Page:Biographical Memoir of John C Otto MD.djvu/18

 remembered, and were at the time gratefully appreciated, by the inhabitants of Philadelphia.

As a member of this institution, we can all bear testimony to the warmth of Dr. Otto's zeal in promoting its interests and prosperity. Looking upon the College of Physicians, not only as a scientific body, through the influence of which medical knowledge might be advanced, but as a sort of conservator of professional morals, he was deeply interested in all its movements, and a diligent attender of its meetings.

His keen sense of propriety, and uncompromising adherence to principle, fitted him remarkably for the delicate office of Censor, which he filled to the satisfaction of the Fellows for many years. At the death of my lamented father, in 1840, he was elected as Vice-President; a position which he occupied at the time of his death.

In the late revision of the By-Laws and Rules for professional conduct, he took an active part, and was one of the committee of three who prepared this extended and admirable code for the action of the College.

This labor was amongst his last services, and was a fitting occupation for one who had so beautifully illustrated, through along life, the principles which he now presented for the acceptance of others. In fact, Dr. Otto was a model of excellence in all that pertains to the duties of the physician towards his brother practitioner, and towards the community.

His ethical views were based upon the highest moral considerations; he looked upon the physician as properly the minister of good to his fellow beings, and hence, as bound to act in all cases with reference, not to his own interest alone, but to those more elevated and enlarged views which bind us, by the ties of benevolence and humanity, to the common brotherhood of man. In his intercouseintercourse [sic] with his patients, he was candid, ingenuous, and