WHITMAN: “THE GOOD DOCTOR”[a 1]
By O. Larsell
We have heard this morning of Dr. Marcus Whitman's education and early practice of medicine. We have learned of the excellent quality of his training and the considerable experience he had as a practitioner before he started for the northwest. Not only had he studied under some of the best medical teachers of this country in his day, and graduated from a school that ranked very high, but he had acquired the experience and self-reliance of the country doctor.
What manner of man was Marcus Whitman personally? We have the estimates of those who knew him and his work intimately. When he offered himself at the age of thirty-two to the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions in 1834, the Reverend H. P. Strong of Whitman's home town, Rushville, New York, wrote to Mr. Wisner, secretary of the board, as follows:[1] “I find his talents are above mediocrity, his mental improvement respectable, in his profession above ordinary physicians; in appearance among respectable people, rather forbidding at first, but makes a good impression soon & is respected. Is pretty well calculated to acquire & retain influence, will be a pleasant missionary companion, cooperate well with others ..." J. W. Nesmith, one of the leaders of the wagon train of 1843, which Whitman guided for much of its journey, and afterward United States senator from Oregon, described the doctor as:[2] “A quiet unassuming man and of great purity of character. Of powerful physical organization, possessed of a great and good heart, full of charity and courage, utterly destitute of hypocrisy, shams & effeminacy, and always terribly in earnest. After fatigue of hard day's march would
spend much of the night going from one party to another to minister to the sick.” Elsewhere Doctor Whitman is described
- ↑ Address delivered at the celebration of the Whitman centennial, Walla Walla, Washington, August 13, 1936.
- ↑ H. P. Strong to B. B. Wisner, August 12, 1834, cited from Hulbert and Hulbert, Oregon Crusade, 266.
- ↑ Quoted from H. S. Lyman, History of Oregon, III, 329.
