of his profession particularly, he left all us competitors
behind him, and ever mindful of the golden maxim, especially
applicable to obstetric practice, Festinare nocet, nocet
et cuncatio saepe, he triumphed in the art, and met with
unparalleled good fortune and universal success.
His treatment of juvenile cases was signally successful.
This is to be ascribed to his superior judgment.
In his treatment of fevers, especially the frightful plague
or spotted fever of 1812-14, he justly acquired much celebrity.
Within the sphere of his practice it was rendered well nigh
harmless, and the remembrance of his medical offices to many
now living will be a source of grateful endearment and delightful
satisfaction.
The epidemic spotted fever made its appearance in 1810,
and till 1816 prevailed at Hallowell and its vicinity with
great severity. It fell to the lot of Dr. Page to devote a
large portion of his attention to the sick during the prevalence
of this epidemic. Several thousand cases fell under his observation
; and he is entitled, says the distinguished author and practitioner,
Dr. Thacher, to much honor, and to the gratitude of the public,
for his correct observations, his indefatigable industry and
his very judicious mode of treatment, by which the disease
was divested in a great measure of its malignity and fatal
tendency.
The late accomplished and much lamented Dr. Robbins, in alluding
to this epidemic in an early No. of this Journal, says of
his beloved and distinguished preceptor, Dr. Page, "his
talents, judgment and practical skill, would alone redeem
the professional character of his State. We have never,"
says he, "in any country met with a medical practitioner
whose views are more liberal or just, or in whose hands we
should so willingly entrust ourselves in a dangerous disease.
His unexampled success in treating the spotted fever
which prevailed in 1814, whilst so many were falling victim
to the disease in the neighboring towns, and many cases which
have come to our knowledge of his successful management of
pulmonary inflammation, dropsies, curvatures of the spine,
and other obstinate chronic affections, would, if given to
the world as they ought to be, constitute a basis of lasting
fame, and be an ample herald of his sound practical judgment,
and extensive information on professional subjects."
Dr. Page, however, was never ambitious of becoming a medical
author. His time and attention were too exclusively devoted
to practice, and had he desired he could scarcely have found
time, up to the close of his active and practically useful
life, to have distinguished himself as a writer. Yet some
of his publications do him great credit, and his monographs
upon the Spotted Fever and Scarlatina are not
without their value. The admirable history of their symptoms,
together with the details of successful treatment, deserves
all the praise of originality, having been written entirely
from personal observation. It is not claiming too much for
them to say, that they contributed greatly to reform the practice
in these hitherto fearful and fatal maladies, and to divest
them of much of the terror and fatality which in New England,
as elsewhere, has ever attended them. The opinions of a skilful
and discerning prac-