Benjamin Cushing, 1822-1895
Memorial Biographies of the New England Historic Genealogical Society, Volume IX 1890-1897. (Boston: Published by the Society, 1908), 291.
Benjamin Cushing, of Dorchester, Massachusetts, who was elected a Resident Member of this society in 1887, was born in Hingham, Massachusetts, May 9, 1822, and died in Dorchester, October 16, 1895. His father was Jerom Cushing. His mother was Mary Thaxter. He was descended in the seventh generation from Matthew Cushing and Nazareth Pitcher, who came from Hingham, England, in 1638, and settled in Hingham, Massachusetts. On the Thaxter side, his great-grandfather was Major Samuel Thaxter, who was at the capture of Fort William Henry.
After the death of Jerom Cushing, his widow, with her children, came to live in Dorchester, with her unmarried brother, Dr. Robert Thaxter.
Dr. Benjamin Cushing was prepared for college at Derby Academy, in Hingham, and was graduated from Harvard University in 1842. During his college course he spent a winter in Cuba, for the benefit of his health. He went to Calcuttta, on a sailing vessel, after he left college. In 1846 he was graduated from Harvard Medical School, and went to Paris for a year’s further study of his profession. The discovery, by Dr. Morton of Boston of the surgical use of ether was made while Dr. Cushing was in Paris, and he saw the first two operations there in which it was used.
He began the practice of medicine in Dorchester, on his return from Paris, in 1847, being associated at first with his uncle, Dr. Thaxter. All his professional life was in Dorchester. During the Civil War he volunteered to act as surgeon, and was sent to Fortress Monroe. After the close of the war he made a second trip to Europe, in 1866, and a third in 1875.
Dr. Cushing was faithful and very skilful physician. His heart was always open to the calls of suffering. He was true friend, full of public spirit, wise in counsel and generous in his gifts. He was a member of the Massachusetts Medical Society, and was chairman of the Visiting Board of the Danvers Hospital for the Insane. He was also one of the consulting physicians of the City Hospital. He was much interested i certain proposed reforms in the treatment of dipsomaniacs. He served for a long time on the School Board of Dorchester.
He married, in 1848, Anna Quincy Thaxter, of Hingham.
“Dorchester doctors Erasmus Miller, William Cranch Bond Fifield, Benjamin Cushing”
Boston Medical and surgival Journal, volume 143, August 9, 1900, p. 125-126
Give me leave to speak of Dr. Erasmus Miller, of Dorchester, and his vast obstetric experience, his early practice in gynecology, his uterine scarifier, his intense shrewness, his horse Stargazer and his cranberry bog in Franklin. He used to say that whatever his ability might have been on his first coming to Dorchester, his real and speedy success was due to a superb gray horse with flowing white switch tail, so handsome as to make every one turn to look and inquire who ws the owner. But a more efficient factor was his own early acquisition of snowy hair and sweeping beard, which made a conspicuous figure in any landsape or company. …
No more brilliant character shone on this stage than William Cranch Bond Fifield. After finishing his studies in London and Pari he came to Drochester in 1860, where he died in 1896. He was a man of prodigious memory, who appeared never to have forgotten anything. He could tell you on what part of any shelf in the Atheneum you could find the book you wanted, and very nearly the page which recorded the fact, phrase or case you were in search of. Indeed his mind was so stored with authors, precedents, operations, that he could not alwasys find the pigeonhole in whcih the subeject in view was packed. He made some marvellous diagnoses, but often would not see into an ordinary case, because his gaze was fixed on a visionary possibility far beyond. It was a treat to hear him detail a case or tell a story about one of his European teachers. The graphic touches with which he embroidered his subject fixed its deails in your mind, while wit and humor played around it, so as sometimes indeed, it must be owned, to obscure the judgment and make you wonder how much was fancy and how much awas fact. Besides he was an omnivorous reader; a new book of fiction, history, poetry, travel had not been long published but he could give you its scope, with apt quotations, and his opinion about it. Withal he was a musuican of no mean ability and of fastidious taste. Many aflicitions overtook and cardiac disease obscured his last days.
Those of us who were norored with the friendshp of Benjamin Cushing will call to mind no physician whose example they would sooner wish to follow. The gaunt frame carried a great heart and through the lage spectacles beamed a steady and confident gaze. No more upright man ever stood in our society. He seemed silent and reserved. You had to now him. When he could not praise or offer comfort he was silent. Once he told me of a family who had lost a child, and the parents thought him hardhearted. As he spoke his eyes filled with tears. No yorn doctor who was in trouble ever left his presence without wise counsel and just sympathy. His charities were wide and unnamed. To many of us his judgment seemed unerring. He spoke willof everyone when he possibly coul, but meanness, unerhand methods, harshness, he could not abide; and he was not slow to let the offender know it. He had a well-develped New England conscience. One nasty night he sent a poor patient to a young neighbor. After the messenger had gone, he oculd not sleep, and, as he said, pictured to himself that when he next drove by the house he might see a string of carriages before the door. So he rose, dressed, took his instruments under his arm, plodded to the place through the rain, heard the voice of the youthful accoucheur inside, returned home and slept the sleep of the just. A relative looking over his books found one day’s work, where he had made twenty visits, no great number to be sure, but one patient lived near Pine-tree Brook in Milton, another in Beacon Street, obth of whom had to be seen twice that day. And his driving was like the driving of Jehu, the son of Nimsni. A lady once asked him “Why, Dr. Cushing, do you drive so fast?” He replied, “I never drive fast, but I will admit that I like to ride behind a horse that wants go go fast.” Upon a call for surgeions after one of the murderous battles of the Civil War, he did some service. He was deeply grieved that his name was not mentioned by the authorities, the only reward he would hve accepted, but he would take no steps to publsh his claim to regocnigtion. With this right judgment and skilful, conscientious work went a delightfully dry humor, and e enjoyed a good joke in every nerve. Once a young doctor realted a case with fatal issue whre every remedy known to modern science had been faithrully employed. When he finished Dr. Cushing quietly remarked that he once signed a death certificate on the wrong ine “Cause of death, B. Cushing.” At an annual meetng he had been appointed to read the address. It proved to be a very lively meeting indeed, with altercations and personalities which prolonged the session beyond the hour set for the address. When at last he was called on, he remarked that as the society had chosen to turnthe meeting into a bear garden he considered it small honor to address them. It was never ascertained that he had any paper beyond notes scrawled on the backs of envelopes, and it was conjectured that foreseeing the posibility of disturbance, he had never got any furhter in his preparations. He was nicely axact–almost finically so–in his relations with other practitioners. Often has he said to the writer, “While you were away I saw your patients, Mr. A and Mrs. B. I didn’t waste any politeness on them.” He had no opinion at all of a physician who would do otherwise. Therefore he had disappointments. He died in 1895, aged seventy-three, leaving deep regrets and a shining example. …