granted to the Rev. Thomas Hancock about 1670, when Lexington was Cambridge Farms. The original Hancock parsonage, now known as the "Hancock-Clarke House," which stands on a portion of it, is owned by the Lexington Historical Society, and nearby, on the same avenue and on a part of the same estate is the private home of R. II. Gilpatrick, a direct descendant, through seven generations, of the well-known Rev. Thomas Hancock. This descendant of the Hancocks tells us that on the maternal side of his family his first ancestor to locate in this country was John Howland, of the Mayflower Company. On his father's side, seven generations back, James Gillpatrick (notice that he spelled the name with two "l's," rather than one) settled at Orland, Maine, to which he came direct from Dumfriesshire, where the old family castle of "Closeburn" still stands. This line of ancestry he traces still farther back to the thirteenth century to one "Roger," who was known by the name of Kirkpatrick instead of Gilpatrick.

This descendant of the Colonial Fathers considers himself as fortunate in the "choice" of his birthplace as in the "choice" of his ancestors. He was born at Machias, a delightful little shire town in the very farthest southeastern corner of Maine, where the tide has a rise and fall of over

blueberry industry which has taken the place of the former lumber and pulp. wood business. More interesting still, it was the scene of the first naval battle of the Revolution. "A band of impetuous settlers," Dr. Gilpatrick tells us, "attacked a Royal Sloop of War, the Margaretta, from small boats, as she lay at anchor in the river mouth, and though armed chiefly with knives, axes and scythes, overcame the crew, captured the ship, and later, fearing her recapture, stripped her to the bare hull, dragged her up a branch of the river at high tide and buried her in a hole which they dug in the bank, where she lies today."

In this historic spot, the subject of this sketch grew up. He was the only child of the manager of the Machias lumber business. His father gave him. about everything that any boy had and made his boyhood as perfect as he could ask. When sixteen he served a short apprenticeship in the fishing business, just enough to give him a practical insight into it. He terms it a rough life but a valuable experience. He was educated in the Machias Grammar and High School, Phillips Academy, Yale and Harvard. He took his bachelor's degree at Yale in 1901, spent the summer in a hospital near Boston, then entered Harvard Medical School. He received his doctor's degree from the latter in 1905. The last

year he served also as interne in the Brookline Free Hospital for Women. Two more years were spent as interne at the Boston City Hospital. After his graduation here in 1907 he was given the position of Resident Surgeon at the Relief Hospital, a branch. of the City Hospital. This was his first salaried position. After six months he resigned it to spend another half year as interne in the Boston Lying-in Hospital. In 1908 he began private practice in Boston. A small livelihood appeared at once and has grown year by year steadily higher. His work is pretty exclusively surgery with such a broad, deep hospital training as to make it quite general. He has had more than the average amount of brain surgery and of late years more abdominal work with bone and joint surgery, in fact everything except the more highly specialized fields of eyes, ears, nose and throat. For a time he was on the teaching staff at Harvard Medical School. He does some teaching now to the students who come to his clinics and is on the visiting staffs of two hospitals.

His deafness started before he began private practice. Very soon after this he commenced using an instrument, changing to more and more powerful ones as the defect increased, until he had passed the place where an instrument was of any use at all. He had, in the meantime, taken up speechreading, and for two years now has not had an instrument on.

He gets along much better without its imperfect aid, for he found that when wearing it he would concentrate on the sound to the exclusion of other details. Without it his concentration is placed on what comes to him through his eyes. It is not the lip movements alone, but, as he explains, his efforts are now directed "to the whole speaker, every item of face, figure, attitude, expression and movement of eyes, lips, face, hands and all." He finds this

much less tiring and more successful than the imperfect aid of an instru

ment.

His patients number about eight women to one man and women are always easier to read than men. Yet he rarely finds a man now that he cannot understand when he gets him in his office and makes him talk somewhat as he wishes him to. There was a time, he admits, when he was too deaf for an instrument and knew too little of lip reading, that he often admitted a new patient to his office almost with a feeling of dread. He has not had this feeling for nearly two years and is sure it has improved his disposition and his efficiency.

The study of speech-reading has patrick. He went at it as he goes at been no haphazard task with Dr. Gileverything, with thoroughness, ardor and enthusiasm. He says, "My experience in speech-reading leads me to believe that those who simply take it up haphazard, even though they try persistently, will never attain real proficiency save in the rare instances of exceptional adaptability. I have known two men who, with little knowledge and less training in music, were able to play most common instruments, with very little effort. One of them could improvise parts for almost anything

after he had heard it once or twice. There are a few of us so gifted in speech-reading, but only a few. My belief is that a thorough training in the fundamentals, under a first class teacher, or better, teachers, the training required being far more and longer in some than in others, is just as essential as a foundational training in music. One would not think seriously of beginning to play the piano with sonatas and difficult pieces. He begins at the bottom with scales and exercises. So with speech-reading, if he begins off hand trying to learn everyday speech as it is spoken, he will attain to some degree of profi

ciency, but only so far, while, if his training has been sound at the base he goes on and on building perhaps unconsciously, but permanently. One important thing I learned from my teachers was, not only to read sounds and movements, but to make my speaker speak somewhere more nearly as would wish him to do. With patients that is much more nearly possible and practicable than in ordinary conversation. I can ask questions in my own way and in such a way that they must be answered in a way that is readable. Very likely I must make my questions, many of them, leading ones, and very likely if I left it at that, might receive an answer not always reliable, but I always follow a leading question, with another which leads in the opposite direction. From the two answers I get at the real facts as the patient believes them to be, more accurately than were I to allow him to tell the story in his own way. Also I save a vast amount of time. My time is conserved by the fact that no extraneous matter creeps into the examination, everything moves to a point, and that reminds me that the operating

room

nurses have remarked on the speed with which my operations move and that they have to be on their toes to keep up, which is, I think, because I am not distracted by anything outside the essentials of the work in

hand."

Whether Dr. Gilpatrick's proficiency in speech-reading is natural or acquired it is evident that it is far above the average. He tells us that he is frequently called as consultant both in private and in hospital practice and has no difficulty with one or two other consultants speaking one at a time. He has been considered an expert in court testimony and for many years was frequently called in homicide cases and damage suits. He has not done so much of that since becoming extremely deaf, but only a few months ago he was

called in a large damage suit and relied entirely on lip-reading during a cross examination by the opposing counsel lasting over two hours. It had been agreed with the judge that the lawyer who called him might be allowed to repeat questions if not understood, but that was unnecessary. His last question was a long hypothetical one, full of big, technical words, words which to the uninitiated would seem impossible for a speechreader, yet words that to the initiated are the very easiest to understand. The question took from three to five minutes to speak, but the answer was one word "no" and the Doctor was able to give it as soon as the lawyer stopped speaking. It was a worthy triumph, even though he assures us that it was a triumph that he might not be able to duplicate in many attempts.

He has re-educated not only his eyes but all his other senses as well, to a high degree. Much of it has been done unconsciously, some consciously. For instance, he has educated his fingers to feel so that he can outline by percussion an area of dullness as accurately by touch as if he heard the percussion note. Thus sometimes his patients come to him several times before discovering the defect in his ears. On one occasion a woman came four times, then went to the hospital where he operated on her, seeing her daily thereafter for two weeks. and she never knew he did not hear a word she said. She never happened to catch him off guard and he did not know of her ignorance until the day. she went home, when another patient. let the secret out. Even then she would not believe it till he confirmed the statement himself.

If the deaf man must stay on the edge of general conversation, Dr. Gilpatrick's advice is to keep an interest in it so that when some question arises and his opinion is asked he will have one to offer. That means he must

read and reflect, keep himself up to date, learn the new games, read the new books and plays, keep up to date in general affairs and have some ideas of his own upon them. If he gets the reputation of always having something constructive to say when asked a question he will often be asked, then once in the circle he can keep in until the subject changes.

His method of seeing a play is to read the lines beforehand and take the book with him to the performance. In this way he enjoys it. He says if anyone in the house got more out of John Barrymore's Hamlet than he, he got his money's worth. He finds George Arliss easy to read and always enjoys him as well as one with perfect ears could.

There is a fault common to many deaf people which the Doctor calls attention to in himself. He says, "It seems to me my deafness tends to make me very critical in many ways and at many times, almost intolerant on accasion. I find myself saying, 'Well, if I could hear and could not do better than that I would go hide.' It seems that anything would be possible of accomplishment could I but have good ears. I find a man in some position of importance who appears to me to know very little of his proper function, and I think to myself, 'About how far would you get if you were deaf?' It is an attitude which, while to some extent justifiable, should not be allowed to magnify itself, for it is likely to tend in the direction of self pity. The one thing which will more quickly and completely destroy a man's usefulness and efficiency than anything. else I know of, is that he get sorry for himself. Unless he gets over it very rapidly he is lost. The whole basis for all the class consciousness hatred, all the industrial unrest and bolshevism in the world is that a lot of people got sorry for themselves and then found a lot of half-baked vision

and

are

aries to preach to them the same doctrines in all the variations of the scale. A man gets sorry for himself because he is less well off than some other man, being entirely blind as to why the conditions are as they are, when along comes some demagogue who says' 'Elect me and I'll change it all in your favor. Promptly the self-pitying one ceases to exert himself as the more fortunately placed one probably has done. to get where he is, and does as the agitator advises. Naturally we sorry we are deaf but unless we turn our sorrow to some useful end, whereby our condition is ameliorated, we get nowhere. If there are any good things about being deaf, and there are some, surely, we may as well make the most of them. To mention one, the associations which have come to me through our Speech Readers Guild are simply priceless. I am convinced that the public in general are becoming rapidly more tolerant toward the deaf and it is because the deaf are demonstrating their ability to rise above the affliction. I have frequently the satisfaction of having someone say that he never thinks of me as being deaf. I think that the highest compliment. I rarely make any attempt to keep anyone from knowing that I am deaf, but I try constantly to keep them from thinking of me as a deaf man, who is thereby barred from ordinary activities. If I see signs of diffidence on one's part to talk to me for fear I will not understand him, I simply drive him to talk, and show him at once that I can understand him and try to answer his questions in such a way that he will want to ask others."

That there is no "royal road to success" for the deaf any more than the general public and that we must give value received or a little more for whatever we wish to obtain has been stressed by Dr. Gilpatrick. He says, "I have been conscious from the start, after I found the nature of my deafness