Dr. Page's great forte as a physician was the management
of fevers and chronic diseases. In his treatment of
surgical diseases he was also particularly successful.
He made no attempt to excel in operative surgery, though there
are few of the minor operations which in the course of his
long practice, he had not repeatedly and successfully performed.
His chief end and aim was to restore wounded and lost parts,
and to avoid operations when practicable ; and there are many
now living who owe to him the preservation of "life and
limb," which might have been mutilated or destroyed in
more adventurous or less skilful hands.
He never sought for extraordinary cases to herald his skill,
being satisfied with the triumph of the moment, and relying
of the semper paratus which should always attach to
the physician and surgeon--never losing sight of the truth
conveyed in the beautiful thought of Milton,
---- ---- ----
to know
That which before us lies in daily life,
Is the true wisdom. ------ ------ |
In the management of dislocations and fractures he
was particularly expert and invariably successful. His treatment
of consumption differed from most other practitioners,
and was cordial and restorative instead of depleting and debilitating
; and he was happy to find, towards the close of his life,
that his system of practice was beginning to be more generally
appreciated, and adopted with the happiest results. The bugbear
inflammation, which in these northern latitudes leads
to such deplorable and fatal mischief, in the indiscriminate
use of calomel and the lancet, never haunted him in his practice.
He often cautioned his pupils against their baneful effects,
and thought it better for young practitioners to avoid them
altogether, till from riper years and observations they had
learned to estimate their importance, and successfully apply
them to practice.
"Better," he would say, "never used, than universally
abused." Verily their name is legion, and their work
is death--and he enforced his counsel in his earlier and later
years, by two memorable examples, Presidents Washington and
Harrison, both of whom fell melancholy victims to a false
and irrational system of practice, and the deplorable errors
of the schools. Falsus principia, falsus medicinae.
Dr. Page was unsurpassed, also, if not unequalled, in the
success of his obstetric practice. How important he regarded,
and how successfully he practised it, appears from the fact
that he attended upwards of three thousand females in their
confinement, without the loss of a single life from the first
year of his practice ! This is almost miraculous, and
may challenge the professional records of Europe or America
for anything to compare with it. The causes of this success
may be traced chiefly to his uncommon tact and skill, but
above all to his intuitive knowledge of disease, his profound
and unerring judgment, and the unbounded confidence everywhere
and at all times, and in all emergencies, reposed in him ;
and lastly, to the preparatory measures, and the soothing
regimen which he usually advised those who submitted to his
charge. He rarely invoked instrumental aid, or made use of
those popular and energetic means so common in the hands of
others. In this branch
