The ill health of Francis Parkman / by George M. Gould.

  • Gould, George Milbrey, 1848-1922.
Date:
[between 1900 and 1909]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The ill health of Francis Parkman / by George M. Gould. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    THE ILL HEALTH OF FKAI^CIS PARKMAN. BY GEOHGE M, GOULD, M.D., PHILADELPHIA, PA. Boyhood. — Francis Parkman was born Sept. 16, 1823, in Boston, of the best New England ancestry. Farnham says that the tragic ele- ment in his hfe was probably as much the re- sult of ignorance as of inherited weakness. As to “inherited weakness,” one cannot inherit from ancestors what they have not, and there is not a hint that I have been able to discover which shows that Parkman’s parents or grandparents had any of the physical troubles which made him suffer so grievously during his entire life. In his autobiographic letter he says of himself that his childhood was neither healthful nor buoyant, and that for a time though active he was not robust. Farnham says he had a delicate and sensitive physique, and was therefore sent at the age of eight to his grandfather’s farm at Medford Mass. Speaking of himself, Parkman says- I w^ked twice a da.y to a school of high but undeserved reputation, about a mile distant in the town of Medford Here I learned veiy little and spent the intervals of school- profitably in coUectmg eggs, insects and reptiles, tKl ® squirrels and woodchucks, and making persistent attempts to kill birds with ar- rows. Farnham adds that the woods, indeed were so his'nnrr responsible for considerable truancy on M consequent fibbing. Those vears at Medford were counted among his happiest, for th^e mLl ^enlafSTfStes''*'^^ The causes of his early illnesses are enveloped in more or less mystery,” says Farnham. “He