Samuel D. Gross : an Autobiography. Edited by his Sons.
2 vols. (Barrie, Philadelphia, U.S.A. ; Crosby Lockwood and Son, London.) —Dr. Gross, who died in 1884 at the age of seventy-eight, was perhaps the most eminent exponent of medical science that America has yet produced. It is therefore hardly necessary to say that his autobiography, related as it is with a fullness and completeness seldom to be found in such works, is an interesting and valuable book. To English readers, the chapters which he devotes to this country and its people will be specially attractive. He paid us several visits, the first in 1868, when he attended the meeting of the British Medical Association at Oxford. Four years afterwards he came again, and on this occasion received the degree of D.C.L. from the University of Oxford. And again, in 1880, he came to receive the distinction of LL.D. from Cambridge. He comments en many things, especially, of course, on medical men and medical practice, in a very interesting way. Details of professional life in the States have also much in them that will be new. There is the subject of fees, for instance, always attractive to readers, professional and unprofessional. In his first year of practice, Dr. Gross made less than three hundred dollars. At Easton, the second place where he practised, the fee for a visit in the town was half-a-dollar ; outside, from one to two dollars. A first consultation visit was five dollars ; subsequent visits, one. At the age of fifty-one he had accumulated .612,000; and it must be remembered that from a very early time he had taken a high rank in his profession. His largest fee he records to have been .6400. His professorships yielded him in thirty-five years .222,000; his books altogether between £3,000 and £4,000. We find Dr. Gross expressing a strong preference for cremation. His remains were actually cremated.
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