Dixie Crosby / [James Alfred Spalding].

  • James Alfred Spalding
Date:
[1926]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Dixie Crosby / [James Alfred Spalding]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Reprint from SURGERY, Gi'NECOLOGY AND OBSTETRICS, October, 1Q26, pages 539-543 ROY MOODIE COLLECTION. DIXI CROSBY By JAMES A. SPALDING, M.D., F.A.C.S., Portland, Maine ONE of the most beautiful sights, humanly speaking, of my college life at Dartmouth from 1862 to 1866 was to see often in the streets of Hanover, Dr. Dixi Crosby then over 60, and already ageing a little, leaning affec¬ tionately on the arm of his celebrated son, Dr. Benning Crosby, as they walked along the streets or across the college campus talking devotedly to one another. The old doctor was a short, compact, well dressed man, firm on his feet but rather ponderous in his gait. His head was large, he wore a curly reddish beard, shaggy as if never a comb had touched it, and his hair reached to his coat collar behind. His upper lip was clean shaven “so that,” as he said, “no hair should obstruct his voice in his lectures to the students.” His face was attractive, he talked a good deal as he walked, and the whole effect of his appearance was majestic and impressive. As for his son “Dr. Ben” as he was called, he shall be mentioned later. Mean¬ while let me again recall the wonderful friendship that existed between father and son as men and as physicians. Just before the child of Dr. Asa and Betsy Hoit Crosby was born February 7, 1800, at Sandwich, New Hampshire, there was a friendly dispute concerning the possible sex of the infant, the father wanting a boy and the mother a girl. When it turned out to be a boy, the happy father shouted “Dixi” (Latin for “I told you so”) and Dixi he was named. He studied in the village schools, and then went into business travelling as far south as New Orleans but he failed from lack of experience. He studied then with his father, who was at the time practicing at Gilmanton and in the winters he attended the lectures at the medical school at Dartmouth where he was graduated in 1824. Even as a medical student he had a large amount of surgical audacity, for in one instance in spite of the protests of the older but timid attending physicians, he amputated successfully the gangrenous leg of an apparently moribund patient. In another instance, he made use of an ordinary carving knife, a carpenter’s saw, and a chisel to amputate a leg, high up, and was again completely successful. How much truth there is in the story of these youthful outbursts of bold and fearless surgery is actually unknown, but from considerable evidence at hand, there is no doubt that in them lay the germ of that surgical boldness which was soon to make itself known throughout the State.
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