On chloroform and other anaesthetics : their action and administration / by John Snow ; edited, with a memoir of the author, by Benjamin W. Richardson.

  • Snow, John, 1813-1858.
Date:
1858
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On chloroform and other anaesthetics : their action and administration / by John Snow ; edited, with a memoir of the author, by Benjamin W. Richardson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    who have thus realized the ideality of death. It were but little matter, therefore, though no bio- graphy should appear at all; it is of but little count that such biography, as the recollections of friends and intimates shall call forth, be scanty in its de- tails ; it is of but little count that the life of him who is to be shadowed forth is destitute of incident fitted for the taste of wonder-loving, passion-courting, romance-devouring, readers. Biographies for these are common. Good men are scarce. John Snow, the subject of the present memoir, was born at York, on the fifteenth day of June, 1813. He was the eldest son of his parents. His father was a farmer. His mother, who is living, resides still at York. As a child, he showed his love of industry ; and increasing years added only to the intensity with which he applied himself to any work that was before him. He occasionally assisted his father in agricultural pursuits, and often in later life spoke with great naivete of the recollections of those early winter mornings when his boy's fingers were too intimately to be pleasantly acquainted with the effects of benumbing cold. He was first sent to a private school at York, where he learned all that he could learn there. He was fond of the study of mathematics, and in arithmetic became very profi- cient. At the age of fourteen, he went to New- castle-on-Tyne, as an apprentice to Mr. William Hardcastle, surgeon, of that place. He had also the opportunities of studying at the Newcastle Infirmary. During the third year of his apprenticeship, viz., when he was seventeen years old, he formed an idea that the vegetarian body-feeding faith was the true and the old; and with that consistency which throughout life attended him, tried the system rigidly for more than eight years. He was a noted swimmer at this time, and could make head against the tide longer than any of his omnivorous friends. I have