EDWARD JARVIS. 621 



cernecl, but becoming so as to service only when increasing infirmity 

 precluded all active duty. 



As a physician he had high reputation, and though he retired from 

 general practice midway in life, there were families that would not 

 give him up at his own request so long as he was able to be at their 

 service. He was, however, in one respect, in advance of his time. 

 He had a very limited confidence in drugs, hardly any in alleged 

 specifics ; and before the appearance of Dr. Bigelow's " Nature in 

 Disease," and Sir John Forbes's '■ Nature and Art in the Cure of Dis- 

 ease," * his practice anticipated their theory, and he placed chief reli- 

 ance, except in emergencies requiring special treatment, on care, diet, 

 and regimen. 



He was thoroughly versed in physiology, which he studied especially 

 in its sanitary relations and bearings. Besides essays on particular 

 subjects, he prepared nearly forty years ago a smaller and a larger 

 text-book on physiology for school use ; and their merit may be in- 

 ferred from the fact that, without any effort to promote their circula- 

 tion, they were adopted at once in a large number of the best schools, 

 and retained their favored place for many years. 



His authorship extended over the entire range of subjects embraced 

 in the health of body, mind, and soul. He was a frequent contributor 

 to all the leading literary and medical periodicals, always with a 

 beneficent aim, and always with conscientious cai-e and faithfulness in 

 the treatment of his subjects. In the application of science to public 

 health, to sociology, and to the moral well-being of the community, we 

 probably have had no wiser or more fruitful writer. On many sub- 

 jects now regarded as of essential moment, he was a pioneer thinker 

 and writer; and on many more he will in time to come be found to 

 have held that position. Had the mind, the research, 'the study, the 

 patient labor, thus employed, been concentrated on some single great 

 work, it would have secured for him an enduring name, with not a tithe 

 of the service to humanity rendered month after month with reference 

 to what the writer deemed pressing needs and urgent claims. 



In 187-4 Dr. Jarvis had a paralytic attack, from which he but 

 partially recovered. For two or three years after this he was incapa- 

 ble of continuous labor. But with some measure of returning strength 



* Both these autliors were in fact anticipated by our associate, Benjamin E. 

 Getting, M. D., wlio, in an address delivered before the Norfolk County Medical 

 Society, in 1852, under the title " Nature in Disease," expressed substantially 

 the views of disease and medicnl treatment which were civen to a larger 

 public by Dr. Bigelow in 1854, and by Sir John Forbes in 1857. 



