Radio Script #262
Little Talks On Common Things
April 17, 1955
We are so used to almost complete freedom of speech and expression in the United states that it is hard for us to comprehend how completely for granted the peop Ie in other countries take restrictions on the press and the radio. Those restrictions are common even in some of the other western democracies like Great Brita in.
Among the several papers that regularly come to my home is The Sunday Times of London. About a month ago the Times published the following statement:
“The biggest topic in the news last week was the Government’s decision on the hydrogen bomb. But it could not be discussed on radio and television because an agreement between the Conservative and the Labor parties forbids discussion on the air of any subject which is due to be debated in Parliament within the next fourteen days. In spite of the Liberal chairman”‘s protest aga ins t th is’ I unat i c ru ling’, a rad i 0 discuss ion planned for tomorrow na~ ut:~fl l)anrJ~u • ivieanwn i Ie everyone away from a mi crophone is free to ta I k about it anywhere and any time. Are radio and television the means of bui Iding an informed democracy or just a toy? We are a long way yet from enjoying freedom of discussion on the air.”
We I I, it heartens us here across the At I anti c to learn that not every public voice in Britain takes censorship for granted.
A few weeks ago I told you about the Revolutionary War diary of Phineas Ingal Is, great grandfather of Mrs. Marion Hague, housemother at the Tau Delta Phi fraternity house on Mayflower Hi II. Tonight I want to tell you about Mrs. Hague’s great unc Ie, Dr. Theodore I nga lis, son of the Revol utionary so I di er and brother of Mrs. Hague’s grandfather. Theodore Ingalls was to Bridgton what Moses Appleton was to Watervi I Ie — the town’s most famous early physician.
Fortunately, before his death, Dr. Ingal Is set down a clear account of his early life and training. In a fine, legible hand is that old record, now reta i ned anong Mrs. Hague’s va I uab Ie pape rs of the 0 I d days.
Dr. Ingalls entitled his memoir “A Concise Sketch of My Education, both Scho I asti c and Profess iona I!f. Let us see how it. starts in hi s own words:
“My father intended me for the farm unti I I was 15 years of age. At that ti me, provi ng I arne from the effects of a wound of my ank Ie when I was 9 years old, my father decided to give me an education. In 1806 I attended one term at Hebron Academy, but left there the first of the year and returned home. The committee of the ‘school in the district where my father lived having employed a we I I educated med i ca I student to keep the schoo I, I spent the wi nte r at home studying the LaTin language under him. In March I entered Fryeburg Academy, then under Amos Cook. I continued there unti I July, when I returned to assist my father during the haying season. After five weeks of haying, I placed myself under the Tuition of the Reverend Mr. Gould of Bethel, who instructed a class in the LaTin and Greek languages.
“After studying at Bethel for about six weeks without exercise, my health fai led in a mosT singular manner. After a severe day’s study I was attacked suddenly with a kind of paralysis or loss of muscular power, reducing me to the most perfectly infanti Ie weakness and rendering rne entirely helpless and incapable of moving.
“The cause of th i s attack was obvi ous. Up to the age of 16 I had performed the labor usual for a farmer’s boy. studied closely for -twelve months. Sudden Iy I qui t work, went to school, and Then I had gone di rectly from the school room to the hay field, where I got very active and laborious exercise for five weeks. Then I took up severe study aga in, removi ng a II necess i ty for exerci se. The violent alternation gave my constitution a severe shock.
“Finding my health, even after recovery from the paralysis, far from good, did not return to the public schools, but pursued my studies under a Mr. Langdon, a celebrated teacher instructing a high school in Bridgton, and next under the Rev. Nathan Church of Bridgton, an excel lent instructor in the ) languages. I fol lowed that course for three years unti I my teachers assured me I was qua Ii fied to enter Dartrrouth College two years in advance.
“My hea Ith was so bad that my medi ca I . advi sors assured me and my father that it would probably prove fatal for me to enter col lege with the view of graduating. This being the case, and as , required much exercise, my father recommended to me the study of physic. Although loath to give up the idea of a collegiate education, I consented to study medicine, and entered upon that study with Dr. Farnsworth the elder, of Bridgton, in the spring of 1810 and continued with him about three years.
“I n 1810 I attended medi ca I lectures at Hanover, New Hampsh ire. There at Dartmouth Dr. Nathan Smith was the sole lecturer in all medical branches except anatomy. ‘derived a lot of practical benefit from his lectures, because he was one of the most extensive practitioners, both as physician and as surgeon, in the whole country.
“In 1814, my health became so bad that Dr. Kittredge, with whom I was then studying in Andover, advised me to suspeod my professional studies. They believed me to be in the incipient stage of consumption, with every probabi I ity that it wou I d prove fata I • was advised to take a journey_ So I traveled over the New England states extensively, and in July visited the Saratoga Springs. The waters at Saratoga helped me at once, and after four weeks I returned to Andover, comparatively wei I.
“I n the fa I I of 1814 I returned to Bri dgton, taught a I arge schoo I through the winter and the next spring. Then I placed myself with Dr. Carter of Lan- caster, Mass.; with whom remained for two years. In the winter of 1816-17 attended a fu II course of medi ca I lectures at Boston.
“When I entered upon the study, I formed the resol uti on not to commence practice without a thorough education. was a student of medicine for eight years. Usually I spent part of each day visiting the sick with my master, and spent the rest of the day in study i ng the nature and character of some . \ .~ disease we had that day visited, and the means of treating it. I am convinced that most medical students have too little opportunity to see practice during their studies.”
Dr. Ingal Is gives us a detai led account of just how he trained with Dr. Carter, the most famous surgeon in Massachusetts outside of Boston. When Ingal Is arrived on the scene, the great doctor was overwhelmed with business. Dr. Carter not only practiced medicine, but operated a tavern in his big threestory house. It seems that only a few rooms were open to healthy transients, for the doctor housed in his own abode, as wei I as in adjacent houses, which he owned, many of his patients. In other words, he was already starting a kind of hosp ita I. Furtherrrore, across the street from his own house, was another large two-story house where, as Dr. Ingalls’ memoirs put it, Dr. Carter !1kept the town poor by contract with the town”. The I nga I I s account cont i nues: TTThe re were usually from 60 to 100,among them many requiring medical treatment. In addition, vast numbers from many mi les around visited him for advice and medicine. I f I s I’ou I d undertake to gi ve the number of patients he attended da i Iy, I fear should not be believed, but should be accused of great exaggeration.”
Ingalls says that Dr. Carter was an early riser, generally up at four in the morning. “His first move”, says Ingalls, “was to get me out of bed’. Directing me how I could help him, he would first examine those in his own house, then those in his other houses, and finally those who lived or boarded in the village but weLe too ill to come to him. By the time he got home, his large sitting room would be fi lied with visitors seeking advice or medicine. H How cou I d Dr. Carter accomp I ish so much in so short a ti me? I nga II s te II s us the secret. He says: “The doctor had a wonderfu I faci Ii ty and accuracy in determi n i ng the character of each person’s di sease. Th is he di d by the p u I se mainly. From him I learned to detect almost every change in the system and to di scrimi nate among the vari~ous di seases. The idea that Ii tt Ie or noth i ng can be told by the pulse is erroneous. Every disease and every state of the same disease has a pulse peculiar to itself. All that is requi red to profit from th i s fact is carefu I observati on.”
In MarchI 1817 Dr. Ingalls began his own independent practice in his native place of South Bridgton. In December he moved to what afterward became the town’s principal village l Bridgton Center l where long after he had died I came into the world. His fame grew and patients came to consult himl not only from the surrounding towns l but as far away as Casco and Poland.
We sha II leave Dr. I nga lis’ story here for now I but I’ II te II you more about him next week.
Mrs. Clara Colburn of Fairfield has sent me a little poem, which she says was found in a Scotch newspaper by Charles Russel I of Winslow. It is a little poem about the weather. I suppose it means the weather in Scotland, so we mustn’t think of applying it to Maine.
HDi rty days has Septemberl Apri I, June and November; From January up to May it snows or rains most every day; From May again unti I JulYI there’s not a dry cloud in the sky.
A I I the rest have th i r-ty-one without d blessed ray of sun; And if any of them had two and thirty, They’d be just as wet and di rty.”
And when you think over that sentiment, don’t start longing for the good (~. 01 d days when the weather was always fi ne. For let me te II you when that poem was w r j tten , I Twas i n 1779.
Let us close toni ght with another of those letters in Fred Oli ver’s collection about Captain Samuel Foster. In 1780, seven years before Captain Sam made that voyage to St. Petersburg, which we told you about a few weeks ago, one L. Jones of Boston addressed to the captain a letter which shows how, in the days before the mai I ships, the captains of all sorts of vessels were used as private mail carriers. This is what that letter, written 185 years ago, has to say:
nCapta i n Foster – S j r: You wi II p lease to de I iver my letter to Mr. George Gracie near Flymarket, New York, by yourself or some careful hand. The young gentleman, Mr. George Gracie’s brother, who is to go in the ship Flagg, under your care, wi I I be i ndu I ged to stop for his cloth i ng at Martha’s Vi neyard or neighboring island. I am your humble servant, L. Jones.”
And with that old injunction that a ship bound overseas stop at..-an -rsland to let a young seaman get his clothes, must say goodnight for old times’ sake.
Year: 1955