--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Evans, John Henry collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 13 number: 7 published: 1910-05 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'John Henry Evans, "Some Men Who Have Done Things—VII. George W. Middleton," *Improvement Era* 13, no. 7 (May 1910): 631–638.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1307unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera1307unse start_page: 631 end_page: 638 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1910-05) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1307unse publication_year: 1910 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1910, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Some Men Who Have Done Things—VII. George W. Middleton Some Men Who Have Done Things. BY JOHN HENRY EVANS, OF THE LATTER-DAY SAINTS' UNIVERSITY. VII.— George W. Middleton, WHO DECLARES THAT WHAT A YOUNG MAN NEEDS IN ORDER TO GET ALONG IN ANY CALLING IS, NOT NATURAL BENT, BUT INTELLECT AND CHARACTER. Here is a man who, some five and forty years ago, was born on a stream that had volume enough only to drag itself past ten or twelve doors before e /aporating in the hot air or slinking away ignominiously into the skirts of the Great American Desert, and whose only intellectual nourishment came out of Rollin's Ancient History and a few dogeared school books taken home to con of an evening. Today, he not only stands in the forefront of a great army of skilled physicians and surgeons in ihe largest city of the intermountain country, but constitutes a rare type of what a medical man ought to be and to do in the world. DR. GEO. W. MIDDLETON. 632 IMPROVEMENT ERA. How did he get there, and why? The external facts of Dr. Middleton's life are soon told, there are so few of them. Like many another man who has wrenched success out of city life, he was born and reared on a farm — a farm in Hamilton's Ford, down there in Iron county, Utah. His father was an everlasting worker, and believed that everybody else should be. And so young Middleton had to do his share of the farm toil — for which he very naturally feels more grateful now than he did then. Of course, he went to school, such as it was in those early days in the country, and quickly picked up all there was in the way of education at the Ford. And when no more was to be got out of school, he prosecuted a search for lore on his own account. The only books accessible to him then, besides the one I have mentioned, were the school speller, in which he became so proficient that be could spell down the village, at contests in orthography held every once in a while; the National series of Readers, which have started out on the royal highway of learning many generations of men and women; and an old copy of a work on algebra, which he mastered, not only out of sheer dearth of reading matter, but because he liked mathematics. Night and morning, while the rest of the family were asleep, he worked patiently and with zest, by the dim candle light, at all these books till he knew them by heart. At twenty-one he went to the B. Y. Academy at Provo, where he fell in with some more books, got under the spell of that great magician, Dr. Karl G. Maeser, and breathed for three years the atmosphere of enthusiasm and learning that has always abounded in that institution. He was graduated in the last class under the administration of Dr. Maeser. For the next two years he conducted the Summit Stake Academy. After that he studied medicine at the College of Physicians and surgeons, at Baltimore, spent one year at the London Hospital, and another at the Johns Hopkins' Hospital. Between these college and hospital courses, however, he practiced medicine in his home county, where he obtained a large business and performed some brilliant surgical operations. Ultimately he came to Salt Lake and established himself with his old friend, Dr. Allen. Though Dr. Middleton has a large practice in the state, and SOME MEN WHO HAVE DONE THINGS. 633 is having exceptional success in surgery, to which he is gradually inclining from medicine, still it is nat this sort of experience that has interest for the average young person. The doctor is a remarkable man, as all men must be who attain eminence in any genuine pursuit; and being such, he has some remarkable opinions. It is some of these that we shall find of most interest and value. "Dr. Middleton," I asked, "what natural appitude do you think a young man ought to have who wishes to become a physician?" and was surprised at the answer. "No natural aptitude at all," he promptly replied. "All anybody needs in order to get along in any calling is intellect and character. If he has these, he can succeed; if he lacks them, he will fail. And it does not matter what he takes up in the one case or in the other." This opinion was so entirely out of the usual run of ideas on the subject, that I determined to find out whether I had heard correctly. "Then you think that a young man can succeed as well in one vocation as in another?" "Yes, provided he put brains and character into it. • I notice that a great many men in history, who were eminent in a given thing, either were eminent in other things also, or showed that they could be equally eminent in other things. Look at Michael Angelo, for instance, and our own Benjamin Franklin, not to name others. A man comes into the world with a certain intellect and character to develop, with a given energy of soul; he turns it into this or that channel, and you see the result. Success is merely a matter of amount, so to speak, of the intellect and character the owner possesses. Whatever Franklin did, he succeeded in, because he had a high power of intellect and character, which he put into his work." "Anyway," I added, by way of letting this thought sink into my mind, — "anyway, a young man requires some education and training in whatever calling he chooses?" "That is another thing. Yes, a young man should have a lot of education and training to begin with. How much? Well, at least a good high school course, and a good medical course of four years on top of that." 634 IMPROVEMENT ERA. "How old should he be before he begins the study of medi" cine?" "Not younger than twenty-four or five. His character ought to be fixed before he plunges into the sea of temptations he will find at all medical schools. At these schools he will most probably associate with immoral men, men who have not been impressed, as our 'Mormon' boys all have been, that loose morals are a bad thing. Here is where 'Mormonism' has done me a great service, it has kept me from partaking of the immoral influences that at various times I have been thrown into. And then again, medical students come in contact with dissolute women, and are sent to the sporting centres of the large cities where the colleges are situated. No young man should go into the atmosphere surrounding all our large medical colleges, whose character has not set so strongly that he can resist these temptations." "Speaking of medical schools, Doctor, what are some of the best? No; that is not what I mean. How can a young man know what to do when it comes to choosing a school?" "He ought to go to the best. There are colleges and colleges in the United States. That is why a medical degree in our country is worth nothing in England — you can't tell whether it comes from a school like Johns Hopkins (the only medical college in America recognized in England) or from some one-horse private school in the Southern States. "That, too, is why I think all our medical schools ought to be chartered by the federal government. There are too many small poorly-equipped medical colleges in the nation. There should be fewer, and the standard of these ought to be exceedingly high, considering the importance to the people of the profession of medicine. "But to return to your question. There should be nothing cheap in a physician's education. It costs more, if its poor, than it does if its good —in the long run. The highest expense is, in the end, the cheapest in human lives and dollars and cents. If a young man does not know what school to go to, he ought to consult physicians of standing who do know. But he should make up his mind to have only the best training." SOME MEN WHO HAVE DONE THINGS. 635 "What about a young man's motive in choosing the calling of a physician?" "The only admissible motive should be to do good." "But it is rumored, Doctor," I said, "that there is lots of money in this profession." Every phys'cian and prospective physician ought to hear the answer, the whole of it — even more than I set down here. "No man is worthy the name of physician who is in the profession for what money he can get out of it. Not dollars and cents, but the good to be done to humanity, should be a young man's aim who intends to study medicine. And this aim brings money, too, whereas the commercial, mercenary aim does not. Suppose a man comes to me with a pain which I can relieve, but which he cannot pay for. Suppose, further, 1 relieve his pain, free him of his burden; he goes back and tells his neighbors, who are never dumb to an appeal to the God in them. And my practice grows accordingly. If money is what a physician wants, this is the only worthy way to obtain it — through advertisements of this sort. "As a matter of fact, however, the great burden of a doctor's bills falls mainly on one class, a class that can ill afford it — the man who works for daily wage. The rich can afford to pay well. The very poor cannot afford to pay at all, and so every physician has a good deal of charity work. To make my point clear: The other day a man was coming from a hospital, where he had had a child operated upon. I asked him what he had to pay for the doctor's service. Five hundred dollars. He was a working man. He had paid seventy-five dollars and given his note for four hundred and twenty-five dollars! I left that man thinking hard. Here is a man, I said to myself, who will have to scrape and pinch for several years in order to pay this. Meantime, his children, this child and the others, will have to go without something that would really be necessary for their mental and moral development, and thus the family, the state and the Church be the poorer. This looks hardly right, does it?" "Well," I interposed, "what would you have done?" "I think I should have looked into the case — inquired into the number of his family, found out what the man's prospects were, and 636 IMPROVEMENT ERA. charged him, perhaps, a hundred dollars. You know, I don't believe it would be a good thing not to have charged something — people don't generally appreciate it." "What is the true physician's work?-' "If I were a layman, I would demand two things, and only two things, of the physician who treated me — first, skill, and second, absolute honor. There are too many physicians who prey on the prejudices and technical ignorance of the people. They rob them. But the true doctor will not do this. He will deal honestly with his patients. Such a man can find opportunities to do good everywhere, either in relieving pain and distress or in educating the people to the point where they can avoid certain diseases. You know some of our greatest plagues, like tuberculosis and typhoid fever, are mainly preventable. If people only knew, they could avoid these diseases. It is part of the true physician's work to teach the people how to prevent, as well as how to be cured of, these infections. ' 'And then there are a great many unfortunates in every community who will suffer all their lives, unless some kindly-disposed physician will help them without pay. I know two physicians in England — Dr. Openshaw of London, and Dr. Jones of Liverpool — who have from eight to nine thousand charity cases, besides their regular practice. Of course, these are rare exceptions, but only because the men have exceptional notions as to what a physician's real worth in the world is. I have seen these physicians in the midst of hundreds of unfortunate children, dealing with them in the tenderest manner, fondling them with a mother's affection. Here they found their true physician's reward, alleviating humanity's suffering; for charity brings out manhood in the practioneer as in others." "And now, my last question, What ought a physician to do that he might keep growing?" "If a medical man have character and intellect, he will grow. These are, as I have said, the main thing. An experienced physician ought to be better than one just out of college. His services are worth more. This is the case even where the physician has no more than mediocre intelligence. But there is a great difference between even experienced medical men. Some do SOME MEN WHO HAVE DONE THINGS. 637 not, as you say, grow. And that is a great difference. This difference lies in their intellectuality. One doctor will see this fragment and +hat fragment, but not know what to do with all the fragments. Another will put these fragments together till he gets a circle. He will always be reasoning on the old facts, for the purpose of getting new information." A splendid illustration of this growing in a physician is something that I happen to know of Dr. Middleton, but that he possibly might object to my using in this place, if he were asked beforehand. He was called in. by another physician to consult over a child at the point of death, from an acute case of Bright's disease. The child was deaf, dumb and blind. After making an examination of the case, Dr. Middleton decided that the only thing to do was to perform an operation. He came to this conclusion in a most philosophical way. As is well known, in tuberculosis of the kidneys the covering of these organs prevents expansion. If, therefore, this covering were removed, there would be hope. The thing had been done before, but only in chronic cases, and with poor results. The operation was performed by Drs. Middleton and Allen, and in an incredibly short time the child was playing in the yard, perfectly well. So far as is known such a thing, under similiar conditions, has never been done before in the history of medicine, and it amounts, therefore, to a brilliant, original discovery. ''Among physicians there are two classes," the Doctor went on, "the satellite and the luminary. The first revolves around others, the second serves as a centre round which others revolve. The true physician, the one who wishes to grow, will shine by his own light. He is one who is a born luminary. There is much for the luminary-physician to do by way of self improvement. He must read much, and live in his cases. He must make generalizations from known facts. And, lastly, he must not be afraid to go away to see and hear men who have risen in their profession See, hear, read, think, work — these are the watch-words of the progressive physician." That Dr. Middleton has himself done what he advises young physicians to do, is evident from his extended trips to the best hospitals in Europe and America, the generalizing power of his fine intellect, his really excellent literary ability, and the larger 638 IMPROVEMENT ERA. interest which he manifests in almost every subject. And this should be the last word to the prospective physician, based on the character of Dr. Middleton himself. Only the great physicians find themselves interested in subjects as foreign to medicine as mathematics and philosophy and general literature. Sailing on Life's Sea. (For the Improvement Era.) O'er life's great, surging, restless sea, That flows on to eternity; With earth's great throng who swell the tide, I'm sailing o'er the ocean wide. I see the throng now come, now go; They're drifting, drifting to and fro: I see the waves around them dash, I hear the breakers plunge and splash. And day by day thus do they sail; Some with their faces sad and pale; Some with white brows all marked with care, Whose sad hearts breathe a silent prayer. Others are asking God for aid To give them faith ere hope shall fade; And some there are with souls oppressed, And some who hide sin in their breast. Thus do they sail, the false, the base, And those who do a shadow chase, — The vain, the proud, the wretch, the knave, The good, the noble and the brave, — » The true, the strong with hearts of worth, The giddy with their trivial mirth ; The gallant and the stalwart youth ; And those who wrestle for the truth; The haughty with their colors proud. And those who babble long and loud; Yea, vilest hearts that hell can name, And purest souls that God can claim, Are sailing here on life's great sea, That flows on to eternity. Sarah E. Mitton. Logan, Utah.