Sold: The Last Chair

Painted child’s high chair / c. 1870s / from the Portland, Maine examination room of Walter Eaton Tobie, M.D. / Inscribed on the seat bottom “Dr. Tobie Portland, ME.”

When Dr. Tobie examined his pediatric patients from this child’s high chair, kids sick with pneumonia, influenza, or tuberculosis — among the chief killers of children at the time — faced terrible odds. Thanks to improved sanitation, penicillin, and vaccines, today fewer than one in a hundred children die before the age of five. But in 1900, physicians treating child patients faced grave challenges: At the time, nearly one in five children would not live past their fifth birthday.

As an attending physician at the Isolation and Small Pox Hospital in Portland, Maine, Dr. Tobie treated hundreds of sick kids passing through his care, and after his fifty years of practicing medicine, the seat for his most vulnerable patients has a stretcher worn smooth, indented by countless small feet.

Measurements

Approximately 4 feet tall

Condition

Beautifully timeworn.

Shipping

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