Famous Givers and Their GiftsBolton, Sarah Knowles
History
Famous Givers and Their Gifts
Bolton, Sarah Knowles
Philanthropists
At two o'clock Sir Astley Cooper went across the street to St. Thomas's
Hospital to lecture on anatomy. "After the lecture, which was often so
crowded that men stood in the gangways and passages near to gain such
portion of his lecture as they might fortunately pick up, he went round
the dissecting-room, and afterwards left the hospital to visit patients
or to operate privately, returning home at half-past six or seven. Every
spare minute in his carriage was occupied with dictating to his
assistants notes or remarks on cases or other subjects on which he was
engaged. At dinner he ate rapidly, and not very elegantly, talking and
joking; after dinner he slept for ten minutes at will, and then started
to his surgical lecture, if it were a lecture night. In the evening he
was usually again on a round of visits till midnight."
Sir Astley received a baronetcy and a fee of £500 for successfully
removing a small tumor from the head of George IV. He wrote several
books, and was president of various societies. He was as famous abroad
as at home. The king of the French bestowed upon him the decoration of
the Legion of Honor. He died of dropsy in 1841 in his chair, surrounded
by his friends, saying, as he passed away, "God bless you; adieu to you
all," and was buried under the chapel near Thomas Guy. His only child
died in infancy. There is a statue of Sir Astley in St. Paul's
Cathedral, and a bust of him in the museum of Guy's. He said of himself:
"My own success depended upon my zeal and industry; but for this I take
no credit, as it was given to me from above." He is said to have left a
fortune of half a million of dollars.
The beloved Frederick Denison Maurice was elected chaplain of Guy's
Hospital in 1836, when he was thirty-one. He wrote to a friend, "If I
could get any influence over the medical students I should indeed think
myself honored; and though some who have had experience think such a
hope quite a dream, I still venture to entertain it." There seems no
reason why a medical student, or any student indeed, should be rough in
manner or hard of heart. A true man will be a gentleman not less in the
dissecting-room than in the parlor. He will be humane to the lowest
animal, and tender and considerate in the presence of suffering.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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