Arthur Tracy Cabot / [Hugh Cabot].

  • Hugh Cabot
Date:
[1924]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Arthur Tracy Cabot / [Hugh Cabot]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    2 SURGERY, GYNECOLOGY AND OBSTETRICS memory. A tireless worker, unsparing of self, he had no patience for careless work or hasty conclusion. His gray, steady eye pierced sham and reached fun¬ damental truth, a sharp critic, but unprejudiced, even detached, when searching for the facts. Perhaps due to his studies abroad he early saw the essential dependence of modern surgery upon the pathological laboratory. The equipment at the Massa¬ chusetts General Hospital for work in pathology and bacteriology was at that time meager and the resources of the hospital were strained. To meet this need and keep the “old hospital” abreast of the time he, together with his brother, Samuel, donated a considerable sum of money toward the building up of a hospital laboratory as a memorial to their father, Dr. Samuel Cabot. As a teacher, though less brilliant than his predecessor, Bigelow, or than his colleague, M. H. Richardson, he was clear, concise, forceful. Never a brilliant speaker, he was, however, a most effective one, coming briefly, accurately, and re¬ lentlessly to the point. As a writer, he was a master of medical style. His choice of words was careful and his style was characterized by short, terse sentences, their meaning com¬ pressed into the briefest possible space. Many of his younger associates who sub¬ mitted their papers to him for review will remember how they would be returned with nearly a quarter of the words cut out, and how he would say with a twinkle in his eye: “I think that all the meaning is there.” Few tests of the contemporary estimate of a surgeon are more searching than the opinion of his professional brethern when choosing a surgeon for themselves. They are apt to select the sound rather than the brilliant, the judicial rather than the dexterous. To Arthur Cabot came an unusual number of his professional brethern seeking care for themselves or for their own. But he was much more than a great surgeon. The judicial quality of his mind, his vision, and his breadth of experience led to his appointment in 1896 as a member of the Corporation of Harvard College, that select group of five who largely control the destiny of Harvard University. Those who are familiar with the University during the succeeding fifteen years will recall many evidences of his work in that body. His appointment was not primarily dictated by the need of a physician on a board which must guide the development of a medical school, among other things, for the Corporation already had among its members a phy¬ sician of broad experience and surpassing wisdom in Henry P. Walcott. Nor can it be regarded as accidental that it was during this period that the Harvard Medical School lost some of its more provincial character and acquired the broader appeal which it has today. But he was more than a wise counsellor. His knowledge of Art and his keen sense of beauty made him for many years a valued trustee of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.
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