Note 54 — Chapter VIII · HIS LAST DAYS

My friend Dr. Horace Howard Furness, of Philadelphia, writes (and allows me to quote): “I remember hearing my father say that Dr. Physick told him, just after that operation of lithotomy, that he had ‘washed the judge out as clean as a plate,’ and that he went on to say that after the operation the strictest quiet was enjoined, not a muscle was to be moved; but what was his alarm on his next visit to see Judge Marshall sitting up in bed with paper and pencil on his knees, writing to his wife!”