EARLY LIFE OF DR. ADOLF LORENZ.
Dr. LORENZ, the famous surgeon who so recently visited this country to operate at so great a price by “bloodless surgery” on the daughter of Mr. Armour of Chicago, and who has operated on so many poor children for nothing during his stay here, began life under unfavorable conditions. This is what he said in a lecture in Philadelphia:— Forty-four years ago I was a little and very poor boy. One day, wandering along the street, I found a single glove. I put it on. It was much too large and contrasted harshly with my feet, which were bare. Proud and happy I walked to my home and showed my treasure to my mother. “My dear boy,” she said, “you will have to work very hard to find the other glove.” In the many hardships of later life I often remembered the significance of those words. But at the age of thirty, after many struggles, I had overcome all obstacles as a student, and arose to be first assistant to the late Professor Albert. I taught general surgery, and the dream of my life was to become a famous surgeon—to rummage in the interiors of fellow-mortals. But the dream never came true. I contracted a peculiar form of eczema. I could not follow my chosen work. I thought that the other glove was gone forever, and I could scarcely resist the temptation to blow out my brains. In complaining of my lot to Professor Albert, he said to me:— “If you can’t get along with wet surgery, try dry surgery!” So it was not by love but by necessity that I became a dry surgeon. But necessity is the mother of invention, and after twenty years of hard work I found at last the other glove. And it has brought me the esteem and appreciation of the profession and the grateful thanks of many a mother. Like other truly great men, he does not feel lifted up. His heart seems to be as large as his strong, muscular frame. His life is a lesson of courage to poor, struggling boys.