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OF
ALONZO  BENJAMIN  PALMER
              M. D„ LL. D.
Born October 6, 1815

Died December 2), i88y
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  Dr. Palmer was one of the best and strongest
of the men, few of whom are now surviving, who
for  more than thirty years have been devoting
their gifts and attainments to the building up of
the University of  Michigan.   He was  among
those who cherished the highest ideal of medical
education, and he labored efficiently throughout
his whole  career as a University professor  to
realize that ideal, not only in those who were
under his immediate instruction, but in all whom
he  might reach by his action  in  medical asso-
ciations  and  by his  contributions to medical
literature.  His influence  through all these chan-
nels,  in advancing the interests of the profession
to which he had given his life,  was so  much  the
greater by  reason  of his clear insight  into  its
deficiencies and needs, his courage and  persist-
ence  in advocating wise measures for its  im-
provement, his power and facility in expressing
his ideas and convictions,  and, above  all, that
native force  of character which he brought to
the advocacy of every cause and of every mea-
sure  that he took in hand.
   Besides all this, he was a man of large human-
ity, fully comprehending the opportunities  and 
2
PREFATORY.
responsibilities of life in all its  relations.   He
was  led  by his  benevolent  nature  and by  his
sense of duty to man and society, to religion and
morality, to be ever active in ministering to  the
wants of the suffering, and  in efforts to amelior-
ate social evils, and to bring men into the paths
of righteousness and  true happiness.
   Struck down by  the  hand  of death in  the
midst of the activities that knew no respite or
weariness, like a good soldier falling in the midst
of the fight, he  justly claims, at the  hands  of
those who  have best known him, some true and
appreciative expression of their admiration and
affection.   To  one who, in  an intimacy extend-
ing through a  period of more  than  thirty-three
years, has learned to put a just estimate upon his
admirable qualities both as a public  teacher and
executive officer,  and as  a  man, a friend, and a
Christian gentleman, it has been a work at once
sad and pleasing to put together and prepare for
publication  these  memorial pages, made up of
biographical  reminiscences, of the testimonials
of associations of which he was an  honored
member, and of the  tributes of those who were
near to him in  professional, social, and religious
life.   Whatever expressions  may be  found  in
them of  praise, esteem, or  friendship, none who
knew him will say that these exceed in the least
his merits, or exaggerate the truth.  Most of all
will  his surviving friends recognize the truthful- 
                 PREFATORY.                 3
ness of  the portraiture presented in the memoir,
written  by the loving hand of  the  bereaved and
sorrowing companion who shared the felicity of
his wonderfully happy and successful life.
   It may be proper to add the remark that Dr.
Palmer left nothing whatever  in the  form of a
diary, with the single exception of the notes of
travel made in 1859, during his first visit to  Eu-
rope.  It is for this  reason that the  journal of
this European tour has  been allowed to occupy
so  large a space in the  biographical sketch writ-
ten by  Mrs. Palmer.   Observations jotted down
from day to day in the haste and excitement of
travel, partly  for the very reason that they are
offhand and intended for no eye but the writer's,
afford the best possible picture of his  real char-
acter and habits of thought.
                             HENRY S. FRIEZE.
University of Michigan, November, 1889. 
 
MEMORIAL.
   Alonzo  Benjamin Palmer was born at Rich-
 field, N. Y., on the 6th of October, 1815.   He
 came of sturdy Puritan  stock.  He was sixth in
 the line of  descent from Walter Palmer, of Not-
 tinghamshire,  England, who,  with his  wife Re-
 becca, joined the band of colonists under John
 Winthrop  that landed at Boston in  1629.  Wal-
 ter Palmer first settled at Charlestown, Mass.,
 then  at Seekonk in the same colony, and finally
 at Stonington, Conn.   Nehemiah, the  most dis-
 tinguished  of his sons, was a member of the Gov-
 ernor's Council, and held other important offices
 in the colony.   Equally prominent in public af-
 fairs was Daniel, fourth son of  Nehemiah Palmer.
 He was Judge of the  High  Court, and known
 as Justice  Palmer.  The  great-grandfather  of
 Alonzo  was Nathan, the fourth  son of Justice
 Palmer, and the first  regular physician of note
in Stonington.  The old gambrel-roofed home-
stead  is still standing where  he lived  with  his
seven sons  and seven daughters, and the ancient 
6
MEMORIAL.
records  of the Congregational Church contain
the baptisms of these fourteen children.
   Not far from Stonington, on a rocky hill over-
looking the sea,  is the old burying-ground  of
the Palmers, inclosed  with  a  stone wall green
with lichens.   Here lies Walter, the pilgrim, sur-
rounded by his descendants and the families into
which they married.   His grave is  marked  by
a  huge, unhewn,  prism-shaped block of granite
that served to keep the  wolves  away in those
early  days, and in  its  stern simplicity seems a
fitting monument for  the old Puritan.  Fourth
in the line of  descent was Nathan Palmer, third
son of  Dr. Nathan- Palmer.  He was married
very early  in life, and  the  maiden  name of  his
wife was Grace Palmer.   After  rearing a family
of eight children, all born in Stonington,  they
left this  place  and resided for some years at or
near Bennington, Vt.  There their youngest son
Benjamin, the father of Alonzo, married Anna
Layton, a descendant of one of the Holland fam-
ilies  that  settled  in  early  days at  Tarrytown,
N. Y.    Soon  after  this marriage,  Benjamin
Palmer emigrated with his  young  wife and  his
father and mother to Burlington,  in  Otsego
County,  N. Y.  This was the far west of those
days, a pioneer home of the wilderness, a beauti-
ful country of hills and valleys, lakes and forests,
made famous by the pen of Fenimore Cooper.
   After  a few years, they moved to  Richfield, 
ALONZO  BENJAMIN PALMER.        J
near  Richfield Springs in the  same  county,
where  the  rest of  their lives was spent.   It was
in this beautiful  home that Alonzo Benjamin,
the youngest  of their nine children, was  born.
The old farmhouse in which  he first saw the
light stands on a hill  sloping gently down to the
wooded shores of Schuyler's Lake, a pretty sheet
of water five and a half miles long and one and
a half  broad, encircled by wooded hills and sunny
farms.
   There is little to tell of his early childhood.
He was the youngest of nine  brothers and sis-
ters, the pet of the household.   He had a good
ear for music, and when very young could catch
and repeat any air or  melody that he heard, and
his sisters used often to  make him stand on  a
table  and  sing for the entertainment of visitors.
He  was the  almost  constant companion of his
father, who was nearly blind at the time of his
birth,  and soon became totally so, and when little
more  than  a  baby he used to  ride  all over the
country side,  sitting  on the saddle in front of
his father and guiding the horse.   He was  a
bright, active  boy, truthful, brave,  and  full of
life and spirits.  Horses were his delight, and he
was singularly strong and fearless in managing
them, often standing erect  on  the bare back of
an almost unbroken  colt,  and careering round
the pastures.
   This active, out-of-door life, in the pure and 
8
MEMORIAL.
invigorating air of his native hills, laid the foun-
dation  for the extraordinary  health  and vigor
that distinguished him through life.
  As he grew older he showed an intense fond-
ness for reading, and his  greatest delight was to
hide away in some  quiet  corner with a book,
sometimes to the neglect of tasks that had been
given him.   Indeed,  he  seems at an  early age
to have felt  a distaste for work on the farm, to
which  his brothers  submitted  as  a matter of
course, and  he determined to obtain an educa-
tion, and  to  make a career for  himself  outside
the narrower limits of his home.   His father was
a serious,  thoughtful, and religious man, and the
long days spent alone with  him in walks, and
rides, and quiet talks may have done much to
help him in his  ambitions  and hopes.   His
father died in 1824, when Alonzo was  only nine
years old, and his mother in 1835.
   After learning what was to be learned in those
days in  the schools and academies of Otsego and
Herkimer counties,  he   began to teach school
when he was only  eighteen.  Apropos of the
discipline which the young teacher contrived to
maintain, a story is told of  the big boy, quite as
old and quite as large as the  master, who coolly
walked  out  of school one  morning without per-
mission, and played truant the  rest of the day.
On being told the  next  morning not to repeat
this offense, and proceeding  shortly  to do the 
        ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.        9
same thing again, he was  calmly knocked down
by  the  teacher's strong  arm,  and never again
ventured to rebel.  Thus early did the future
professor show some of the force  of character
which  enabled him in later years to  preserve
perfect order in his large classes and hold  their
attention.
  After teaching for  a year he spent the next
eighteen months in  the  Academy  of  Mexico,
N. Y., which  was considered the best in that re-
gion at the time.  He  had  now his  own way to
make in the  world, and could expect no assist-
ance from  any one.  But energy, industry, and
the determination to succeed were always among
his characteristics, and his courage never failed.
Immediately after leaving the academy he  com-
menced the study of medicine at the College of
Physicians and  Surgeons of the  Western  Dis-
trict of New York, at Fairfield, Herkimer County.
This  college had been established  in 1812 by
the Regents  of  the University of   New York,
and Stephen Van Rensselaer was its  Chancellor.
At that time  there  were but five other medical
institutions in  the  country.   These  were  at
Philadelphia,  New  York,  Boston,  Dartmouth,
and Baltimore.   The  new college  grew rapidly
in favor, and at the height of its prosperity, from
1830 to 1839, had on the average  217 students
in its  classes,  outnumbering,  indeed,  all  the
medical schools  in  the  country, except that of 
IO
MEMORIAL.
the University of  Pennsylvania, at  Philadelphia.
Its  Faculty  was an able one,  and consisted  of
Wertal  Willoughby, James  Hadley, and  John
De Lamater, of Fairfield, and  T. Romeyn Beck
and James McNaughton, of Albany.   Dr. Mc-
Naughton was  a  Scotchman,  a scholarly man,
and a  graduate of  the Royal  College  of  Sur.
geons of Edinburgh, where he  had  the benefit of
the teaching of such  eminent men as Wishart,
Bell, Abercrombie, and Hamilton.   Dr. Wil-
loughby was also a well educated practitioner of
medicine,  and had a wide reputation as a physi-
cian.  R.  D. Mussy, of  Boston, was at  one time
Professor  of Surgery.   Owing to  the establish-
ment of a  medical college in Albany and another
in Geneva,  N. Y., the whole Faculty of the old
college  at  Fairfield resigned  in 1840, and  the
institution became extinct from that date.  From
this college Dr. Palmer was graduated in  Janu-
ary, 1839, and was now ready to begin his  life's
work.   From a child he had chosen this profes-
sion as the  one  of all others he  would prefer,
and his future success was  to show how well
fitted he was for it by temperament and character.
   Very soon after his graduation he  went to
Tecumseh,  Mich., and  was taken into the office
of  Dr.  Patterson, who, a  year later, admitted
him into  partnership.   Dr. Patterson was  from
Easton, Pa., and was a well educated man of long
and large experience, of minuteness and accuracy 
ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.       11
in observation, and of great skill and good judg-
ment in the practice of his  profession.  He was a
regent of  the University of Michigan during the
administration of Dr. Tappan, its first President.
It was a fortunate thing for the  young doctor
to begin his actual practice under such favorable
auspices.   He  always spoke  of  Dr.  Patterson
with the utmost respect and appreciation  of his
skill and attainments.
   At that time Michigan was a new country, and
often the homes of distant patients could only be
reached by bridle-paths through the woods.  In
some cases there was not even a bridle-path, and
the  horse was  tied to a tree, while the  doctor
scrambled over fallen tree trunks and through
bogs to the log cabin of his patient.   Once, a
stream was to be forded.   His companion hesi-
tated,  but the  doctor  plunged  boldly in.   It
proved to be deeper than he supposed, the horse
lost  its footing, and  both went under.  As he  at
length scrambled out, he said he " hoped the by-
standers would  not  think  he had left the  true
church and gone over to the  Baptists."  Nothing
could daunt his sunny cheerfulness.
   It was a life of hardship and exposure, but his
perfect health  seemed to be proof against it all.
He  would sometimes fall  asleep  in the saddle,
from exhaustion after successive nights of watch-
ing  by the  bedside,  leaving the  horse to find his
way unguided. 
12
MEMORIAL.
  Among his treasured possessions at this  time
was a small pocket edition of Shakespeare, — one
play in a volume, — and one or the other of these
little books was  his  constant companion in his
long rides.  The familiarity with the great mas-
ter  thus gained  he never lost, and no one could
more quickly detect  any error in quotation, or
could more readily tell where  to  find a desired
passage.   It was a great treat to hear him read a
play of Shakespeare,  and this was a pleasure, in
later years, kept  in store in  his home  for stormy
winter  evenings  when no interruptions could be
expected.  Now and  then  some apt quotation
would  be brought into a lecture, as, for example,
in one of his  lectures on malarial fevers, Dame
Quickly's description of Falstaff's death.
  " Quickly.  As ever you came of women, come in quickly
to Sir John. Ah, poor heart! he is so shaked of a burning
quotidian tertian, that it  is most lamentable to behold.
Sweet men, come to him."
  ..." A  parted  even just between twelve and one,
e'en at  turning o' the tide ; for after I saw him fumble with
the sheets, and play with flowers, and smile upon his fingers'
ends, I  knew there  was but one  way ; for his nose was as
sharp as a pen, and  'a babbled of  green fields. ...  So 'a
bade me  lay more  clothes on his feet.  I  put my hand
into the bed and felt them, and  they were as cold as any
stone; then I felt to his knees, and so upward, and upward,
and all  was as cold as  any stone."

  One of the friendships made at this period  of
his life  was a source of much  pleasure to him. 
        ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.       13

The Rev. William N. Lyster, an Irish clergyman
of the Episcopal Church, a  graduate of Trinity
College, Dublin,  and a student of theology for a
time in the University of Edinburgh, had come
to Michigan with  his lovely and cultivated wife
in the early history of the  country, and spent a
long life, mostly as a missionary, in the southern
part of the  State.  Not long  after Mr. Lyster's
death  the doctor, having been asked to read the
service and sermon at St Andrews, Ann Arbor,
in the rector's absence one Sunday, selected one
of his old friend's  sermons,  and prefaced the
reading of it with these words : " Mr. Lyster was
a  man of  remarkable purity  and simplicity of
character, who  made many  warm friends among
those who came to know him well,  and did much
towards building up the church in this diocese,
and, what is  more, turning many to a Christian
life."
   Mr. Lyster and his family,  Dr. Patterson and
his New England wife and her young sister, with
a few others, formed a pleasant and congenial lit-
tle group of friends, such as one would perhaps
hardly have expected to find in this little village
of what was then the far west.
   In  1840,  Dr. Palmer was confirmed  in  the
little  church  of St.  Peter's, at Tecumseh, and
in the spring of 1846, the  church being with-
out a rector,  he was licensed  by  the  Bishop as
lay reader, in which  capacity he  continued  to 
14               MEMORIAL.
act, when necessary, so  long as he lived in Te-
cumseh.
  On the 19th of July,  1843, he married Miss
Caroline Augusta Wright,  a  sister of Mrs. Pat-
terson, and a native of Northampton,  Mass., who
was  then living with her parents in  Tecumseh.
She  was a woman of great loveliness of person
and  character,  of singular delicacy  and refine-
ment, and of a deeply religious nature.  She was
very fragile  in  appearance,  and before her mar-
riage showed symptoms  of  the fatal malady that
was so soon to end her happy married life.  She
died of consumption on the nth of  June,  1846,
at the  early age  of  twenty-five.   Her husband
speaks thus of her in a letter written soon after
her death to her warm friend Mrs. Lyster:  " She
seems to me almost like an angel of  light, lent
.to me for a short space, and now returned to her
own home."  The greatest of sorrows had dark-
ened his young life, — a sorrow peculiarly bitter
and  overwhelming to one of such constancy and
tenderness of domestic affections.
  He  struggled  bravely on with his work for
a few  months.  A  little incident, remembered
still  by one of the  friends  of those days, shows
how he had succeeded  in attaching  to him the
families of his patients during these six years of
his  practice among them.   " After  he had left
Tecumseh for Chicago,  he returned for a visit,
and was asked to make an address at a county 
         ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.       I 5
fair, after which I saw many gray-haired old men
and women crowding forward, their faces radiant
with light  and tears in their eyes, reaching over
the shoulders of those before them to clasp the
hand of  Dr. Palmer once more."
   We can  easily understand how much a change
of scene and  occupation was  needed, now that
the dear home ties were broken ;  and  so we find
him, in  the following  autumn, giving up  the
work  in which  he  had gained much practical
knowledge under the guidance of his older and
more experienced partner, and spending the win-
ters of   1847-8  and 1848-9 in  New  York and
Philadelphia,  in attendance upon lectures and
cliniques at the College  of Physicians and Sur-
geons and  the University of Pennsylvania.  The
medical and surgical cliniques established by the
College  of« Physicians  and Surgeons  in 1844
were the first of the kind in New York, and for
several years were the only cliniques in the  city.
The most  eminent  professors at that time were
Willard  Parker, Alonzo Clark, Charles R. Gil-
man, and Robert Watts.   Among the  courses of
lectures which  Dr.  Palmer attended  at this col-
lege that winter was one on Embryology by Pro-
fessor Agassiz.  The next winter's work in Phil-
adelphia was  interrupted  by  a  long siege  of
typhoid fever,  the only long illness of his life, and
during this he was  tenderly nursed by a gentle
old Quakeress.  On the  whole,  however, they 
16               MEMORIAL.
were profitable and  satisfactory winters, enlarg-
ing his store of knowledge,  and giving him the
much desired  leisure for study.  He was a dili-
gent student always, never satisfied with attain-
ments  already  made, but  eager to investigate
everything relating  to  his profession,  and  to
place his knowledge  upon a thoroughly scientific
basis.
  After these increased opportunities for study,
observation, and intercourse with the best minds
of the  profession in this country, it was but nat-
ural that he should turn to  the wider field offered
by a large city.  In   1850  he went  to Chicago,
and in  1852 and a  part of  1853 he was  associa-
ted in  practice with  Dr. N.  S.  Davis, who has
since become so well known and honored by the
profession throughout this country.   The friend-
ship between them was true and lasting, founded
upon  mutual  respect  and esteem.  In  a letter
written after the doctor's death, Dr. Davis speaks
of him  as " my oldest and most cherished pro-
fessional brother."   In  1853  he was appointed
city physician, and filled that office until he left
Chicago.   Says Dr.  Davis:  " During his resi-
dence  in  Chicago he was  an active member  of
the local medical society, and enjoyed the confi-
dence and respect  of both the profession and the
community.  At that time  the city physician
was the chief medical officer  of  the  corporation,
and during the year  of his service, 1854, a severe 
        ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.       17
epidemic of cholera prevailed, thereby greatly
increasing the labors and responsibilities of his
position.  He  met the requirements of his office
with a faithfulness  and ability that elicited gen-
eral commendation."   This  epidemic  prevailed
largely among the Swedish and Norwegian  emi-
grants, who  came to Chicago in great numbers
that summer, and were thence distributed  over
the Northwest.  In 1852 there had also been an
epidemic of cholera, though  a less severe  one,
and Dr. Palmer's work among the poor and  suf-
fering  had been very arduous.  This  large ex-
perience in cholera  led him to have great confi-
dence in the methods of treatment  which he had
found  to be the most effectual, and years after-
ward, in  1885, when  another invasion of  this
dreaded disease from  Europe seemed to be im-
minent, he published a work on epidemic chol-
era, giving its general history and the results of
his observation  and experience in both public
and private practice.
   He soon became  engaged  in a large practice,
— a busy, wearing, and absorbing life, — though
he found time for society, and made many friends,
especially among the  pleasant families  in St.
James' Church, of which he was a member.   He
was the trusted and beloved  physician of many
households.   There was a charm about his man-
ner in  the sick room  that all his  patients  felt.
The fresh air and sunshine seemed to enter with
         2 
i8
MEMORIAL.
him.   His own perfect health and  vigor never
made him unappreciative of or indifferent to the
sufferings of others.   He had not merely the en-
thusiasm in battling with and conquering disease,
characteristic  of  every  true  physician,  but the
genuine sympathy and  interest of a truly kind,
large heart.  His strong and cheerful spirit gave
courage to those to whom he ministered,  and in-
spired confidence.  They felt  that their appeal
for help would not be  in vain.  He had a mar-
velously keen insight into character, but with it
a  gentle charity for the weaknesses he saw, as if
they were  but a  part  of  the disease it was his
mission to heal.  His practiced eye was quick to
detect the signs of suffering in the face, in spite
of all  the  smiling efforts  to conceal it.   Little
children trusted him at  once, and would come to
him fearlessly from  their  mother's  arms.  One
who went with him  once through the wards of
the University hospital  will never forget how the
wan faces  of  his patients lighted up at his ap-
proach.
   The  purity and simplicity of  his own living
were  a constant lesson to both patients and stu-
dents.  He never used stimulants  or  narcotics
in any form,  very seldom either tea or coffee.
How often  he used to say to his students that
" no physician should ever smoke.   How can he
allow himself  to  enter the sick room of a deli-
cate and sensitive invalid with  the stale odors of 
         ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.       19
tobacco about  him?   He has  no right thus to
cause needless discomfort and suffering."
   He was soon to exchange  this city practice,
which, as he said, might have made him a rich
man had he chosen  to continue it, for a more
congenial position, for which the study and  ex-
perience of the  last twelve years had been gradu-
ally  fitting him.   Already,  in  1852, he had re-
ceived the appointment of Professor  of Anatomy
in the University of Michigan,  with  the expecta-
tion that, as soon as the slowly accumulating
funds would allow, he would be called to active
duty; and had  been preparing himself by special
study to fill this chair.  When  that time arrived,
in 1854, he  was appointed, in  consequence of a
change in the faculty,  Professor of Materia Me-
dica, Therapeutics, and Diseases of Women and
Children.  He attempted at first to  give his lec-
tures in the University while continuing to reside
in Chicago; but the journeys  to and fro proved
to be  too fatiguing,  and he soon came to Ann
Arbor to live, and carry on  his life's work  to its
end.  The gift of  imparting instruction he had
shown himself  to  possess when still  very young,
and  his new work  had great attractions  for him.
   Dr. Richardson, the eminent London surgeon,
in an address delivered before the Liverpool  In-
stitute in 1886, says:  " To labor for  the achieve-
ment of  true  eminence,  to cherish the idea of
adding the useful to usefulness, is most com- 
20
MEMORIAL.
mendable;  but above all things precious is the
work and scope of work that brings happiness to
the worker.   Happiness in work is  the proof of
the fitness of the called to the vocation in which
he moves.   When a man  is  happy in his work,
he has found his work."   Those who know the
unfailing and ever  fresh enthusiasm and interest
with which, for  thirty-four years, Dr. Palmer gave
his instructions in  the  University  and other
medical schools, never doubted that  he  had in-
deed found his  work.   It was  never perfunctory
with him; he loved it, and  never wearied of it.
   Early in April of 1859, after four years  of un-
interrupted work in the University, he left home
for a  seven months' foreign tour.  He was a
delegate from the American Medical Association
to the  British Association for  the Advancement
of Science,  which was to meet  in  Aberdeen
the following  September, and of which  Prince
Albert wras  the president for  that year.   Mean-
while,  he was  to  travel on  the  continent, and
spend a good deal  of time in the medical  schools
and  hospitals.  He had intended  to go directly
to Italy, and later to join his friend Dr. Bowditch
in Vienna;  but the  news that met him on land-
ing  at Liverpool,  of the immediate prospect of
war  between Austria and Italy, necessitated a
change of  plan.   The  next  two months were
spent in  London, in visiting the hospitals, attend-
ing lectures, and becoming acquainted with the 
         ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.       21

views and  methods  of  the  most  distinguished
medical men.   His journal shows how faithfully
and  industriously  he pursued  this work.  The
Abbey, St.  Paul's, the National Gallery, the parks,
palaces, and museums were repeatedly visited, and
enjoyed  with the  fresh enthusiasm  aroused  by
the first sight  of  them; but they were allowed
only as  occasional treats after long mornings, or
perhaps whole days, in hospitals and cliniques. In
arranging  the  journal  for  publication, the de-
scriptions of places, now familiar to so many, have
generally been omitted, as  well as the full ac-
counts of the lectures he heard and the unusual
cases he saw, which  would  be full of interest to
medical  men, as showing  the state of medical
knowledge and attainment  thirty years  ago, but
might be wearisome to the general reader.  With
these exceptions the journal of this first visit to
Europe will be quite fully given here, as it is the
only diary  he ever kept, while among the  many
letters which he  left, there  are so few that can
properly be introduced into this memoir to throw
light upon  his life and character.
   London,  April 29//*,  1859.  A brief   retro-
spect since leaving home may not be amiss. Left
Detroit,  April  6th.  On my way to New York
came in sight, near Herkimer, of the  hills sur-
rounding the place of my nativity.  They looked
blue and cold in the distance, dotted with  snow;
but  there  are  some warm hearts there, which 
22
MEMORIAL.
would have beaten a little faster had they known,
at the moment, I was  passing within  a  dozen
miles of them, hurrying  on the wings  of  steam
to the  Old World.  Those, however,  most near
— who  joyed and  suffered  in  my  birth,  my
childhood and  tender  years — have long since
ceased their throbbings, resting, nay, mouldering
to their mother earth, in the  village churchyard.
They have  passed away; we are all passing
away.
   Sailed from New York  on Wednesday, April
13th, in  the Persia with Captain Judkins, the
oldest of the steamship captains.   He was quite
ill with gout on the voyage and seemed glad to
avail himself of my services — not a matter of
much surprise  when one knows  the  ship's  sur-
geon, a  regular  Irishman in face and manner,
knowing and caring but  little about his profes-
sion.
   On  reaching  London, I  was advised  on all
hands not to proceed  to the Continent  on ac-
count  of  the threatening state of affairs there.
Traveling must be uncertain, and may be unsafe.
I was  convinced  by the news at Liverpool  that
war was inevitable, and would occur speedily,
but waited for other opinions as to the safety of
traveling.
   Tuesday, April 27th.   Went out  to  deliver
some  letters.  Called  on  Miss  Bowditch,  and
learned  that her  father was in Vienna.  After 
         ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.       23
coming in, wrote to Dr. Bowditch, saying I would
join him, if he should write favorably.
   Wednesday, 28I/1.  Called on Dr. Walshe near
Cavendish Square.  Had a letter to him from
Professor G.  B. Wood, of Philadelphia.   Found
him  a man of ordinary stature, with a fine, large
head and good countenance.   He was polite and
agreeable, made many inquiries  respecting  our
country, and manifested a respectable degree of
intelligence about  it.  He is connected with  the
University Hospital  and School.   His first pub-
lic day is Tuesday next, when I am to meet  him
at the hospital.  He spoke of the probable break-
ing out  of the Continental war with evident un-
easiness, particularly about the alliance offensive
and defensive between France and Prussia. Said
he feared England would  be drawn  in to keep
those two powers from dividing Europe between
them, and she might need help from America. I
told  him America would sympathize  with Eng-
land so far as the  latter went for liberty and  jus-
tice, but that an early maxim of our government
was to make  no entangling alliances with Euro-
pean  powers.  That so long as these  powers
confined their operations to this side of the At-
lantic, we would probably be inclined to let them
fight it out among themselves.  The world must
learn  another lesson of the  evils of  despotism,
of being governed by a few for the  benefit of
those few, of having war  or peace as may suit 
24               MEMORIAL.
the ambition, the convenience, or the passions of
those few.   The best  thing  the United  States
can do for Europe is to set a good example, and
show to  the world  that  the people may govern
themselves,  and be happy and free.  This will do
more than  armies  and  banners.   From  Dr.
Walshe's went to the British Museum, and spent
the day until dark wandering through  the  vast
libraries, cabinets of natural  history, galleries of
sculptures, antiquities, etc.  Much as I had  read
of it, I had no adequate conception of the  extent
and variety  of its contents.   Indeed,  it is  impos-
sible  to  have such a conception without visiting
it.  It is gratifying to the pride of a medical  man
to know that  this splendid national institution
owes its origin to the benevolence and forecast
of one of his own profession, Sir Hans Sloane,
distinguished alike as  a  physician and a natu-
ralist.
  April 2gtk.  Have now spent two days in the
Museum, most of the time in the department of
antiquities and art, among the Elgin marbles and
other ancient  works, Grecian, Roman, Assyrian,
Egyptian, etc.   I was  exceedingly interested in
the manuscripts  of  distinguished  men, — Sir
Thomas  More, Sir Walter  Raleigh,  Philip  Sid-
ney, Bacon, Locke,  Dryden,  Addison, Nelson,
Byron, etc.
  The new  reading-room is a wonder  in itself.
About 400,000  volumes are  taken  from their 
        ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.       25
places for  consultation during the year, or about
1200 a day.
  Yesterday  was the day for  election of mem-
bers of Parliament in most  localities.  The  Re-
form Bill  brought forward  by  the ministry not
being sustained, instead of  the  ministry resign-
ing, Parliament was dissolved, and an appeal made
to the country.  The Government Reform Bill
was rejected  by a liberal Parliament, because it
did not go far enough in extending the franchise,
and had  some other objectionable features.  I
attended last week some of the political meet-
ings,  and yesterday went to the polls for a few
minutes.  I  am  convinced  that " demagogism "
exists here as well as in America.  The  demo-
cratic spirit is abroad here in England.  They
do not speak against the Sovereign, but they talk
about  equality, and  very many  of  the  voters
strongly insist  upon " humanity suffrage."  The
ball is rolling on; it will not  easily be stopped
until  great reforms  are effected, — at least until
great  changes are made about voting for mem-
bers of the House of Commons.
  Monday, May 2d, 1859.  The  telegraph  an-
nounces  that  blood has been  shed, — that  the
Austrians and Sardinians have had an engage-
ment, the latter falling back  and inflicting heavy
loss upon the former. Blood will now flow freely.
I have hope, moreover, that France and Sardinia,
with the other  Italian States, will be  allowed  to 
26               MEMORIAL.
fight  it out themselves.   If,  however, Germany
joins, then will Russia, and then who else ?  But
prophecy is useless and  realities will come fast
enough.   Have spent the day in  the  Crystal
Palace.  Was  much  interested  in  the  picture
gallery.  There were  many pictures  of great pre-
tensions  and  merit,  but the one which for its
effect pleased me most was entitled " Friendship
in Adversity."  It consisted of two female figures
— one ill and in bed,  the other sitting by the bed-
side with her,  sewing.   The  plain  furniture  of
the room showed their  present  condition, but
their  faces, mode of  dress, a magnificently gilt
and embossed Bible lying open on a plain table,
and a few other remnants of better days gave
evidence  of their former  affluence; while the
benevolent, animated  and almost cheerful expres-
sion of their countenances indicated the happi-
ness which true friendship,  in hearts of  sensi-
bility and refinement, is  capable of giving, even
in the depths of adversity.   The sentiment  of
the picture and its execution both delighted me,
and I really coveted its possession.  Nothing but
the fact of my not being rich  prevented my pay-
ing the price and bringing it home.
  May 2,d, '59.  Made a visit to-day to  Univer-
sity College Hospital, and met Dr. Walshe and
Dr. Garrod in their wards.  The number  in at-
tendance upon  Dr.  Walshe's  instructions  is
twelve, all  told ; upon Dr. Garrod's  five,  includ-
ing in both cases their assistants. 
         ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.      27
  I  have been particularly interested  in  Dr.
Walshe's  clinical  exercises in the  hospital.   I
have never witnessed more searching, exact, and
intelligent examinations of  patients, particularly
in all cases of diseases of  the chest.   Nothing
could exceed the minute care exercised in physi-
cal explorations, and, so far as I could judge from
witnessing his procedures,  and hearing his re-
marks, with occasional examinations of particular
sounds, he  is unusually discriminative and pre-
cise  in his observations, and very just in  his con-
clusions.  He had only about twenty beds in the
hospital  (which, by  the way, is not a large one),
and  usually not more than half  of them were
occupied by patients requiring special care, and
not  unfrequently an hour and  a half or more
were employed in examining two or three cases.
A single case, examined in that minute and criti-
cal  manner, is more valuable  to  all   concerned
than the largest number loosely and superficially
inspected, and prescribed for at random.  Indeed,
such methods of procedure in the presence of
students  are  positively  pernicious, encouraging
and  forming in them the worst of habits.
  May 4t/t,  '59.   To St. Bartholomew's Hospi-
tal this morning.  This institution is the largest
and  most ancient in London.  The statistics of
the amount of medicines used show that dosing
is by no  means given over.   It is stated that
2000 pounds weight of castor oil, 1000 pounds 
28
MEMORIAL.
of senna, 27 cwt. of salts, 12 tons of linseed meal,
are among the annual items.   The  number of
surgical cases may be judged  by the  fact that
5000 yards of calico are used for bandages every
year.   They seem to have confidence in sarsa-
parilla, as more than half a hundred weight is
used every week; and that they are not altogether
insensible to the good effects of  blood-letting is
shown by the  fact that within a single year, not
long since, 29,700 leeches were bought for the
use of  the establishment.  Was too late  for the
morning lectures and followed the crowds into
Dr. Martin's department for out-patients.  Found
an immense number.  On his  last visiting day
he prescribed for two hundred!   He  had two or
three  assistants, who aided him more or less in
examining  the cases.   Physically, Dr. Martin is
one of the finest persons I have seen here.   He
was very polite to me, though I showed him no
letters, simply telling him I was  a medical man
from America.  He of course  prescribed  very
rapidly and without examining his  cases  fully
and minutely.  Fewer cases, examined and pre-
scribed for more carefully, would be more im-
proving.   In the  evening went to the Princess
Theatre to hear Charles  Kean  in  Henry the
Fifth.   The  acting was fairly good, but the
scenery was remarkably fine.   In the " Siege of
Harfleur" there must have been  a hundred per-
sons on the stage.   In the  representations of  a 
        ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.      29
portion  of  the battle of  Agincourt, the field was
shown very beautifully, and  the perspective was
exceedingly fine.  A  historical episode was in-
troduced, not in Shakespeare, showing the recep-
tion of  King Henry  after his  return  from  the
expedition, at the old  London Bridge, — soldiers
met by  friends,  wives, and  sweethearts, solemn
hymns and prayers, etc.   A grand scene.
  May  ^th.  This morning  went to Enfield with
some American  friends, to see the  Armory of
the  British  Government.   Fourteen  hundred
men are employed, who make fifteen hundred
guns per  week.  All are made  by machinery,
which seems very perfect.   It was gratifying to
find that  it was  all American, and  that Amer-
icans operated  it.  The chief engineer and in
fact all  the managing men are Americans.   Mr.
Harris,  with whom I went, is on his way to Rus-
sia,  sent for by the government to  give advice
respecting the rebuilding of the railroad bridges.
Other Americans are there  to manage the work.
It seems to take Yankees to do things, at least
some things; Englishmen have done and can do
much.
   May  6th.  This has been one of my most in-
teresting  days  in London, spent  in the Abbey,
which I entered at the Poets' Corner.  The ob-
jects and associations  of  this sacred place, — the
Pantheon  of the glory of  Britain, — and  the
emotions  excited by a stay here of some hours, I 
3°
MEMORIAL.
 shall not attempt  to  describe.  I left it deeply
 moved  by its scenes and  associations, lingering
 longest and with the fondest memories in  the
 Poets' Corner,—worshiping, I may say, at the
 shrines of Shakespeare,  Milton,  Chaucer,  Dry-
 den, Thomson, and  Gray;  but  lingering long-
 est before the full length statue of Shakespeare,
 holding  the scroll  on which are  inscribed  the
 words from the Tempest, which can be better
 appreciated here than in any other place : —
    " And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
     The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
     The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
     Yea, all which it  inherit, shall dissolve;
     And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
     Leave not a rack behind."
   From  the Abbey,  through St.  James Park to
 Marlborough House,  to see  the pictures.
   May 7 th.  Went this morning at 8 o'clock to
hear Dr. West lecture at St.  Bartholomew's, and
at 10 o'clock to University Hospital to meet Dr.
Walshe.   He was minute and accurate as usual
in examining his patients.  He  is unquestion-
ably an able man.
   May Stn, Sunday.  Listened to  the full Cathe-
dral service in St.  Paul's  this  morning, and was
disappointed in it.   A large portion of  the ser-
vice was sung, and  even  that which was said was
about the same as sung — intoned.   It did not
suit my sense  of propriety  or  good taste, did 
        ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.       31

not inspire devotional  feelings.  The sermon
was pretty good — correct doctrine, but without
that  definiteness or  directness  that  produces
effects.  In the evening went to hear the Scotch
divine, Rev.  Dr. Cummings, who has written so
much on the prophecies.
  May \otk.  Heard Dr. Todd this morning at
King's College Hospital,  and  in  the  afternoon
again followed Dr. Walshe through  his  wards.
Heard Dr. Jenner lecture also on Pathology.  As
dull as possible.  He lectures slowly, so that stu-
dents can write the lecture down.
   May nth.  Heard a clinical lecture from Dr.
Parks at the  University.  Altogether the  best
talking and  teaching I have heard yet.   It was
on diseases of the heart, or rather the methods
of physical examinations of the heart.  Dr. Parks
is a comparatively young man, and his health is
not firm, but  should it  continue as now, he can-
not fail of  being very useful as a teacher,  and of
attaining to still greater eminence.   He  has not
the extent and minuteness of knowledge and the
grasp of mind of Dr. Walshe, but he has more
than  his animation and zeal, and exceeds him in
the power of communicating  to others what he
knows.  Then to hear Dr.  Carpenter.   Found
him  lecturing on  Medical  Jurisprudence  to  a
small class, less  than  twenty.  He is  a clear,
plain, but not an animated  or elegant, lecturer.
 Had  a long conversation with him on  medical 
 32                MEMORIAL.
 and educational matters.  He said he intended
 to resign.  The classes were too small and medi-
 cal schools too numerous in London  to pay any
 one well.   On parting, I spoke to Dr. Carpenter
 of his works,  particularly that on alcohol, to his
 evident satisfaction.
  May  i$th.  Went this morning to King's Col-
 lege Hospital, where I met again Dr. Budd, and
 then to  see Dr. Carpenter at his rooms in Picca-
 dilly.   Had a long  talk with him on scientific
 and educational matters, on men and things. He
 said the tendency in  England  was to diminish
 rather than multiply species.  Agassiz had fallen
 into the  other train,  viz.,  that  of  multiplying
 species,  presuming that animals and plants found
 in different localties belonged to different species.
 His essay on classification, he  said, was not
 thought well of at  all in England;  that Professor
 Agassiz, since he had been in America, not hav-
 ing come  in contact with the more scientific men
 of Europe, had not been  restrained by the opin-
 ions of  others, and had  adopted various strange
 notions.   I was sorry to hear him speak so dis-
paragingly of  Agassiz, and asked how it  was, if
 he  had  become so degenerate,  that he had been
offered  by France the  position of Director or
 Chief of the Jardin  des  Plantes, the highest sci-
entific position, perhaps, in Europe.  He replied,
that it was because  he was  a special favorite of
 Louis Napoleon,  that  it was not  by the  advice 
         ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.       33
of the scientific men of France.   I told him Pro-
fessor Agassiz was looked  upon in a very differ-
ent light in America.   I  fear men are jealous
here, as well as elsewhere.   Professor Agassiz is
adding more new facts to  zoological  science, in
his new  field  of  observation, than  all the  Eng-
lishmen  put together, and  their jealousy is  con-
sequently excited.  He is  overturning  some of
their theories, and they are therefore disposed to
undervalue  him.  I asked him if some English-
men were not inclined to look with disparaging
suspicions upon what originated in America, and
referred  to  Lord Granville's speech, delivered
only the day before  as Chancellor of the  Uni-
versity of London — of which Dr. Carpenter is
Registrar — in which he  claimed for English
scientists the  credit of disarming  the  thunder-
bolt of  its  terrors,  and rendering  the  electric
telegraph available for transmitting intelligence.
He said Franklin was an  English-born subject.
I replied that  he was an  American, who  con-
tributed  by  his counsel as  much as any one else
to oppose the country which seemed  inclined to
claim him.  Dr.  Carpenter was,  however,  very
polite, and took me through all the rooms of the
Royal Society in Burlington House, and showed
me the  library, the original portraits and busts
of its distinguished members, etc., etc.  He  pre-
sented me  with  various documents connected
with the  London University, which  I  am  very
          3 
 34              MEMORIAL.
 glad to have.  They propose granting  degrees
 in  science, B. S. and  D. S., requiring only  a
 sufficient  knowledge of ancient languages  for
 matriculation, which is not great, and which Dr.
 Carpenter  said,  in  Greek, could be obtained by
 "cramming" in a few weeks.  He and  the Uni-
 versity entertain  liberal views respecting educa-
 tion, believing that scientific pursuits afford quite
 as much mental  cultivation as languages.  The
 more enlightened minds here are tending in that
 direction.   Professor Huxley and  many others
 think sciences more important as means  of edu-
 cation— as producing accomplished men — than
 ancient languages, and  that a degree  in science
 is as important as a degree in art, is an evidence
 of as high cultivation  and a more useful  store
 of knowledge.  They also  believe that  students
should be allowed to choose from a large number
of subjects, certain of them being required to en-
title them  to a degree.   Dr. Tyndall says: " It is
 a moderate claim of scientific knowledge that it
should  stand on  an equal footing with  classical
knowledge."
  Saturday, May 14th, '59.  Received  an invi-
tation to the soiree  of  the  Royal  Society, and
went to Burlington House at  9.15 o'clock.  Was
 announced, and  received  by the President, Sir
 Benjamin  Brodie.  Here  I had  an opportunity
of seeing a large  body of  the most learned and
 distinguished  men of England in literature and 
        ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.       35
science;  and a  more intellectual and dignified
set  of men  I  have  certainly never seen, and
might add, scarcely expect to see.
  Among many others of note, there were pres-
ent the Bishops of Winchester, Ripon, Carlisle,
London, and Oxford;  Sir James Ross, Sir James
Clark, Professors Sharpey, Faraday,  and Wheat-
stone ;  Sir J.   Forbes. Sir  C. Laycock, Drs.
Bruce, Jones, Watson, and Fuller;  Mr. Fergus-
son, etc.,  etc.   Various objects of scientific  in-
terest were exhibited during the evening; among
them, our countryman Professor Hughes' print-
ing telegraph.
   I was  very glad of the opportunity of seeing
the members of  this dignified society together.
   May  16th.   Visited  the Eye  Infirmary at
 Moorfields. The intelligent surgeons, Mr. Dixon
and  Mr.  Hutchinson, were  very attentive  and
polite.
   May iyth.  Spent  most of the  day at Guy's
Hospital, in the museum, which is said to be the
finest private medical museum—that is, not sup-
ported by government — in London or  in the
world.
   May  18th.  After hearing  Drs.   Parks  and
Erichsen lecture  at  University College, spent
the rest  of the  day most delightfully at the Na-
tional Gallery in  Trafalgar Square, among the
Raphaels, Titians, Rembrandts, Van Dycks, and
all  the  great masters of the  English school — 
36               MEMORIAL.
Reynolds,  Lawrence,  Turner,  Gainsborough,
Landseer, etc.  My observation  has convinced
me that in this  city alone may be found, if dili-
gently sought, more than many travelers find in
all Europe.
   Thursday,  May igth.  This morning to  the
Children's Hospital, and in the afternoon to hear
Dr. Walshe.  His lecture was  an excellent one,
the most discriminating and the ablest  I have
heard.  It was  delivered  to  thirteen students,
two of  them sleeping most of the time.  The
whole lecture abounded in the most discriminat-
ing and the closest exposition of principles.
   In the evening went to  the opera in Covent
Garden, to hear Grisi and Mario, Tagliafico  and
Didiee  in the  opera of the Huguenots.  The
performance was grand, and to me  almost over-
powering.  It left  upon my  mind  a  sense of
delight  that does not  readily wear away.  Grisi
was in  unusually fine voice (it was said),  and
her acting was exceedingly good.   The Queen
was present  with other members of the royal
family and some  of the cousins from Germany.
 Her Majesty looks much like any other mortal.
 Her nose is more prominent  than  the  pictures
 represent.   After the opera was concluded, Grisi
 and  Didiee sang " God save  the Queen " most
 exquisitely.
   May 20th.  To-day visited Windsor Castle.
 It is about  twenty-two miles out of London, in 
         ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.      37
 one of the most beautiful  regions the sun  ever
 shone upon, the ideal  of  a cultivated country.
 I was pleased beyond measure with it.
   Sunday,  May 22d.  Went to  church  this
 morning, to St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, and in the
 afternoon to Westminster Abbey.
   Monday,  23d.  To  St.  Bartholomew's,  and
 spent two  hours and  more with  Dr.  Bailey
 among his  out-patients.  Found him an exceed-
 ingly clever man, kind, sensible, patient, pains-
 taking, correct,  communicative, giving students
 good  practical  instruction.   He  has recently
 been appointed Physician Extraordinary to the
 Queen, over many older  men.  I  am very sure
 he is a good man.
   Tuesday,  24th.  To Guy's Hospital. . . .
   May 25//L  Visited to-day the Hanwell  Insane
 Asylum.  It is several miles out of town.  I am
 greatly interested in the  quiet beauty  of  the
 country  villages.  Rambled  for an  hour,  this
 afternoon, through the  grounds and about  the
 buildings of the Temple,  so filled with associa-
 tions.
   May 26th.  Visited St. Thomas' Hospital this
 morning and saw Dr. Bennett and Dr. Peacock.
   Sunday,  May  2gth.   Went to  church  this
 morning,  near my  lodgings.  His Grace  the
 Archbishop of Canterbury preached a  charity
sermon from the text, " The Lord loveth a cheer-
ful  giver."   His voice was so feeble that I  did 
38               MEMORIAL.
not hear all his discourse, but what was audible
seemed very good.  There was nothing  remark-
able in the appearance of the highest dignitary
of the Church of England.   He was simple in
address, manner, and surroundings.
  June ist, 1859.  To-day has been Derby day,
the Isthmian  games of England,  the carnival of
the metropolis, for  which Parliament suspends
its sittings and  the city exchanges  are  deserted.
" The millions  of London  are  unroofed upon
the Downs."   The  horse that wins here has the
highest name for speed.  The stake is ,£6,900 or
nearly $35,000.   The  simple racing was of far
less interest  than  the spectacle  of the  people.
All the best  authorities  said over half a million
were present, from the highest of the aristocracy
to the lowest of the  city scum.
   June 4th.  Spent the morning in the Middle-
sex Hospital, then  an hour or two in  the  Na-
tional Gallery among the old  pictures,  and in
the evening  went  to hear  Madame  Grisi in
" Norma," at  Covent Garden.  She was in good
voice and the Queen was there, but left before
the ballet.
   June  jth.  Went this  morning to see Dr.
Murchison.   Gave  him  a bottle  of  veratrum
viride, New York manufacture.   Dr. Murchison
is an  intelligent  and enterprising  man, and will
give it a trial.  He  has written a good deal and
very well of fever, in the " Edinburgh Journal." 
         ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.      39
 Had a pleasant  interview with him,  but could
 not go with him  to the Fever Hospital, because
 I wished  to attend the grand affair of the open-
 ing of Parliament by the Queen.  Was at Parlia-
 ment House and Westminster Abbey from noon
 until 11.20 at night.  First observed the arrival of
 those who were admitted  to the House of Lords
 to witness the  ceremonies and show themselves.
 They were mostly  ladies, except officials, mem-
 bers of the diplomatic corps, etc.  My former
 impressions of the  fine physical development of
 English ladies were sustained by what I saw to-
 day.   When tired of seeing these personages I
 went over to the Abbey and gazed on its monu-
 ments,  seeing  at each visit new  beauties.   As
 two  o'clock approached, the  hour for the Queen
 to leave  the  palace, two companies  of Horse
 Guards and  one of  Foot appeared, the latter
 being stationed near the  grand entrance, while
 the former were distributed  along the  route, to
 keep it clear.   The mass of the people scattered
 along the way were of the lower orders, contrast-
 ing  painfully  in their rags  and filth with the
 splendid  equipages and  their  occupants.   At
 length the great state carriage of  the Queen
 appeared, drawn by the eight cream horses, with
 outriders and a man on foot  leading  each horse,
guards, " beef-eaters " from  the Tower, etc., etc.
 The  poor innocent little Queen, like some golden
idol,  as uninfluential, and of her own movings as 
40               MEMORIAL.

dumb,  is made to speak of " my " government,
" my " people,  and " my " doings as the person
moving everything, instead  of  the  puppet she
is.  This, however, is the best kind of  sovereign
the English can have.  A strong hand and will
on the throne they would  not perhaps tolerate.
Had from  Mr. Dallas a ticket of admission  to
the House  of  Lords, for the session which com-
menced at  five o'clock.  This was a great treat,
though I was exceedingly fatigued  before the
session, which continued  six  hours,  was over.
The debate was upon the address  presented
upon the speech from the throne.   The speech
was  read  by  the Lord  Chancellor  from the
woolsack.  The  address  in  reply  was  moved
by  the  Earl  of  Powis,  in  military uniform,
whose  manner of speaking was formal,  indis-
tinct, and unimpressive.  The  Earl of Granville,
the leader  of  the opposition  in the  House  of
Lords, spoke  at length, and in  a much  better
style.   He rejoiced that  he  belonged  to the
Liberal party, which from his earliest recollection
had always originated and promoted, if they had
not always been the persons to carry, those great
measures of   progress  that have been placed
upon  the  statute  book.  He was  followed  by
 Lord Malmesbury, Minister of Foreign Affairs,
in support of  the  government.  Then the Mar-
quis of  Normanby,  and  the Earl  of Carlisle
spoke.  The great Lord Brougham followed, and 
        ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.       41
made an extended  speech on a subject  of great
interest, the present condition of Europe,  and
on a most important occasion, when much was
expected of him.  He looks hale and vigorous,
and showed no physical feebleness.   I was inter-
ested in him and his speech beyond measure,
but  comparing  him to Webster, Clay, or  Cal-
houn, he seems to me inferior as a speaker.  He
has not the dignity and weight  of Webster, the
enthusiasm and clearness of Clay, nor the clear,
terse, spiritual  fire  of  Calhoun.   He is abrupt,
forcible, energetic in manner;  throws bolts  and
shots, as it were, but does not rise into a stream
of grand  eloquence, enthusiasm, elevation, or
power.  Still it was worth  a great deal to have
heard him.  His hair is nearly white, crown bald,
and brows jagged.   He placed the responsibility
of the war on  Sardinia, advised caution as to
France, said prophecies from high  places  cost
little, and wise  people  took them for what  they
cost.   He  exhorted  to the formation of  a strong
government in  the  present crisis, sinking  per-
sonal differences and  ambitions for  the general
good in  a time of peril.  Next, the Duke of
Argyle.   He is tall and  well-formed, with red
hair, and  spoke well.   Manner,  voice, and lan-
guage  all good, though not striking.   Next, the
Earl of Derby, the Premier,  closed the debate
for the evening in defense of the government.
He spoke  with fluency and considerable effect; 
42               MEMORIAL.
was often  witty, exciting a  laugh and cheers.
Saw Lord  Macaulay, sixteen bishops, and  hosts
of others too numerous to mention.
  June gth,  '59.  The war  news  is of course
read  with  interest  every morning.  So far  the
French and  Sardinians seem to have been suc-
cessful  over  the  Austrians  generally.  The
bloody  battle of  Magenta,  though apparently
favorable to  the  allies — the  Austrians having
retired — was still a closely contested affair, with
heavy losses  on both sides, and both sides fight-
ing well.   A terribly bloody war was inevitable
between such  armies, and  its horrors  are fast
being  realized,  passing  into history.   In  Par-
liament the whole affair, and  indeed war in gen-
eral, is characterized  as a stupendous  crime by
the orators;  but they seem  to forget  that  the
same denunciations  might  apply with  awful
force to themselves in the  past, and the  world
will see whether they will not again in the future.
  Went at  half past twelve to  Charing  Cross
Hospital, and at four o'clock  to the House of
Commons,  a  ticket  from  our  minister admitting
me to the Speaker's gallery, where  the  seats  are
cushioned  and  with backs.   Well, I   have  at-
tended  a great debate in  the House   of  Com-
mons on a great occasion ; have seen  the tem-
per and spirit of  the  house.   It was much more
boisterous  and  less  dignified than I  had  ex-
pected ;  much  cheering and counter  cheering, 
         ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.       43
with  no effort on  the  part of  the  Speaker to
stop  it.   Major-General Wavell,  an old mem-
ber of the Royal  Society, who has been  often
in America,  and lately in Germany,  and who
seemed  quite  inclined to  converse after  he
learned  I  was an  American, characterized the
proceedings  as resembling  the exhibition of a
bear-garden.   It  was the  struggle  on  the one
side for the  retention of power and office, and
on the other for the possession  or acquisition
of office and power at  a time  the most critical
in the  history of Europe, furnishing the actors
in quickly coming events probable opportunities
of enrolling  their names permanently and con-
spicuously on the pages of  history.  Besides, the
full instinct  of party feeling was  brought into
play,  the  members just  back  from a  heated
contest before their constituents.   The  conser-
vatives now  claim  to be  the  reformers.  After
several speakers came  Mr. Bright,  an  extreme
Liberal and  sturdy Independent.  He made an
excellent  impression, and I was more delighted
with his speech and with him than with any one
else.   He spoke deliberately but tellingly.  He
opposed the  present measures for increasing the
defenses of the country, which I could not quite
understand until I learned  that  he is a Quaker,
and of course on principle goes against any war,
under any circumstances, and  all preparations
for war  as  well.   His independence  was ad- 
44               MEMORIAL.
mirable.   He went for a change because  the
opponents of the present government were more
favorable to  reform than the Tories.  He should
go against them when they did wrong, and there
was a prospect of doing better with others.   Mr.
Disraeli is a tall and  very  intellectual  looking
man,  with  a  grave, serious face.   He  never
smiled or seemed moved  amidst  all the  uproar.
Lord Palmerston is rather tall, with a very prom-
inent nose and a fine head.
  Paris, June nth, 1859.  Am  at  the  Hotel
du  Louvre  in this  other  great centre of civili-
zation, fashion, learning,  pleasure, taste, and  I
must perhaps add, without expressing  all,  vice
and  folly also.   Crossed from  Folkestone to
Boulogne.   We chose to walk from the custom
house to the station, as we had some  two hours
to wait, and were told that our  luggage would
be sent on in due time, the price of sending each
trunk being one franc.   This was paid, and we
started leisurely on.  On looking  around we saw
our luggage — the large hand trunks of both my
Scotch  friend and  myself — on the back of one
old woman, moving off towards the station, some
three quarters of a mile distant.   A large basket,
to which  was attached a  strap passing  around
the  shoulders,  rested  upon  the  stooping back
of the  old  woman,  and the heavy trunks were
thrown into the basket.  I never had such ser-
vices as this performed by  a woman for me be- 
ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.       45
fore, and  though I was passive  in the matter,
and did not know that my franc was  going for
such a purpose, I felt my manhood suffering at
the sight.  It seems to  me a burning disgrace
to any people that tolerates such customs.   This
was  the  first characteristic  sight  I saw  on the
Continent of Europe, in the refined  country of
France!   The very thing which on our  side of
the water  marks the  barbarism of our savage
aborigines, women doing drudgery  that  men
would despise to do;  for men, it seems, will not
carry trunks  such a distance here. Everything
is on a large, fine scale in this hotel.   It has 750
rooms,  and the main  central court, into which
carriages come, is  covered by  a roof of glass.
 Before  closing my journal for the day I wish to
 record  my impression  of  French politeness, as
exhibited in  a railway coach.  In coming from
 Amiens to Paris I  was in a first class  coach with
four  other  men beside  myself, and  one lady.
 They were all French,  none speaking English.
 The  gentleman who was with the lady  did not
 smoke, the three others did, two of them  almost
 incessantly,  and one  of  them absolutely  every
 moment of the time from entering until leaving.
 Of course the coach was filled with smoke.  The
 lady  evidently disliked it very much, was made
 ill by it, changed her seat and moved as close as
 possible to the  open window to get a breath  of
 fresh  air.  Smoking  uninterrupted!   I bore it 
46               MEMORIAL.
as well  as  I  could;  could not  use  French  to
insinuate its disagreeableness, and for a  long
time appeared indifferent.  When, however, cigar
after cigar was lighted by the stump of its prede-
cessor, my brain and  my patience gave way, and
I resorted to pantomime.  I leaned away from my
companion — the perpetual smoker — perpetual
still.  One of the  men, a pale, yellow, bent, sad,
tobacco-poisoned wretch, at length gave out, and
sank  into  a sort   of  narcotic  slumber.    The
other, a globular-faced, long-mustached, embroi-
dered-capped,  gold-chained, selfish  looking ani-
mal, had more  endurance and  puffed on.  It
rained, and  the  window was  closed.   I opened
it.  The lady gave increased  signs  of distress.
The brutish smoker  saw it  all, but he  puffed
away.  He  looked  guilty, and avoided my eye.
A man  so constituted has a most  degraded na-
ture, or has  been wofully corrupted in his moral
as well  as  in his  physical nature  by a vicious
habit.
  The next few pages of the journal are filled  with accounts
of the sights of Paris, excursions to  St. Cloud, Versailles,
Le Petit Trianon, etc., and of frequent visits to the great
hospitals.
  June iyth.  Changed my lodgings from the
Louvre  to comfortable and quiet rooms  in the
Latin quarter, where  I can see more  of medical
men and student life.   I  am informed that but
few  students from America study much  when 
        ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.       47
here ; that their habits are by no means such as
to improve either their morals or intellects.   In-
deed, my  information and observation  lead  me
to the conclusion, that a student spending time
abroad is  not necessarily improved.  They  are
far from  home influences  and  restraints, in  the
midst of bad examples and surrounded  by every
temptation;  and  with  many  young  men   the
effect cannot be otherwise than bad.  I shall be
inclined to advise caution  about sending young
men abroad, especially to  Paris.
   June igth.  On  my return   from  Versailles,
called on Dr. Brown-Sequard, who lives out of
the  city.   Found him  exceedingly polite  and
agreeable, and engaged to visit him  again  and
see some of his  experiments.   Have been every
day to some hospital or  medical school, begin-
ning at eight o'clock in the morning.   My after-
noons are generally  given to  matters  of more
general interest.
   July 1 st.  I have  seen most of the  notable
places of  Paris, and am becoming almost weary
of  sight-seeing.   One small picture gallery, con-
taining the works  of Ary Scheffer, I  must  not
forget to mention.  A visit to this gave me more
pleasure  than to any other of  the  kind I  have
seen.  There are about one hundred paintings,
exhibiting a subdued beauty and spirituality that
I have never witnessed  before.   The coloring is
not brilliant, is even dull and chalky in some of 
48               MEMORIAL.
the pieces, but even  in  these there is  a  purity
and elevation  of  thought, a  spirituality, that is
beyond  all praise, subduing, melting the heart,
and bringing  tears to the eyes.  Many  of  the
subjects  are  sacred:  " Christ  in  the Garden
of Olives,"  the  " Mater Dolorosa," the " Holy
WTomen  at  the   Tomb," etc.  Several  subjects
are taken from " Faust."  " Marguerite," as she
was first seen  by  Faust in her perfect purity and
simplicity,  then  in  her fall  and anguish, and
after the storm had passed and she was again  in
her cottage, subdued,  calm,  but sad.   Nothing
can  exceed the  beauty of  these  productions.
The convalescent mother, attended  by her chil-
dren,  in her  first  walk, was  very impressive.
Perhaps, however, the  finest of all are  yet  to  be
mentioned, " L' Amour divin et 1' Amour  terres-
tre," and " Les Douleurs  de la Terre."   The first
consisted of two female figures: one a child of
nature,  beautiful, impassioned, the  embodiment
of human or earthly love; the other devoted to
religion  and pointing the  former  to  the  beati-
tudes above.  I have no  language to express my
appreciation of the conception and execution of
these figures.   "  Les  Douleurs de  la Terre " is
a large picture, representing a group  of  many
figures, rising above each other, the pains and
sorrows  of  earth transforming the successive
figures  into expressions of  heavenly aspiration
and at last beatitude.  To say that  this picture 
        ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.       49

is glorious is  tame.   I am  still more  at  a  loss
than in the former case to find words to express
my admiration of this great work.  The lower
figures expressed suffering,  the loss of friends,
children, companions;  the next above grief, but
hope  and aspiration, while the last or highest
denoted  a beatific state.  A week after  seeing
these pictures I am  almost  overcome with emo-
tion in thus recalling them to mind.
  Spent most of the day  with  Dr.  Brown-Se-
quard at his residence  in Bellevue.  Took break-
fast with him  and his wife.  She was  a  Bos-
ton girl, and is a very intelligent and pleasant
woman.   Then witnessed some  vivisections,  il-
lustrating the physiology of the nervous system.
The  day was  a most interesting one.   We had
much conversation  on  various  subjects.  The
Doctor  is well  posted on American medical
affairs.   He  said  he would prefer  to  live  in
America, breathed much freer there.   He was
very  bitter against Napoleon;  said he was in-
sane  in his passion for military glory — that he
wished to subdue not only Austria but Germany
as  well,  and above  all to humble England.   I
pleaded for Napoleon  his declarations, his prom-
ises, and his interests, all of which indicated that
he  would give independence to Italy and sheathe
his sword.   I told  him it  was a compliment to
America that Professor Agassiz and Dr. Brown-
Sequard  had  both  selected  American  wives.
            4 
50               MEMORIAL.
This  remark did not appear to be  offensive to
Madame  Sequard.   Their  acquaintance  began
by their taking lessons together, and his interest
was  excited  by her kindly correcting some of
his errors.
  I have visited a large  number of hospitals and
seen  many medical men  of note.    Those  in
whom I have been  most interested  are the fol-
lowing: at the clinique of  the school of medi-
cine, Nelaton, a kind, sensible, good  man,  with a
refined and gentle face (one of the surgeons  to
the Emperor); at " La Charite,"  Velpeau,  pre-
cise, accurate,  laborious, careful, not  very com-
municative at the bedside;  then Piorry, famous
for his percussion ;  pretends to tell more by per-
cussion than any one else,  and probably can  do
it.  He uses a pleximeter, one of which  I have
obtained.   He  is somewhat  peculiar in his man-
ner,  often  appealing to by-standers  about  the
sounds.  At the Hotel Dieu have seen Trous-
seau, and M. Grissolle in the School of Medicine,
and at the Lariboissiere, M. Chassagnac.   This
is a modern hospital, perhaps the finest in Paris.
It is large  and well ventilated, at least well for a
Paris hospital.   It is stated that the percentage
of successful operations is greater here than else-
where in  Paris, this being  due,  as  some think,
entirely to the better  ventilation, while Chas-
sagnac attributes it to his methods of  treatment.
He is the hero of the " ecraseur" and of " tubing 
         ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.      5 1

in suppuration."  He seems at present much
possessed with this plan of his, and spoke to me
about his work on the subject.   The number of
beds in all the hospitals of Paris, in a population
of one  million  and several  hundred  thousand,
is 17,460, and  they are generally all full.   Saw
Drs.  Cazenave and Hardy, who at  present are
very prominent here.   Most of the distinguished
men here have large brains and  are stout.
   Visited also the Maison  Esquirol, a private
asylum for the more wealthy insane, a most se-
cluded and delightful retreat in a village  some
distance from  the city.  The extensive grounds
are  surrounded  by high walls, screened  from
sight  by almost forest  foliage. There is one
building of considerable size, where some of the
patients assemble for meals and  social amuse-
ment.  Most  of  the  patients are  in small cot-
tages, accommodating only three or four.  Some
are almost entirely isolated.   Each house of this
kind  is separated from the  others  by walls, ob-
scured  by foliage, or sunken  out  of sight in
ditches.   There is combined here  every variety
of plan of treatment, adapted to  each case.   The
most violent  of all  are  occasionally put  in a
strong  net, which is  suspended, and which ren-
ders all the patient's efforts to inflict injury upon
himself ineffectual.
   The new hospital for convalescents out of the
city  was built  by the present Emperor, and is 
5 2               MEMORIAL.

the best appointed  place  I have yet  seen in
France.
  I have, on the whole, seen but little  in Paris
that was new to me in a professional way, though
I have after all picked  up quite a good  deal,
and at least know how things are done.  There
are many able  men  here in the profession, and
those who regularly enter the  study  for degrees
are thoroughly drilled, at  least are  thoroughly
examined.   But the  teaching of Americans can
be  quite as well done in  America.   Dr. Bow-
ditch, who  has been here lately, says  clinical
instruction is  not attended to  as it was  twenty-
five years ago, in the  days of Chomel, Andral,
and Louis.
  It is not surprising that,  in the flush and hey-
day of the  senses,  the  young man should be
pleased with  Paris.   He  dislikes to  leave it;
" London looks gloomy and is a bore."  He has
felt here  great personal security, the streets are
beautifully lighted,  new streets are opened, and
fine buildings erected;  gendarmes,  quiet  and
watchful,  are  on every corner; he feels  that
while he does not meddle with the government
or  its affairs, every gendarme is watching for
his safety;  he praises the Emperor, and  is in
ecstasies over the beauty and  grace  of  the  Em-
press, and often goes so far as  to think that des-
potism is a boon and democracy a humbug.   He
takes a single  view of a few isolated  facts, which 
         ALONZO  BENJAMIN PALMER.       53
are to  be sure  most  patent and obvious, and
which relate to his present convenience, and con-
trasts Paris with  New York, greatly in favor of
the former.
   He compares the public institutions, the schools
of medicine and law, the  length  of  the  courses
of instruction, the thoroughness of their exami-
nations, and again the comparison is unfavorable
to his own country.   He does not, however, con-
sider  the differences in the condition of the great
masses  of the people, in their intelligence, their
education, their freedom, and manhood.   He for-
gets that after all the capital city comprises but
a  small portion of the people  and  interests of
any country, that  the virtue and happiness of the
masses of the people of  the country is the great
point.
   July 18th.   Left  Paris  at six this  morning.
The  harvest  is in full  progress.  Saw  on the
way car-loads of coal, with whitewash sprinkled
over the top of the coal, to enable them to detect
any disturbance of it.  An idea.   Bought a note
book  at  Amiens.   The  shop-woman,  though
neither young  nor beautiful, yet  had a grace of
manner peculiar to French women.

  Lisle, Bruges, Ghent, Brussels, Antwerp, the Hague, Sche-
veningen, and Amsterdam, were next visited, with enthusias-
tic enjoyment of the old pictures, churches, and all the novel
sights of the Netherlands. 
54               MEMORIAL.
  Bruges, July  \gth.    Saw  at  Notre  Dame
preparations for a service  for the repose  of a
soul.  The survivor had  brought  to the church,
as an offering, a large quantity— as much as two
cords — of bread, to be  distributed to the poor.
This will allay the hunger of many bodies, what-
ever it may do for the dead man's soul.
  Ghent, July 20th.  Nothing I have ever seen
equals the spirituality of the head of the Saviour
by Van Eyck,  at  the convent here.  Visited to-
day the cathedral of St. Bavon.  " The Adora-
tion of the Spotless Lamb," painted  by Hubert
and John Van Eyck  in  1432, is one of the best
pictures I have  ever seen.  The  coloring is  in
a most remarkable  state of preservation.  The
beauty and grace of the Virgin and the exqui-
siteness of the painting it seemed to  me  I had
never seen equaled.
  Bonn,  July 30, 1859.  Found  at  my hotel
three American  students.  Two  of  them were
kind enough  to  accompany  me  to the  library
and to the house of Professor Busch, the present
Dean of the  medical faculty, and surgical pro-
fessor in the University of Bonn.  I introduced
myself, and found him most polite. He took me
over his  hospital and through his museums, and
I have been exceedingly interested.   Found  he
had more cases of  certain kinds than I have
seen in some very large hospitals.  There seems
to  be a great  deal of scrofulous  disease among 
         ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.       55

the poor peasants, who are not properly nour-
ished.  Though  the  town contains only 15,000
inhabitants, the  hospital is well supplied  from
the country around,  patients coming great  dis-
tances  for free  and  superior  treatment.   Dr.
Busch uses photography quite extensively.  The
University is in the old palace of the Electors of
Cologne; the buildings extend nearly a quarter
of a mile, w'th a fine  park in front.   There are
about nine hundred  students.  Dr.  Busch  has
sent  me documents  respecting the  University
and  numerous pamphlets  of his own, has intro-
duced me to some of his colleagues, and in every
way has been exceedingly polite.  He is a young
man, full of enthusiasm, and will make his mark.
He spoke of America as the land  of the future.
I was delighted with  him.   My rooms here over-
look  the Rhine and  the seven hills in the near
distance across the river.
   July 31st.   Arrived  at Coblenz and took  a
carriage to Stolzenfels, the summer residence of
the King of  Prussia.  The castle  has  recently
been  restored, and though comparatively small
for a  royal palace is most  picturesque and fine.
Nothing can exceed the beauty of  the situation
and the view of the river up and down and  the
valley opposite.
  Next followed Wiesbaden,  Frankfort on the Main, and
Heidelberg. The old castle of Heidelberg and the beautiful
valley  of the Neckar seem to have especially enchanted him. 
56
MEMORIAL.
The journal shows how keen an interest he felt in the poorer
classes, their modes of life, their habits  as to  temperance,
their education, methods of tilling the soil, their health, and
the comparative comfort of their homes. After Baden Baden,
Strasburg, and Basel, came a delightful tour of Switzerland,
and then  the return by way of Geneva and Lyons to Paris,
which he  reached in time to witness the grand entree of the
army after the Italian campaign.
  Paris, August 14th, 1859.  The army came
in from camp, and  were gathered near the  Bas-
tille, then passed up the Boulevard to the Place
Vendome, where they were reviewed by the Em-
peror.  It  is impossible to describe the impres-
sion made by this vast army of 80,000 men, and
the still more numerous  throng  that had come
out  to  see  them.   The  Emperor rode  at  the
head  of the columns, preceded  only by heralds
to give  notice of his approach.  He rode a chest-
nut horse, and  sat the horse  well.  He  looked
sunburnt, and showed the  effect  of exposure in
Italy.   I  stood  upon  a chair, looking over the
heads of others, and had  a good  view.   He
stopped very near  me, and  remained some time,
turning around, so that I  saw him clearly and
distinctly, and shall remember the expression of
his countenance.  It  was not so unpleasant as  I
had supposed.   In position, fame, and influence
in the affairs  of  nations, he must be regarded as
the foremost man of  all the world at this present
time.  All Europe  is  looking to his movements,
studying his character, scrutinizing his motives, 
        ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.       57
and speculating upon his future  course with the
most intense interest.  England is almost trem-
bling for fear of him, and Germany is in a steady
blaze of rage towards him.  France submits to
his sway, quietly at present, but her wisest  and
best men regard him with suspicion and  dis-
trust; yet all must acknowledge that everywhere
material improvements are in progress;  that the
people have  every personal liberty,  except that
of expression, that can be desired; that security
of person and property was never greater;  and
that nowhere  are the ordinary functions of gov-
ernment better performed.  Moreover, he amuses
the people  with  fetes and  displays,  which the
French enjoy beyond any others, and has grati-
fied his  army with  a short but brilliant  cam-
paign.  I have seen to-day the  army of Italy,
from the commander in chief to the last trooper
that could mount a horse, and even to the last
" vivandiere,"  in  her  trousers, boots, and military
coat, with the canteen swung over her shoulder.
The procession  was five hours in passing the
point where I stood.  The men showed the ef-
fect of  hard service; they all looked thin  and
sunburnt, and nearly all malarious.   I could un-
derstand  more fully than  before  the  motives
Napoleon  had for terminating the  war.  Dis-
ease would have soon made sad havoc  among
his men, and reverses might have followed.
   August 15th.   To-day was the great Fete Na- 
58
MEMORIAL.
 poleon.  There was a Te Deum in the morning
 at Notre Dame, the theatres were open and free
 to all  the  people, and there were balloon ascen-
 sions  and all  kinds of amusements.  But the
 greatest display  was reserved  for  the evening.
 All the public  buildings were illuminated — the
 Hotel  de Ville, the legislative  building, the Pan-
 theon, and Notre  Dame.   The most  beautiful
 sight  of all  was  the  garden  of the  Tuileries,
 which  was one  blaze  of  gorgeous  beauty.   I
 happened  to  be  present  when  the  Emperor
 and Empress came out upon the  balcony facing
 the garden, to receive the congratulations of the
 people.  The  whole scene  was like  fairy land.
 An  infinite number of  vari-colored  lights,  ar-
 ranged in the most graceful forms,  made a blaze
 of glorious light.  The moon, at full, looked out
 in its usual placid  mood through a transparent
 sky,  occasionally  overspread  by  flying clouds,
 but both it and the stars were outshone,  to Pa-
 risians, by  the artificial  fires.   At intervals  fire-
 works—superb bouquets of colored  lights, fill-
 ing the  whole  heavens — were sent  up  from
 across  the Seine and the Hotel  des Invalides.
  Drunkenness is much  more frequent in Paris
 than is generally supposed  or  stated, but drun-
ken men are more quiet, much less  noisy in the
street,  than with  us, and are  thus often  over-
looked by superficial observers.
  August 18th.   Have been occupied with busi- 
        ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.       59
ness for the University for  the  last two days,
though  I spent two or three hours in the Louvre.
  August  23d.   Met Dr.  Brown - Sequard  to-
day, and then went with a patient to Dr. Ricord.
His rooms  were full, many waiting and  with
much impatience.  He  formed an opinion  and
gave advice speedily, without fully appreciating
all  the  circumstances.  I was glad of an oppor-
tunity  of seeing  him and his method of  doing
business.   Dined with Dr. Lindsley.
  Friday, August 26th.  Spent the  day yester-
day in saying  good-by to friends, and left Paris
early this morning for Havre and Southampton,
spending several hours  at Rouen  en route.  Was
much interested in the  cathedral  and  the beauti-
ful  church  of St.  Ouen, the architecture of which
has been  the subject  of so  much comment.
While in Rouen  a violent shower came on  and
the streets  were converted into  rivers,  some of
them crossed  by temporary bridges, the builders
receiving toll.  All the drainage is above ground.
The Hotel de Ville is built upon the foundations
of  an   old  abbey, and   has  a curious staircase
arched  into the side  of the wall.   In the museum
above I saw a cast of  the head of Napoleon, taken
after his death.   The development is not so re-
markable as in  the  statues and  busts one  sees
of him.
  Southampton, August 27th. Arrived here last
evening.   I am  glad to be where  my  native 
6o
MEMORIAL.
tongue is spoken, and to see  the American  flag
floating from masts in the harbor.
   Ventnor, August 2jth. Evening.  After a nice
English breakfast at Southampton, embarked for
the Isle of Wight, landing at Cowes.  The island
is  beautiful, as  every one knows.   The south
shore, under the cliffs, is seldom visited by frosts
in the winter, and the air there is  bracing, and
dryer than in most other parts of  England.   It
has been called the Madeira of England.  There
is  a great variety of scenery on  the island —
hills, dales, pretty villages, cultivated fields, beau-
tiful country seats, hedges and gardens, quaint
little churches, cottages, and in some  parts bold
cliffs and rocky ledges.   Had  a delightful drive
on the  top of a stage-coach from Cowes to New-
port, passing Osborne House, where  the Queen
now is, on the left, and  thence to the  south  side
of the  island,  seeing the Needles, Freshwater,
etc., and reaching Ventnor at two p. m.
   The  same man was  on the box all  the  way
through — face  as red  as a turkey's head.  He
had  been  driving  some  fifty  miles  a day for
twenty-one years, receiving no pay except  gra-
tuities  from passengers.  Met Dr. Garrod  at
Ventnor.   He  says London is deserted.  Shall
see him again at Aberdeen.
   Sunday, August 28th.  A beautiful morning.
The town is quiet.   Sunday is observed here in
a Christian way — a great contrast to the Sun- 
ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.       61
days in Paris.   Ascended the hills high above
the sea  and the town, and am writing from this
elevation, a most beautiful spot;  solitude within
reach of humanity.  Church bells  are  ringing,
the people begin to gather, and  both duty and
inclination prompt  me  to attend  the  service.
Good-by Ventnor and the Downs.  This is my
first and  probably  my  last visit.  Was called
upon late in the evening by Mr. Vesey, Consul
at  Havre, and  Mr. Thomson, Consul at South-
ampton.  They wished me to see a sick man at
the latter place.
   London, August 2gth.   Left Ventnor at eight
o'clock  this  morning;  rode  on the coach to
Ryde, through  a beautiful country and  one or
two delightful  villages with  thatched and  ivy-
clad cottages.   Ryde  is  beautifully situated, the
ground ascending  from  the sea.  One gets a
good idea  here of  English country life in some
of  its  aspects.  Stayed  two or  three hours at
Southampton,  to  see  and  give advice to  an
American  from Cleveland, dying with consump-
tion, and reached here early  this  evening.
  On September ist he left London for a short trip into Ire-
land, passing through Wales, and pausing for a visit to Pem-
broke Castle, "a magnificent  old ruin, one of the finest in
the kingdom."
   September ^d.  Reached Waterford  early in
the morning.   This is the first Irish town I have
seen, and  in faith  it is  Irish " intirely."   Pat 
62
MEMORIAL.
flourishes in his entire purity only on his  native
soil, after all.  Here he is seen in all his phases.
Such a  throng of  ragamuffins  can  hardly  be
found elsewhere, with so  few of the  better class
to relieve the picture.
  After visiting the Lakes of Killarney, Cork, and Queens-
town, he came to Dublin and spent some days in visiting the
various medical colleges and hospitals, and meeting many of
the most notable medical men.
  Dublin, September 8th.  Called  on Dr. Stokes
this morning.   Found him more  Irish in appear-
ance than  I had expected.   He  has  a cast in
one eye,  and takes snuff freely.   Inquired  about
schools and degrees in America.   He is one  of
the Medical Council under the registration act.
Foreign  diplomas   admit men  to  registration
under it.  Dr.  Stokes  also  inquired about the
physiological effects of climate in America ; said
that  Irishmen who had been in  America but a
few years were much changed in  accent, manner,
and  physical  conformation, and  thought there
must be  something in the climate  to effect such
changes.  Called after dinner upon  Dr. Beatty.
Found him an exceedingly agreeable gentleman,
stout and florid, and full  of life and zeal.  Am
to dine with him to-morrow.
  September gth.  Met this morning Dr. Banks,
Professor of Medicine in Dublin University, an
exceedingly intelligent and accomplished gentle-
man.  He  knew much  about our country, and 
         ALONZO BEAJAMIN PALMER.      63
spoke very kindly of Dr. Metcalf of New York.
The hospitals  here  are very deficient in their
ventilation.   There is no  forced  ventilation in
even the new part just erected.  At seven went
to Dr. Beatty's to dinner.   Met Dr. Macnamara,
Dr. Tufnill  (English),  and  others, and  had a
pleasant time.  Many stories were told.  Learned
in the course of the conversation that one of the
three years of study required is a sham, merely
nominal, and that competition exists in Dublin
as elsewhere.  Had occasion again to correct the
impression, which seems general in England and
Ireland, that nearly all Americans live in  hotels.
   September gth. Breakfasted this morning with
the governors of the Zoological Garden, at their
place  in Phoenix Park.   Met a  pleasant com-
pany, three, at least, of them medical men. Then
went to the College  of Surgeons.  Afterwards
met Dr. Macnamara at his dispensary.  He ex-
plained  all his modus operandi with  patients.
Public charity is paid for by the city.  Medical
men  get ^"100 a year, and attend patients at
their homes as well.  Dr. Beatty took me after-
wards to the Dublin University, and the Curator
of the Museum of Zoology and lecturer on zool-
ogy showed me over the grounds  and buildings.
The  buildings are  very extensive  and fine, in-
cluding  chapel, dining hall, etc.  The scholars
say grace  in  the dining hall as  a condition of
their scholarship.   When the Curator learned  I 
64
MEMORIAL.
was from Michigan, he asked  me if Michigan
was near Wisconsin.  I said it was  on the op-
posite side of Lake  Michigan from  Wisconsin.
" Oh! it  s a town, then, on the  lake  shore;  but
is it in Wisconsin ? "
  Suiiday,  September nth.  After  a pleasant
breakfast at Dr. Banks' I went out by invitation
to dine with Dr. Stokes at his country seat ten
miles out of town.   It is a beautiful place on the
opposite  side of the  bay  from Kingstown, the
summer residence of the fashion of Dublin.  Met
Dr. Stokes and family coming out of church, and
walked with them for a mile and a half or more,
through beautiful groves, beside some fine fields
with  rugged  rocks, and  bright  with  the  yellow
blossoms of the furze, at sight of which Linnaeus
is said  to  have fallen down and  in worship
thanked  God for  its beauty.  Passed  by  the
castle of Lord  Loundsbury, climbed  over walls
by steps, and altogether had a  most romantic
walk.   The  Doctor has a nice cottage,  retired
and quiet, near a grove under  a hill.  He  has
nine  children, four grown up sons, all well  edu-
cated, two  of them  lawyers  and one studying
medicine. Mrs. Stokes was not at home. Among
the guests were  the widow of a clergyman, very
metaphysical, who talked of Kant, etc., and the
Professor of  Civil Law in  Dublin  University,
who said they used as a text-book Story on " The
Conflict of Laws," as affecting persons in different 
         ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.       65
countries.   They have two  professors of law in
the University, one of Roman and one of English
law.  Their object was to  instill principles, leav-
ing  students to learn the  forms of  practice in
offices.   Had generally about twenty-five in their
classes.  Met also there a young college student,
J. P. Mahaffy, an enthusiastic young fellow, who
praised very much Mr. Webb and his essay on
" The  Intellectuality of  Locke," controverting
everybody who  accused him of  sensuous philos-
ophy, and  declaring that Cousin and Hamilton
did  not  understand him.   Had  a great deal of
conversation and discussion on various subjects,
— international copyright,  language, American-
isms, etc., etc.   Stayed till ten o'clock and drove
to town by carriage.  A most pleasant and prof-
itable afternoon and evening.
   Monday,  September 12th, 1859.   Breakfasted
this morning with  Dr. Churchill, a dapper little
snuff-taking man with a good-sized wife and ten
children.   Drs.  Stokes,  Churchill,  and  Beatty
all take snuff.   Dr.  C. said very few medical men
took a fee  at every visit.   The  fee is a guinea,
but young men must take it only on  every third
or fourth visit,  according  to the position of the
medical man and the wealth of the patient.  Had
much conversation with  him  about  slavery and
the  negroes, a  subject  he  had studied much.
He said I had given him some  new ideas about
equality and our prejudices of race.
              5 
66
MEMORIAL.
  At the end of these pleasant days in Dublin, he crossed
from Belfast to Greenock, and after seeing the cathedral, the
University, and everything of interest in Glasgow, proceeded
directly to Aberdeen, to be  present at the " British Associa-
tion for the Advancement of Science," to which he was a
delegate from the American  Medical  Association.  This
was, indeed, a memorable occasion, which brought together
the  most illustrious scientific men of Great  Britain ; and we
can easily imagine the intense interest with which our trav-
eler, in the freshness of his enthusiasm and his eagerness for
knowledge and  new light upon his own studies, listened to
such men  as Professor Owen, Sir Charles Lyell, Mr. Huxley,
Sir John Lubbock, Professor Sharpey, Sir Robert Murchison,
Sir David Brewster, Dr. Acland (now Sir Henry Acland) of
Oxford, and Sir Benjamin Brodie.  The succeeding pages of
the  journal contain full  notes of  the more important  ad-
dresses, and the  discussions that  followed,  but only a brief
mention of some  of the subjects can be given here.


  Aberdeen, September 14th, 1859.  Left Glasgow
at nine  this  morning.   The  whole country  be-
tween Glasgow and Aberdeen is well cultivated,
and  diversified  with   hills, dales,  and  plains,
though  occasionally there   are  heath - covered
moors.   The  oat  harvest   is  still  in progress.
There were  often beautiful plots of flowers  at
the  railway stations.  Passed  the  battle-ground
of  Bannockburn,   Stirling  Castle,  Perth, the
residence of  the  " Fair Maid," and many  other
places known  in history and celebrated in  song.
The  sea views  were  fine  as  we   approached
Aberdeen.     Had  much  difficulty  in   getting
quarters, the  town is  so full, although  it is  a 
         ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.       6 J

city of  80,000 inhabitants.   The opening  meet-
ing was immense,  about three  thousand being
present.
   The   retiring   President,  Professor  Owen,
yielded  the  chair  to  his  successor  in a brief
speech, and Prince Albert  proceeded to deliver
an  opening  address.   It was an  unpretending
but clear and sensible production, and  was well
adapted to the occasion.   He  spoke in becom-
ing terms of his inferiority as a man of science,
compared with others  around  him, and claimed
indulgence  in  his  attempts to  perform  his  du-
ties, especially so, as  he succeeded  to  " a man of
whom  the  country was justly proud, and whose
name stood among the foremost of the natural-
ists in Europe, for his  patience  in  investigation,
conscientiousness in observation, boldness of im-
agination, and acuteness in reasoning."
   In  mentioning the  reasons which  determined
him to accept the office, he said : —

  "Remembering that this Association is a  popular Associa-
tion, not a secret confraternity of  men jealously guarding the
mysteries of their profession, but inviting the uninitiated, the
public at  large, to join  them ; having as one of its objects
to break down one of those imaginary and hurtful barriers
which exist between men of science  and so-called men of
practice, — I felt that I could, from the peculiar position in
which  Providence  has placed me in this country, appear as
the representative of that large public which profits  by and
admires  your  exertions, but is  unable actively to join in
them; that my election was an act of humility on your  part 
68
MEMORIAL.
which to reject would have looked like false humility, that is
like pride, on mine.   But I reflected further, and saw in my
acceptance the  means, of  which necessarily so few are of-
fered to her Majesty, of testifying to you, through the instru-
mentality of her husband, that your labors are not unappre-
ciated by your sovereign, and that she wishes her people to
know this as weH as yourselves."

   He then spoke of the objects of the  Associa-
tion in very proper terms,  and proceeded to give
his notions  of science ; the  following extract, serv-
ing  as a  specimen of  his style  of thought and
expression, is worthy of being reproduced: —

  "To me, science, in its most general and comprehensive
acceptation, means the knowledge of what I know, the con-
sciousness of human  knowledge.   Hence to know is  the
object of all science ; and all special knowledge, if  brought
to our consciousness in its separate  distinctiveness of form,
and yet in its recognized relation to the totality of our knowl-
edge, is scientific knowledge.  We require, then, for science
— that is to say, for the acquisition of scientific knowledge
— those two activities of our minds which are necessary for
the acquisition of any knowledge, — analysis and synthesis ;
the first, to dissect  and reduce into its component parts  the
object to be investigated, and to  render an accurate  account
to ourselves of the nature and qualities of these parts by  ob-
servation ; the second, to recompose the observed and under-
stood parts into a unity in our consciousness, exactly  answer-
ing  to  the object of our investigation.  The labors of  the
man of science are therefore  at  once the most  humble and
the  loftiest which man can undertake.   He  only does what
every  little child does from  its first  awakening into life,
and must do every moment of its existence ; and yet  he aims
at the gradual approximation to divine truth itself. If, then,
there exists no difference between the work of the  man of 
ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.        69
science  and that of the  merest child, what constitutes the
distinction ?  Merely the  conscious self-determination.  The
child  observes what accident brings before it, and  uncon-
sciously forms its notion of it; the  so-called practical  man
observes what his  special work  forces upon him, and he
forms his notions upon  it with referer.ce to this particular
work.  The man of science observes what he intends to ob-
serve, and knows why he intends it.  The value which a
peculiar object has in his eyes is not determined by accident,
nor by an external  cause, such as the mere connection  with
work to be performed, but by the  place which he knows this
object to hold in the general universe of knowledge, by the
relation which it bears to other parts of that general  knowl-
edge.
   " To arrange and classify that universe of knowledge be-
comes therefore the first, and perhaps  the most important,
object and duty of  science.  It is only  when brought into a
system,  by separating the incongruous, and combining those
elements in which we have been enabled to discover the in-
ternal connection which the Almighty has implanted in them,
that we  can hope to grapple with the boundlessness of his
creation, and with  the laws which  govern  both  mind and
matter.   The operation of science then has been, systemati-
cally to  divide  human knowledge, and  raise, as it were, the
separate  groups of  subjects for scientific consideration into
different and distinct sciences."

   He  spoke  for about fifty  minutes with a fairly
distinct and agreeable voice, and with a moderate
German accent, and  his effort was  very well re-
ceived by one of the most  intelligent audiences
ever assembled.
   September  15th.   Went  this  morning to  the
Physiological Section, of which Professor Sharpey
is  President.   Professor Sharpey is a noble  speci- 
7o
MEMORIAL.
men of a clear-headed, honest-hearted, scientific
man, large and erect in body and mind.   Profes-
sor Bennett,  of  Edinburgh, presented the  first
subject, on " The Structure of the Nerve Tubes."
  Dr. Foster read a paper on " The Action of the
Heart of some Lower Animals " (snails, etc.), tend-
ing to encourage  the  idea  that there is a prop-
erty inherent in muscle to contract rhythmically,
without the influence  of  nerves.   In the discus-
sion that followed, Mr. Huxley said these experi-
ments applied  to  the  frog would have met with
different  results.   In  the  higher  animals  the
heart is evidently under the controlling influence
of nerves.
   Mr. G. H. Lewes — not a medical man, but
an able popular writer  — sent  in  three papers on
physiological  subjects.  He attacked prevailing
views with boldness and vigor, and brought some
out severely against him,  especially Dr. Bennett.
   Mr. L. found fault  with a want of  accurate
definitions of sensation, and various  other  terms
used.  Announced  as a  truism, that identity of
structure gives identity of function, and diversity
of structure  diversity  of  function;  declared the
structure of what we  called sensory and  motor
nerves to be identical, questioning the common
distinction;  declared  the gray  matter of  the
nerves to be identical with the gray matter of
the  brain ;  inferred  identity  of function, — a
force of  their own, like  brain  force ;  proposed 
         ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.       Ji
new terms,—"neurility" and "sensibility," giving
each specific meanings, etc., etc.   Dr. Bennett's
criticisms I  thought very  loose and  illogical.
Professors Sharpey, Thomson, and Huxley, and
Sir B. Brodie, were more liberal and fair in their
remarks, admitting, as  all  must, that  we have
much to learn  in  relation  to the physiology of
the nerves.  The  discussion was exceedingly in.
teresting, but took too broad a  range, and was
too much diversified, to be reported here.
   For my own part, I felt much interested in
Mr. Lewes.  I hope he  will  go on with his
physiological writings.  It  is alleged that he is
an " outsider," but  outsiders, in regard to  any
science or subject, may be  useful critics  never-
theless.  We  often  consult  even children as to
the faithfulness of a picture to nature, and profit
by their opinions.   Improvements  in  medical
science have  sometimes come from  non-profes.
sional  persons, — political   improvements  from
those who  have not been  educated  in politics.
But Mr. Lewes, though not a professional man,
has studied, it was stated, physiology thoroughly,
and is  well  versed in its  literature,  perhaps
much better than some who might criticise him.
While  I  would not  receive such a  man as an
authority, I  would listen to  him as a witness, and
would receive his suggestions for what they were
worth.
   In  the evening went to the conversazione in 
72               MEMORIAL.

the great Music  Hall.  There  was a fine display
of men  and women and dress, and also an inter-
esting exhibition of  historical pictures, archaeo-
logical objects, photographs, and microscopes of
every kind.  These latter attracted much atten-
tion.  There was music during the evening, and
refreshments were served, but  nothing alcoholic.
  September \6th.  Heard a paper this morning
by Professor  Laycock  on " The  Handwriting
and  Drawing  of the  Insane," as illustrative of
some modes of cerebral functions.  Some insane
persons have  skill in drawing, even when in a
state of dementia.  He assumes  that the brain
is the organ of the mind, and  in diseases of the
mind the brain is diseased.  There are no means
of knowing whether  the  spinal  cord  has the
power of consciousness.  There are three modes
of ascertaining thoughts, — speech, writing, paint-
ing and  sculpture.   He showed various  speci-
mens of drawing and writing, — some beautiful
drawings of houses,  castles, etc.; and some ser-
mons, written  in the most  accurate and minute
hand.  As  disease advances the  hand fails, and
the mind fails  at the same time.  In cases of this
kind there may be softening or hardening of the
brain;  but when the  power over the hand  is pre-
served,  there  is  no  structural change.   When
there is structural change, there is failure of
power.  Different parts of  the brain  have differ-
ent functions.  A discussion followed, in which  I 
        ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.       73

took a part; Sir Benjamin Brodie expressing the
opinion that softening is often hypothetical.  In
the evening went to the great hall to  hear Sir
Robert Murchison, geologist of Great Britain by
appointment, give a lecture  on the geology of
Scotland.   The oldest rock in Europe is in Scot-
land,— equally old and  much more extensive in
America.   Air-breathing animals — lizard tribes
—found in the yellow sandstone near Elgin, which
had before been  considered as  belonging to the
old red sandstone period, where only the remains
of fishes had before been observed, — this was a
great puzzle, which they did  not know how to
overcome.  He  complimented  Agassiz,  Hugh
Miller,  and others;  but, as a  Scotchman said,
above the rocks  and before the  rocks  was Sir
Robert Murchison.  A medal was presented to
him   on the stage, from  the  Royal  Society of
Edinburgh, by the president of the meeting, Sir
David Brewster.  Sir David is very old and very
gray.   His race is drawing to a close.   Speeches
were  made by Sir Charles  Lyell and others, and
the meeting was most interesting.
  Saturday, September 1 jth.   Heard a paper by
A. Thomas, Esq., on " The Aberdeen Industrial
Feeding School," for the care of beggar children,
who are "fed, washed, and taught  in it."  The
benefits and results had been  counteracted  by
" Schools  for teaching Crime,"  two if not  three
of which were in operation from  1850 to 1855, and 
74               MEMORIAL.
were actually attended by  thirty or forty pupils
each.   They were broken  up, and the teachers
convicted of  crime and punished.   Voluntary
effort must  begin where  beneficent  laws  end.
After the best of laws, voluntary efforts are nec-
essary to complete the beneficent system.  There
must  be  love  of  God  and love to  man, reli-
gious education, as  well.   The  address was  re-
ceived with  much favor.  Next, John Cranfurd,
F. R.  S., on  "The  Effects  of  the  Influx  of
Precious Metals which followed the Discovery of
America."  In  the last  ten years ^208,000,000
of gold  had been  imported into  Europe  from
America.   During  the  first  century after the
discovery of  America  ^36,000,000  were  im-
ported ;  afterwards  ^20,000,000 in  ten  years,
He thinks,  contrary to  the statement of Adam
Smith, that  prices were not enhanced by it, but
rather by changes  from barbarism to compara-
tive civilization.  The next paper, on " The New
Gold, and its  Effects,"  was by  Mr.   Fawcett, a
blind man, who repeated his paper from memory.
Prices of produce will  not  indicate the price of
gold, as these are varied by supply and demand.
Wheat in England had  fallen  in price and meat
had  advanced,  because  wheat could  readily be
imported from  abroad, while  meat  could  not.
The gold of California and Australia  came in to
fill  up a gap.   Gold-digging must be on a level
in profit  with  other labor. When gold depre- 
        ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.       75
ciates in value, digging will  be less profitable;
this will lead to its abandonment, and thus prices
will  be advanced.  The discourse was exceed-
ingly logical and clear.  The President, Lord
Monteagle, made some very sensible remarks to
the effect  that gold and silver, though used as
standards,  have  their prices  determined,  like
other commodities, by supply and  demand.  If
gold is increased  in quantity, it is diminished in
price, all things else being equal.
   Monday, September igth.   Heard a  paper by
Dr. Bennett on " The Molecular  Theory of Or-
ganization."  Next, Dr. A. B. Garrod,  on " The
Specific, Chemical, and  Microscopical Phenom-
ena  of Gouty Inflammation."  In the discussion
that followed, Dr. Bennett suggested that whisky
punch prevented  gout.  Dr. Palmer denied this.
In the evening heard  the  Rev. Dr.  Robinson on
" The  Passage of Electricity  through Various
Media."  Brilliant and  beautiful  phenomena of
light.
   Tuesday, September 20th, 1859.   Received an
invitation to breakfast with the Medico-Chirurgi-
cal Society.  Some sixty or seventy  medical men
were  present, and the reunion was  a very pleas-
ant one.  There were toasts to the Queen, Prince
Albert, the Association,  and Professor Owen;
Dr. Bennett and  the foreign guests ; the British
Medical Association, etc.
   Dr. Bennett said Dr. Graves, of  Dublin,  told 
76               MEMORIAL.
him his first course of  clinical lectures continu-
ously given was to two  students, but one of them,
he  added, was Dr. Stokes.   Dr.  Bennett himself
gave a continuous course of lectures to two, and
one of them was Dr. Redfern, now president of
both the Medical and Philosophical Societies of
Aberdeen.  Professor Owen made a fine speech.
He was very much praised when his name was
proposed.  He is a medical man,  and was in
practice  before he  devoted himself to science
especially.
  The first paper this morning  was by G. H.
Lewes, "A Demonstration of the Muscular Sense,"
attempting to  show a  sixth or muscular sense.
Professors  Sharpey and Bennett, Dr. Redfern
and Dr.  Palmer, took part in the discussion.
Mr. Huxley made some most 'sensible remarks,
showing that we cannot be sure about conscious-
ness except in  our own person.   We must judge
by analogy or probability.
  September 21st. The Geological Section closed
this morning with many remarks upon the har-
mony of  geological with Scripture truth, — that
they do not contradict  each other.  In the after-
noon  attended  the general  meeting, the closing
affair of the Association.  Sir Robert Murchison
made a  speech,  long-winded and  stereotyped,
laudatory  of everything, and at the same  time
bringing in himself and his geological labors, as
he must necessarily do. The meeting broke up 
         ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.       yy
 with excellent feeling.  In the evening went to
 dine with Dr. Ogston, and met some very agree-
 able people.   After the cloth  had been removed
 and the ladies had left us, whisky, hot water, and
 sugar were  brought in for punch.   After this,
 stronger wines  again, the  bottles being  pushed
 around the table almost constantly. Most Scotch
 gentlemen take  snuff, at least  I should judge so
 from those I have met.  At this dinner all took
 snuff freely, even  during  the dinner, and  still
 more so during  the drinking.   After the ladies
 left, I was  next the clergyman  from the Orkney
 Islands, and  engaged in conversation with  him.
 He leaned towards me, approaching  me closely.
 He had taken wine freely, and snuff  even more
 so.  The odor of  his breath, contaminated  with
 the alcohol  and aroma of the wine and the elab-
 orated  snuff, was  remarkably penetrating  and
 peculiar.  It  made an exceedingly strong impres-
 sion upon  my olfactories,  fairly tingling in  my
 nose for more than twenty-four hours  afterwards.
   While I  was receiving this  tainted breath, he
 was pouring  into  my  ears his  predestination
 theory.   I cannot say which I abominated most.
 I told him the supposition that a just, not to say
 a  merciful, God  had created  a portion of  the
 human  family with the express purpose of mak-
 ing them eternally miserable, was  so  repugnant
 to that  moral sense which God had  given  me,
that I rejected it with  horror.  But  he said it 
78               MEMORIAL.
was  a philosophical rather than  a theological
conclusion, — was  the  result of  reasoning.   I
told  him my moral sense induced me to reject it
at once, and all processes of reasoning leading to
it.  At the same time, true reason led  me to no
such  conclusion.  His theology seemed to me a
fit accompaniment to the alcohol and nicotine,
and  I abhor  and  reject  them  all together.   I
was,  however, interested in his account  of the
Orkney Islands, and the improvements that had
taken  place there in the last few years.  The
sitting at  table  lasted three hours, before  we
joined the ladies in the drawing-room for tea.
   September 22d, '59.   To-day  has been spent
in a  visit to Queen Victoria at Balmoral.   Some
days ago the General Committee of the Associa-
tion, including the officers, delegates from other
learned  societies,  domestic  and  foreign,  and
scientific foreigners present, were invited  to
breakfast  with  her Majesty at  her  Highland
castle.  Being one of the " General Committee,"
having a seat  on the platform, as well as a for-
eign delegate  from  a learned society, I  was, of
course, included.    The  first  seventeen miles
were by rail, the remaining thirty-three by coach.
As the outside  seats on  the coach were much
the more pleasant in case of fine weather, I con-
cluded to run  the risk, and took one.  We  left
the station at six o'clock, and set our faces to-
ward the Grampian hills where Norval was  sup- 
         ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.       79
posed to dwell.  We  soon reached the terminus
of the  railway  at  Banchory Terrace,  passing
through  a beautiful country along the valley of
the river Dee.  Soon after, taking the  coaches
and rolling  on over smooth and well-made but
somewhat  hilly roads, we came  into  scenery
characteristic of the Highlands.  Both plains and
hills were  hard and  barren-looking,  overgrown
chiefly with heath, broom, and furze, or, as the
Irish  call the  latter, " whin," a  prickly shrub.
The broom is deep green and retains its color.
It is used for thatching houses  and ricks.  On
these moors were feeding flocks  of black-faced,
coarse - wooled  native sheep.  They are rather
small in size, at least as compared with  English
sheep, and the  wool  is long and white.  They
are hardy, I presume, and  the mutton is said  to
be sweet.  Here and there were patches  of wood
— birch, fir, and ash, — but most  of the higher
hills are either rocky and  bare,  or covered only
with heath.  Grouse  are abundant here, and  oc-
casionally the moor cock  is seen.  On  the way
we passed Macbeth's  cairn, where it is said Mac-
beth was killed  in 1056, and under which pile of
stones his body, after the  head was cut  off and
sent to  King   Malcolm,  is  said  to  have been
buried.   Beyond this is Loch Kinnord, with two
artificial islands, built  in  the very olden times
on piles, which  are  now  petrified;  one having
a  castle, and the other a  prison,  built by King 
80               MEMORIAL.
Malcolm Canmore.  Not far from here is Balla-
trich, where Lord  Byron lived for a time  in his
youth, and  near by  the  Hill  of  Morven,  men-
tioned in  one of his poems.   It was interesting
to think that these  scenes  inspired one  of his
finest and purest poems.
  Before reaching Ballater the rain commenced
pouring down, and a wetter set of philosophers
on a stage-coach it  would not be easy to find.
It was  difficult  to use umbrellas, as  the drip-
ping would  be upon some one else.  Hats, shirt
collars,  and boots  fared badly, and we were in
a sorry plight to  be  presented  to the Queen.
Changing horses at Ballater we drove on amidst
beautiful scenery, just  my ideal of the  Scottish
Highlands.   We soon saw  banners  waving on
the hills, indicating our approach  to the  castle.
At length we crossed the river over  a  beautiful
bridge and reached the lodge, the park, and the
castle.  It is a beautiful place, the grounds and
the flowers  most beautiful.   Found  many tents
pitched here and  there, one very large  and fine
one,  and several companies of Highlanders in
their Highland  dress.  Our  company for the
most part  repaired  to the large tent, though
some went  into the castle.  After a  time the
Queen,  Prince Albert, and the family  appeared,
the band  playing " God save the Queen."  The
Prince Consort was in Scotch Highland costume,
her Majesty and the  Princesses in Scotch plaids. 
        ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.       81

The members of the Association gathered around
the Queen and the  children.   She  is a plump,
nice-looking little body, shorter and more dumpy
than her pictures.  Still  she has a fine carriage,
and  walks like a queen.   Soon the  Scottish
games commenced:  throwing  the sledge - ham-
mer, a foot-race with bare  feet, raising  and car-
rying a huge pole, dancing singly over crossed
swords, etc.  Prizes, apparently of considerable
value, were then distributed by the  Queen.  In
the mean  time we had our  breakfast, which was
taken standing, and  without formality, while the
band played.   There were no soldiers or guards
in attendance ;  not  a  musket visible anywhere.
The  domain  consists of  thirty - five thousand
acres, extending for  eleven miles  along  the Dee,
with  extensive  hunting  grounds.   We left at
half past   five,  reaching Aberdeen  about  one
o'clock.  Had a most pleasant time coming back
— much conversation on various subjects with
pleasant people.
  Edinburgh,  Monday,  September 26th.  Came
from Aberdeen to this city  to-day.  The  country
is  very beautiful  nearly all the  way, with evi-
dences  of the  most careful  cultivation.   The
small farms,  I am told,  are mostly  absorbed in
larger ones, farmers  renting several  small ones,
and cultivating them all together.  Scientific cul-
tivation is applied on a large  scale ; the lands
are thus made much more productive, and less
          6 
82
MEMORIAL.
labor suffices.   The rents rise  in  proportion
and are especially high now, as it is  the fashion
for men of means to rent  lands and  practice
farming.
  The twelve days spent in this most picturesque and beau-
tiful city were full of interest and enjoyment.  He was most
kindly received by the  prominent medical men, and every
facility was offered him in the hospitals and libraries for
gaining the information he wished for.
   September 27th.   Went  from the  National
Gallery this morning to call  on  Dr. Christison,
to whom I had a letter of introduction from Dr.
Wood of  Philadelphia.  Professor Christison  is
the author of a Dispensatory  and various  other
important  medical  works, and has recently been
appointed a member of the Council, under the new
medical law of the Empire, having, in connection
with Parliament, charge of medical education and
registration throughout  the  kingdom.   He is a
tall, active-looking  man, not so old as I had ex-
pected to find him.  There are years of work in
him  yet.   He was very cordial; said he was to
leave town for several days to-morrow, but asked
me to visit the  Botanical  Gardens with  him in
the morning, and invited  me  to  dine with him
on Wednesday week, when, he said, he would be
back from  the country and would " have in some
friends."
   September 28th.  Breakfasted with Dr. Gaird-
ner and his son, and went from there to the Col- 
        ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.       83
lege of Physicians.   Found there the finest col-
lection of materia medica I have ever seen.  Then
to the University, in the old town.   The library
is  in a very fine large hall.  The librarian was
very attentive, and  inclined to show me  every-
thing— books,  manuscripts,  the  table  used by
Napoleon at St.  Helena, etc.   Next attended the
funeral of Dr. Alison.  It was a public one.  The
Town Council  appeared in their scarlet  robes;
College of Physicians and Surgeons and  other
bodies were also there.   Many persons came out
to do honor to one who was universally respected
and beloved.  His  brother,  the historian, was
present.   Spent the rest of the day with  Pro-
fessor  Simpson.  Dr. S. is a short, large-headed,
thick-necked, long-haired man  about fifty years
of age; the most characteristic and expressive
feature  of his  face being his quick,  laughing,
intelligent eye.   His motions  are rapid, and he
dashes about from  one  place  to another, from
one patient to another, and from one subject to
another in a most marvelous manner.  His house
is  a large one, and his  patients  were scattered
about in different rooms, from twenty to  thirty
waiting in the waiting-rooms.
   Friday, September 2,0th.  This morning went
again to breakfast  with  the  Drs.  Gairdner, and
met there Sir John  Bowring, the famous linguist,
politician, and author, Governor of  Hong-Kong,
etc.  There was  much discussion about him in 
84               MEMORIAL.
Parliament at one  time, he having  ordered  an
attack upon  some  Chinese forts, to avenge  an
insult  to  a  Chinese vessel, said to  have  been
under the protection of the British flag, without
consulting the home government.   He is a thin,
pale, light-haired old man, talking much of him-
self and his  exploits, as he has a right to do.
Met there also Dr. John  Struthers,  lecturer  on
anatomy at  the  College of Surgeons.   He has
shown me much attention  to-day.   Came across
Dr. Blakie, the professor of Greek in  the Univer-
sity, a queer man.  He said education was  all
wrong in Scotland and in the University. There
were no intermediate schools, as there should be.
The professors of the University lived upon the
wages of their own  degradation ;  received  large
salaries that ought to go to intermediate teachers.
Any change  would be an improvement.  Met
also Dr. Charles Wilson, at work upon the new
British  Pharmacopoeia,  a  clear-headed,  sensible
man, who is  said to know all  the languages of
modern Europe, besides the classics.   I  had a
long  chat with  him, and  told him  he  should
have  veratrum viride  in  the  Pharmacopoeia.
Suggested the sending their Pharmacopoeia to
us in sheets  for sale.  He  noted down both sug-
gestions and said he would attend to  them.
  Saw Mr.  Syme  in  his  amphitheatre.   He is
rather under  medium size, with a well-developed
brain  and good features.   He speaks  in  a low 
        ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.       85

voice,  slowly, almost  hesitatingly, and  with a
strong Scotch accent.   He said he should meet
me at  Dr.  Christison's on Wednesday.  This
evening called on Professor Pillans, professor of
Latin  in the University of  Edinburgh, present-
ing a letter from  the  Rev. James  Inglis.   Pro-
fessor  P. is fully eighty, and shows evidence of
his great  age physically, but seems particularly
bright mentally, as clear as ever, and his mem-
ory excellent.  Had an  exceedingly interesting
interview  with him.   He  has  been engaged in
teaching nearly haft  a century,  and  over forty
years  in the  University.  He  told me  that he
had  had 280 students  under his  instruction at a
time, and  almost never less than  200.   Had ex-
erted himself much more  and succeeded much
better than if he had had fewer students.  That,
during all  this time, until very recently, he had
had no assistance, except such as he had received
from his pupils.   He had  always two classes in
the University, with almost never less than  100
in each.  He had  managed them  alone,  teaching
geography one day in  the  week,  and  thus inter-
esting his classes more in his subject.   He said
the junior  class always differed very much in
their  state  of advancement.  Some were  igno-
rant of almost everything  but  Latin when they
entered the University, and knew next  to noth-
ing of  that.  They must receive such or reject
some of their best material — some that were 
86
MEMORIAL.
most anxious to learn and most capable of learn-
ing.   Many were men of from twenty to thirty;
some  had been  teachers, but felt their need  of
more knowledge, and came to the University for
six months or more.  He  had always advocated
receiving them, and they had been received and
faithfully taught.  He  gave them extra hours,
and put them in the way of going on and mak-
ing up lost time.  His  large  classes  he  had
divided into sections of ten.  At  the beginning
of the term had some exercises printed secretly  ;
placed the men all in one r6*om ;  gave them ex-
ercises of  various kinds,  elementary and more
difficult;  kept them together, but without com-
munication.  After giving them plenty of time,
he  took  all their papers and  compared them.
The ten  best men were  made  examiners  of a
division,  watching  over  the  division, marking
absences, and correcting  errors, or rather mark-
ing the more decided  ones.  Each pupil was to
correct his  own  mistakes.   He  then gave them
lectures  on the subject  of their exercises,  ex-
plaining  everything.  His  classes, he said, were
always interested,  and he  generally had  to cau-
tion them against studying too hard.  The great
difficulty here was  in the grade of schools below
the University.  The  late Parliamentary bill  on
education began at the wrong end;  on the sup-
position  that the University must be improved,
and  then the  lower schools would be.  They 
         ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.       87
should have begun with the lower schools: these
were  the foundations; improve  these and  the
University would be improved.
  Edinburgh University was in  the ruts  of cen-
turies; improvements  or  changes of any  kind
were difficult.  We  in America  were more free
from such trammels ; and in the West we should
establish matters de novo, and make them right.
I spoke to him  about our controversy respecting
preliminary education in our medical department.
He said we must not be  too exacting; Greek
was an ornament, but  not a necessity for a med-
ical man.  Am to send him a catalogue of the
University of  Michigan.   Was  most intensely
gratified with  my  visit  to  this  venerable  man
He was  most genial, sensible, and appreciative.
Took  a  cup of tea with him.  We  had much
conversation on various subjects.  He  thought
many of the religious differences and disputes
were of about the same consequence as the dis-
pute between the "big enders " and "small  end-
ers," as to which end  of an egg one should break.
The child asked the difference between " Pussy-
ism and  Catechism."
  October 1st.  Went this morning to the book-
store, and read  up the medical journals;  thence
to the Botanical Gardens.  Found  the  largest
palm-house I have ever seen, with a magnificent
collection of palms.   Met there Professor  Pillans
taking his daily walk.  The gate-keeper told me 
88
MEMORIAL.
I would find him in the lower part of the garden^
on the  left-hand  side.  That  was his  favorite
walk.   I accompanied him to his  house, and he
was  replete with anecdote  and  thought.   He
said he did not like Brother Jonathan.  The best
specimens  of humanity were  not produced in
America.  Still, he acknowledged the superiority
of Washington, Webster, Jefferson, Adams, Ever-
ett, etc.   Said Americans  were too fond of  the
"almighty  dollar."  I  replied  that the Scotch
were the most money-making and grasping men
among us.   He did not like universal suffrage ;
approved of  the  doctrines  of  the " Know-noth-
ings."   I told him if he should  come to America
and  see the influence  of  the suffrage on  the
masses of the people ;  how it tended to their ele-
vation and  improvement; how  men were striving
to educate their children, that they might aspire to
any position ; how all  thus took a part in public
affairs, and had their intellects  brightened; how,
in short, they all were educated by it, he would
lose  the dislike  he  had so frankly expressed.
As the truth dawned upon him, disturbing long-
cherished  ideas,  he  seemed  inclined to change
the subject.  He said  he had  been  always a
Whig,  but disliked Mr. Bright  intensely.  He
took me into his study, and showed  me  many
pictures of  his  acquaintances.   Among them
were Sydney Smith,  Lord Jeffreys,  and  many
others  whose names  we  know.   Conversation 
ALONZO  BENJAMIN PALMER.       89
turned on  education, and he  expressed  himself
strongly in favor of a professorship of English
language  and  literature  in  a  university;  said
it was one of the very best  chairs, and should
have a man of  the highest order of talent.   For
want of such a professorship he had done much
in teaching English with the Latin.  He ended
by giving  me  a volume  of his  contributions  to
the subject of  education, which I  shall  cherish
as a pleasant memento.
  Sunday, October 2d.   Went  this morning  to
St. Paul's,  the  Bishop's  church.  The  Bishop is
a small,  shriveled old man,  partially paralyzed,
and gets about with a cane;  but his voice, as  he
read a portion  of the service, was clear, manly,
and firm.  I was told  that he  married, a short
time  ago, an elderly lady, making  her his third
wife, and  becoming her fourth husband.   This
afternoon went to hear Dr. Guthrie  preach.  One
must have a ticket or an introduction, or he can-
not get in, there is such a crowd.   He is a tall,
rather spare man, with  lank, straight, iron-gray
hair, and wears a gown and bands  in the pulpit.
His text was, "  I will pour water upon the thirsty,
and floods upon  the  parched land."  Like  most
preachers  who are  great attractions,  he  used
many  illustrations drawn from natural  objects.
Some passages in his prayers were very striking.
Our blessings come upon us  in  numbers like the
flakes of winter's snow,  and in constancy like the 
90               MEMORIAL.
flowing river.  The winter's  frosts did not con-
geal them, nor the  summer's  heat dry them up.
In his sermon he made great use of the sea, the
desert,  clouds, sands, tides,  waves,  rocks,  etc.;
the wounded  soldier on the battle - field dying
with thirst;  the traveler  in the desert;  the ship-
wrecked mariner in his boat, hailing the gather-
ing cloud and rejoicing in the thunder and the
storm,  spreading his tattered sail to  catch the
falling rain  to quench his thirst.   Famine in a
besieged city, the effect of rain near the tropics,
and many other  striking figures  were all  used
most skillfully to illustrate his subject.
  His  voice and manner were  not particularly
pleasing to me.  The charm was in his thoughts,
and the  words and figures  in  which  they were
conveyed.
  Monday, October  $d.  Drove out to Leith this
morning. . .  . Returning, went to  the hospital to
meet  Dr. Kiiller in  the wards, and afterwards
walked out two or three miles with Dr. Struthers
to the  Insane Asylum.   In the evening took tea
with Dr. and Mrs. Struthers, and met a pleasant
company  of  their friends.   Mrs.  S. is an agree-
able, sensible woman, the daughter of  a medical
man.   I  like her very much.
  Tuesday,  October 4th.  This morning break-
fasted  with  the  Rev. Dr. Guthrie,  at  his villa,
some little distance out  of town.   Met there a
son and son-in-law of the Doctor's, a Dr. Thomp- 
        ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.       g\

son, of the Navy, a sensible, well-informed man,
and two or three others, clergymen and laymen,
whose names I do not remember.   Mrs. Guthrie
and the two daughters were also present.   Dr.
Guthrie was the  life of the party, as he neces-
sarily would be of almost any party in  which he
was placed.  He is full of anecdote and humor,
and of intelligence on  almost all  subjects.   He
is not considered a very profound scholar, is not
given to much abstract study, but he has, as Pro-
fessor Blakie expresses it, " an eye in his head; "
sees, hears, and remembers everything; mingles
freely with  many sorts of people ;  invites to his
house many strangers, draws out their  ideas to
some extent, at least learns  their  bent, though
he  talks too constantly himself to give others
much chance,  making himself, however,  very
agreeable  and entertaining.  He inquired much
about American affairs, expressed  his fears of
foreign  influence upon  us, and  seemed to be a
thorough " Know-nothing," as indeed I find many
others are  here.   He seemed to fear most from
the infidel, Sabbath-breaking Germans  and  the
Roman  Catholic Irish.   I told him " Know-noth-
ingism " would  not succeed, and  if it did we
should have the  poorest and most  ignorant, in-
stead  of, as now, many intelligent  men, coming
over for the enjoyment of political privileges not
found at home.   He inquired  about education
among us, and was much interested in  and  sur- 
92               MEMORIAL.
prised at the system of education  in our State.
He repeated what I said to the company and ex-
patiated upon it.  One of the guests told a story
of Dr. Whewell.   Some young men posted them-
selves on the subject of Chinese mathematics to
swamp him, but it turned out that Dr.. Whewell
wTrote the  article  which they had  read  in  the
Encyclopaedia.  Had a pleasant  morning.  I am
sorry to record that  Dr.  Guthrie takes  snuff
freely, and, like most  other Scotchmen who do
so, uses it at the table.  He called his daughter
to fill his box, which gave out while at breakfast.
  After  returning  went  with  Dr.   Struthers
through the lower town, the Scottish Parliament
Hall, courts, ragged  schools, and  up the  old
circular stairs and  dark closes.  Poverty, filth,
whisky, wretchedness,  a  terrible amount  of  it.
Next I climbed to the top of Arthur's Seat. .  . .
   In the evening dined with Dr.  Duncan, and
met  a pleasant party, most of  them old students
of the Doctor's;  but one, an elderly man of note,
Dr.  Charles Wilson, who  proposed and carried
the adoption of  the new system of weights and
measures  in the  forthcoming   Pharmacopoeia.
He  is exceedingly  well informed, and  a master
of modern languages.
   October ^th.   Have  spent part of the day at
the  instrument-maker's, looking up the new im-
provements, etc.  Saw Mr. Syme operate at the
hospital, and then went to the University.  . .  . 
        ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.       93
  In  the  evening  dined with  Dr. Christison,
where I met a dozen or more of  his professional
friends,  among  them  Mr. Syme, Dr. Bennett,
the lecturer on Materia Medica at the College
of Surgeons, and another Dr. Simpson.   I was
gratified that  such a party of men should have
been  brought  together on  my  account.  Had
much conversation with Dr.  Bennett on  clinical
teaching.   He  advocated the superiority of large
clinical  classes, and said he  could  teach a hun-
dred, or even  five hundred, better than half a
dozen.  Dr. Christison talked much about the
comparative  merits of  guns, the Enfield, Arm-
strong,  and others.   He had just returned from
a shooting expedition, and showed the diagram
of a target in  which  he  had hit the bull's eye.
It was cheering to see so old a man so much in-
terested in such sports.  He had been that day
to Glasgow professionally.
   October 6th.  Went to the University Museum
to inquire about the mode of putting up speci-
mens.   Saw dissections of the heart  by a stu-
dent, Pettigrew, which  are very curious, and an
account of which is to be published in a volume
by the  Royal  Society, London,  illustrated with
wood engravings. .  . .  Met  Dr.  Simpson there,
and drove with  him to Dr. Bennett's.  Dr. B.
was very polite, and showed me a very large num-
ber of  microscopical preparations, physiological
and pathological, — very fine.   He  is  to send 
94               MEMORIAL.
me the new  edition of his  work on  Consump
tion.   He makes positive assertions, is very zeal-
ous, is, in short, an impressive teacher.
   In  the  evening dined with Dr. Gairdner, and
met quite a company of professional  gentlemen,
Drs. Wood, Kuller, Duncan, one from London,
etc.   Ladies  were  present, and there  was music
in the drawing-room after tea.  Saw the  Cotters
Saturday Night most beautifully illustrated with
fine large engravings.  After the party broke up
I had a  long walk and  talk with Dr. Gairdner
until almost twelve.  I like him very much.
   October jth, '59.  Left Edinburgh  this morn-
ing for Melrose and Abbotsford, — a  day full of
interest.   Everything in this region  is  exceed-
ingly  beautiful.  At Abbotsford everything com-
bined to make a deep impression. ...  I could
not but give  a sigh of regret  that he who built
this mansion  could not have lived  longer to en-
joy it.  May  we not,  however,  hope he has a
" mansion not made with hands," far more noble
and delightful than this?
   From  a worldly point of  view, however, in
view of what  we know rather than what we hope
and believe, we can but regret the shortness of
such a life as Sir Walter Scott's.   He who gave
so much pleasure  to  millions, we would think,
should have lived long, to feel the reflex pleasure
his works produced.  But inexorable death comes
alike  to  all.   No labor can delay it  beyond its 
        ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.      95
allotted time.  The great effort should be to do
well  the work of life, and  thus  be  ready for the
great event.  Left Melrose at five  for Kelso, in
the comfortable bed of whose principal inn I am
now  writing, while the town clock  is striking
ten.   I must be up early in the morning to go
on down the Tweed, through the beautiful bor-
der-land so often of old the scene of mortal strife
and bloody war.  The day has  been one long to
be remembered. . . .
   At a shop in Edinburgh, one of the best, where
 I  went to buy a traveling-shawl, a canny sales-
 man was  urging  a flaming plaid upon me, and
 among the other inducements he seriously stated
 that when I no  longer wished to use it  as  a
 shawl  it would make two nice coats!  On my
 laughing  at  the ludicrousness of the idea, he
 most seriously assured  me that many "gentle-
 men " made this use of them.
   Newcastle-on-Tyne, October gth, Sunday. Went
 to St. John's  Church  this  morning, and was
 much  pleased with the  service and the sermon.
 One of the short prayers in the pulpit before the
 sermon I  do  not remember to have heard before.
 It is not,  I think, in the  Prayer Book, and was,
 1  believe, extemporaneous, or  at  least  original
 with  the  man.  It was  most appropriate.  The
 congregation were for the most part  of the mid-
 dle class,  substantial looking, though  there were 
96               MEMORIAL.
some of a lower class, but good, sensible looking
people.
  The masses of the  English,  after all, are an
excellent class  of people,  compared  with any
elsewhere found.   Certainly the best  European
people I have seen.
  Since writing the above  I have been walking
out to Gosforth colliery, one of  the deepest and
most extensive pits in the neighborhood of New-
castle.   This morning  a gentleman came into
the coffee-room at my  hotel, and addressed me,
as gentlemen  here often do address strangers,
about the weather.  After a few words  of the
kind, I inquired of him how I could see the col-
lieries  and colliers in  the neighborhood.  He
immediately said  that  after church  he would
come  for me  and accompany me out to one.   I
was quite surprised at this kind offer, as he only
knew that I was a stranger and an American.   I
then gave him  my card, and  found that he was
the son of one of  the oldest and most influential
men of the city, — a prominent physician, Dr.
Headlam.  At the appointed hour he came, and
on our way we encountered the gentleman's wife
and his venerable father,  taking a  walk  out  to
the old man's farm, some two or three miles out
of the city.  Dr. Headlam is over eighty, and as
active  in body and much more active in mind
than his polite son.   He  seemed greatly inter-
ested in America and American affairs, and con- 
         ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.       gj

versed with great sprightliness.  We walked a
mile and a half or more together, and it  required
a quick step and a quick tongue to keep up with
him.   He advocated free trade very warmly, and
thought America ought to  keep to agriculture
exclusively.  I differed with him, and  told  him
England had  not yet  set an  example of  free
trade.   I had  been obliged to  send a trunk of
goods  in bond to Liverpool because I could not
bring  them with me  on account of the duty.
We went on  to the coal mine, and I  made an
arrangement with the  overseer to go down  into
the pit to-morrow.  The work  goes on  down
there  night and day,  Sundays only excepted;
two sets of hands relieving each other.  From
the  pit  went  to the  cottages  of  the  pitmen.
They are of stone, built in rows,  uniform in  size
and structure, and are  warm  and  comfortable.
I  was quite  surprised  at  their neatness  and
general air of comfort,  their nice  clean floors,
good curtains, and  very clean  and comfortable
looking beds and good furniture.   The appear-
ance  of  comfort is  above  the  average of  the
peasantry  of  any country  I have  yet visited.
The men get excellent wages, from  four to six
shillings a day, and, I believe, have  the  cottages
and their  fuel in addition. The  women  and
children  were comfortably dressed, and looked
clean  and  healthy.  I  asked several boys  and
girls if they went to school, and the answer in
         7 
98
MEMORIAL.
every case was  in the affirmative.  I am told
that these people have a warm meat dinner daily,
ride to town in  cabs  to  do their shopping, and
in every way live in comfort.   It is sad to know
that many of them  spend  their  Sundays in drink-
ing, and we saw several going home more or less
intoxicated.
  Disease is  apt to be engendered by their un-
derground employment, but the coals  must be
had, and  they are willing to run the risk for the
large wages.
  October 10th.  According to arrangement, went
to Gosforth colliery this morning, and after put-
ting on a jacket and  cap,  and getting into the
basket, was lowered by steam power to the depth
of i,086 ft. through a  hole  not more than eight
feet square.  The motion  was so smooth that
we  could not realize the descent, especially as we
went with the current of  air that is forced down
for  the ventilation  of  the mine.  The inspector
accompanied  us.   After getting to the bottom
we  were provided  with candles, and later with
safety lamps, and  started on  our journey.  At
first we went off in a straight  line along a rail-
way, the  place being about five or six feet high
and ten broad, under solid  sandstone rock. Af-
ter  walking many hundred yards we reached  a
point where the  tracks branched, one going up
an  inclined plane, — the  loaded cars in coming
down drawing  up  the empty  ones.  The cars 
        ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.      99
were  about three and a  half feet square, one
horse drawing six or seven.   Another  passage
branching off was so low that ponies had  to be
used.  We  took this, and  proceeding  a  long
distance branched off again, going through many
trap - doors  to regulate  the  air currents, and at
length came to where the men were picking at
the coal and shoveling it into the cars.  At the
extremity of this passage the air was heated and
close, as currents could not well  be produced.
The  men  were  at work without shirts, and in
these places work only six hours a day at the
pick.  The men and  boys  who  manage the
horses, etc, in the better air,  work twelve hours.
Six hours at a time would seem quite enough for
such uncomfortable,  unwholesome,  and withal
dangerous work.  The stratum of coal in this
mine is generally about five  feet  thick, so that
the men can stand nearly straight at their work,
but where it is thinner they are often obliged to
lie  down and work in that position. The horses,
I am told, are  kept constantly down in the mine,
after being introduced, and are said to do as well
and live as long as horses above ground.  Some
had been  below for  twenty  years.  They were
most of  them in a fair condition.  These facts
seem to militate against some of our ideas of the
importance of light, and show the power of adap-
tation in  the  animal system to  circumstances.
It  cannot  be  doubted,  however,  that, all other 
IOO
MEMORIAL.
 things being equal, the light would be found far
 better than  the  darkness.  The horses  have
 steady but not  excessive work, regular food, and
 a uniform  temperature, and are  subjected to no
 sudden changes and severe exposures.  They are
 often blind, but the  inspector seemed to think
 this due more to frequent accidents.  They of-
 ten bump their heads,and  have stiff leather caps
 on  to protect  them.  Does not  the frequent
 blindness arise  from the absence  of light ?
  A new set of sensations accompanied this sub-
 terranean trip, and I shall always remember my
 visit to this great colliery.
  Left Newcastle at eleven  o'clock, and found
 young Mr. Headlam  at the station to see  me off.
 John  Bull is certainly sometimes  very polite ; in-
 deed, I have found him generally quite as much
 so as Jonathan.  What  American would have
 shown so much attention  to a perfect stranger ?
  Arrived  at Bradford at dusk,  and have been
 to the opening meeting of the " British Associ-
ation  for the Advancement of Social  Science."
 The President, Lord Shaftesbury,  delivered  the
 address.  He is comparatively a young  man, and
 seems very zealous for the advancement and im-
provement of all.  His address breathed a most
 Christian spirit.
  Lord Brougham was present and made quite
a lengthy speech.  He was very warmly received,
 and replied by  saying they must remember  old 
ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.
times, when he represented Yorkshire  in Parlia-
ment and raised his voice in favor of civil  and
religious liberty, and was known to be a follower
of Wilberforce as an enemy of the accursed slave-
trade.   He  spoke  warmly  in favor of  liberality
and  tolerance,  making  a  distinction   between
tolerance  and  toleration.  Toleration  implied
something bad to be tolerated, while the fact  was
that  those who differed from us had  as good a
right to do so as  we had  to differ from them.
Those who followed also dwelt upon liberality of
sentiment and cordiality towards those who dif-
fered from us.   Most of the speeches had a re-
ligious  tone, — a sound  of peace  on  earth  and
good-will  towards man.
   Bradford, Tuesday,  October  nth,  '59.  The
meeting this  morning  was addressed  by Lord
Brougham.  There is a wide  difference, he said,
between proposal  and execution.  The specula-
ting  reformer  proposes  speedy  measures.  The
execution of reforms is slow; may seem even to
go backward,  like  the eddies on the surface of
a stream.  All  real reforms must be slow.  He
referred to Russia and the liberation of  the serfs;
in relation to  the liberty of the  press, Russia is
now  held  up as an  example to France, and Prot-
estants are protected.
   In the Public Health  Department there was a
remarkable  paper on " Florence  Nightingale on
Hospitals and their Construction."  The speaker 
102
MEMORIAL.
referred to Miss Nightingale with much feeling.
The next paper was on " Work-houses and their
Improvement," a most important subject. Next,
on " Employers and  Employed."  Diminish the
hours of labor and give the entire Sunday for
rest.  The employer would not make a great sac-
rifice, as men work better when  not exhausted.
The great problem of social reform is to enable
the workingman  to  save his earnings  and im-
prove his pecuniary condition.  Deposits in sav-
ings banks prevent expenditure in drink.  Com-
binations on the part of laborers cause combina-
tion on the part of the employers, who have the
advantage of capital and  will succeed in the end.
Strikes are beneficial only  to the lazy, causing
suffering to the  industrious.  When money is
saved by machinery the  employers can devote it
to other branches of labor, and the laborer thus
gains, though not directly. .  . .  There have been
reforms in government.   The  British Constitu-
tion, never despotic,  grew up from less perfect to
more complete  liberty  and  beneficence.  Laws
are made, constitutions grow. Defects are pruned
away, improvements are grafted in, as the result
of  actual  experience  and  mutual  concession.
Other  countries would  be  willing to exchange
physical advantages  for  England's freedom, etc.,
etc.
   In the Section of Education, a paper by  Hor-
ace Mann, on " Facts as to the extent  to which 
        ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.      103

the Principle of  Competition is  at present ap-
plied to Appointments in the Civil Service."
  Section 3d. Punishment and Crime. The Rev.
Dr. Arnot read a paper on " The Criminality of
Drunkenness, and the Consequent Rights  and
Duties of  Society in regard to the Criminals."
Prohibition was the  remedy proposed,  first se-
curing public sentiment in  its favor.  All other
plans have failed.  Dr. Arnot urged  the  crimi-
nality of drunkenness.  The man is responsible.
If one drinks for years and becomes permanently
insane he  is acquitted.   Now the crime is in
getting  drunk,  when  he  still retains his reason.
Self-murder  is  another view.  The  man who
falls in the ditch  murdered himself  when he
drank the liquor. The law is at fault.  Drunk-
enness should be punished by law. A discussion
followed.  A gentleman from  Canada  thought
men's appetites  were not to be entirely restrained.
He  approved  of license.   Others opposed his
views.   I  made a few remarks which attracted
some attention.   These discussions are going on
and will produce results.  I have more  hope of
good fruits  here than with  us.    Law  is more
powerful.
   Met Professor Pillans to-day.   He expressed
his gratification in reading  the catalogue of our
University, and particularly  the concluding part,
granting to students the privilege of pursuing
such studies as  they choose, after certain  pre- 
I04              MEMORIAL.
liminary courses, and  making various  courses
equivalent to each other.   Said he should make
his own use of the idea.
   Went up into a Section where the  subject of
taxation  was discussed.   Lord  Brougham was
in the chair.  Two  or three  papers  were read
strongly condemning the principle of  an income
tax, and also taxes  upon imports, stamps, and
all that sort of thing, and advocating a direct tax
upon  property,  as with  us for our state and lo-
cal purposes.  Some were puzzled to  know how
that  could  be  done.  Lord  Brougham  asked
several  questions which  showed  he was  not
familiar with our  system.  The general opinion
was that a change should be made  in the  direc-
tion of  direct taxation upon property.  No one
dissented from that  principle.  Lord  Brougham
spoke  several times, not committing  himself,
however, to any specific views.  Our mode is,  I
think, on the whole, as good as any.  Our chief
tax is  direct, while the indirect  national tax on
foreign  articles  affords  protection  to  domestic
manufactures.  Every person, consumer as well
as capitalist, enjoys the protection  of the laws.
They  are for the protection of persons as well
as property, and  persons who can  do so ought
to pay something as well as  property, though
property should pay most.  Luxuries ought to
pay well.
   Heard next a  paper, by the  Rev. H. Latham, 
         ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.      105
 on " The Establishment of a School of Practical
 Science in Cambridge."
   He would have  a separate department estab-
 lished.  The  present arrangements are  not  in-
 tended to give a scientific but a classical educa-
 tion.  This scientific  course should have special
 objects.   He  referred to the polytechnic schools
 of  Germany.   Germans are employed for man-
 aging English  factories.   If  encouraged,  the
 University will do her part.   Next, the Rev. R.
 Bruce.   Subject:  "How  can  our  University
 System be made  more available for the  Middle
 and Working Classes ?"   Few of the  middle
 class, except clergymen's sons, go to the Univer-
 sity now.  It would not be well to educate every
 poor boy in a university, but all should be given
 the opportunity.   He spoke of London Univer-
 sity.   But why should it monopolize these ad-
 vantages ?   Besides, it does not give the advan-
 tages of college education or training.  Oxford
 and Cambridge by establishing middle class ex-
 aminations, have done well, — at least better than
 nothing.  But the A. A. (Associate in Arts) will
 not pass in literary circles, and the higher advan-
 tages  of these institutions  are hopelessly given
 up to the higher and wealthier classes.
  His remedy is to multiply the  number of uni-
versities, and excite competition.  He spoke of
the local effect on a town of a university atmos-
phere.   There should  be government assistance
at first, and private aid afterward. 
io6
MEMORIAL.
  Next, a paper  by Thomas  Dyke  Acland, D.
C. L., on " Middle Class  Education and Middle
Class Examinations."  He is  the author of the
system.   The object of all education is the same,
— the development of the man for his future life,
whatever that may  be.   He would  like to an-
nihilate the term " middle  class."   Education
should be alike for all.  He would break down
these distinctions of classes.   They overlap each
other.  Education and character should and do
make classes.   Those who have to do with men
require a longer training  in  literature and  men-
tal  and moral  philosophy.  Those in business
require mathematics, science, etc.  For ordinary
business, business habits  are most important, a
knowledge of men, and sympathy with humanity.
Practical  colleges, agricultural, mechanical,  etc.,
have failed.  The mastery  of principles  is the
object of education, not technical knowledge.
  Went  this afternoon to an  immense  worsted
manufacturing establishment three miles out of
town.  The building  was modern,  and  on the
best plan, perhaps, but the light, the color of the
rooms, and the ventilation were objectionable.
Saw the work from  the wool  in the sack to the
fabric in the loom.   There were four thousand
operatives in the  building.  On the grounds are
a fine chapel and school.   All these were most
satisfactory, but the operatives were  the most in-
teresting to me.  A large proportion of them are 
        ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.      ioy
children.  Nearly all the  spinning  is  superin-
tended by children from eight to sixteen years
old.   The women do the weaving mostly.  Most
of the operatives looked thin, pale, and unhealthy.
A few had a fresh look, but they were the excep-
tions.  Generally they looked  dull and  mechan-
ical,  and where there was any  marked animation
it was the animation  of  animal rather  than  in-
tellectual feeling,  The  girls  were  untidy and
slovenly in  their dress; their work renders this
unavoidable.   The younger children work only
half  of the  time, and  are in school a part of the
time.  Was impressed with a sad feeling by all
this  mechanical, inevitable, inexorable work.   In
the evening attended a meeting of the Mechanics'
Institute. Lord Brougham presided, and speeches
were made by  him, by Lord Napier, the  Duke of
Newcastle, and others.  Prizes were distributed
to a number  of  lads  and young men for profi-
ciency in various branches, — reading,  writing,
arithmetic, geography, French, algebra, drawing,
etc.;  and also the prizes offered by Mr. John
Cassell, the London publisher,  for the best essays
on various subjects of social science.  Five hun-
dred essays were sent in,  and many are to be
published.  Distinguished men were judges. The
meeting was large and enthusiastic.
  Lord Brougham was much praised by a friend
who  had had  to do with  his election from York
long ago.  He was early associated with  move- 
io8
MEMORIAL.
ments  for establishing  Mechanics'  Institutes.
The old man does everything and knows every-
thing.   He alluded  again  in his speech to tem-
perance.  He seems a warm advocate of it and a
convert to it.
   October 13th, 1859.  This morning listened to
the address  of R. Monckton  Milnes, M. P., on
" Crime and Punishments." It was a  well-written
paper,  advocating reforms, humanity, etc.  He
questioned the forcing  of  laws  for the  prohibi-
tion of alcoholic drinks.  Said it must be general,
if at all.   Lord Brougham and  himself must not
be allowed claret and sherry, while the poor man
was deprived of his  beer.  This afternoon  was
spent in the Section  of Public  Health.  A paper
on  " Examination of Foods, Drinks, and  Medi-
cines, by Specially appointed Analysts."  There
should  be a district medico-legal  officer  ap-
pointed, and paid ^"250 or so.  The new medical
act requires such an  officer to superintend regis-
tration.  The imperfection of  the registrations
was dwelt upon  by several in the   discussion
that followed.  Dr.  Farr was  present  and ad-
mitted  their imperfection, but insisted upon their
great  utility.   All knowledge  upon  which we
acted was more or less uncertain.
   I made some remarks on the registration of
disease as well as deaths. Found a plan  or blank
by  Dr. H. Hartshorne, of Philadelphia, in the
hands of one of the  gentlemen present.   Dr. H. 
         ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.      109
had kept a record  for the last year without any
trouble by this plan, which carried out my sug-
gestions.  I  urged the idea, and it took well.
" Hear!  Hear!" on all sides.  The subject was
referred  to  a committee, embracing Dr.  Farr,
Southwood  Smith, and others    I was  much
gratified  with the  attention the suggestions  re-
ceived.
  The next paper  was on "The Air we Breathe:
ought  every one to do as he likes with it?"  A
well-written  paper, strongly putting the neces-
sity of sanitary reform.   High  chimneys are a
fallacy.  The  poison  is  not decomposed, but
simply less  concentrated and more  widespread.
He  then went into  a  defense of  Liverpool.
Ably done.  An  animated  discussion followed,
in which it came out that at one time the mor-
tality was 60 per cent., but was  now reduced to
27 or so.
  Was invited  to  dine with  Dr. Macturk, chief
physician in this  town of 120,000 people.  Met
there  Dr. Farr, connected  with the Registrar-
General's office of  England, the Secretary of the
Section,  the Surgeon  of the Hospital, and Dr.
Macturk's daughters and niece.  A pleasant and
interesting dinner  party.  They thanked me for
my speech on the registration of disease.   Went
later in  the  evening to  the  " Workingmen's
Meeting," presided over by  the mayor of the
town.  The audience was immense, and the meet- 
no
MEMORIAL.
ing most interesting.   The first speech was by
the Rt. Hon.  C.  B. Adderley,  M. P.   Not re-
markable.  The next  was  by Lord  Napier,  of
Ireland, fluent and pleasant, in favor of the Sab-
bath rest.  He approved, also,  of moderate indul-
gence  in light  literature.   Next, a young man,
Lord Radstock, who, in spite of some very fair
things said in a pleasant way, made himself quite
ridiculous, in my estimation at least, in speaking
of America.   He said it was not such a Paradise
as it was represented to be.   Although  its  rich
soil and cheap food gave plenty, and good wages
afforded  the  means of acquiring comparative
wealth, yet happiness was not thereby conferred.
In the city of New York the  taxes were twenty-
five per cent, upon one's income, mud was knee
deep in Broadway, and  he  had seen holes large
enough to put a table in.  When  he was travel-
ing in  a Southern State, a large man came  up
to a small one and knocked him down, and when
he was asked what  it was for, he replied that it
was a free country, and he could do as he liked!
This  was cheered,  as  all  such  nonsense  and
abuse usually are.  He was followed by the Earl
of Shaftesbury, a  most excellent man, who  was
most warmly cheered and most reverently listened
to.   He is the author and chief  promoter of the
" Ten  Hours  Bill," which has made him very
popular here and elsewhere among the operatives.
He made a  very strong temperance  appeal, de- 
ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.      I I I
nouncing drinking in the most decided manner,
and warning the operatives against all indulgence,
whatever others might say.  He urged the men
to give more attention  to their wives and  to
follow  their advice, and  the women to stay  at
home and  take care of their families, to  make
their  homes  comfortable  and  their  children
happy.   He  spoke  with  great warmth  and
effect   The Rt. Hon. W. Cowper, M. P., son-in-
law of  Lord Palmerston, and chairman of the
Section of Health, spoke next.  He apologized
for the foolish remarks of  Lord Radstock, spoke
of the  foreigners  present  from  different  coun-
tries of Europe and from the United States. He
hoped  the  latter would not regard the remarks
respecting  their  country  that had  been  made
" as a joke," as he characterized  them ; that one
gentleman had given in the Section of Health
some  important  information;  that  there was
much  in America which  they might  copy with
advantage, etc.;  making  a very  judicious  effort
to remove the impression  made by  Lord Rad-
stock.
   Mr.   Chambers, the editor  and publisher  of
Chambers' Magazine, of Edinburgh,  followed.
He said he rose from poverty and obscure toil;
had for thirty years conducted a  journal devoted
to the interests  of the working classes, and  he
did not think he  had written a single line that
he would be  ashamed to  show to any man. He
spoke  of his travels in the United States, of the 
I 12
MEMORIAL.
universal prevalence of newspapers, of the ab-
sence of stamp duty on paper;  he said that there
intelligence was  not taxed as  here; that he ob-
served a spirit  of  independence, of self-respect,
which he had not seen among laboring men else-
where.  He spoke  of  Lowell, the  comfortable
condition of  the factory girls, the luxuries  they
enjoyed,  etc.  Of  the  intemperance of Scotch-
men he spoke gloomily, and gave good advice to
the men and women.
  Next came Lord Brougham.  He had  been
in Sheffield, speaking and debating all day, and
was much fatigued.  He reverted  to  his labors
in their behalf, and exhorted them  to  habits of
close  attention to business and economy;  never
to take relaxation, never to amuse themselves
in even the most innocent way, not  even to give
themselves up to the most refreshing relaxation
or mental improvement, until,  by an honest, fair,
full day's work, they had  earned  it.   He had
been  a workingman all his days, — had  even
earned his bread by the sweat of  his brow;  he
had always  made  it a  rule  to earn, by a full-
day's honest, active work, in whatever profession
he  was at the time engaged, his  right to any
mental  or  physical  relaxation.  But  an empty
head, vacuity of mind, was not relaxation or rest.
It was often  misery rather.  Change of occupa-
tion, lighter work, exercising  new faculties, — this
constituted  rest.   He  had always pursued this 
        ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.      113
course, and he never intended, while God con-
tinued his  faculties, to have an empty  head, to
relapse into vacuity of mind.
  I  have   now  heard Lord  Brougham  speak
many times, and  as I was on  the stage to-night
had  every  possible opportunity of  seeing him
distinctly.   Though he  is, I think, over  eighty
years of  age, his gait is still  elastic,  his voice
clear and firm,  his memory exceedingly reten-
tive, and  all  his intellectual  faculties, though
perhaps less intensely active than once  when he
almost shook the world  with  his eloquence, are
still, as compared with  other men's,   perfectly
sound and bright.   He was  followed by  two
workingmen, who thought the workingman had
a harder time than the noble  lords and  gentle-
men  supposed.    They  could lay  up  little or
nothing for old  age; they were not sufficiently
paid ; they spent but little, etc.  Altogether the
meeting was one of great interest to me.
  Friday,  October 15th, 1859.  Heard the  Rt.
Hon. W. Cowper, M. P., on " Public Health."  He
referred to the labors  of medical men and others
in this department of  science.   Cleanliness, sew-
erage, ventilation, drainage, smoke from chim-
neys, adulteration of  foods and drinks, etc., were
discussed.   There should be an analyst, accessi-
ble to all, to examine articles of food and drink.
It is  no  matter about penalties, if there  be  au-
thoritative exposure.   Gymnastic  sports  should
            8 
114              MEMORIAL.
be encouraged.   There should be  parks every-
where, and grounds for recreation for the people.
Registration  of  death  and sickness was impor-
tant.  He interposed remarks  on physicians keep-
ing records of cases of sickness.   They should
combine to accumulate facts.  The  average age
should be about eighty, or even more  if disease
could  be  removed.  Now it  is far below.  In
England 100,000 are annually sacrified to  igno-
rance.   He referred to many cases where drain-
age had diminished mortality most remarkably in
public institutions.   In military institutions the
mortality had been reduced to four per 1,000 per
annum.  Statistics  touch  the heart less than a
single  view of an actual  case witnessed.  Anat-
omy, physiology, and  hygiene should  constitute
a part of  every school education.   Public men
ought  to take more interest in local and muni-
cipal  affairs, and look after  the  hygienic condi-
tions.  Better spend money for hygiene than  for
the poor tax.  Life is  valuable  in  a  pecuniary
point of view.   It is astonishing that there is so
little  legislation  on sanitary subjects.   Provide
the simple necessaries of a  healthy life.  Two
thirds  of the soldiers who died  in  the Crimean
war died from disease, not from wounds.  Taxa-
tion, the franchise,  etc., are less  important than
the social questions discussed here.  The gov-
ernment of the Queen should take action. Some
have raised the cry of centralization.  He opposed 
         ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.      115
centralization in its proper meaning, but he ap-
proved of central supervision, interference where
local  action is deficient.   On  the courage  and
vigor of  our men depend our national  freedom
and  perhaps  existence.   Lord Brougham ap-
proved in very strong terms of what he called
the most excellent address of his Rt. Hon. friend.
In the Educational Section A heard an animated
discussion on the subject  of the public  schools;
whether  they  should receive  support from the
government.    Opinion generally in its favor,
though there were differences as to details.  I in-
ferred that the government schools were gener-
ally in a  low state; that many children did not at-
tend ; that they were intended for the poor, but the
middle classes composed some twenty or twenty-
five per cent, in them ; that teachers were often
treated with little respect;  that in some cases
the teacher was above  his  work of instructing
the ignorant  poor, — from  his superior educa-
tion  preferred  to  instruct  higher  classes,  and
gave  his chief attention to such ; that the  most
earnest  and enlightened  wished  the  different
classes to mingle in the same school, more upon
the plan  of  American common  schools;  and
thought  the  governmental  support should be
combined with  individual and  local effort  and
contributions.  The discussion was very animated,
and, on the whole, indicated a state of things on
the subject half a century behind our  country, 
n6
MEMORIAL.
or what a National Association would have said
on  the  same  subject.  In Section  B  heard a
paper on the  education of teachers.   Learned
from it that there was but one institution in the
country  that attempted  anything  of the  kind;
that this was  in  London, and was  not a large
affair, or much developed.  The writer,  who was
the principal of this school, was in doubt whether
much could be done to  educate teachers gener-
ally for their profession, though he acknowledged
its importance.  The paper was not  hopeful.   I
spoke on the  subject quite at length, and from
the interest excited  and  the questions  asked
went on to give a general view of our educational
system,  especially in  my  own State, the  primary,
union, normal, and other schools.   I was glad
of the  opportunity,  and  was  thanked  by  the
chairman, Edwin Chadwick, C.  B.   In  the De-
partment of Public Health two papers were read
on  ventilation, — one on  the American plan of
ventilating large  buildings.   In the  discussion
that followed, it appeared that, at the great mills
at Saltair, the American  plan  had been  partially
adopted with good results. I made some  remarks
on the subject, calling attention as forcibly as I
could to the universal  defects in the ventilation
of European hospitals.  I mentioned Hanwell,
and expressed  myself astonished at its  mode of
heating.   I did not intend to  mention the  name,
but was urged  and  did.  The chairman, Mr. 
         ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.     I 17
Cowper, said he had been astonished at the ven-
tilation of the hospitals of  London.   Windows
had to be opened, letting in  cold air  upon the
patients.
   In the  evening  attended  the  soiree  at  St.
George's  Hall, when the prizes of  the  Oxford
examinations  were  presented by  Lord  Napier.
Prizes for English language  and literature were
given, as wrell  as for mathematics, history, lan-
guages, etc.  Two  speeches  were made  on the
subject of these examinations, showing that they
had done  much to  test  the quality and improve
the  character of the higher schools  throughout
the country.  It was found at first that very great
deficiencies existed in  a knowledge of the ele-
mentary subjects, — spelling,  English  grammar,
etc.   Many were rejected at first  on these sub-
jects, before coming to the higher, but  there w7as
great improvement now.  All boys  under eigh-
teen are eligible  who have  not  matriculated at
either of  the  universities.   The  meeting  was
enlivened by music from a choir, said  to be the
finest of its kind in  England.  The women were
mostly operatives in the mills, though some were
milliners and seamstresses.   The men were of a
similar class.   They sang very well.
   I went  also to a meeting  in the Court House
on temperance legislation.  Discussions were go-
ing on, with the same arguments  and  in the same
tone as with us twenty-five or thirty years ago. 
n8
MEMORIAL.
  October 15th, 1859.  Heard a most excellent
address by  Sir  James  Kay  Shuttleworth on
" Social Economy."  The meeting closed  with
speeches by Lord  Brougham, Mr.  Cowper, Pro-
fessor Pillans, and  others, a vote of thanks, etc.,
etc.
  The foregoing is an exceedingly imperfect ac-
count of the proceedings  of  this  Association,
composed of a large body  of  active working-
men, and embracing some of the most able and
distinguished persons in this or any other nation.
  Dined with Dr. Macturk  again,  and  met Dr.
Holland, of  London,  the  Misses   Twining,  of
London, a clerical  gentleman, and  others.  Va-
rious  questions connected with  the institutions
of my own  country were discussed. They had
no  charity for  slavery, but  were less awake  to
some  of the evils of  their  own social system.
Dr.  Holland spoke, however, very severely  of
the British plan of enlisting  young men in the
army, and flogging them  for deserting.   He said
they enlisted them when  they were  drunk, mak-
ing them so for  the purpose.   I  spoke of the
heavy  taxes  upon  the  people  to pay enormous
pensions to persons who had rendered  no mate-
rial service to the state, etc.   That many of our
people thought these things exceedingly wrong,
but we should not advise a revolution on that
account, and the destruction of British institu-
tions.  So were  we  not  willing to destroy our 
         ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.     \\g
government  and constitution, and produce civil
war and anarchy, for the  purpose of  removing
from our constitution a clause respecting the re-
turn of a fugitive from labor, which was practi-
cally already almost a dead letter.  I told  them
slavery was imposed upon us by the British gov-
ernment, and existed  about  half a century ago
all over our land, but now in less than half of it,
while their abuses  had continued for  centuries,
and I feared many  of  them would for centuries
to  come, though I hoped they would not set
an  example of a working class  bound down  by
necessity to  a particular position of dependence
and degradation, from which it was as difficult
to escape as  from slavery itself.
  Swiday,  October  16th.  Went  to church this
morning.   The responses  by the  choir were in
better taste, according to  my ideas, than almost
any  I  have  before  listened to.   I enjoyed the
service very  much.   Wrote much of the day,
remaining  within doors.
  York,  Tuesday,  October  18th.   Arose early
and  took a  walk  about  the town.   It  is  an
ancient walled  city  of some  45,000 inhabitants,
and the capital of Yorkshire. I have spent three
hours and  more in  looking  at  the magnificent
Minster, a  most noble and imposing structure.
I  was deeply impressed with  it.   The Chapter
House is one of the most beautiful I have seen.
They are just now putting up a magnificent 
120
MEMORIAL.
organ, and  I  was greatly annoyed by its  being
placed so as to obstruct the  continuous view of
the choir and nave.  My guide said York Ca-
thedral had been compared  to " //adam," while
Lincoln was  likened to  " //eve."  Lincoln was
beautiful, while York impressed one with "^awe."
  After visiting Lincoln  Cathedral, he came back by way of
Peterborough  and Boston to his old quarters in London,
where a few busy days were spent in saying goodby to med-
ical friends, buying books for himself, collecting documents
and models for  the University, and in a last visit  to the
Abbey and St. Paul's.

   Oxford,  Tuesday,  October 2^th, 1859. Arrived
at this ancient seat of learning this morning, and
have been very busy all day.   First  took a stroll
over the town, to get an  impression of its  gen-
eral features and character.   The country about
it  is rich, but rather low.  There is nothing to
make  the  place  anything more than a hamlet,
except  the  University.   It is strictly a univer-
sity town,  nothing more.  Aside from the uni-
versity buildings, there is very little of architec-
tural  interest.  The nineteen different colleges
connected   with  the  University are  scattered
about  in different parts  of the  town.  Most of
the buildings are  large and fine  and  pictur-
esque, and were well built, but in a bad material.
The surface has crumbled off, and gives them a
dilapidated  appearance.   In this respect they are
a great contrast to  the Dublin  and Edinburgh 
ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.
121
 Universities.  Portiops of the old city wall  are
 standing, high  and thick,  with  loopholes, etc.,
 showing that the fortifications were once strong.
 There are many  fine old  elms  and chestnuts,
 beautiful lawns  and shady walks.  I was shown
 a  large field belonging  to  one  of the colleges
 — Christ Church, I believe — which is  rented
 for meadow and grazing at £^  per annum  the
 acre.   The  man  who rents  it furnishes  milk,
 butter, and eggs to the college to pay the rent.
 Saw several breweries, and was told  that  nearly
 all the colleges brewed their own beer.
   All the teaching is done in colleges ;  each  has
 its own corps of instructors, and its own separate
 endowment.  The University is a distinct entity,
 with its own  organization, making the examina-
 tions  and conferring the degrees.
   Found Dr. Acland at  the  new museum, now
 in process of construction and approaching com-
 pletion.  All the illustrations  of natural science
 now scattered about in various buildings are to
 be collected  here.   The chemical lectures  are
 given here now, and there  is also a laboratory
 for practical teaching.  It  is not so large as ours,
 nor, I think,  so nice.  The Prince of Wales is
 in attendance here, and was  at one of the lec-
 tures when I was  there.   Mr. Brodie, the eldest
son of Sir Benjamin Brodie, is the Professor of
Chemistry.  He does not  seem to me to be a re-
markable man.   I inferred from his conversation 
122
MEMORIAL.
with Dr.  Acland  that he was  a Cobden man.
He inquired about women being employed as
teachers in America.   This fact seems  to have
excited a great deal of interest in England.   Mr.
Cobden was  much struck  with it, and  talks a
good  deal about our schools.  Mr.  Brodie  will
be the heir to a very large fortune, but is fond
of science and is devoting himself to  it.
   Went to see Christ Church Physiological Mu-
seum, gotten up by  Dr. Acland, chiefly within
the last ten or twelve years, before  he  had  the
Chair of Physic.  It is an exceedingly fine collec-
tion, not very large,  but well arranged  to illus-
trate comparative anatomy and physiology.  Had
much conversation with  Dr. Acland on  various
educational subjects, particularly about the "mid-
dle class " examinations, a  full  history of which
he gave me;  also about the  preliminary require-
ments for medical students.   The  minimum  for
medical  students' preliminary  examination  is
the Oxford  and  Cambridge junior examination,
which is quite low.  It  seems that Dr. Acland's
father and brother were both members of Parlia-
ment, some years  ago, from agricultural  regions
in the West of  England.   The son went with
Sir Robert Peel for the repeal  of the corn laws.
This lost him his position.   He then turned his
attention  to the education of the people, believ-
ing that  was the thing needed  to  make them
good  farmers.    He  established  prizes in  his 
        ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.      123
county, and got Dr. Acland  and others to act
as examiners for the prizes.  They asked to be
sent out  with  authority  from  the  University,
which request was granted. Cambridge followed
suit.  There  is  great  rivalry between  the  two
universities.   What one does the other will do.
Dr.  Acland  asked  me  many questions about
medicine,  education, and other things in Amer-
ica.  We  took  to each other much.  Took tea
with him, and  he invited me  to  breakfast the
next morning, but could not accept, as I am to
leave early.   Had a good  time.  In the evening
went to hear Charles Dickens read from " Dom-
bey and  Son " and " Martin  Chuzzlewit" to an
audience in Oxford.  I was very desirous of see-
ing  one who has given me so much  amusement
in  reading his works.  There is  nothing very
striking in his appearance, and he does not read
very wonderfully, but tolerably well.  He changes
his voice and manner to suit the characters.  His
voice was rather husky and hoarse, or rather had
that peculiar sound which I have heard  in men             /
who drink.   My opinion  is  that Dickens does
drink, and that his zenith is passed ;  his sun  is
declining, and  will go down, I fear, in gloom.
He  had  a bottle containing  a  colored  fluid on
his  desk, and  drank  frequently while  reading.
His countenance and  expression seem  to me to
indicate steady  alcoholic poisoning.   He has al-
ways written  a great deal about drinking;  sent 
124
MEMORIAL.
the  Pickwick party drunk to bed every  night,
and wrote much  about brandy-and-water while
in America.   He  is not as good a man, I  judge
from seeing him, as his writings would indicate.
The lower  feelings have  too much  sway.  He
does not stand well with the best class of people
here.  There  were few persons  of  distinction in
his audience,  I  should  think.   He  must have
had much observation  of low life, experience in
it and relish for  it.   He read some  of the broad-
est passages from " Martin Chuzzlewit."   Have
had a most interesting and exciting day.
   Warwick,  October  26th,  1859.   Left Oxford
this morning and came  through  a fine country to
this place, and  immediately  left for Stratford-
on-Avon. ... I was impressed and moved by all
I saw, but  shall attempt no  description of the
place,  or of  my impressions and  emotions.  I
have made  the  pilgrimage, and  bowed at the
shrine of  the highest genius known among men.
The little village is a  quiet spot and beautiful,
and one which the poet of  nature loved.   Wash-
ington Irving  is  continually referred to as giving
in  the  " Sketch  Book " the best description of
everything here.   I must read it again.
 The next day  was spent at Warwick Castle and Kenil-
worth, and  was greatly enjoyed.  In speaking of the pic-
tures by Rubens, Van Dyck, and others at Warwick,  he says
of a portrait of Henry VIII. : —
  The latter hangs in the ladies' boudoir.   One 
        ALONZO BEAJAMIN PALMER.     \2$
often sees his pictures in ladies' rooms.  I can-
not admire their taste, for a more animal, brutish
face was never put upon man's shoulders.
  Left for Birmingham, and was detained for
some  hours at Coventry, where, as  did Tupper,
I stood upon the bridge across the  railway, and
looked at the three fine spires of the town.   I
was left  at Coventry, though not exactly sent
there.  I asked several persons the origin of  the
expression, " sent to Coventry," and at length was
told that  at  one time the  citizens of the town
would not speak to the soldiers, and  hence, when
one was cut,  he was said to be sent to Coventry.
  Liverpool,  October  2gth.   Spent  nearly  the
whole morning in  getting  a trunk out  of  the
custom house, which  had been  sent  on from
Paris to  Liverpool  and consigned to Loring &
Co. in  bond.  They  sent a clerk  with  me  to
work  it through.  The process embraced oper-
ations in more than a dozen offices.   In  the
custom house the men exerted themselves and
studied how  to do  it, but the system evidently
is constructed on the  plan of " how not to do it."
Very  little other business was done while I was
there, and some twenty men were apparently en-
gaged for four mortal hours  in getting my poor
little trunk out of the  Queen's warehouse.  They
said it was easy enough getting things in there,
but " divilish " hard getting them out, with which
sentiment I most heartily agreed. 
126
MEMORIAL.
  The cart-follower, a  "gintilmon  from Oire-
land," asked me  at the conclusion to leave him
my blessing in the shape of  the price of  a drink
of rum, as the  day was  so  wet.   I  gave him a
short lecture on  Father Mathewism and declined
the honor.
  Steamship Asia, October 2gth, '59.  On board
ship, bound for  home.   Although in a domestic
sense I have no  home, yet I have home feelings,
not very definite as to locality, but intense as re-
gards my country.
  While I  am  not  blind to the faults of my
country, I yet believe it to be the one most preg-
nant with hope  to mankind, and one which has
the most perfect, or  at least the most true  and
just, system of  government  in  existence, — the
right system, based upon the will of the  people,
a government made for the people and by the
people,  not by a few or for a few, — a system
where all are equal in a political sense, and where
no exclusive privileges belong to any class.  This
certainly is the  best theory of government, and
that which  must ultimately prevail.  Besides this,
my country is  one  of the future, — is,  I hope,
destined for great events, great in the sense of
the  great intelligence, virtue, and happiness of
the people. 
        ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.     127
  Coming home  in  November,  1859, or rather
coming back to this country, for, as he touch-
ingly says on the last page of his journal, he had
no real home to come  to, he resumed his work
in the University with  fresh spirit,  and a con-
sciousness of  being  better prepared for it than
ever before.
  It was about this time that he brought two  of
his  nephews to Ann  Arbor,  and  educated them
as if they were his own sons.  They both studied
medicine, and were  graduated from  the  Medi-
cal  Department of the University.  The one to
whom  he was most  warmly attached, and who
gave promise of  a successful and even  brilliant
future, died  suddenly soon after he had  entered
upon  the practice of his profession.  His love
and devotion  to his  uncle  had been very great,
and indeed  both the  young  men were very fond
of him.  These were not the only ones to whom
he gave a helping hand, and who will always re-
member  him  gratefully for his generous aid  to
them in their early struggles for an education.
  In  September,  i860, the death of Professor
Denton left  vacant the Chair of Practice,  and Dr.
Palmer was transferred to  it, and became Pro-
fessor  of Pathology  and the Practice of  Medi-
cine.   There was no  time before  the  opening  of
the term to  fill the chair he had left,  and he was
accordingly  requested to continue his  old lec-
tures  on Materia Medica while giving the new 
128              MEMORIAL.
course.   Work was something he never shrank
from, and, with his usual willingness  to  do any
amount of it rather than see the students' inter-
ests suffer, he gave during  that college year one
hundred and ninety-three lectures, instead of the
usual number of one  hundred, without  asking
or receiving any pecuniary  remuneration for the
extra work.  When one considers  that  he  was
obliged to  prepare and deliver an  entirely new
course of lectures on  Pathology and  Practice,
one can  easily see  how much of an  effort  was
required.
  At various times he  endeavored  to  supply
deficiencies  in  the  courses of  study, giving a
series of lectures on Diseases of the  Mind and
Nervous System, another on Botany, and another
on  Medical Ethics ; often in this way occupying
leisure hours during the short winter vacations,
when many of  the  students, whose  homes  were
at  a  distance,  remained in town.  He  was  al-
ways the first one to be called upon  to fill vacant
hours, when any of  his confreres were  ill.   This
he did very cheerfully and gladly, for he felt that
his  own hours were insufficient to give his course
of lectures  with  the completeness and thorough-
ness he desired.  He gradually relinquished gen-
eral practice, and  confined himself to  consul-
tation and office practice, hoping thus  to  secure
more time  for  study.  But as  his advice and
opinion  came'to  be more  and more sought, he 
ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.     129
was so frequently summoned to  a distance  in
consultation, or was kept so busy in his office at
home, that quiet hours for study could seldom
be secured except in the late evening.  Nothing,
however, was ever allowed to interfere with his
college duties, which were always first with him.
   He was a diligent  reader of the best medical
literature, and kept himself au courant with the
latest views and discoveries.   Nothing seemed
so absorbing as the  last  number of  a medical
journal.  While enjoying thoroughly all that was
best in general  literature, he  still felt that  he
could indulge himself in  it only when he had
earned the rest  and  refreshment by hard study
and  reading in  his  own  line  of  investigation;
but he liked to have  some of  his especial favor-
ites always within reach  of his hand  to fill  up
moments of leisure.   Among  these were Shake-
speare,  Hood, Charles Lamb,  Dana's " House-
hold Book of Poetry,"  Knight's " Half Hours
with the Best  Authors," and Caroline  Fox's
charming " Memories of Old Friends."  Among
authors that required more  thoughtful reading
he was especially interested in Huxley, Darwin,
Spencer, and  Mill, reserving his own opinion,
however, as to their infallibility.
   The next event of importance in his life was
his service in the army  of the Union.  When
the news came  of the firing upon Fort Sumter
he immediately  telegraphed to Governor Blair,
          9 
130
MEMORIAL.
offering his services.   They were  at  once ac-
cepted,  and on April  25, 1861, he was commis-
sioned Surgeon of the Second  Regiment Michi-
gan Volunteers,  and on the 16th of the follow-
ing July was appointed  Brigade Surgeon of the
Fourth  Brigade  by General  Richardson.   Dr.
H. F. Lyster, the son  of his old friend of earlier
days,  the  Rev. William  Lyster, and the  Assist-
ant Surgeon  of  his  regiment, has kindly fur-
nished the following sketch of his army life:
  " Dr.  Palmer responded to the earliest call for
troops in the War of the Rebellion in 1861.  He
was commissioned Surgeon of the Second Regi-
ment  Michigan Volunteers by Governor Austin
Blair.  The  commission was  dated  April 25,
1861.
  " He was  at that time forty-five years of  age,
was residing at Ann  Arbor, and was  Professor
of the Theory and  Practice of Medicine in the
Department  of  Medicine and Surgery  in the
University of Michigan.
  " He was in the zenith of his mental and phys-
ical strength, and was ready to prove  the  truth
of his convictions by taking an active part in the
struggle for the preservation of the Union which
he had  so long foreseen and prophesied.   Dr.
Palmer  had  always been an  ardent Whig, and
was  in  favor  of  the  early abolition of African
slavery  in  this  country.  He was  in  favor  of
bringing  this about  peacefully if possible, but
forcibly if necessary. 
        ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.      131
  " He loved his country, not only with the sim-
ple affection of a peasant who regards with much
love the hills and valleys and lakes and woods of
the district where he was born and reared, but
he valued the opportunities it afforded to each
individual to enjoy the right of self-government,
and to acquire a liberal  education and a compe-
tency, untrammeled  by the laws and customs of
the Old  World.
  " He loved his fellow-men, and he regarded it
as a  personal affront whenever or wherever any
one  in the whole  land was  illegally hindered in
the attainment of the fullness of  his rights as an
American  citizen.  It was the same to him whe-
ther it occurred in Illinois or in  Mississippi.
   " When  the  repeal of the Missouri Compro-
mise took place, he was indignant; when the Kan-
sas Free Soilers were assassinated  by the border
ruffians from Missouri, he was outraged.   When
the first shot was fired by  Beauregard at Fort
Sumter, he volunteered his  services as a soldier
for the war.  He carried into action  the cour-
age  of his  convictions.   His first services were
rendered at  Detroit  in  April  and May,  1861,
in examining the  rank and file of the Second
Regiment  Michigan  Volunteers, at cantonment
Blair, on Woodward Avenue, where are now
the grounds of the Athletic Club.  This regi-
ment moved down to Fort  Wayne on or about
the  15th of  May, 1861, when  the First Regi- 
132               MEMORIAL.
ment Michigan Volunteers left  for the war.   It
was  at  this  post  that Dr. Palmer was mustered
into  the United States service for three years or
for the war, on May 25,  1861, in company with
the field and staff of the regiment.  There stood
up at this muster together Israel B. Richardson,
Colonel; Harry  L.  Chipman,  Lieutenant-colo-
nel ; Adolphus W.  Williams, Major;  Alonzo B.
Palmer, Surgeon ;  Henry F.  Lyster, Assistant
Surgeon;  William  F.  Lyster,  Adjutant.  The
regiment left the State for Washington June 6th,
via Cleveland, Pittsburg,  Harrisburg, and Balti-
more, arriving in Washington June 10th.  Sur-
geon Palmer was on  duty in the field at Camp
Winfield Scott,1  Washington Heights, near the
chain  bridge.   He  marched with  the  column
which  left for the  first campaign July 16, 1861.
Colonel Richardson, by   rank,  took command
of the  brigade, being appointed  by the  general
commanding.
               1 [Copy of Commission.]
               Brigade Orders, No. 7.
         Headquarters  Fourth Brigade, Camp Winfield Scott,
                                 July 16, 1861.
  Surgeon Palmer, Second Regiment Michigan Infantry,  is
hereby appointed Brigade  Surgeon of this Brigade, and will
arrange with the surgeons of the other regiments as to the neces-
sary supplies of medicines and surgical implements to be taken
along by  each, and also the number of sick men left behind as a
guard to the different camps, of which number he will hand in a
field report at 2 p. M. to-day.
           By order of Colonel Richardson,
                              Commanding Brigade.
  C. W.  Brightley, A. A. G. 
         ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.     133

   " This brigade consisted of the Second Michi-
 gan Volunteers, Third Michigan Volunteers, the
 First  Regiment  Rhode Island Volunteers, and
 the Twelfth New York Volunteers, — over four
 thousand strong.   Colonel Richardson request-
 ed Dr. Palmer to  act as  senior surgeon  of the
 brigade.
   " The battle of  Blackburn's  Ford was  opened
 by Ayres' battery shelling the woods across  Bull
 Run.   The  Second  Regiment supported  this
 battery, and later moved off to the right as a re-
 serve  for the  First Massachusetts and Twelfth
 New York Volunteers, who had gone forward,
 deployed as skirmishers, together  with Captain
 Brettschneider's  two  companies of skirmishers,
 selected from the regiments of the  brigade.
   " Surgeon Palmer used as a field hospital a log-
 house in the vicinity of Ayres' battery, and re-
 ceived  the wounded brought back  from the skir-
 mish line.   There were nineteen  killed,  thirty-
 eight wounded, and twenty-six missing  in  this
 fight.   Many of the  wounded were  brought to
 this field hospital, the  first one in the army af-
 terwards known as  the Army of the Potomac.
   " A cannon-ball, fired by the Washington New
 Orleans Light Artillery, tore away a log from the
 building, and  the  wounded were then  moved
 back to Centreville.1
  1 In connection with this incident, Dr. Palmer used to tell the
story of the burly  Irishman  whose shattered leg he was pre-
paring to amputate as the cannon-ball came crashing through the
room, and who sprang up and hobbled off on his other leg. 
134              MEMORIAL.
  Surgeon Palmer went  back after this engage-
ment to Washington, to get hospital supplies  in
anticipation of the battle of Bull Run.   He rode
to Fairfax Station, and then took  a  train, and
returned with several  ambulances loaded with
supplies, but met  the army in disorderly retreat.
  " He remained with the regiment until the last
of August, when  he  accompanied the Assistant
Surgeon to a general hospital at Georgetown, on
account of the latter having  a severe attack  of
typhoid fever.
  " The many personal kindnesses and the warm
sympathy of the man endeared him to those who
came  in contact with him, or under his  profes-
sional care.   He  resigned September 23, 1861,
to resume his duties at the University of  Mich-
igan, active  military affairs having ceased for a
reorganization of  the Army of the Potomac.
  " Governor Blair relied upon Dr. Palmer for his
advice and  opinion  regarding the appointment
of medical men to the important offices of the
medical  staff  and the  several regiments  of  all
arms,  and always found it  reliable.  Surgeon
Palmer visited the  army again  at Harrison's
Landing, Va., on  the James River, in July, 1862.
This was his final  field  service,  though he re-
mained an interested friend  during the  whole
war, aiding the Governor in  matters pertaining
to the medical staff of the Michigan  regiments." 
         ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.      135
  In  1863 Dr.  Palmer  accepted the professor-
ship  of  Theory and Practice in the Berkshire
Medical  College at Pittsfield,  Mass.,  and  also
gave  the course on  Materia  Medica that year.
This  school  had a  summer  and autumn term,
which of course  did not conflict with his duties
in the University.  The Hon. Henry H. Childs,
M.  D., was the  venerable President of  the  Col-
lege, and among its  professors at the time were
Horatio  N. Storer, of Boston ;  Pliny  Earle, of
Northampton ; C. L. Ford, of Michigan Univer-
sity ;  Dr. Chadbourne, of Williams College; and
William Warren Greene, of Pittsfield.  Alonzo
Clark, of New York, had also been one  of its
most  famous teachers.
  Pittsfield is one  of  the most charming old
towns amid the  Berkshire hills, noted for their
lovely scenery.   It lies in a green and park  like
valley, over a thousand  feet above  the  sea, dot-
ted with groups of graceful elms.  Through this
winds with many curves the clear and sparkling
Housatonic,  fed by many  tributaries of  moun-
tain brooks, that come hurrying down from their
springs  among the hills, —
      " The stream whose silver-braided rills
        Fling their unclasping bracelets from the hills,
        Till in one gleam, beneath the forest's wings,
        Melts the white glitter of a hundred springs."
  This  valley is encircled by the Taconic Moun-
tains  on the west and  the Hoosacs on the east, 
136
MEMORIAL.
while to the north tower the twin peaks of Grey-
lock, the giant clasp to this girdle of hills.  The
streets of  Pittsfield are broad, and shaded with
noble old  elms and  maples.   The houses stand
amid well-kept lawns, some of them spacious old
mansions of the earlier days, with  many elegant
modern dwellings.  Several beautiful lakes  add
to the charm of this " happy valley."  Oliver
Wendell Holmes, from whom the above  lines
are quoted,  used to  spend nearly  half the year
here, in his  cottage on the old Wendell estate,
whose majestic  forest trees gratified his  well-
known fondness  for  old  trees.  At  one  time
Longfellow, Hawthorne, Bryant, Herman  Mel-
ville,  Miss  Catherine Sedgwick,   and  Fanny
Kemble lived or had summer homes within  a
radius of  a  few miles in the county, and  the
breakfast parties  that  brought together some of
these literary celebrities were worthy to be chron-
icled  by a  Crabb  Robinson  or a Rogers.   If
these more brilliant  times had  passed  away,
Pittsfield could still boast of an agreeable  and
cultivated society among  its rather  exclusive
families.
   The weeks  spent in the pure and bracing air
of this hilLcountry, in the loveliest season of the
year, were restful and enjoyable, and were looked
forward to  with pleasure.   The  two  summer
vacations  that preceded Dr. Palmer's coming to
the Berkshire school had been spent  in the hot 
         ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.      137
 climate of Virginia, amid all the discomforts and
 privations  of  army life, and this was indeed " a
 well-earned repose."  The opening of the  Med-
 ical College and the advent of a group of agree-
 able professors from abroad made an excuse each
 summer for a round of little festivities, — evening
 companies, tea-parties, mountain climbings, row-
 ing  parties  on the lakes, and other open-air en-
 tertainments.
   In May, 1867, he married Love M., the only
 child of Dr. Oliver S. Root, of Pittsfield.  Hence-
 forth he had a home.  In the following autumn
 he resigned his position in the  Berkshire Med-
 ical  College.  This  school was founded in 1822,
 and for many  years was prosperous. At that
 time hospital teaching was almost unknown, and
 it was not until  1844  that medical and surgical
 cliniques  were established even in  New York.
 The country schools could then more success-
 fully vie in attractions with the  city schools,
 many of the ablest teachers from New York and
 Boston being glad to spend their vacations in
 lecturing in the country schools, while the sum-
 mer term was  an advantage for the many poor
 students who were obliged to teach during the
 winter.  But the  Berkshire  school,  like some
 other  New  England Medical colleges, was too
 near Boston and New York to be able any longer
to hold its own against their superior hospital
and clinical advantages.  It was  accordingly dis- 
138              MEMORIAL.

continued after the death of  its well-known pres-
ident, Dr. Childs, in 1868.
  So the pleasant summers in  Berkshire came
to an end, not without regret.   The vacation of
1868 was  spent  in traveling in the East, and in
1869  Dr. Palmer was appointed to the Chair of
Practice  in the  Medical School of Maine, con-
nected with  Bowdoin  College,  Brunswick.  A
congenial corps of teachers  and  an  intelligent
and  enthusiastic class of students made  the po-
sition an agreeable one.  Dr. Greene, his former
colleague in  Berkshire, and then living in Port-
land, was one of the professors here, and among
the  others were Drs.  Lincoln, Mitchell,  and
Brackett, of Brunswick, and Dr. Gerrish, of Port-
land.  The medical  department of the Univer-
sity of Michigan at  that time had a six months'
term which closed in  March, and as Dr. Palmer's
presence  in  Brunswick was required only from
early in April to June, it was possible for him to
give the full course in both schools.  While at
Bowdoin he lectured twice a day, besides having
weekly cliniques.
  Some  warm friendships were formed  during
the ten years that he retained his Bowdoin pro-
fessorship.  The genuineness  and sincerity of
his character were apparent to  all who came to
know him, and the kindly expression of his face
and  the unaffected cordiality of his manner could
not  fail  to  win friends.   Indeed,  Brunswick 
         ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.      139

seemed almost a second home.  And where else
than in such a typical New England college town
can  be found such  a delightful combination  of
cordial hospitality with great simplicity of living,
and  the truest and  best  cultivation with an in-
difference to mere money, that is truly refreshing
in these days of  intense struggle for its posses-
sion ?   Among those whose friendship and kind
attentions were most highly prized was  Dr. Al-
pheus Packard, a professor at Bowdoin  and  a
gentleman of  the old school, of the gentlest and
truest courtesy.   It was to him, the sole survivor
of the old corps  of  teachers, that Longfellow ad-
dressed those  beautiful words of his " Morituri
Salutamus," on the  occasion of the fiftieth anni-
versary of his class : —
       " They are no longer here ; they all are gone
        Into the land of shadows, — all save one.
        Honor and reverence, and the good repute
        That follows faithful service as its fruit,
        Be unto him whom living we salute."

   The drives  about Brunswick are delightful,
and were a pleasant feature of the spring sojourn
there.  Long, narrow fingers  of land,  many of
them  wooded to their very tips, stretch  down  to
the  sea on  this irregular coast of Maine.  Along
these  one can  drive for miles through the woods,
and hear the sound of water on either hand, the
fragrance  of  the pines and  the  sea  making a
 delicious  atmosphere.   These pine woods   of 
140              MEMORIAL.
Maine are fairly carpeted in May with  the  trail-
ing arbutus, the loveliest of the wild-flowers of
New England.
  At  the close of Dr. Palmer's lectures at  Bow-
doin one  summer,  a trip was made to Mount
Desert, — by rail to  Bangor, and  thence fifty
miles  in an open carriage through a pleasant
country to the island. It was the middle of  June,
before the advent of  the crowds,  and the ten days
at Bar Harbor were delightful.  There had been
an alarming epidemic of typhoid fever the pre-
ceding season, and the Doctor was interested in
investigating its origin.  The hotel and boarding-
house keepers, learning of  his  presence, urged
him to give them a  lecture on sanitary matters.
So one evening the bell of the little  church was
rung,  and  a  crowd  of  the  natives gathered to
hear a plain but most instructive talk  about the
importance of sanitary precautions, proper sewer-
age, and other kindred topics.   They all said  it
was something they should never forget.  This
little  incident may  show something of his ear-
nest desire to benefit and help  humanity every-
where.  The prevention of disease was with him
a constant study, quite as worthy, in  his opinion,
of the highest aims of the profession  as the alle-
viation of suffering.
  Two  letters, written immediately after his re-
turn from  Maine one  summer, may give  some
idea of the affectionate  regard in which his stu-
dents  held him: — 
ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.
                           Ann Arbor, June 7, 1878.
  My dear L.: .  . .  I left Buffalo yesterday a little
after noon, and arrived here on the midnight train last
night.   I  telegraphed to Mrs. R., from Buffalo, that I
expected to  come on that train.  As I was approach-
ing home  L happened to think it possible some desper-
ately " hard up " communist or greenbacker (the  horror
of Professor Smith) might  have heard I was coming,
and, hoping to find a few greenbacks about me, at that
late hour of the night might spring upon me from some
hiding place  on  the way up the lonely and  deserted
streets,  and deprive a little woman  now in Maine of a
husband who,  though not a very good one, might still
be considered  better than none.
  With these  thoughts  actually in  my  mind, as I
stepped out of the car in the dark, some little distance
from the station,  a man seized me by the arm and said,
in a voice not  so  unkindly, " Come this way;  the boys
are down  here to  meet you."  As I was hurried along
to the door,  they were  drawn  up in double line all
through  the station and across to the opposite plat-
form, and in a burst, led  I think by young Hall, sang,
forcibly and well,  "Home,  Sweet Home."  The lines
changed, and a procession followed me and the com-
mittee to  an open carriage,  drawn by four horses. The
carriage moved on slowly,  the  boys  in the procession
singing songs of  welcome  of different kinds, with ex-
temporized lines  like, " Don't go to Maine again," etc.
On arriving at the office, which was illuminated, Dr.
North being in possession, a double  line was again
formed, uncovered, and after a few broken words from
me in acknowledgment of the compliment, they sang a
college " good night" and dispersed.   They wished me
to understand, as the  committee repeated, that " all of 
142               MEMORIAL.
them were there," " no  member of the class absent."
The only drawback was  that the " medical girls " were
absent.  I expect  to  meet them this afternoon.   M.
and the children, dear little things, were up  to receive
me, with a fire on the hearth in the parlor.   The kit-
tens were the only creatures asleep about the  house,
and I am not sure but they  were awakened by the
hubbub.

                                    June 8, 1878.
  ...  I had another surprise yesterday.  The evening
lecture, as it is usually illustrated by the stereopticon,
is given to the men and women together, and the ar-
rangement for that time was  not  changed, but they
knew I was to lecture.  As I went into the room my
desk, and in fact the whole  of the large table, was cov-
ered  with flowers, tastefully  arranged.   A beautiful
bouquet of pansies I brought  away when the lecture
was over.  This silent expression of  welcome touched
me very much, as it came so suddenly upon me, amid
the prolonged and  hearty cheers of the class.
  But I have said  quite  enough about these  things.  I
thought you might be interested to  hear of this ex-
pression, so characteristic of your sex. . . .

  Another incident, that had occurred  a year or
two  before,  shows  his influence  over  the  stu-
dents.   It was at the time of one of  the medical
commencements, in March.   Owing to a dissen-
sion among the  Regents of  the  University on  a
certain question, and  the withdrawal of some of
the members of the  Board  from the meeting at
which it was customary to formally grant diplo- 
        ALONZO BENJAMLN PALMER.      143

mas to the students recommended by the Faculty
for graduation, there was no quorum, and  conse-
quently the vote upon the granting of diplomas
could not be taken.   There would be no other
meeting of the Regents for several weeks.  The
Commencement exercises were to take place the
following morning, with an address by some gen-
tleman from abroad.
  On that morning the students gathered on the
campus, held  an  indignation  meeting, and  re-
solved not to  go through the farce of listening
to an  address to  them as graduates while their
diplomas  were withheld.  The excitement was
increasing every moment, and  appeals from vari-
ous quarters had had no effect. At this point a
message was sent from the President, requesting
Dr.  Palmer to come  up to  the college immedi-
ately.   He ordered his horse  saddled, and in a
moment was galloping off to the scene of action.
Riding well and fearlessly was one of his accom-
plishments, and as he dashed  into  the  campus
on his spirited horse  hearty cheers went up from
the students, and willing hands took the bridle,
while  he  dismounted and made a speech from
the college steps, sympathizing with them in their
just annoyance, but representing the discourtesy
of refusing to listen  to a  gentleman who had
been invited to address them, and who was inno-
cent  of any blame in the matter.  A few words
were sufficient to calm them, and with renewed 
144               MEMORIAL.
cheers they formed into line and marched to the
hall.
   The  medical  course in  the University  had
now  been  extended  to nine  months, and  Dr.
Palmer could no  longer retain his professorship
at Bowdoin and Michigan too, although by  giv-
ing two lectures a day instead of one, and filling
vacant hours, he had  managed this year to give
the full number of lectures at both places.  This
extension of the  term of  study had  been  ear-
nestly advocated by him for a long time, and  was
most  gratifying to him, although it  involved a
personal and pecuniary sacrifice.   Once  more,
in the spring of  1879,  he lectured at  Bowdoin
College, and then sent in  his  resignation, which
was accepted with regret.
   The following tribute from  Professor Mitchell
shows the esteem in which he was  held by his
colleagues at  Brunswick: —
  " Professor Palmer filled the Chair of Pathology and
Practice in the Medical School of Maine from 1869 to
1879.   During  this ten years of  occupancy, both his
didactic and clinical work was most faithfully and effi-
ciently performed.
  " He brought not only a wide knowledge of authori-
ties, but from his own  extended and varied experience
added much in the way of practical suggestion and in-
struction.
  " His long service had in no degree lessened his en-
thusiastic love of teaching.   He was committed to no
routine or inelastic course of instruction or practice, 
         ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.      145

but sought always to gain all that was of value from
new lines of investigation.
  " His high  character commanded the universal re-
spect of those he  taught.   His unvarying courtesy to-
wards his colleagues, especially shown in his readiness
always and in  sudden emergencies to occupy what
from unpreventable causes would have been unfilled
hours, was most gratefully appreciated.
  " Our school, in its remoteness  from  our great med-
ical centres, was peculiarly fortunate in  securing and
holding for a time the services of  one whose name and
authority were  so  widely known  and recognized, and
who had so long  and  ably filled a similar chair in one
of our largest and best universities.
   " We were  all shocked and saddened when the pain-
ful intelligence reached us that one so well  equipped
for longer service, so honored  among men, and so  be-
loved by those nearest  to him, had been suddenly cut
down.
           "Alfred Mitchell,  M. D.,
                 Sec. of Faculty  Med Sch. of Maine."

   It had long been  his  purpose  to  write a work
on medicine.   Letters  were  coming  frequently
from his  old  pupils, urging him to do so, and
not to put it off  too long.  He had been gradu-
ally preparing for it, but it was extremely diffi-
cult to  find  leisure for so  formidable an  under-
taking in the midst of his busy, every-day life.
At length a year's leave of absence was granted
him  by  the Regents, accompanied with some
kind expressions of  appreciation of  his  unremit-
ting labors in the University and devotion to its
10 
146              MEMORIAL.
interests;  and after the June Commencement of
1879 he sailed for  Europe.   The  vacation had
truly been well earned, but it was to consist in a
change of work, rather than  a cessation  from it.
The writing of his book was at once  begun.
His paper and pencil were always at  hand, and
on shipboard  and in  railway coaches the mo-
ments were made the most of.
  The first  four months  were  spent  chiefly in
London, Edinburgh, and  Paris, in visiting hos-
pitals  and medical schools; though  many de-
lightful  excursions were made to various parts
of Scotland, to the cathedral towns of England,
and to the English  lakes.  Many pleasant  ac-
quaintances of twenty years before were renewed,
while he made himself familiar with the opinions
and researches of the most eminent men of  the
profession.
  Dr. (afterwards Sir Henry) Acland, of Oxford,
Sir James Paget and  Dr. Richardson, of Lon-
don, Dr. Brown-Sequard, of  Paris, and later  Dr.
Pantaleoni,  of Rome, were  most cordial and
kind.   Indeed, every facility  was offered  him for
his investigations.
  It was  not  all work, however.  There were
pleasant dinner parties with the  doctors, even-
ings at the opera with Patti and Gerster, a charm-
ing little breakfast in the quaint old house of a fa-
mous Oxford professor, where the breakfast-room
opened  into a garden filled with roses and shut 
        ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.      147

in with  a  stone  wall overgrown  with ivy; and
moreover, sight-seeing with a companion  whose
fresh enthusiasm at a first sight of foreign lands
added much to his own enjoyment.
   In October, while in Paris, a message came
from home, most unexpectedly summoning him
to return  to his work in the University.   This
was  a  very great disappointment.    He had
looked forward to a pleasant and profitable year
abroad,  with leisure for writing and study; but
he never  hesitated.  The  students needed him
and he  would  go.   The gentleman who was to
have filled his chair during his absence had de-
clined to fulfill his engagement  at the  very last
moment, on account of some slight misunder-
standing with the Faculty.  It was  impossible
to find  any one  to take his place on such short
notice, and Dr.  Palmer was therefore sent for,
being allowed, however, to delay his return until
the last of December.   The plan had  been to
spend the winter in  Italy, but now only two
months  could be  given to a hurried visit to
Turin, Milan, Venice, Florence,  Rome, Naples,
and Sorrento.  Returning by way of Pisa, Genoa,
and the Riviera, he lingered for a few days of
rest in the warm sunshine of Nice and Mentone
and then  made  the long, cold journey to Paris,
which he found half buried in  the snow of that
memorable winter of 1879-80.  He sailed from
Southampton the last of December.  The mid- 
148               MEMORIAL.
winter voyage was exceptionally cold  and rough,
and owing to almost constant storms, head winds,
and  an accident to the machinery, it was pro-
longed  to fourteen  days.   He was much ex-
hausted  and far from well when he landed at
New York, but allowed himself only a few hours'
rest  before  pushing on to Ann Arbor to  begin
his lectures.
   He had tried not to let the hour of his return
be known,  thinking that possibly his students
might take a fancy, under  the circumstances, to
give him a welcome, and feeling hardly equal to
anything of the kind.  But  by telegraphing to
friends in New York  the " boys " had succeeded
in learning the exact time of his arrival.  The
following account in  " The Chronicle," the Uni-
versity paper, will give an idea of  his reception :
  "The event of the season to the medical students
was  certainly the reception given to Professor Palmer
at the Chandler House, on his return from Europe last
Friday evening.   The   committee  of  arrangements
were informed by telegram of the time of his arrival,
and  accordingly  the members of the medical depart-
ment congregated on the campus  and organized  a
procession, which, headed by the city band, marched
to the Michigan Central  Station to await the arrival of
the  11.30 train,  on which he was expected to arrive.
On  alighting from the train he was conducted  to the
carriage  awaiting him, and the procession, led by the
band, then marched to his residence, where he thanked
the class in a few-well chosen words for this manifesta- 
ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.
149
tion of their respect and affection.  At 8 p. m. he was
escorted to the Chandler House, where were assembled
the Faculty and members of the Medical Department.
The  address of  welcome  was  delivered by Mr. F.
Baker, in the following happily chosen words : —

  " On me has fallen the happy task of bidding you welcome
among us;  of expressing on behalf of my fellow-students a
tithe of the thankfulness we feel  for your safe arrival home.
A welcome  at the hands of  those whose  hearts you  hold
so truly pledged would seem  almost superfluous.   But it is
fitting at a time like this that we should meet  you thus, to
give some  slight  expression of our feelings ;  and we  dare
to hope that after your long  absence it may be a source of
pleasure to you to be among us  here again, — to see those
faces  with which you are familiar, mingled with the unfamil-
iar  ones, that by their numbers speak  the progress and pros-
perity of the school you love so well.
  " And for  these last, your  later followers, I would  say a
word.  They come not here as we do, having by past ex-
perience learned  how great a loss, how great a  gain, may
turn upon the question of your  presence.  They have not
learned the value of your kind advice, your generous  sym-
pathy.  Yet is their interest scarce less  than ours, so great
has been the impress of your master mind, so true the rec-
ord left with us in our short acquaintance of a year.   Theirs
is the welcome that shall  longest last;  theirs the happy
opportunity of proving it most truly.  And trust  me, for I
know them well, your hopes in them can never be misplaced.
The heartfelt welcome which they now extend is but a token
of the gratitude which they will ever feel toward you.  . . .
  " And to  my classmates, one and all, you know that you
are welcome.  We who know you best can truly value the
pleasures of this night.  Yet,  while our cup of selfish happi-
ness is full, regret comes in to mix the bitter with the sweet.
Your  absence has been sorely felt by us, and many were the 
i5o
MEMORIAL.
wishes  for your  quick return; still these our selfish hopes
were not unmixed with sorrow at the thought that our great
gain would be  so grave a loss to you.  And now that by
your presence you assure us  that you have made this sacri-
fice, — not to duty, for duty never  truly called you, — that
you have given up a long-planned  pleasure, a long-desired
profit, perhaps  no trifling portion of the crowning effort of
your life, — we  choose to think, to feel that it  is all for us.
Weak words  could never tell the gratitude we feel for this,
but —
            ' Thanks untraced, to lips unknown,
            Shall greet you as the odors, blown
            From unseen meadows newly mown,
            Or lilies floating in some pond,
             Wood-fringed, the wayside gaze beyond.'

   " Still more, you have  our deepest sympathy for the loss
which you have thus sustained for us ; and as for a fixed  pur-
pose you have done so much, it shall be our aim, as long as
we are with you, to further the end which you thus seek, ever
assuring you by  greater effort — more  loving  study, more
earnest  work — that  this sacrifice  which you  have  made
shall not have  been  in vain.  It shall be a stimulus which
will do much to shape our brief school  career, and lead us
safely on into the opening vistas of  our life effort."

   The  Professor, evidently considerably moved, replied
in the  speech which we  deem it but  just to  reprint in
full: —

   " Mr. Baker, and Members of the Department of
Medicine and Surgery, — I  have very inadequate words
with which to thank you for the reception I have received ;
for the very kind and flattering sentiment so beautifully ex-
pressed in the  address just presented in behalf of the med-
ical class.  This demonstration of your interest in my return
to the position  I have so long occupied,  and to the labors I 
           ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.       I 5 1

 have so long performed, but from which I had hoped I would
 be for a longer  time relieved, is most grateful to me, and
 will ever be remembered.  My desire for a longer release
 was not merely for rest  and pleasure, which perhaps I had
 earned, but for other work quite as important as that which
 I have to do here.  In your  kind words you recognize the
 sacrifice I have  made in being here.  But I have come at
 more  sacrifice, personal and  domestic, than,  perhaps, you
 can well understand.  There has been disappointment in
 breaking up well-arranged plans ; in leaving one  I should
 constantly protect and sustain so far away; in failing to see
 and to do  many things which  I  had  expected  to see and to
 do with pleasure  and profit.  But not to dwell on this, I have
 come,  it  must  be, more than four  thousand   miles  to be
 here, involving in the future a journey and voyage  of nearly
 twice  that distance, in order  to complete  what I  have left
 undone.  The many inquiries concerning my journey back
 may make it proper to give a brief account of it here.
   " I  started for  this  scene of my  duties, where by past
 labors, it seems, I have earned the privilege of future work,
 and where as it now appears this welcome was awaiting me,
 from  the picturesque city of  Sorrento, in southern  Italy.
 Leaving this  remarkable spot, where  mountain  and sea
 mingle their sublimity and beauty, where barren rocks rear
 their almost perpendicular walls from deep gorges  to the
 clouds ; where their scarcely less precipitous  sides are cov-
 ered with groves  of olive and lemon and orange, mingled
 with the vine, and from under whose shadows were peeping
 out, though in  midwinter, many brilliant flowers ; winding
 along roads cut out of the face of the solid rock, where the
 depths  below were equaled only by the heights above, — we
 came down to the shores  of the Bay of Naples.  We passed
 by the once buried but now exhumed cities of Herculaneum
 and Pompeii, through whose  streets, buried more than 1800
years ago, we had recently been wandering.  On we passed,
 under the shadow of Vesuvius, on through Naples, a city of 
152
MEMORIAL.
no little splendor, but of more poverty, a city of commerce
and art — and of beggars.  We passed now by its bold and
picturesque bluffs and its celebrated bay, and, with scarcely
a pause, on still to Rome, the seat of the most splendid  of
ancient empires and of the greatest of modern ecclesiastical
establishments, and through  this wonderful city, where  the
riches of ancient, mediaeval, and modern art are so  profusely
displayed ; where are  so  many associations of eloquence,
poetry, literature, statesmanship, heroism, and generalship,
as well as barbarous customs, effeminate luxuries, tyrannies,
and  bloody crimes; where the ruins  of its  Coliseum,  its
Forum, its ancient baths, its  triumphal arches, its temples,
and  its  palaces are  on every hand ;  where  its  Egyptian
columns, far more ancient  than  Rome itself, stand in time-
defying  preservation ; the city where stands St. Peter's, un-
rivaled in grandeur and magnificence, a monument to the
greatness of architectural skill.  Passing on now rapidly from
all this, where, though we  had spent some time before, curi-
osity and interest would have found  occupation  for more
months than we could afford  days,  Pisa was reached, repre-
sentations of whose leaning tower you have all seen, but of
whose beauty and impressiveness no one  has  conceived
more than a moiety who has not stood before it.  We had
time to look but hastily upon it, and the grand old  cathedral
under its  shadow, with its swinging chandelier, whose oscil-
lations aided the greatest of the earlier astronomers in solv-
ing some of the problems of the heavens ; and  hurrying from
this  structure  and that of  the  old  Baptistery, the music of
whose echoes like  angels' voices  still rings in my ears, we
came on to Genoa, the home of Columbus,  whose  monument
reminded us of the discovery of the New World.  We still
hurried on  along  the shores of the  rock-bound Mediter-
ranean, through numerous long tunnels, our train constantly
darting out upon picturesque villages set  in every gorge of
the mountains and cove of the sea, until we  came to Men-
tone, a  sheltered spot, close shut  in  by mountains except 
ALONZO  BENJAMIN PALMER.       153
where washed by the blue sea ; and on still through Monaco,
the only place left in Europe where gambling is  now legal-
ized and  is  a profit to  the state,  we came  to Nice.  This
is a great winter  resort for pleasure-seekers and invalids,
especially those who are  able and wish to escape  the leaden
skies and stifling fogs of England or the cold of  Russia ; a
place like a great cove scooped out of the protecting moun-
tains, where  its  inhabitants enjoy the most intense  rays of
the sun, untempered by the slightest haze, and reflected from
the south by  the waters of the bluest sea and the white peb-
bles of the cleanest shore; a place where the palm and the
orange  adorn every villa, and where gay equipages  and as
gay pedestrians glitter in the sunshine in every principal
street.   All  this you may think news sufficiently interesting
and agreeable, the enjoyment of which is not to be spoken
of as a sacrifice. But still in this was one of the sacrifices, —
I hastily left it all, and here it was that I left the  light of my
poor life, much more to me than that of the sun and the sea.
From there, like a character of  Milton, I took my ' solitary
way.'   Coming  on through Cannes until near  Marseilles,
frequent views of the sea and the  mountains, the blue sky
and the level plains, and  the vivacious chatter of  fellow-
sengers, diverted the thoughts, but scarcely relieved the sad-
ness within.   Soon the darkness and the cold of  a northern
midwinter came, and never before  in my experience  did so
short a distance produce so great a contrast.   The journey
that night and the next half day through Lyons to Paris was
the coldest and most uncomfortable car-ride I ever experi-
enced.  Europe has not yet advanced, with a few exceptional
instances, to the practical idea  of warming cars with stoves
or steam.   Shut up in a small compartment, with no  com-
munication with any others, or with the guard  or conductor
on  the train, with  no means of  heating but the  occasional
introduction  of  cylinders of hot water, one must go from
stopping-place to  stopping-place as closely confined as  a
beast in its cage.   In this instance the cold was intense, the 
'54
MEMORIAL.
little cylinders inadequate, and but for a profusion of wrap-
pings the cold would have  been unbearable.   In a day or
two  I left Paris, the place where good Americans, it is said,
are  supposed to go when  they die ; but now, with its cold,
without the proper provisions for warmth, with  its piled-up
snow and dirt in  the streets, with which hundreds of men and
nearly as many peasant women were struggling with shovels
and  scrapers and brooms, with but little  apparent effect, I
left this paradise with but little regret, and came on to Havre.
There  serious business  commenced.  A small  steamer left
at nine o'clock for a  night  sail across  the Channel, which
passage is a horror to all travelers.  At Southampton, where
we landed in the morning, I was to take the ocean steamer
from Bremen to  New York, which was to sail the same day.
During that night such a storm arose and continued during
the day as kept the great steamer from making its time, and
you can perhaps imagine the effect that storm and the waves
it  produced had upon  the smaller Channel vessel  and its
occupants.  I shall not describe  what that effect was upon
myself and  most of the passengers, but  will only suggest
seasickness, — that feeling which for a time  makes one fear
he is going to die, but as it increases and  continues makes
him fear he won't.
   " A  respite at Southampton in  a comfortable English
hotel (but nothing like the best hotels in our country), until
the large steamer came and ventured to start for New York,
was gladly enjoyed.   But then, as this vessel finally started,
the serious business commencing at Havre was resumed on
a larger scale, —head winds and head seas ; the great ship
plunging as though it was taking its final leave for the home
of the mermaids, and then rearing its prow in high defiance
of the  storm; the  rising and  falling motion producing an
effect upon  the  whole  nervous system which  was simply
marvelous.  This plunging motion was  varied,  as the wind
veered round and as the waves struck the  sides of the ship,
by a rolling  motion, the huge vessel  seeming as if it would 
ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.       155
 turn over, and actually overturning every object, passengers
 included, not fastened  in the ship.   This was occasionally
 varied by the shipping of a sea, — a huge wave coming down
 upon the deck like an avalanche, and sending a shock that
 would certainly reach delicate nerves.  The effect of all this
 upon the passengers  I will not  here  describe in detail ;
 though to medical students  all details of this character are
 proper, there are other than those of the medical profession
 present.
   " This  state of  things not only continued for hours, but
 for days  and days, and in eight or  ten days I was so much
 prostrated from sickness, starvation,  and want of exercise —
 not having any of the latter but what was necessary to  keep
 me in my berth — that I could scarcely have stood or moved
 had the ship been quiet; as it was, I was sadly tossed about
 when attempting to get up.  A part  of  the time after that
 the weather was less boisterous, and there was some recruit-
 ing and some  German  cookery utilized'; but we got to  New
 York and through the custom-house all alive, and I  hope
 with sound consciences.
   " And  now, ladies and gentlemen, by the favor of sleep-
 ing-cars, which do not necessarily imply sleep, and  by the
 power of steam, what is left of me in bulk and vigor is  here.
 My condition produced by these causes, part  of  which  I
 have related, is my apology for not interesting you more on
 this occasion.
   " This  reception with which you have surprised  me has
 cheered and  encouraged, if  it has not compensated, me for
 the disappointment I  have felt, the separation I have had
 to bear, and  the  inconveniences of the  winter journey and
 voyage  I have endured.
   " The only proper compensation which I can  make  is
 hinted at in your address, and that will be the consciousness
 of being of some substantial service to you in assisting in
 your preparation for the responsible duties of the profession
you have chosen ;  and the chief  compensation you can ren- 
156
MEMORIAL.
der me will be to give your best attention to the many things
which the extent and importance of the subject I have to
teach compel me to say.  I am sure you will sometimes be
wearied, and though you may now be glad that I have re-
turned, you may be sorry before the term is over.  But we
must all take the bitter that in this our mortal lot is always
mingled with the sweet, and you may be consoled with the
reflection  that nothing that is worth achieving at all can be
accomplished without labor and pains.   I am happy in the
conviction that you will  heartily cooperate with me in the
work before us.
  " Thanking you again for  this extraordinary manifesta-
tion of  your interest and regard, I must give way to other
exercises you have in store."
   The  amount of work crowded into the  next
four  months was really  remarkable.  His  col-
leagues  kindly arranged  to let  him have extra
hours.   He gave two lectures every day,  besides
his clinical instruction, and filled every vacancy
caused by the illness  or absence of  others.   In
addition, the writing  of his book  went on,  and
for this  he could count only upon  the late even-
ing hours, as he was  subject to almost constant
interruptions during the day from patients in his
office, or students coming with some  question
that could only  be answered  by  the Dean of
the  Faculty.   With  all this there  was  no  evi-
dence of exhaustion or weariness.  One  of the
most characteristic  things  about  him  was  the
freshness, as  of a May morning, with which he
would come from his  lectures or his study.   It
seemed  as  if his  love for his work was so great, 
ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.      157
his  interest in  it so unfailing, that it could not
weary  him.  Only  one with his superb health
and vigor, however, could have long endured this
strain.   His only recreation was his daily ride on
" Prince," his favorite saddle horse,  a spirited
Kentucky thoroughbred.
  By the first of May he had accomplished the
full work of the nine months' course, and was at
liberty to return to Europe.   It had required a
great sacrifice  of personal feeling, comfort, and
pleasure to come back to his work at the end of
six months, after the  promise of a year's release
from it, but the sacrifice was made cheerfully and
heartily.
   Landing at Liverpool, after  a comfortable
voyage, he made his way as fast as steam could
carry him to Dresden, which he reached on  the
 12th of  May,  1880.   His joy at meeting one
whom he had been obliged  to leave  in Europe
with the wide ocean intervening,  his  conscious-
 ness of  more  than  duty done,  his  happiness
and light-heartedness, now made the next few
 months  ever to  be remembered  as full of  the
purest enjoyment.   His unselfish devotion, his
 strength  and sunny cheerfulness, were indeed
 enough  to  brighten  the  darkest days,  though
 none could  be so very dark if shared with him.
 One of his  students who had  come  over  with
 him, and joined the  party  for  the  summer's
 travel, often  spoke of this (to him new) side of 
158              MEMORIAL.
Dr.  Palmer's  character.  "Why,"  said  he,  "I
never laughed so much or had such a good time
in my life."  Indeed, his dignified teacher was
now the life of the party, full of quiet  humor,
with a  sober  way  of  saying droll things,  and
making every one about him happy.
  The  more  serious  purpose of  his trip was,
however, never lost sight of: at  Leipsic,  Berlin,
Vienna, and Zurich he visited hospitals and clin-
iques ; saw  many of the most notable medical
men, and learned their views on the latest medi-
cal questions of the day; while his evenings were
spent in writing out the notes of the morning.
  On the way from Vienna to Munich  a few
restful days  were spent in picturesque  Salzburg,
with its enchanting scenery and beautiful drives ;
while one of the memorable pleasures at Munich
was  seeing  "  The  Piccolomini,"  magnificently
put upon the stage and acted, even to the infe-
rior parts, by the " stars " of the principal cities of
Germany, gathered  there for a dramatic festival.
A long  and  most delightful tour of Switzerland
followed, during which nine of  the  principal
passes were  made.  It  was a wonderful summer
of clear  skies and sunshine, so that none of the
fine views were lost.
  After seeing the Passion Play at  Oberammer-
gau,  the party took a drive of four days in an
open carriage from Innspriick through  the grand
and beautiful valley of the Inn, over the Finster- 
        ALONZO BENJAMLN PALMER.     159
miinz Pass, and by  St. Martin's Wall,  passing
the nights at picturesque Tyrolean inns, with
always a huge St. Bernard dozing in the door-
way, and  the sound of a rushing  waterfall  to
soothe one to sleep.  And so, stopping now and
then to gather the exquisite wild-flowers of those
high Tyrolean pastures, they came to St.  Moritz
and  Pontresina, and spent a week in sight  of
the great Roseg glacier.  Thence by the gloomy
Julier and Scheyn passes they  came down  to
Thusis, and  the next  day rode  over  the " Via
Mala," and back again to Chur and Zurich and
Luzerne.   After a few  days on  the beautiful
shores of  Lake Luzerne, the Brunig Pass was
crossed to Meyringen, and then by the bridle-path
over the Great Scheideck, with its  superb views
of the Rosenlaui glacier and the Wetterhorn, they
came to Grindelwald and Lauterbrunnen.  Next
came a week of rest at Interlaken, and a pleasant
drive in an " einspanner " to Thun and Kander-
steg.   From there the party climbed to the sum-
mit of the wonderful Gemmi  Pass, by the shores
of the dark  and gloomy  Dauben  See, and  de-
scended the perpendicular wall of rock, eighteen
hundred feet  high, by narrow zigzags to Leu-
kerbad.
   After the Alps came Berne, Basle, Strasburg,
Heidelberg,  Cologne, and  Paris;  and lastly a
fortnight  in  London spent  in exploring some
quaint, out-of-the-way nooks  and corners  of the 
i6o
MEMORIAL.
city, and some of Dickens's old haunts,  with
sunny  autumn  mornings in Kew  Gardens and
Richmond Park, and a last look  at the pictures
of the  National Gallery and South Kensington
Museum.  Then  a pleasant voyage  in October
brought him back to his home, his work in the
University, and his book.
  The index to  this was written and the last
proof-sheets  were corrected among the Vermont
hills during the summer vacation of 1881, and
the book was published in the latter part of that
year.   It appeared in two octavo volumes of nine
hundred pages each, was entitled " A Treatise on
the Science and Practice of Medicine ;  or, The
Pathology and  Therapeutics  of Internal  Dis-
eases," and  was dedicated to the students who
had listened to  the author's oral  instructions for
thirty years.
  It was indeed the crowning work  of his life,
the result of  the experience, observation, and
study  of a  lifetime.   Some extracts from  the
preface may show the  standpoint from which it
was written, and its raison d'etre: —
  " In  adding a new work on the Science and
Practice  of  Medicine  to the  number  already
claiming the attention of the  American profes-
sion, it seems  proper that some reasons  should
be given for having undertaken its  production,
and  some justification should be offered  for its
existence. 
ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.      l6l
  " The preparation of such a work has been long
in contemplation,  suggested by the requests of
students, and  their evident want of a text-book
to follow the lectures on this subject in the med-
ical schools with which the writer has  been con-
nected. . . .
   " Judicious  members of our profession, and es-
pecially those who have observed medical  prac-
tice abroad, and who have given attention to the
peculiarities of diseases, and  the  treatment re-
quired for them as they occur in different locali-
ties and in persons of different races and habits,
are very  seriously raising the question whether
therapeutical  directions given by foreign authors
are the best,  if they are even  safe, guides in the
treatment of  the  ordinary diseases in this coun-
try.  In the  International Medical Congress re-
cently held in London, the statement was made,
and accepted without  dissent, that each nation-
ality had its own  peculiarities of disease, requir-
ing peculiarities  of treatment; and climatic in-
fluences, as different as they  are  upon the two
continents, must,  at least in many cases, vary the
remedial measures indicated.
   " Moreover, not only do race and climate pro-
duce differences  in diseases, requiring  modifica-
tions  of treatment, but the habits  and the par-
ticular surroundings of the people produce still
greater  effects.   The  habitations, the  clothing,
the exposure, the food, the drinks, the labor, the
          11 
l62
MEMORIAL.
pleasures and the dissipations, and all  the social
and  domestic  arrangements,  differ  widely in
Europe and in  this country.
  " But these are not all or the chief reasons why
the conclusions and  practical directions of the
authors of  foreign works cannot  be accepted as
proper guides to be  fully followed in the treat-
ment of the ordinary  medical  diseases of  our
general population.
  " The authors of these foreign works have de-
rived their experience,  upon which conclusions
are based, from a consultation practice in large
cities, and  from attendance in large city hospi-
tals.  In consultation  practice,  certainly  as  a
rule, the consultant sees acute diseases either in
their severer forms  or  in their later stages, and
most frequently he is called to the  severer cases
at a stage when the time for most efficient treat-
ment has passed, and when the remedies  indi-
cated at the beginning of the affections, with a
view to their arrest, are no longer applicable. .  .  .
■ - " It requires no argument to show that the cases
they deal with differ vastly from  those occurring
in an ordinary  American village  or country situ-
ation, where well - housed, well - fed, non - alcohol-
ized people are seen in the beginning  of  their
diseases. .  . .
  " The present work has been prepared from the
standpoint  of  an American  physician, whose
practice for years was in a village and farming 
         ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.     163

community, who has become familiar with dis-
eases in their beginning  as well as in their ad-
vanced stages, both in a country and a city prac-
tice, — more in  the West, but  also in the East;
in the army during the late war, as well  as  in
civil life,—from the standpoint of one who for
years has been  engaged  in public clinical  and
hospital  as well  as in private practice; who has
long acted as a consultant as well as an attending
physician, and whose observations have extended
to the large city hospitals of our own country;
and who, years ago, as well as since this work
has been in preparation, has made brief but care-
ful observations in  most of the medical centres
of Europe."
   The  following quotations  from a later part of
the  book,  under  the head of  " Non-medicinal
Management of  Fevers," give some of the quali-
fications which he deemed essential to the  best
types of physician and  nurse.  " The physician
should  cultivate a proper manner in  the sick-
room ; and, what  is  vastly more  important,  as
leading to that  proper manner, he should  have
proper sentiments  and feelings with regard to the
high character of his profession, and  his respon-
sible  and interesting relations  to his  patients.
He should be, and then he will  naturally appear
to be, interested in  his patient's welfare, and he
must be kind and sympathetic.   While allowing
all proper  liberty, he should be firm in essen- 
164              MEMORIAL.
tials; and  by his intelligence, his interest,  and
his authority, by a proper combination of frank-
ness and reticence, by caution and truthfulness,
he should  secure the  respect and confidence of
those under his  care.
   " It is not given to all to reach the highest  per-
fection in any department of human activity  and
usefulness,  and we must be content with what is
attainable.   But  there  is  an  excellence in the
profession  of medicine of  a higher order than
that which  depends upon  scientific  knowledge
or the possession of the technical art;  one which
is  shown in the practical  duties  of  the calling,
giving them the charm of a superior beauty  and
the  merit  of greater  efficiency.   It manifests
itself not merely by the skillful use  of material
agents, but by a general force and  manner which
give evidence of sympathy  and mental energy
that inspire  confidence, and  exercise a control
which becomes a benefit.   It is difficult to speak
intelligibly   of  this; nor is  it necessary.  This
peculiar quality does not come by teaching; it
has  a higher origin.   It may be better appreci-
ated by suggesting it to the attention, and it may
be more nearly reached by the possession of its
ideal; it is  not  improved  by discussion, and is
not  inspired by  exhortation; but, according to
the  degree  in which it is  present, it places its
possessor upon a higher level.
   " The importance  of  a  proper  nurse  can 
         ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.      165
 scarely be over-estimated.   It is a matter of con-
 gratulation that the science and art of nursing
 are receiving so much attention, and that so many
 intelligent and benevolent persons are willing to
 devote themselves to this work.  It is to be hoped
 that the reign of the Gamps is passing away.
   " A good nurse is intelligent, instructed in the
 duties of the art; obedient to the directions of
 the physician, who is the responsible autocrat in
 the  case; honest in reporting what has actually
 occurred, even her own mistakes or negligence;
 strong to do what  is  necessary in helping the
 movements  of  the patient;  kind and  sympa-
 thetic, but cheerful, not gloomy or effusive ; vig-
 ilant,  observing, and,  if  possible, anticipating
 every want, yet  not fussy and  obtrusive ; she is
 gentle and quiet, but steady and  firm.  When
 all these virtues  are combined in an  individual,
 as they sometimes are, the services of such a per-
 son  are  invaluable,  and, when the ability exists
 on the  part  of  the patient,  should  receive a
 liberal  acknowledgment.  When they  are  be-
 stowed upon the  poor, a reward will come' from
 other sources."
   Only one with the persistent industry of the
 Doctor, and strength to work  sixteen hours out
 of the twenty-four, could have  accomplished the
 task of writing this work in so  short a time.  His
 old pupils, scattered all over the country, were
glad to have his instructions in  this permanent 
166
MEMORIAL.
and  compact  form.  He  was  cheered  by  the
many  expressions of satisfaction  from  various
quarters at  the  successful  completion  of  the
work.   Many, after taking time to test its value,
wrote to say how clear, definite, practical, and use-
ful, they had  found it in their daily practice.   Dr.
Richardson,  of London, said of  it in one of his
public lectures:  " They are the most truly prac-
tical volumes that have appeared since  Watson's
famous lectures."  To speak of the book in con-
nection  with  such  acknowledged   classics   as
Watson's lectures is indeed high praise.  Again,
in a letter Dr. Richardson  says: " I often turn
to your Practice of Medicine.  It is a  fine, clas-
sical, and scholarly work."
   His  contributions  to medical literature  in-
cluded, besides this most important work : —
  A Report of the Committee  on Medical  Literature
of the  American Medical Association, 1858.
  Lectures on the Sulphate of Quinia.   Published by
the Class.  1858.
  Lectures on Sanitary Science.  1865.
  A Report upon the Epidemic at Maplewood Young
Ladies' Institute, Pittsfield, Mass., in July and August,
1864 ; including a Discussion of the Causes of Typhoid
Fever.   1865.
  Four Lectures on Homoeopathy, delivered  to the class
during  the holiday vacation of 1868.
  Law and Intelligence in Nature, and  the Improve-
ment of the Race in accordance with Law :  President's
Address at the Michigan State Medical Society. 1873. 
ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.      i6j
   The  New Departure  in Medical Teaching  in  the
 University of Michigan:  an  opening lecture to  the
 class, published at their request.   1877.
   The  Fallacies of  Homoeopathy.  An  article in  the
 North American Review.  1882.
   A  Report on Alcohol:  its  Action and Effects in
 Health and Disease.  Reprint from Transactions of
 Michigan State Medical Society.  1885.
   Suggestions on the Causes and Treatment of Inflam-
 mation of Internal Organs  : Transactions of Michigan
 State Medical Society.  1886.
   A Treatise on Epidemic Cholera and Allied Dis-
 eases.  1885.
   The Temperance Teachings of Science, adapted to the
 Use of Teachers and Pupils  in the Public Schools. 1886.
   He  had also been for years an  editor of a
 medical journal, and was a frequent contributor to
 medical literature.   He  wrote  rapidly and easily,
 and was  fond  of writing.   His  lectures were at
 first fully written  out, but latterly he took briefer
 notes into the lecture-room, carefully and system-
 atically arranged.   He never appeared before his
 class  without looking over his  notes and getting
 his subject well in hand  ; and  he was constantly
 rewriting and rearranging  his lectures, to keep
 them abreast of scientific advancement.
   His style of lecturing was clear, forcible, ani-
 mated,  direct, and simple.   His  teaching was
 thorough and scientific, combining the results of
constant  study and long practice.   His  voice
was strong and clear, with  pleasant intonations, 
168
MEMORIAL.
filling easily the large lecture-room, and he never
failed to hold the attention of his classes.  If an
occasional  story  were told to  illustrate some
point, or relieve the fatigue of intense listening,
in the days  when  his  classes  were  composed
wholly of men, it was of a character to bear rep-
etition with equal propriety to his later classes
of both men and women.   Anything even verg-
ing upon  coarseness was most repulsive to him.
In his cliniques  not a moment was wasted.  Pa-
tients  were examined thoroughly and  without
haste,  and the diagnosis was made deliberately
but  promptly;  in  this  way much was  accom-
plished in a short time.
   His skill in Physical Diagnosis was  very  re
markable ; his ear was so  perfectly trained that
an error in diagnosis was seldom made, and his
pupils were drilled in this  direction with great
care and patience. The following quotation from
a  letter received only  a few days  before his
death may not be amiss here: —
   " You doubtless will not remember me among
the  thousands  of your former  students, but  I
thought I  would send you a few words to  en-
courage you in your efforts  in  one particular
branch of  your work, — physical  diagnosis of dis-
eases of the chest.  I remember how earnest you
were in impressing upon our class the necessity
of giving  our strictest attention  to this matter,
and  how so many of the  boys neglected it, and 
        ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.      169
thought you made it  a ' hobby.'  While I paid
careful attention to  the  instruction given,  and
availed myself of the examination of cases in the
hospital, I confess myself guilty of thinking you
made it  too  much  of a  hobby;  but  I  have
changed my mind since, and wish you had made
it twice as much so."
  His opinions on  the  subject of temperance
were very decided ; he believed that physicians
have  much to answer for in prescribing alcohol
so frequently as  many do.   His opposition to the
use of alcoholic stimulants and narcotics of any
kind was very strong, and his influence  over his
students  did much to form a sentiment in his
classes against them.  When  one considers that
during his thirty-four years of  teaching  in three
medical schools he  must have  lectured to at
least  ten thousand students, one can see how far-
reaching this influence for good must have been.
  In his Memorial Address Dr. Ford says: —
  " Dr. Palmer  has  been a life-long advocate of
temperance, or,  I  may  say, of total abstinence
from all alcoholic stimulants and narcotics.  This
has led him carefully to  observe their influence
on the human system ; and if he has sometimes
taken extreme views,  he has had ample  opportu-
nity to study their use and  non-use in  practice.
His positive views, with their earnest and persis-
tent defense, shared by many able men  in other
places and professions,  compel  attention.  The 
170              MEMORIAL.

subject of such frequent use of alcohol has been
investigated,  and  the dangers  of  the remedy,
often more surely fatal than the  disease, have
been held up to public gaze."
  Dr.  Pilcher, one of his old students, in an ad-
dress before  the alumni of  the Medical Depart-
ment of the  University at the Commencement
of 1888,  speaks thus of  him:  "Earnest  and
methodical, learned  and painstaking,  pure  and
stainless in his  life, kindly and benevolent, tena-
cious of what he thought to be right, devoted to
the interests  of the University, for more than a
generation of years he was one of the most con-
spicuous  figures of  the Medical Faculty.   His
influence was always good, his strong  character
ever allied itself to righteousness, whatever the
question at issue.  His memory  will ever be fra-
grant to  those who knew him, or sat under his
teaching."
  The years from 1880 to 1887 were uneventful.
The summer vacations were  usually spent away
from home, at the mountains, or the sea, or at
Mackinac.  Changes   and   improvements were
made in the Medical Department; the course of
study was lengthened to three years ; new labora-
tories,  physiological, hygienic, and  pathological,
were established, in  all of which he was greatly
interested, and which he did much to  secure by
his influence  and efforts.
  It was  after his  last return from Europe  that 
         ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.     171
he came to  know well the late  Bishop Harris,
though they  had met before.  Each seemed in-
stinctively  to recognize the noble qualities and
devotion to his life's  work of the other, and there
grew up between them a  peculiarly warm and
cordial  friendship.   Whether in  his own home,
where  the  bishop was an  ever-welcome and de-
lightful guest,  or  on the  veranda of the little
summer cottage at  Mackinac, or in  their rides
together through  the leafy lanes and fragrant
pine woods  of the  beautiful island,  they "dis-
cussed  all  things in heaven and earth " with the
freedom and content of perfect  trust and confi-
dence.  How little we dreamed that the one, in
the prime  of his beautiful, useful, and gracious
life, was so soon to  follow his elder friend into
the everlasting rest  I  Dr. Palmer aided by his
gifts and counsels and took the deepest interest
in the founding and successful carrying forward
of the  Hobart Guild, which  will be a lasting
monument to Bishop Harris's wisdom, energy,
and untiring  labors.   In the bishop's convention
address in  June, 1888, which will always be pecu-
liarly  treasured  as the last public utterance of
his lips in  this country, this affectionate tribute
is paid to  his friend:  " One distinguished lay-
man of the diocese, however, has been called to
his reward  during the past year.   In the  death
of Dr. Alonzo B. Palmer, Dean  of the Medical
Faculty  of the University of   Michigan, the 
 172              MEMORIAL.
 church  militant has sustained a heavy loss.  His
 zealous  and faithful  services in many places of
 responsibility and honor are too well known in
 Michigan to need to be recorded here.   I feel,
 however, that I must put on record my sense of
 the effective aid which he rendered to me and to
 the Church in this diocese, when by his  intelli-
 gent interest and wise liberality he made it prac-
 ticable for us  to  project and carry forward  our
 plans for Hobart  Hall, using  his  influence in
 more than one critical juncture to make the har-
 monious  and  judicious fulfillment  of our pur-
 poses possible.  During all the years that  I knew
 him  he was my faithful friend ; and  his constant
 affection was  an inexpressible comfort and en-
 couragement to me.   Another of that noble band
 of laymen who gathered around me when  I came
 to the diocese  has  gone  to his reward.  God
 grant, for the work's sake, that the younger men,
 who must be  relied on  to fill the ranks, may be
 of like mould and of the same spirit."
   He was a vestryman of St. Andrew's for many
years, and a teacher of  the  students' Bible class
for a time, and often read the service and sermon
in the absence of the rector.
   As Dean of the  Medical Faculty  for  many
years, his good sense, calm judgment, and wise
counsels  did much towards  preventing the hasty
adoption of ill-advised measures.
   He was preeminently just; his decided opin- 
        ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.     173

ions on many subjects never made him unfair in
his judgments of men.   Such strong, vigorous,
healthy natures are apt to be gentle too, as  he
was.  The  kindly, gentle, and  benevolent  ex-
pression  that looked forth from the  clear gray
eyes  grew with the advancing years, and was a
truthful exponent of the spirit within.
   The exercise of  hospitality was always a  de-
light to  him, all the more appreciated when, af-
ter twenty years of homelessness, he  came once
more to have a home  of his own  to which  he
could welcome his friends.
   In the summer of 1886 he was appointed, by
the American Medical Association,  President of
the Section of Pathology in the International
Medical Congress, that was  to be  held for  the
first  time  in this country at Washington, D. C,
in  September of 1887.  This position involved
much labor on his part.   The vice-presidents in
his section from Europe and this country were
to  be appointed by him, and  the amount of cor-
respondence necessary to arrange these appoint-
ments and the subjects of papers to be read, etc.,
was  very  great.   The  June Commencement of
 1887 at  the University was kept as a jubilee,—
the celebration of its  semi-centennial;  and, of
course, there  was  more than the  usual  excite-
ment and fatigue  at that time.  Moreover,  the
summer of 1887 was an intensely warm one.   It
was  not so much a matter of surprise, therefore, 
174              MEMORIAL.
when he was taken ill in July, and was  confined
to the house for three weeks ;  but it was thought
that  rest and change were all that was needed to
restore him. Early in August he went to Cresson
Springs, near  the summit  of the  Alleghanies.
For the first time that look of vigor and fresh-
ness  and health so characteristic of  him had be-
gun  to  give way to  one of delicacy  and weak-
ness.   Not receiving the expected benefit from
the mountain air, he soon went to Cape May, and
for some weeks seemed gradually to improve  in
the bracing sea  breezes.  The  fatigue and ex-
citement incident to the coming Congress were
looked forward to with  much apprehension on
the part of his friends, but the weather proved to
be remarkably cool for early September in Wash-
ington, and he kept up  wonderfully during the
whole time of the session,  reading his opening
address with his  usual clear voice, presiding over
the meeting of his section  every  day, and being
greatly interested in all that occurred.
  At the  receptions that brought  together al-
most  every evening distinguished medical  men
from all parts of Europe, and a great number of
his old  students who were  present as members
of the Congress, it was pleasant to  see the latter
crowding  around him, with evidently the most
genuine delight  in  seeing him and grasping his
hand once more.  One who  stood by his  side
and  watched these eager  faces  was glad  and 
         ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.      I 75
proud  to witness this  evidence  of  affectionate
regard and admiration for their old teacher.  In-
deed, it can be truly said his students loved him ;
his interest in their progress, his earnest desire
to have  them thoroughly instructed and trained
before  going  out into the world, his sympathy
and  substantial aid to many in  their struggles
for an  education, could  not  but impress  them
and touch their hearts.
   This tribute from Dr. Woods  Hutchinson, an
old student and an especial  favorite, certainly
does not discredit the statement just made: —
   " To say that one was a student of Dr. Palmer's
is to enroll one's self at once upon the list of his
grateful  admirers.
   " Opinions  might differ with regard to  other
members of  the teaching staff,  but upon this
point all the boys were agreed, — that the grand
old Dean of  the Faculty was  unreservedly de-
voted to his noble work of teaching,  and anxious
only for  the welfare of the class.
   " His promptness in every emergency, his  readi-
ness to fill  any vacancy, his almost eager willing-
ness to meet us more than half way in  the arrange-
ment of new courses or clinics, won every heart;
and  although as Freshmen we were almost in-
clined  to regard him as superfluously prompt in
filling  every vacant hour that chanced to occur,
and  depriving us of a keenly relished breathing
spell, long  before the end of our course we had 
176              MEMORIAL.
come to gratefully  recognize it as  only one of
many tokens of  his almost affectionate interest
in our development.
  " Even before  we were capable of recognizing
the breadth of his scientific knowledge and expe-
rience, and the value and originality of his views,
we had learned to respect and love him as a man,
and I had almost said a father, and  our appreci-
ation grew deeper  and warmer with every year
after our graduation."
  On the return from Washington he spent a
few days  in  New York, and then  made a  last
visit of a week to his childhood's home  in Rich-
field with his only sister.  By the last of  Septem-
ber he was in Ann Arbor again.
  He was able  to  go  on with  all his  ordinary
work during the busy weeks of  the  opening of
the term  in  October, but  with  a gradually in-
creasing sense of weakness  and  distress. On the
12th of  December  he lectured in  the  morning
with his usual animation and vigor, and  drove
home after the lecture, coming in with his quick
step and bright, cheerful  smile.   It was his  last
lecture.   He had often  said he " would like to
die in harness."   He dreaded  an inactive  and
feeble old age.   His wish  was granted.  The
next morning he seemed strangely anxious to
answer all his letters, and the greater part of the
day was spent in completing this task.   In the
evening he  was  taken violently ill, the disease 
        ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.      I J J

from which he  had suffered for some months
assuming an acute form (cystitis).
   He was perfectly aware of the danger, and felt
that there was almost no hope of recovery.  The
days and  nights that followed  were one  long
agony,  borne  with  a  patient  sweetness   and
bravery beyond  all words to  express.  To his
dear friend, Professor Frieze, almost the last one
he saw while his full  consciousness remained,
he said: " My life has  been  a very happy one,
singularly  free from  pain and  suffering; I am
not afraid  to die, and I ought not to complain if
my time has come."   He asked often to have his
favorite hymn, " Jesus, Lover  of my Soul," re-
peated  to  him.   His faith never  faltered;  he
knew in whom  he believed.   The  dear  bishop,
who had  been away from home, hurried to his
bedside as soon as he heard of his illness, too
late, as was  supposed, to be  recognized;  but
when the prayers were offered for the dying, and
for one who was to be left desolate, his whole
soul seemed  to  be breathed into the  " Amen"
that came clearly and strongly from his lips, —
the  last word  they ever  uttered.  At eight
o'clock in the evening of December  23, 1887,
after eleven days  of suffering, he passed gently
and peacefully to his  rest and  reward.
   Thus calmly, and  with full  confidence in a
blessed immortality, ended a life that  had  been
continuously and to the very end full of health,
           12 
 178              MEMORIAL.
 and vigor, and capacity for work and enjoyment.
 The springs of  that life had been love to God
 and love to man.
   Only those who were admitted to the inner
 shrine of his home life knew the rare unselfish-
 ness of that sweet nature which found its own
 chief  happiness  in seeing  those  around him
 happy, and was pained if but the faintest shadow
 of trouble or suffering crossed the face of the
 one he loved best.
   " There are lives," says Bishop  Potter, " that
 ripen to a gracious and symmetrical roundness."
 Such  was  his, — brave,  pure,  simple,  noble,
 kindly,  useful, and  beneficent.  Such  lives  do
 not die, but  live on  in the hearts  of  those they
 have taught  by example even more than words.
   The day when he was laid in  his last resting
 place was cold and clear.   After prayers at the
 house  came the solemn  burial service in the
 church, beautiful with  its Christmas decorations
 and many flowers. Branches of palms and wheat
 rested upon  the  bier, which was  borne by mem-
 bers of the Senior Medical Class, preceded by the
 President of the University and five of  the Pro-
fessors.
   " Jesus, Lover of my Soul"  and  " Rock  of
 Ages " were the hymns sung.
   These most fitting  words, written  by a dear
and valued friend, are  inscribed  upon his tomb:
     " In omnibus officiis vitae fidelis,
       Sciential studiosissimus, fortis defensor recti." 
        ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.      \ jg
  In 1857 Dr. Palmer was made  a correspond-
ing member of the New Orleans Academy of
Science.
  He was a  regular member of the American
Association for the Promotion of Social Science.
  In 1865 he was  made an honorary member of
the  Medical Society of the State of New York;
in  1875, an honorary  member of  the  State
Medical Society of Maine; in 1885, a member of
the  American Climatological Association;  and
in 1887, an honorary member of the Gynaecolog-
ical Society of New York.
  In 1882 he  received from the  University of
Michigan the honorary degree of LL. D. 
EXTRACTS FROM  LETTERS  OF CONDOLENCE
               TO MRS. PALMER.

  " Dr. Palmer was very dear to us, as he must have
been to all who knew him, by mere  force of  his most
sterling and lovely character.  He was pure gold, all
through and through.  I trust that those very things
which  now make his loss so profound and bitter — his
professional eminence, his noble, Christian life, his  ten-
der and elevated character — will by and by transform
that loss into a sweet and precious memory." — Elias
Merwin, Boston.
  " These many years of companionship with one of so
large and tender a spirit must have left behind a store
of precious memories to sweeten your solitude, and yet
it is difficult to think of you as living without his shel-
tering  care." — Professor Charles Smith, Bowdoin
College.
  " I see with great sorrow that my almost life-long
friend  is dead.   How grateful it has always been to me
to meet him, or to think of him, as the courteous gen-
tleman, and intelligent physician !  There was no man
whose  hand I  grasped  more cheerfully than  I did Dr.
Palmer's.   I assure you that in the whole circle of my
professional associates whom I have made during the
past half  century, there  is no one whose loss I could
regret  more." — Dr. Henry J. Bowditch, Boston.
  " I cannot refrain from expressing my sense  of  per-
sonal bereavement in the loss of one whose friendship
was in itself a blessing, and whose pure and beautiful 
ALONZO  BENJAMIN PALMER.       l8l
living and noble counsel might well aid and inspire one
through life.  That the Doctor exerted a powerful in-
fluence  for  good upon the  lives  of  a vast number of
young men, is beyond all question, and to have shared
that influence during the past fifteen years, I shall ever
regard as one of the happy fortunes of my life." —
Charles S. Denison, University of Michigan.
  " His labors were so  faithful,  his habits so exem-
plary, his  devotion so complete, that the prosperity of
the school will forever be his chief monument.  While
everybody connected  with the University must  have
been  a  genuine mourner, there must also have  been
a feeling of universal satisfaction in the fact  that his
work had been  so earnestly and  nobly done.   It is a
great thing to have lived such a life, and to have ac-
complished such a work." — President C. K. Adams,
Cornell University.
   " Indeed, he has rest from a life of noble, beneficent
labor for others, leaving an example and a  memory
which you  may fondly and proudly dwell upon, and
that have served and will serve as a stimulus to many
who have  witnessed  his life, so  distinguished by  its
large-hearted kindliness and integrity." — Miss Sarah
Ballard, Brunswick, Me.
   " No one could know him without feeling his loveli-
ness of character and his gentle spirit.   We have all
felt so happy for you in that you  were cared  for by so
tender a heart." — Anna Paddock,  Pittsfield {daugh-
ter of the late Dr. Todd).
   " How  strange will Ann  Arbor seem  to me hence-
forth, without that sturdy, manly, and cheery  presence,
— that noble man without fear and without reproach ! "
— Professor  Moses Coit  Tyler,  Cornell  Univer-
sity. 
182
MEMORIAL.
  " His was a life well rounded out in service, like that
of our  Divine Master, the Great Physician,  and at full
age he has entered into his rest." — Dr. H. O. Hitch-
cock, Kalamazoo.
  " The notice of his death gave me a sharper pang of
sorrow than any outside my own  family in years.   He
was very kind and  helpful  to  me when a poor boy
struggling to obtain a professional education, and to
his  kindness I owe much in enabling me to  get a start
in my profession.  The better I learned to know him,
the  more I loved and  respected him." — Arthur
Young, an old student.
  " To add my poor word of sympathy, and express my
high appreciation of your noble  husband's character
and life.  While I did not enjoy the privilege of a long
intimacy with him, yet I learned to entertain for him a
profound reverence and respect." — Bishop Talbot,
Idaho.
  " But Dr. Palmer's work will  long remain ; and the
influence of his high and vigorous character, and of his
strong  intellect, and of his  energetic activity, and all
good works for the promotion of the interests of the
medical profession and of society, will long continue to
be felt." — Dr. William Pepper, University of Penn-
sylvania.
  " There is not one of us who has ever been his stu-
dent but feels that he  has lost  not only an able and
valued  teacher,  but a  real  and  true friend.   I shall
never forget his many personal kindnesses  to me.  Al-
though he is gone from us, the record of  his noble and
in  the  truest sense  successful life will remain both as
an  example and  a stimulus to all of us who are just be-
ginning the battle." — Dr. Woods Hutchinson.
   " It  seems well that he should not have had to bear 
ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.       183
the long years of inactive old age. I could never think
of him except as strong and sturdy, a very picture of a
good man, and an example to every one who knew him
of upright and honorable  manhood." — Miss Eliza-
beth Whitney, Chicago.
   " For we have lost  a friend.   One who was  strong
and  kind, who gave help  in times of most imminent
danger, whose  regard we  greatly prized." — Albert
Prescott, University of Michigan.
   " My noblest and best benefactor is gone.  It was
he who gave me my professional education.  The mem-
ory of him will in the future, as in the past, occupy the
choicest  place in my affections, and until my last hour
my thoughts of him will  ever  be those of  love and
adoration." — Dr. Elmore Palmer, his nephew. 
  In accordance with the resolutions of the  Senate, memo-
rial services were held in University Hall,  April,  8, 1888.
The memorial address was delivered by his  old friend and
colleague,  Dr.  C. L. Ford,  President Angell prefacing it
with the following words : —
  " We are gathered here  to pay our last tribute of re-
spect to our dear friend, and to listen to the apprecia-
tive  words  of one  who for so many years has been
bound to him by the ties  of a common  pursuit and of
strong personal attachment.  As the weeks have rolled
away since the death of Dr. Palmer, we have become
more and more sensible of the great loss which we all,
professors, students, and citizens, have sustained.  We
miss daily his helpful suggestions, his wise instruction,
his enthusiastic cooperation in moral and religious en-
terprises.   He threw himself with such ardor and vigor
into whatever he undertook, that we had all learned to
lean on him for aid.  Now that  his  aid has been sud-
denly withdrawn, we have a painful sense of privation.
   " Dr. Palmer's devotion to the interests of the  Uni-
versity, and especially of the Medical Department, was
absolute.   They seemed never to be  absent from his
mind.  He was ever busy planning for increasing the
usefulness and guarding the reputation of the  Medical
School, with which  he was identified for more than a
generation.  In his labors as Professor and as Dean, he
seemed to know no  fatigue.   In his later years, when
he might well have asked for some  exemption  from 
          ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.      185

strenuous toil on account of long service and of age,  he
appeared almost to court  an  addition to his regular
labors.  No one of his younger colleagues was more
ready than he to fill the lecture hour of an absent pro-
fessor.  His love of teaching, which was always great,
seemed to grow with years.  His thousands of pupils
have abundant reason to remember his deep interest in
their  welfare,  and his  pride  in their successes.  He
spared no  pains to be  of  service to them, not only
while they were here, but  after  they had gone to their
fields of labor.
  " A zeal like that which  he displayed  in promoting
the growth of the Medical Department he also brought
to his advocacy of moral reforms.   He was a  man of
positive  and decided convictions, and had always and
everywhere " the courage  of his  opinions."  A firm
believer  in total abstinence from alcoholic drinks and
from  narcotics, he lost no fitting opportunity  of  im-
pressing his belief upon others whether by his  pen or
his tongue.  He had such purity, elevation, and weight
of character, that his influence on the thousands of stu-
dents who had sat under his teaching was powerful and
beneficent.  Cherishing a  simple and earnest faith in
Christian truth, he  illustrated his faith by a most  ex-
emplary life.
  " But I find I am yielding to the temptation to occupy
the moments which belong  to him whom we have come
here  to listen  to, and  who can speak so much more
fittingly  than  I  of  his  life-long associate and  friend.
But  permit me  in closing  to say that, not only as a
neighbor and a friend, but also as the executive officer
of the University, I am deeply afflicted in  the  decease
of this true and noble man, this officer of such unsur-
passed fidelity and devotion to duty." 
i86
MEMORIAL.
  The concluding sentences of the memorial address are
given below.
  " Dr. Palmer was a faithful  monitor in times when
conscious suffering gives the  unselfish advice of  a
medical attendant an influence for good, otherwise dis-
regarded.   Besides  these qualities named, he  had  a
sympathetic nature, — he had sympathy with the suf-
ferer.   It was more than a hurried call and cold-hearted
word and hasty prescription.   His cheerful and  en-
couraging manner was often more than medicine;  it
was courage, it was hope,  it was mental stimulus,  it
was an uplifting influence, leaving  sunshine for dark-
ness, cheerfulness for despair.
  " Dr. Palmer was a firm believer in  the doctrines of
Christianity, and was interested  in all  the enterprises
of the  day for extending the  influence of  Christian
principles over the human race, and as an active mem-
ber of the Episcopal  Church  participated  in  all  its
movements for doing good, whether here or elsewhere ;
whether in teaching a Bible class among its  members,
or contributing  towards the construction  of Hobart
Hall, as a means of doing good to others.  By precept
and example he would commend the  religion he pro-
fessed.  His  religion was more than a  creed.  It was
a life, and as that heart ceased to beat, it marked  the
close of a life worthy to be commended in its aims and
its  results  to  the  careful consideration of those who
honor this occasion by their presence.  It was a rounded,
a completed life.   I do not claim perfection for him.
Perfection  seldom  dwells  with  humanity.   He  had
noble qualities which we  approve and  commend.  He
was ambitious.  A man without ambition will be a fail-
ure.   He was earnest, and the earnest man wins in the
race.  He was industrious, and  such  a man succeeds 
          ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.       187

by using the opportunities that come  to him and that
he overtakes.   He was prompt, and did duty when duty
came.   He was self-reliant, and  he found it  indispen-
sable in times of trial.   He was sympathetic,  he craved
sympathy and shared it with others.   He was generous
in giving service to the poor and needy.  Many a stu-
dent struggling with adversity  shared his  earnings,
and gratefully praises his generous kindness.
  " He was kind. He had a kindly nature. He rejoiced
in the  happiness of others.  It was an element in his
own to assist others.   He loved to be obliging to
others, and of this I need no better evidence  than that
his last related deed of kindness was, that he  rose from
his bed of suffering to  oblige another, who had no
special claim  upon him, by writing an introduction to
friends in Europe for a gentleman going there.   And
it was the  last line he wrote, and as he signed  his name
the pen dropped from that trembling hand forever.
          ' Golden grain from harvest ripe
            Angel reapers gather in;
          Joy above, but grief below,
            Where the reaper's steps have been.'"

                  University ok Michigan, January, 1888.
Mrs. A. B. Palmer.
  Dear Madam, — At a  special meeting of the Uni-
versity Senate, held  on  the  26th of  December, the
Senate, with a  deep  sense of the loss sustained in the
death  of your  late  husband, one  of  the leading and
most active of its members, one who by long  and  ardu-
ous service had won an enviable  position in the Uni-
versity and in the community, voted to spread upon its
records a  memorial  tribute, and directed that a  copy
thereof be transmitted to you.  In performing the sad 
i88
MEMORIAL.
duty thus imposed on me, I cannot refrain from adding
a word to express my own feeling of personal loss, and
to convey to you assurance of warmest personal  sym-
pathy in your affliction.
             Very respectfully yours,
                              Wm. H.  Pettee.
                          Secretary of the University Senate-

                  IN MEMORIAM.
  Professor Alonzo  B.  Palmer, M. D.,  LL. D.,  Pro-
fessor  of Pathology and the  Theory and Practice  of
Medicine in the Department of Medicine and Surgery
of the University of  Michigan, died at his residence in
this city on Friday,  the 23d of December, 1887, in the
seventy-third year of his age.
  To the majority of people, even his  acquaintances
and intimate friends, this event was wholly unantici-
pated until within a  few hours of his  decease, but to
the practiced medical observer it had been for  more
than a year apparent that Dr. Palmer was slowly fail-
ing  in  physical  strength and vigor,  and  for  some
months past disease  had stamped  itself upon his fea-
tures in such a  manner — impossible to describe in
words, and incapable of recognition or interpretation
except by the observant physician —as to indicate that
it was organic in its nature and would soon terminate
his life.
  For a long time he had a  constant and overwhelm-
ing dread of becoming  incapacitated for active  work
by  the infirmities  incident to advanced age, and there-
fore relegated to a life of inactivity in which he would
be  a mere incumbrance  and  burden upon others, and
where he would  be compelled with regretful eyes to
look upon some younger and more active laborer tak- 
ALONZO  BENJAMIN PALMER.       189
ing up the  line of work which had been his life's duty
and pleasure.   His wishes and his prayer were that he
might be spared  this infliction.   And so, with entire
propriety, we  may esteem it a  subject for rejoicing
rather than for mourning that his desires in this  re-
spect were not disappointed ; for, while he was still in
the active discharge of full duty, " God's finger touched
him and he died."
   Dr.  Palmer was associated with the University  for
more  than thirty-five years.  In  1852 he was appointed
Professor of Anatomy ; in  1854 he was  transferred to
the mixed  chair of  Materia Medica and Therapeutics
and the Diseases of Women  and Children.  And again,
in i860, he was assigned to the Professorship of Pathol-
ogy and the Theory  and Practice of Medicine, which
position he held  up to the time  of his death.
   During this long  service, which almost covers  the
 life history of the Department of Medicine and Sur-
 gery,  and  engaged as he was in teaching  therein  sev-
 eral branches of medicine, he had a large influence in
 shaping the general policy of the Medical Department,
 and contributed very  materially to its unbroken  suc-
 cess ; and  it was his rare good  fortune to see the col-
 lege which had started as a feeble organization, limited
 in patronage and weak in influence and power, steadily
 develop into  one of the largest and most prominent of
 the medical colleges of the country, and to realize  that
 he could with strict justice assume to himself no little
 credit for his efforts in contributing to this end.
    His success and his reputation as a teacher were not
 limited to  the bounds  of our own University, and he
 was tendered appointments in other institutions.   The
 arrangement of the annual term  of lectures in the
  Medical Department was  then such that a portion  of 
190
MEMORIAL.
each year was  unoccupied in his  professional  work
here, and  he therefore, in 1863, accepted  an appoint-
ment  to the  same chair which he  filled here, in the
flourishing Berkshire  Medical  College, at  Pittsfield,
Mass., and in 1869 a  similar position in the Medical
Department of Bowdoin College, at Brunswick, Maine.
  These  engagements were terminated, at  Pittsfield,
by the gradual  decline and ultimate dissolution of the
Berkshire school, and at Bowdoin College by the  adop-
tion in our own University, in 1877, of the graded sys-
tem of medical  education, and  the extension of the
lecture term to  the full collegiate year of nine months,
which  neccessitated his continued residence here.
  Dr. Palmer's  devotion to teaching was remarkable ;
it was  not simply a duty, nor was it a  labor perfunc-
torily  gone through with in obedience to  the require-
ments of  the position he occupied, but it was the in-
spiration and the chief pleasure  of his life.  Actuated
by these  motives, it creates no  surprise to know that
his fondness for the lecture room was something phe-
nomenal.   And so,  whenever  from illness or  other
exigency  a colleague  was temporarily absent, he was
ever ready and  glad to step in  and fill the hour, as it
enlarged  his  opportunity for engaging  in  his favorite
work.
  In  the  different colleges in which he was engaged,
it is probable that from eight thousand to ten thousand
students  have  sat under his  teachings.   The  large
majority of them entered into practice, and it is simply
impossible to estimate the influence which our late
colleague  must  have exercised upon the  working mem-
bers of the medical profession in this country ; and it is
simply appalling to think of the limitless disaster that
must  come from one not governed by high and  manly 
ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.       \g\
motives, and pure and elevating principles, in associ-
ation with  such a large number of young men.  But
there can be no  doubt  on this score in Dr. Palmer's
career, for he  was preeminently a man of principle.
His  Christian  life  and  character  were beautiful and
elevated  in effect, and they were known and  read by
every one  who came into association with him.
  Outside  of his chief work as a teacher,  his fixed
principles led him to other efforts  at doing good.   He
was  a stern and uncompromising opponent of the use
of alcoholic  or other stimulating  or  narcotic agents.
His  devotion to fixed convictions of duty in these mat-
ters  was firm and constant, and so he was always found
in the front ranks of the workers for  reform, urging
with all  his strength others to join in the work, and
encouraging by his advice, his personal example, and
his  aid, the  support of organizations formed for such
purposes.   No one for an instant  could  question his
sincerity and the honesty of his views, and, while they
may not always  have carried conviction,  they invaria-
bly  commanded respect for the advocate, and admira-
tion for his  devotion to principle.   This mental char-
acteristic led him to an earnest opposition to what he
deemed erroneous views in ethics, in  science, or in
medicine.
   In the literature of medicine, Dr. Palmer contributed
many fugitive  essays of  interest  and value.  Besides
these, he published " Lectures on Homoeopathy," in
permanent book form,  and a text-book  for schools en-
titled " Temperance Teachings of  Science," which has
had a wide circulation.   As the crowning work of his
life  he published, in two large octavo volumes, a com-
plete treatise on " The Theory and Practice of Medi-
cine."  In preparation  for  this work,  he  was many 
192
MEMORIAL.
years collecting materials, and  just  previous  to  the
immediate work of composition  he spent over a year
in Europe, in the colleges and hospitals, to avail him-
self  of the most recent  advances in  medical science
and art.  It will remain  a monument to his industry,
his ability,  and his devotion  to duty, and his intense
desire to aid in the advance  of the  study and work of
his life, practical medicine.
  The esteem  in  which his  ability and  attainments
were held by his brethren in the  profession is indi-
cated by the fact  that in  the International Medical
Congress, which recently met at Washington, he occu-
pied the important position of chairman of the Section
of Pathology, and  in that capacity gave an  address in
the general session of the Congress ; and in  the Amer-
ican Medical Association he held at  the time of his
death the office of chairman of  the  Section on  the
Practice of Medicine.
  The members of the University  Senate, with a pro-
found sense of the loss  which they have suffered in
the decease of their venerable and  eminent colleague,
desire to express their deep and tender sympathy with
his bereaved wife.
  Copied from the Senate records.
                        W.  H. Pettee,  Secretary.

  At a meeting of the Faculty of  the Department of
Medicine and Surgery of the  University of  Michigan,
held on  the  24th  of  December,  1887,  the  following
action was taken regarding the death of our late asso-
ciate : —
   Whereas it has pleased an  all-wise Providence to re-
move from us   by death our honored associate  and
fellow-laborer of many years,  Alonzo B. Palmer, M. D., 
          ALONZO BENJAMIN PALMER.       193

LL. D.,  Professor of Pathology and  the  Practice of
Medicine and Clinical Medicine, and Dean of the De-
partment of Medicine and Surgery of the University of
Michigan ; and
   Whereas his earnest, upright, temperate,  Christian
life has  ever been a powerful influence for good, im-
pressing itself upon all who have listened to his teach-
ing, both by precept and example, — it is hereby
  Resolved, That we express our sense of personal
bereavement in his death, and that this Department
and the University lose a wise counselor and a zealous
friend.
  Resolved, That we tender to Mrs. Palmer our heart-
felt sympathy in  this great affliction,  and ask for her
the  support and  consolation which God gives to  his
own beloved.
  Resolved, That a  copy of the above resolutions be
presented to Mrs. Palmer, and furnished for  publica-
tion.
  In behalf of the Medical Faculty,
                               C. L. Ford, Dean.

  At a meeting of the  Wardens and Vestrymen of St.
Andrew's Church of Ann Arbor, held December  27,
1887, the following  testimonial to  the memory of Dr.
Palmer was ordered  to be spread  upon the records of
the parish : —
  Alonzo Benjamin  Palmer,  M. D., LL. D., Professor
of Pathology and the Practice of Medicine in the Uni-
versity of Michigan, for many years a communicant of
St. Andrew's Church and a member of its Vestry, died
at his residence in  Ann Arbor, on Friday, December
25,  1887.
  During a period of more than thirty-three years, 
194
MEMORIAL.
while performing with eminent ability the duties of his
office in  the  University, he has also held a prominent
place among the parishioners of St. Andrew's Church,
and has been active in promoting all its interests and
enterprises.  We esteem it both our privilege and duty,
as his  associate in the  work of this parish, to express
our high estimate  of his worth and  service as a disci-
ple of Christ, a member  of the Church, and a Christian
philanthropist.
   Dr. Palmer was  born  at Richfield, N. Y., October 6,
1815, was a graduate in medicine at Fairfield College,
N. Y., in 1839 ; and after pursuing his medical  studies
still further  in  New York  and  Philadelphia,  entered
upon the practice of his profession at Tecumseh, in
this State, in  1840, and ten years afterwards removed
to Chicago;  from  thence in 1854 he was called to the
University of Michigan.  While residing at Tecumseh,
he had become deeply  interested in the pioneer  work
of that eminent missionary,  the Rev. W. N. Lyster, and
during the whole  life of that devoted evangelist, Dr.
Palmer, though called to different and distant fields of
labor, never lost sight of his early friend and religious
guide, while  he carried into his  own life and conduct
the  influence of that pure and noble example.
   As a  member of St.  Andrew's Church and  Vestry,
he was among the foremost in sustaining, by word and
deeds, whatever measures  were  adopted in  the  inter-
ests of the  Church;  and  no one  of our number was
more alive to the importance of  that great  enterprise
of the bishop of this diocese which has resulted in the
erection of Hobart Hall.  He saw that this was a work
full  of significance to the University as well as to the
Church, and  from  the beginning he gave to it in  every
way his earnest and efficient cooperation. 
          ALONZO  BENJAMIN PALMER.      195

  In his personal  character as a Christian, Dr. Palmer
has left to us a rare example of purity and consistency.
He was a faithful  supporter, and a prudent and  candid
counselor, of the rectors successively in  charge  of the
parish during the  long period  of his membership.   In
all parish dissensions, he was ever the kindly and chari-
table peacemaker; always placing the general welfare
of the Church and  parish above  all personal consid-
erations.
  Religion with him was doing, not less than  believ-
ing ; and his  strong sense of  duty as a Christian car-
ried him into fields of benevolence outside  of what is
often and falsely  regarded as  the only sphere of reli-
gious work.
  Among the social evils which  the  philanthropy  of
our day is striving  to ameliorate or remove, none seemed
to him so formidable, and to call so imperatively upon
all good men to unite in its overthrow, as  that  of in-
temperance.   Nor must it be forgotten that his  efforts
in this direction have borne  fruit in  the salvation  of
hundreds, and perhaps even thousands, from the  grave
of the inebriate.
  In  all the relations of social and domestic life, our
departed friend and  brother was faithful  and true.  In-
capable of disguise, always  governed by his  convic-
tions of truth and right, he was yet always  kind, con-
siderate, and charitable.
  In the death of  Dr. Palmer this parish and this com-
munity have met with an irreparable loss.
  He was a  true  and a strong man, a genuine Chris-
tian, ever active in doing good, and  of him  it can in-
deed  be said  : " Blessed are the dead who die  in the
Lord; yea, saith the Spirit,  for they rest from  their
labors, and their works do follow them." 
196
MEMORIAL.
  To her who has been the loved companion and faith-
ful helper of so many years of labor, success, and happi-
ness, we respectfully extend the assurance of our heart-
felt sympathy in  her great sorrow; with  our  earnest
hope and prayer that she  may find strong consolation
and support in Him who doth not willingly afflict or
grieve  the children of men.
                          Charles S. Denison,
                    Secretary of St. Andrew's  Church,
                          Ann Arbor, Michigan.
  yanuary, 1888.
  Since these pages were completed, the dear friend
who wrote the preface to them, who so kindly aided
and  encouraged the writer in her work, and  whose
friendship was an  inexpressible comfort  to her in her
great sorrow, has gone to his rest and reward.
  That the story of his  beautiful  and useful life may
some day  be told,  and far more worthily than this of
his  old friend has been, is the earnest wish of one who
will ever remember him with gratitude and affection.
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