DAWSON OF PENN
By SIR HENRY BASHFC■RD
ISUPPOSE it would be true to say that, as far as the general public was concerned, and during the period between the last war and this, Dawson of Penn was the most widely known physician in the English-speaking world. He was also one of the most trusted. To thousands of- so-called men in the street Dawson's name on a bulletin gave a comfortable feeling that everything humanly possibk would be done for the sufferer. Nor was this merely due to the mgic of a name or the fruit of a baseless legend. Probably none of his professional colleagues would have regarded Dawson as a leading authority on any particular disease, or in any special medical field. From the strictly scientific point of view, he was in no sense a pioneer ; and he made no outstanding original contribution to medicine itself as an art and science. But he always knew where and by whom good new work was being done. He was an extremely sound judge of its, practical worth, and the point at which it could be -safely applied. It would not, I think, be going too far to say that he generally knew a little more about everything than most of the general practitioners who called him in. He was also a careful enough physician himself 'to miss very little, and ,to recognise the exact moment at which he ought to be reinforced or checked by somebody who had specialised more than himself in some particular condition. , Very few physicians- can have made fewer ultimate mistakes than Dawson.
But his supreme quality was probably his deep hurftan under- standing. His patients were never merely cases. They were people. And looking back, I am inclined to think that this was the greatest lesson his students learned from him. Medicine was not merely a matter of text-books, and few of us can have forgotten the many little details, not to be found in them, upon which he laid emphasis- Never, he used to remind us, examine a patient while your own hands are cold. If they are, warm them first. More questionable, perhaps, was the advice he impressed upon us to be instantly ready with an alternative prescription should a patient complain that the first had done no good; always be prepared to ring two or three changes ; if at the end of them, Time and Nature had not done the trick, well that would be a bit of bad luck. By the stricter standards of today, such teaching may be open to criticism. But it is in its percipience of so many average complaints, and so many average patients—not to mention a few rather gauche young doctors perhaps—that • its value lay.
That Dawson's personal charm played a considerable part in obtain- ing for him his first important appointments there can be no doubt. But the professional ability was always there ; and the charm was innate, not the acquisition of an actor. He may, in those days, have possessed, as some were ready to allege, certain of the qualities of Are careerist. There may have been occasions when he was in tolerant of opposition, and he always had the courage of his con- victions. But his consideration for others was a part of himself and automatic. A story was once told about him, at the height of his fame, regarding a country governess who had an appointment to see him. When she arrived, Dawson had been called away to an urgent case. But she was invited to luncheon, and an appointment made for the following week ; unfortunately, the same thing happened again, whereupon she was asked to stay the night. The story is probably apochryphal, but it is significant that it should have been told at all.
Dawson was a good listener, and never allowed himself to be hurried. He never, I believe, set aside less than three-quarters of an hour for any prospective consultation. He would not, I think, have called himself a psychologist. But in a practical sense he was a very effective one. A busy country practitioner once told me of a patient who had baffled both himself and his partner, and .one or two specialists Who had been summoned to help. Ultimately Dawson was sent for. He looked and listened, and examined in his own gentle, worldly-wise way. At last he-drew my friend aside. "The real trouble is, you know," he murmured, "that your patient is a Roman Catholic." And so, said my friend, it was—a case of a distressed and devout woman in what she believed to be antagonistic surroundings. Dawson was not, I should say, a deeply cultured man. But he was an extremely well-informed one. He could talk knowledgeably and at his ease about Ibsen's plays, the respective merits of wet and dry fly fishing, and a host of topics in between. Money, I should imagine, played no great part in his scheme of life, and the only rpference I ever heard him make to it was when, a few months before his death, somebody was bewailing probable household stringencies after the war should be over. "It won't matter," he smiled, "we shall all be in the same boat." Few men, it is safe to say, were less afraid of death. Whether or not he approved of the conspiracy of silence that so often surrounds the dying, in the belief—generally, I think, mistaken—that they themselves have no suspicion I do not know. But I should guess not. Death, I think he would have said—or in his own way let them feel—is after all not so very, dreadful ; and the way to it, I am sure he would some- how have assured them, would be made as easy as medicine could make it. As for himself, it is hard to believe that he has gone, and with him as much probably of the inner history of his times as any one man has known.
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