Walsh, James J.

English

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The Linacre QuarterlyVolume 8 | Number 2 Article 7April 1940Dr. Thomas Addis EmmetJames J. WalshFollow this and additional works at: http://epublications.marquette.edu/lnqRecommended CitationWalsh, James J. (1940) "Dr. Thomas Addis Emmet," The Linacre Quarterly: Vol. 8 : No. 2 , Article 7.Available at: http://epublications.marquette.edu/lnq/vol8/iss2/7THE LINAORE QUARTERLY DR. THOMAS ADDIS EMMET BY JAMES J . WALSH, M.D., PH.D. We have scriptural warrant for (though one of these may have the expression, pronounced to been typhoid). Because of the pe-Eve after the fall, that she should riodic appearance of these and bring forth her children in pain. other contagious diseases in the Very few people realize, however, city, doctors were liable to infec-that the pain due to the bearing tion and many developed the dis-of children is not only a passing eases and died from them while phase of pain for a few hours dur- still young. Thus the mortality ing labor, but that a woman may rate among physicians was very suffer afterwards severely for days high, and their expectancy of life and months and even years in lower than in most other walks of some cases, and that only in our life. time have remedial measures been Quite contrary to this general devised which afford relief for rule, Doctor Emmet lived to be these pains and aches. There are ninety-two and his longevity was a good many readers of this ar- not due to heredity, as it is in ticle in LINACRE who might have most cases. He himself attributed known personally Dr. Thomas it to the fact that he had always Addis Emmet, to whom suffering taken a good deal of open-air ex-women are so much indebted, be- ercise; and that he had a thor-cause of his marvelous success in oughly interesting hobby which relieving their pains and discom- gave him a diversion from the forts. cares of his professional occupa-When I came to New York to be tions. He was a very busy man a medical editor on the Medical professionally, yet he never kept a News, I made it a point to culti- carnage. He walked to his pa-vate acquaintances and friends tients in their homes, and espe-among the older men of the pro- cially to those that were in the fession. One of these, with whom Woman's Hospital, about a mile I came to be on terms of rather from his office. He was a great close intimacy, was Thomas Addis advocate of walking as the very Emmet. best thing for a professional man. The practice of medicine was At that time, before the automo-very different then from what it is bile came into use, there was quite now, and epidemics of cholera and a fad for the belief that walking typhus carne at rather regular in- conserved health and strength. tervals, and usually carried off One of Emmet's friends, a well-many victims at each visitation. known physician, lived to be Emmet had himself suffered from ninety-fiv.e. This was Dr. Parks typhus and cholera, and indeed Webber, one of the most popular had had two attacks of typhus of medical consultants in London [ 4.5 1 THE LINACRE QUARTERLY at the end of the nineteenth cen-tury. He carried a pedometer with him to count his steps, so as to be sure that he got enough daily ex-ercise, and he made a special effort to walk at least fifty miles each week. Men like Dr. Abraham Jacobi in New York did a great deal more walking than a physi-cian would think of doing now. Yet it was these very men who lived their lives out fully, and even at ripe old ages still remained ad-vocates of exercise for health. Some of Emmet's experiences il-lustrate the varied life of a doctor in New York at that time. Emmet passed an examination which gave him a post over on Blackwell's Island. I think he stayed there for two years, and during that time he had cholera and two attacks of typhus. Every five years or so an epidemic of one or both of these diseases was to be expected, and many doctors were carried off by them. The second time Emmet had typhus he had a very severe case, which makes one think that per-haps the first attack was typhoid fever. The second typhus was so bad when it struck that it was thought that he was dead, and or-ders were given that his body be transported to Manhattan to await burial arrangements. At that time the only way to get to Manhattan from Blackwell's Island was by rowboat, through the treacherous currents of the East River. So the "corpse" was laid in a boat and started on its way. The cool air on the nver roused Emmet out of the deep coma of his disease, and he sat up to say that he was as good as two or three dead men yet. He was taken to Bellevue to recuperate, and later went back to his medical position on the Island and com-pleted his term there. There were many exciting inci-dents on Blackwell's Island. I have heard Emmet tell the story of finding one of his patients dy-ing of suffocation from laryngeal diphtheria, and when Emmet got to the ward, the man gave all the signs of being about to draw his last breath. There was no time to get to the end of the ward and back with a scalpel, so Emmet took a pen-knife from his pocket and, opening out the blade, pro-ceeded to do a tracheotomy with-out further delay. The man in the next bed saw Doctor Emmet with his knife ready to give the man · air without delay, and he was in-clined to think that Emmet had suddenly gone crazy and was cut-ting the patient's throat. He jumped out of bed and caught Emmet by the shoulders so as to restrain him. Emmet was already bending over the patient, ·and all he could do was to kick out vigo-rously at the man behind him, who thought he was doing a life-saving act! Emmet was always a busy man and as a rule he allowed himself very little time for sleep. After he had made a success of his opera-tion for the cure of abnormal con-nections between the bladder and certain other organs, his fame spread throughout the country, [ 46 ] THE LINACRE QUARTERLY and even to Canada, Europe, and the South American continent. His practice grew until it earned for him-as he himself told me on several occasions-over $50,000 a year. He added to his duties the supervision of a private hospital, which he made by throwing to-gether three houses next to his of-fice. H ere he was on call regularly day and night. Surgeons came from long dis-t ances to see him do his work, and to note how successful he was. One distinguished German surgeon said to him after going through his clinic at the hospital, "Doctor Emmet, you must write a book on this subject, for you are the mas-ter of it above all others. As soon as your book it> issued, I warrant you it will be translated into many foreign tongues." And Emmet said in r eply, "I fear that that can never be, un-less perhaps as I grow older my practice will diminish and I may find the time. As it is, I have tried half a dozen times to write a book, and have always failed to finish it. The only time I have to write any-thing is at night, and when I sit down, thinking to have an hour to myself for writing, I often fall asleep in my arm chair, and wake only when the milkman comes in the morning." "Well," said the German sur-geon, "I had that same experience, so I set myself to finding some way of keeping awake. I threw my armchair away, and I made a bench about fourteen by eighteen inches, with no back or sides. I sit on this while writing or studying, and if I fall asleep, I topple off the bench and wake up. VVhen I ·am very sound asleep, I hurt my-self somewhat, but now I have learned to catch myself just as I start to fall, and I have been able to write my books without further interrup_tion.' ' Emmet used to tell this story with great glee. He had a similar bench made when he was nearly seventy, and he was able to write his book, which was translated into half a dozen foreign lan-guages, and made his name known throughout the medical world. I mentioned above that Emmet attributed his long life partly to the intellectual hobby in which he was so intensely interested. This was the collection of Americana, that is, of original documents re-lating to the history of America. A good illustration of what is meant by Americana is the docu-ment that Emmet had in his col-lection with regard to the leaden statue of King George of England, which in Colonial days stood in New York, and which was knocked down by the colonists at the time of the Revolution. They broke it up and sold the pieces as scrap metal to a Connecticut merchant who cast the lead into bullets to be used by the Continental soldiers. The duly-signed receipt for the lead pieces was one of the docu-ments of the Emmet collection, of which he was most proud. He had a great many such original docu-ments, and his collection, the envy of collectors, was well known [ 47 1 THE LINAORE QUARTERLY throughout the country. He had a series of letters writ-ten by the signers of the Declara-tion of Independence. In each case Emmet had obtained, not any let-ter, but one of the most important letters that had been written by the particular signer. For in-stance, he had a letter written to James Madison by Thomas J effer-son, discussing the significance of some of the statements contained in the Declaration of Indepen-dence. Then there was an Irish signer from one of the Southern colonies who developed consump-tion and went back to Ireland to die there. Emmet had a letter of his, which for a while was thought to be unique. Then Emmet was told that there was extant at least one other letter of this Irish signer, in the possession of his de-scendants in Ireland. There was at this time in New York another distinguished collec-tor of Americana. This was Au-gustine Daly, a well-known pro-ducer of plays, immensely success-ful here in America, and in Lon-don and Paris as well. He had autographs of all the signers ex-cept the Irish one. He and Emmet were good friends but rival collec-tors, so when Emmet learned of this signer's other letter in Ireland he told Daly nothing about it. In-stead he offered to sell his Irish signer's letter, supposedly the only one in existence, and Daly grabbed at the chance to get it. Emmet had paid several thousand dollars for it-1 think the amount was $2,500-and he sold it for $3,500. Alas, when he went to Ireland, Emmet found that the letter thought to be of the signer was really of the signer's son. He was distracted, and came back to America to beg of Daly to let him buy the letter back. Daly abso-lutely refused, and they agreed that the transaction would not dis-turb the long-standing friendship. Emmet bothered Daly so much about the matter, however, that finally, not thinking that Emmet would go that far, Daly offered to sell the letter back for double his purchase price, that is, for $7,000. Emmet immediately accepted the offer, and once more had in his possession a "complete set of the signers," as it is called. Some years later, when Emmet was about seventy, he made a visit to some of the West Indies Islands on what we would now call a cruise, and during the . course of the voyage contracted a tropical disease which caused some swelling of the liver. In those days the liver was a little-explored region of the body, and chronic diseases associ-ated with it were usually thought to be malignant. Emmet was told by a group of consultants that he probably had cancer of the livc1·, which might be expected to can-e his death before very long. In putting his affairs in order, he looked about for a way to dispose of his Americana collection by which it would remain intact and be available for public exhibition and study in the future. Thus, [ 48 J THE LINAQRE when K enedy, the president of the New York Public Library, of-fer ed $150,000 for th e collection, and provided that it would be placed on permanent exhibition at the Library as the Kenedy-Emmet Collection of Americana, Emmet gladly accepted the proposal. Emmet's pathological condi-tion, such as it was, gradually cleared up, and when well, he started making another collection of Americana, which he sold when he was about ninet y for some forty thousand dollars. A third collection which he made was de-pos ited with his literary remains in the Library of the University of Notre Dame, at South B end, Indiana. Emmet's conversion was due to a ve ry interesting incident. His wife, a Catholic, was very fa ith-ful in her attenda nce at church and church affairs. H e went to Mass with her r egula rly on Sun-days a nd holy days of obligation. After they had been married a dozen years or more there was a mission in their church , St. Steph-en's, a nd one day when he was coming home for lunch, Emmet stopped into the church for the mid-day miss ion exercise, which was being given by a R edemptorist fa ther, who was an excellent speaker. Emmet had the scientific cast of mind which prefers not to accept unless it can understand, and his QUARTERLY one difficulty was tha t there wer e myst eries in the Church's doc-trines that he could not compre-hend . On this occasiOn the p reacher t alked about the myst ery of the Incarnation, showing that, if God is God, H e cannot be with-out mysteries. The explanation just solved Emmet's difficulty, and he went home to a sk his wife to r e-tum with him to St. Stephen's, which was only around the corner. His · years of association with his wife had made him thoroughly ca-p abl e of knowing a nd understand-ing Catholic belief, so he was bap-tized and received into the Church t hat same day, and Mrs. Emmet's heart rejoiced th a t they were now a truly united family. As may be seen from these ran-d om notes on Dr. Emmet, prob-a bly the most surprising feature of his ca reer is the number and n triety of the duties which he per-formed. H e did an immense a mount of profess ion al work, a t-t ending patients a t their own homes, at the Woman's Hospital, a nd at his own p rivat e hospita l. In fact, it would seem almost im-p ossible for a man t o assume all the responsibilities that Emmet had, to do all the good work that he accomplished, and still to main-t ain his health . Yet we know that his efforts did not shorten his span of years, and indeed he always in-s isted that his constant occupa-tion had much to do with the pro-longation of his life. [ 49 1 

Dr. Thomas Addis Emmet

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Dr. Thomas Addis Emmet

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