CHANNING
170
CHANNING
rhetoric, oratory and elocution from 1819
to 1851 in Harvard University.
Walter Channing entered Harvard in 1804 in the same class with his brother, Edward T. and his cousin, Richard H. Dana, the poet, but taking part with them and others in the rebellion of 1S07, a somewhat famous incident in the annals of the college, failed to receive his bach- elor's degree in regular course, though it was afterwards bestowed as a member of the class of 1808. He graduated M. D. at the University of Pennsylvania (1S09) when Dr. Rush was president and continued his studies under Dr. James Jackson, of Boston, afterwards going to Edinburgh University and the London hospitals, where he devoted himself large- ly to obstetrics, establishing himself in Boston as a practising physician in 1S12. In 1815 he was appointed the first profes- sor of obstetrics and medical jurispru- dence in Harvard University and held this position for nearly forty years, during all the second period of the life of the Har- vard Medical School while it was called the Massachusetts Medical College and was situated on Mason Street in Boston (1816-1847). He resigned, together with many other professors, a few years after the removal of the school to North Grove Street. He was dean from 1819 to 1847. In addition to an extensive private practice he was for nearly twenty years on the visiting staff of the Massachusetts General Hospital. Soon after the intro- duction of anesthetics there in 1846, he became deeply interested in the use of ether in childbirth, and mainly through his influence it was successfully used in such cases in this country. He published an elaborate work upon the subject "Etherization in Childbirth" founded on nearly 600 cases in his own practice, describing this innovation in medical treatment which at that time was con- sidered as daring as it has since proved beneficial. He was one of the first at- tending physicians at the Boston Lying- in Hospital, and he and Dr. John Ware were editors of the " New England Jour- nal of Medicine and Surgery" when that
publication became the "Boston Med-
ical and Surgical Journal" in 1828.
He published "Reform in Medical Science," and made addresses on the prevention of pauperism and on the necessity of introducing pure water into Boston. He was librarian of the Mas- sachusetts Medical Society from 1822 to 1825 and an honorary fellow of the Obstetrical Society of London.
He made other risky inky ventures be- sides editorial ones, being the author of one or two volumes of miscellaneous poems, and his "Physician's Vacation," publish- ed in 1856, is a readable record of an ex- tensive European tour. He was also a Bible student and loved Shakespeare and Scott, often repeating long passages of scripture and pages of Shakespeare. He once read the part of Macbeth in public, Fanny Kemble reading that of Lady Macbeth.
Channing was an ardent temperance reformer and a zealous citizen, very char- itable, devoted to the poor and always thought people honest, often leaving pa- tients of doubtful character alone in his study. On one occasion a man he had helped a great deal forged his name, when thus left alone, on a check for $300. He refused to prosecute this man and re- marked: "I ought not to have left temp- tation in his way. I dare say his con- science will punish him enough."
While a poor driver, he made a practice of keeping lively horses and met with sev- eral accidents. Knowing nothing about the physical points of a horse he once pur- chased one whose strange actions he could not account for until upon taking him to a horse dealer he found out that the animal was blind. This amused the doctor very much although he had been taken in.
He was devoted to his family and took his five grandchildren, sons and daughters of his son, William Ellery, to bring up after their mother's death, involving some sacrifices on his part as he had passed through a laborious life and was fond of quietude among his books. These grandchildren relate as a treasured re-
