Page:Memoir of George McClellan MD.djvu/17

 medical library? It used to be our complimental query: what author in it, McClellan, have you not examined? Such is my personal testimony of McClellan.

In the spring of 1819, he received his Doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania. The subject of his Thesis was “the tying of arteries;” a manly and practical production, subsequently published as a source of professional information. Among the Alumni of this venerable institution, who has better fulfilled his commission, and done her more honor?

He was well armed against disease. He depended upon his own manly exertions and talents. On these alone he stood before the world. His conduct was open, frank and uncompromising. He served the deepest interest of humanity, alleviating anguish and curing disease. He sought the sick, and soon they sought him, both becoming inseparable from each other. To McClellan, an office, putting out a Doctor's-tin, setting-up for practice, and office-waiting for it were irrelevant. He practised any where and every where. Within the year of his graduation, he successfully treated a case of spina ventosa of the lower-jaw, performed the breaking up and couching operations for cataract; and shortly afterward, the extraction of the lens.

In 1821, he married into one of the most influential families of Philadelphia, and became established as a practitioner, before whom was an open path of usefulness and honor. As such we find him keeping house, and enjoying domestic happiness at the corner of Walnut and Swanwick streets, on the latter of which he had arranged an office and a lecture-room. His now happy life, so far from abating, stimulated his professional zeal. He became most actively engaged in general practice and in delivering courses of lectures on Anatomy and Surgery.