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J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. A BIOGRAPHY By AGNES REPPLIER -- 1919 -- A surgeon should be tender to the sick, honourable to his fellow surgeons, wise in his predictions, cltaste, sober, pitijd, not covetous or extortionate. Rather should he take his wages in modercrtion, according to his work, and the wealth of his patient, and the issue of the disease, and his own worth. GUY DE CHAULIAC Grand Chirurgie, 1363 CONTENTS . . . . . . . . I . EARLY YEARB 1 I1 . THE VOYAGE OF THE HASSLER 9 . . . . . . . . . . . . . I11 . BLOCKLEY AND THE PENITENTIARY IV . SURGEON AND TROOPER 35 V . MILESTONES . . . . . . . . 47 V1 . THE YEARS THAT COUNT 64 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . V11 . LAST YEARS OF SURGERY 90 VIII . A CRISIS PAST 139 IX . FOUR BUSY YEARS 160 X . FREEDOM 192 XI . THE GREAT WAR . . . . . . . 226 XI1 . THE END . . . . . . . . . 254 99 ILLUSTRATIONS J. WILLIAM WHITE . . . . . . Foniispiece From a photograph inscribed b.y the artist of the portrait by John S. Sargert DR. AGNEW AT HIS CLINIC DR. WHITE ASSISTING . 40 From the painting ly Thmas Eakins. Reproduced by the couriesg of the University of Pennsylvania from a copyright photograph by the Chappel Studio, Philadelphia From a photograph I J. WILLIAM WHITE, M.D. CHAPTER I EARLY YEARS J AMES WILLIAM WHITE was born in Philadelphia on the Bd of November, 1850. He was of English ancestry, the family dating back to one Henry White, who in 1649 left England, and came to Virginia. Four generations of Henry Whites descendants lived in, or near, Albemarle, North Carolina. One of the fifth generation, James White, moved to Burlington, New Jersey. His son, William Rose White, married Mary Stockton, a descendant ofRichard Stockton, signer of the Declaration of Independence. Their son, James William White, senior, practised medicine for many years in Philadelphia. He was a keen diagnostician, much sought in consultations, and he was also an able man of affairs, first president of the S. S. White Dental IManufacturing Company, whose products had as wide a market in Europe as in the United States. His strong and advanced opinions brought him both friends and foes. A firm abolitionist, he fought a lifelong and unyielding battle against slavery. A broad-minded philanthropist, he helped to found the Maternity Hos- 2 J. WILLIABI WHITE, M.D pital at a time when, as has been well observed, the existence of such an institution was considered an endorsement and encouragement of vice. His wife, Mary Ann McClaranan, was of New England parentage, and ably seconded a line of conduct more in accord with the prevailing sentiments of Massa- chusetts than of Pennsylvania. From both parents their distinguished son inherited those sharply defined and unyielding traits of character, which, buttressed with energy, ability, and resolution, made him so valuable a colleague and so dauntless an opponent. The boy was educated .in the public schools of Philadelphia. He was a quick-tempered, warm- hearted, rough, impetuous child, as devoted to play as if the alphabet had never been invented, and to reading as if hockey and base-ball were unknown. The four beloved books which he read and re-read with ever renewed delight were the Arabian Nights, Pilgrims Progress, Don Quixote, and Robin- son Crusoe, a heroic selection, but a natural one in those happy days, before a flood of inane juvenile stories had become the blight of thenursery and school-room. Certain chapters in these books gave the boy such intense pleasure that he confesses he approached them at each fresh perusal with secret and exhilarating excitement. This seems to me one of the most illuminating statements I have ever heard upon the much discussed subject of childrens

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