Elisha H. Gregory / [Vilray Papin Blair].

  • Blair, Vilray Papin, 1871-1955.
Date:
[1929]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Elisha H. Gregory / [Vilray Papin Blair]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    1/6
    Reprint from SURGERY, GYNECOLOGY AND OBSTETRICS May, IQ2Q, pages 714-716 ROY MOODlE COLLECTION. ELISHA H. GREGORY V. P. BLAIR, M.D., F.A.C.S., St. Louis, Missouri ON Sunday, February n, 1906, there passed away at Ormond, Florida, at the age of eighty-two years, Dr. Elisha H. Gregory, for more than fifty years a resident and surgeon of St. Louis. Dr. Gregory was born in Kentucky of parents descended from old Virginian stock, and the period of his education antedated that prescribed by Oliver Wendell Holmes for that of a gentleman. His seventeenth year found him living with his parents in a northern Missouri town, apprentice to a printer, and studying medicine from borrowed books at the same time. Two years later he attended a course of lectures in Louisville, and shortly after his return he was married to the life companion with whom many of us were acquainted. The doctor’s early efforts in the city were marked by the same energy which he had displayed in the country, and success came early. He made but one effort for a political appointment and afterward commented many times upon the ultimate failure of the more successful candidate. In the days when to be a surgeon meant more than the possession of a little technical skill such talent and energy as his brought him rapidly to the front. The doctor was justly proud of his success. While it had its foundation in well regulated energy directed toward good, this simple man had many special qualities that added greatly to it. First and foremost, he seldom made a mis¬ take in the estimation of a man’s worth, and while he was sometimes tolerant beyond the limits of charity, I have seldom seen him misplace a trust. He had a trick of knowing when to act without asking questions, which, besides con¬ stantly saving him much time, was responsible for his surgeonship in the Mul- lanphy Hospital. Another habit to which he, himself, attributed much of his success was his ability to be on time for all his engagements; and he considered his meals not the least of these. Physically, he was not a strong man, but the habit of care which this engendered is probably responsible for the length of his useful life. It was the doctor’s wont to refer to himself as unsophisticated, but he who acted on this idea was liable to make grave mistakes. In questions of medical ethics he was almost always on the right, if not always on the successful side, and his policy has seldom been questioned. For years as a medical expert he was held in the greatest esteem, a terror to the Copyright, 1929, by Surgical Pub. Co. of Chicago