^
 
 MEMOIR 
 
 Valentine Mott, m. d., ll. d., 
 
 PROFESSOR OF SURGERY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK; 
 MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE OF FRANCE. 
 
 BY 
 
 S. D. GROSS, M. D., LL. D. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 D. APPLETON AND CO. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: LINDSAY AND BLAKISTON. 
 1868.
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 COLLINS, PRINTER.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Chapter I. — First Twenty-four Years. 
 
 Preliminary education — Studies medicine — His private preceptor 
 — Attends lectures — Graduation — Visits Europe — His Lon- 
 don teachers — The University of Edinburgh , . . i 
 
 Chapter II. — Settlement in New York. 
 
 Settles in New York — Rapid success in practice — Delivers a pri- 
 vate course of lectures — Is appointed Professor of Surgery — 
 Rutgers College — Account of his colleagues ... 5 
 
 Chapter III. — Foreign Travels. 
 
 Visits Europe — Interview with Sir Astley Cooper — Sojourn at 
 Paris — French Surgeons — Graefe and DiefFenbach — Athens — 
 Epidaurus — Constantinople ....•• 24 
 
 Chapter IV. — Surgical Operations. 
 
 Ligation of the innominate artery — Excision of the lower jaw — 
 Amputation at the hip-joint — Excision of the clavicle — Hydro- 
 rachitis — Ligation of the common iliac — Immobility of the 
 lovver jaw — Nasal polyp — Lithotomy — Qualities as an operator 3 7
 
 viil CONTENTS. 
 
 Chapter V. — Literary, Educational, and other Labors. 
 
 Writes little — New York Medical and Surgical Register — Book 
 of Travels — Velpeau's Surgery — Introductory and other dis- 
 courses — College teaching — Private pupils — Prize medals — 
 Connection with hospitals ....... 57 
 
 Chapter VL — Last Illness. 
 
 Last illness — Funeral — Personal appearance — Marriage — Memo- 
 rial Library — Family ....... 69 
 
 Chapter VIL — Character and Habits. 
 
 Earnest professional devotion — Reputation as a great surgeon — 
 Elected a Member of the Institute of France — Patriotism and 
 politics — Professional fees — System and punctuality — Domes- 
 tic habits — Religious views — Portraits and busts — Conclusion 77
 
 BfoiBC(f.':al 
 
 
 \oo 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 Five summers ago, while passing a few weeks 
 at one of our celebrated watering places, I had 
 the pleasure of meeting with an old and esteemed 
 friend, a former colleague of Dr. Mott and myself 
 in the same school, although not at the same 
 time. In talking over men and things, our con- 
 versation naturally turned upon the Coryphsus of 
 American surgery, and, after mutually paying him 
 some well-deserved compliments, I said, " If I 
 outlive Dr. Mott, as, considering the disparity of 
 our ages, I possibly may, I shall esteem it to be 
 my duty, not less than my pleasure, to prepare a 
 discourse upon his life and character for the 
 benefit and instruction of my pupils." He cor- 
 dially agreed with me, not only that we owed 
 him ''a great debt of gratitude for the exalted 
 services he had rendered to the profession, but 
 
 A* 
 
 795665
 
 iv PREFACE. 
 
 that the example of such a man, if properly por- 
 trayed, could not fail to exercise a most salutary 
 influence upon our medical youths, in awaking 
 in them habits of industry and a laudable am- 
 bition to emulate his many virtues. The great 
 surgeon, in the providence of God, has passed 
 away, with a world-wide reputation and an im- 
 perishable name, and I now fulfil my self-imposed 
 vow. 
 
 My acquaintance with Dr. Mott commenced 
 in the winter of 1828, in the amphitheatre of 
 Rutgers Medical College, during a brief visit at 
 New York. Having learned that he would meet 
 his class at a certain hour in the morning, and 
 anxious to see and hear a man who, although he 
 had hardly reached the meridian of life, already 
 occupied the highest round in the ladder of fame, 
 I made my way to his private room, where I had 
 the good fortune to be presented to him by his 
 illustrious colleague. Dr. Hosack. His discourse, 
 listened to with profound attention and respect by 
 h'is young auditors, was upon fractures of the 
 skull, a subject to the study of which, as he
 
 PREFACE. V 
 
 informed me, he had devoted much time and 
 reflection. The exercises ended, a brief conversa- 
 tion ensued, when a cordial shake of the hand 
 closed the interview. Four years after, during 
 the height of the Asiatic cholera, when that ruth- 
 less malady was daily sweeping away upwards of 
 three hundred citizens of New York, I had the 
 pleasure of meeting Dr. Mott again, now as a 
 guest at his house; for a friend had given me a 
 letter of introduction which secured to me all 
 that courtly consideration for which he was so 
 distinguished. In 1850, I was appointed his suc- 
 cessor in the chair of surgery in the University of 
 the City of New York, and was again received 
 by him with the same kindness and hospitality 
 which he had extended to me eighteen years be- 
 fore. Our last interview occurred in 1863, when 
 we met as members of an Examining Board ap- 
 pointed by Dr. Hammond, Surgeon-General of 
 the United States Army, to deliberate upon mat- 
 ters of grave interest to our wounded soldiers. 
 
 It will thus be perceived that my acquaintance 
 with Dr. Mott, although never intimate, extended
 
 vi PREFACE. 
 
 through a period of many years; and, it is hardly 
 necessary to add, that, as one of his countrymen, 
 allied to him by similarity of taste and pursuit, I 
 watched with pride and satisfaction his lofty and 
 brilliant career as one of the great surgeons of the 
 age. 
 
 The composition of this biographical sketch 
 was to me a source of unalloyed pleasure. It 
 was like the contemplation of a beautiful land- 
 scape, mellowed by the gorgeous rays of the set- 
 ting sun ; or like a walk, in a bright summer's 
 morning, along the banks of a quiet and modest 
 stream, enlivened by the songs of birds, and stud- 
 ded with magnificent trees and flowers, filling the 
 air with their delicious perfume. 
 
 It is proper to add that an abstract of this Me- 
 moir was read before the Faculties and Students 
 of the two medical schools of this city last De- 
 cember, and soon after, by special invitation, be- 
 fore the Bellevue Hospital Medical College of 
 New York. 
 
 Jefferson Medical College, 
 Philadelphia, March ist, 1868.
 
 MEMOIR 
 
 OF 
 
 VALENTINE MOTT, M.D., LL.D.
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 FIRST TWENTY-FOUR YEARS. 
 
 Preliminary education — Studies medicine — His private preceptor — At- 
 tends lectures — Graduation — Visits Europe — His London teachers — 
 The University of Edinburgh. 
 
 When a great and good man dies, it is fitting 
 that his fellow-citizens, especially the members of 
 his own profession, should pause to contemplate 
 his virtues, and unite in paying a just tribute of 
 affection and esteem to his memory. It is fitting 
 that the age which owned him, and which he 
 adorned and illustrated, should make a recognition 
 of his services in order that those who may come 
 after him may emulate his character, and thus 
 increase the measure of their own usefulness. 
 Biography is a mental portrait, or, as Good Old 
 Fuller terms it, a perspective glass, reflecting alike 
 the vices and the virtues of men; it is more — it is 
 philosophy, the philosophy of individuality, teach- 
 ing by example. "The record of the life of a 
 good man is," to use the language of Milton, **the 
 precious life-blood of a master-spirit, embalmed 
 and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life." 
 Of all the studies that can engage attention, bio- 
 graphy is at once the most fascinating and the 
 
 I
 
 2 THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF 
 
 most useful in moulding and directing human 
 conduct. When a person has attained to extraordi- 
 nary eminence, we feel almost an instinctive desire 
 to scan his intellect and to inquire into the means 
 which he employed to accomplish his end; whe- 
 ther his distinction was due to fortuitous circum- 
 stances, or solely to the force of his genius and 
 talents. 
 
 The man whose life I desire to delineate was 
 no ordinary personage. He early sowed the seeds 
 of his greatness. His reputation was built up by 
 able hands. His career, brilliant beyond that of 
 most men in the medical profession, extended 
 through a period of nearly four-fifths of a century. 
 To epitomize his biography is therefore no easy 
 task, and yet this is all that the space allotted to 
 me will permit. 
 
 Hardly two years and a half have elapsed since 
 the messenger of God, standing at the grave of 
 Valentine Mott, uttered the solemn words, "Earth 
 to earth, dust to dust, ashes to ashes," and the 
 crowds of friends, acquaintances, and professional 
 brethren that followed his remains to their last 
 resting place retraced their steps with sorrowing 
 hearts to their homes in the great metropolis. 
 Every one felt that New York had lost one of 
 its most venerated citizens, medical science a most 
 zealous votary, and American surgery its acknow- 
 ledged head. The grief which followed his de-
 
 VALENTINE MOTT, M. D. 3 
 
 mise was not confined to his own country; his 
 fame had gone abroad, and physicians everywhere 
 knew and appreciated his merits. 
 
 It is confessedly difficult, under any circum- 
 stances, to write the biography of a contemporary. 
 On the one hand, there is great danger of indulg- 
 ing in fulsome eulogy; and, on the other, of being 
 blinded by jealousy and prejudice. In either event, 
 injustice is apt to be done alike to the subject and 
 to the truth of history. Whether the present 
 instance affords an exception to the rule others 
 must determine. I think I comprehend the cha- 
 racter of Dr. Mott sufficiently to avoid both ex- 
 tremes. His career was so quiet and serene, his 
 conduct in all his relations, private and public, so 
 pure and virtuous, that it will be easy to seize the 
 prominent features of his mind, and to place them 
 in bold relief before the world. It has been truly 
 said by Thomas Carlyle that a well-written life is 
 almost as rare as a well-spent one. That of Mott 
 should be written as much with the heart as with 
 the pen. My only qualification for the task con- 
 sists in a lively sympathy for the great surgeon, in 
 a tolerably intimate acquaintance with the history 
 of his career, and in the pleasure arising from a 
 similarity of pursuits. 
 
 Valentine Mott, whose name will be perpetuated 
 as long as surgical science shall be honored among 
 men, was born at Glen Cove, Long Island, on the
 
 4 THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF 
 
 20th of August, 1785, and consequently within a 
 few years after the close of the great struggle 
 which eventuated in the establishment of our in- 
 dependence as a free and sovereign people. The 
 father, Henry Mott, was a pupil of the elder Bard, 
 and, after having practised medicine at different 
 places, but more particularly at New York, died 
 at an advanced age in that city, in 1840. The 
 mother was an only daughter of Samuel Way, of 
 North Hempstead. The son, no doubt, owed 
 much of his success in life to her careful and 
 pious training. 
 
 The great ancestor of Valentine was Adam Mott, 
 an Englishman, who settled on Long Island soon 
 after the middle of the seventeenth century. He 
 was one of the original disciples of George Fox, 
 the founder of the Society of Friends, an institu- 
 tion distinguished alike, at least in its more primi- 
 tive state, for the purity of its morals, its love of 
 freedom, and its Christian beneficence. It is not 
 surprising that such a religion should have deeply 
 impressed itself upon the minds and hearts of the 
 descendants of Adam Mott. They were all Qua- 
 kers; and Valentine retained his respect and admi- 
 ration for the sect to the close of his long and 
 valuable life. 
 
 Of the early life of Valentine Mott — his tastes, 
 habits, and pursuits — no information has reached 
 me. That it was sweet and gentle, in strict ac-
 
 VALENTINE MOTT, M. D. ^ 
 
 cordance with the tenets and practices of the faith 
 in which he was educated, and in full consonance 
 with his own sweet and gentle nature, no one can 
 doubt. The boy was father to the man, in the 
 most rigid sense of the term; docile, obedient, 
 pure in mind, cautious in speech, neat in dress, 
 erect in person, walking as one who reverences 
 God, and who respects the rights and feelings of 
 his fellows; in a word, a perfect gentleman. Those 
 who knew Dr. Mott later in life, in the full ma- 
 turity of his intellect and fame, and remember his 
 courtly bearing, could picture the boy in no other 
 li9:ht. 
 
 He received his classical education in a private 
 seminary at Newtown, where his father, for a 
 time, practised his profession. What attainments 
 he made here I have no means of knowing. That 
 they were highly respectable may be inferred from 
 the fact that he was always a diligent and consci- 
 entious student, and that he retained his fondness 
 for the Greek and Latin languages up to the time 
 of his death. Even the name of the master of 
 the seminary appears to have been lost, as I can 
 nowhere find any mention of it. If he had been 
 a man of any note, it would no doubt have been 
 recorded by Thompson, in his History of Long 
 Island, a work remarkable for its research and 
 fidelity. 
 
 In 1804, young Mott, then about nineteen years
 
 6 THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF 
 
 of age, enrolled himself as a private pupil in the 
 office of his kinsman, Dr. Valentine Seaman, of 
 New York, under whose instruction he remained 
 until the spring of 1807, when, after having at- 
 tended two full courses of lectures in Columbia 
 College, he was invested with the honors of the 
 doctorate by that institution, then the only school 
 of medicine in that city. The thesis which he 
 presented on the occasion was an Experimental 
 Inquiry into the Chemical and Medicinal Proper- 
 ties of the Statice Limonium of Linnsus, illustrated 
 by a beautiful steel engraving of that plant, and 
 spread over fifty-eight pages of a closely-printed 
 duodecimo brochure. The plant, vulgarly known 
 as the marsh rosemary, is indigenous to this coun- 
 try, and possesses valuable astringent properties, 
 which render it, it is said, a useful substitute for 
 nutgall and tannin in the treatment of internal 
 hemorrhage, diarrhoea, and hemorrhoids. The 
 dissertation exhibits much labor and patient re- 
 search, added to accuracy of observation. 
 
 The private preceptor of Dr. Mott was no or- 
 dinary man. The son of an eminent New York 
 merchant, he was a pupil at the University of 
 Pennsylvania, in the palmy days of Shippen, Kuhn, 
 and Rush, published a number of valuable papers 
 on medical and other topics, delivered lectures on 
 midwifery, medicine, and surgery, was one of the 
 surgeons of the New York Hospital, took an act-
 
 VALENTINE MOTT, M. D. 7 
 
 ive part in the introduction of vaccination into the 
 United States, and died, universally regretted, in 
 1 8 17, in the forty-eighth year of his age. In a 
 glovi^ing eulogy pronounced upon his character by 
 one who knew him well and intimately, the late 
 Dr. John W. Francis, he is described as an astute 
 physician, a laborious practitioner, and a man of 
 rare benevolence and humanity; attributes which 
 entitle him to a high rank among his contempo- 
 raries. It was in the office of Dr. Seaman that 
 young Mott first became fully inspired with that 
 love for his profession which formed ever after 
 such a remarkable feature in his character. It 
 was his first votive altar, upon which he daily 
 kindled the fire of his ambition. 
 
 His conduct, as a young student, was, in the 
 highest degree, correct and exemplary. He lost 
 no time in listlessness, or idle dalliance; he was 
 always at his place in the lecture-room; devoted 
 much of his time and attention to the cultivation 
 of anatomy and surgery ; was unusually popular 
 with his classmates; and was graduated with high 
 honor. 
 
 Very shortly after he received his degree, young 
 Mott repaired to London, to extend and perfect 
 his medical education. He had no sooner arrived 
 in the British metropolis than he placed himself 
 under the tuition of Mr., afterward Sir Astley 
 Cooper, then rapidly approaching the zenith of
 
 8 THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF 
 
 his fame as one of the most illustrious surgeons 
 that have ever lived. Abandoning himself at once 
 to the most active exertion, he devoted most of 
 his time to the study of practical anatomy, the 
 operations upon the cadaver, visits to the hospitals, 
 and the prelections of the great masters of the 
 healing art. Among the latter, by whose instruc- 
 tions he more especially profited, may be men- 
 tioned the names of Cline, Abernethy, Haighton, 
 and Charles Bell, whose labors have shed so much 
 lustre upon English surgery, and who, with Sir 
 Astley Cooper as the common centre, form a gal- 
 axy of illustrious savans such as the world has sel- 
 dom witnessed in such close juxtaposition. 
 
 From London Mott went to Edinburgh to 
 avail himself of the advantages of the instruction 
 of Gregory, Monro, Duncan, Home, Hope, and 
 Thomson. The medical school of the Scotch 
 metropolis enjoyed then, as it does now, a very 
 high reputation. The mantle of Cullen, rendered 
 immortal by his teachings and his writings, had 
 fallen worthily upon the shoulders of James Gre- 
 gory, a man of superior classical attainments, cele- 
 brated not less for the purity and elegance of his 
 Latinity than his eloquence as a lecturer, and his 
 rare skill as a practitioner. For upwards of a third 
 of a century he was the most fashionable physician 
 in Edinburgh, whose word was law both in and 
 out of the profession. Alexander Monro, the
 
 VALENTINE MOTT, M. D. g 
 
 third of that name — a name renowned in science 
 — was professor of anatomy, and, although greatly- 
 inferior, both as a teacher and an author, to his 
 father and grandfather, labored hard to uphold 
 the character of the University. Black, one of 
 the most illustrious philosophers of the age, the 
 Nestor of chemical revolution, as he has been 
 styled by Fourcroy, had recently retired from the 
 chair of Chemistry, and had been succeeded by 
 Home, who, in turn, had made way for Hope. 
 Duncan, a physician of extensive learning, an able 
 lecturer, and a facile writer, was professor of the 
 Institutes of Medicine. John Thomson occupied 
 the chair of Military Surgery, for a long time the 
 only one of the kind in any British school of 
 medicine. He is principally recollected at the 
 present day by his great work on inflammation, a 
 work of vast labor and erudition, long the only 
 text-book on the subject in Europe and in this 
 country. 
 
 Such were the principal teachers in the Univer- 
 sity, while outside of it, perched as it were upon 
 a lofty eminence, a fit resting-place for an eagle, 
 there was one in reality far greater, in point of 
 talent and genius, than any of these, a man whose 
 wonderful power of fascination gave him a hold 
 upon students such as hardly any individual, either 
 before or since his time, ever wielded. To rare 
 eloquence and polemic ability, he added a tho-
 
 lO THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF 
 
 rough knowledge of anatomy, great descriptive 
 powers, a keen sense of sarcasm, and unrivalled 
 skill and daring as an operator; qualities which 
 rendered him one of the most attractive and popu- 
 lar of teachers, and one of the most charming of 
 companions. This person was John Bell, the 
 author of an undying work on surgery, and the 
 brother of Charles, whose researches into the 
 functions of the nervous system place his name by 
 the side of that of William Harvey, the discoverer 
 of the circulation of the blood.* 
 
 Of Dugald Stewart, whose prelections on intel- 
 lectual philosophy he regularly attended, young 
 Mott could never speak with sufficient enthusiasm ; 
 he regarded him, in common with Edinburgh 
 students in general, as a man of gigantic mind, 
 and as one of the most captivating and instructive 
 of teachers, with manners as simple as elegant, 
 and a voice almost as sweet as music itself. Of 
 his extraordinary powers of fascination an idea 
 may be formed by the following description, from 
 
 ■ * It is not known with any degree of certainty when Mr. Bell ceased 
 to teach surgery. Dr. John Struthers, in his charming little "Historical 
 Sketch of the Edinburgh Anatomical School," lately published, states 
 that it must have been about the close of the last century. If so. Dr. 
 Mott could not have attended his lectures. However this may be, the 
 very touch of the garments of such a man must have warmed his enthu- 
 siasm, and inspired him with increased love for his favorite studies. 
 John Bell was the father of Scotch surgery, and the mantle, since so 
 gracefully worn by Liston, Miller, Syme, and Fergusson, was unques- 
 tionably fashioned by his genius.
 
 VALENTINE MOTT, M. D. II 
 
 the pen of one who knew him intimately, and 
 often listened to his discourses. **To me," says 
 Lord Cockburn, in his posthumous memoirs, "his 
 lectures were like the opening of the heavens. I 
 felt that I had a soul. His noble views, unfolded 
 in glorious sentences, elevated me into a higher 
 world. I was as much excited and charmed as any 
 man of cultivated taste could be, who, after being 
 ignorant of their existence, was admitted to all 
 the glories of Milton, and Cicero, and Shakspeare. 
 This changed my whole nature. In short, Dugald 
 Stewart was one of the greatest of didactic orators. 
 Had he lived in ancient times, his memory would 
 have descended to us as that of one of the finest 
 of the old eloquent sages. But his lot was better 
 cast. Flourishing in an age which requires all 
 the dignity of morals to counteract the tendencies 
 of physical pursuits and political convulsions, he 
 has exalted the character of his country and his 
 generation. No intelligent pupil of his ever ceased 
 to respect philosophy, or was ever false to his prin- 
 ciples, without feeling the crime aggravated by 
 the recollection of the morality that Dugald Stew- 
 art had taught him." 
 
 I am unable to state how long Dr. Mott so- 
 journed at Edinburgh; he probably remained there 
 somewhat over a year. During his residence, 
 both there and at London, he formed many ac- 
 quaintances both in and out of the profession, to
 
 12 THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF 
 
 which he ever after looked back with pleasure 
 and satisfaction. The letters which he had taken 
 with him to the two capitals secured him the 
 entree to the best society, and thus enabled him to 
 form a more correct estimate of English and 
 Scotch character. Of the two cities he could not 
 fail to award the palm to Edinburgh. Its Uni- 
 versity enjoyed a world-wide reputation; its Bar 
 was noted for its great talents and attainments; 
 and there was a literary coterie, composed of Scott, 
 Jeffrey, Sidney Smith, and others, a galaxy of in- 
 tellect, learning, wit, and humor, which cast its 
 burning rays not only over Europe, but Asia and 
 America. The very atmosphere of such a place 
 must have exercised an important influence in 
 shaping the tastes and character of the young 
 American student. 
 
 Having refreshed himself at these great foun- 
 tains of medical science, he returned, in the au- 
 tumn of 1809, after an absence of upwards of two 
 years and a half, to New York, to enter upon the 
 active duties of his profession, for which he was 
 now so well qualified. Paris, since so celebrated 
 as a seat of medical learning, he did not visit until 
 many years after, when his fame, as a great ope- 
 rator, had preceded him to the French capital.
 
 VALENTINE MOTT, M.D. 13 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 SETTLEMENT IN NEW YORK. 
 
 Early professional career in New York — Rapid success in practice — 
 Delivers a private course of lectures — Is appointed Professor of Sur- 
 gery — Rutger's College — Account of his colleagues. 
 
 Dr. Mott's success in New York was rapid and 
 brilliant. His handsome person, his elegant man- 
 ners, and his great accomplishments attracted uni- 
 versal attention, and he soon became the centre of 
 an admiring circle, with the sobriquet of "the 
 handsome young Quaker Doctor," In the fol- 
 lowing winter he delivered a private course of lec- 
 tures on surgery, and shortly after was elevated to 
 the professorship of surgery in his alma mater, an 
 office which he held until Columbia College was 
 merged in the College of Physicians and Surgeons, 
 when he was appointed to the same chair with 
 Wright Post, Hosack, Mitchill, Macneven, and 
 Francis, all men of distinguished talent, as his col- 
 leagues. He continued in this institution, lec- 
 turing with marked ability to rapidly increasing 
 classes, until 1826, when, in consequence of some 
 tyrannical acts of the Trustees, the Faculty with- 
 drew in a body. 
 
 A new school was immediately formed by the
 
 14 THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF 
 
 retiring professors, under the auspices of Rutger's 
 College, at New Brunswick, New Jersey. The 
 organization was completed by the introduction 
 of Dr. John D. Godman into the anatomical 
 chair, and Dr. John Griscom into the chemical. 
 To conceive of a more able corps of teachers than 
 this would be difficult. There certainly was not, 
 at that time, any superior to it, whether we regard 
 the talents of its members, their scientific and lite- 
 rary attainments, or their ability and eloquence as 
 lecturers. The school, after a prosperous career 
 of five years, during a part of which it was con- 
 nected with the Geneva College of Western New 
 York, was compelled to close its doors on account 
 of some technical illegality respecting its power 
 of conferring degrees. 
 
 Of the men who were associated with Dr. Mott 
 in founding the new college a few passing remi- 
 niscences will not be without interest. They 
 were all physicians of note, and they have all 
 gone to "that undiscovered country from whose 
 bourne no traveller returns." 
 
 Dr. David Hosack, the eldest member of the 
 Faculty, adorned the chair of medicine, and never 
 was a professor's gown worn with greater grace or 
 dignity. He was descended from a Scotch family, 
 and received his literary education at Princeton 
 College during the Presidency of the renowned 
 Dr. Witherspoon, one of the signers of the De-
 
 VALENTINE MOTT, M. D. 1 5 
 
 claration of Independence. Endowed by nature 
 with a noble presence and brilliant talents, he was 
 an elegant lecturer, an able writer, and a finished 
 scholar. His reputation, at the period here referred 
 to, was of the highest order, and he was almost 
 universally regarded, for upwards of a quarter of a 
 century before his death, as the fittest person in 
 New York to be consulted in all medical cases of 
 difficulty or danger. He had a remarkably clear, 
 almost intuitive, perception of the nature and seat 
 of disease, great adroitness in diagnosis, extraordi- 
 nary fertility and readiness in the application of 
 remedies, and a rare faculty of inspiring his pa- 
 tients with confidence in his skill. As a lecturer, 
 he possessed eloquence, and a manner at once 
 dignified and impressive, with great command of 
 language, and a ready power of utterance, which 
 rendered him eminently attractive to students. 
 He had, early in life, enjoyed the advantages of 
 foreign study and travel, and was elected a mem- 
 ber of the Royal Society of London soon after his 
 entrance into the profession, in consideration ot 
 an able paper which he had published a short 
 time previously on vision. His writings, which 
 were chiefly medical, elicited an unusual share of 
 criticism both at home and abroad; and although 
 replete with interest, they abound too much in 
 hypothesis and speculation to be enduring. The 
 work upon which his fame, as an author, will
 
 1 6 THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF 
 
 mainly rest, is his Life of De Witt Clinton, which 
 was composed with marked ability, and forms a 
 valuable addition to the literature of the country. 
 Dr. Hosack died of apoplexy in 1835, in the sixty- 
 seventh year of his age, soon after the great fire 
 in New York, in which he sustained heavy pecu- 
 niary losses, which, it has been said, hastened his 
 demise. 
 
 Dr. John W. Francis, a name ever to be spoken 
 with reverence and affection, was of German de- 
 scent, and born at New York, in 1789, four years 
 later than Dr. Mott, who, nevertheless, survived 
 him. Their active lives ran parallel with each 
 other. For fifty years they walked the same 
 streets, entered the same dwellings, and often felt 
 the same pulse. Their friendship, sincere, cor- 
 dial, and uninterrupted, was marked by a thousand 
 acts of courtesy and kindness. The beautiful eu- 
 logy which Mott pronounced upon his character 
 before the New York Academy of Medicine, 
 shortly after his decease, in May, 1861, is a tribute 
 of the deepest tenderness and devotion, as rare as 
 it is touching. He had watched the career of 
 Francis from an early period of his life, had often 
 listened to the story of his manly struggles for an 
 education, had seen him rise to eminence and 
 usefulness as a practitioner and a teacher of an 
 important branch of medical science, and for many 
 years had stood with him side by side as it were
 
 VALENTINE MOTT, M. D. 17 
 
 as a colleague in the lecture-room. He felt, as he 
 gave utterance to his melancholy strains, that he 
 had lost a well-tried and faithful friend; and the 
 sadness which he experienced on the occasion was 
 probably not a little heightened by the conviction 
 that, in the course of natural events, he must soon 
 follow him. "In peaceful sorrow," says the ven- 
 erable surgeon, "there is a kind of joy. The hu- 
 man heart bereaved finds gratification in mourning 
 over its loss. Its anguish is assuaged by indulging 
 in gentle melancholy. * Strike the harp in my 
 hall,' exclaims the mighty Fingal to the bard — 
 * strike the harp in my hall, and let Fingal hear 
 the song. Pleasant is the joy of grief. It is like 
 the shower of spring when it softens the branch 
 of the oak, and the young leaf lifts its head. ' " 
 
 The character of Francis may be summed up 
 in a few words. With a capacious brain and a 
 lofty forehead, the dome of the soul, he had a 
 high order of intellect; his mind was stored with 
 the riches of knowledge ; he was a profound 
 thinker, an eloquent lecturer, a good writer, a 
 sagacious, ready practitioner, a charming com- 
 panion, sparkling with wit and humor, a kind- 
 hearted man, generous to a fault, one who valued 
 learning and despised everything that was sordid 
 and contemptible. 
 
 William J. Macneven, who occupied the chair 
 of materia medica, was a native of Ireland, but, 
 2
 
 1 8 THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF 
 
 in 1805, with a number of his countrymen, sought 
 an asylum in the United States after the unsuc- 
 cessful attempt of Robert Emmet and his asso- 
 ciates to shake off the British yoke which had so 
 long and so heavily oppressed them. He was a 
 graceful lecturer, an accomplished classical scho- 
 lar, an ardent patriot, and an upright, estimable 
 man. He was the author of a number of scien- 
 tific papers and political tracts, was one of the edi- 
 tors of the "New York Medical and Philosophical 
 Journal," was a great lover of books, and spoke, it 
 is asserted, German and French with as much 
 fluency as English. He expired at New York on 
 the 1 2th of July, 1841, in the eightieth year of 
 his age, universally regretted by all who knew 
 him. 
 
 Dr. John D. Godman, a native of Maryland, 
 and early in life a printer by occupation, was 
 Mott's associate in the new college enterprise only 
 for two sessions. Long before the termination of 
 the second course of lectures it was evident that the 
 labor was too severe for the endurance of his bodily 
 powers, and he was accordingly obliged to resign 
 his chair, and to seek relaxation and health in a 
 more genial climate. He spent several months in 
 the West Indies, but without any material benefit, 
 and finally, on his return, settled at Germantown, 
 Pennsylvania, where, under the hospitable roof of 
 a kind friend, he eked out the remnant of his days.
 
 VALENTINE MOTT, M. D. 1 9 
 
 Godman was emphatically a child of genius, 
 with an astonishing aptitude for the acquisition of 
 knowledge, acute penetration, and great readiness 
 as a writer and speaker. Commencing his studies 
 under unusual difficulties, he, nevertheless, made 
 the most extraordinary progress, and early achieved 
 a most commanding reputation, especially as a 
 lecturer, naturalist, and author. He was by far 
 the most brilliant and popular teacher of anatomy 
 in his day in this country. As a neat and rapid 
 dissector he probably never had an equal any- 
 where. Notwithstanding, however, his skill in 
 the use of the scalpel, he signally failed as an 
 operator, for the same reason, perhaps, as the illus- 
 trious Albert von Haller, who taught surgery for 
 sixteen years, but never performed an operation 
 upon the living subject for fear, as he often avowed, 
 of giving pain. Both lacked courage and decision, 
 qualities which, unless innate, can only be acquired 
 by constant familiarity with the sight of blood and 
 the screams of the patient. 
 
 As a linguist, also, Godman possessed great 
 powers; for he had not only an excellent acquaint- 
 ance with Greek and Latin, but an intimate know- 
 ledge of the French, German, Dutch, and Italian. 
 He had, indeed, a most happy faculty of sur- 
 mounting obstacles; for, to genius of a high order 
 he added patience, and to patience industry, and 
 to industry perseverance; to all, and above all, a
 
 20 THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF 
 
 great love for his species, and an unbounded vene- 
 ration for Deity, whom he saw and worshipped in 
 all His works. Death snatched him away at the 
 early age of thirty-seven, the victim of poverty 
 and pulmonary consumption, under which he had 
 nobly struggled for many years, working literally 
 for his daily subsistence up to the last hour of his 
 precious life. Although he died so young, the 
 fame of his genius had spread over this entire con- 
 tinent, at a time when fame travelled much more 
 slowly than she does now; and the announcement 
 of his demise caused universal grief among our 
 profession as well as among the naturalists of 
 America and Europe. 
 
 The chair vacated by the lamented Godman 
 was filled, in 1828, by Dr. George Bushe, an Irish 
 gentleman, at the time of his appointment a sur- 
 geon in the British army. He remained attached 
 to the College until its close in 1832. Tall and 
 erect in person, with a light complexion and a 
 commanding presence, he was one of the best 
 lecturers I have ever heard, learned, fluent, and 
 enthusiastic ; a bold, dashing operator, and the 
 author of a treatise on the Diseases, Injuries, and 
 Malformations of the Rectum, long without a 
 rival in the English language. His death was 
 occasioned by phthisis, in 1837, before he had 
 reached the full meridian of his life. 
 
 John Griscom, the Professor of Chemistry, the
 
 VALENTINE MOTT, M. D. 21 
 
 descendant of a respectable Quaker family, was a 
 native of New Jersey, where he was born in 1774. 
 Although his early education had been much 
 neglected, yet, by indomitable industry and perse- 
 verance, he surmounted every obstacle to improve- 
 ment, and eventually achieved a high scientific and 
 literary reputation. For nearly a third of a cen- 
 tury he swayed the chemical sceptre of New York. 
 To ease of elocution, he added grace and sim- 
 plicity of manner, deliberate utterance, exact dic- 
 tion, and a thorough acquaintance with his subject, 
 which made him one of the most charming and 
 attractive of teachers. His public lectures were 
 attended by many of the most fashionable and 
 distinguished citizens ; and it has been asserted 
 that he did more to inspire and diffuse a taste for 
 the popular study of chemistry than any other 
 man in the country. He was a devoted friend of 
 general education, carried on an extensive corre- 
 spondence with scientific and benevolent men both 
 at home and abroad, published numerous papers 
 in the medical and philosophical journals of his 
 time, and left a valuable and instructive work on 
 foreign travel, in two volumes. Dr. Griscom died 
 in 1852, at the ripe age of 78 years. 
 
 After the downfall of Rutger's Medical College 
 Dr. Mott resumed his connection with the Col- 
 lege of Physicians and Surgeons as Professor of 
 Operative Surgery with Surgical and Pathological
 
 22 THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF 
 
 Anatomy, the Principles and Practice of Surgery 
 being taught by Dr. Alexander H. Stevens. He 
 remained in the school until 1835, when he re- 
 signed in consequence of ill health and his pro- 
 jected visit to Europe. 
 
 Upon the establishment of the Medical Depart- 
 ment of the University of the City of New York, 
 in 1840, he was unanimously elected Professor of 
 Surgery and President of the Medical Faculty. 
 This honor was conferred upon him while abroad, 
 and was the more flattering to his feelings because 
 it was unsolicited. All his colleagues were gen- 
 tlemen who, like himself, either already enjoyed 
 great celebrity as teachers, or soon became distin- 
 guished as such. The names of Granville Sharp 
 Pattison, John Revere, Martyn Paine, John W. 
 Draper, and Gunning S. Bedford, are all inscribed 
 upon the scroll of fame. Under the auspices of 
 this Faculty the school rapidly rose into notice, 
 with classes ranging annually from 350 to 400 
 pupils, representing all the different States of the 
 Union as well as many foreign countries. The 
 school was a complete success. Dr. Mott retained 
 his connection with it until 1850, when he re- 
 signed, and went to Europe. On his return in 
 the following autumn he entered the College of 
 Physicians and Surgeons as Professor of Operative 
 Surgery and Surgical Anatomy, a position which 
 was subsequently abandoned for the office of Eme-
 
 VALENTINE MOTT, M. D. 23 
 
 ritus-Professor of Surgery in the University, which 
 he held up to the time of his death in 1865. Of 
 the causes which led to these various changes, and 
 which must have occasioned him no little vexation 
 and annoyance, it is not necessary here to speak. 
 It is sufficient to observe that they we're such as 
 he could not control, and which reflect no discre- 
 dit upon him, in any manner, either as a gentleman 
 or as a professor. Those who are acquainted with 
 the history of medical institutions in this country 
 know how fluctuating is their character, and what 
 trivial causes often effect their prosperity and even 
 their downfall in a single day. Founded, for the 
 most part, by private enterprise, they, unfortunately, 
 too often contain, at their very inception, the seed 
 of their own decay and ultimate destruction. In 
 a republican country, like ours, where the masses 
 and not the Government are the rulers, all institu- 
 tions, literary, medical, and scientific, are, in gen- 
 eral, short-lived.
 
 24 THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 FOREIGN TRAVELS. 
 
 Visits Europe — Interview with Sir Astley Cooper — Sojourn at Paris — 
 French Surgeons — Graefe and DiefFenbach — Athens — Epidaurus — 
 Constantinople. 
 
 In 1835, ill-health, as already intimated, com- 
 pelled Dr. Mott, exhausted by unremitting labor, 
 to relinquish for a time his practice, and to seek 
 repose and relaxation in a foreign country. He 
 had now been engaged in the active duties of his 
 profession for nearly thirty years, during which he 
 had earned a world-wide reputation as one of the 
 first surgeons of the age. Previously to his de- 
 parture, his medical friends, with Hosack, Francis, 
 Macneven, Delafield, and other distinguished con- 
 freres at their head, tendered him a public dinner, 
 as a token of their profound appreciation of his 
 character, and of their high sense of the services 
 he had rendered to surgical science. 
 
 Upwards of a quarter of a century had elapsed 
 since, as a pupil of medicine, he had bid adieu to 
 England, and now his first impulse, upon touching 
 its shores, was to hasten to London, to greet his 
 old friend and preceptor. Sir Astley Cooper, the 
 Nestor of British surgery. A meeting between
 
 VALENTINE MOTT, M. D. 25 
 
 two such men is an unusual occurrence. The 
 pupil had long ago more than realized the most 
 sanguine expectations of his illustrious * master. 
 Each had the proud satisfaction of knowing that 
 he was the accredited head of the surgeons of the 
 age in his own country. Cooper, although nearly 
 seventy years old, still retained his early vigor and 
 enthusiasm; he loved his profession with all the 
 ardor of a devotee, and he daily, even at that pe- 
 riod of life, when most men require repose, per- 
 formed an amount of labor that would have put 
 to shame many of his younger brethren, less zeal- 
 ous and ambitious than himself. His whole career 
 was one series of brilliant successes. The son of 
 a poor but respectable country clergyman in Nor- 
 folk, England, he studied medicine in London, 
 and by his industry, talent, and correct deport- 
 ment, rapidly attained to eminence. He was ap- 
 pointed at an early age Surgeon to Guy*s and St. 
 Thomas' Hospitals, enjoyed for many years the 
 most lucrative and aristocratic practice in London, 
 and was successively Surgeon to three sovereigns, 
 George IV., William IV., and Queen Victoria. 
 His income from his business alone is said to have 
 netted in one single year £23,000. He left an 
 enormous estate, the result of his unaided exertion. 
 He was the first to ligate the aorta and the com- 
 mon carotid artery for the cure of aneurism; and 
 he has bequeathed to posterity numerous mono-
 
 26 THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF 
 
 graphs on surgery, works of vast personal research, 
 of careful clinical observation, and of inestimable 
 practical value. 
 
 Having spent some weeks in the British metro- 
 polis, in the midst of much that was interesting 
 and agreeable, as well as instructive. Dr. Mott suc- 
 cessively visited Scotland, Ireland, France, Bel- 
 gium, Switzerland, Italy, and Germany, and, after 
 an absence of sixteen months, returned to the 
 United States, with his health, as he had supposed, 
 permanently reinstated. In this, however, he was 
 disappointed, and he, therefore, after a brief so- 
 journ, again embarked for Europe, determined to 
 extend his travels into Greece, Egypt, Turkey, 
 and Asia Minor. Establishing his head-quarters 
 at Paris, he made annual excursions into different 
 countries, and finally bid adieu to Europe in 1841, 
 completely reinvigorated in mind and body. In 
 every place he visited he met with a reception 
 worthy of his exalted reputation. This courtesy 
 was by no means confined to the members of his 
 own profession. Men of the highest renown in 
 every walk of life, and even crowned heads, vied 
 with each other to do him homage. 
 
 At Paris, where he was most cordially received 
 by the whole medical fraternity, he was treated 
 with special courtesy and kindness by Louis Phi- 
 lippe and his family. Here he frequently saw 
 Baron Larrey, the father of modern military sur-
 
 VALENTINE MOTT, M. D. 27 
 
 gery, the hero of a hundred battles, the friend and 
 companion of Napoleon during all his memorable 
 campaigns until the sun of that great and wonder- 
 ful man set forever on the field of Waterloo. 
 The frosts of nearly eighty winters had dimmed 
 his eye, but in no degree diminished his venera- 
 tion and enthusiasm for his sovereign, who always 
 spoke of him as the most honest and virtuous man 
 he had ever known. "If the army," said Napo- 
 leon, **ever erect a monument of gratitude, it 
 should be to Larrey." In his will he left him 
 100,000 francs. No surgeon, since the days of 
 Good Old Ambrose Pare, had so completely en- 
 joyed the love and confidence of an army as Lar- 
 rey. He was emphatically the soldier's idol; and 
 the Emperor himself, popular as he was, hardly 
 exercised as unbounded an influence in the camp 
 as this great surgeon in the hospital. At the pe- 
 riod of Dr. Mott's visit, Larrey was Surgeon-in- 
 Chief to that noble institution, the Hospital for 
 Invalids, the receptacle of at least 4000 men dis- 
 abled in war. After stating that he had repeatedly 
 accompanied him through the wards of this great 
 asylum, an honor alike to France and to humanity, 
 he remarks: "It was delightful to behold the 
 almost religious veneration with which his old 
 companions in arms received and welcomed him 
 as he passed from bed to bed. The eyes of these 
 decrepit men would glisten with joy at his ap-
 
 28 THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF 
 
 proach ; and, if sad from suffering, he would cheer 
 their drooping spirits by recounting to them some 
 memorable victory in which they had both parti- 
 cipated. I have heard him sound in their ears 
 the magic words, Lodi, Marengo, and Austerlitz, 
 and Mount Tabor! and the effect was electric and 
 wonderful. It was like the neighing of the war- 
 horse at the sound of the trumpet." 
 
 Larrey has left behind him precious works, the 
 record of his numerous observations and opera- 
 tions in the field and in the hospital; works of 
 transcendent excellence, written with the pen of a 
 master, combining solidity of information with 
 the charm and interest of a romance. Of the 
 unexampled opportunities which he enjoyed for 
 the practical exercise of military surgery a faint 
 idea may be formed when it is stated that, after 
 the battle of Austerlitz, he performed more than 
 two hundred operations, never relaxing his efforts 
 to relieve the wounded until his knife fell power- 
 less from his hand. At Wagram he removed 
 fourteen arms at the shoulder-joint. It reflects 
 no little credit upon the good taste and intelligence 
 of the American profession that all the works of 
 this great surgeon have been translated into the 
 English language by American physicians, the late 
 Professor Wilmot Hall, of Baltimore, having led 
 the way in this commendable enterprise. 
 
 Baron Larrey died in July, 1842. Pariset, soon
 
 VALENTINE MOTT, M. D. 29 
 
 after his death, pronounced a glowing eulogy upon 
 his life and character before the Royal Academy 
 of Medicine, and two statues have since been 
 raised to him, one of them in the court of the 
 Val de Grace Hospital, the scene of the labors of 
 his declining years. The life of Larrey is full of 
 romance, and affords a sublime subject for the 
 study of the philosopher, the poet, the painter, 
 and the historian. 
 
 During his sojourn in the French capital. Dr. 
 Mott spent much of his time in the great hospi- 
 tals there, witnessing the more striking cases of 
 diseases and accidents, and carefully investigating 
 everything that presented the slightest novelty, 
 especially in operative surgery, his own favorite 
 pursuit. He was particularly interested in the 
 study of orthopoedic surgery, then recently founded 
 by Stromeyer, and afterwards so much improved 
 by Guerin, Scoutetten, and other French tenoto- 
 mists. As a consequence of this study he intended, 
 shortly after his return from Europe, to open an 
 institution for the treatment of this class of de- 
 formities at Bloomingdale ; but was finally induced, 
 through the persuasion of his friends, to abandon 
 the project, principally on the ground that it would 
 not be popular with the profession ! 
 
 At the Neckar Hospital, as well as in the social 
 circle, he often met with Mons. Civiale, the ori- 
 ginator of lithotripsy, one of the greatest triumphs
 
 30 
 
 THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF 
 
 of science and humanity ever achieved by man. 
 Without a rival in his particular department, it is 
 impossible, says Mott, for any one to imagine 
 the highly finished style of his manipulations. In 
 delicacy of tact and adroitness of execution he 
 never had an equal. Added to all this, he was one 
 of the most amiable and gentle of men, abounding 
 in all the charities that adorn our nature. 
 
 From Velpeau, with whom he had long been 
 in correspondence, and who, only a few months 
 ago, died at an advanced age, full of honor and 
 fame, he received more than ordinary attention 
 and courtesy. "No man," he says, "could have 
 treated a brother more kindly and cordially than 
 he did me." After speaking of him as a dexterous 
 operator, an admirable teacher, and a profound 
 anatomist, he bestows upon him the high compli- 
 ment of having been by far the most scientific 
 and best read surgeon he had ever met with. Of 
 such a man France has just reason to be proud. 
 From the most humble beginning, he had risen, 
 by the force of industry and genius, to the most 
 exalted rank in his profession. His elaborate work 
 on operative surgery affords an exhibition of learn- 
 ing, and a familiarity with the history of medical 
 literature without a parallel in any language, either 
 in ancient or modern times. His treatises on 
 Midwifery, on Topographical Anatomy, and on 
 the Diseases of the Mammary Gland, the first two
 
 VALENTINE MOTT, M. D. 3 1 
 
 published soon after he entered upon his brilliant 
 career, are all highly meritorious productions, des- 
 tined to associate their author's name with the 
 most distinguished writers of the age, and to con- 
 fer upon it lasting fame. 
 
 Nothing impressed Dr. Mott, in his visits to 
 the French hospitals, more forcibly or unpleasantly 
 than the bad results of the operations in the hands 
 of the different surgeons, even the most dexterous 
 and best educated. From what he saw he was 
 convinced that they were mainly due to the mise- 
 rable system of ventilation in the wards of these 
 establishments, and to a want of proper attention 
 to the after-treatment, especially to an insufficiency 
 of nutritious food and stimulants at a time when 
 the system was exhausted by irritation and suppu- 
 ration. As able diagnosticians and brilliant ope- 
 rators, he considered the surgeons of Paris as 
 unequalled, but as practitioners, with a few hon- 
 orable exceptions, the very worst he had ever seen; 
 an opinion amply confirmed by the judgment and 
 experience of more recent observers. 
 
 At Berlin, Dr. Mott had anticipated great plea- 
 sure from meeting with the celebrated surgeon, 
 Charles Ferdinand von Graefe, who was the first 
 to repeat the ligation of the innominate artery, 
 three years after he himself had performed the 
 operation. His disappointment may be better
 
 32 
 
 THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF 
 
 imagined than described when he learned that he 
 was absent from the city on account of ill health. 
 The career of Von Graefe, as a surgeon, was, in 
 every respect, most brilliant. He enjoyed in Prus- 
 sia the same high consideration as Mott in the 
 United States, Dupuytren in France, and Sir Astley 
 Cooper in Great Britain. Born at Warsaw in 
 1787, two years after our own great countryman, 
 he studied medicine at Halle and Leipzig, took 
 his degree in 1807, entered the military service in. 
 181 1, and was appointed Surgeon-in-Chief of the 
 Prussian army in 1822. He finally settled at Ber- 
 lin as Professor of Surgery and Director of the 
 Ophthalmic Clinic in the famous University of 
 that city. He invented several valuable instru- 
 ments, perfected rhinoplasty, and published a num- 
 ber of excellent monographs on his favorite branch 
 of science, besides editing, conjointly with the 
 illustrious Von Walther, from 18 19 to 1828, a 
 journal of Surgery and Ophthalmology, a period- 
 ical of extraordinary celebrity. His labors in 
 rhinoplasty created a new era in reconstructive 
 surgery in his own country, where the operation 
 is universally known as the German method. Stu- 
 dents flocked to him from all parts of the world 
 to attend his lectures, and his fame was so great 
 that when, late in life, he visited England, he was 
 received with distinguished courtesy by the British 
 sovereign. He died in July, 1840, leaving, as the
 
 VALENTINE MOTT, M. D. 33 
 
 result of his personal exertion and prudence, an 
 estate valued at $3,000,000. 
 
 From Johann Friedrich Dieffenbach, the towns- 
 man of Von Graefe, not less renowned for his skill 
 in rhinoplasty than as the author of the brilliant 
 operation for the cure of strabismus. Dr. Mott 
 received the most devoted consideration. He was 
 particularly struck, during one of his visits to the 
 great Charity Hospital, with the number and va- 
 riety of his new noses, and lost in surprise at his 
 marvellous dexterity as an operator. Dieffenbach 
 was, in truth, a wonderful personage, a most daring, 
 dashing surgeon, a fascinating lecturer, a good 
 writer, a fast man, a roue, and a spendthrift! He 
 had a boundless European fame. His name was 
 as familiar in Paris as in Berlin. Few men ever 
 did so great an amount of delicate surgery as he. 
 He was nose-maker for several kingdoms, and no 
 one in his day probably ever operated so well or 
 so frequently for the cure of cleft-palate. He 
 had published one large volume of a great work 
 on operative surgery, and partly composed the 
 second, when death overtook him in the midst of 
 a clinical discourse, surrounded by a crowd of ad- 
 miring pupils. He had a presentiment that he 
 should not live to complete his task. "Ich erlebe 
 es doch nicht dass es fertig wird." He. had often 
 expressed a wish that he might die suddenly. His 
 saying was: "nur nicht sterben — das ist ein qual- 
 
 3
 
 34 
 
 THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF 
 
 voller Kampf ; aber Tod ist schon !" Death gra- 
 tified his wishes. The first volume of the work 
 appeared in 1845; ^^^ second three years later. 
 
 In Greece, the land of philosophy, poetry, lite- 
 rature, oratory, painting, sculpture, architecture, 
 military glory, and commercial renown. Dr. Mott 
 experienced the delight naturally incident to a 
 journey through that classic and romantic country. 
 Taking Athens as the starting-point, he penetrated 
 deeply into the interior, and explored every object 
 of interest and importance with an eye keenly 
 alive to the beautiful and sublime in nature and in 
 art. Nothing, indeed, seems to have escaped his 
 observation. Mountain and valley, river, lake, and 
 cavern, the tombs of heroes, physicians, and phi- 
 losophers, monuments of art, soil, climate, agri- 
 culture, men, and animals, alike attracted his atten- 
 tion, and engaged the graphic powers of his pen. 
 He witnessed with sorrow the wretched condition 
 of the Greeks, especially the adult portion of the 
 population, who seemed to be sunk too low in all 
 the vices of Oriental indolence ever to be regene- 
 rated. "In this opinion," he remarks, "I have 
 not been precipitate or hasty. It has not been 
 drawn from a survey of the perfumed Athenian 
 or Attican; but I have had an opportunity of see- 
 ing the Theban in his mountain and his capital, 
 the Lebadean in his capital and on his beautiful 
 plain, the Delphian about his rugged cliffs, and
 
 VALENTINE MOTT, M. D. 3^ 
 
 the inhabitant of the mighty snow-topped Par- 
 nassus. I have viewed the whole line, from the 
 long stretch of Mount Helicon to near the highest 
 summit of Parnassus, from Acro-Corinth to the 
 plains of Argos in the Morea, and but one strong 
 feature reigns through the whole." A gloom of 
 midnight darkness everywhere shrouded this once 
 fairy land of the hero and the poet. 
 
 At Athens, where he was warmly welcomed by 
 King Otho and his family, he found a medical 
 school, under the charge of German professors, 
 who lectured to their pupils, hardly a dozen in 
 number, in the modern Greek language. An op- 
 portunity was here afforded him of studying the 
 endemic diseases of the country, then little under- 
 stood, and he took special pains to investigate the 
 nature of lepra, which he concluded was only an 
 obstinate form of syphilis. His visit to the Morea 
 was made expressly to see the ancient city of Epi- 
 daurus, the birthplace of ^sculapius, the father of 
 medicine. It was the ultima thule of his aspira- 
 tions, the Mecca of his pilgrimage to Greece. It 
 was here, in a spot hallowed by a thousand pro- 
 fessional associations, that he performed his famous 
 feat, rendered so by his American detractors, of 
 sacrificing a cock to the memory of the ruling 
 deity, having previously tied both carotid arteries 
 of the honored bird, and delivered, in the presence 
 of his companions, a brief clinical discourse, the
 
 36 
 
 THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF 
 
 first, probably, ever given in that part of the 
 world. 
 
 For this performance Dr. Mott was severely 
 ridiculed, after the publication of his travels, espe- 
 cially by the medical press of his own country. 
 It was, however, only what any intelligent physi- 
 cian, an enthusiastic devotee of his profession, 
 would have done under similar circumstances. 
 The cock was the favorite bird of the god of 
 Medicine, and it was just as natural for a great 
 surgeon, standing at his tomb, to offer such a sacri- 
 fice to his memory, as for Socrates, influenced by 
 his strong religious persuasions, to request Crito, 
 before he passed into a state of insensibility from 
 the hemlock administered to him by the execu- 
 tioner, to pay a similar tribute. " Crito, we owe 
 a cock to iEsculapius: discharge the debt, and by 
 no means omit it." 
 
 In Constantinople, where his fame had preceded 
 him, he was received with great distinction by the 
 reigning Sultan, Abdul Medjid, from whose head 
 he removed a tumor in the presence of the court 
 physician. For this service he was invested by 
 that sovereign with the order of Knight of Med- 
 jidichi of Constantinople.
 
 VALENTINE MOTT, M. D. 37 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 SURGICAL OPERATIONS. 
 
 Ligation of the innominate artery — Excision of the lower jaw — Ampu- 
 tation at the hip-joint — Excision of the clavicle — Hydrorachitis — 
 Ligation of the common iliac — Immobility of the lower jaw — Nasal 
 polyp — Lithotomy — Qualities as an operator. 
 
 We must now go back some years, and inquire 
 into Dr. Mott's exploits as an operator, those 
 achievements upon which his claims to lasting 
 fame will mainly rest. Of the many thousand 
 operations which he performed only a very few 
 need be specified to show that the great reputation 
 founded upon them was justly deserved. The 
 name of Churchill is not more indissolubly asso- 
 ciated with the battle of Blenheim, or that of 
 Wellington with the battle of Waterloo, than is 
 the name of Valentine Mott with the history of 
 surgery in the first half of the nineteenth century. 
 What they, and others like them, accomplished 
 with the sword aided by hordes of soldiers, he 
 accomplished, silently and alone, with the knife. 
 His victories and his triumphs were not less real 
 than theirs. 
 
 It has been seen that Dr. Mott, after his return 
 from Europe, in 1809, was not long in securing
 
 38 
 
 THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF 
 
 business. Notwithstanding the distinguished phy- 
 sicians who occupied the field, he soon became a 
 practitioner of mark ; for Fortune seems to have 
 showered upon him more than an ordinary share 
 of her favors. His principal competitors in sur- 
 gery, among the older members of the profession, 
 were Dr. Richard Kissam and Dr. Wright Post, 
 men of acknowledged ability, and of distinguished 
 reputation. The former was for thirty years one 
 of the surgeons of the New York Hospital, and 
 was particularly celebrated as a lithotomist. Of 
 sixty-five operations which he performed for the 
 relief of vesical calculus, only three proved fatal; 
 a degree of success rarely equalled anywhere. Dr. 
 Post was Professor of Surgery in Columbia Col- 
 lege, and it was under his teaching that young 
 Mott became first thoroughly enamored with that 
 branch of the profession which he subsequently 
 so much adorned. His merit as a surgeon was 
 very great, and, until his pupil came upon the 
 stage, his only rivals in America were Physick 
 and Warren. His name is honorably associated 
 with a number of brilliant operations, the more 
 remarkable because they were performed at a time 
 when such exploits were comparatively uncom- 
 mon. To him belongs the credit of having been 
 the first to tie successfully the subclavian artery 
 above the clavicle, on the outer side of the scalene 
 muscles, for the cure of axillary aneurism. Kis-
 
 VALENTINE MOTT, M. D. ^9 
 
 sam died in 1822, and Post six years after, thus 
 leaving Mott in the undisputed possession of the 
 field, if we except Dr. Alexander H. Stevens, 
 who, after a career of great usefulness and honor, 
 retired upwards of a quarter of a century ago 
 from active practice, to his suburban residence at 
 Astoria, where, surrounded by admiring friends 
 and all the elegancies and refinements that can 
 adorn human life, he is spending the evening of 
 his days in undisturbed tranquillity and happiness. 
 The greatest of his earlier operations — ^that 
 which gave him a world-wide reputation, and 
 placed him in the very foremost rank of the illus- 
 trious surgeons of his day — was performed by Dr. 
 Mott in May, 181 8, in the thirty-fourth year of 
 his age, and in the thirteenth year of his profes- 
 sional life. It was a feat which had never been 
 accon^plished before, and was nothing less than 
 the ligation of the innominate artery, a small 
 stunted vessel, hardly an inch and a third in 
 length, arising from the aorta, within, practically 
 speaking, fearful proximity to the heart. A care- 
 ful study of Mr. Allan Burns' celebrated work on 
 the Surgical Anatomy of the Head and Neck had 
 long ago convinced him of the feasibility of the 
 operation, and he had been in the habit, for seve- 
 ral years, of exhibiting it upon the dead subject in 
 his surgical lectures. With a steady hand, and a 
 correct knowledge of the anatomy of the parts,
 
 40 
 
 THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF 
 
 he knew it could be performed upon the living 
 subject, and he only waited for a suitable oppor- 
 tunity to carry it into effect. This at length pre- 
 sented itself, in the person of Michael Bateman — 
 his name deserves to be recorded — a sailor, a na- 
 tive of Massachusetts, fifty-seven years of age, the 
 subject of an aneurism of the right subclavian 
 artery. His first idea was to tie this vessel, if it 
 should be sufficiently sound, on the inside of the 
 scalene muscles; if not, to secure the innominate 
 artery. The operation was performed on the i ith 
 of May; and, after a careful dissection, it was as- 
 certained that there was such an amount of disease 
 as to render it necessary either to abandon the 
 poor patient to his fate or to throw a ligature 
 round the innominate artery. He did not hesi- 
 tate. Doubtful whether so large a quantity of 
 blood could suddenly be intercepted so near the 
 heart without very serious effects upon the brain, 
 he drew the cord very gradually, with his eyes 
 intently fixed upon the patient's countenance, de- 
 termined to withdraw it instantly if any alarming 
 symptoms should arise. His feelings had been 
 wrought to the highest pitch, and we may there- 
 fore easily imagine the relief he experienced when 
 he perceived, to use his own language, "No change 
 of feature or agitation of body." The arteries at 
 the wrist at once ceased to beat, and the tumor 
 was reduced to one-third of its original volume.
 
 VALENTINE MOTT, M. D. 4 1 
 
 A minute diary of the case was kept. Everything 
 proceeded favorably, with every prospect of final 
 recovery, until the twenty-third day, when he- 
 morrhage to the amount of twenty-four ounces 
 occurred, followed by excessive prostration. The 
 bleeding recurred at intervals until the twenty- 
 sixth day, when the man expired from sheer ex- 
 haustion. The ligature had separated at the end 
 of the second week. The dissection showed the 
 cause of death to have been ulceration of the 
 wound, going on insidiously at the bottom, while 
 the upper part was rapidly healing, and ruinously 
 involving, to an extent nearly of one inch, the 
 innominate, subclavian, and carotid arteries, which 
 opened into the cavity of the aneurism, and were 
 only partially occluded by coagula. 
 
 Although the operation proved fatal, the case 
 fully established the practicability, and also the 
 propriety, of its execution. Regretting this un- 
 toward circumstance, "I am happy," he says, "in 
 the reflection, as it is the only time it has ever 
 been performed, that it is the bearer of a message 
 to surgery, containing new and important results." 
 To appreciate the difficulty and danger of this 
 operation it is necessary to remember that the 
 ligature was placed within one inch of the aorta, 
 the great trunk of the arterial system, that the 
 pleura and lung were in close proximity, and.
 
 42 THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF 
 
 lastly, that it held out to the poor patient the only 
 chance of relief. 
 
 The operation thus initiated has been performed 
 altogether about ten times, and in every instance, 
 save one, death was caused by hemorrhage from 
 the wound, either from the want of occlusion of 
 the ligated artery, or of the carotid and subclavian. 
 In the case of Von Graefe, who was the first to 
 repeat the operation, the patient, for a long time 
 supposed to be out of danger, perished on the 
 sixty-seventh day. 
 
 The last time in which this vessel was secured 
 was in 1864. The case was one of traumatic an- 
 eurism of the subclavian artery, and the intrepid 
 operator. Dr. A. W. Smyth, of New Orleans, in- 
 fluenced by the sad experience of the past, tied at 
 the same time the common carotid. Notwith- 
 standing this precaution, repeated hemorrhages 
 occurred, and the patient would have perished if 
 the vertebral artery, the source of the bleeding, 
 had not also been at length ligated. This opera- 
 tion was performed fifty-four days after the first, 
 and eventuated in complete recovery. Thus, after 
 the-^lapse of nearly half a century, it has at length 
 been demonstrated that ligation of the innomi- 
 nate artery alone for aneurism of the subclavian 
 or carotid is incapable of efi^ecting a cure. In 
 order to succeed it is necessary at the same time
 
 VALENTINE MOTT, M. D. 43 
 
 to secure one of these vessels and likewise the 
 vertebral, as in the case of Dr. Smyth, otherwise 
 death from secondary hemorrhage will be inevi- 
 table. It reflects no discredit upon Dr. Mott's 
 judgment that he did not, in his operation, foresee 
 this necessity. The attempt to tie an artery so 
 near the heart was in itself an extremely bold 
 undertaking. Great truths are generally unravel- 
 led slowly, step by step, as it were. The mind 
 does not all at once grasp the leading points of a 
 grand subject. At first all is dark and mysterious; 
 it is only by degrees that light appears, doubt 
 vanishes, and truth presents herself in all her love- 
 liness. It is sufficient honor for Mott to have 
 been the pioneer in such a noble enterprise. He 
 was in ecstasy over the success of Dr. Smyth's 
 case. In a copy of that gentleman's report of the 
 operation, kindly sent me by Mott, the great sur- 
 geon said: *'I know you will be delighted with 
 this crowning jewels 
 
 In 1 82 1, Dr. Mott excised the right side of the 
 lower jaw of a young woman, the subject of osteo- 
 sarcoma, having previously, as a means of prevent- 
 ing hemorrhage, secured the primitive carotid 
 artery. The operation, an account of which was 
 published in the first volume of the "New York 
 Medical and Physical Journal," was entirely suc- 
 cessful, notwithstanding its formidable character. 
 Afterwards, in three instances, he removed the
 
 44 THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF 
 
 bone, with equally happy results, at the temporo- 
 maxillary articulation. 
 
 When his first case occurred, Dr. Mott was not 
 aware that a similar, though much less extensive, 
 operation had been performed, in 1810, by Dr. 
 W. H. Deadrick, of Tennessee. The reason of 
 this was that no history of the operation was pub- 
 lished until 1823, two years after the occurrence 
 of the New York case, which at the time attracted 
 much attention on account of its supposed novelty. 
 Baron Dupuytren, in 181 2, removed a large por- 
 tion of the inferior maxilla for carcinoma. Al- 
 though it is thus certain that Mott had been 
 anticipated in these operations, both in the United 
 States and in France, yet there can be no question 
 that their success tended very greatly to lessen the 
 fears of these undertakings, and to pave the way 
 more effectually for their general adoption. The 
 brilliant achievements of McClellan, of Philadel- 
 phia, and of Cusack, of Dublin, were directly 
 traceable to the efforts of the New York surgeon 
 to extend relief to a class of sufferers supposed for 
 a long time to be beyond the pale of hope. The 
 recent advances in this particular branch of chi- 
 rurgery have proved that ligation of the common 
 carotid artery, as a preliminary measure to prevent 
 hemorrhage, even when the morbid growth is of 
 extraordinary bulk, may safely be omitted. 
 
 Amputation at the hip-joint, by which nearly
 
 VALENTINE MOTT, M. D. 45 
 
 one-fourth of the entire body is removed, was 
 performed by Dr. Mott in 1824. The patient, a 
 lad ten years of age, had been much exhausted 
 by the effects of a badly-treated fracture of the 
 thigh. Two-thirds of the stump healed by the 
 first intention, and within six weeks the entire 
 wound was closed. It was long believed by Dr. 
 Mott and the profession generally that this had 
 been the first operation of the kind ever performed 
 in America; but many years after it was ascer- 
 tained that he had been anticipated by Dr. Walter 
 Brashear, of Bardstown, Kentucky, as early as 
 1806. No account of the case, however, had ever 
 been published, and when Mott discovered his 
 error he was among the very first to award to the 
 western surgeon the credit so justly due him. His 
 motto always was "Palmam qui meruit ferat." 
 This credit is so much the greater because, when 
 the operation was performed. Dr. Brashear had no 
 precedent to guide him, as no information of the 
 cases of Larrey, Guthrie, and other military sur- 
 geons of Europe had reached this country. 
 
 Excision of the clavicle, performed by Mott, in 
 1828, for osteo-sarcoma of that bone, is, in all 
 respects, one of the most remarkable exploits in 
 the history of surgery, if, indeed, it has any paral- 
 lel. "It surpassed," he says, "in tediousness, dif- 
 ficulty, and danger, anything which I had ever 
 witnessed or undertaken." The tumor, four inches
 
 46 THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF 
 
 in diameter at its base, incompressible, of rapid 
 growth, and of the volume of a man's doubled 
 fist, had contracted the most powerful and exten- 
 sive adhesions, and involved on all sides the most 
 important structures. To guard against the en- 
 trance of air into the external jugular vein, an 
 occurrence often followed by instant death, that 
 vessel was secured, as a preliminary step, with two 
 ligatures. The tumor being excessively vascular, 
 the blood gushed forth so freely at every stroke of 
 the scalpel as to render it necessary to tie not less 
 than forty arteries, an occurrence probably without 
 a parallel in the history of surgery. A faint idea 
 of the magnitude and difficulty of the undertaking 
 may be formed when it is stated that nearly four 
 hours were consumed in its execution — a portion 
 of the time in efforts to revive the patient from 
 the effects of shock and loss of blood — and when 
 it is recollected that the operator was one whose 
 knowledge of surgical anatomy and manual dex- 
 terity have never been surpassed. Dr. Mott, with 
 a pardonable vanity, called it his Waterloo opera- 
 tion, as it was performed on the 17th of June, the 
 day before the anniversary of that famous battle 
 which forever decided the destiny of Napoleon 
 upon the throne of France. 
 
 An attempt has been made to deprive Dr. Mott 
 of the honor of priority of this operation by as- 
 cribing it to Dr. Charles McCreary, of Hartford,
 
 VALENTINE MOTT, M. D. 47 
 
 Kentucky, who, in 181 3, removed the right cla- 
 vicle, in a youth fourteen years of age, on account 
 of a scrofulous affection. In a Report on Ken- 
 tucky Surgery, drawn up by me in 1852, for the 
 Kentucky State Medical Society, of which I was 
 one of the founders, and for one year President, I 
 myself gave currency to that idea; but I am now, 
 after a more careful study of the two cases, per- 
 fectly satisfied that they had nothing whatever in 
 common with each other, and that Dr. Mott is 
 fully entitled to all the merit that can attach to 
 such a procedure. The case of Dr. McCreary was 
 one simply of caries, or of caries and necrosis, and 
 required no particular dexterity for the removal 
 of the bone, as it was but little, if any, enlarged, 
 and not encroached upon in any manner whatever 
 by the surrounding structures. On the contrary, 
 it was comparatively isolated, and therefore easily 
 detached. The operation, in fact, was such as any 
 one, even the veriest tyro in surgery, could have 
 performed. In Dr. Mott's case matters were alto- 
 gether different. The difficulty and danger were 
 immense, and there was a tumor of large size with 
 the most intimate and powerful adhesions that 
 can be conceived of, in close proximity not only 
 with large arteries, veins, and nerves, but even the 
 pleura and lung, and which only a surgeon of the 
 most consummate coolness and dexterity could 
 sever. I doubt very much whether the annals of
 
 48 THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF 
 
 surgery, ancient or modern, present a parallel 
 case, one requiring such an amount of anatomical 
 knowledge, judgment, skill, and patience. I con- 
 sider it as by far the very greatest of all Dr. Mott's 
 operations, not excepting those upon the innomi- 
 nate and primitive iliac arteries. 
 
 The patient, a youth of nineteen years, not only 
 rapidly recovered from the immediate effects of the 
 operation, but in less than twelve months regained 
 the perfect use of the corresponding extremity. 
 The small acromial end of the bone, left behind 
 in the operation, had formed permanent adhesions 
 with the surrounding parts, and thus maintained 
 the shoulder in its normal position. 
 
 A perfect cure of hydrorachitis, a congenital 
 affection, usually called spina bifida, or cleft-spine, 
 is, under any circumstances, even the most favor- 
 able, an extremely uncommon occurrence. Dr. 
 Mott had the proud satisfaction of saving two 
 children by operative interference. The first case 
 came under his observation in 1830. The tumor, 
 situated in the lower portion of the back, and in 
 volume nearly equal to a goose's egg, was included 
 in an elliptical incision, and the wound, which 
 united by the first intention, closed with inter- 
 rupted sutures and adhesive plaster. The patient, 
 nine years of age, rapidly recovered, and subse- 
 quently enjoyed vigorous health. In the other 
 case, involving the cervico-dorsal region, a similar
 
 VALENTINE MOTT, M. D. 49 
 
 operation was performed on the ninth day after 
 birth, with results not less gratifying. 
 
 In the ligation of arteries he was "facile prin- 
 ceps;" absolutely without a rival. No surgeon, liv- 
 ing or dead, ever tied so many vessels, or so success- 
 fully, for the cure of aneurism, the relief of injury, 
 or the arrest of morbid growths. The catalogue, 
 inclusive of the celebrated case of the innominate 
 artery, already described, comprises eight examples 
 of the subclavian artery, fifty-one of the primitive 
 carotid, two of the external carotid, one of the 
 common iliac, six of the external iliac, two of the 
 internal iliac, fifty-seven of the femoral, and ten of 
 the popliteal; in all one hundred and thirty-eight. 
 
 His great operation for tying the common iliac 
 artery for the cure of aneurism came off in 1827, 
 and was completely successful. In only one in- 
 stance before had this vessel been secured in the 
 living subject. The case alluded to occurred in 
 1 81 2, in the practice of Dr. William Gibson, then 
 Professor of Surgery in the University of Mary- 
 land, and afterwards in the University of Penn- 
 sylvania, the patient having been wounded in the 
 abdomen by a musket-ball during the riots in 
 Baltimore. He survived the operation thirteen 
 days, the immediate cause of death being perito- 
 nitis and secondary hemorrhage. The case is one 
 of profound interest, inasmuch as it served to es- 
 tablish, in the most irrefragable manner, a great 
 
 4
 
 So 
 
 THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF 
 
 principle in the operative surgery of the arteries, 
 that the largest vessel of this kind may be oblite- 
 rated, and yet the circulation in the extremities 
 go on with perfect freedom. Mott's case was one 
 of aneurism, of immense size, of the external iliac 
 artery, and the operation was attended with great 
 difficulty on account of the extensive disease of 
 the vessel. The ligature was placed within half 
 an inch of the aorta. The patient recovered with- 
 out an untoward symptom. 
 
 The next operation upon this vessel was per- 
 formed by Sir Philip Crampton, of Dublin, in 
 1828, with an unfavorable result. The statistics 
 of twenty-seven cases, tabulated by Dr. Stephen 
 Smith, of New York, in i860, exhibit eleven in 
 which the artery was tied for the arrest of hemor- 
 rhage with only one recovery, and fifteen in which 
 it was secured for aneurism, with five cures and 
 ten deaths. 
 
 Dr. Mott possessed peculiar skill in the treat- 
 ment of hare-lip. Many of the worst cases of 
 this malformation that fell into his hands were so 
 effectually cured as to render it difficult, a few 
 years after the operation, to detect any traces of 
 the original defect. 
 
 I am unable to say what his success was in rhi- 
 noplasty, or in the formation of new noses ; a 
 branch of surgery so ably practised by Taliacotius 
 in the sixteenth century, and so greatly perfected
 
 VALENTINE MOTT, M. D. 5 1 
 
 by Graefe, DiefFenbach, Serre, Zeis, Pancoast, Fer- 
 gusson, and others in our own day. It is well 
 known that he took a deep interest in the recon- 
 structive surgery of the lips and cheeks, formerly 
 so often mutilated by the injudicious use of mer- 
 cury, and he has published the particulars of a 
 number of successful cures. One of these cases 
 occurred as early as 1825, and deserves allusion on 
 account of the immense size of the gap, for filling 
 which he was compelled to borrow a large flap of 
 integument from the neighboring surface. 
 
 One of the most distressing accidents that can 
 possibly befall a human being is immobility of the 
 lower jaw, dependent upon anchylosis of the tem- 
 poro-maxillary articulation. This affection, usu- 
 ally caused by salivation, was formerly exceedingly 
 common in all sections of this country, but more 
 especially in the Southwestern States, owing to 
 the inordinate use of mercury in almost every 
 form of disease, however trivial. As a natural 
 consequence of this wretched practice, fortunately 
 now obsolete, numerous cases of mortification 
 both of the jaw-bones, and of the gums, lips, and 
 cheeks occurred, leading to the most distressing 
 deformity, and the necessity almost of a new 
 branch of surgery. Dr. Mott had a full share of 
 such cases. In 18 12, soon after his settlement in 
 New York, a most distressing one fell under his 
 notice, and elicited his most lively sympathy.
 
 52 
 
 THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF 
 
 The success which attended his efforts at restitu- 
 tion excited much interest in the profession, and 
 induced him to bestow special attention upon the 
 subject. After much reflection he finally con- 
 structed an instrument upon the screw and lever 
 principle, for prying open the jaw after the exci- 
 sion, as a preliminary step, of the inodular tissues. 
 In referring afterwards to the work of Scultetus, 
 the "Armamentarium Chirurgicum," published in 
 the seventeenth century, he found, much to his 
 surprise, almost a fac-simile of his own instrument, 
 just as Robert Liston, in the same work, found a 
 figure and description of what modern surgeons 
 have generally been pleased to call Liston's bone- 
 forceps; so true is it that there is nothing new 
 under the sun. 
 
 An operation which added greatly to his fame, 
 as an expert and daring surgeon, was performed 
 by him, in 1841, for the removal of an immense 
 fibroid tumor, filling up the entire nostril, and 
 dipping far down into the pharynx. The suffer- 
 ing was so excessive as seriously to impair the 
 man's general health. After many fruitless efforts 
 to effect riddance by different surgeons. Dr. Mott 
 finally accomplished the object by the division of 
 the nasal and maxillary bones in front of the face, 
 rendered necessary to afford free access to the 
 morbid growth. The operation, though not the 
 first of the kind, was the most extensive and diffi-
 
 VALENTINE MOTT, M. D. ^3 
 
 cult that had ever been performed for such a pur- 
 pose, and was followed by complete recovery. 
 
 As a lithotomist he stood in the very foremost 
 rank. He was a strong advocate of the lateral 
 method, which he always, like Cheselden, by 
 whom the operation was so greatly perfected, per- 
 formed with the bistoury. He considered the 
 gorget as a clumsy, unwieldy, unscientific instru- 
 ment, unfit for such a purpose. He fully indorsed 
 the views of Mr. Liston, who declared that the 
 gorget looked more like a "flauchter-spade," an 
 implement for cutting turf, than an instrument 
 for performing a delicate surgical operation. In '; 
 1855, ^^ wrote to me that he had operated 162 
 times, with a loss only of seven patients, or in the 
 ratio of one in twenty-seven; a success of which 
 few surgeons, ancient or modern, can boast. He 
 afterwards had three other cases, making in all 
 165. He extracted the largest stone that was ever 
 removed from the living body, its weight being 
 seventeen ounces and two drachms. The patient, 
 an aged man, lived several days after the operation. 
 
 Other operations, many of them of great mag- 
 nitude and delicacy, might be mentioned, but this 
 is unnecessary, the more especially as I have already 
 considerably exceeded the limits I had intended 
 to assign to this branch of the subject. His great 
 and crowning exploits were, the ligation of the 
 innominate artery, the excision of the collar bone.
 
 54 
 
 THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF 
 
 and the ligation of the common iliac artery, the 
 first successful example of the kind upon record. 
 All these were really wonderful performances, at 
 the time of their occurrence without a parallel in 
 the history of surgery. 
 
 Dr. Mott possessed, in an extraordinary degree, 
 all the qualities of a great operator — an eye that 
 never quailed, a hand that never trembled, and a 
 mind so well disciplined as to be capable of meet- 
 ing every emergency. His dexterity in the use 
 of the knife and the more delicate manipulations 
 has rarely been equalled, certainly never excelled. 
 He cut almost as easily w^ith one hand as with the 
 other. His natural gifts, his intimate knowledge 
 of surgical anatomy, for a long time his daily 
 study, and his vast opportunities, placed him at an 
 early period of his life in the foremost rank of 
 great operators. 
 
 It must not, however, be supposed that he was 
 a mere operator, or that he had an inordinate 
 fondness for the use of the knife. Nothing could 
 be more untrue. He possessed attributes of a 
 much higher and nobler quality. He was, as 
 every surgeon, with the slightest pretension to the 
 name must be, an accomplished physician, a close 
 observer of disease, acute in diagnosis, and per- 
 fectly familiar with the nature and uses of reme- 
 dies, in the efficacy of which he was a firm believer. 
 It is deeply to be regretted that mankind so sel-
 
 VALENTINE MOTT, M. D. 
 
 55 
 
 dom know the real differences between the mere 
 operator and the educated, skilful, and enlightened 
 surgeon. The one delights in the use of the knife 
 and the display of instruments; he cuts without 
 . discrimination or judgment, and often selects the 
 very worst cases, on account of the eclat they may 
 elicit. He knows little of therapeutics, and con- 
 ducts his after-treatment without regard to conse- 
 quences. The surgeon, on the contrary, is a man 
 of science ; he is essentially conservative, and, 
 hence, employs the knife only as a dernier resort; 
 he has great confidence in the resources of Nature, 
 carefully watches his patient, and uses a thousand 
 stratagems to waylay and combat disease. The 
 one is a curse; the other a blessing. The knife's- 
 man is a disgrace to the profession; the conserva- 
 tive surgeon an ornament and an honor. I know 
 of no being more contemptible than one who 
 cuts merely for the sake of a fee, or the pitiful 
 notoriety it may secure him. 
 
 To be a great surgeon, a great operator, a great 
 teacher, was the measure of Dr. Mott's ambition, 
 the dream of his youth, the glory of his riper 
 years. He cultivated surgery with a rare single- 
 ness of aim; it was with him *'totus in illis;" 
 everything was subordinated to the accomplish- 
 ment of that particular end. Much of his success 
 was due to his accurate knowledge of surgical 
 anatomy; he knew the relative position of every
 
 56 THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF 
 
 artery, and vein, and nerve, and muscle, as tho- 
 roughly as a child knows its alphabet. He could 
 shut his eyes, and see everything as clearly as if it 
 had been reflected from a mirror. He tells us, in 
 one of his introductory discourses, that he never 
 performed a great or difficult operation upon the 
 living subject without having first performed it 
 upon the dead. The fact is, he had a passion for 
 dissecting; and, although he was not, like Vesa- 
 lius, obliged to rob the gibbet for subjects, he had 
 often not a little trouble in obtaining them. The 
 younger physicians of New York, who pursue 
 their studies under the peaceful operation of the 
 Anatomy Bill, enacted less than twenty years ago, 
 know nothing of the perils and hardships which 
 attended dissections in the early days of Mott. 
 
 Another great element of power was his know- 
 ledge of morbid anatomy. It may safely be 
 affirmed that no man can be a surgeon, in the 
 true and more exalted sense of that term, unless 
 he is well informed upon this subject. Dr. Mott 
 fully appreciated the importance of this study at 
 the very outset of his professional life, and he 
 therefore lost no opportunity of enlarging his 
 knowledge of it by dissections and post-mortem 
 examinations. His museum was a noble collec- 
 tion of morbid specimens, from which he must 
 have derived lessons of the greatest value as a 
 diagnostician and therapeutist.
 
 VALENTINE MOTT, M. D. 57 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 LITERARY, EDUCATIONAL, AND OTHER LABORS. 
 
 Writes little — New York Medical and Surgical Register — Book of Tra- 
 vels — Velpeau's Surgery — Introductory and other discourses — College 
 teaching — Private pupils — Prize medals — Connection with hospitals. 
 
 As a literary man Dr. Mott has left behind him 
 no monument to perpetuate his name. His writ- 
 ings, unfortunately, are very limited. It is deeply 
 to be lamented that a practitioner of such vast 
 experience should have failed to record his obser- 
 vations for the benefit of his profession and of 
 mankind. Considering his immense opportuni- 
 ties, public and private, for studying diseases and 
 accidents, and the astonishing number of opera- 
 tions which he performed, from the most insig- 
 nificant, as the excision of a little tumor, to the 
 amputation at the hip-joint, the ligation of many 
 of the principal arteries, and the removal of gigan- 
 tic morbid growths, the loss thus sustained cannot 
 be too much deplored. He might have published 
 a vast treatise on clinical surgery, drawn entirely 
 from the field of his own observations, and thereby 
 enriched, if not enlarged, the domain of his pro- 
 fession. Writing, however, was evidently distaste- 
 ful to him ; and, perhaps, distrustful of his powers.
 
 58 THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF 
 
 he might have recalled to mind the fact that few 
 works, especially if composed early in life, long 
 survive their authors. Lacordaire has not exag- 
 gerated the truth when he said : "After a century 
 or two from their appearance, only a very few of 
 the books even of the great writers are read." 
 The sarcastic remark of Voltaire concerning Rous- 
 seau's "Ode to Posterity" is eminently true of 
 professional works — few reach their address. 
 Mott's life was too incessantly engrossed by the 
 cares and toils of his profession to leave him any 
 leisure for extended authorship. Nothing is so 
 well calculated to destroy one's literary taste as 
 constant fatigue and worriment of mind, the com- 
 mon lot of those engaged in large practice, espe- 
 cially surgical, of the responsibility of which few 
 persons can form any just estimate. The great 
 bulk of Dr. Mott's strictly medical and surgical 
 writings consists of reports of cases and operations 
 scattered through the periodical press. They de- 
 serve to be collected in book form. Of his later 
 clinical lectures, delivered in the University of the 
 City of New York, an abstract was published 
 some years ago by one of his pupils. Dr. Samuel 
 W. Francis. He had himself long contemplated 
 the composition of a work on the capital opera- 
 tions and new processes in surgery, of which he 
 considered himself as the legitimate originator ;
 
 VALENTINE MOTT, M. D. 59 
 
 but, from some cause or other, he died without 
 accomplishing his purpose. 
 
 In 1 8 18, he founded, along with Dr. John Watts 
 and Dr. Alexander H. Stevens, the "New York 
 Medical and Surgical Register," designed mainly 
 as a repository of the more important cases and 
 operations occurring in the New York Hospital, 
 of which they were the professional attendants. 
 The work was modelled after the "Dublin Hos- 
 pital Reports," a celebrated periodical, replete with 
 instructive matter, often referred to, even at the 
 present day, on account of the valuable informa- 
 tion it affords. The Register was, unfortunately, 
 short-lived; for it ceased after the publication of 
 the first volume. It will, however, always be an 
 object of interest and attraction; first, because it 
 was the first work of the kind ever issued on this 
 side of the Atlantic, and, secondly, because it com- 
 prises the earlier publications of three physicians, 
 who, all in turn, occupied, though in different 
 degrees, a high position in public and professional 
 esteem. 
 
 In 1842, soon after his return to the United 
 States, he published an account of his foreign 
 tour, under the title of "Travels in Europe and 
 the East," in an octavo volume of upwards of 
 four hundred pages. It attracted much attention 
 at the time, and encountered a great deal of severe 
 and ungenerous criticism from the medical press
 
 6o THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF 
 
 of this country. Many of its chapters are of ab- 
 sorbing interest, but by far the most entertaining 
 and instructive portion of the work is that which 
 relates to his journey through Greece. 
 
 In 1 842, '43, and '44, he superintended the trans- 
 lation, by Dr. P. S. Townsend, of Professor Vel- 
 peau's treatise on Operative Surgery; a vast store- 
 house, as is well known, of learning and research, 
 precious alike to science and humanity; a legacy 
 which the most gifted in the long and glorious 
 line of French surgeons, from Ambrose Pare 
 down, might have been proud to bequeath. Dr. 
 Mott's principal part of the labor consisted of an 
 elaborate preface and the addition of several hun- 
 dred pages of new matter, made up, in great 
 measure, of his previously published cases and 
 reports. It need hardly be said that the contri- 
 butions thus made materially enhanced the value 
 of the original work. A new edition of the 
 translation was issued, in 1856, with important 
 notes and annotations, by Professor George C. 
 Blackman, of Cincinnati. 
 
 In the preface to this work. Dr. Mott adverts 
 to the fact that he had long been in the habit of 
 employing the curvilinear incision, to which Mons. 
 Velpeau justly attaches so much importance in 
 operations upon the jaws and in resections of the 
 bones generally. The Coryphaeus of French sur- 
 gery, who has described the advantages and supe-
 
 VALENTINE MOTT, M. D. 6 1 
 
 riority of the proceeding with his accustomed clear- 
 ness and ability, had evidently forgotten that the 
 improvement was due mainly to the genius of his 
 transatlantic confrere. Other operators have since 
 claimed the paternity of this important practice. 
 
 The other published writings of Dr. Mott are 
 limited to introductory and valedictory lectures, 
 delivered to his classes at the opening and close of 
 the sessions of the medical colleges; an inaugural 
 discourse on the occasion of his assuming the du- 
 ties of President of the New York Academy of 
 Medicine; an address before the Trustees of the 
 New York Inebriate Asylum at Binghampton ; a 
 sketch of the life of Dr. Wright Post; and a eu- 
 logy on Dr. John W. Francis. In 1862, he pre- 
 pared, at the request of the United States Sanitary 
 Commission, a paper on the use of anassthetics, 
 for the benefit of our army surgeons; and after- 
 wards, for the same body, a valuable article on the 
 means of suppressing hemorrhage in gunshot and 
 other injuries, intended mainly as a guide for 
 wounded soldiers on the field of battle. He also 
 contributed several interesting and instructive 
 communications to the Transactions of the New 
 York Academy of Medicine ; and one to the 
 Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society of Lon- 
 don on a peculiar form of congenital tumor of 
 the skin, to which he applied the term "Pachy- 
 dermatocele." The affection, which was not well
 
 62 THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF 
 
 understood until it was described by Dr. Mott, is 
 of rare occurrence, and consists essentially in a 
 hypertrophied condition of the cutaneous and cel- 
 lular tissues, forming masses, of various shapes and 
 sizes, hanging as it were from the body. He met 
 only with five cases of it. With the exception of 
 notes to his lectures, he has left no MSS. 
 
 His style as a writer does not require criticism. 
 It is plain, simple, intelligible, unambitious. His 
 clinical reports are models of brevity and clearness. 
 
 As a public teacher. Dr. Mott occupied a pro- 
 minent position. His name is affixed to the diplo- 
 mas of thousands of pupils, who were wont to sit 
 at his feet, as if he had been another Gamaliel, 
 imbibing knowledge from the rich fountains of 
 his mind, to qualify themselves for the successful 
 practice of their profession. Commencing his 
 career as a lecturer with a private course on ana- 
 tomy the winter after his return from Europe, he 
 taught surgery in the schools and hospitals of his 
 adopted city for nearly half a century. Without 
 any attempt at oratory or meretricious display, 
 which no man ever more despised, he was tho- 
 roughly master of his subject, and had the rare 
 faculty of making himself understood by the dull- 
 est intellect. He never committed to memory or 
 wrote out his lectures; a few notes carefully di- 
 gested and the dissection always before him fur- 
 nished sufficient topics to carry him rapidly and
 
 VALENTINE MOTT, M. D. 63 
 
 pleasantly through the hour. His manner in the 
 amphitheatre was quiet and dignified ; his voice 
 clear and distinct. His discourse was often en- 
 livened by a piquant anecdote, illustrative of some 
 point of practice, or of some great operation, of 
 which, perhaps, he himself was the principal part. 
 He always drew largely from the stores of his 
 own experience. With theory he had little to 
 do. Emphatically a teacher of facts, he never 
 failed to be interesting and instructive. His great 
 forte was clinical teaching, which no one ever 
 knew how to set off to better advantage. On such 
 occasions he was generally very animated, fre- 
 quently facetious, always edifying. The student 
 felt how much he had learned, and he often lin- 
 gered behind after the exercises had closed, to 
 obtain a nearer look at the object of his adoration. 
 This feeling, so natural in youths, not unfrequently 
 leads to the warmest attachments between the 
 pupil and the preceptor, and is one of the most 
 gratifying circumstances in the life of a public 
 teacher. 
 
 As a lecturer, he is said to have occasionally 
 been too egotistical. Vanity is a trivial fault, 
 which, in one who had so much to be vain of, 
 might well have been overlooked. A celebrated 
 American phrenologist was in the habit of saying, 
 in speaking of the size of the brain: "Ladies and 
 gentlemen, modern times have produced only three
 
 64 THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF 
 
 really great heads: one is that of Daniel Webster, 
 the second that of Edmund Burke, and the third," 
 gracefully carrying his hand to his own, "modesty 
 forbids me to mention." The vanity of the great 
 surgeon never offended against good taste. 
 
 Mott never felt more at home than in the am- 
 phitheatre, surrounded by his pupils. He delight- 
 ed to instruct them, to watch the development of 
 their knowledge, and to infuse into them some of 
 his own enthusiasm. Lord Eldon, it is said, never 
 was so happy as when he was in Westminster 
 Hall, in the midst of the members of the bar, 
 explaining some great and knotty point of law; 
 and the great surgeon experienced similar gratifi- 
 cation in expounding to his youthful and inge- 
 nuous auditors the principles and practice of his 
 favorite branch of science. 
 
 His private pupils were numerous, especially in 
 the earlier part of his career, and are scattered, far 
 and wide, over this vast continent, disseminating 
 his doctrines, and illustrating his practice. Not a 
 few of them have shone with the reflected light 
 of their illustrious master, while others, more for- 
 tunate, have risen by the force of their intellectual 
 powers to great and deserved eminence as teachers 
 and practitioners. Who can estimate the vast 
 amount of good which a great surgeon, occupying 
 a high social and professional position, may confer 
 upon mankind through his pupils ? The seed
 
 VALENTINE MOTT, M. D. 65 
 
 thus sown may be transmitted to the most remote 
 ages, increasing in vigor and freshness as it de- 
 scends along the stream of time. 
 
 His regard for medical students induced him in 
 1856, as a means of encouragement, to institute 
 three prize medals for the best dissections and clin- 
 ical reports in the University of the City of New 
 York. The awards were made annually, on com- 
 mencement day, to the three most distinguished 
 pupils up to the time of his death, and the exam- 
 ple thus set has had the effect of inciting similar 
 enterprises on the part of other eminent teachers. 
 In his Will he ordered a fund to be set apart for 
 the perpetuation of these prize medals, the great 
 object of which is the promotion of the pupil's 
 welfare, not the gratification of any selfish vanity. 
 "I shall be cheered," he remarks, "both now and 
 hereafter, by the thought that I have thus been 
 enabled to show my regard for him. I shall be 
 cheered by the thought that any little distinction, 
 which the possession of this medal shall obtain for 
 him, may enable him more manfully and success- 
 fully to contend with the vicissitudes of life. I 
 shall be still more cheered by the thought that, 
 perhaps, the last words I shall ever utter, in rela- 
 tion to the recollections and associations which 
 this emblem recalls and inspires, shall enable him 
 to meet his fate with serenity, when, like me, he 
 is preparing for the messenger of death." 
 
 5
 
 66 THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF 
 
 The preparations accruing from the award of 
 these prizes were always added to his museum, 
 comprising nearly looo specimens in healthy and 
 morbid anatomy, besides a considerable number 
 of casts, wax models, and paintings. The patho- 
 logical specimens were the product principally of 
 his own surgical operations, many of which were 
 of a very formidable character. It was by far the 
 largest collection of the kind in the country, and 
 upwards of half a century had been spent in its 
 accumulation. The great majority of the prepa- 
 rations, properly so called, were made with his 
 own hands. The museum was particularly rich 
 in tumors, aneurisms, and diseased bones, joints, 
 arteries, and bladders. The specimens were all 
 arranged according to their respective affinities, 
 and were illustrated by a comprehensive catalogue, 
 published in 1858. It is with sorrow that I add 
 that nearly the whole of this valuable and magni- 
 ficent collection was lost in the burning of the 
 edifice of the University Medical College in 1866, 
 shortly after the death of its distinguished owner. 
 
 Dr. Mott's career, as a public lecturer, was a 
 remarkably checkered one. He was connected 
 with quite a number of medical schools, and Jiad, 
 consequently, had many colleagues. With all of 
 them he lived on the very best terms — with some 
 of them, indeed, on terms of intimacy — and there 
 was not an individual with whom he ever had any
 
 VALENTINE MOTT, M. D. 67 
 
 serious misunderstanding ; indeed, hardly a word 
 of difference. He had, of course, his views and 
 opinions, but he never attempted to enforce them 
 against the wishes, feelings, or prejudices of others. 
 He was too amiable and courteous a man to quar- 
 rel; a mode of settling questions at one time, un- 
 fortunately, too common in American medical 
 schools. 
 
 Dr. Mott's official connection with charitable 
 institutions was long and extensive. Soon after 
 his return from Europe, in 1809, he was appointed 
 Surgeon to the New York Hospital, one of the 
 oldest and most celebrated eleemosynary establish- 
 ments in America, affording vast opportunities for 
 the study and treatment of diseases and accidents. 
 He retained his connection with the Hospital 
 until 1835, when failing health compelled him to 
 retire. Many of his most brilliant and daring 
 exploits were performed within its walls, and it 
 was there, in the presence of admiring pupils, that 
 he delivered many of his most able and valuable 
 courses of clinical instruction; a branch of educa- 
 tion which he afterwards more fully elaborated as 
 Professor of Surgery in the University of the City 
 of New York. 
 
 On his return from his foreign travels, he re- 
 entered the Hospital, but finally severed his con- 
 nection with it, in 1850, on the occasion of his 
 third visit to Europe. He was afterwards, for
 
 68 THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF 
 
 fifteen years, associated as Senior Consulting Sur- 
 geon with Bellevue Hospital ; and he also served, 
 for some time, in a similar capacity, St. Luke's 
 Hospital, the Jews', St. Vincent's, and the Wo- 
 men's Hospital, in the latter of which he always 
 felt the deepest interest. On the 8th of Decem- 
 ber, 1866, a tablet, erected to his memory at Belle- 
 vue Hospital, was unveiled. It is situated in the 
 main hall opposite to the stone upon which Wash- 
 ington stood when the oath of office as President 
 of the United States was administered to him by 
 Chancellor Livingston. It bears the following 
 inscription : — 
 
 In Memoriam. Valentine Mott, M. D.; born, 
 August 20th, 1785; died, April 26th, 1865: — a 
 pioneer in Surgery of world-wide fame, his name 
 is embalmed in the operations which he devised, 
 in the far-reaching influence of his instructions, 
 and in the kindly recollections of his life. In 
 grateful remembrance of his valuable and volun- 
 tary services during a period of fifteen years as 
 Consulting Surgeon of Bellevue Hospital, this 
 tablet has been erected by the Commissioners of 
 Public Charities and Corrections of the City of 
 New York, A. D. 1866.
 
 VALENTINE MOTT, M. D. 69 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 LAST ILLNESS. 
 
 Last illness — Funeral — Personal appearance — Marriage — Memorial 
 Library — Family. 
 
 With the exception of an occasional brief in- 
 disposition, Dr. Mott, after his return from Europe 
 in 1 841, enjoyed excellent health to within a few 
 months of his last illness, when his family and 
 friends began to notice a manifest decline in his 
 physical powers, attended with erratic pains, chiefly 
 seated in the back and limbs, and, now and then, 
 exceedingly severe. Time, in its onward course, 
 had made little outward impression upon him. 
 At my last interview with him in the autumn of 
 1863, he was as erect, and, apparently, as active, 
 as when I first met with him upwards of a third 
 of a century before. The frosts of eighty winters 
 had hardly touched his hair. His mind, always 
 clear and well poised, had undergone no change. 
 His equanimity, his temperance, and his regular 
 habits had maintained the machinery of his body 
 in the best possible condition for the attainment 
 of longevity and the enjoyment of physical and 
 mental comfort. Without care, in the undisputed 
 possession of every earthly source of happiness —
 
 70 THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF 
 
 wealth, fame, friends, and a family that literally 
 worshipped him — his life was one of uninterrupted 
 serenity. So well, indeed, were all the faculties 
 of his mind and body preserved that he continued 
 to operate up to the close of his life. It was only 
 occasionally, as when the case was one of uncom- 
 mon delicacy, and when, from some cause or 
 other, his hand was not as steady as usual, that he 
 would resign the knife to his son. Dr. Alexander 
 B. Mott, who for the last sixteen years of his life 
 had been his constant assistant. 
 
 His last illness was brief. On Saturday, April 
 the 22d, he left his house, as had been his wont, 
 at I o'clock, apparently in excellent health and 
 spirits, to make his morning rounds. He had, 
 however, hardly been gone an hour, when he 
 came back in a violent rigor, his teeth chattering, 
 and his whole frame shivering with cold. He 
 complained of severe pain in his right leg and of 
 a sense of extreme exhaustion. The limb gradu- 
 ally assumed a purplish and oedematous aspect, but 
 the pain soon entirely ceased, and long before 
 death came to his relief all physical suffering had 
 vanished. Everything was done, but in vain, 
 by his physicians, aided by the wise counsel of his 
 able, learned, and distinguished friend. Professor 
 Austin Flint, to avert the fatal shafts of death. 
 He expired at his residence, Gramercy Park, at a 
 quarter past ii o'clock, April the 26th, 1865.
 
 VALENTINE MOTT, M. D. 71 
 
 He retained his consciousness to the last, and sunk 
 into his long rest without a struggle, softly and 
 gently as a child falls asleep upon its mother's 
 breast. The last words he uttered were, "Order, 
 Truth, Punctuality;" fitting expressions for one 
 whose whole life had been an exemplification of 
 the force of their import. 
 
 Although he had reached the age of fourscore 
 years — a period when life is usually held by a fee- 
 ble tenure — yet the news of his death created 
 universal grief. The medical profession, whose 
 honored head he had so long been, felt that it 
 had suddenly been deprived of one of its greatest 
 ornaments, and the city of New York, for so 
 many years the scene of his labor and renown, 
 mourned as a city only can mourn when it loses 
 one of its conscript fathers. 
 
 The funeral took place on Sunday, April the 
 31st, in the presence of an immense concourse of 
 citizens, all anxious to testify their respect and es- 
 teem. The medical profession attended in a body. 
 Many of the most prominent divines, lawyers, 
 literary men, artists, and merchants were present. 
 The coffin, placed in the Church of the Trans- 
 figuration, was decorated with the choicest flow- 
 ers, emblems of purity and aflfection, reflecting 
 the fragrance of a well-spent life. The body was 
 deposited in Greenwood Cemetery, in the family 
 vault, built under his own instructions, ten years
 
 72 
 
 THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF 
 
 previously, in the form of a chapel with fifteen 
 marble catacombs, in the highest central one of 
 which are his remains. A niche above is to be 
 occupied by his bust, from the chisel of the dis- 
 tinguished sculptor, Mr. Ward, of New York. 
 On the marble slab which seals the chamber are 
 inscribed these words: — 
 
 "Valentine Mott, M.D., LL. D., born at Glen- 
 coe, Long Island, August 20th, 1785; died in New 
 York, April 26th, 1865. 
 
 My implicit faith and hope are in a merciful Redeemer, 
 
 Who is the Resurrection and the Life. Amen, Amen." — V. Mott. 
 
 The personal appearance of Dr. Mott was emi- 
 nently prepossessing. Tall and erect, with broad 
 shoulders, and a fine muscular development, he 
 had an open, handsome countenance, a frank, 
 manly expression, and a dignified yet cordial man- 
 ner. His stature was fully six feet, his forehead 
 high and prominent, the mouth small, the nose 
 aquiline, the chin round and dimpled, the eye 
 large, of hazel hue, and shaded by a heavy brow, 
 and the hair, in early life, nearly black with a 
 slight inclination to brownish. His features were 
 regular, and indicative of the benevolence which 
 formed so remarkable a trait in his character. It 
 has already been stated that he was for a long 
 time known by the sobriquet of the handsome 
 Quaker Doctor. He retained his good looks 
 until his death. Even his sight was excellent to
 
 VALENTINE MOTT, M. D. 73 
 
 the last. He never wore glasses, except at night, 
 or when he had a very delicate operation to per- 
 form. In old age his hearing and his touch never 
 lost their delicacy, and he was always proud of his 
 light, elastic tread. In his dress and in his habits 
 he was the very perfection of neatness. He did 
 not lay aside entirely the external characteristics 
 of the Quaker until his visit to Europe in 1835. 
 
 In 1 819, Dr. Mott married Louisa Dunmore 
 Mums, a lady of English descent, congenial tem- 
 per, great personal attractions, elegant manners, 
 and rare intellectual endowments. The possession 
 of such a wife was the crowning happiness of his 
 long and well-spent life. The union lasted nearly 
 forty-six years. Since his death Mrs. Mott has 
 publicly manifested her high appreciation of his 
 character by the purchase, at a cost of upwards of 
 $30,000, of a suitable edifice for the accommoda- 
 tion of "The Mott Memorial Library," lately 
 incorporated by an act of the Legislature of New 
 York. It is a monument of affection and esteem, 
 reared wholly at her own expense, and is a beau- 
 tiful exhibition of devotion, of which history pre- 
 sents few examples. Among the most remarkable 
 instances in this country are those of Mrs. Miitter, 
 who built St. Luke's Chapel at Middletown, Con- 
 necticut, in commemoration of her husband, the 
 late Dr. Thomas D. Mutter, formerly Professor of 
 Surgery in the Jefferson Medical College of Phila-
 
 74 
 
 THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF 
 
 delphia ; and of Mrs. Dudley, who erected the 
 Dudley Observatory at Albany, in honor of her 
 husband. The story of Artemisia is familiar to 
 every classical scholar. When she lost her hus- 
 band, a monarch remarkable for his accomplish- 
 ments and exalted character, she abandoned herself 
 to the wildest grief; but, at length, rising superior 
 to her sorrow, she reared that splendid monument 
 which formed one of the seven wonders of the 
 world, and which, after the lapse of thousands of 
 years, still bears the name of Mausolus. 
 
 The Memorial Library contains Dr. Mott's 
 medical books, with a number of works contri- 
 buted, since his death, by his former personal 
 friends; is free to medical students and physicians 
 generally; and was formally inaugurated on the 
 iith of October, 1866. The collection, without 
 being extensive, comprises a choice assortment of 
 the best surgical treatises, ancient and modern, 
 and also a large number of medical pamphlets, 
 many of which date as far back as the commence- 
 ment of the present century. In the principal 
 room are his desk and library chairs, with a highly 
 finished bust of himself. His Bible and Prayer 
 Book, the constant companions of his long life, 
 occupy their accustomed places, and are truthful 
 witnesses of the piety and excellence of his cha- 
 racter. The walls are hung with portraits of 
 himself, Lettsom, John Hunter, Francis, McLean,
 
 VALENTINE MOTT, M. D. 75 
 
 and others, worthy inmates of an institution de- 
 signed to perpetuate the usefulness of a great and 
 good man. The old library clock, so often wound 
 up with his own fingers, stands upon one of the 
 mantels, with the minute hand pointing to a quar- 
 ter past 1 1 o'clock, the period of his departure, a 
 silent monitor of the uncertainty of life, and of 
 the ravages of Time. A model of his right hand, 
 the ready servant of his intellect in a thousand 
 surgical exploits, taken in plaster-of-Paris after 
 his death, is inclosed in a separate case. 
 
 In addition to these objects the apartment con- 
 tains the surgical instruments of Dr. Mott, a 
 choice and valuable collection, now, as their for- 
 mer owner, resting from their labor. His scalpels 
 were mostly of English make, principally from 
 the manufactory of Laundy. He was fond of his 
 old instruments, the companions of his earlier ca- 
 reer, and frequently employed them in preference 
 to the more improved models of the day. In his 
 last interview with Sir Astley Cooper, the evening 
 before he left London, that great man presented 
 him with a magnificent case of instruments, of 
 his own invention, as a token of his friendship 
 and regard; and a similar souvenir, consisting of 
 a splendid set of amputating knives, made of the 
 iron and wood of the Old London Bridge, was 
 presented to him by Mr. Bransby B. Cooper, Sir 
 Astley's nephew.
 
 76 THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF 
 
 It is a quaint saying of Bacon that great men 
 have no continuance, and the truth of the remark 
 is confirmed by many striking examples in history. 
 This was not, however, the case with Dr. Mott. 
 His marriage was blessed with nine children, six 
 sons and three daughters. One of the eldest sons, 
 Valentine, served for some time as Surgeon-in- 
 Chief of the Sicilian Army, and died at an early 
 age of yellow fever at New Orleans in 1852. 
 Dr. Alexander B. Mott, now the only member of 
 the family in the profession, worthily represents 
 his father's fame — often a most dangerous inherit- 
 ance — and is rapidly rising into distinction as a 
 successful operator and teacher. The number of 
 his grandchildren, at the time of his death, was 
 sixteen, of whom two bear his honored name.
 
 VALENTINE MOTT, M. D. 77 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 CHARACTER AND HABITS. 
 
 Earnest professional devotion — Reputation as a great surgeon — Elected 
 a Member of the Institute of France — Patriotism and politics — Pro- 
 fessional fees — System and punctuality — Domestic habits — Religious 
 views — Portraits and busts — Conclusion. 
 
 Having thus traced the career of Dr. Mott 
 from the cradle to the grave, it will not be diffi- 
 cult to form a true estimate of his character as a 
 miember of a great and learned profession; a pro- 
 fession which, whether we consider its high anti- 
 quity, its sacred mission, or its genius and enter- 
 prise, is inferior to none other, not even divinity 
 itself. 
 
 A close analysis will serve to show that his 
 greatness does not consist in any one single act, 
 operation, or achievement; not in any grand im- 
 provement, invention, or discovery; but in the 
 entirety of the man, the perfection of his whole 
 character, the tout ensonble of his life. There 
 have been many physicians and surgeons of as 
 much talent; many who have lectured as well; 
 many who have handled the scalpel with as much 
 dexterity; many, in a word, who, perhaps, have 
 done some of these things even better than he,
 
 78 THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF 
 
 and yet very few, indeed, who have combined these 
 and other important qualities in the same degree 
 as Dr. Mott. 
 
 Eminently fitted by nature and education for 
 the medical profession, he devoted himself to its 
 study and practice with all the energies of his 
 soul. For a period of nearly two-thirds of a cen- 
 tury he never for a moment swerved from his 
 allegiance. He loved surgery as his mistress, and 
 his constancy merited all the favors which she so 
 lavishly showered upon him. He opened his 
 account with posterity when he entered the pro- 
 fession, and perfected it at the early age of thirty- 
 three, when he placed a ligature upon the innom- 
 inate artery, almost in contact with the arch of 
 the aorta; and he performed, as already stated, a 
 greater number of capital operations than any 
 surgeon that has ever lived. Long before he had 
 reached the meridian of his life, his name had 
 become a tower of strength throughout the length 
 and breadth of this continent. If success be a 
 measure of talent and genius, Mott was eminently 
 great. The generation in which he lived, so 
 prolific in illustrious surgeons, acknowledged no 
 superior. The New World is as justly proud of 
 Mott, Physick, McClellan, and Warren, as the 
 Old of Dupuytren, Cooper, Graefe, Bell, or Lis- 
 ton; immortal names in surgery. If his genius 
 was not dazzling, it burnt with a steady flame.
 
 VALENTINE MOTT, M. D. 79 
 
 which was extinguished only with his last breath. 
 The numerous scientific and literary honors that 
 were showered upon him, both at home and 
 abroad, are a flattering evidence of the high esti- 
 mation in which he was held by his contempora- 
 ries in all parts of the civilized world. 
 
 A great surgeon is a kind of Lord High Chan- 
 cellor, a Keeper of the Great Seal of State, as it 
 were, to whose judgment are referred all cases of 
 a grave or uncommon nature, whether of disease 
 or accident, occurring within his bailiwick. He 
 is supposed, from his superior knowledge, to be 
 especially qualified to detect and rectify morbid 
 action, to penetrate the most hidden secrets of the 
 human frame, to perform the most delicate ope- 
 rations, to possess peculiar skill in the adaptation 
 of mechanical appliances, and, in short, to meet, 
 promptly and effectually, every emergency, how- 
 ever trying or unexpected. I unhesitatingly assert, 
 without the fear of successful contradiction, that 
 it requires as much intellect, talent, genius, and 
 knowledge to form a great surgeon as it does to 
 form a great lawyer, judge, divine, general, or 
 statesman ; and I hold that when a man has 
 reached the highest point of professional distinc- 
 tion; when he stands upon a pinnacle where all 
 men may see and study him, looming out in bold 
 and prominent outline before the world, that it is 
 an evidence, unmistakable and incontrovertible, of
 
 So THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF 
 
 true greatness. Few men, in any walk of life, 
 ever attain the topmost round of the ladder of 
 fame. Industry, steady and persistent, may ac- 
 complish much, but, unaided by genius, it is com- 
 paratively ineffective, if not positively barren of 
 useful results. The drop of water incessantly fall- 
 ing may, in time, wear away the most solid rock; 
 but it can never fashion the marble into the speak- 
 ing statue of a Phidias or a Chantry. 
 
 True character is often mirrored forth by the 
 most trivial circumstance. The virtues and the 
 vices of persons are not, as has been justly re- 
 marked by Plutarch, in his account of Alexander, 
 always seen to the best advantage in their most 
 famous . exploits. An insignificant act, a pithy 
 saying, or a ready jest frequently affords a more 
 correct insight into their character than a siege or 
 a battle. Biography does not lift the veil of pri- 
 vate life from idle curiosity; it respects the sanc- 
 tity of the fireside; it pries into no family secrets. 
 It merely portrays the aesthetic life — the soul 
 which animates and beautifies the features of the 
 picture on the wall. Dr. Mott was one of those 
 pure and exalted beings who, worshipping God in 
 Nature — 
 
 "Find tongues in trees, books in the running brooks. 
 Sermons in stones, and good in everything," 
 
 He was amiable and gentle almost to a fault. 
 Harshness, jealousy, and bitterness never had a home
 
 VALENTINE MOTT, M. D. 8 I 
 
 in his breast. His countenance beamed habitually 
 with benevolence. He had a way to every man's 
 heart. In him sorrow and suffering ever found a 
 ready sympathizer. Like Sir Thomas More, "he 
 upbore the weary, and gave drink to the thirsty, 
 and reflected heaven in his face." In all the en- 
 dearing relations of life — as son, husband, father — 
 as a citizen, a Christian, and a member of an ho- 
 nored profession — his conduct was a model. 
 
 Few surgeons, certainly none in this country, 
 have ever received so many testimonials of respect 
 and esteem from medical, scientific, and literary 
 societies, domestic and foreign, as Dr. Mott. It 
 would be tedious, as well as foreign to my pur- 
 *pose, to enumerate the various honors thus con- 
 ferred. It will be sufficient to mention a few 
 only, because of the great gratification which 
 they afl^orded him. Foremost among these was 
 his election as a Foreign Associate of the Institute 
 of France, an institution which, occupying the 
 highest rank in the French Empire, is composed 
 only of the more illustrious savans, men who pos- 
 sess some peculiar claim to consideration, either 
 on account of their discoveries, their scientific 
 attainments, extraordinary learning, or the great 
 talent which they display in the exercise of their 
 particular vocation. It holds in France the same 
 position as the Royal Society of London in Great 
 Britain, or the American Philosophical Society in 
 6
 
 82 THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF 
 
 the United States, with this difference, that ad- 
 mission to membership is much more difficult. 
 To have one's name enrolled in the list of Foreign 
 Associates is therefore a high honor, which, until 
 recently, no other American ever enjoyed. The 
 compliment, shared by Sir Humphry Davy, Lord 
 Brougham, and Sir John Herschel of England, 
 Sir David Brewster of Scotland, Berzelius of Swe- 
 den, Humboldt and Ehrenberg of Germany, and 
 Matteucci of Italy, was well merited. The Insti- 
 tute of France was founded in 1793, upon the 
 ruins of the Academies of Inscriptions and Belles- 
 Lettres and of Sciences, which were combined in 
 one body under this title. 
 
 In 1852, he was made an Honorary Fellow of 
 the King and Queen's College of Physicians of 
 Ireland, an association founded soon after the 
 middle of the seventeenth century. At the time 
 of his election only twenty-six foreigners had 
 received this compliment, he being the only Ame- 
 rican. He was a Member of the Surgical Society 
 of Paris, of the Medical Societies of Berlin, Brus- 
 sels, and Athens, and of the Medical and Chirur- 
 gical Society of London. 
 
 He was for many years President of the Medi- 
 cal Faculty of the University of the City of New 
 York, and for some time President of the New 
 York Academy of Medicine, in the establishment 
 of which he took a very active part. He was a
 
 VALENTINE MOTT, M. D. 83 
 
 warm friend of the New York Inebriate Asylum 
 at Binghampton, and at the time of his death was 
 its President. The University of Edinburgh con- 
 ferred upon him the honorary degree of M. D., 
 and the University of the State of New York the 
 degree of LL. D. 
 
 Among his correspondents were many of the 
 most distinguished surgeons and physicians of the 
 United States and of Europe. Larrey, Roux, 
 Civiale, Velpeau, Cloquet, Graefe, Cooper, Tra- 
 vers, Liston, Lawrence, Fergusson, and Knox were 
 the principal foreign ones. The letters of these 
 men would, if properly arranged, form an inte- 
 resting volume. 
 
 The reminiscences of his foreign travels, em- 
 bracing a period of seven years, were innumerable. 
 He had always a ready fund of anecdote, and was, 
 consequently, a most agreeable diner-out, although 
 he rarely indulged in that pleasure. At his own 
 table, where he led conversation, he seldom de- 
 scended to the trifles of the day, was nervously 
 impatient of interruption, or of an omission of 
 etiquette, and always claimed and commanded a 
 hearing. 
 
 Although he had travelled extensively abroad, 
 he had seen but little of his own country outside 
 of New York. He had never beheld the mighty 
 Mississippi, our vast and magnificent lakes, dot- 
 ting the surface like so many inland seas, our wide-
 
 84 THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF 
 
 Spread prairies, studded with myriads of gorgeous 
 wild-flowers, or the majestic mountain scenery of 
 Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Vermont. Many years 
 ago I wrote to him, urging him to visit the South- 
 western States, adding that no intelligent Ameri- 
 can gentleman should permit himself to die before 
 he had seen that glorious section of our great and 
 growing country. His reply was, "I am afraid 
 of steamboat explosions." The last journey he 
 ever undertook was a visit to Annapolis, as a 
 member of a committee appointed by Govern- 
 ment to examine into the condition of the Fede- 
 ral prisoners at the South. He rarely, even in his 
 youth, went to any watering-places. For many 
 years before his death the comforts of home were 
 so essential to him that he could not dispense 
 with them, and the crowd and confusion offered 
 him no temptation. Lebanon and West Point 
 were the only places of summer resort he could 
 endure. The country, in fact, had no charm for 
 him. He longed for his books and his patients, 
 and he invariably came to town in the morning, 
 returning in the evening. In 1846, he built, near 
 the Bloomingdale road, an elegant and stately 
 mansion, adorned with various kinds of trees and 
 shrubbery, and surrounded with gardens, conserv- 
 atories, and graperies, which he used as a summer 
 retreat until the time of his decease. 
 
 He was rarely seen at places of amusement.
 
 VALENTINE MOTT, M. D. 85 
 
 Whenever he visited the theatre, his interest in 
 the play w^as almost childlike, a source of real 
 pleasure and enjoyment. His mind, in a constant 
 state of tension with grave thoughts, easily yielded 
 to any outside gayety. 
 
 During his residence abroad his taste for pic- 
 tures and the fine arts greatly grew upon him — 
 for in early life he had no time, and, indeed, but 
 little opportunity for its indulgence — and after his 
 return the walls of his house were covered with 
 copies of the old masters and originals of the very 
 best schools. At that time few persons in this 
 country encouraged the fine arts or cared to accu- 
 mulate objects of virtu; but he was always sur- 
 rounded by every elegance and luxury, and the 
 bent of his mind made an atmosphere and a cer- 
 tain degree of display absolutely necessary to his 
 comfort; a circumstance in strange contrast with 
 the otherwise stern simplicity of his life, charac- 
 ter, and occupation. 
 
 Dr. Mott, I believe, never occupied any official 
 position apart from his profession. His name is 
 not associated with any great state movement for 
 the benefit of the public, except the establishment 
 of the New York Inebriate Asylum, or with any 
 measure for the improvement of his adopted city, 
 although he always felt the deepest interest in its 
 scientific, literary, humanitarian, and commercial 
 prosperity. His confidence in his fellow-citizens
 
 86 THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF 
 
 satisfied him that its welfare would not be per- 
 mitted to suffer, and he deemed it more honorable 
 to serve his profession than the public. 
 
 A true patriot, he loved his country with equal 
 purity and fervor. Born soon after the establish- 
 ment of her independence, he had been through 
 a long lifetime an active witness of her rising 
 greatness, and in the hour of her danger he expe- 
 rienced the same anxiety for her safety and ulti- 
 mate restoration which a father feels for a loving 
 daughter threatened with some malignant distem- 
 per. No one deplored more deeply than he the 
 frightful sacrifice of life and morals and treasure 
 sustained in the bloody conflict. The assassina- 
 tion of the chief magistrate of the nation greatly 
 shocked and distressed him. He regarded it as 
 an omen of ill import, as a stain, permanent and 
 indelible, upon the country's escutcheon. His 
 mind continually brooded over the sad event, and 
 he never was himself again afterwards. From 
 that moment death had marked him as his own. 
 He was not seriously ill; but unhappy, despond- 
 ent, melancholy, sick at heart, and frequently lost 
 in reverie, as if his mind were absorbed in some 
 deep, abstract study. Occasionally a gleam of 
 sunshine stole upon him, only, it would seem, to 
 render darkness the more visible. 
 
 In politics he was strictly conservative ; he 
 rarely went to the polls, and politicians he cor-
 
 VALENTINE MOTT, M. D. 8/ 
 
 dially despised. In all great national questions 
 his views were calm and clear, and his interest 
 intense. A great reader of newspapers, he was 
 constantly on the alert for information, and spared 
 no pains to post himself thoroughly in Congres- 
 sional debates and foreign affairs. During the 
 progress of the war, his quiet,'deliberate manner 
 and feeling changed, and he became anxious and 
 restless respecting the latest intelligence. 
 
 It is an interesting fact in the life of Dr. Mott 
 that he inherited nothing from his father, save a 
 good name and a respectable education. Such, 
 however, was his success from the first hour of 
 his professional career that he was always in easy 
 circumstances, which increased so far that, before 
 he was forty years of age, he had purchased a 
 large double house in Park Place, then the fash- 
 ionable part of the city, and set up what in those 
 days was a very complete establishment, including 
 a tutor for his children, men servants, carriages 
 and horses. 
 
 His professional fees were always large, espe- 
 cially in the latter part of his life, when people 
 readily paid any amount asked for his services. 
 One thousand dollars was the largest sum he ever 
 received for one individual operation, and this he 
 obtained only twice. One of the patients was a 
 lady from the Sandwich Islands. His estate at 
 the time of his death was valued at nearly one
 
 88 THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF 
 
 million of dollars, an immense sum for a profes- 
 sional man who was the architect of his own for- 
 tune, although it is indisputable that great surgeons 
 make more money by their practice than great 
 physicians. Baron Dupuytren, Sir Astley Cooper, 
 and Von Graefe were all millionaires. Poor Lis- 
 ton, on the contrary, whose fame is still upon 
 every one's lips, was hardly worth a few thousand 
 pounds when he died. Dieffenbach was always 
 in debt and in fear of the bailiff! 
 
 Dr. Mott was never idle. Reading, reflection, 
 and observation were his daily occupation. He 
 kept himself thoroughly posted in regard to the 
 progress of his profession. The most minute de- 
 tails were familiar to him; and he always spoke 
 with just pride of the rapid advances of the med- 
 ical sciences. Everything that was novel, or cal- 
 culated to throw light upon any obscure disease, 
 or point of practice, at once elicited his closest 
 attention. He hailed with enthusiasm the disco- 
 very of anaesthetics, of tenotomy, and of the proper 
 treatment of vesico-vaginal fistule by our country- 
 man. Dr. Marion Sims. In a word, he took the 
 same keen interest in everything that related to 
 his beloved profession on the day of his death as in 
 the dawn and meridian of his existence. "Live," 
 said the dying Christian, in his last and most ear- 
 nest counsel to his brethren, "live for the good of 
 mankind, for the alleviation of sickness and suf-
 
 VALENTINE xMOTT, M. D. 89 
 
 fering. Be ornaments to my beloved and honor- 
 able profession ; fulfil your duties in every relation 
 of life; but see that all else above yours be an 
 interest in my Saviour and Redeemer, that you 
 fail not to betake yourselves, as I did, to the Great 
 Physician, and availing yourselves of all the means 
 and remedies which He has provided, be healed 
 forever of the manifold diseases of your souls." 
 
 These sentiments, breathed in the genuine spirit 
 of Christianity, show the deep interest he felt in 
 his profession, and the manner in which, in his 
 opinion — an opinion shared by all good and ho- 
 norable men — the physician should discharge his 
 numerous duties and obligations. He looked 
 upon medicine as a sacred pursuit, and upon its 
 votaries as so many High Priests, anointed by 
 God for their high and holy office. 
 
 As an illustration of the interest which he took 
 in everything relating to the profession, and to 
 his own personal improvement, I may here men- 
 tion that Dr. Mott, in the winter of 1850 and '51, 
 was a member of a class which attended the lec- 
 tures of Dr. Goadby on microscopical anatomy, a 
 subject then attracting much attention among New 
 York physicians. The meetings were held in the 
 evenings at Dr. Sabine's office, and I do not re- 
 member that he was ever absent from his post. 
 And so it was with everything else; always busy, 
 always in earnest, always keenly interested. His
 
 90 THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF 
 
 vigilance was unceasing. No rust ever blunted 
 the edge of his intellect. "Intentum enim ani- 
 mum quasi arcum habebat, nee longuescens suc- 
 cumbebat senectuti." The rays of science freely 
 entered the chambers of his mind in the very 
 nightfall of his existence. He was old only in 
 years; fresh and vigorous in everything else. 
 
 System and punctuality were cardinal elements 
 in his character. Order and precision predomi- 
 nated in all his habits, and were, along with steady, 
 persistent industry, the means with which he per- 
 formed his daily labor and achieved his vast repu- 
 tation. His private office table on the morning 
 he was seized with his last illness was piled a foot 
 high with letters ; but there was no confusion. 
 He knew where everything was, and was able in 
 a moment to place his hand upon it. 
 
 Possessed of an extraordinary memory, his mind 
 retained every detail of any subject to which he 
 directed his attention; hence his wonderful exact- 
 itude in all points of medical science and medical 
 history. A professional friend, Professor Darling, 
 of the University of the City of New York, who 
 knew him intimately for many years, writing to 
 me upon the subject, remarks that he had never 
 met with any physician, either in this country or 
 in Europe, who had the details of the history of 
 surgery so thoroughly at his command. 
 
 His mental culture was extensive, and he pos-
 
 VALENTINE MOTT, M. D. 9 1 
 
 sessed an amount of general information far be- 
 yond what is common among professional men. 
 Hard student as he was in medical literature, he 
 reserved time enough for the perusal of all the 
 more important scientific and religious works and 
 reviews. To keep pace with the progress of the 
 age was his constant endeavor. His familiarity 
 with the classics was surprising, and he often, in 
 everyday conversation, indulged in allusions and 
 quotations. One of the principal amusements of 
 his leisure hours was the study of Johnson's Dic- 
 tionary, a copy of which was always on his library 
 table. 
 
 His domestic habits were characterized by great 
 simplicity. When his health permitted they were 
 uniformly the same. He daily rose at 7 o'clock, 
 breakfasted at 8, and dined at 5, rarely taking 
 anything in the interval, except, perhaps, a glass 
 of water. The neatness and precision of his toilet 
 were as remarkable in his advanced as in his 
 younger years. At 9 o'clock he went into his 
 office, and, except when interrupted by his college 
 lectures or a call to attend to some urgent case, 
 remained at home until i o'clock. He then rode 
 out to see his patients, to attend to business, or to 
 make social visits. His horses and carriage were 
 always in perfect order; he was nervously fastidi- 
 ous about their being properly cared for, and they 
 were never driven beyond a slow, dignified pace.
 
 92 
 
 THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF 
 
 He never was in a hurry, and yet invariably in 
 time. His evenings were always spent in his 
 library, in reading, writing, or conversing with 
 his friends. The advancement of science, the 
 progress and improvement of the age, absorbed 
 his mind and thoughts, and he enjoyed professional 
 and literary reading with a keen relish. 
 
 Socially he visited very little in his latter years. 
 A neuralgic affection of his arm, and sudden at- 
 tacks of irregular action of the heart, rendered it 
 necessary that he should avoid all excitement, and, 
 above all, crowded rooms. He welcomed his 
 friends when they called with great kindness, and 
 was always happy to extend to them the hospital- 
 ities of his house. Leading a life of concentrated 
 thought and action, he was chary of his time, and 
 restive under idle intrusion. His most intimate 
 friends were Thaddeus Phelps, an eminent mer- 
 chant, at whose house he first made the acquaint- 
 ance of Mrs. Mott, and Dr. John W. Francis, upon 
 whom he pronounced the feeling eulogy alluded 
 to in a previous page. He had many warm 
 friends and admirers in the profession, and no 
 physician or surgeon was ever more idolized by 
 his patients, from whom he received numerous 
 tokens of affection and esteem. In the family 
 circle he was loving, gentle, genial, and full of 
 tenderness. His intercourse with mankind was 
 dignified and courteous. To his friends his man-
 
 VALENTINE MOTT, M. D. 93 
 
 ners were most endearing. A gentleman of the 
 old school, he was destitute of every selfish feel- 
 ing, and he was ever ready to make any sacrifice 
 for the good of others. To his dependants he 
 was considerate, just, and kind-hearted. His en- 
 mities, like those of Cicero, were mortal ; his 
 friendships eternal. A gentleman, whose relations 
 with Dr. Mott were most intimate, and who for 
 sixteen years assisted him in many of his great 
 operations, informs me that he never saw him 
 angry. 
 
 Although originally a Friend, he ultimately 
 gave his adhesion to the Episcopal Church, whose 
 beautiful and sublime service had evidently made 
 a deep impression upon his mind. A confession 
 of his faith was found in a memorandum-book 
 after his death. He had implicit confidence and 
 hope in a merciful Redeemer, and in a future state 
 of existence. He never delivered a discourse to 
 his pupils, introductory or valedictory, or a public 
 address of any kind, in which there was not a dis- 
 tinct recognition of the Christian religion. His 
 Bible was his constant companion ; and he was 
 very fond of reading the Greek Testament, a small 
 pocket edition of which always lay upon his office 
 table. 
 
 Two busts exist of Dr. Mott ; one taken by 
 Brower at the age of forty; the other after death, 
 by Ward. A portrait of him was painted by
 
 94 THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF 
 
 Jarvis when he was thirty years old, and another, 
 almost life-like, two years before he died, by 
 Wenzler. He sat for his photograph, also an ad- 
 mirable picture, only a fortnight before his death. 
 The artist, Rodgers, made a study of his face and 
 figure for the statuette called the "Charity Pa- 
 tient." The face, which is too old, is painfully thin 
 and common; but the figure, the compassionate 
 gesture, is true to life. In 1835, previously to his 
 departure for Europe, he sat, at the request of his 
 private pupils, to Mr. Inman for a portrait which 
 now hangs in the Governors' rooms at the New 
 York Hospital, alongside of those of Bard, Post, 
 Mitchill, and Hosack. 
 
 Thus lived and died Valentine Mott, a man 
 whose career cannot be contemplated without ad- 
 miration and respect for the many virtues which 
 adorned his character; a career which, for single- 
 ness of purpose, ardent love for the profession to 
 which he was so long devoted, and all the ameni- 
 ties which distinguish the Christian gentleman, is 
 as rare as it is beautiful. Posterity will recognize 
 in him a representative man, patient in labor, 
 steady in purpose, faithful in principle, true to his 
 vocation, toiling to erect a great and permanent 
 reputation, worthy of his age and country. Com- 
 mencing his career during what may be called 
 the formative stage of American surgery, he lived
 
 VALENTINE MOTT, M. D. 95 
 
 to see this branch of the healing art estabHshed 
 among us upon a broad and enduring basis, with 
 thousands of followers, not a few of whom were 
 his own pupils, actively engaged in unfolding its 
 great principles, in upholding its dignity, and in 
 advancing its interests. By the brilliancy of his 
 surgical exploits he elevated the character of the 
 American medical profession, and added lustre to 
 the nation. His life affords a beautiful illustration 
 of what a man, true to himself and his profession, 
 may accomplish by the force of his intellect and 
 the improvement of his time and opportunities. 
 Surgery and he were indissolubly linked together. 
 From the moment he entered upon its practice 
 they became sworn friends, reciprocally giving, 
 receiving, and honoring each other. Abandoning 
 himself wholly to one particular object, to one 
 distinct and definite aim, he nobly fulfilled his 
 mission. This singleness of purpose was an ele- 
 ment of power which few men have ever wielded 
 with greater effect, and which the youths of our 
 country, bent upon the acquisition of an honor- 
 able fame, and the accomplishment of great good 
 to the human race, would do well to imitate. 
 They would learn, by his example, that the only 
 road to distinction and fortune is by patient labor, 
 steady devotion, self-reliance, and unswerving 
 principle. 
 
 It will not be inferred from what has here been
 
 96 LIFE OF VALENTINE MOTT, M.D. 
 
 said of Dr. Mott that he was exempt from the 
 infirmities of our common nature. To make such 
 an assertion would be, to borrow the language of 
 an elegant writer, a sacrifice of truth, and an 
 empty compliment to the memory of a good man. 
 He had his failings, but not one solitary vice. 
 His life was one of unsullied purity. Whatever 
 error he had was born with him ; not the result 
 of habit or education. He had a broad, expan- 
 sive love for his race, a profound self-respect, and, 
 to use an expression of Bishop Burnet, a soul as 
 white as ever dwelled in a mortal body. 
 
 c