The Beloved Physician
The Autobiography of Sir Felix Semon. (Jarrolds. 21s.)
Two new biographies, really interesting books, both of them: certainly show us to ourselves as a doctor-ridden generation.. We see him, this benevolent tyrant, as the " man behind the ihrone " with all Europe waiting on his words, the man behind the desk forbidding nerve-shattered millionaires and Prime ministers to touch pen or paper, behind the nursery door, laying down laws for mothers, barring gates into Pleasure grounds, prescribing medicine and proscribing food, dispensing peace of mind and anxiety as none other can, Now and then persons in full health rebel secretly, but a eery little malaise reduces them to open subjection. Mean- while, the .doctors constantly assert their own fallibility and
seek lay sympathy in their disputes among each other. .
Sir James Mackenzie was a heart specialist, beloved and trusted by, his patients, but not apparently " a doctor's doctor." He made little impression Upon his teachers in Edinburgh and left the medical schools with a poor opinion .of his own capabilities and a great admiration for scientific scholarship. Chance made him assistant to an old doctor
a Lancashire pit village. He saw with amazement how much the old man had learnt from experience, with what extraordinary precision he could prognosticate, calculate a patient's " chances," prescribe care or encourage the leading of an ordinary life of work and play. He realized that what snost men want of a doctor is not a name for their sufferings but assurance of final cure or advice which may preserve life. Mackenzie turned his great and hitherto unrecognized talents into the same groove—years of hard work as a general practitioner gained him a reputation, and the invention of Mechanical instruments for testing the heart's action confirmed it, he found himself after years of comparative obscurity among " the Harley Street giants." The big men, we are given to understand; were cold to him. He was a great reverser
ti of verdicts. Men and women who had given up active life ...wont about proclaiming their cures. His success was perhaps partly to be explained-by his power to give courage and paw by the fact that he had discovered that certain heart syslp. toms, hitherto regarded as dangerous, were negligible. The atmosphere of Harley Street, hOisrever, was never homely to him. He longed after his former life among poor peeps —and to it he returned—abandoning his consulting 'Practice without regret and once more settling down as a giseeal practitioner. The former pupil who sets before us his lis writes of him with enthusiasm, and though that is not perhaps the best way to write biography he succeeds in giving is readers a picture of a pre-eminently lovable and exceptional') influential character.
" My dear Semon," wrote Sir Andrew Clark to the great doctor whose autobiography will find many readers, the future of the Liberal Party of England lies in your hands I send you Mr. Gladstone." Sir Felix Semen tells us how h imposed silence for many days upon one of the greatest talkers in England, and finally cured a troublesome hoarseness and restored a powerful Voice in time for a parliamentary necessity. In a few words he gives`us a glimpse of Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone in his consulting room and in their home.. The incident is typical of the whole book. Brought up in Berlin the child of Jewish parents, Semon came as a very young man to study medicine in London and was soon persuaded to remain. He quickly came to know almost all the artistic and musical people in London, very many of the scientists and men at fashion. He has not very much to tell of them that has not already been told in Victorian memoirs, but a doctor's point of view has in it a touch of intimacy and of tolerance whiei is always attractive. The tragic events which convulsed the medical world at the time of the Emperor Frecleridel death were all known to him. He had refused a great Medial Post in Berlin just before the illness began and believed that had he been early consulted, he could by operation han averted the catastrophe. He condemned very heartily tie conduct of Sir Morel' Mackenzie, but though he discusses it at great length, he suggests no adequate reason for it. A happy life with a sad ending ! Sir Felix's friends almod all dropped away from him at the time of the Great Wm Loneliness and a sense of desertion embittered his last years; and the knowledgv that his days were numbered brought him more relief than dismay.
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