Some Personal Recollections of Dr. Janeway

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Some

Personal Recollections

Dr. Janeway

James Bayard Clark

G. P. Putnam's Sons New York and London The Knickerbocker Press 1917

COPYRIGHT, 1917 BY JAMES BAYARD CLARK

The Knickerbocker Press, New York

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Edward Gamaliel Janeway was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, August 31, 1841. He was graduated from Rutgers College in 1860, receiving the degree of B.A. and M.A. from that institution. In 1864 he was graduated from the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York, receiving the degree of M.D. Later in life, the degree of LL.D. was conferred upon him, by Rutgers in 1898, by Columbia in 1904, and by Princeton in 1907. While in the medical school in the years 1862 and 1863, he was made acting medical cadet in the United States Army hospitals at Newark, New Jersey.

He began to practise medicine in New York City where he continued and ended his professional career. In 1869, he became professor of pathology and practical anatomy in Bellevue Hospital Medical College, continuing in that capacity until 1876. From 1868 to 1871 he was visiting physician to Charity Hospital. In 1871 he became visiting physician to Bellevue Hospital where he remained for many years and where, in the pathological department, he won such distinction. He later became visiting and consulting physician to other hospitals in the city.

In 1874 he was vice-president of the New York Pathological Society. From 1875 till 1882, he was Health Commissioner of New York. In 1876 he was president of the New York Medical Journal Association. His principal contributions to medical literature appear in the medical journals of New York.

He was president of the Academy of Medicine in 1897 and 1898 and a trustee from 1899 until 1903.

He died in Summit, New Jersey, on February 10, 1911.

IN MEMORIAM

On April 6, 1911, the Fellows of the New York Academy of Medicine met to honour his memory and to give reverent tribute to the sum of his accomplishments as Pathologist, Sanitarian and Physician.

Some Personal Recollections of Dr. Janeway

What it is that has kept urging me to write down these recollections of Edward Gamaliel Janeway, the physician, would indeed be rather hard to define, but the desire to record a little something of what I had personally come to know of this unusual man made itself felt very shortly after his death, now over five years ago. Since that time this feeling--steadily growing--seems irresistibly to have drawn me on to this endeavour to add some little part to the perpetuation of his memory--this man, who without pretence held the reputation of--one stops to take a breath before writing it--the reputation of being the best diagnostician in the world.

If by some happy chance these pen-pictured glimpses should bear some likeness to the man--if they should bring out here and there a line or colour which will recall some characteristic, show some quality, reveal some trait which, for those who knew him, will help to keep his memory fresh, they will have earned for themselves a very good reward. But beyond this, if they should fall to the notice of a younger generation and, more especially, to those choosing the profession of the physician, and the reader can discern therein something of the man himself, can get some glimpse of his life and its meaning, can gain some sense of the sincerity, the simplicity, the self-sacrifice and singleness of purpose which guided him and finally lifted him so far out of and above the ordinary, then will the pleasant task of recalling fully justify this venturesome effort.

* * * * *

It was in the midst of my medical schooldays and in the unrestraint of Adirondack holidays twenty years ago that I first met Dr. Janeway. As I look back at this first memory I can see a vigorous, well-built man a little way on in the fifties, dressed for a mountain climb or a game of golf. His fine, firm-featured face would have struck one as rather stern if one happened to miss that blessed kindliness which always lighted his steady eyes. Though dressed for outing, it was not difficult to see by a brief study of his face that his choice of exercise was intellectual rather than physical, yet he went to his game or his walk with the same directness of purpose with which he went to his work.

Ordinary social intercourse was an effort for him. It seemed as if he had to focus his mind down to the mental horizon of the everyday world of everyday people around him, yet he did not appear impatient of the small talk going on about him so long as it was plain he was not to take part in it himself.

One characteristic which never failed to impress those who met him was his reserve. It was the quality of it which was so striking. It was not a reserve which was raised of aloofness; there was no particle of that, no self-esteem, no egoism--common builders of reserve--yet on the other hand it was not the retreat of shyness as many might have thought, though out of it a certain constraint was undoubtedly born. One might almost say it was a result rather than a reserve; the result of a something hard at work within; a preoccupying something; a gestating something, the offspring of which was--well--what he was.

Another quality which leaves itself deep carved in the memory of these early days of acquaintance was the quiet, unconscious respect he seemed, with equal unconsciousness, to inspire in all about him; and more, even in those who in kinship and friendship were closest to him, and with a constancy which never wavered. In those days only the more evident traits of his character came home to me. It was rather by feeling, by intuition, that he impressed me. I had no measure of my own with which to estimate his mental attainments. I had a kind of awe, of hero-worship in knowing him, which left me reticent in the discussion of any medical matters with him--so I usually stuck in those days to safer subjects.

It was not until two or three years later, after I was graduated, that I had any association of a professional nature with him. It was near the end of the summer, up in the mountains. An elderly lady, a member of a well-known family, was suddenly taken ill. I was hurriedly called to see her, and on arriving at her cottage was told that Dr. Janeway had been sent for also and would be there soon; but they were anxious to have me go to the patient at once. The state of excitement into which this, my first professional call, threw me, was in itself enough without the crushing thought of what the great man might think of me, a then full-fledged M.D. I was ushered into the bedroom where she lay, totally unconscious and breathing heavily. As I hastened to the house, I had been formulating in my mind just the questions I should put to her--for I had learned in the medical school how to take a careful history--and there she lay without speech, without hearing, and without response. As I stood looking at her I could feel, rather than see, the family anxiously crowding about the doorway, waiting for me to tell them just what the trouble was, how serious it was, what were the chances of her recovery. At that moment I wondered why I had ever thought of studying medicine. I sat down by the bedside and felt her pulse. Why was she unconscious? I tried to think of all the things which caused a state of unconsciousness. Suppose she should die before I could think of what the trouble was, and before I could do anything to save her life! The thought was staggering! And then as I looked down at the patient again I realized, alas, that my chance of making a diagnosis to give to the family and then to proudly repeat it to Dr. Janeway, had vanished--for at that moment the doctor's voice could be heard outside the door and the next he was quietly stepping into the room. As he came forward, I stood aside to give him my place at the bedside. He asked one or two simple questions which I was fortunately able to answer. As I look back, I feel sure he did this to put me at my ease. This was the first time I had ever seen Dr. Janeway in the sick-room. It would be hard to describe the difference between this man I now saw examining the sick woman and the Dr. Janeway I had known before. There was a light in his eyes and an alertness in his voice, entirely new to me, as he deftly built up his diagnosis, pointing out this physical sign and that, until the complete pathological picture seemed to stand out as on the page of a book.

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