794 ARTHUR TRACY CABOT. 



the family to embrace medicine as a profession. After the completion 

 of his medical studies in Paris he went to Yucatan on the Stevens 

 Expedition. His independence of thought and action, his sterling- 

 character, his services to this community as one of its leading practi- 

 tioners and for many years surgeon to the Massachusetts General 

 Hospital are still fresh in the memory of many. 



Dr. Samuel Cabot married his distant cousin, Hannah Jackson, 

 daughter of Patrick T. Jackson, whose brothers James and Charles 

 were as eminent in medicine and law as was he in business. 



Arthur, third son of this marriage, was born in 1852. From the 

 Perkins-Cabot side he inherited largely his marked taste for nature, 

 out-of-door manly sports and love of art, traits so prominent in some 

 of the race as to be almost over-mastering. From the Jackson side 

 he derived his physique, a slight but wiry frame, dominated by a will 

 and sense of duty which go far to promote sustained effort. Promptly 

 after his graduation at Harvard in 1872, he began the study of medi- 

 cine, taking his M.D. in 1876, and serving as Surgical Interne at the 

 Massachusetts General Hospital. He then went abroad, giving 

 special attention to surgical pathology, but neglecting no opportunity 

 of laying a firm foundation in all pertaining to the Healing Art. In 

 Vienna and Berlin he got nothing helpful in the line of antiseptic 

 surgery; but later passed a month in London, heard Lister's Inaugural 

 Address at King's College, and ever after kept on the crest of the 

 advancing wave of clean surgery. In 1877 he began general practice 

 in Boston, and steadily won recognition, alike from the profession and 

 the public. To surgery he had strong leanings from the first; but, 

 conservative, cautious, ruled by reason more than impulse, always 

 thinking things out to their ultimate results, it was not until ten or 

 more years later that he gave up all strictly medical practice. From 

 1878 to 1880 he was Instructor at the Medical School in Oral Pathology 

 and Surgery; from 1885 to 1896, Instructor in Genito-Urinary 

 Surgery. He would, doubtless, have become full Professor but for 

 his election to the higher position on the Corporation in the latter year. 

 He was for several years Surgeon to the Carney Hospital, Assistant 

 Surgeon at the Children's Hospital from 1879 to 1881, Visiting Sur- 

 geon 1881 to 1889; Surgeon to Out-Patients at the Massachusetts 

 General Hospital, 1881 to 1§86; Visiting Surgeon, 1886 to 1907. 



As a general surgeon he was eminent; as a genito-urinary surgeon, 

 pre-eminent. True surgeon that he was, his head always ruled his 

 hand. He could not be persuaded into operating. He must be 

 convinced in his own mind of its necessity or desirability; nor would 



