Page:A Memoir of Thomas C. James, M. D. - Hodge.djvu/21

 be considered as complete. Obstetrics was confessedly equal to the other practical branches of medical science; and its practitioners and teachers were authoritatively pronounced on a par with those of Surgery and the Practice of Medicine. The battle had been fairly fought and won, and Dr. James who, we have seen, contributed so much to this happy issue, received now the reward so eminently due to modest worth, superior talents and attainments, united with persevering industry.

Large classes annually resorted to Philadelphia, and profited by the lectures and demonstrations of the various professors, which were continually rendered more pointed and instructive, by the reiterated experience in the difficult art of teaching, and by the adoption of all the real improvements promulgated here or elsewhere.

At this interesting period of the history of medicine in our country, it was the lot of many members of this society, and of the writer of this memoir, to form a professional, and afterwards a friendly acquaintance with the professor of midwifery. Some fifty years had passed over his head. Age had made an undue impression, owing perhaps partly to original temperament, but more to mental and corporeal exertion, to anxiety, to loss of sleep and necessary exposure. He was partially bald, his hair whitened, and his form originally so perfect, was now somewhat bent, but his ruddy and healthy aspect, his fine countenance, his diffident yet refined manners, his affability, his condescension to medical students, his great intellectual and moral worth, excited feelings of affection and veneration in the minds and hearts of all.

Dr. James continued to lecture without assistance, to the increasing classes of the University until 1821, when, with the desire of relieving himself of a portion of his duties, but especially with the wish of rendering the course more valuable, he requested the assistance of the then adjunct professor of anatomy, Dr. Horner, in demonstrating the anatomical portions of the lectures, and in exemplifying to the sub-classes, the mode of performing obstetric operations. Soon, however, the lamentable fact began to be apparent to Dr. James, as well as to the pupils, that his physical powers were failing. A nervous tremour was occasionally observed in the fingers of the right hand; gradually but very slowly, it extended to the muscles of the right arm; and in a few years involved all his nervous and muscular system, exciting the symptoms of a premature old age, and indirectly becoming the cause of his death. Soon after, his voice began to fail, so