Reminiscences of the late Mr. Whitney. 259 
soinjuriously frustrated.* He examined, with great care and coolness 
the best medical writers on his disease; he inspected their plates ; 
conversed freely with his professional advisers, who withheld nothing 
from him, and he was not satisfied without such anatomical illustra- 
tions as were furnished fxom the museum of an eminent professor of 
anatomy. He critically recorded such facts in his case as interested 
him the most, and, in coolness and decision, acted rather as if he 
himself had been the physician than the patient. 
During this period, embracing at intervals several years, he devi- 
sed and caused to be constructed various instruments, for his own 
personal use, the minute description of which would not be appro- 
priate to this place. Nothing that he ever invented, not even the 
cotton gin, discovered a more perfect comprehension of the difficul- 
ties to be surmounted, or evinced more efficient ingenuity, in the ac- 
complishment of his object. Such was his resolution and persever- 
ace, that from his sick chamber, he wrote both to London and Paris, 
for materials important to his plans, and he lived to receive the things 
herequired and to apply them in the way that he had intended. He 
was perfectly successful, so far as any mechanical means could afford 
relief or palliation; but his terrible malady bore down his constitution, 
by repeated, and eventually by incessant inroads, upon the powers of 
life, which at last yielded to assaults which no human means could 
Wert or sustain. One of the important inventions of that distressing 
Petiod is in possession of the artist who was employed to construct 
the instrument, * but it is to be feared that other contrivances, re- 
matkable for their simplicity and efficiency, as well as originality, 
ate but imperfectly remembered by the friends and attendants. 1 
uged Mr, Whitney and the late Dr. Smith, his attending physician, 
make sure of these inventions while it was possible, but I believe 
BES eae tn 
Pi made many journeys to Georgia on this painful business, and generally by 
he an open sulkey. Near the close of life, he said in my hearing, that all 
® had receive 
hin d for the invention of the cotton gin, had not more than compensated 
for the Tmous expenses which he had incurred, and for the time which he 
su) 
Hject. He therefore felt that his just claims on the cotton growing States, es- 
his ly on th that had made him no returns for this invention, so important to 
com try, Were still unsatisfied, and that both justice and honor required that 
: Pensation Should be made. 
Mr. Deming, 
