1873.] • 177 [Bell . 



Cyanosis occurs under different anatomical conditions of the heart, can 

 only be expected to be serviceable in some of them. 



In common with the majority of his fellow-practitioners in Philadelphia, 

 Dr. Meigs was slow in having recourse to etherization in his Obstetric 

 cases, and to the use of chloroform he was opposed to the last ; and 

 certainly not without reason, when scarcely a week passes but we hear of 

 death from chloroform, when used as an aesthetic for women in tedious 

 and painful labor, and for surgical operations, some of them of a very 

 slight nature. And the question of anaesthetics was discussed in letters 

 betweeTf.Sir James Simpson, of Edinburgh, and Dr. Meigs, a pleasant 

 feature ~.f which consisted in the courteous manner in which the parties 

 treated each other. 



Dr. Meigs soon won the confidence of his patient by his calm and 

 collected deportment, encouraging speech, and readiness of resources 

 required on the occasion. In the unlooked-for absence of the nurse, and 

 the inability of any female member of the family to take her place, he 

 promptly gave the requisite manual help to both the newly-born infant 

 and the mother. Sometimes his direction and explanation were heedlessly 

 interwoven with technical terms, not from any desire to throw words of 

 long and novel sound into the ears of those present, but from a fulness 

 at the moment of language so constantly akin in his own mind to tin- 

 subject. So far from desiring to shroud his meaning in professional lore. 

 he advocated instruction of mothers and nurses in elementary medicine. 

 The safer and more generally useful learning to be acquired by these 

 parties should be physiology and hygiene, or a knowledge of the means 

 of preserving health and preventing disease, leaving the cure to a fully 

 educated and experienced physician. Advancing years, and the con- 

 tinued wear and tear of professional life, and still more of the Department 

 of Obstetrics to which Dr. Meigs had so long and earnestly devoted him- 

 self, could not fail to produce their effects on the strongest body and the 

 most elastic mind, and to begin a grave monition to abate labor, if not 

 to take entire rest. There are few persons, of whatever pursuit or occu- 

 pation, who do not look forward to the period when they can retire from 

 active business, and end their days in the enjoyment of the long-coveted 

 comforts and ease, in the society of their family and of friends. 



The subject of this memoir had long sighed for freedom from his 

 arduous duties of teacher and practitioner, and for leisure to indulge his 

 literary tastes and his fondness for natural science. In proof of the 

 sincerity of his intention to procure these enjoyments, he made prepara- 

 tion by purchase of a piece of land and the erection of a house, five miles 

 beyond Media, in a beautiful region of country. He yielded with pleasant 

 equanimity to the conviction that he was getting old, and determined to 

 avail himself of the compensation which age brings with it. The first 

 step was diminishing his professional labor ; the "next, the resignation of 

 his Chair in the College. This event took place after the course of 

 1830-1880, to the regret of his associates and the crowds of students all 



A. P. S. — VOL. XIII. W 



