David Williams Cheever / by David Cheever.

  • Cheever, David
Date:
[1928]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: David Williams Cheever / by David Cheever. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    ciation, in 1888. For 12 years he served on the board of overseers of Harvard College. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and an honorary member of the Philadelphia College of Physicians and other so¬ cieties, and a foreign member of the Society of Surgery of Paris. The personal impression made by Cheever was of a tall, slender, slightly stooping man, with reserved and somewhat grave demeanor, but with ready and responsive smile. Intellectual and moral vigor dwelt in a rather delicate physical tenement which he preserved by daily exercise and a mode of life temperate in everything but work. He revelled in the opportunity to dwell with Nature in his vacation and when fatigue and responsibility vanished he was light hearted and witty. With increasing leisure in later years he enjoyed travel, visiting the scenes to which his reading had introduced him. He succeeded in medicine because he loved his profession above all else but his family circle; he concentrated upon it during his active years all that he had of talent and energy. He loved especially the human elements of his calling—patients, students, nurses, colleagues, and though his manner was reserved and undemonstrative, it did not long conceal his warmth of feeling from those about him. His character and personality inspired respect, admiration and affection. His qualities and attri¬ butes and tastes were thoroughly human, but perfectly disciplined to serve useful ends. In the leisure of advancing years, with undimmed faculties but failing physical powers, he turned again to intimacy with Nature, and to the company of favorite books. In 1915, two months before his death an honorary fellowship in the American College of Surgeons was conferred on him. Of this scene, Warren wrote: “And when at the recent convocation the honorary degree was conferred upon him, and I saw him for the last time, in the robe of the order, he seemed to me to have come into his own again. The sombre folds of the academic gown served as a fitting setting to the grave and intellectual features of the man, and while, during a pause in the proceedings arranged to allow him to retire, he passed slowly down the aisle, leaning upon a proffered arm, his assembled col¬ leagues rose as one man to do him honor as a recognized leader in their chosen profession.”
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