Association, Palmer attended the meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science at Aberdeen, where he met and heard the most illustrious scientific men of Great Britain. Later, at Edinburgh, he called upon Sir James Young Simpson, one of the most remarkable personalities of his time, who was the first to employ chloroform as an anesthetic. He also made many contributions to obstetrics and gynecology and was greatly interested in improving the status of hospitals.
The European trip was doubtless a great inspiration to Palmer, for he came in contact with the finest type of physicians and medical teachers of Great Britain and France and visited most of the important hospitals and medical schools. Why he did not visit Germany is not known. The French, however, had contributed most of the advancements in medicine until about 1850.
On his return Palmer entered into his work with enthusiasm. Apparently he was an inspiring teacher; he sincerely enjoyed lecturing and was always ready to substitute for other lecturers in emergencies, or to add new lectures of his own if he thought there was a need for them. The memorial to him stated:
That he was thorough and meticulous in the examination of patients may be surmised by his comments on Dr. Walshe, whose clinic he visited in London:His lectures were at first fully written out but latterly he took briefer notes into the lecture room, carefully and systematically arranged. He never appeared before his class without looking over his notes and getting his subject well in hand; he was constantly rewriting and rearranging his lectures, to keep them abreast of scientific advancement.
Memorial of … Palmer
I have been particularly interested in Dr. Walshe's clinical exercises in the hospital. I have never witnessed more searching, exact, and intelligent examination of patients, particularly in all cases of diseases of the chest. Nothing could exceed the minute care exercised in physical explorations, and, so far as I could judge from witnessing his procedures, and hearing his remarks, with occasional examinations of particular sounds, he is unusually discriminative and precise in his observations, and very just in his conclusions.
Memorial of … Palmer
Breakey says that Palmer was "energetic, ambitious, industrious, and loved teaching." To the alumni attending the Commencement of 1888, the year following Palmer's death, Dr. Elijah H. Pilcher characterized him as follows:
Vaughan commented, in A Doctor's Memories (p. 199):[He was] earnest and methodical, learned and painstaking, pure and stainless in his life, kindly and benevolent, tenacious of what he thought to be right, devoted to the interests of the University; for more than a generation of years he was one of the most conspicuous figures of the medical faculty.
Memorial of … Palmer
He drilled his students ad nauseam in the employment of instruments of precision; auscultation and percussion were not only his favorite hobbies, but in their use he showed great skill. I remember how proudly he exhibited to me the first laryngoscope I ever saw.
Although he was an ardent Whig and abolitionist, his Civil War service was relatively brief. He resigned a commission as surgeon of the 2d Regiment of Michigan Volunteers on September 23, 1861, after a service of five months, to resume his University teaching.
In 1863 he accepted the chair of the theory and practice of medicine at the Berkshire Medical College in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and during his first summer of service there also gave the lectures on materia medica. The plan of holding two professorships simultaneously at different medical institutions was not
