Annie Besant : an autobiography ... / [Annie Wood Besant].

  • Annie Besant
Date:
1893
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annie Besant : an autobiography ... / [Annie Wood Besant]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    30/408 (page 20)
    questions might be solved whose answers we are groping for in the West in vain. The next scene that stands out clearly against the background of the past is that of my father’s death- bed. The events which led to his death I know from my dear mother. He had never lost his fondness for the profession for which he had been trained, and having many medical friends, he would now and then accompany them on their hospital rounds, or share with them the labours of the dissecting-room. It chanced that during the dissection of the body of a person who had died of rapid consumption, my father cut his finger against the edge of the breast-bone. The cut did not heal easily, and the finger became swollen and inflamed. “ I would have that finger off. Wood, if I were you,” said one of the surgeons, a day or two afterwards, on seeing the state of the wound. But the others laughed at the suggestion, and my father, at first inclined to submit to the amputation, was persuaded to “ leave Nature alone.” About the middle of August, 1852, he got wet through, riding on the top of an omnibus, and the wetting resulted in a severe cold, which “ settled on his chest.” One of the most eminent doctors of the day, as able as he was rough in manner, was called to see him. He examined him carefully, sounded his lungs, and left the room followed by my mother. Well ? ” she asked, scarcely anxious as to the answer, save as it might worry her husband to be kept idly at home. “ You must keep up his spirits,” was the thoughtless answer. “ He is in a galloping consump-