An inaugural address, delivered at the opening of the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital Museum, September 10, 1845 / [John Cross].

  • John Green Crosse
Date:
[1846?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An inaugural address, delivered at the opening of the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital Museum, September 10, 1845 / [John Cross]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    attended frequently at the Weekly and General Board of Governors, “ where,”* it is pointedly observed, c< the absence of his directing mind and polished manners will he long felt and regretted.” The friends of both these surgical heroes of our Hospital will not fail to contrast their dissimilar quali¬ fications, which, nevertheless, tended to the same result, being cemented by one common feeling of zeal and interest in behalf of the Institution. Rigby and Mar- tineau were as different in person and manner, as in mind and practice. Although remotely of Norman extraction,f Rigby was characteristically an English¬ man, exhibiting more of plain honesty than of studied politeness ; he possessed so little caution, that his very secrets he talked of in the streets ; his person was large, and in his advanced years not well supported. Mar- tineau was erect, quick in movement as in thought, even to the last year of his life, and in dress, gesture and conversation, exhibited traits of his more recent Gallicf origin ; still, in regard to all the great requisites for promoting the objects and supporting the reputation of this public charity, each was alter et idem. Speaking still of Martineau (for I have elsewhere spoken amply of Rigby) I cannot forbear to add, that, often as I had observed him, much as I had associated with him in professional public avocations, I never felt so much admiration for his character, as during the painful illness which preceded his death. I was with him, to give surgical aid, at intervals of exactly twelve hours, for the last month of his life, and witnessed his entire resignation to the irresistible event of which he was fully aware. For the many enjoyments life had afforded him beyond his deserts,—enjoyments inter¬ rupted by so little suffering of any sort,—he expressed his grateful sense towards the Disposer of all events, * Memoir of Martineau, p. 11. f It is believed that Rigby was descended from Roger de Rigby, who came over with William the Conqueror. X His ancestor, a Surgeon at Dieppe, migrated in 1685, on the revoca¬ tion of the edict of Nantes, and settled in Norwich.