Page:Memoir of George B. Wood, M. D., LL.D.djvu/19

 judgment, in research, selection and arrangement, of all the knowledge obtainable upon his subjects. In neither is there manifested much originality of invention, discovery or suggestion. Exception may, however, be made to some extent upon this last point, so far as to say that he always exhibited great readiness, and sometimes ingenuity, in accounting for things which, to many others, seemed difficult to explain. I never knew him to be without a probable hypothesis, when one was wanted for such a purpose, whether in pathology or therapeutics, or in social or political affairs.

Dr. Wood's mental outlook was, indeed, far from being narrow, or in any sense restricted to matters connected with his own profession. He was earnestly and actively interested, for several years, in the establishment of Girard College according to the designs of its endowment. There is amongst his papers, in connection with this, a communication to the Philadelphia Courier and Enquirer of the date of Monday, Dec. 28, 1840, a really eloquent appeal to the citizens of Philadelphia, signed "Girard;" in which the philanthropist is personated as calling from his grave upon those to whom his trust had been confided, to end their long delay in the fulfilment of his cherished purposes for the benefit of the orphans of the City and State of his adoption. A few words from this paper may be here not inappropriately cited, as an example of its author's style.

"I entreat you," he writes, "by our former