Dr. Adam Hammer, surgeon and apostle of higher medical education / [James Moores Ball].

  • James Moores Ball
Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Dr. Adam Hammer, surgeon and apostle of higher medical education / [James Moores Ball]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    DR. ADAM HAMMER, SURGEON AND APOSTLE OF HIGHER MEDICAL EDUCATION.* By James Moores Bale, M. D., St. Louis. In the few minutes at my disposal I propose, so far as lies in my power, to pay a tribute to the memory of one of the greatest men that St. Louis has ever known; to honor one who was a leader of men, a pioneer in the cause of higher medical education in the LTnited States, a giant in intellect, and a worthy son of the Fatherland over the sea. In selecting as my subject Dr. Adam Hammer and the Institutions which he Founded, I have done so only after mature deliberation and con¬ siderable research, being fully convinced that the memory of this man has not been adequately honored by the medical profession of St. Louis and of Missouri.1 Among the many strong men who have adorned the medical pro¬ fession of this State, there was not one whose life was more tempestuous than was that of Dr. Hammer. There was not one whose medical ideals were higher. There was not one whose surgical skill, or whose surgical knowledge, or whose surgical courage, was greater. There was not one whose fame bids fair to last longer. Deprived during his lifetime of much of the credit to which he was justly entitled, drawn frequently into fierce controversies by men, some of whom were his inferiors, often mis¬ understood and perhaps often misquoted, his reputation has steadily grown since his death. Tested in the crucible of time, his character stands out in bold relief, and his posthumous fame grows with the pass¬ ing years. I will venture to predict that the historian, who will write fifty years from now, will place the name of no St. Louis surgeon above that of Dr. Hammer. Men come. They speak their few lines upon the stage of medical life, and then are lost to view forever. The favorites of fortune, those who fawn and cringe to persons holding positions by virtue not of merit but by nepotism, the devotees of society, the imitators and hack¬ writers, all that evil brood who never had an original idea in their lives, and like the moon are content to shine by reflected light—these are soon forgotten. It is only to the great reformers, and to persons of marked individuality, that immortality is granted. *Read in the Surgical Section, Missouri State Medical Association, Jeffer¬ son City, May 19, 1909. iln “One Hundred Years of Medicine and Surgery in MissouriSt. Louis, 1900, only a few sentences are devoted to Dr. Hammer, and these describe a quarrel with Dr. A. P. Lankford. Goodwin’s “History of Medicine in Mis¬ souri,” St. Louis, 1905, mentions Dr. Hammer in connection with an incorrect account of the Humboldt Medical College.
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