Page:Memoir of George B. Wood, M. D., LL.D.djvu/16

 portion of Dr. Wood's professional life, one not without importance was, his taking prominent part in the editorship of the North American Medical and Surgical Journal. This quarterly periodical attained the highest standing, being conducted by a number of gentlemen of ability and learning; although it gave way, after a few years, to a successor in the same field, under circumstances more favorable to a permanent existence.

In 1835, Professor Wood was appointed one of the attending physicians to the Pennsylvania Hospital. The duties of this responsible post he performed, with unremitting faithfulness, until the year 1859. His clinical lectures in that institution, to numerous classes of medical students, were admirable. Great improvements in the methods of ascertaining conditions of internal disease, and especially in the physical diagnosis of affections of the lungs and heart, were brought hither from Europe after Dr. Wood had begun his career as a medical teacher. Having no ultraconservatism in regard to novelties, he applied himself to the practical study of auscultation and percussion; so as to become proficient in their bedside use. Not content, however, with his own skill in these newer methods, he availed himself, not unfrequently, of the assistance of the late Dr. W. W. Gerhard, with whom they were a specialty, in the diagnosis of cases under his care in the Hospital. It was one of Dr. Wood's characteristics, that, in his earnest and conscientious