"... one of my playmates, a boy of my own age, broke his leg while riding in the buggy with his father. His foot slipped from the dashboard and caught in the wheel. It was a , and our family physician shook his shaggy head as he said, “I fear that he cannot live.” The boy’s leg was amputated immediately. Later word came that gangrene had set in. And then the funeral. To the medical profession of those days, a fracture which broke the skin, technically a compound fracture, meant almost certain death. Modern methods of disinfection were still unknown. In fact, it was not until seven years after this that I first heard the word “,” when my classmate painted for me a world filled with bacteria, floating particles in the air, microscopic plants. Only those of us who lived before the days of can realize what an amazing thought it seemed when first presented to the world."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
pp. 8–9
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/David_Fairchild
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
David Fairchild
(April 7, 1869 – August 6, 1954) was an American botanist, plant explorer, and author of 4 books.
11 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by David Fairchild →
Related Quotes
"To one has seen the vast storehouses of utterly unknown material in the great jungle world below the , botanizing any…"
"might be called the botanical Mecca of the English-speaking world."
"Never to have seen anything but the is to have lived on the fringe of the world."
"There were five of us children, and the setting of our childhood was quite ideal. The and it contained all of the ele…"
"In the field of medical science, the advent of the and have discredited the “” methods of a generation ago which lack…"
"There were strange contrasts in the little microcosm which then constituted the . Some of the men seemed to be relics…"
"Waite’s profound research into the nature and cause of the of the was spectacular and had far-reaching results. He ha…"
"As I sit under a giant tree on my terrace, the setting sun casts long shadows on the grass, and every now and then a …"
"I cannot help looking back to those early days spent in with a longing which amounts to nostalgia, for the place whic…"
"... this story of the Kampong, Fairchild's home at the edge of the Florida tropics, is ... concerned with ... the int…"