this wealth of good things is still ever
at my disposal, now in time of need. When I
asked him to examine patients in New York for
the Sanitarium he readily consented, and in 1895
became a trustee of the institution. The annual
meetings have been generally held at his house,
and he has ever cooperated with me and helped
most efficiently in the administration of its affairs.
He is Vice-president of the Board of Trustees of
the Sanitarium, and when I am all through with
my work there and my place is vacant, it is com-
forting to think that the destinies of the City of
Hope on the hill, which I have labored for thirty
years to build, will be in the hands of so good and
tried a friend.

Ned had met in Chicago a Miss Hazel Martyn,
and had fallen deeply in love with her. She was
well known in Chicago and Paris art circles as
a talented artist and a very beautiful woman.
It was love at first sight, and a violent love affair
with Ned; and when she went abroad he left us
suddenly, went to Europe, and must have carried
the fortress by storm, for he soon returned in the
same ship with Miss Martyn and her mother.

The marriage took place in Chicago a few months
later. My wife, Francis and I all went to it, and
I only repeat what I heard many others say: that
a handsomer couple than Ned and Hazel Martyn
are not often seen.

(274)

We went to New York later to attend a beau-
tiful reception Dr. and Mrs. James gave the
young married couple at their home. As I looked
at Ned then I could not help thinking what a
brilliant future was before him, for in addition
to his personal advantages, he had already many
warm friends in New York among the very best
people there, and his connection with Dr. James
gave him a wonderful opportunity in his profes-
sional life. I rejoiced then I had not let him
assume a more obscure career with his father
in the remote little Adirondack village, with its
ever-present burden of chronic illness.

How little we can see into the future, and how
well it is we cannot! The young married couple
settled in New York, and Ned was soon launched
into practice and other medical activities through
his connection with Dr. James. All winter I
thought of him with the utmost satisfaction,
when, in the spring, a telegram from Dr. James
told us Ned had been suddenly taken down with
an acute pneumonia, and urged us to come to his
house by the evening train.

Neither my wife nor I slept much that night
on the train. We found Ned seriously ill. Then
came five terrible days of anxiety, and then the
joyous news that the fever had fallen, the crisis
was passed, and Dr. Janeway had seen him that
morning and said he would recover, and that we
could take him to Little Rapids in ten days.

That afternoon he died suddenly of heart clot.

(275)

I cannot write about his death. My wife and I
passed through days of dazed suffering, which
even now it is hard to dwell upon and from which
we have never recovered, for life has never been
the same to us since.

Through all these terrible, dark days, however,
the tender sympathy and love of our friends and
his friends shone, and shines even now, like a
soft light in the midst of impenetrable gloom.
Everyone who knew Ned and knew us tried to
show their love for him, and that touched us and
helped us bear our own suffering. I cannot write
it all, but the full record is written so deep in our
hearts that nothing can ever dim it. I hope all
his friends know this, for we have never been
able to tell them all we felt.

Among many others, Dr. James, Dr. Linsly
Williams, Mr. Harriman and Lawrence Aspinwall
were with us through all that terrible evening
when Ned lay dead in the next room, and they
did everything that love and sympathy and helpful
friendship could do to steady us and relieve us
in doing what had to be done.

The next afternoon at the Grand Central
Station we found two cars Mr. Harriman had
arranged for, attached to the Adirondack train.
In one Ned's body lay, buried under a roomful
of flowers and surrounded by his Yale chums,
who sat up all night by him as the car sped through
the darkness toward the mountains and the little
churchyard under the tall pines at Paul Smith's.

(276)

The other car was prepared for us and many
friends.

The next morning broke clear and beautiful,
and as we approached the Church it was evident
the whole country had come to show their love
for the young man who had lived his boyhood
and most of his life among them. Streams of
carriages came from Saranac Lake and the sur-
rounding country, and when we reached the
churchyard, as at Chatte's funeral, we found
Paul Smith and his sons and other faithful friends
had covered all the ground from the Church to
the grave with flowers and green boughs. The
Smith's had thrown open their hotel and provided
liberal entertainment all that day for the crowd
of people who came. Had Ned been their own
son and brother they could not have done more.

But I was to have further proof of the love and
esteem in which he was held. A few days later I
started out to collect and settle all the bills for
the funeral. Everywhere the answer was the
same. There was no bill. What they had done,
they had done to show their affection for him.
This was repeated everywhere, from Paul Smith
and his sons, who arranged for the funeral, opened
the hotel and provided for a crowd of guests
at St. Regis, to the livery-stable men and even
the poor hackmen in Saranac Lake, who refused
to take money for what they had done — not for
money, but to show their affection for him.

(277)

XXIV

FROM 1894 to 1904, when life had been so filled
with sorrow and work for me, the Sanitarium
had taken up much of my time and had steadily
continued to grow and develop in every depart-
ment. In those ten years nine new cottages had
been built by the following persons: Mr. Jacob
H. Schiff; Mr. Edwin W. Inslee, in memory of
his brother, Mr. Samuel Inslee; Mrs. Sol French,
in memory of her father; Mrs. A. A. Anderson;
Mrs. Walter G. Ladd; the Reverend E. A. Hoff-
man, in memory of his son; a memorial cottage
to Mrs. Abby Sage Richardson, given by her
friends through Mrs. W. P. Northrup ; a memorial
to her son, by Mrs. John N. Robins; and a mem-
orial cottage to Miss Lillie Lewis, given by her
sister, Mrs. Eleanor Phoenix.

With the experience gained as to the require-
ments of these little buildings, we had steadily
developed new features which rendered them
more and more comfortable, and more and more
suited to open-air methods, especially as far as
making sleeping out possible and easy for every
patient, according to the prescription of the physi-
cian. They also changed from small, cheap,

(279)

temporary structures to larger, permanently built
little homes, equipped with electricity, open fire-
places, bath-rooms, and sleeping-out porches for
every patient.

After the first ten years a gradual process of
evolution, not only in the growth but in the
character of the institution, had steadily devel-
oped and continued in every department, and this
process has aimed at perfecting what was acquired
and making it more permanent rather than toward
mere expansion.

In 1896 the wooden Main Building, which had
several times been altered and added to, was torn
down entirely and a large stone and shingle
structure, of ample proportions to anticipate
the future growth of the institution, was erected.
This was designed by Mr. J. Lawrence Aspinwall,
who afterward planned many of the buildings
and has ever given me practical assistance in the
development of the plant. The main office,
the parlor and a central dining-room were on the
first floor. In the two upper stories were comfort-
able rooms for offices for the physicians and mem-
bers of the administrative and service departments,
and large dormitory rooms for a few patients.
In the same year Mrs. Frederick Baker gave a
beautiful stone chapel, where religious services
have been held for the patients ever since.

That year Mr. Frederick Baker, who was stay-
ing for a short time at the Ampersand Hotel,
consulted me professionally. He was a pleasant

(280)

gentleman and we got along admirably together.
I showed him the Sanitarium and, I imagine,
told him a good deal about it. That evening as
I was leaving his room after a call he said to me:
"Mrs. Baker is coming up tomorrow; why don't
you take her up to the Sanitarium; I think it
might interest her."

This was a happy suggestion. I took
Mrs. Baker there, and when she asked me what
I wanted I told her a little chapel of some
sort for the patients to worship in. The archi-
tects, Mr. Coulter and Mr. Aspinwall, did the
rest by drawing such an attractive plan of a little
rough stone church that Mrs. Baker at once
decided this was just the kind of gift she would
like to make as a memorial to her son. I heard
afterwards that on the following Christmas, in
talking over her investments with Mr. Baker,
she said she thought the best investment she had
made during the year was the little chapel at the
Sanitarium; and it has continued to be a good
investment ever since.

I have never been able to make up my mind
as to which of the two little churches is the more
attractive — the log church at Paul Smith's or
the little rough-stone chapel at the Sanitarium;
but both are remarkably well adapted to their
surroundings.

It seemed wiser not to have the Sanitarium
Chapel consecrated, so that ministers of all
denominations could hold services in the little

(281)

edifice. For many years services have been held
there for the patients by clergymen of all denomi-
nations, who freely give their time to the institu-
tion without money and without price. Many
celebrated ministers have officiated there, and
some who were not ministers at all. One of the
most impressive services I ever heard there was
one afternoon when I drove Dr. Wilfred T. Gren-
fell up in my cutter to a little impromptu mis-
sionary service at which a Catholic missionary
priest and an Episcopal minister, both patients,
gave their experiences as missionaries, and Dr.
Grenfell followed, describing the joy of practical
missionary work for his fellow men on the coast
of Labrador.

The increasing number of patients had for a
long time outgrown the Hall Infirmary and more
room and improved accommodations were greatly
needed, when in 1901, principally through the
influence of Dr. Lawrason Brown, Mr. Otis H.
Childs gave the Childs Memorial Building as a
memorial to his wife, and it proved to be a most
timely and welcome addition to our resources for
treating bed patients. The Childs Memorial Build-
ing was designed by the late Mr. Wm. L. Coulter.
It is a crescent-shaped structure, of light yellow
brick and rough stone, with a slate roof, and is,
inside and outside, one of the most attractive
buildings on the grounds. The view from the
porch on which the patients' beds are pushed out
is one of the most beautiful mountain views in

(282)

the Adirondacks, and for those who are so unfor-
tunate as to require bed treatment it would be
hard to find a more attractive place to carry out
the doctor's restful sentence.

At my suggestion an effort was made by my
friends to increase the growth of the Endowment
Fund so as to correspond with the growth and
extension of the plant, for I realized that the per-
manency of the institution must greatly depend
on the Endowment Fund. The first thing to do
was to let the interest of the fund accumulate,
and try to raise enough each year by appeals
to meet the running expenses, and this policy
was carried out for twenty-five years; so that the
Endowment Fund has grown as much by accre-
tion as it has by subscriptions and bequests. In
1897 it had reached the sum of fifty-seven thou-
sand, three hundred and sixty- two dollars and
thirty-two cents, and that year a bequest from
Miss Cooper raised it to one hundred and seven
thousand, three hundred and sixty-two dollars
and thirty-two cents; and in 1903, through a
special effort made by Mrs. Anson Phelps Stokes,
who wrote personally to many of her friends,
seventy-eight thousand, four hundred dollars was
added at one time, and the Fund by 1904 reached
the sum of two hundred and ninety-nine thousand,
eighty-three dollars and sixty-five cents.

Thus in twenty years the Sanitarium was built
and paid for, the large deficit on running expenses
was met each year — a deficit amounting at times

(283)

to as much as twenty-nine thousand dollars in
one year — and an Endowment Fund of nearly
three hundred thousand dollars accumulated.

The first Resident Physician at the Sanitarium
was Dr. Henry Sewall, who, with his wife, occupied
one of the first little one-room cottages during
the winter of 1889 or 1890. After a few months'
stay he went to Colorado, where he took up his
residence permanently, and has made a name for
himself which is well known to the medical profes-
sion all over the United States.

In 1 89 1 Dr. Irwin H. Hance came to the Sani-
tarium. At first he had only a bed-room and no
office, but in 1894 the Doctor's cottage was built
and he moved in with his wife, and became Resi-
dent Physician until 1896, when he went into
general practice in Lakewood, New Jersey. His
advent was a great help to me, as he relieved me
greatly of the medical responsibility of the insti-
tution, which I had had to bear practically alone
up to that time. His personal interest in the
patients and their problems was also a great help,
and he gave the institution efficient and devoted
service for four years for the absurd salary of
three hundred dollars a year — which was also a
great help at that trying time of its existence.

The question of the efficacy of the simple
methods we employed at the Sanitarium to guard
against infection of the buildings was all the time
coming up, and I felt as if some evidence based

(284)

on facts would be most desirable. At my sug-
gestion Dr. Hance undertook a set of experiments
to obtain evidence on this all-important matter.

He collected the dust from a measured surface
of the walls of all the buildings, and injected a
sample from each building into a separate lot of
guinea-pigs. This was a most delicate test, as
the presence of very few living bacilli in the
sample would in time inevitably be revealed by
the development of tuberculosis in the suscep-
tible little animals. The dust proved free from
bacilli in all the buildings, even in the Infirmary,
which had constantly been occupied by the most
advanced cases. In one cottage, however — my
original little cottage — a patient had been reported
twice for being careless with his expectoration,
and the inoculation made from the dust of this
cottage proved positive in three out of the ten
pigs injected. This evidence demonstrated the
efficacy of our simple methods of dealing with
all infectious material when rigidly enforced.

Dr. S. W. Hewetson took Dr. Hance's place
for a year; Dr. W. H. Jamieson was resident
physician from 1897 to 1899, and Dr. Charles
C. Trembley from 1899 to 1901. All these gentle-
men gave the work their interest and devotion.

In 1 90 1 Dr. Lawrason Brown became Resident
Physician and remained in charge of the medical
department of the Sanitarium until 1912. During
the ten years of his stay he steadily developed
and perfected the methods of treatment and

(285)

the rules which govern the details of the patients'
medical supervision at the institution. The
present high medical standard of the Adirondack
Cottage Sanitarium, and at many institutions
which have followed its lead, is due in a great
measure to the influence of his untiring and
efficient work.

The essential factors of the sanatorium method
of treating tuberculosis I had labored to demon-
strate practically, in the face of much opposition
and many difficulties, with such devoted medical
help and with such limited resources as I could
secure throughout the first fifteen years of the
Sanitarium's existence. It took all my energies
for many years, however, merely to keep the
institution afloat long enough to demonstrate
by practical results the great truths for which it
stood. These were all generally accepted and
permanently established when Dr. Brown became
Resident Physician, but the methods were crude,
the discipline imperfect, and the records incom-
plete. The simple and efficient rules of discipline,
the thorough instruction of physicians, nurses
and patients, the accurate medical reports and
the exhaustive post-discharge records of all
patients since the institution started, the Medical
Building with its facilities for the careful study
of all cases on admission, and another scientific
laboratory, all sprang into life as a result of Dr.
Brown's insistent efforts for efficiency and con-
tinued progress. In addition, he found time to

(286)

establish and edit for nine years The Journal of
the Outdoor Life, which has rendered such far-
reaching service in the crusade against tuber-
culosis.

As I had been only too glad to turn over the
Laboratory in Saranac Lake to Dr. Baldwin, it
was an immense relief to me to place the medical
department of the Sanitarium entirely in Dr.
Brown's hands, since soon after his arrival my
health and my capacity for work began steadily
to fail.

In 1 91 2 Dr. Brown opened his office in the
village and devoted his entire time to practice
and consultation work; but he still retains his
connection with the Sanitarium as consulting
physician, and I still have his friendly counsel
and help to turn to.

Mrs. Julia A. Miller was Superintendent from
1885 to 1903. I owe her a debt of gratitude which
can never be repaid for her faithful service to the
institution at a most difficult period of its exis-
tence.

When Mrs. Miller retired Miss Marguerite de
Longue, who for some time had been Mrs. Miller's
most trusted assistant and was thoroughly familiar
with every detail of the Superintendent's depart-
ment, became Superintendent. Soon afterwards
she married and became Mrs. Charles R. Arm-
strong.

It is hard to express my indebtedness to Mrs
Armstrong for her long years of devoted work.

(287)

When she assumed control the institution had
developed so rapidly that matters in her depart-
ment were in a most chaotic condition, and the
management of the finances, the buying of pro-
visions, the securing of servants, the care of the
buildings were all matters in which I could not
give her the least assistance, but which she carried
through for me with the utmost economy and
efficiency. Few outside of a tuberculosis sana-
torium can imagine the difficulties to be met by
the Superintendent in finding employees not
terror-stricken at the idea of working in a sana-
torium; in the securing of efficient service for
insufficient wages; in meeting the complaints of
patients, who all want to select their own rooms,
cottage-mates, places at the dinner table, etc.;
in reconciling the demands of the various depart-
ments and saving waste in every direction; but
I knew some of the difficulties of the position by
observation. Through long years of struggle
with these and other problems, Mrs. Armstrong's
one aim was ever the interest and advancement
of the Sanitarium, and no sacrifice on her part
was too great to meet the demands made upon
her. In 1912 she broke down and retired, and the
place of Superintendent was taken by her husband,
Mr. Charles R. Armstrong, also a former patient,
while she still retains her interest, and voluntarily
oversees the grounds and directs the landscape
gardening, with results which speak volumes for
her efficiency and good taste.

(288)

Her mantle has fallen on worthy shoulders,
and though I have been so ill for the past few
years as to be mostly confined to my room and
bed, the consciousness that my friend Mr. Arm-
strong is the Superintendent, and the knowl-
edge that the institution has the benefit of his
watchful, disinterested and skilful oversight, has
ever been of the utmost comfort and relief to me.

(289)

XXV

"UjMTZ Greene Hallock and the hunting had had
J- little part in all these strenuous years of work
and sorrow. Fitz had taken a position as head
game-keeper on Dr. W. Seward Webb's great
game preserve, but on the rare occasions when
I saw him I knew, lucrative as his position was,
there were many things about it that were trying
to him. In our talks we agreed that if he ever
could manage it, he would find some little secluded
spot in the woods where we could go and have
some quiet hunting and fishing trips together.
Finally the project materialized, and Fitz told
me Dr. Webb had offered to sell him a small
hunting place called Little Rapids, and that
it was just what we wanted.

Little Rapids was a hunting lodge on the south-
ern border of Dr. Webb's great preserve, and had
been occupied by one of Dr. Webb's game-keepers.
The place comprised twelve hundred acres of
forest land; the Beaver River ran in front of
the little cottage, over some beautiful rapids;
there was a lake nearly a mile long on the place,
and the hunting and fishing were excellent. Not
a road or a path led to it, but the railroad was
within a stone's throw of the little clearing by the

(291)

Rapids, where the cottage was located, and,
if the train could be stopped, made the place
easily and quickly accessible from Saranac Lake.

Fitz said he was going to give up his position
with Dr. Webb, and that to retire to such a wild
little spot, look after the game, and hunt and
fish with me when I could come down, had been
a dream of his for a long time. The price asked
was not excessive and we decided, if I took two
shares and Fitz one, that with two other members
we could manage the expense. My friend Mr.
William Hall Penfold, took one share, and another
friend, Mr. J. W. Van Woert, another share, and
so we bought Little Rapids in 1899. For fifteen
years I always had a place to run away to from
the ever-present tuberculosis problems at Saranac
Lake : a place where I could rest and fish and hunt
with my friends and my sons, and live over with
Fitz the same old life in the woods we both loved
so well.

I am afraid to describe Little Rapids, because
my description might seem extravagant; but it
is just an ideal little hunting lodge, and a most
beautiful aggregation of stream, lake and forest,
peaceful in its lonely and wild beauty, and acces-
sible, yet remote, from the busy world. I think
some of the happiest days of my life have been spent
there with my wife, my sons, who loved the place
as much as I did, our friends and my old friend
Fitz Hallock, amid the quiet stillness and beauty
of the great forest.

(292)

Little Rapids is sold now, and these golden
days have gone, never to return again, I know;
but the recollection of them I still have to dwell
upon, and not even time can rob me of that.

Over the past, Heaven itself hath no power;
What has been, has been and I have had my hour.

When Mr. Van Woert died Dr. James bought
his share and Fitz sold his to Mr. Harriman;
and these good friends, who had little or no time
to give to amusement and Little Rapids and never
went there, nevertheless divided the expense of
the place for years because they knew how much
I loved to go. Indeed, all my friends have ever
helped, in sorrow and in joy, to make life as
happy and as easy as possible for me.

As my strength failed rapidly of late years and

my capacity for walking grew less and less, Fitz's

ingenuity to make it still possible for me to hunt

and fish at Little Rapids, and yet not make the

fact of my growing limitations too evident to me,

touched me deeply. I always did my best to

respond and keep up our old traditions of fishing

and hunting together for old time's sake, though

I was often physically unfit. The first time I

became aware that Fitz had noticed my walking

powers were rapidly getting limited was when I

found he had cut little paths all through the old

hunting grounds, removing the brush and logs.

and making it much easier for me to walk. I

questioned him about this, but he merely said

( 293 )

that we could walk with less noise on these little
paths than through the brush heaps and shrubs.
The next fall when I came down for my hunt
it was late, and the forest floor as usual was covered
with dry and crackling leaves, which as a rule
make it almost impossible to get up to a deer
without alarming him. As I followed Fitz stealth-
ily I noticed there were no leaves on the little
paths he took me on, so that we made no noise;
and when I asked him how this happened he said
that during the week before I came down he had
brushed away all the dead leaves from the paths
where he was going to take me, so that we could
walk quietly and have a better chance for a shot.
When I could walk no more at all, he made a
chair in which I could be carried everywhere to
the old runways in the woods, and we had some
good hunts and killed some deer in spite of our
handicap, until I became too ill to go to Little
Rapids any more.

My health was failing steadily, and I was
growing less and less able to do the general
practice at Paul Smith's, as well as my increasing
consultation work during the summer months.
It was in 1901 that my good friend Dr. James
Alexander Miller first came into my life, and his
advent, besides relieving me of work at Paul
Smith's which I was unfit to do, soon brought
me all the help and comfort of a good friend.
Dr. Thomas had joined me at Paul Smith's dur-

(294)

ing the two preceding summers, and helped me
by doing most of the practice there during the
crowded season. After Dr. Miller came I gave up
everything but my consultations at Paul Smith's
and Saranac Lake, and soon learned to lean on
him and depend on his wise counsel and his friend-
ship in many matters, and these, I am thankful
to say, are still ever at my disposal.

Dr. Miller became examiner in New York City
for the Sanitarium in 1904, and in spite of the
pressure of constantly growing medical respon-
sibilities, he still gives the institution the benefit
of his skilled advice in the thankless task of
examining applicants for admission and selecting
suitable cases for treatment. He is a member of
the medical board of the institution, which will,
I hope, long have the benefit of his interest and
wise counsel.

From 1904 to 19 14 the growth and development
of the Sanitarium in buildings, resources, and
new activities, continued steadily and on a grow-
ing scale. Five new cottages were built and one
rebuilt and improved, three for patients and three
for homes for the heads of the various departments.
The three patients' cottages were all most per-
manent and complete yellow brick structures,
containing every improvement for the end to
which they were designed, and individual sleep-
ing-out porches on which beds could be pushed at
will. One was given by Mrs. Max Nathan; one
as a memorial to Mrs. Mary C. Wheeler, given

(295)

by her children; and one in memory of Hobart
Moore was presented by his father and mother.
In addition, Mr. and Mrs. William H. Moore
gave twenty-five thousand dollars as a fund to
meet the deficit in the running expenses of the
cottage, thus entirely relieving the Sanitarium of
the expense of its maintenance.

The necessity for furnishing homes for the
heads of the various departments had become an
urgent need if the services of good men were to
be permanently made available to the institution,
and Mrs. Robert Woods Bliss filled this need
by giving me a check for ten thousand dollars,
with which attractive little homes were built at
the south entrance for the Superintendent, the
Bacteriologist, the Radiographer and their families.

Many new buildings were added to the plant
of the institution as they were called for to meet
the needs of its growth and development. A
beautiful colonial library building was pre-
sented by Mrs. Charles H. Mellon as a memorial
to her husband. A little post office building was
also added to the plant. Mrs. William H. Bliss
gave an addition to the Main Building to enlarge
the dining-room capacity and otherwise improve
that beautiful structure.

The acquisition of the Reception and Medical
Building at the Sanitarium is an excellent example
of the vicissitudes of begging money and of the
value of indirect influence in obtaining it. In
1905 Dr. Brown and I were both most anxious

(296)

to place the medical work of the Sanitarium on
a higher plane by obtaining a specially planned
building devoted to the medical and scientific
department; but alas, such a building would cost
twenty-five thousand dollars.

About this time the Reverend Alexis W. Stein
broke down in the great work he was doing in
Cincinnati, and came to Saranac Lake acutely ill.
In my attendance upon him a strong friendship
developed between us, and I soon found I was
tying my horse at his door and running up to sit
on the porch and have a good talk with him and
Mrs. Stein much oftener than was necessary to
meet the medical requirements of his case. Their
little boy fell ill and died, and the tragedy of it
all brought us closer together than ever.

I talked over almost everything with Mr.
Stein, and, among other things, my desire for a
building designed to establish a scientific depart-
ment at the Sanitarium. At that time I had a
very ill patient, the wife of a wealthy New York
man, and after her death he told me she had
requested him to do something for my work at
the Sanitarium, and asked me what I needed most.
I told him about the medical building, and he
ended by agreeing to give twenty-five thousand
dollars for such a building, which was to be
made a memorial to his wife. I returned home in
high spirits, and began, with Dr. Brown's assistance,
to get out the plans. Bitter disappointment was
in store for me, however. This generous gentle-

(297)

man within two weeks was taken ill with appen-
dicitis, was operated upon, and died two days
after the operation. I had no proof of his gift
but his spoken words to me, and I had to begin
all over again trying to secure the needed twenty-
five thousand dollars somewhere.

I had confided my disappointment to my friend
Mr. Stein, and a few weeks later, while I was
visiting him on his porch, he turned to me and
said, "Doctor, 'silver and gold have I none, but
such as I have' I am going to give you. When I
was in the ministry a lady parishioner of mine
told me if I ever wanted money in any good cause
to call upon her and she would be glad to respond.
I am going to write her and ask her to give you
your medical building." I thanked him, but
when I got home I felt it was very doubtful whether
his good offices in my behalf would meet with
any success. A few days later, however, my
telephone bell rang and Mr. Stein's voice said,
"I have a check for twenty-five thousand dollars
for you whenever you care to call for it", and in
this indirect way did the Sanitarium finally get
its beautiful Medical Building. The donor
remained anonymous, and the building was given
as a memorial to her sons.

This was not the only service the Reverend
Mr. Stein rendered the tuberculous invalid. At
my request, while very ill himself, he wrote for
The Journal of the Outdoor Life two articles, one
entitled, "An Insight," and the other, "The Con-

(298)

quest of Fate," which carried cheer and encour-
agement to hundreds of invalids all over the
country, and will long continue to speak their
messages of courage and hope from one who was
an inspiring example of the victory of the spirit
through years of trials and physical suffering.
His example and friendship have ever been among
my most precious memories.

The acquisition of the Reception and Medical
Building provided a home for the scientific
department and raised the standard of the
medical work of the institution. The lower
floor is devoted to the reception of incoming
patients, who spend a week there under observa-
tion until they have been thoroughly examined
and their cases studied, and they are then dis-
tributed to the cottages on the grounds. The
upper floor is given up to physicians' offices,
throat-room, examination-rooms, library, and
laboratories, while the entire front basement,
which, owing to the slope of the hill, is on a level
with the ground, is occupied by several rooms
devoted to a most complete X-ray plant.

Every department had to grow to match the
growth and development of the others, and in
1909 the old barns and sheds were all pulled down
and a pleasing modern structure, with every con-
venience for stables, wood-sheds, and coal-sheds
was built on land which had been acquired and
donated by Mr. D. Lome McGibbon at a cost
of five thousand dollars.

(299)

In 1909 Mrs. Walter L. Goodwin erected a
workshop building for the use of the patients,
which was designed by Mr. Aspinwall and is a
most attractive structure. Every convenience for
bookbinding, brass work, leather work, basket-
making, photographing, framing and decorative
work is provided, and an instructor is always at
hand to teach and help the patients. Mrs. Good-
win each year meets the cost of maintenance of
this most useful and helpful addition to the
resources of the Sanitarium's patients. Apart
from the value of the instruction they receive,
the relief from the monotony of institutional
existence makes Mrs. Goodwin's gift a most
welcome one to the patients and the management.

The next activity undertaken by the institution
in its development was to educate as special
tuberculosis nurses some of the young women
patients in whom the Sanitarium treatment had
arrested the disease, and thus fit them for an
independent career of usefulness which does not
especially endanger their health. In 1912 Mrs.
Whitelaw Reid donated a substantial nurses'
building to start a training school, as a memorial
to her father, Mr. D. Ogden Mills, and two classes
have already been graduated from this school
as special tuberculosis nurses.

It is a far cry from the old women and guides
I used to hire to do the nursing of the bed-ridden
in the first years of the Sanitarium, to a graduating
class of thoroughly trained nurses such as I had

(300)

before me when I handed the diplomas on both
these occasions to the graduates. Not only has
the Sanitarium restored these young women to
health, but it has fitted them for a career of inde-
pendent usefulness in which they are likely to
remain well. Truly this has been "worth while."
These nurses readily find employment in Sara-
nac Lake, or take up institutional work elsewhere.

Mrs. Reid also in 1913-1914 gave the Sani-
tarium an entire up-to-date X-ray plant, which is
now doing excellent work for the patients there
and the community as well.

The administration department had long had
to struggle with insufficient accommodations that
had become outgrown, and in 191 2 this need was
met, at a cost of twenty thousand dollars, by the
erection of a service building which had been
planned by Mr. Aspinwall to meet the growing
requirements of the institution. This most useful
and practical building, containing several cold-
storage rooms, which can be kept at any desired
temperature, an artificial-ice plant, dining-rooms
and accommodations for the employees, has
done much to perfect and facilitate the work of
the service department.

Substantial and dignified stone and iron gates
at all three entrances were presented by Mr.
William Hall Penfold just before his death, and
completed by his brother, Mr. Edmund Penfold.

From 1904 to 19 14 the yearly deficit in the
running expenses, varying from $18,902.58 in

(301)

1907 to $29,047.29 in 1913, was met as usual,
principally by yearly subscriptions and donations.

The growth of the Endowment Fund during
the past ten years has kept pace with the growth
and development of the plant and other new
activities assumed by the institution. In 1905-
1906, principally through the interest and efforts
of Dr. Walter B. James and Mr. E. H. Harriman,
$82,400.00 was added to this fund, while it grew
steadily each year by accretion, so that in 19 14
it had reached a little over six hundred thousand
dollars. And yet I had told Mr. Stephen Baker,
when I induced him to take the fund twenty years
before — and I thought then the institution never
would grow beyond its limited capacity at that
time — that all I asked him to do was to look after
the fund until it reached fifty thousand dollars.
It is well that there is apparently no prejudice
in his mind against "big business"; and there
cannot be, for the growth of the Endowment Fund
has been greatly due to his painstaking and
wise management of its investments.

The problems to be met at the Sanitarium have
entirely changed as the years have rolled by. For
the first twelve years all my efforts tended solely
to prove the usefulness of such an institution by
the actual results obtained in the treatment of
patients. In view of the varying manifestations
and course of this protean disease, sufficient proof
to convince a skeptical public, and a still more
skeptical profession, of necessity required a very

(302)

long time to obtain. To keep the institution in
existence long enough to demonstrate its value
by the results on the patients treated, occupied
all my energies for the first twelve years, espe-
cially as the securing of the necessary funds was
dependent on my efforts. Had it not been for
the generous support of my friends, and for the
devoted services of my associates and co-workers
in both the medical and administrative depart-
ments, and even among the employees, it is
doubtful if all the difficulties which constantly
arose from the remoteness of the region, the
severity of the climate and the limitation of the
finances would not have overwhelmed me.

The services rendered to the Sanitarium by
everybody connected with its management, includ-
ing the trustees, the examining physicians,
the resident physicians, the superintendents and
their helpers, the nurses and even the employees
have always been underpaid or not paid at all.
It was this service of love which carried the day
in those trying years of the Sanitarium's strug-
gling existence, and of late years it is this same
spirit in all who have helped with the work that
has built up the institution to its present state of
material and financial permanence.

It would be impossible for me to express here
my thanks individually, and I can only do so now
collectively to all; but, as I said, I think it very
likely that the discouragements and difficulties
of the early days would have overcome me and

( 303 )

made me give up the struggle had it not been for
all the devoted help of my friends and associates
in the work.

We are told that great is the truth, and that
it will prevail; but at times it is a slow pro-
cess. For the first six years of the Sanitarium's
existence not the slightest notice was taken of it.
In 1 89 1 Dr. Vincent Y. Bowditch opened his
institution at Sharon, Mass., and, within a
few years, had emphasized the value of sana-
torium methods by obtaining good results in so
unfavorable a climate as that of the country near
Boston. In 1895 I was much encouraged when
a committee was sent to Saranac Lake by the
Massachusetts Legislature to investigate the Sani-
tarium. This Commission reported favorably
on the results obtained and the methods of treat-
ment upon which they were founded. Appropria-
tions were voted by the Massachusetts legis-
lature, and the State Sanatorium for the Treat-
ment of Incipient Tuberculosis was built and its
doors were opened in 1898 — the first State institu-
tion of this character. By that time the value
of sanatorium treatment was becoming generally
recognized, and institutions were beginning to be
built all over the country. By 1909 three hundred
and fifty-two private and State institutions were
in operation, one hundred and two of which had
sprung into existence during that year.

Now that for some time the sanatorium treat-
ment has been fully recognized and accepted as

(304)

the best method for arresting tuberculosis, our
efforts at the institution of late years have been
devoted toward the improvement of the plant
so as to make the buildings more convenient,
better adapted to the needs of the work, and more
permanent in construction; to the perfecting of
all methods of diagnosis and treatment, while
studying new methods that promise improvement
along these lines; to the developing of new
activities, such as the workshop, the laboratory,
the X-ray department and the nurses' training
school, and to looking forward in the future to
providing teaching facilities for advanced students.
The aims of the institution should now be not
so much growth in size as perfection in methods
and helpful activities, and spread of advanced
knowledge. Science and philanthropy must in
the future as in the past be the watchwords of
the Sanitarium work, and along these lines it
should continue to progress steadily. The degree
of perfection and usefulness it attains will depend
upon the spirit of its workers and the financial
support of its friends and the public.

(305)

XXVI

THERE is one more red-letter day in my life
which I want to record in this little book — the
celebration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of
the Sanitarium's existence, on the afternoon of
February 15, 19 10. The date of the proposed
celebration had been deferred several times,
because I was confined to bed and would have
been unable to be present; but the preparations
for the great event, which I got up from bed to
take part in, had been carefully kept from me,
and no man ever had a more wonderful surprise.
There is so much I should be tempted to write
about in describing the events of this day that
I am going to confine myself to quotations from
a description written in shorthand by an eye-
witness and published in the Adirondack Enter-
prise at the time:

"The twenty-fifth anniversary of the founding
of the Adirondack Cottage Sanitarium by Dr.
E. L. Trudeau was celebrated at the sanitarium
on Tuesday afternoon, February 15, 19 10. The
function was in the form of tableaux and panto-
mimes, representing the dream of Dr. Trudeau,
who, while fox hunting over ground now occupied

(307)

by the many buildings of the sanitarium, pictured
in his mind's eye some of the remarkable things
which have since been accomplished. . . .

"Between three and four hundred friends,
patients and former patients of the Adirondack
Cottage Sanitarium, gathered at the institution. . . .

"The pantomimes given in the amusement
pavilion portrayed the growth of the sanitarium
from the hunter's dream, when the idea crystal-
lized in the mind of Dr. Trudeau, to the present
day. They included guides, workmen, physicians,
benefactors of the institution, and former and
present patients.

"The audience gathered in the hall and at the
arrival of Dr. and Mrs. Trudeau, gave them a
welcome that will probably live long in their
memory. . . .

"The keynote to the tableaux was sounded in
the brief prologue given by David C. Twichell,
M.D., who planned and arranged this part of the
entertainment. He said:

"'The effort has been made in these tableaux
to reproduce actual conditions as they existed
and, as far as possible, to have the actual persons
on the stage who participated in the scenes
portrayed.' . . .

"Tableau I. — 'The Huntsman's Dream' showed
Dr. Trudeau, impersonated by Dr. Charles C.
Trembley, and Mr. Fitz Greene Hallock, a guide,
and^ friend for many years to Dr. Trudeau. Mr.
Hallock in person was on the stage, wearing the

(308)

huntsman's clothing and equipment of thirty
years ago, when he piloted Dr. Trudeau through
the woods and over the hills about Saranac Lake.
The scene was the ground on which the present
sanitarium stands, then a famous fox runway.
The young physician, dressed for the hunt, falls
asleep at the watch-ground and dreams a dream,
which the tableau presents in pictures thrown
on the screen by the stereopticon. The first
portrays the earliest sanitarium building as it
appeared in 1885, and this progresses into the
scene of 1886, with more buildings, but only a
ghostly forecast of the sanitarium of today. The
three following pictures were the unfolding of
the dream into the scenes of 1900, 1903, and finally
into the great panorama presented by the institu-
tion of today. . . .

"In Tableau II was shown the 'Work Begun.'
Among the characters presented were Mr. D. W.
Riddle, treasurer and devoted friend of the
sanitarium since its founding, and L. Kelly, who
helped to dig the foundations and who was out-
side superintendent of the institution for many
years. A large number of others were shown,
hurrying along the work of building and founding
the sanitarium. . . .

"The scene of Tableau III was laid in Dr.
Trudeau's old office, and pictured the great variety
of applicants for admission to the Adirondack
Cottage Sanitarium. The types were true to
facts, for among the early applicants were a

(309)

Chinese and an Indian, besides many other nearly
as curious and unexpected patients, who sought
to recover from tuberculosis of the lungs of which
they were victims.

"Other tableaux followed.

"Dr. Trudeau consented to say a few words
at this point. He walked upon the stage leading
by the hand Mr. D. W. Riddle and Fitz Greene
Hallock, and the three men formed the historic
group of the three pioneers of the institution.
He introduced himself and escorts as 'the three
pioneers in the antituberculosis work in Saranac
Lake.' The reception they received was extraor-
dinary. Dr. Trudeau spoke with great feeling.

"His address follows:

'"Ladies and Gentlemen: — How can I find
words to express suitably my feelings on such an
occasion as this? Twenty-five years ago I dreamed
a dream, and, lo, it has come true, and we are
here today to commemorate the realization of
this dream.

"'When I came to the Adirondacks thirty-five
years ago the outlook for my accomplishing any-
thing in life seemed to be hopeless indeed. I was
an exile in a country which was both remote and
inaccessible. I had only an indifferent medical
education; indifferent as compared with that of
today. I had only ordinary intellectual attain-
ments. Now you may ask how it was, in spite of
these difficulties, I accomplished what has been
done here.

(310)

'"The first asset I had, which carried me through
better than anything else, was a good wife — the
best wife that any man ever had; and through
the long years of discouragement and struggle
she has always furnished both inspiration and
encouragement. And then I had an unlimited
fund of enthusiasm and perseverance, and I had
faith; that kind of faith that sees the goal and is
blind to the obstacles; faith in myself; faith in
my power to do something, no matter how little,
for a good cause; faith in my friends — and that
faith has been reflected on me so that they have
poured their money into my lap all these years
for my work; faith in the future, here and here-
after.

" ' Now that I have come to the end of the road,
what more could I ask than to be permitted to
stand with you here today and see the realization
of my dream; to look into the faces of my friends
of the pioneer days, who had faith in an enthu-
siastic young doctor, and show them that their
faith was not misplaced; to stand here and see
those who have been connected with this work
for so many years — doctors, nurses, and those
in the administration department— and who have
borne for me the heat and burden of the day, and
by their self-sacrificing devotion have made this
great work what it is? And what is better than to
see all about me those whose lives have been
saved and prolonged, and to know that this
saving and prolonging of life, because of what we

(311)

have striven to do here all these years, has reached
across the continent and brought hope and life
to those who hitherto were hopeless?

"'I thank all of you who have prepared this
beautiful celebration for me; I thank you for the
honor you have done me; but this honor and
every other honor which my fellow-men have
seen fit to accord to me, I cast at the feet of one
who deserves them much better than I do, because
without her I could have done nothing — my
good wife. ' . . .

"Following Dr. Trudeau's address the scene
changed to the parlor of the Sanitarium, whither
all made their way and where the reception to
Dr. and Mrs. Trudeau took place.

"A book, a beautiful example of the binder's
art, made by Miss Marion Sloan at the sanitarium
workshop, and containing congratulatory cards
from one thousand former patients whose lives
have been prolonged by the treatment at the
Sanitarium, was presented to Dr. Trudeau by
Dr. E. R. Baldwin. . . .

11 In presenting the book of congratulatory cards
to Dr. Trudeau, Dr. Baldwin said:

'"Dr. Trudeau — ladies and gentlemen: — In be-
half of the committee which has arranged this
celebration, I desire to thank everyone who has
participated in it, and especially those of the old
patients and friends who have so eagerly and
spontaneously seized this occasion to give homage
to Dr. Trudeau. . . .

(312)

" ' It is an event deserving of far more eloquence
than I am capable of rendering to you. Consider,
if you will, the contrast in these twenty-five
years: only the modest equipment here and two
patients, while it is estimated that over 117,000
received care in this country last year. Today
there are 386 sanatoria and hospitals which owe
their inception directly or indirectly to Dr. Tru-
deau's influence. . . .

"'Dr. Trudeau, this occasion would be incom-
plete without an expression from the many former
patients of this institution, who could not be
present, but who desired to send their greeting
to you. The committee has therefore invited
all who wished to send such a message, to do so
in a way that could be presented to you as a
souvenir of this event. To this end cards have
been prepared, upon which the sentiments of your
patients have been written by them and placed
in this volume.

"'I have the great pleasure and honor to pre-
sent it to you in behalf of the graduates of the
Adirondack Cottage Sanitarium, who take this
means to rise and call you blessed."

The book, one of my most prized possessions,
contains one thousand cards written by patients
who had recovered their health at the Sanitarium,
expressing gratitude, each in his own way.

Truly, did any man ever have such a reward for
work, the very doing of which was an ample reward !

During all these years it has not only been at the

(313)

Sanitarium and the Laboratory that the tubercu-
losis problem has had to be met, but the village of
Saranac Lake has been constantly called upon
to adapt itself to new conditions, which have
transformed it from a guides' settlement to a
busy town and much-frequented health resort.
For thirty years an ever-increasing number of
invalids have been steadily settling down in Saranac
Lake, and the town has now practically developed
into a cottage sanatorium on a large scale in order
to meet the requirements of an ever-growing
invalid population from all classes of society,
from the affluent to the penniless. For the rich
it now affords beautiful and even luxurious homes,
which have been designed and built with a special
view to the hygienic care and requirements of
the invalid, and for carrying out with the greatest
convenience and comfort the open-air method
of treatment in the rigorous climate of these
mountains. These features are to be found more
or less developed even in the more humble board-
ing places which abound in the town.

An efficient Board of Health has instituted
modern methods of guarding against infection.
Rules and regulations to that effect are exposed
in public places and enforced in the town, and
disinfection and fumigation of rooms recently
occupied by the sick is made compulsory. These
measures have apparently been efficient.

The dread of infection which has been so played
upon as to make the average individual terror-

(314)

stricken at the idea of coming near Saranac Lake
has been practically demonstrated to be a gross
exaggeration, for the death-rate from tuberculosis
among the native residents — and what is still
more, among the twelve hundred or more school
children of Saranac Lake — is less than the death-
rate among adults and children in most similar
towns in the State. Children are much more
susceptible to tuberculous infection than adults,
and the risk in Saranac Lake cannot be much
greater than elsewhere, or it would soon become
very apparent among the school children.

This is especially convincing when we consider
the death-rate among very young children under
five years of age. These are the most sensitive
material to the presence of tuberculous infection
that we know of.

The State Health Supervisor, Dr. J. A. Smith,
tells me that only twenty-four deaths have
occurred in Saranac Lake of tuberculous menin-
gitis in children under five years of age during
the past eighteen years. Thirteen of the twenty-
four were children who had tuberculous parents,
from whom they most probably contracted the
disease. In one case the state of health of the
parents was doubtful. This would leave only
ten cases during the past eighteen years in children
who had healthy parents.

These figures speak for themselves and cannot
well be ignored. I would recommend them to
the consideration of unthinking and terror-stricken

(315)

laymen, as well as to physicians. How little those
who so often speak disparagingly of Saranac
Lake, because it harbors so many invalids, know
of the burden of human misery, not its own,
which this small and remote town has carried
and ministered to as best it could for so many
years! The selfishness, cruelty or stupidity of
terror-stricken relatives and friends which urges
a poor and hopelessly ill consumptive, without
money, to come to die in so remote a region,
among strangers, only adds loneliness and many
discomforts to his unfortunate lot, and an addi-
tional burden to the ever over-taxed charity of
the town.

My associates and the residents of Saranac
Lake have not been unmindful of the poor invalid
who comes here to struggle for health, sorely in
need of advice and assistance. Through the
formation of the Society for the Control of Tuber-
culosis, inaugurated by Dr. Lawrason Brown,
an intelligent and well-organized effort is put
forward to help all invalids and strangers in need
of advice and assistance. This Society, under
the management of Mr. F. L. Fairchild, has
done noble work for many years; a work which,
though it may not be blazoned among the annals
of great accomplishments, efficiently represents
the practical application of the great gospel of
unselfishness to one of the most crying needs of
stricken humanity. A beautiful feature of Saranac
Lake and its problems is that in the meeting of

(316)

these, which the world turns from with dread and
discouragement, the visitors who have taken up
their residence in Saranac Lake find life here
satisfying, filled with interests, and surrounded
by an atmosphere of friendliness, good feeling and
cheerfulness which is not found to the same degree
anywhere else.

As I look back on my life, ever since that day in
1866 when my brother came to me sick at Newport,
tuberculosis looms up as an ever-present and
relentless foe. It robbed me of my dear ones,
and brought me the first two great sorrows of my
life; it shattered my health when I was young and
strong, and relegated me to a remote region,
where ever since I have witnessed its withering
blight laid upon those about me, and stood at
the death-beds of many of its victims whom I
had learned to love. Of late it has condemned
me to years of chronic invalidism, helplessness
and physical misery and suffering.

And yet the struggle with tuberculosis has
brought me experiences and left me recollections
which I never could have known otherwise, and
which I would not exchange for the wealth of the
Indies! While struggling to save others, it has
enabled me to make the best friends a man ever had.

From my patients who have recovered I have
learned much, and this contact with them has
brought me rewards which are priceless to me now.
To look about me on those whom I have helped

(317)

in the hour of need, and, even though in a very
slight degree, to have been instrumental in
restoring many to health and active lives of use-
fulness, and to feel daily their gratitude and love,
is a joyful heritage indeed, which endures in a
world where all else passes away, and which
brings some contentment and peace in hours of
physical misery and discouragement.

To see the Sanitarium, which I have taken part
in creating, daily extending a helpful hand to
hundreds at a time when help may mean health,
cheering, saving and restoring life, is indeed a
reward far beyond all material rewards the world
has to offer.

But there are other experiences, which relate to
those patients at whose bedsides I have stood,
who have undergone long years of enforced physical
and mental suffering, and often grinding poverty as
well, while they fought a fight which was from
the first doomed to be a losing one for them;
and their experiences have shown me glimpses of
the spiritual in man, and brought me a larger
and more precious message than even the grati-
tude and affection of those who have recovered.
From these I have learned that the conquest of
Fate is not by struggling against it, not by trying
to escape from it, but by acquiescence; that it
is often through men that we come to know God;
that spiritual courage is of a higher type than
physical courage; and that it takes a higher type
of courage to fight bravely a losing than a winning

(318)

fight, especially if the struggle from the first is
evidently a hopeless one, and is protracted for years.

These patients represent the sort of victory
Mercie tried to immortalize in his wonderful
statue, "Gloria Victis", which he was inspired
to create in 1871 after the French nation had been
crushed by Germany. The statue represents a
young gladiator who has just received his death
blow while facing his foe. As he falls, his broken
sword still in his hand, the figure of Victory, with
great outstretched wings, swoops down and carries
him upward in her arms.

The victories the world acclaims and rewards
are the victories of success and achievement and
triumph over the material forces of the universe;
but the victories of the spirit, the victories of the
vanquished, it takes little heed of. And yet the
record of the ages shows that such victories
require the highest type of courage, have been as
enduring as any material achievements, and
still speak their great message to the higher life
of man, with a clearness which neither time nor
the acclaim of the successful conquerors in life
can dim.

Speak, History — who are Life's Victors?

Unroll thy long annals and say;
Are they those whom the world calls the victors

Who won the success of the day?

The martyrs, or Nero? The Spartans

Who fell at Thermopylae's tryst?
Or the Persians and Xerxes— his judges,

Or Socrates?— Pilate or Christ?
(319)

LIBRARY OF THfc.

Orkms Parish M#d , *,

The statue of "Gloria Victis" typifies many
victories I have seen won in Saranac Lake by
those whom I had learned to love, the victory
of the spirit over the body; the victories that
demand acquiescence in worldly failure, and in
the supreme sacrifice of life itself as part of their
achievement; the victory of the Nazarene, which
ever speaks its great message to the ages.

As typical of struggles with which I was familiar,
long struggles in which even the gloom of death
could not smother the triumphant note, and
which had taught me that the Spirit of God may
dwell in man — a precious message indeed — Mer-
cie's statue was always my favorite statue, and I
tried long to secure a copy of it ; but failing in this,
I had a small photograph of it framed which
stood on my desk. One afternoon in December,
1913, two ladies, both strangers to me, sent
up their cards. They had a sister in Saranac
Lake and had called to ask me some questions
about the place. One of them at once noticed
the little photograph of Mercie's statue on my
desk and asked me about it, as she said she had
seen the original. I told her what it had meant
to me, and that as I could not procure a small
reproduction of the statue, I kept this little
photograph on my desk. After a few moments
of pleasant talk the ladies departed, and two
weeks later I received from Gorham's a fine bronze
statue of the "Gloria Victis", with a beautiful note
stating that the three sisters — two of them artists

(320)

— were so happy to feel that it was their privilege
to find a copy of the statue, "Gloria Victis", which
had meant so much to me and which I desired
to own. They were sending it to me with their
best wishes.

Truly, life is full of beautiful surprises, and the
miraculous advent of the bronze "Gloria Victis"
to Saranac Lake, where so many of the victories
it typifies are fought and won, should be a fitting
mile-stone with which to end this long journey.

And now that my life, like this little book, is
near its end, and both are a tale that is told, I
am looking back quietly over the long years which
have passed so quickly. Dr. Richard Cabot,
to whom my gratitude, as well as that of many
others, is due for writing his last book, tells us
convincingly that the things men live by are
"work and play and love and worship." Well,
if this be true — and it surely is — I have indeed
had a full life; full of the joy of play, and the
struggle and zest of work, and overwhelmingly
full of human love — a wealth of love which has
endured, and is still making life precious to me
every hour; full of the aspirations and ceaseless
strivings of the spirit for expression in worship,
ever groping to know God, and ever sustained
through long periods of gloom by too swiftly
fading glimpses of the Heavenly Vision.

Certainly all this is to live, and I have lived a
full life and must be content to await patiently
the end of the great Mystery of Existence, clinging

(321)

to the faith to which I have ever clung, surrounded
by good friends, and cheered by all the recollec-
tions of everything life has brought me and the
great lessons it has taught me, which make the
sunset for me glow with unusual warmth and
brilliancy. After all, I can truly say

With their triumphs and their glories and the rest,
Love is best.

(322)

University of California

SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY

405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1388

Return this material to the library

from which it was borrowed.

* A.

30287

wz

100

TR666

1916

Trudeau
An autobiography

UC-CCM LIBRARY

Ui