Page:Memoir of George McClellan MD.djvu/15

 mine in the most confiding manner. I recoiled for a moment, I confess, at such apparent obtrusiveness. I wist not that the stranger was McClellan!—one to be highly esteemed by the Medical world, destined to be one of the mighty men in surgery; to sustain, after Physick, the chirurgical character of Philadelphia; in order to the making of a national reputation, to co-operate with Warren of Boston, Mott of New York, Smith of Baltimore, and Dudley of the West; to rank with Chelius of Germany, Velpeau of France, Liston of England, and Carmichael of Ireland. Through ignorance and uncharitableness, I did not then discern him. But now I know in review, that that first salute, apparently abrupt and obtrusive, was, in fact, courteous, pleasant and intelligent,—that which honored and benefited, infused a more fixed purpose and more professional zeal, raised to a better position whence to perceive more extensive relations. I became knit to him. By an unanimous election of the Board he became one of us—Beesley, Freeman, McClellan and myself. We became associated as senior and junior to manipulate and prescribe together. Often has he enabled me to make a new and truer diagnosis, and suggested a more efficient therapeutics.

Indulge me, gentlemen, here in giving more of my personal testimony. McClellan's language was ever chaste and conciliating. He was the spirit and delight of the house. Ever advancing in medical knowledge and ever communicating, he became our daily mental stimulus. His unrivalled unison of eye and hand, has been mentioned; with equal truth I notice also his equally remarkable unison of a rapid mind and tongue. At his meals nor in his bed can I recall to mind McClellan! My associations of him relate to his rapid