Cover of "A Necrology..."
In 1899, David N. Patterson assembled a necrology of physicians “in Lowell and vicinity” for the North Massachusetts Medical Society. A “necrology” is technically nothing more than a list of the dead, usually those from a certain place or time. In this case, Patterson created something more like a group biography or hagiography.
The volume includes a brief introduction giving a history of the medical society but Patterson quickly moves onto the biographies of the physicians, the main purpose for the volume. The biographies are notable for a certain similarity of tone: all the physicians are distinguished, gifted, “perfect” for their roles in the communities they lived in. They founded schools, read the classics of literature in their spare time, were public speakers, and, of course, were eminent physicians. Judging by what Patterson writes, all doctors were more or less ideal for their jobs and rarely, if ever, made mistakes.
The volume makes a great resource for those interested in the history of perceptions of doctors and medicine more generally. It seems unlikely that such a wholeheartedly laudatory volume would be published today; if nothing else, the standards of biographical writing have changed to such an extent that it might prove difficult to interest a press in bringing out a similar book.
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