Page:Memoir of George B. Wood, M. D., LL.D.djvu/17

 for the interests of his patients and pupils, he was always ready to supplement and extend the advantages of his own personal instruction, by engaging, upon the most liberal terms, the services of others in particular departments. This was constantly done by him in regard to his own private students, of whom, until about the year 1855, he always had a large class. Several of our most distinguished physicians, now leading practitioners and professors, can look back with grateful reminiscences to the hours advantageously spent, in review of their University studies, as Professor Wood's office pupils.

No event in Dr. Wood's life was of more cardinal importance to him than his marriage; which took place in 1823, to Caroline, only daughter of Peter Hahn, a wealthy merchant of Philadelphia. Congenial, domestic in her tastes, and devoted in her attachment to him, she was able, also, by her receipt of large means from her father, to secure her husband in an independent position in the world. Some men would have availed themselves of this, to withdraw from care and toil of every kind, and to enjoy their leisure in travel and in social or literary recreation. Not so with Dr. Wood; while generous, and sometimes even stately, in his mode of living, he employed the resources placed within his reach mainly in enlarging and improving his processes of instruction; into which, as well as into the composition of his books, he threw all the energy of his nature. It was a familiar fact to his contemporaries in