EXERCISES IN MEMORY OF 
 LEVI COOPER LANE

 
 E> 
 
 EXERCISES IN MEMORY OF 
 
 LEVI COOPER LANE 
 
 S 
 
 HELD AT LANE HALL 
 OF COOPER MEDICAL COL- 
 LEGE ON SUNDAY AFTERNOON 
 THE NINTH DAY OF MARCH IN 
 THE YEAR NINETEEN HUNDRED 
 AND TWO 
 
 PRINTED FOR THE 
 
 FACULTY OF COOPER MEDICAL COLLEGE 
 
 BY THE STANLEY-TAYLOR COMPANY 
 SAN FRANCISCO 1902
 
 100 
 
 EXEGI MONUMENTUM ^ERE PERENNIUS, 
 REGALIQUE SITU PYRAMIDUM ALTIUS; 
 QUOD NON IMBER EDAX, NON AQUILO IMPOTENS 
 POSSIT DIRUERE, AUT INNUMERABILIS 
 ANNORUM SERIES ET FUGA TEMPORUM. 
 
 HORACE, ODE xxx OF BOOK in.
 
 EXERCISES IN MEMORY OF LEVI COOPER 
 LANE HELD AT LANE HALL OF 
 COOPER MEDICAL COLLEGE ON 
 SUNDAY AFTERNOON THE NINTH 
 DAY OF MARCH IN THE YEAR NINE- 
 TEEN HUNDRED AND TWO 
 
 DR. LEVI COOPER LANE, the founder of Cooper 
 Medical College and of Lane Hospital, and the founder 
 and endower of the Lane Course of Medical Lectures, 
 died in San Francisco at a quarter to eleven o'clock in 
 the evening of the eighteenth day of February, 1902. 
 At two o'clock in the afternoon of the ninth of March 
 following, a large audience assembled at Lane Hall of 
 the College for the purpose of doing honor to his memory, 
 the Hall having been profusely decorated with greenery 
 and flowers appropriate to the occasion. 
 
 The exercises were opened by the rendering of 
 Mozart's " Lacrymosa " by a quartet of mixed voices. 
 DR. HENRY GIBBONS, JR., the Dean of the College, then 
 spoke as follows: 
 
 " Over forty years ago I heard Dr. Lane deliver his 
 first lecture in this city, in the lecture room of the medi- 
 cal department of the University of the Pacific. He
 
 8 INMEMORYOF 
 
 had recently resigned from the Navy, and had spent 
 some time in Europe in study preparatory to accepting 
 the chair of physiology in that college, of which his 
 uncle, Dr. E. S. Cooper, for whom the present college 
 is named, was the leading spirit. My recollection is 
 almost as clear as though it were yesterday a slender 
 man, dressed in the conventional suit of black, much the 
 same as he dressed in all the succeeding years concise 
 in speech, clear and accurate in statement, master of his 
 subject, as he was of everything he undertook. During 
 all the following years I have been proud to call him 
 ' guide, philosopher and friend,' and surely no man had 
 a better. For over thirty years it was my pleasure and 
 profit to be associated with him in the affairs of this 
 medical college and its predecessor; and while others 
 will give a detailed account of his life, his aims and his 
 achievements, I cannot let the opportunity pass without 
 a few personal recollections and a more than willing 
 tribute to the many elements of character that raised 
 him above his fellow men. Dr. Lane was the most 
 indefatigable, painstaking and thorough student I have 
 ever known. There was scarce a field of learning that 
 he had not to some extent explored, and his knowledge 
 was accurate and full. One was often surprised at his 
 wide range of information. Studious habits had been 
 formed in youth. German and French were to him 
 familiar tongues. His knowledge of Latin was scholas- 
 tic. Even late in life it was his custom to read daily a 
 page from some favorite Latin author. His impromptu
 
 LEVI COOPER LANE 9 
 
 thesis, when under examination for the navy was, to 
 the surprise and consternation of his examiners, written 
 in Latin. Remarking once to a surgeon of the navy 
 that Dr. Lane had been in that service, he replied, 
 ' I am well aware of it. It is a tradition in the navy 
 that Dr. Lane passed the best examination of any man 
 who ever entered the service.' 
 
 "For many years Dr. Lane devoted a number of 
 the morning hours to reading, investigation and writing. 
 This employment, together with his professional work, 
 was his business, his occupation, his pleasure, his vaca- 
 tion. He needed nothing outside. A year ago, having 
 suggested a vacation and referred to Coronado as a most 
 restful resort, especially in a mental sense, he replied, 
 f I have never needed recreation to escape work. My 
 work has always been a pleasure to me.' On another 
 occasion he said : f I once wrote eight pages every day ; 
 then I wrote six, then four, then two, then one, and 
 now none.' This told the sad story of his gradually 
 diminishing physical powers, for his mind was as clear 
 and his memory as faithful as ever. It has been a 
 marvel to me that with a far from vigorous physique, 
 he was enabled to accomplish so much. A few months 
 since, referring to a recent work on surgery by Dr. Senn, 
 he remarked that it indicated an immense amount of 
 work. Upon my suggesting that be, Dr. Lane, had 
 also accomplished a great amount of work, he replied, 
 deprecatingly, f Yes, for a man who has never been 
 entirely well. In my childhood,' added he, ' I was
 
 io INMEMORYOF 
 
 .subject to attacks of asthma, and I remember my mother 
 calling me into the house, when running briskly, and 
 saying, "You will pay for this tonight.'" Yet the half 
 is not thus told, for like a stoic he rarely spoke of him- 
 self. Who has heard him complain? Who knew how 
 often with him the mind triumphed over the body ? 
 
 "As a surgeon, Dr. Lane realized his own statement 
 of Sir Astley Cooper, that he never operated on an im- 
 portant case without previously performing the operation 
 on the cadaver. Having a fine memory, this assisted in 
 making him an accurate and thorough anatomist. In 
 his knowledge of these two branches he had not his 
 superior on this Coast, and I doubt if he had his equal. 
 He was easily the best read surgeon. As an operator 
 he was competent for any undertaking resourceful to 
 a degree, and with that admirable courage and self-com- 
 mand that comes of perfect knowledge. Dr. Lane's 
 interest in medical education was persistent and untiring. 
 For at least a decade he had in contemplation the 
 endowment of a college, and I look upon it as one of 
 the most remarkable features of his character that through 
 these years he could have bent his energies to the accu- 
 mulation of means for that purpose, have matured all 
 plans and even erected the building without the knowl- 
 edge of his colleagues that he had such a plan in con- 
 templation. This was characteristic of the man. He 
 was absolutely without ostentation ; free from all desire 
 of parade or display. 
 
 " Dr. Lane was as great in his declining days as in his
 
 LEVI COOPER LANE u 
 
 prime. In the days of his greatest activity the necessity 
 of economizing time in consequence of his very large 
 practice had imparted a certain brusqueness of manner, 
 almost a necessity in the transaction of much business. 
 And yet in all my experience I never saw him hurried ; 
 I never saw him excited; I never heard him raise his 
 voice. His manner was uniformly calm, dignified and 
 impressive, indicative of great reserve force. His deci- 
 sion was remarkable. There was no wavering. A col- 
 league said that he could say f no ' more easily than any 
 man he ever knew. And yet he was never obstinate. 
 No man could have been more reasonable. But now, 
 as he withdrew from more active work, a lessening con- 
 tact with the world and a greater leisure softened his 
 sharp decision and replaced it with a more indulgent 
 humor, a more genial spirit, and a more reminiscent mood. 
 " Thus my years of close association with Dr. Lane 
 have shown him to be a man of vigorous and untiring 
 intellect and high attainments ; of sturdy, upright char- 
 acter, rigid in his ideas of right, noble in his aspira- 
 tions, wise in counsel, clear in prevision, prompt and 
 decisive in judgment, steadfast in purpose, firm and 
 unyielding in action, and withal modest and unostenta- 
 tious, as becomes a wise man. These are attributes of 
 greatness, and like Hamlet I say, with all my heart, 
 
 " ' He was a man, take him for all in all, 
 I shall not look upon his like again.' 
 
 " No memorial column reared in some city of the 
 dead shall mark his final resting-place for a time, then
 
 iz INMEMORYOF 
 
 crumble into dust and be forgotten, but these stately 
 edifices, which through his energy, self-denial and munifi- 
 cence have been erected for the stimulation and better- 
 ment of the noblest of professions and the better care 
 of the sick ; the lecture courses that he has inaugurated ; 
 and above all, the grand example of a useful, well-spent 
 life these will be his monuments more enduring than 
 marble. 
 
 "Peace be unto his ashes! His spirit has risen 
 with the immortals." 
 
 At the conclusion of Dr. Gibbons's introductory, 
 MR. WILLIAM FORD BLAKE of the class of 1902 spoke 
 on behalf of the students of the college as follows: 
 
 "It is eminently gratifying to us as students to be 
 able on this occasion to give some expression of our 
 sorrow over the passing of this great man. His death 
 has been a common bereavement to us all, and we deem 
 it a privilege to offer our tribute of admiration and affec- 
 tion to his memory. 
 
 " It has not been our good fortune to know him 
 intimately, to feel the inspiration that comes with close 
 association with so great a man. Nor has it been our 
 good fortune to enjoy that gentle fatherly guidance in the 
 class room that our predecessors in these halls received 
 from him and hold in affectionate memory. 
 
 " It has rather been our painful experience to see 
 him gradually failing with the passing months, to realize
 
 LEVI COOPER LANE 13 
 
 that his physical strength, so incommensurate with his 
 vigorous mind, was slowly raising a barrier between him 
 and us. 
 
 " But while we have seldom had the opportunity 
 of seeing him in the operating room or of listening to 
 him from the benches, we have known that his thoughts 
 were with us, that his interest in our welfare never flagged. 
 
 " We were ever present in his life, in his plans, and 
 our success and our development into honored members 
 of his noble profession were ideals he hoped we might 
 attain. 
 
 " What a monument he has raised to his memory ! 
 What an example of self-abnegation and self-sacrifice is 
 this college with its hospital, its laboratories, its library 
 and the ground on which it stands! 
 
 "When we stop to think of all he has done for us, 
 how throughout a lifetime he has worked untiringly that 
 this heritage might be ours, our appreciation of the great- 
 ness of the man becomes a real presence to us, our obli- 
 gation surges upon us, and our hearts go out to him as a 
 child's to an indulgent parent. 
 
 " It pleases us to think that it was for us and for the 
 advancement of his profession that all this has been done, 
 that our success and the futherance of his noble work was 
 the labor of love to which he devoted the energies of a 
 lifetime. It pleases us to think that he received us into 
 his presence as his children, that he took us at that form- 
 ative stage in our lives when by his example and his 
 teachings he could mold us as he would have us grow.
 
 H INMEMORYOF 
 
 " Had Dr. Lane left us no other remembrance than 
 that of a life nobly planned and successfully carried to a 
 glorious end, his example should have proved a stimulus 
 to each one of us. But, when in addition to this, he has 
 left to us all the fruits of his life's work, then his precepts 
 become a sacred duty, his example a moral obligation. 
 
 "As we have honored and loved him while he was 
 yet with us, as we looked upon him then as a public bene- 
 factor and as a foster parent who had received us into the 
 circle of his affection, now when the sense of our loss is 
 heavy upon us, we appreciate as never before the splendid 
 manhood and scholarly attainments that won for him a 
 place of pre-eminence among his colleagues, and we realize 
 as never before the tender paternal feelings he bore us 
 and the noble motives that actuated his life." 
 
 DR. CHESTER ROWELL was to have spoken on be- 
 half of the alumni of the college but was unavoidably 
 detained at his home in Fresno. Could he have been 
 present he would have made the following remarks: 
 
 "As one of the early graduates of the parent school 
 of Cooper Medical College and in behalf of the alumni, I 
 offer a word of tribute to the memory of Dr. Lane. The 
 occasion is not one for expression of grief, for death came 
 to him calmly in ripe old age, his life's work accomplished, 
 his ambitions satisfied, his hopes realized. His physical 
 body, grown old by years of labor, no longer served the 
 purposes of an intellect that never tired even to the end.
 
 LEVI COOPER LANE 15 
 
 He went to sleep. His body was cremated in accord- 
 ance with his wish and in approval of this method of 
 disposing of the dead. His intellect, bright and un- 
 wavering till the moment of dissolution, still lives in these 
 noble educational monuments dedicated to medical science 
 and the healing arts, lives in the record of his work, in 
 the lasting impression of his teaching upon the many who 
 have been his students, and in the silent but most im- 
 portant influence of his example upon all who knew him, 
 and upon the profession at large. 
 
 "He was the friend of every student who manifested 
 the spirit of the true physician and sought knowledge for 
 its beneficient rather than its selfish uses. He was the 
 associate, adviser and defender of every physician, how- 
 ever deficient or unfortunate, who gave to his work his 
 best efforts with pride in his profession and an unselfish 
 desire to help his patients rather than himself. Yet, 
 while he led gently, guided wisely, judged charitably, 
 dealt kindly, his dislikes were as intense as his friendships 
 were strong, and he frowned upon the student who dedi- 
 cated but half his soul to the profession he proposed to 
 enter, as he spurned the physician who selfishly betrayed 
 his brother physician. His example was one of lofty 
 devotion to pure science and high art as exemplified in 
 his profession, tempered by that most human of all human 
 impulses, a feeling of charity for the unfortunate and of 
 interest in the welfare of humanity. He said to me, after 
 an operation, which, at the time was marvellous in its re- 
 sults, ' The patient got well, that is pay enough.'
 
 16 INMEMORYOF 
 
 He added, ' Whoever wants my surgery may have it, 
 whether they have money or not.' He was charitable. 
 Every day of his long life of labor he did something for 
 the afflicted with no thought of a money recompense. 
 He recognized his obligations to the poor as he recog- 
 nized his obligations to deal fairly with, as well as treat 
 properly, every patient. His charities were a part of his 
 every-day work. Upon every student and upon every 
 class he impressed the obligation to deal honorably with 
 patients and to be kind to the poor. He was solicitous 
 for the character and the welfare of his graduates long 
 after they left the lecture halls, and felt keenly every evi- 
 dence of their successes or failures. He entrusted the 
 reputation of the school he had builded to its graduates, 
 and he cherished the good will and kind remembrance of 
 those graduates as much as his reputation in the profession 
 at large. 
 
 "These were some of the personal characteristics that 
 attracted students no less than his great skill and wonder- 
 ful knowledge, and for these he will be remembered by 
 the alumni. His generous endowment of this school 
 and hospital for medical education will remain his visible 
 monument, constantly reminding his successors of the 
 names and the work of his venerated uncle, Elias Cooper, 
 and his own. His contributions to surgical knowledge 
 are the property of the profession. His teaching, his in- 
 fluence, his cherished memory, are his legacy to the 
 alumni."
 
 LEVI COOPER LANE 17 
 
 Following MR. BLAKE'S address, Mendelssohn's 
 anthem/' Be Thou Faithful unto Me," was sung as a tenor 
 solo, after which, on behalf of the Faculty, DR. C. N. 
 ELLINWOOD, President of the College in succession to 
 DR. LANE, delivered the following address : 
 
 " The guiding hand of the master has gone from us ! 
 
 " Our kindly counselor, arbiter and ultimate referee 
 in all our perplexities is no longer here ! 
 
 "Sad, indeed, are these days when we have to part 
 fellowship with Dr. Levi Cooper Lane a good man, a 
 great man, whose noble heart lovingly embraced the 
 universe, the mysteries of which it was given his pene- 
 trating vision largely to see. 
 
 "In speaking of Dr. Lane I shall speak of him as 
 we, his co-workers and his college faculty, knew him 
 in his daily work, in his life work, in his singleness of 
 purpose, in his exalted ambition for the advancement 
 of medical education and the welfare of human life, and 
 finally, I shall speak of his achievements. 
 
 "In essaying an analysis of his strong character we 
 note his early associations with kindly and gentle kins- 
 folk, in sympathy with all goodness, honesty and manly 
 uprightness, maturing in him a supreme love for truth 
 and justice which has grown stronger and deeper as his 
 horizon expanded in his added years of thought and 
 experience. 
 
 " His great attainments as a scholar, as a scientist 
 and surgeon ; his achievements of distinction in all these
 
 i8 INMEMORYOF 
 
 and also in the practice of his profession, brought him 
 rewards which enabled him to do what his beneficent 
 inspiration prompted, the founding of a great school of 
 medical education for the improvement of his loved 
 profession and the good of his fellow men. 
 
 " The exacting conditions of his early life, imposed 
 upon a youth of extraordinary mold, developed a man 
 of great courage, self-reliance and strong will. 
 
 " He could fight like a lion for the oppressed and 
 never surrender to wrong. 
 
 " Apparently insurmountable obstacles in his early 
 education were overcome by industry, careful economy, 
 self-denial, a well disciplined mind and an unswerving 
 purpose to get an education and to do what he planned 
 to do. 
 
 " LEVI COOPER LANE 
 
 Was born in Ohio, on a farm thirty-four miles north of 
 Cincinnati, May 9, 1830. His grandparents were Jesse 
 Lane, born in North Carolina; Hannah Huddeston 
 Lane, born in Nantucket, Mass. ; Jacob Cooper, born 
 in South Carolina; Elizabeth Walls Cooper, born in 
 South Carolina : all orthodox Quakers. His parents 
 were Ira Lane, born in North Carolina in 1803; Hannah 
 Cooper, born in Ohio in 1811. They were married in 
 Friends' Meeting (Quakers), West Eberton, Ohio, in 
 June, 1829. Their first-born was called Levi, Biblical 
 names being common in the family and usual among the 
 Quakers. He had two homes in his childhood, being 
 nurtured and cherished by his grandparents as well as
 
 LEVI COOPER LANE 19 
 
 by his parents, and his childhood and youth would seem 
 to have been divided between the two. 
 
 " His early education was chiefly in private, being 
 taught by his mother, but chiefly by his aunt, Ruth 
 Cooper, who is yet living at the age of 85, with a heart 
 full of affection and tender reminiscences of her nephew 
 and pupil. Later he worked on his father's and his 
 grandfather's farms and attended the common district 
 schools. At the age of 16 he became a teacher and 
 taught in the district schools of Butler County, Ohio, 
 during three years. 
 
 " All through these years of childhood and youth his 
 uncle, Jacob Cooper, a few months younger than himself, 
 was his close companion and loving friend. They were 
 playmates and schoolmates ; both nurtured by the same 
 kindly parents and exacting circumstances, both became 
 great students, and the uncle, Jacob Cooper, is now and 
 has been for many years a professor distinguished for his 
 learning in Rutgers College, New Jersey. It is to his 
 affectionate and painstaking care that we are indebted for 
 these details in Dr. Lane's biography. 
 
 "After teaching three years the young man of 16, 
 Levi Lane, began his college training in the spring of 
 1 847 by a six months' course at Farmer's College, for- 
 merly called Gary's Academy, and, secondly, after an 
 interval, six months at Union College, Schenectady, 
 N. Y., in the autumn and winter of 1849-50, where he 
 boarded himself and lived on twenty-five cents per week, 
 but paid his college bills. Union College subsequently
 
 20 INMEMORYOF 
 
 gave him the Master of Arts degree, and in 1877 con- 
 ferred on him, with pride, the honorable distinction of 
 LL. D., Doctor of Laws. 
 
 " HIS MEDICAL EDUCATION 
 
 "As was the custom in those days, Dr. Lane com- 
 menced his medical education by reading medicine with 
 his two uncles, Drs. Esaias and Elias Samuel Cooper, as 
 preceptors, and later he entered Jefferson Medical Col- 
 lege in Philadelphia, where he studied one year and 
 graduated there M. D. in March, 1851, and in the same 
 year he was appointed an interne or resident physician in 
 the large New York State Hospital on Wards Island, 
 where he remained an earnest worker with his hands and 
 brain four years, until 1855, wnen ne entered a competi- 
 tive examination with thirty-one others for the position 
 of assistant surgeon in the United States navy. He 
 passed the examinations higher than any of his competitors 
 and secured the appointment which he held four years. 
 
 " During this time, the ship to which he was assigned 
 cruised in many waters, and on one of its voyages to 
 Europe and in the North Sea Dr. Lane obtained a fur- 
 lough and passed two months in study at the University 
 of Gottingen. He pursued his studies in medicine and 
 surgery with unremitting vigor while in the navy, and 
 continued, as a recreation, the study of the Latin and 
 Greek in which he became thoroughly proficient. He 
 also taught himself the German, French, Spanish and 
 Italian, in all of which he became able not only to read
 
 LEVI COOPER LANE 21 
 
 and write these tongues, but had a ready command of 
 them in speaking. 
 
 ADVENT IN SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 "In the year 1861 Dr. Lane having resigned from 
 the navy was induced by his uncle, Dr. Elias S. Cooper, 
 to join him here in the practice of his profession, in teach- 
 ing in his medical school which he had already started as 
 early as 1 858, the first medical school on the Pacific Coast, 
 and also aid him in editing the journal of medicine 
 which he was then publishing, 'The Medical Press. 
 
 "Dr. Lane became thoroughly identified in spirit 
 and action with his uncle; he rendered him the most 
 efficient aid. He gave him his confidence and love and 
 received in return all that a rich, warm and energetic 
 nature could bestow. 
 
 "This cordial and mutually helpful relation con- 
 tinued until broken by the early death of Dr. Cooper on 
 October 13, 1862, and since that premature severance of 
 these bands, Dr. Lane has followed up the memory of 
 his uncle with superhuman zeal and affection. 
 
 " Opportunity was there ! and Dr. Lane was there ! 
 with all fitness and capacity for the arduous work before 
 him. 
 
 " Early in the year 1875 Dr. Lane, ever thirsting for 
 all the knowledge to be obtained in his profession, deter- 
 mined to further pursue his studies in the great centers of 
 learning in Europe, and taking his wife, his helpmate then 
 and always the devoted sharer in all his aspirations, he visi-
 
 22 INMEMORYOF 
 
 ted London, Edinburg, Paris, Vienna and Berlin, spending 
 two years more in diligent student work. After some 
 months, in attendance upon the college courses in Lon- 
 don, he was granted the M. R. C. S., England, and won 
 many warm friends among the then distinguished profes- 
 sors of the schools. In Berlin he regularly matriculated 
 as a medical student at that great university, and after six 
 months' instruction in its laboratories, clinics and hospi- 
 tals, he passed the examinations and received the doctor 
 of medicine degree, Summa Cum Honor <?, the highest grade 
 of the university, which carries with it the remission of 
 all fees, a most unusual thing, especially in the case of a 
 foreigner. 
 
 "Thus honored abroad and with a mind enriched 
 by study and association with the greatest men in medical 
 science and literature of the world, Dr. Lane returned to 
 his home and to his fixed purpose of building up, on a 
 broad foundation, a great medical institution. In 1880 
 architect's plans were matured and without public an- 
 nouncement, with no ostentation, the foundations were 
 laid and the superstructure gradually grew, a great mystery 
 at first to the people of this city as to its intended uses. 
 Later, on suspicion of a hospital being located here on 
 its present site, hostility was excited among many of the 
 residents in the neighborhood whose ignorance of the 
 nature of hospitals and absurd prejudices led them to 
 many acts of opposition by court proceedings and even 
 by threats of personal violence against Dr. Lane. 
 
 " He was undaunted by their hostility, moved on
 
 LEVI COOPER LANE 23 
 
 in true American fashion with his work in the most dip- 
 lomatic way until his enemies were subdued, intelligence 
 succeeded ignorance, and all were satisfied, and Lane 
 Hospital is a great acquisition to Cooper Medical College. 
 
 "And so it was that the medical department of the 
 Pacific College of Letters, which slumbered for a time 
 after the death of Dr. Cooper, was reorganized and re- 
 vived by Dr. Lane and his co-workers, passed through 
 some vicissitudes, changed in name and affiliations, progress 
 in methods and its sphere of influence, its successor was 
 finally created and announced to the world in 1882, en- 
 dowed by this magnificent property purchased and erected 
 solely by the munificence of Dr. Lane and named by 
 him, in grateful remembrance of his uncle, Cooper Medical 
 College and dedicated to medicine. May God grant it 
 all perpetuity, as a living monument to Levi Cooper Lane, 
 an ever teaching memorial to the great soul of its founder 
 who breathed into it his breath of life, his legacy to medi- 
 cal education, his boon to mankind ! 
 
 " Subsequent to the original foundation this annex to 
 the college building was erected containing this auditorium 
 called Lane Hall and laboratories and class rooms above, 
 and finally Dr. Lane added another grand gift to the 
 institution, as a part of the original endowment, the Lane 
 Hospital, which was opened to the public and dedicated 
 to the relief of human suffering in the year 1894. 
 
 "To the work of the hospital and the college Dr. 
 Lane devoted the last busy years of his life. 
 
 " His well earned fame and skill as a surgeon and
 
 24 INMEMORYOF 
 
 teacher have richly endowed the college with distinction 
 among the educational institutions of the land. 
 
 " His methods were simple and direct with clear-cut 
 precision in everything. He devised many original opera- 
 tions in surgery, always seeking the best ways of perfect- 
 ing the surgeon's art. Medical literature of the past 
 thirty-five years has recorded his achievements in this 
 regard, and the many young men, his pupils and assist- 
 ants, hold in grateful memory his teachings and his 
 example. 
 
 "The latest endowment to Cooper Medical College 
 made by Dr. Lane was the munificent fund which he 
 provided for the perpetual maintenance of the annual 
 course of the Lane medical lectures, a yearly course of 
 instruction by some eminent authority annually selected 
 for his noted ability in some department of medical science. 
 The practical utility of such teaching strongly appealed 
 to the founder, after many years of experience and obser- 
 vation in the methods of medical schools, as aiding the 
 alumni in persistent study and progress after entering 
 upon the active duties of practice. 
 
 "This idea and plan of instruction was entirely 
 original with Dr. Lane, and ;so far as I know Cooper 
 College is the; only school which has this beneficent 
 endowment. 
 
 " The purpose of the course is to bring from any 
 part of the world the best equipped instructor in some 
 department of medicine for a brief term each year as an 
 addition or supplement to the ordinary courses given in
 
 LEVI COOPER LANE 25 
 
 Cooper College for the benefit of the classes of students 
 yet in regular attendance, its undergraduates and also for 
 its alumni who are annually invited to this feast of knowl- 
 edge offered by their Alma Mater. And also the mem- 
 bers of the profession at large are cordially welcomed to 
 partake of these great opportunities. 
 
 "It is now six years since this course was inaugurated 
 and the busy practitioner from all parts of the Pacific 
 States has derived great pleasure and advantage by at- 
 tendance upon this instruction. By its opportunity the 
 average man is brought into direct relations with the 
 extraordinary man, old fallacies are removed by exact 
 observations, and rational medicine is made to supplant 
 empiricism. 
 
 "The success of this method of disseminating 
 advanced knowledge among practitioners of medicine 
 evinces the genius of Dr. Lane and merits the enduring 
 gratitude of the profession. 
 
 " Dr. Lane lived to see the fruition of his work. 
 Year after year he observed with great interest the going 
 out from these halls of large accessions to the medical 
 profession. He remembered the individual graduate 
 with remarkable acuteness and followed his career with 
 personal concern. Their success delighted him and he 
 never wearied in well doing in their behalf. 
 
 "His relations to the faculty of the college were 
 singularly harmonious. His self-sacrificing devotion to 
 duty and earnest, conscientious ways in everything com- 
 manded the respect and admiration of all his associates ;
 
 26 INMEMORYOF 
 
 his example was our ideal, his conclusions were our 
 authority, his ways were our ways. 
 
 " His unselfish and magnanimous character has been 
 given form and expression in the institution which he 
 created and merits to endure while human sympathy lasts. 
 
 "The Rev. Dr. Horatio Stebbins, learning of Dr. 
 Lane's fatal illness, pays him this tribute in a letter re- 
 ceived here on the day of his death: * Dr. Lane, gentle- 
 man, scientific man, scholar, philanthropist : If he is able 
 to receive it tell him of my sincere sympathy and cordial 
 respect.' 
 
 " It has been given to but few men to be great, to 
 be great as Dr. Lane was great, to be the means in such 
 eminent degree of progress in the development of that 
 knowledge which saves human life and diminishes human 
 suffering. 
 
 " Medical science, medical men and all humanity are 
 bettered by the life of Dr. Lane. 
 
 "A few short weeks ago he realized that his end was 
 near, that his work was finished, and in an unrestrained 
 conversation he told me that his every wish and purpose 
 had been gratified and he was content. 
 
 " He could see of the travail of his soul and be 
 satisfied." 
 
 Schubert's "Great is Jehovah " was then sung by a 
 double quartet ot mixed voices, after which DR. ED- 
 WARD R. TAYLOR, Vice-President of the College, pro-
 
 LEVI COOPER LANE 27 
 
 nounced the following eulogy upon " Dr. Lane as Sur- 
 geon and Man": 
 
 " We are most worthily gathered together, for we are 
 here to commemorate, as far as an occasion of this kind 
 may serve to do so, the life and services of a man who 
 deservedly won our admiration and love ; a man who 
 was one of the pioneers of medical teaching in this State, 
 and who, from the early sixties till within little more 
 than a year ago, was, with but few interruptions, industri- 
 ously and lovingly engaged in that teaching ; a man who, 
 for more than forty years in this State, so devoted his 
 great abilities to surgery and medicine that at the time of 
 his death his was the most luminous name in Californian 
 medicine ; a man who produced a great work on surgery ; 
 a man who founded a medical college and hospital, and 
 who, from the resources accumulated from his practice, 
 caused to be constructed for them imposing piles of 
 buildings of architectural suitableness and beauty ; a 
 man of great scientific endowment, of learning in many 
 directions, of wide and deep acquisition, acquainted with 
 the best in literature; cultured, refined and noble; a man 
 who has, at his own expense, brought to us from time to 
 time some of the very leading men in England and 
 America to deliver courses of lectures on their particular 
 specialties, and who has provided an endowment whereby 
 such courses can be perpetually maintained ; such a man, 
 and more, are we here to commemorate. 
 
 " While we are thus engaged may his spirit vouchsafe
 
 28 INMEMORYOF 
 
 to hover over us ; may it fill us with something of his 
 own nobleness of aspiration ; something of his own 
 purity of unsordidness ; something of his own feeling for 
 the betterment of man. If this should come to pass, 
 then, indeed, will these services be consecrate ; then, 
 indeed, will this hall and all the hearts that beat within it 
 vibrate to the harmony of religion's own music. 
 
 "From what you have heard to-day of Dr. Lane's 
 life, how consistent it all seems and how natural ! You 
 have seen how broad and deep he laid his foundations, 
 and what noble superstructure he raised upon them ; 
 you have seen how carefully, yet surely, he proceeded 
 from step to step, never once falling back, and never 
 once losing heart or courage ; and you have also seen, 
 and have doubtless taken the lesson deeply to heart, 
 what great things can be done by ceaseless industry 
 coupled with undeviating concentration of effort. 
 
 " While Dr. Lane was physician as well as surgeon, 
 yet it is as the latter that he is best known, and properly 
 so, for this was the field wherein he reaped his richest har- 
 vests. And, in very truth, if ever man was born to be a 
 surgeon, our friend was that man. By nature he lacked 
 no quality necessary for the office, and to that he added 
 an acquisition which furnished him with equipment little 
 short of extraordinary. From his first entrance into 
 medicine until past his meridian he persistently dissected 
 the dead body, until he became so familiar with every 
 part of it that not even its darkest corner was hidden
 
 LEVI COOPER LANE 29 
 
 from his eye. He knew the processes and surfaces and 
 curves of every one of its bones, their relation to each 
 other, and to tendons, ligaments, muscles, vessels and 
 nerves ; he knew every foramina and what passed 
 through them ; he could visualize every organ and 
 muscle of the body and their relations respectively to 
 each other ; he could follow each artery, vein and nerve 
 through its entire track, and at every point of that track 
 see with the utmost clearness what stood in relation to it. 
 And yet, even in the times when he had attained to 
 nearly his greatest accuracy of anatomical knowledge, he 
 scarcely ever performed an important operation until he 
 had first dissected on the dead body the parts to be sub- 
 mitted to his surgical knife. In this, as in all things 
 else, he took no chances. Never in all his life did he 
 undertake a task short of the most complete prepared- 
 ness. It hence followed that in operating he had the 
 reliance not only of his natural courage and skill, 
 but of that which comes of fullness of knowledge, and 
 that no emergency could possibly arise which he could 
 not at once successfully meet. Many a time in his 
 hospital practice would he make a demonstration of 
 anatomy as he proceeded in the operation, pointing out 
 from time to time what lay beneath the point of his 
 knife. He never hurried ; was always cool and collected ; 
 never cut twice where once would do ; never bungled, 
 and was graceful and dexterous at every step. In 
 removing a malignant growth he cut with a wide margin 
 and was careful to see that every affected gland in the
 
 3 
 
 N MEMORY OF 
 
 neighborhood was taken away. He saved all the loss of 
 blood possible ; and in his later years he effectually 
 brought this about by ligating the principal artery that 
 led to the part to be excised. In this way he amputated 
 as vascular an organ as the tongue with scarcely any 
 loss of blood by tying the lingual artery before he began 
 the amputation. In plastic surgery he was not only an 
 adept, but original, as will be seen by his treatment of 
 that subject in his surgical book ; while in the great field 
 of fractures it is doubtful if he ever had a superior. He 
 never recommended an operation in what he conceived 
 to be a hopeless case, or except he felt, after careful 
 thought, a reasonable assurance that the knife was the 
 last resource. He was anxiously solicitous as to the 
 after-treatment, and never, except under exceptional 
 circumstances, left it to another. 
 
 " He was learned in both physiology and pathology, 
 and to the end that he might become so he attended the 
 lectures of the French savants, walked the leading hospitals 
 of Europe, attended the lectures of Huxley, and worked 
 in the laboratory of the great Virchow, who, in his venera- 
 bility of age, still remembers his pupil of old and the 
 untiring assiduity of his labors. At Berlin he was given 
 the degree of Doctor of Medicine, and in England was 
 made a member of the Royal College of Surgeons. 
 
 " With all the preparedness that came after years of 
 toil in his own and foreign countries toil that covered not 
 only the theoretical but the practical he began to devote 
 some hours each day to the collation of notes as a basis
 
 LEVI COOPER LANE 31 
 
 for a monumental work on surgery. It was his intention 
 to treat first of the head and neck, then of the thorax, 
 then of the abdomen, and finally of the extremities. 
 For ten years he methodically pursued this labor. It 
 took him just that long to collect and prepare his notes 
 for the first part of his work ; but not until they were 
 complete did he begin the task of literary composition. 
 The result was his monumental work entitled " Surgery 
 of the Head and Neck." This is embodied in a large 
 octavo volume consisting of 1,166 pages, and is exhaust- 
 ive of the surgery of that region of the body. As 
 might be expected from the nature of his mind and from 
 the course of his preliminary education, the style of this 
 book is lucid and elegant ; and it might also be expected, 
 as is the case, that the ancients of medicine would be 
 drawn upon by way of elucidation and illustration. He 
 left no field unexplored, either old or new, and the com- 
 position is so good in literary art, and the matter so 
 interesting and clear, that an educated layman can 
 open the book almost anywhere and become interested 
 at once in the page that meets his eye. He had col- 
 lated some notes for that part of the work to be devoted 
 to the thorax, but illness supervened, and brain and 
 hand refused longer to do his bidding. 
 
 "Dr. Lane was a man of character. Character is 
 beyond all definition, but when one possesses it, it 
 shines in that one so distinctly, so luminously, that there 
 is no mistaking it for something else, So true is this
 
 3 z INMEMORYOF 
 
 that all counterfeited simulations of it are of no avail; 
 and this because it is immovably based on the rock of 
 righteousness, lifting its head to the very heavens, 
 unshaken by any storm of adversity and untainted by 
 any breeze of prosperity. 
 
 " The Star of Duty ever lighted his way, and on that 
 star he kept his eye at every step of his life. No cir- 
 cuities, no deviations were his, no idling in the by-paths 
 of pleasure. Straight on he walked, no matter what 
 hap might be, discharging to the utmost the task that 
 lay at hand, and leaving it not till accomplishment was 
 complete. 
 
 " Into his work he put not only his hand and head, 
 but his heart as well. No task that he undertook was 
 perfunctorily done ; his love was in it, and that love 
 gave it sublimity of life. Nor could he look upon 
 anything as trivial that fell to his hand to do. Serious- 
 ness was so ingrained in his mental fiber that tempera- 
 mentally every task was, in his view, important and could 
 not be treated otherwise. This is not to say that he had 
 no sense of proportion, but it is to say that to him life 
 in all its relations was of such transcendent importance 
 that not one of his own relations to it could be slighted 
 or scamped. His every surgical operation was pondered 
 deeply by him before he took his knife in hand, and by 
 the side of the patient he stood as one anointed. Full- 
 ness of knowledge did not make him bold, but cautious, 
 rather ; yet so courageous and so well equipped was he 
 that to those who knew him it was simply unthinkable
 
 LEV I COOPER LANE 33 
 
 that any emergency could arise during the course of the 
 operation with which he could not at once irresistibly 
 and successfully deal. He had the highest respect for 
 the human body merely as a body, and in all operations, 
 and in dissections even, he paid it that respect which he 
 deemed to be its due. No word of levity on such occa- 
 sions ever escaped him, but all that he did was pervaded 
 with a dignity which almost verged on the ceremonious. 
 Indeed, he bore his dignity with him as a surrounding 
 atmosphere. He was never stiff or formal, but there 
 was a certain aloofness which not only did not tempt, but 
 rather repelled, undue familiarity. Yet he was suscepti- 
 ble to the incitements of wit and humor, and was as fond 
 of a quiet laugh as any one. And though his demeanor 
 was sober, and one might say not at all demonstrative, 
 to his friends and acquaintances it was never less than 
 charming. He betrayed his feelings, it is true, by words, 
 no less than by acts, but by words that were few and 
 measured, and back of which there was an immaculate- 
 ness of sincerity never surpassed. If sincerity be, as 
 Carlyle says it is, chiefest of human qualities, then 
 our friend was inestimably endowed ; for he was sincere 
 from the centre to the outermost rim of his being. No 
 diplomatic or other concealments were his. To be sure, 
 he was wisely reticent about his important undertakings, 
 and shrank from obtruding his own personality ; but 
 when his feelings or opinions were properly challenged, 
 they responded with a courage and truth that even the 
 blind and deaf might see and hear. He was, hence, as well
 
 34 
 
 IN MEMORY OF 
 
 might be supposed, a man who had no sympathy with 
 compromises. He could not but be, from the nature of 
 his organic structure, unequivocally one thing or its 
 opposite. It would have been impossible for him to 
 run with the hare and at the same time to hunt with the 
 hounds, or to smile before a man's face and frown when 
 that man's back was turned. Those who were at all 
 acquainted with him knew full well that back of his 
 every word and deed sat Truth enthroned in all the 
 transplendence of her flawless purity. 
 
 "It follows from all this that in matters of friendship 
 he was a devotee. The friends he had and their adop- 
 tion tried, he grappled to his soul with hooks of steel. 
 It really seemed that in his estimation his friend could 
 do no wrong, and that what his friend did was better 
 done than any one else could by possibility do. This 
 devotion, this almost religious loyalty to his friends, was 
 so great, so deep, that those who fell under the influence 
 of its graciousness will ever hold it as among the richest 
 of their treasures and far beyond all power of language 
 to express. 
 
 " In all his life he leaned on no one, but was 
 completely and entirely self-reliant and self-possessed. 
 Nothing daunted him, nothing opposed him he did not 
 overcome. Up and up he went, no matter how rough 
 the way or steep the ascent, until he stood upon his 
 chosen peak, triumphant ; and there he fell, with Death 
 alone his conqueror. He grew up on the open prairie, 
 and as a doctor, night as well as day, he dared its then
 
 LEVI COOPER LANE 35 
 
 almost trackless paths to reach the side of some sufferer. 
 His was one of those exceptional natures whose own 
 well of strength furnishes all that is necessary to great 
 achievement. 
 
 " His conversation was a satisfying pleasure to all who 
 were brought within the sphere of its influence. He had 
 drank deep of the classics, he was acquainted with much 
 that was best in various literatures, he had traveled in 
 many countries and always with an observant eye that 
 delighted in the beauty of natural aspects, and he had 
 served as an officer in the navy for four years. The 
 knowledge and experiences thus gained furnished him with 
 a superabundance of material for conversation, all of which 
 he used with rare discrimination and remarkable felicity. 
 He never talked for the mere sake of talking, and he was 
 a good listener when others talked, but what he said was 
 interesting and to the purpose and was frequently drawn 
 from the seemingly exhaustless stores of his memory. 
 In fact, his memory remained with him to the very last, 
 not alone his memory of past events, but his memory as 
 well of passages from favorite authors. Scientific man 
 though he was, he had no patience with the educational 
 clamor against the classics and in favor of science. He 
 knew well enough that from the classics as from a welling 
 fountain had flowed the streams which had so fed every 
 literature that those literatures are to a great extent non- 
 understandable without a knowledge of the classics ; he 
 knew well enough that man cannot live on science alone, 
 dealing as it does almost entirely with externalities, and
 
 36 INMEMORYOF 
 
 that if he is to be truly nourished he must look to the 
 food which will feed his soul ; he knew well enough that 
 exclusive devotion to science would cause the best springs 
 of being to run dry, with the almost sure result of arrest 
 or distortion of development; he knew well enough that 
 while facts and their relations to each other with their gov- 
 erning laws are necessary to be ascertained, co-ordinated 
 and made useful, yet that ideals are not to be found there, 
 nor religion at its deepest, nor those aspirations which at 
 times make us as the very Gods themselves ; he felt that 
 all these spiritualities lay at the very core of being, while 
 facts and their relations lay only at its circumference ; and 
 he likewise felt that while science can measurably explain 
 our environment, and can indeed do much to change it 
 (and how miraculous her achievements !), yet that within 
 its environment each soul must work out its own salvation, 
 and that by no external mechanism merely can man ever 
 hope to be saved. Thus it was that he valued the Past 
 while at the same time knowing and feeling that the 
 golden opportunity for each of us is the Present. Full 
 well he knew that to tear up the Past would be to obliterate 
 the Present, and that every flower now growing sends its 
 roots deep down to the nourishing grave of a flower that was. 
 This intelligent love of the Past led him to find valuable 
 suggestions in the medical works of Hippocrates, Celsus 
 and others, and to keep him to the old practice of bleed- 
 ing in some of the cases not now usually thought to need 
 such remedy. And this it was that led him to view with 
 impatience the scholastic efforts to a supposed better
 
 LEVI COOPER LANE 37 
 
 translation of the Bible. He loyally adhered to the 
 King James version, that incomparable work of the 
 incomparable Elizabethans, and he would have none 
 other. 
 
 " He was not only accomplished in the Latin and 
 Greek, some of which when in health he read nearly 
 every day, but he was a French and German scholar, read- 
 ing and speaking both with facility, and he had considerable 
 acquaintance with the Spanish and Italian. Yet none of 
 these linguistics ever stood in the way of his keeping 
 abreast of medical and surgical progress. He took and 
 read the leading American, English, German and French 
 periodicals, and made copious notes from them when 
 working on his f Surgery of the Head and Neck.' 
 
 " He was well read in the American and European 
 literatures, but in this, as in everything else, he showed 
 the most distinguishing trait of his character concentra- 
 tion of effort. He never scattered in anything. Hence 
 his reading was multum and not multa. Only the master- 
 pieces he really cared intensely for, and with these he had 
 a familiar acquaintance. The Iliad was to him a perpet- 
 ual delight, and although he could follow it in the original, 
 he took great interest in reading its many English trans- 
 lations and in comparing the one with the other in the 
 rendering of admired passages. The same may be said of 
 Dante's ' Divine Comedy,' of Moliere's plays, and of 
 Goethe's f Faust. ' As for the dramas of Shakespeare, he 
 knew much of them by heart, and not long before his taking 
 offhe repeated long passages from them, and in one instance
 
 3 8 INMEMORYOF 
 
 corrected the misquotation of a friend. He cared greatly 
 for Heine, but most of all apparently because of that 
 wonderful man's penetrating appreciation of Shakespeare. 
 Horace was his favorite among the Latins; he had some 
 rare and interesting editions of that poet, and the best 
 things in him he knew by heart. Indeed, outside of 
 Shakespeare, Horace seemed to be his nearest literary 
 friend. Many of the passages of the f Paradise Lost ' he 
 delighted to read and to hear read, while among Ameri- 
 can authors Emerson and Holmes were his favorites, as 
 Carlyle was among the moderns of England. For 
 novels he seemed to care but little, his love in that 
 line of literature having been mainly concentered on 
 Dickens. 
 
 " Dr. Lane's mind was of wide compass, vigorous, 
 serene, and not to be shaken by disease or even by death 
 itself. Throughout his last illness no complaints or re- 
 grets escaped him ; he bore his enforced helplessness with 
 the resignation of a saint; and on one occasion a few 
 weeks before he left us, something having been said to 
 him about his career, he exclaimed with a slight tone of 
 exultation mingled with one of resignation, c I am satis- 
 fied !' And well he might be! His mentality was clear 
 and alert till his last expiring gasp. He folio wed acutely 
 and intelligently the course of his malady ; and a few 
 minutes before the fatal event, having told the nurse that 
 he felt very weak and needed a stimulant, she suggested 
 calling one of the attending physicians ; this he declined ; 
 but scarcely had he swallowed the draught he had re-
 
 LEVI COOPER LANE 
 
 39 
 
 quested, when throwing up his hands he exclaimed, f It's 
 death ! death ! death ! ' and almost immediately expired. 
 " Fond as he was of poetry and of the best in litera- 
 ture, yet his mind was essentially practical. Carlyle him- 
 self had no greater antipathy to metaphysics than had our 
 friend. The problems of ontology, of determinism and 
 freedom, and, indeed, the questions raised by Philosophy 
 in her wandering, and not altogether luminous, course 
 through the centuries, not only had no fascination for 
 him, but they were positively distasteful. His view was that 
 all such problems were insoluble, at least were insoluble 
 by him, and being so, that he would waste his time by 
 trying to solve them. Some may deem this to 
 have been a defect in a singularly well-balanced mental 
 organization, but if it be so how much do we owe to that 
 defect ! By reason of it our friend was kept straight on 
 the course he had marked out for himself and which by 
 nature he was best fitted to follow; by reason of it, no 
 dream of piercing to the centre of things, with a possible 
 consequent of despair at failure, palsied his energies ; by 
 reason of it he worked in the full glow of a rational 
 optimism, and by reason of it he fronted full faced and 
 with unappalled and irresistible courage the palpable reali- 
 ties that were clearly before him from day to day. And 
 had one been bold enough to ask him what his religion was, 
 he would have been likely to reply, as did Thomas Jeffer- 
 son to one who had made the like inquiry of him : f My 
 religion is known to my God and myself alone. Its 
 evidence before the world is to be sought in my life; if
 
 4 o INMEMORYOF 
 
 that has been honest and dutiful to society the religion which 
 has regulated it cannot be a bad one.' * 
 
 " The life that was close at hand was to our friend the 
 one essential thing to-day was his and to-morrow might 
 never be ; his task lay before him lit by the rays of an 
 unclouded hope, and to the doing of that task he never 
 ceased to address himself, leaving dreams to the poet and 
 abstruse speculations to the philosopher. No siren voice 
 could lure him as on he voyaged. If he halted from 
 time to time to drink from the fountain of poesy, or to 
 press the juices of nature to his lips, it was but as strength- 
 ening cordial that enabled him the better to keep on and on. 
 And if genius be as Turner said it was, the capacity for 
 hard work, or as another has said, the capacity for taking 
 infinite pains, then indeed was our friend a genius. 
 
 " Dr. Lane was the simplest of men in his manners, 
 though always dignified ; and while for years he and his 
 accomplished wife entertained their friends on Sunday 
 evenings, yet he himself was not much of a social visitor 
 and cared little or nothing for the conventionalities of 
 society. His life was too concentrated, too earnestly bent 
 on the accomplishment of his great plans, to yield to any 
 demands except those he deemed imperative. While at 
 times he may have seemed austere, he yet was the ten- 
 derest and kindest of men. His eye was not fixed on the 
 fee but on the malady and the means to cure it. Many 
 
 * This extract is to be found in a letter of Jefferson to John Adams, dated January 
 n, 1817. In this letter Jefferson speaks of the inquirer as "one of our fan-coloring 
 biographers who paints small men as very great."
 
 LEVI COOPER LANE 41 
 
 an important operation he performed for no reward, and 
 with no hope of reward, and never once did he refuse the 
 poorest the benefit of his knowledge and skill. 
 
 "And yet this man who toiled so terribly, who ac- 
 complished so much, who ceased not till worn-out nature 
 compelled cessation, was himself the victim of an incurable 
 ailment. In fact it is truth to say that from early life he 
 had scarcely known an entirely well day. The emphy- 
 sema of the lungs which then developed, and for which 
 there is no curative agency, necessarily weakened him, 
 left him with a persistent cough and rendered him an easy 
 prey to bronchitis, which several times came near to the 
 ending of his life. And this it was that mainly contrib- 
 uted to his final taking off. 
 
 " With his other accomplishments Dr. Lane was a 
 botanist, but he took more than a scientific interest in 
 plants, trees and flowers. They were to him things of 
 beauty which were joys forever. They always interested 
 and refreshed him, and his home was in part made beauti- 
 ful by the presence of flowers in abundance and variety, 
 while no recreation seemed so to please him as his visits 
 to Golden Gate Park. In fact that park was the subject 
 of his last Lane lecture, wherein he exhaustively treated 
 that incomparable pleasure ground in a manner not only 
 surprising in its completness but delightful in its literary 
 presentation. 
 
 "With all his sturdiness and strength he was a true 
 gentleman born and bred. In fact we might truthfully 
 say of him :
 
 42 INMEMORYOF 
 
 " He had completeness: Gentleman and man 
 Bloomed in his nature a composite flower; 
 The grace and elegance of mien that can 
 Alone assure us that the subtile power 
 Of pure refinement every action rules, 
 High culture, dignity and gentleness, 
 All these were his. And in the sterner schools, 
 Where none but souls that vigorously press 
 Forever onward win the world's success, 
 He was as sturdy as a man might be. 
 And with it all pretentious ne'er was he, 
 But went his way in charming modesty. 
 
 " Dr. Lane had no children but his works. Fortu- 
 nately for him he united himself more than thirty years 
 ago with a lady of rare accomplishments, who so fitted 
 into his life that the two became spiritually one. The 
 thought of the one was the thought of the other; together 
 they planned everything connected with the college and 
 hospital buildings ; together they explored literatures ; to- 
 gether they trod the shards as well a s walked the flowery 
 meads ; and when the husband was doing work which by 
 reason of its nature the wife could give no assistance in, 
 he felt himself taking in at every breath the refreshment 
 of her love and sympathy. 
 
 " Fortunate, thrice fortunate man ! What fullness, 
 what roundness of completion, what achievement follow- 
 ing on concentration of faculty and effort, what heritage 
 as result of all, rise before us here in the very sublimity 
 of harmonious proportion ! Why then should we grieve
 
 LEVI COOPER LANE 43 
 
 for him, our brother ? Why should we not rather send 
 up our paeans of praise, that he was given to us for our 
 enrichment and for the enrichment of those who will 
 come after us? He had lived nearly two years beyond 
 the psalmist's allotment of life, he had filled all the years 
 of that life with labors that led to glorious results ; noth- 
 ing he touched that did not bloom in the full flower of 
 abundant success; every step of his way, coruscating as 
 it did with the jewels of his deeds, led him to the grand 
 culmination of all the founding of college and hospital, 
 where he sits so securely throned that every stone of 
 their structure would have to be annihilated before 
 oblivion would dare to dream of making his name its 
 own ; and even then standing on the bare and barren spot 
 it would beat the enemy off; yea, he lives more endurably 
 still than in iron or stone in the memory of man ; and 
 in that memory he cannot but live as long as Medicine 
 can lift her glorious head among the glories of the world. 
 We crown him with laurel that can never fade, and with 
 that laurel round his noble brow we take earthly leave 
 of his personal presence, and hail with jubilation his en- 
 trance into the company of the immortals." 
 
 JACOB COOPER, D. D., D. C. L., now and for long 
 a member of the Faculty of Rutgers College, New Jersey, 
 prepared the tribute which follows, but it arrived too late 
 for utilization on the programme. Dr. Cooper, though
 
 44 INMEMORYOF 
 
 seven months younger than Dr. Lane, was his uncle, and 
 was in the closest terms of intimacy with Dr. Lane in 
 the latter's years of youth and early manhood. Corre- 
 spondence by letter was always maintained between them 
 and their mutual affection continued strong and unim- 
 paired. The following is Dr. Cooper's tribute : 
 
 " The conservation of energy is the most important 
 doctrine ever held by science. Its distinct enunciation 
 is recent, and it was formulated by those who either- 
 ignored or were hostile to the belief that the world is 
 controlled by a personal God. But, like all the weapons 
 forged against supernatural religion, the evil purpose 
 thwarts itself, since this doctrine is found to be a most 
 effective iustrument in its support. For it teaches that 
 every kind of energy, which necessarily includes man's 
 spirituality, the greatest of all, is indestructible. This does 
 its work in one place and under one set of conditions } 
 then passes on undiminished to continue its service in 
 new spheres of activity forever. 
 
 " There are evidently two kinds of energy at work 
 in this world one material, the other spiritual. The 
 former serves, the latter directs. The one acts blindly, 
 the other knows why it commands. Physical forces have 
 no meaning save as they are controlled by something 
 which knows why it acts. The latter may seem weak, 
 the weakest in nature, but 'the thinking reed,' though 
 bending before every breeze in apparent helplessness, 
 sways the universe by its nod.
 
 LEVI COOPER LANE 45 
 
 "As a notable illustration of these truths we have 
 had among us a man who was the embodiment of energy. 
 This was shown in every conceivable way. Power went 
 out from the hem of his garment. His coming put away 
 fear. His touch conveyed healing. His look calmed 
 anxiety. His word inspired courage. His skill balked 
 death. His presence rewarded our whole social life, and 
 like quicksilver amid the rubbish it seized upon any grain 
 of gold. 
 
 " He was the builder of his own character and fortune. 
 In his youth he conquered poverty. He made a trium- 
 phal progress out from unsympathetic environment. He 
 made circumstances his lackeys ; and after he had achieved 
 success superior even to envy, he did not forget the 
 humble place from which he had risen. What he had 
 won from the world by genius and untiring energy, he 
 gave back like the clouds pour out to water the earth. 
 Of most versatile character, and wielding every sort of 
 energy, the whole was directed by the purpose to do right, 
 the knowledge of the method and a will that was irresist- 
 ible. His courage did not quail before audacious mean- 
 ness. His sense of duty was not swerved by the flatteries 
 of friends or the threats of enemies. He forgot his own 
 vexations in the effort to console others. He arose from 
 a sick bed to minister to those less ailing than himself. 
 His will power controlled his own bodily weakness, his 
 sympathy for others, his personal bereavements, his sense 
 of public duty, all private interests. In him all energy 
 was subservient to moral principle, illustrating the divine
 
 46 INMEMORYOF 
 
 utterance, c If thine eye be single thy whole body shall 
 be full of light.' Hence his power was so directed that 
 it worked as a unit in a very marked personality. That 
 personality has gone out from us, but continues some- 
 where as the embodiment of what he proposed, attempted 
 and effected. In combination it formed the character 
 which he had built up, and constituted the greatest force 
 we had in this community. 
 
 " Has it perished ? If so, then all science, which builds 
 upon conservation, is false. Has this tremendous energy, 
 which represented his personality, ceased its activity? 
 Then the powers of nature which he touched, healed, in- 
 creased, have ceased. Does physical force directed by 
 moral still continue ? Then Levi Cooper Lane is alive 
 and expanding even as he did while in our sight. But 
 we desire to peer into the undiscovered country and fol- 
 low his movements. 
 
 " The border land between religion and science is full 
 of analogies. The arc of a circle enables us to follow its 
 course after it has passed beyond our sight. Our friend 
 has crossed an invisible line. For this world and the 
 next meet, and the place where they join is too narrow 
 to be seen. Time and eternity are parts of God's day. 
 Our Lord owns on both sides of the River of Death, and 
 the two realms make but one sovereignty. Our friend, 
 while he was in our sight, was about his Father's business 
 without cessation, in sickness and in health, in joy and 
 in sorrow. There was ever the same trend of the arc, and 
 we have been privileged to see enough of it to calculate
 
 LEVI COOPER LANE 47 
 
 its bearings and determine its future course. He will 
 continue giving out light and love with increasing power 
 forever ; coming nearer to God, who was likened by Au- 
 gustine to a circle whose centre is everywhere and whose 
 circumference can be nowhere. His energy is conserved 
 and his intense desire to do better service will find room 
 for exercise in an unmeasured sphere of activity. 
 
 " But it is hard to walk our streets without seeing his 
 earnest, kindly face. It is distressing to come to these 
 institutions which he built up and not hear his cheery 
 voice. It is agonizing to witness our loved ones grow 
 sick without the hope inspired by his reassuring visit. 
 Yet we should in thankfulness remember that by his will 
 power he made that body which latterly was so full of 
 pain and weakness the obedient instrument for the inter- 
 ests of benevolence, science, private friendship, public life. 
 He was so patient, so courageous, so absorbed in his 
 noble projects for the good of humanity that we thought 
 he could never leave us. But there came a day when he 
 1 had one clear call ' from a Voice which he knew and 
 from a country to which he would not go as a stranger. 
 There was no fear to meet the last duty of Time. All 
 that had preceded had been well done and Death was 
 simply passing to a new scene, equipped by discipline 
 with a character fitted for enlarged work. Hence there 
 could be no cessation from activity or change of purpose. 
 
 " We look in the direction he went, but the tears so 
 blind our eyes that we see darkly through a mist. We 
 know that the marvelous energy, the loving sympathy,
 
 48 INMEMORYOF 
 
 the burning zeal for faithful service are safe beyond the 
 touch of the Destroyer. We think too much of his re- 
 moval from us and cannot quite sink our selfishness in 
 the thought of his promotion. Love, that took a last 
 lingering look at the shard which so lately was the 
 abode of a choice spirit, desires to keep him still in 
 sight. 
 
 " Nor blame we Death because he bore 
 The use of virtue out of earth ; 
 We know transplanted human worth 
 Will bloom to profit otherwhere. 
 
 "For this alone on Death we wreak 
 The wrath that garners in our heart ; 
 He put our lives so far apart 
 We cannot hear each other speak."
 
 LEVI COOPER LANE 49 
 
 On Monday evening, the twenty-first day of April, 
 1902, the FACULTY OF COOPER MEDICAL COLLEGE 
 unanimously adopted the following : 
 
 " The Faculty of Cooper Medical College, in grate- 
 ful remembrance of our late President, our loved associate, 
 our cherished friend and guide, makes this record in 
 honor of Dr. Lane: 
 
 "Cooper Medical College owes its foundation and 
 highest aspirations of its existence to Dr. Levi Cooper 
 Lane, who gave of his wisdom and wealth, in beneficent 
 love for his profession and humanity, the lands and 
 buildings now known as Cooper Medical College and 
 Lane Hospital. 
 
 " With deep sorrow we make record of the founder's 
 death on the i8th day of February, in the year 1902, 
 at the age of seventy-two years. 
 
 " May it be the will of God to grant and the 
 gratitude of man to keep this College in all perpetuity 
 as a living monument to Levi Cooper Lane, as an ever- 
 teaching memorial to the great soul of its founder, who 
 breathed into it his breath of life his legacy to medical 
 education, his boon to mankind ! "
 
 -
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 Los Angeles 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
 i L&-52m-7.'61 (014374)444 
 
 ANGEi; 
 
 7/UdllVJ-rlV] 
 
 >F-CALIFO 
 
 ALIFOMf