The previous summer he had spent at the Garrett Children's Hospital in Mt. Airy, Maryland.

Upon graduating he entered the Toronto General Hospital as resident house officer; in 1899 he occupied a similar post at Johns Hopkins. Then he came to McGill University as fellow in pathology and pathologist to the Montreal General Hospital. In time he was appointed physician to the Alexandra Hospital for infectious diseases; later assistant physician to the Royal Victoria Hospital, and lecturer in medicine in the University. By examination he became a member of the Royal College of Physicians, London. In 1914 he was elected a member of the Association of American Physicians. These are distinctions won by few in the profession.

In spite, or rather by reason, of his various attainments John McCrae never developed, or degenerated, into the type of the pure scientist. For the laboratory he had neither the mind nor the hands. He never peered at partial truths so closely as to mistake them for the whole truth; therefore, he was unfitted for that purely scientific career which was developed to so high a pitch of perfection in that nation which is now no longer mentioned amongst men. He wrote much, and often, upon medical problems. The papers bearing his name amount to thirty-three items in the catalogues. They testify to his industry rather than to invention and discovery, but they have made his name known in every text-book of medicine.

Apart from his verse, and letters, and diaries, and contributions to journals and books of medicine, with an occasional address to students or to societies, John McCrae left few writings, and in these there is nothing remarkable by reason of thought or expression. He could not write prose. Fine as was his ear for verse he could not produce that finer rhythm of prose, which comes from the fall of proper words in proper sequence. He never learned that if a writer of prose takes care of the sound the sense will take care of itself. He did not scrutinize words to discover their first and fresh meaning. He wrote in phrases, and used words at second-hand as the journalists do. Bullets "rained"; guns "swept"; shells "hailed"; events "transpired", and yet his appreciation of style in others was perfect, and he was an insatiable reader of the best books. His letters are strewn with names of authors whose worth time has proved. To specify them would merely be to write the catalogue of a good library.

The thirteen years with which this century opened were the period in which John McCrae established himself in civil life in Montreal and in the profession of medicine. Of this period he has left a chronicle which is at once too long and too short.

All lives are equally interesting if only we are in possession of all the facts. Places like Oxford and Cambridge have been made interesting because the people who live in them are in the habit of writing, and always write about each other. Family letters have little interest even for the family itself, if they consist merely of a recital of the trivial events of the day. They are prized for the unusual and for the sentiment they contain. Diaries also are dull unless they deal with selected incidents; and selection is the essence of every art. Few events have any interest in themselves, but any event can be made interesting by the pictorial or literary art.

When he writes to his mother, that, as he was coming out of the college, an Irish setter pressed a cold nose against his hand, that is interesting because it is unusual. If he tells us that a professor took him by the arm, there is no interest in that to her or to any one else. For that reason the ample letters and diaries which cover these years need not detain us long. There is in them little selection, little art--too much professor and too little dog.

It is, of course, the business of the essayist to select; but in the present case there is little to choose. He tells of invitations to dinner, accepted, evaded, or refused; but he does not always tell who were there, what he thought of them, or what they had to eat.