Omaha Daily Bee Newspaper, December 2, 1900, Page 31

. - December 2, 1900. THE ILLUSTRATED BEE. Sightless He Solves Problems of Surgery Almost any day at the noon hour passers by In the down town district of Chicago turn to look at a strange couple thread- ing the busy corner of State and Washing- ton streets. A slender, pale man, fastid- fously dressed, makes his way along lean- ing on the arm of a dapper negro ser- vant. The pale man carries a light, gold topped stick and walks briskly enough, but with a slightly hesitating step. This is Robert Babcock, A. M. M. D., and he is going to the University club for luncheon or getting to his carriage to begin his round of afternoon visits. Very few peo- ple, even among those who know of his great skill by reputation, know that the man s blind. Dr. Babcock himself Is quite sensitive on the subject and nothing irritates him so much as to be pointed out as a “blind doctor.” Dr., Babcock studied medicine in Chicago, New York and in Ger- many for eleven years and settled down in Chicago to practice his profession. To- day he Is one of the foremost authorities in the United States on diseases of the heart and lungs. His practice consists in a large measure in consultations as an expert with other physiclans and his fees are sald to be larger than those of any other doctor in the city. Blindness has developed his senses o' hearing and of touch to a wonderful de- there. I could figure all this out after- ward in going over the case. Crayon Drawing by Ear. ‘“‘Give me the crayon,’ he said after a mcment or two of listening. ““He took the blue chalk that we always uso in such cases and began to trace on the man's back the outline of the en- larged heart. ‘There, gentlemen,’ he said, as he finished the sketch more rapidly than I could have done, ‘there is the size of that heart. The walls are.in such a con- dition and thus and so is likely to occur.’' He put on his hat and hurried away as it the incident had been one of the most ccmmonplace things in the world.” There is some thing uncanny but fasci- nating in the look of the blind man as he diagnoses a difficult case. His eyes strain impatiently, his face quivers and his whole body has the intense alertness that comes with concentrated mental effort. He makes his inquiries much as any physician does, except that he makes fewer of them, but lcoking on one gets the impression of watching a man work out a point in chess. There are no pecullarities of form or of feature either to distract him or give him a clew. “The facts are these; now what do they indicate?”’ he seems to be asking himself. Then if the case falls under the catalogue of heart or lung diseases, he WAITING FOR THE SIGNAL. gree of acuteness and it is mainly by aus- cultation that he makes up his judgments in heart diseases. There are many anec- dotes which show his marvellously keen ear. ‘““The best illustration that I think of now,” said another physician, an old friend of Dr. Babcock, ‘is one that came about in a case in my own practice. It was a very puzzling affair. Without going into scientific details I may say that the only possible method of making a diag- nosis was by the ear. Dr. Babcock was in Europe at the time and I called in a half a dozen other doctors, but without much result. At the last of our consultations Dr. Babcock was available.. I told him the history of the case and he asked very few questions. He never does ask many. He walked over to the patient and laid his ear against the man’s bared back. There was nothing to distract his attention, as would have been the case with a seeing man. Everything was blackness before him. The faces of the doctors crowded about the nervous young fellow whose life hung on what the doctors could hear. All this was to Babcock as if it were not listens, to the listens intently with his ear back or to the chest. His assistant straps over the patient’s pulse an instrument which traces Its movements on charcoal-covered paper and corroborates the evidence of the ear. “Quick, what do you find?" askes the bilnd doctor as he gropes impatiently for the strip of paper which is of no use to him until the student at his elbow has translated it for him. ‘“Quite right; I could hear it distinctly.”” He nods as he turns to the other physician and begins a rapid diagnosis in a low voice. Among the students at the medical col- lege the privilege of being in at ‘‘one of Babcock's examinations' is highly prized. All of Dr. Babcock’'s practice is carried on with the aid of assistants who read to him, make bacteriological analyses and do such work as absolutely requires sight. He speaks with pathetic discouragement of blind men in the medical profession. “It is the worst calling in the world for a blind man,” he says. ‘Indeed, today I believe that it is impossible for one without sight to study medicine as it should be GRIFFITH OF OMAHA HIGH SCHOOL GOING THROUGH LINCOLN'S CENTER—Photo by Louis R. Bostwick, 5] LINCOLN NEARING OMAHA'S GOAL studied. Twenty-tive years ago, when 1 began, the microscope was little used Surgery was not indispensable to medicine and not many physicians touched the knife. Today everything is changed. Scarcely a diagnosis but requires the microscope.” “But you have achieved success,’’ is the reply that naturally rises to the lips of those who hear his pessimistic views. ““May be so0,” he replies, ‘“but at what a price! I am an old man at 46 and you see my hair is white. Why, 12 o'clock at night and 6 o'clock in the morning find me always at work. I never rest. My assist- ants are reading to me and transcribing notes for me constantly. From the time that I enter my office in the morning until 1 leave it at night I am keyed up to the highest tension. I had eleven years of incessant study before I began to prac- ticee. I have to depend upon my imagi- nation, my intuition for a thousand things that another man gets by sight. 1 may say, I think that a very strong imagination has helped me more than any other one thing. And then,” he adds hesitatingly, “I don't look like & blind man. Patients would lose confidence in me if I groped about like the average sightless man." It is true that Dr. Babcock has nothing of the appearance of blindness. He is a handsome man with the face of a writer rather than of a man of science. His eyes are fine, large and brown, deep set under heavy eyebrows. His face is colorless and his hair and moustache are white. He walks about his office almost as a seeing man and on the street he is always accom- panied by his negro valet. Dr. Babcock says that he did not take up the study of medi- cine because he felt any particular inclina- tion for it. He first thought of law and was discouraged by the difficulties that his friends set before him. ““There are plenty of people to discour- age a blind man in anything he under- takes,” sald the doctor. “I began to study medicine in sheer desperation, determined to do something, and I was helped, I sup- pose, by my ignorance of the obstacles in the way. Once I began I kept on doggedly determined not to be baffled.” Dr. Babcock did considerable dissecting in his student work and now handles many instruments which it would seem impos- sible that a blind man could use. He has a remarkable memory. “I recall that when I graduated from g A s wedical college a few years ago,” sald a younger physician, “Dr. Babcock conducted the ‘quiz’ for our class. On the first day an assistant called the roll of over fifty names. The second day Dr. Babcock mounted the platform and called the roll from memory, beginning in the order that he had heard it and not omitting a single name."” Although he does not look like a blind man, Dr. Babcock has ‘the voice of the blind. He speaks like a man in the dark and his sentences fall with a sharp, metal- lic sound, monotonously and without tonal color. He has a nimble wit enriched by reading and s a popular after-dinner speaker. His talk sparkles with the effer- vescence of an imagination that struggles for its sustenance. His English has the force and purity that comes partly from study of classics and partly from the sim- plicity of his life and the severity of his professional labors. Dr. Babcock is married and if his pro- fersional career may be fairly called stren- uous his family life is restful and happy. He received his education at the School for the Blind in Philadelphia and his medical degrees from tbe Chicago Medical college and from the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City. At the latter place he was one of the ten ‘“honor men," who graduated with especlal distinction out of a class of 100. He studied his spe- cialty In Germany for four years, always with an assistant to read to him and some- times more than one, for he used to wake his secretaries up at all hours of the night with inquiries on the notes of a lecture or a diagnosis. He has written several short treatises on medical topics. His parents were people of means and gave him every advantage of education and of travel. Dr. Babcock's case Is remarkable in that ho began his studies when blind. Dr. Javal, the celebrated eye specialist of the Sor- bonne laboratory at Paris, who has re- cently been promoted to the highest rank in the Legion of Honor, is perhaps the only other blind practicing physician in the world whose professional career parallels that of Dr. Babcock. But the parallel does not extend all along the line. Dr. Javal, who is 60 years old, has been blind for but twelve years. He continues his work now by virtue of the vast amount of learning he acquired by the use of his own eyes. When Dr. Babcock took up the study of medicine it was in darkness that he began Photo by Louls R . Bostwlick, He lost his sight by an explosion of gun powder when he was a grammar school boy of 14 years of age. Extent of Flagmaking “The extent to which bunting is used in this country may be realized when it is kpown that some 7,000,000 yards, or enough of the material to make between 9,000,000 and 10,000,900 flags of one kind and another, was sold throughout the United States last year,” said a wholesale dealer in bunting in New York to a Washington Star writer recently. “Buntivg in use for flagmakiug is of two Kkinds, the woolen bunting, which 18 the finest variety, and the cotton goods, which is the cheapest, less durable and less ornamental. The fabric comes .in rolls usually of forty yards, and it is worth from $1.60 to $8 per yard, according to the quality “The most expensive bunting, such as is used by the United States government for the manufacture of naval flags, is composed entirely of wool of the finest quality. The fabric is absolutely free from imperfections and weighs just five and one-fourth pounds avoirdupois per piece of forty yards of ten inches width. The yarn is even spun and the warp and filling contain not less than thirty-four threads to the inch. The colors must be as ‘fast’ as possible and not llable to be sericusly affected by being soanked con- tinuously for twenty-four hours in fresh water and thea thoroughly washed in water with which is combined a good grade of lavndry soan “Only about one-half of the bunting sold in this country is used fer making flags such as the Stars and Stripes. The other half is used in the manufacture of small rallroad, steamship and naval signal flags, for use of contractors, railroad builders, auctioneers and social eocieties. In flag- making the only work that is done by hand is the cutting, which is performed by a man with a sharp Kknife. The sewing, stitching and hemming are done on machines by girls and women, who make the most skillful and careful operators. “There are thirty flag factories in the United States. These concerns have an in- vested capital of $12,000,000 and pay in wages nearly $400,000 annually. The majority of the flag factories are situated in New York state. The others are located In Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Loulsiana . and South Carolina.” A GOOD TACKLE.