titioner of fifty years experience, it has been well
said, are entitled to uncommon regard.
Dr. Page's familiarity with the classics was by no means
limited. He had a good knowledge of the ancient languages,
and especially the Latin, so important to the physician ;
and he early acquired a partial knowledge of the French also,
which on more than one occasion he was enabled to turn to
good account. Prince Talleyrand, "fifty years since,"while
on a visit to Maine, was the guest of his next-door neighbor
and friend, and availed himself of his medical advice ; and
more recently Count Ney, the son of Marshal Ney, while making
a flying tour through the State, was arrested by disease,
and became the subject of his skill. The royal patient was
so well pleased and satisfied with his medical adviser, that
he called upon him directly after his recovery from a dangerous
illness, to express his gratitude and thanks, and before leaving
town addressed a polit note to him in French, enclosing within
it five times the amount of the fee. These may seem trifling
circumstances to many, but they were a pleasing source of
gratification to the deceased, and show moreover how universally
he was estimated and beloved.
He was often called upon to visit patients in distant towns,
and to prescribe for persons in foreign States, and he had
the pleasure of almost invariably learning from them that
his counsel was generally approved in the profession, and
his prescription beneficial to the sick. Indeed, there is
hardly a town or village within a circuit of thirty miles
(and there are many) to which he was not called to attend
to sick, and from which some one or more persons have not
consulted him for his medical advice. For many years he controlled
the best practice in the several towns of Hallowell, Augusta
and Gardiner, and there are many families in each who continued
to avail themselves of his medical services and advice as
long as he was able to render them. During the epidemic spotted
fever he was constantly written to by his medical brethren
from all quarters, soliciting his opinion in regard to the
epidemic, and his mode of treatment. He never withheld an
answer, but disclosed frankly and freely all he knew upon
the subject--all of his own discoveries and the practice he
found most useful, and the remedies most successful in controlling
the disease. In his medical principles he was strictly eclectic
and rational. He was a true "minister and interpreter of nature,"
following no particular school or sect, but drew what he esteemed
to be good and profitable from all sources, and applied his
knowledge, without regard to particular or prevailing theories,
to the treatment of disease. In consultation he was remarkably
courteous and prudent. As was said of Hampden, on another
occasion, he presented that rare affability and tempet and
a seeming humility and submission of judgment, as if he brough-
no opinion of his own with him, but a desire of information
and instrucftion. Yet he had so easy a way of interrogating,
and under cover or doubts of insinuating his objections, that
he infused his own opinions into those from whom he pretended
to learn and receive them. Whenever his opinions were fixed
and he could not comply, he always left the impression and
character of an ingenuous physician and a conscientious