■ IWIIW II   *    W
THE BELOVED PHYSICIAN.
A
DISCOURSE,
DELIVERED IN
FIRST CHURCH IN NEW HAVEN,
AT THE INTERMENT OF
JONATHAN  KNIGHT,  M. R,
       LATE PROFESSOR OF SURGERY IN YALE COLLEGE,
/
LEONARD BACON,

     PASTOR.

PUBLISHED BY BEQUEST.
         NEW HAVEN:

PRINTED BY THOMAS J. STAFFORD, 235 STATE STREET.


            1864. 
i
C
4 
DISCOURSE.
   xAmong the associates of Paul the Apostle whom  he
mentions in his epistles,  one is distinguished  by him as
"the beloved physician."*  Two books of the  New
Testament were written  by that beloved physician ; and
incidentally they bring  us, as it were, into some direct
acquaintance with him.  While they seem to betray, in
some passages, the  profession of  their  author,f  they
bear, in some other respects, the impress of his  charac-
ter.   He was a man of great simplicity and modesty,
for though he has occasion sometimes to speak of him-
self—as in the preface to  each of his two books, J and
in those passages in which  it comes out incidentally that
he was  with the  Apostle  as a  fellow traveler §—it is
always done with  a beautiful  unconsciousness, as if  he
were not thinking of himself at all.  He was a  man of
taste and literary culture—more than any other writer
of the New Testament, not excepting his  associate and
leader; and to the attentive  eye the simple narrative
  * Col. iv., 14.    f Acts xii., 23; xxviii., 8.    \ Luke i., 1-4; Acts i., 1.
  § Acts xvi., 10-17; xx., 5, 6, 13-15; xxi., 1-8, 15-18 ; xxvii.,1-8; xxviii.,
2-1, 10-16. 
4
1
from his pen, with its delicate but vivid coloring, glows
like a picture.   The  unaffected courtesy of manner in
his dedication, first of his Gospel,  and then of the Acts
of the Apostles, to the "most excellent  Theophilus,"
is significant of his character.  Now and  then we  see
gleaming  through  the  narrative,  a  flash of the  gentle
humor* which  is ordinarily  associated with  habitual
cheerfulness  and with  all  the elements  of character
which make a man beloved among those who know him.
His Christian integrity and stability, and  the firmness
of his trust in the gospel of salvation—not less than his
fidelity  in friendship—are strikingly testified when  the
aged apostle, writing his last letter from his prison, says,
" Demas hath  forsaken  me, having loved this present
world,  and  hath gone  to  Thessalonica—Crescens  to
Galatia—Titus  to  Dalmatia—Luke  only is  with me."f
We can easily understand how dear such a friend  must
have been to that Apostle with whom he kept company
in journeys, in labors, in perils, in  imprisonment—some-
times ministering to his relief in pain when the " thorn
in the  flesh "£  was hard  to  bear; and how natural it
was to speak of him as  " the beloved physician."
  This is what Luke seems to have been, whom the my-
thology of Romanism honors  as the patron-saint of  the
medical profession.  If now we suppose these traits of
personal character to  be combined with a thorough

  * Acts xii.,  18 ; xvii., 21; xix., 13-16 ; xxiv., 2-8.   f II. Tim., iv., 10, 11.
  \ II. Cor., xii., Y. See the ingenious explanation in Dr. John Brown's Horse
Subsecivje. 
5
knowledge of that wonderful structure, the human or-
ganism, body and mind,  of diseases in  their  symp-
toms and their causes, and of the remedies which God
has provided for the relief of pain or the restoration of
health, we have the ideal of a Christian physician.
   No man is a physician  by nature,  for  the knowl-
edge  essential to   the. art  of  healing  is  never intui-
tive.  Such knowledge  must be acquired by scientific
induction, accumulating its results  from age  to  age,
and must be combined with that kind of skill which
comes only  from  personal  observation and  practice
in  the  treatment  of diseases.   Such knowledge  and
such  experience  cannot be  universally diffused.   In
that  division of  labor which is the essence of civili-
zation, and which, by the distribution of functions and
employments, constitutes so close a  mutual dependence
among  the members of a  civilized community, some
men, properly qualified by natural gifts, by general cul-
ture, and by moral principles and habits, must acquire
this knowledge and skill in order to use it for the benefit
of others.  Thus the medical profession  is a necessity in
human society, and is worthy to  be held in high esteem
and honor for its work's sake.  It ministers to a univer-
sal want.  Human life  in all its stages, from its com-
mencement to its  dissolution, is liable to disease, and is
beset  with  perilous accidents.  The richest  and the
poorest, alike, need the aid of that  medical science and
skill which only a few can  acquire, and which the few
 must acquire for the benefit of the many.   Who is there
 that can afford to declare his independence of the medi- 
                         G
cal  profession I   Who, that  cannot afford to employ a
natural  blacksmith, instead  of one who by a regular
apprenticeship has learned the nature of hot iron and
the use of tools, can afford to entrust his life and health,
or the lives and health of his family, to  a natural phy-
sician or surgeon, an ignorant pretender, or an audacious
charlatan ?  No  man,  " when pain and  sickness  wring
the brow," can afford to  despise that knowledge of dis-
eases and  of remedies which the medical profession has
accumulated in the two thousand years since Hippocrates
made the first essay toward a rational theory of the
healing  art, and  which  it is now accumulating more
rapidly  than ever.
  Thus  it is that the physician, wherever his  intelligence
and skill are recognized, is held in  honor.  Even among
savages, if they know what  his profession is, he is more
honored than  a  king.  Knowing  only that he knows,
better than they, how to relieve pain and to overcome
disease,  they look  upon  him with a superstitious awe
and trust.  And when, in the progress  of intelligence,
that superstition dies away, and the  physician, instead
of being classed with dealers in magical arts, is  recog-
nized as acting in  conformity with a better knowledge
of the laws of nature, the sense of dependence  on  his
aid, and the confidence in his knowledge and skill,  are
not the less real for being more intelligent.
   How large, then, is the influence which naturally  be-
longs to the medical profession!   The members of that
profession are the  special depositaries of a science, or 
7
rather of a circle of sciences, essential to human welfare,
and  through them the benefits of that knowledge are
brought within the reach of all.   As a body of learned
men coordinate with other learned professions, bearing
a  part  in  the general progress  of human knowledge,
and  especially  learned  in  their own department—as
present in  every community to perform their beneficent
ministry—as  coming into  contact, habitually, with all
sorts and orders of people—as the recognized guardians
of the public health, and the natural leaders and guides
in all those undertakings of charity or of public spirit,
for the relief of disease, which are  so  characteristic of
a  Christian  civilization—they cannot but  be invested
with a peculiar and far-reaching influence over the habits
of thought and feeling in the community at large.
   So great an influence  can never be neutral as  relates
to moral interests and the religious welfare of mankind.
In the  miraculous introduction and  inauguration of the
kingdom of God among men, the preaching of the gos-
pel  of the kingdom was  accompanied with  manifesta-
tions of divine  power in the healing of  diseases.  Not
only did He "in whom dwelt all the fullness of the God-
head bodily," exhibit and  attest the glory of his mission
by putting forth his power to open the eyes of the blind,
to unseal deaf ears, to raise the sufferer  from the rest-
less and burning couch of fever, to restore the flesh and
bones  that were  decaying and dropping  off with lep-
rosy, to invigorate  with  renewed vitality the nerves
 which  palsy had  loosened, to kindle into  glowing life 
8
the pallid features on which death had set its seal—not
only did  he make works like these the signs and illus-
trations of his greater work of healing in the soul; but
when he sent forth his apostles to proclaim his gospel,
he gave them power also to heal the sick.   Nor was that
power given to apostles only.  " Gifts of  healing "  are
expressly named among those miraculous endowments
which, in the primitive churches, indicated Christ's special
and supernatural presence with his people.   Is there not
in this a meaning which we sometimes overlook ?   By
those miraculous cures  in  his personal ministry, Christ
put himself into communication with  thousands, who, oth-
erwise, might never have listened to him,  and in whom
no other works of power could have awakened equal sen-
sibility to the beauty of his life  and to the authority
with which he spake.   That power  to heal  the sick,
with which he  invested his apostles, was more than a
simple attestation;  it was also a  moral power, a power
to command attention, to conciliate respect, and to touch
the tenderest sensibilities.   Those  "gifts  of  healing"
in the primitive churches—whether  simply miraculous,
as doubtless they sometimes were, or the result of pro-
fessional knowledge and experience, appropriated to the
uses of the new life, and sanctified  and guided by the
Spirit of God—gave to Christianity  an augmented moral
power.  And is there not in all this a lesson concerning
the alliance which ought to exist perpetually in a Chris-
tian land between the medical profession and  the cause
and work of Christ ?  Ought not  the gift of healing, 
9
however it may have been  received from  the Giver of
all  good—ought  not the  moral power attendant on
medical knowledge and skill to be employed always in
the service of Christ and of  the great moral and spiritual
interests which are represented by that high and holy
name \
  This thought becomes more serious as we remember
the confidential  relations of the medical profession to
individuals and  to families.   Wherever the physician
meets his patient, and whatever the  malady for which
he is to prescribe, his relation to those who seek his aid
is that of an adviser.   In the necessity of the case they
must give him their  confidence.  Not  only must they
believe in his professional ability and integrity, but they
must put the case into his hands by telling him all that
he needs to know ; or he can do nothing for them. What
power is  there in such  a relation  on his part!  What
opportunities of  influencing  thought, opinion, feeling,
conduct!  How  often may character and destiny be de-
termined by a word from his lips!   Into how many
families does he enter in this confidential relation !   How
many are the jjersonal or household secrets  that come
inevitably into  his possession!   We have  sometimes
heard it said that every house has a skeleton hidden in
some closet.   In whatever house  there may be such  a
secret—though  the nearest  neighbors may not  know
it—though even the pastor who comes to the family with
 religious  counsel and  comfort  may not know it—how
 rarely can that  " skeleton in the closet"  be concealed 
10
from the family physician !  Surely that gift of healing
which introduces him into such relations to so many in-
dividuals and  to so  many households, carries with  it  a
great responsibility for moral and spiritual interests.
  Nor can we fail to remember  how intimately  the
members of the medical profession are associated with
our dearest and most sacred experiences—not with pain
only and grief and death, but with  sad anxieties, with
trembling hopes, with  pure  and thankful joy.  When
some loved one is suffering with perilous  disease, and it
is felt that the crisis is at hand,  the true and kind phy-
sician is as God's angel.  You have waited for his com-
ing.  You have  watched, holding your breath, as it
were, while he felt the fluttering pulse and with keen
eye  explored  the symptoms.   You  have caught  the
light of hope  from the expression of his countenance.
His  words  of encouragement, frankly  spoken, have
cheered you when you were ready to despair;  or  his
lips have  sadly and  gently told you  that  the sufferer
must die.  You  think kindly  and  gratefully of him
when you think of the loved one whose life was saved
by God's blessing on his  skill, and tender recollections
of his sympathy and his unsuccessful  endeavors  mingle
with the memory of  the  loved  and lost.   The  profes-
sion which brings its members into such  relations with
the families of rich and poor, is hardly second even to
the professional ministry of the gospel in  the power of
moral  and spiritual beneficence with which  it is in-
vested. 
                         11
  Happy is that community in which the  medical pro-
fession, learned, wise, skillful  and faithful, uses effectu-
ally and aright its  legitimate power of moral  and spir-
itual beneficence, and  in which  the gifts of healing,
devoutly recognized as coming from God, are  devoutly
employed in the service of God.   Sometimes we see the
fatal influence of an unprincipled  and godless physician.
Sometimes we see a parish overgrown with infidel opin-
ions  and  vicious habits, and steadily lapsing toward
heathenism.  Perhaps they had there, once, a  false and
treacherous minister of Christ, whose ministry  scattered
the seed from which this deadly fruit has grown.   Per-
haps the mischief may be traced  to the  influence  of an
unworthy physician, who poisoned the minds of young
men with loose and atheistic notions of morality—who
carried into the families which he  visited the infection of
his own profaneness, scoffing  at all  holy things—whose
groveling and vicious tastes  were diffused and propa-
gated through all the circle of his influence—and whose
memory shall rot.  Happy is that community  in which
the medical profession has been, and is, what it has been
in this city through successive generations.
   In the succession of eminent and  beloved physicians,
whose memory is cherished among the citizens of New
Haven with traditionary love and honor, no name stands
higher than that of Jonathan Knight.  No  memory,
in the medical profession, will be more illustrious than
his.  Rarely has any man more completely answered to
the ideal of " the beloved  physician."   This concourse 
                         12
testifies how truly his unaffected nobleness was honored.
These tears, and the grief that shades so many counte-
nances, testify how much he was beloved.
  Nature did much for him.   Endowed with a  clear,
active, sagacious and well-balanced  mind, he had noth-
ing of that  eccentricity which  conies from the dispro-
portionate force of some one faculty overtopping the
others, and  which is  often  mistaken for genius.   His
native qualities of mind and heart were the basis on which
was erected the beautiful strength and symmetry of his
manhood and the venerable dignity of his old age.  The
remarkable beauty and stateliness of his person was the
fit expression of his native genius and disposition.
   He was favored in the circumstances of his childhood.
Born seventy-five years ago, the first-born of his parents,
in what was then a quiet village far removed from city
influences, he  had from  infancy the benefit of a  Chris-
tian training after the  old New  England  fashion.   The
Bible, the Catechism, and the Psalm-book—the village
school, the  Sabbath, and the church—made  their im-
pression on his susceptible nature;  but  at home,  where
he was for eleven years an only child, the constant and
effective influence of parental love and godliness, and of
household affection and enjoyment, developed his  intel-
ligence and moral sense, restrained  his childish passions,
formed his tastes, and  illustrated and enforced the  les-
sons of the Gospel.  His mother long survived her hus-
band ;  and those who  knew her in her old age, thought 
13
they saw in her  the elements of the  character which
was so admirable in her distinguished son.
  At fifteen years of age we find him  a  student in the
college of which he was afterwards for so long a period
an illustrious  ornament.  Graduating  at nineteen, he
found employment for  a while in the instruction of an
academy at Norwich, which, I believe,  was his father's
birthplace.  Two years after his graduation, he returned
to college as  a tutor, but he soon resigned  that  office,
and  became a student  in the Medical  School of Phila-
delphia.   In  1813, when he was only twenty-four years
old,  he entered on the  practice of medicine in this city,
and  at the same time began to perform the work of a
professor in the medical school which was then instituted
as one of the departments  of Yale College.
   The profession of medicine was to him an inheritance.
His  father, and his mother's father, were physicians. The
former had served as a surgeon in the army of the Revo-
lution, and from him  he  inherited the  principles and
spirit of that heroic  age.  When the Medical Society of
Connecticut and the Corporation of Yale College were
consulting and making arrangements for the establish-
ment of a Medical  School, his  eminent promise of dis-
tinction led them to fix their  choice ^ on him, when he
was only twenty-one years old, to  be  associated, in the
work of commencing and  carrying  on a  system  of
medical  instruction, with   Dr.  Nathan Smith,  whose
celebrity as   a practitioner  and as  a  teacher of medi-
cine had  already filled New England, with Dr. Eli
Ives,  who, though still a  young  man, had become 
14
distinguished both  as a  physician  and as a  botanist,
with Professor  Silliman,  then in his  illustrious  prime,
and now the sole survivor of them all.  It was for this
reason that  he was  permitted to resign his  office as a
tutor in the college, and to  devote himself to prepar-
ation for  the  professorship to which  he had  been in-
formally designated.
  What he has  been  as a medical professor and as a
medical practitioner, I need  not attempt  to  describe.
All who are here to-day know what he was, better than
I can tell them;  though there  are  few who had better
opportunities of knowing him, or better  reason to love
and honor him, than I had.  As I have already intimated,
he came nearer than almost any other man whom we
could name, to the complete ideal of a Christian physi-
cian.  You know his great simplicity and modesty, and
his unaffected yet never morbid dread of making him-
self conspicuous.  He was  a  man of refined  taste, and
of high literary culture, with a rare mastery  of the
English language in conversation, in  public  discourse,
and in written composition.  His friends  admired, and
strangers could not  but recognize in a moment, his per-
fect  courtesy  and  gentlemanliness, combined with  a
modest and  unconscious dignity  of  manner.  These
qualities, not less than his professional eminence,  placed
him  twice in the presidency of the  National Medical
Association.  Whatever  he  did was elegantly done,
without  any offensive exquisiteness.   None ever saw
him with  a clouded countenance.  His  cheerful pres-
ence, radiant with kindness,  was like sunshine  in the 
15
darkened chamber of disease.   His quiet and constant
self-possession, his gentle steadfastness, and his patience
and forbearance toward all infirmity and unreasonable-
ness in others, were like  helping angels to him in his
ministry of beneficence.  Who is  there  that  has  ever
heard  one word of bitterness from his  lips %  What
friend  of his has ever  ceased,  but  by his  own fault, to
be his  friend?  What poor man ever  found him, as  a
physician, less attentive to the poor than to the rich 2
  But the consummate beauty of his character was his
simple faith in God and in  the Redeemer of men  from
sin.  Forty-nine years  ago he made  a public profession
of his  personal confidence in Christ, and became a mem-
ber of this church.  He loved those great truths which
he found in the Gospel, and all who saw how he lived',
knew that with him religion was not a name or profes-
sion only, but a vital experience—not the " form of god-
liness" only, but "the power thereof."   In 1818, when
he was not yet thirty years old, and had been only  three
years a communicant in  the church, he was elected by
the brotherhood one of their Standing Committee for
discipline; and he remained in that office till his death.
   After a most painful illness, it had become evident on
the morning of Thursday last, that he was beginning to
die.  As he lay in great suffering, unable  to speak but
with difficulty, yet fully conscious that his last hour was
near, I spoke to him of God's love in Christ, and re-
peated the "faithful saying that Christ Jesus  came into
the world to save sinners."   He  replied with the labo- 
16
rious effort of a dying voice, " I can look nowhere else.
If this is not true, there is nothing true."   Then, kneel-
ing  at  his bedside  in prayer, we commended him to
God.  As we rose, one of his grand-daughters, standing
by his  pillow, began  to  sing, with such  composure as
she could command, the familiar stanza,

              " Other refuge have I none—
                Hangs my helpless soul on thee ;
              Leave, all!  leave me not alone,
                Still support and comfort me;
              All my trust on thee is stayed,
                All my help from thee I bring ;
              Cover my defenseless head
                With the shadow of thy wing,"

   When she paused at the  end of the stanza,  doubting
whether to  proceed, he opened  his eyes, and, with an
effort, said,  " That is good:  More distinctly ;"  and then
the  young voice went on,—

             "Thou, 0, Christ, art all I want;
                Boundless love in thee I find;
               Raise the fallen, cheer the faint,
                Heal the sick and lead the blind:
               Just and holy is thy name,
                I am all unrighteousness;
               Vile and full of sin I am,—
                Thou art full of truth and grace."

   He lingered through the hours of daylight, with fre-
quent paroxysms of distress as nature struggled against
death,  but  with  no wandering  of mind.  Just before
seven in the evening,  he had been for some hours appa-
rently without pain, life slowly fading from his venera- 
                          17
ble form; and the question  arose whether  he had not
ceased to be conscious.  One of his daughters took his
cold hand in  hers, and  asked that if he knew her he
would give  some  sign of recognition.   He  responded
by a faint pressure,  just  enough to show  that  he was
not unconscious, and then the same voice which  in the
morning had sung the stanzas just recited, began to re-
peat in tremulous song a hymn which  he loved and  of
which every word was familiar to his memory:
             " On Jordan's rugged banks I stand,
                And cast a wishful eye,
               To Canaan's fair and happy land,
                Where my possessions lie.
             " Oh, the transporting, rapturous scene
                That rises to my sight!'
               Sweet fields arrayed in living green,
                And rivers of delight!"
 But  before  the second stanza was  completed, he had
 quietly  ceased  to breathe,  and his  mortal life had
 " lapsed in immortality." 
 
REMARKS,
COMMEMORATIVE OF
PROFESSOR  KNIGHT,
            ADDRESSED TO

Ije  Staieitte  of 'UMichie in gale  College,

         September 19, 1§64,

      BY FRANCIS BACON, M. D.,
   PROFKSSOR OF THE PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE OF SURGERY. 
 
REMARKS.
  In his lecture  introductory  to  the  course  on  Surgery,  Pro-
fessor Bacon said :
****       *       *       *       *       *
  I know that your thoughts will  at once, with mine, revert with
sadness and regret to the venerable and beloved teacher who was
my predecessor in this chair of Surgery, who, for half a century,
was a chief ornament and support  of this seat of  learning, and to
whose admirable lectures it has been the privilege of many of you
to listen.
  It is but a few  days since that
                " Good gray head which all men knew,"
passed from our sight, and still we  turn with the instinct of habit,
to greet that reverend form which  so long was  a  landmark in our
community, and feel the sense of loss as yet fresh and unbluntecl
by time.
  Although Professor Knight had  outlived the ordinary allotment
of human life, and " came to his grave at a full age, as a shock of
corn cometh in his season," yet, active and beneficent to the last,
his death has brought sorrow  into many a chamber of suffering
where his  serene presence  was wont  to  dispel  fear, to  diffuse
confidence and to win affectionate gratitude; and has created avoid
in these halls of instruction which  both you and I must feel as one
not easily filled.
  More than any other scientific lecturer whom I know, Professor
Knight was accustomed  to win the  respect, confidence  and admi-
ration of his successive classes.  His conceptions  of  every subject
which he treated, were clear and thorough.  They were expressed
in  language whose  directness, terseness,  and elegttnt  simplicity 
00
 was a type of his own  character, and whose remarkable fluency
 was a natural gift developed by long culture.  A correct literary
 taste and sincere devotion to his  subject restrained all diffusencss
 and redundancy; while a natural and unaffected modesty forbade all
 attempts at mere display, and—sometimes almost more than his
 listeners could have wished—kept his personal opinions and expe-
 riences in the background.
   To one knowing his fine  aptitude  for profound  and sustained
 philosophical thought and research, it was  matter of admiration
 how strictly he  shunned all allurements toward  abstract disqui-
 sition, and, in his intercourse with his pupils, confined himself to
 such  thoroughly practical matters as their  immediate need de-
 manded.
   His well trained and retentive memory, and great  readiness of
 expression, rendered him almost independent of the aid of written
 notes, and  he rarely committed any  of his lectures  to writing.
 His printed treatises, unfortunately for the literature  of our pro-
 fession, are very few ; and we are left to regret that there should
 be scarcely any more enduring monument of his literary excellence
 than the recollections of his  pupils.  They are scattered through-
 out our country by thousands in  all the higher walks of life, and
 frequently it has happened  to  me, in the  remotest parts of the
 Union, to hear, not members of the medical profession alone, but
 others, whose studies and pursuits constitute them abler critics,
 refer to the lectures of Professor Knight as models of composition
 and delivery.
   He had that rare  quality, a just appreciation of his own pow-
 ers.   His handling of any work that he took  upon himself con-
 veyed to all  beholders  the impression of ease  and adequacy,
 which, together  with  his tact and   readiness for emergencies,
 seemed to make it impossible that he should fall into  a false or
 embarrassing position.   His acknowledged standing at the  head
 of the surgeons of this State, often brought him into the witness-
 box of  courts of justice as an  expert—a position  among the
 most trying of all in which  a medical man is liable to be placed,
 and in which even those justly eminent among us  have frequently
 failed to do  credit to themselves or to their profession.   But by no
 artifice of cross-examination could Professor Knight be thrown
from his mental equipoise, or inveigled into stating an opinion as a
 fact, or accepting crude hypothesis as the well grounded result  of 
23
experiment; nor could any perversity distort the truth of his clear
and guarded statements,  while the most audacious  and unscru-
pulous of barristers respected his gentle dignity.
  As  a surgeon, Dr. Knight was distinguished for his undivided
devotion to the welfare of his patients, never, in an overweening
zeal for research and  experiment, forgetting that most wise and
Christian  sentiment of a heathen physician, " Summum  bonum
medicina? sanitas" and feeling  that a certain sacredness attached
to human suffering and to his ministrations to his patients.
  Several years since, I chanced  one day to  enter the operating
theatre of a hospital in a northern city, crowded, to my surprise,
by a  somewhat turbulent gathering  of evidently unprofessional
spectators, called together there, as I afterwards ascertained, by
invitation through the newspapers, which had announced that cer-
tain surgical operations, of a severe and unusual character, were to
be performed by an eminent surgeon, and had ingenuously added
that a good opportunity was offered for those unaccustomed  to such
" spectacles," to " test the strength of their nerves."  The opera-
tions were performed, skillfully and deftly enough,—the name of the
surgeon was guarantee of that;  and as, with  a  graceful wave, he
laid aside the bloody knife, he was favored with a burst of such
applause as  soothes the ears of a popular actor appearing before
the scenes of other theatres than those consecrated to science and
humanity.   And it seemed to me,  as I  looked around the room,
that its seats were crowded by the same  low instinct  for blood,
not yet wholly subdued by the progress of Christian civilization,
that in other days thronged the Roman amphitheatres at the glad-
iatorial shows.  In my disgust  at this  unseemly exhibition, I re-
membered  how Dr. Knight  once  treated a  similar concourse,
which he found awaiting his arrival in the operating  room of the
State  Hospital in this city.  Asking the cause of the  unwonted
gathering,  he found  that  an unauthorized announcement of the
operation which he proposed to perform had been  made to the
public.  That operation was one  which might be postponed with-
out detriment to the subject of it.  The  patient was accordingly
remanded to his ward, and the assembly was left, with  unsatisfied
curiosity, to disperse at its own convenience.  The next day Dr.
Knight returned, and quietly  performed the operation  in the
presence of a few professional spectators.
  It was easy for one who held  the highest  honors that his own 
24
profession could bestow, to disregard the ignorant applause of the
multitude,  and  to contemn the  cheap celebrity of newspaper
paragraphs; and the aversion, arising from his native modesty and
good taste, that Dr. Knight felt to every  species of claptrap and
advertisement  ad captandum vulgus,  was  thorough enough  to
satisfy the most rigid stickler for professional etiquette.
   Obeying the dictates of a healthy and sensitive conscience, and
following the suggestions of a refined taste, he was  not careful
to conciliate popular opinion, or to nurse a  reputation  like some
puny exotic; believing that
           " Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil,
            Xor in the glistering foil
            Set off to the world, nor in broad rumor lies;
            But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes
            And perfect witness of all-judging Jove;
            As he  pronounces lastly on each deed,
            Of so much fame in heaven expect thy meed."

   Great and merited confidence was placed by the profession and
by the public  in  Dr.  Knight's powers  of diagnosis.   His  long
years of extensive practice  were years of careful  observation and
study as well, and gave to  his opinions something of an oracular
authority.   In his practice he was especially remarkable for a wise
and steady conservatism, which was perhaps never startled into  an
unnecessary or untimely procedure. His was the wisdom always
to know what should not be done; his the religious caution to lay
only hands of healing upon the body—the sacred ark of man's life.
To  him the difficult and  " brilliant" surgical operation was  of
small merit, if it  did not heal the patient, or if it  mutilated what
might have been spared.   As an operator  he was wholly clear of
that itching for "  elegance," " brilliancy," and display which some-
times makes us fear that  personal vanity and a lust of popularity
rise in the surgeon's mind above simple devotion to his art and his
patient.  It is  enough to say that Dr.  Knight's  operations, com-
prising  almost every one known  to modern  surgery, were  well
considered, were  guided  by thorough anatomical knowledge, and
that,  without  special dexterity or nimbleness  of manipulation,
they were carefully and successfully performed.   How  well do I
recall his appearance as he  stood  prepared for some capital opera-
tion !   Long years of familiarity with wounds and suffering, had
not dulled compassion nor blunted sensibility.  The slight change 
25
of color as he  grasped the knife—the gentle compression of the
lips—the  instinctive  gathering and tension of the muscles—the
quickened glow of the eye—his whole demeanor showed that no
man, more than he, felt " that death everywhere  surrounded his
knife," nor more endeavored " to convey all his knowledge to its
point."
  Rich in the saving common  sense, and quick with  the tact, of
one  whose life is given  to use and  duty,—more familiar  than
most with the achievements of the early  surgeons,  and rever-
encing the grand old masters of the art, he was sometimes slow to
yield the credit  of originality  or  usefulness to a supposed dis-
covery, or to give in adhesion to a newly hatched pseudo-science ;
but no man watched more earnestly, or acknowledged  more freely
than he, the steps of real progress in the science and art of healing.
The clearness of  his  perceptions and  exquisite orderliness of his
mind, made him quick to  detect a fallacy; his perfect  integrity
Avas intolerant of imposture;  but remembering that one fungous
growth must  inevitably  succeed another  in  the fertile  soil of
popular credulity, he spent little time or strength in  the attempt
to explode delusions which  might  have  a substantial  seeming for
the moment, but must soon disappear like exhalations  of a marsh.
Such phantasms as these, which have sometimes provoked good
men to labors of refutation or objurgation, could only  gain from
him a  passing rebuke,  half contemptuous,  half humorous, and
full of a penetrating practical shrewdness.
   In his latest years, and while, in  obedience  to  the admonitions
of failing strength, he  was decently  laying aside one  care after
another, to fit himself for the final relinquishment of earthly affairs,
he still retained his  interest in the labors and his sympathy with
the enthusiasm of youth.   His  latest pupils witnessed  no abate-
ment of his power and  vivacity as a lecturer, and  his recently
appointed successor was relying mainly upon  the aid,  which he
had cheerfully promised,  for the present course of lectures.
   And so, through a long, peaceful and honorable life of  usefulness
and beneficence,
                     " Growing not alone in  power
                 And knowledge, but by year and hour
                 In reverence and in charity;"
gathering and  folding about himself, year after year, throughout a
 great community, all that 
26
             "Which should accompany old age—
              As honor, love, obedience, troops of friends,"
with children's  children growing to maturity beneath  his  roof-
tree, he slowly ripened into a serene autumn of life, and when, at
last, death came, it  found him far more ready to depart than  Avere
his friends and the community to part with him.
   In these weary and troublous days that  have befallen  us, when
the foundations  of our society are shaken, when neAV and splendid
names  call us from day to day  like notes of a trumpet, the con-
templation of such  a life, so perfect  in its kind, so rounded into
completeness, brings a sense of rest and reassurance.
   The  same  mother State Avho bends with mournful pride over the
recent  graves of her Lyon, her  Foote, her SedgAvick, Avill cherish
the memory of Jonathan Knight as a ripe result of that ancient
peace,  to restore which, and o perpetuate its glories, she  offers
her best blood and her mightiest energies.
   Kind friend, skillful healer  of men, Avise  and eloquent teacherf
though thy voice may never more be heard Avithin these halls, yet
here thy name and memory shall ever remain sacred!
=!:*       >-c       *       =i<      :{c       #      :[:       sj: 
RESOLUTIONS.
  At a meeting of the New Haven Medical Association, held August 26th, at the
house of Dr. N. B. Ives, the following resolutions were adopted:
Wiierf.as, Dr. Jonathan  Knight, a  member of this  Association for  over fifty
  years, has been removed by death—
  Resolved, That the medical profession has  lost in this bereavement one of its
great men—one who was preeminent as a practitioner, especially in the  depart-
ment of surgery, in the acuteness, accuracy and breadth of his observations, and
in the judiciousness of his  practice;  who, as a counselor in cases  of difficulty,
held a position seldom attained  by any one; and who, as  an instructor  of over
half a century, by his luminous, impressive and honest teaching, moulded to no
small extent the character of  the medical profession in this country.
  Resolved, That while we thus pay our tribute to the extraordinary talents and
attainments of Dr. Knight, we would place  far above these, in our estimate of
him, those moral and religious qualities of his character which so enthroned him
in the affections of his medical  brethren, made him welcome as counselor and
friend, and imparted a genial  radiance to  his uniform influence in favor of all that
is honorable and good; and we would recognize the call which his example makes
to us who remain, to keep in view the noble aims that were ever before him, and
to cherish the Christian faith  and hope which animated and sustained him through
life, and in the last trying hour.
                                          C. W. SHEFFRY, M. D.,  Clerk.
  At a special meeting of the Directors of the General Hospital Society of Con-
necticut, convened at the house of Dr. N. B. Ives, August 26th, on  the  occasion
of the death of its President, the late Dr. Jonathan Knight, the  following reso-
lutions,  presented by the Vice-President, Hon. W. W. Boardman, were adopted:
  Resolved, That we mourn the loss of Dr. Knight as of a brother—the learned,
skillful surgeon and physician—the generous, warm-hearted friend—the  interest-
ing and genial companion.  One  of the founders of the General Hospital of Con-
necticut, and President thereof for twenty-two years,  he was ever  watchfnl to
promote its interests and the welfare of those in its care.  To the Society and its
patients the loss is irreparable.   In common with this whole community who well
know his worth, we mourn the loss of a public spirited, high minded Christian
gentleman, who, we trust, has left in some measure the  impress  of his beautiful
character upon it, as well as a cherished remembrance of his works of beneficence
and mercy.
  Resolved, That this Board will attend the  funeral in a  body,  with the  usual
badge of mourning.
                                    STEPHEN G. HUBBARD,  Secretary. 
28
  At a meeting of the Board of Trustees of the American Mutual Life Insurance
Company, held last evening, the following resolutions were passed  unanimously:
Whereas, It has pleased Almighty God  to remove, by death, from the field of
  his labors  and  usefulness, Dr. Jonathan Knight, our late President  and
  Medical Examiner, therefore—
  Resolved, That in the  death of Dr. Knight this Company has  been  deprived
of the services of a wise, faithful and efficient officer—the Board of the compan-
ionship of a gentleman they trusted and honored—the  medical profession of one
of its brightest ornaments—and the community of a Christian gentleman whose
daily walk and conversation adorned society  and his profession.
  Resolved, That we hereby tender to the family of the deceased  the assurances
of our sincere  and deep sympathy, and trust they may find consolation in that
religion which the deceased so beautifully exemplified.
  Resolved, That we attend in a body the funeral of our late  respected and be-
loved President.
  Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be  presented, by the Secretary of
this Company, to the family of the deceased, and also published in  the  daily
papers of this city,  and entered upon the records of this Company.
                       Attest,                      B. NOYES, Secretary.
  At a meeting of the  Court of Common  Council, held August 26th, 1864, the
following resolution was adopted:
                                           Court of Common  Council, )
                                                  August 26th, 1864.   J
Whereas, In the providence of God, our esteemed fellow-citizen,  Dr. Jonathan
  Knight, has been removed from his sphere of eminent usefulness, therefore—
  Resolved, That the Court of  Common Council, as a tribute of respect  to the
deceased, express their deep regret for the loss sustained by this community, and
tender their sympathy to the afflicted family.
  Adopted unanimously.
                         Attest,       DkWITT C. SPRAGUE,  City Clerk.
                               Knight U. S. General Hospital,         )
                                 New Haven, Conn., August 26th, 1864. J
Special Order No. 137.
  Jonathan Knight,  M. D., (from whom this  Hospital was named by special
order of the Surgeon-General U. S. A.,) departed this life on the 25th inst.
  In addition to his exalted reputation as a physican and surgeon, Dr. Knight
stood preeminent for urbanity of manners, genial, social qualities,  and that great
moral excellence which adorns  the Christian gentleman.   He has left behind a
character worthy the emulation of his brethren in the profession.
  As a tribute to his memory the Officers of this Hospital will attend his funeral
in a body, and wear the usual badge of mourning for thirty days.
  The flag will be displayed at half-mast until Sunday evening,  the 28th inst.
                             P. A. JEWETT, Surgeon U. S. V., in charge.
          Official:
  Jas. P. Stearns, Lieut. V. R. C, Military Assistant.