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fine mental equipment he left the follow- ing June for Paris, where, through the influence of Boyer, surgeon-in-chief of La Charite, he had permission to dissect in the "Salle de Repos, " a fine name for a gruesome place which took Dorsey's fancy at once. It is curious that he makes no mention of the great French surgeons Sabatier, Dupuytren, Pelletan and Bichet, but enters in his diary "as to French surgery, I have learned nothing from it." In 1804 he returned to Phila- delphia and took consulting-rooms, but for the first few years, notwithstanding help from his uncle, his income was not at all commensurate with his abilities. The first year he only took S325.75, but in the year of his untimely death, 810,199, this being partly from pupils and the sale of his book, "The Elements of Surgery," published in 1S13 and illustrated mostly by the author. This work received a world-wide recognition, being reprinted in Edinburgh and used as a text-book in her university. "The American Sur- geon," says the author, "is or ought to be strictly impartial and therefore adopts from all nations their respective im- provements."
Amid the business of his own practice and helping Dr. Physick, he found time for both music and poetry, most of his poems bearing the impress of rhythmical beauty, one, penned in 1S05 on "The Incompre- hensibility of God," was evidently writ- ten with the greatest care. For music he had a warm liking and was himself pro- ficient on several instruments. Add to this his skill in drawing, his wonderful conversational powers, his genial man- ners and handsome figure and you have one who stands out from the foreground of the eighteenth century prominent and attractive.
1807 saw liim adjunct professor of surgery at Pennsylvania University, Dr. Physick requesting this in view of his own uncertain health, and the duties of the new assistant were fulfilled so thor- oughly and humanely that his students loved him no less for his skill than his thought for them. That same year
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he married Maria, daughter of Robert Ralston, a Philadelphia merchant, and had a son and two daughters.
In 1S13 Dorsey became professor of materia medica at the Pennsylvania University, a chair filled with singular ability until, in 1818, he was called to fill the chair of anatomy left vacant by the death of Dr. Wistar. Two years be- fore he had sent to a medical journal the particulars of a case of inguinal aneurysm cured by tying the external iliac artery, the first example of the kind which had occurred in this country.
So the early age of thirty-five saw Dorsey with a prospect of ease, usefulness and increasing fame before him. His own poetic mind must have conjured up a delightful life among devoted friends and admiring pupils, but while the words of a brilliant introductory address were still fresh in the minds of his hearers Dorsey was dying from an attack of typhus which developed the evening of the same day in which he delivered his lecture.
" On approaching his bed at the head of which his mother was sitting" wrote Dr. Janeway, "Dr. Dorsey took hold of a button of my coat and thus addressed me: "Doctor, is it not remarkable that after having delivered my introductory lecture I was praying to my God that I might not postpone my repentance to a dying bed, and in one hour after that prayer I was smitten with my disease."
The large room in which he lay was rilled with ladies and gentlemen, Phy- sick, Homes, Rolston and several medical students being there also. Dorsey then asked to be baptized, which was done by Dr. Janeway. His last words were: "I have a desire to live and remain with my family, but my desire to be with Christ is far greater."
Thus died a man whom a longer life would have seen equalling a Hunter or a Wistar, a man whose short life was so remarkable that it may long attract the reader of medical biographies.
A. R.
