Page:Memoir of Isaac Parrish, M.D. - Samuel Jackson.djvu/15

 were always a number in the hospital, were to him objects of peculiar interest; and by his paternal management of them, he induced them often to submit to painful operations—which severity could never have effected—thereby affording us a striking example of the controlling influence which a mild and sympathizing deportment will always give us over hospital patients.

"Dr. P. was the most active of his colleagues in bringing this hospital within the range of medical students as a clinical school. He gave the first regular course of instruction on ophthalmic surgery in that institution in the winter of 1839–40; and in succeeding years he was always followed through the wards by classes of students.

"As a lecturer, he was instructive and impressive; his voice was clear, and his enunciation distinct and emphatic. He was quick in seizing on the striking point of a case, and so great was his fluency and command of language that he never failed of impressing his auditors."

Dr. Parrish was strongly of opinion that Medical Societies might be so organized as to exercise an important government over the delinquent part of the profession, as well as to promote the diffusion of medical knowledge and to fan the latent fires of genius; hence we found him always ready to give time and labor in their service. In this College, he was a conspicuous man; clear, precise, and forcible in debate, always winning the attention and respect of the house. His name appears very often in the printed discussions, and he wrote several very useful papers, besides five luminous "Annual Reports on the Progress of Surgery," all which are printed in the Transactions of the College.

In these, you will find that his sympathy with human suffering made him hail with enthusiasm the various reports on the anæsthetic powers of ether and chloroform; and though he was sometimes shocked, as we all have been, by hearing of deaths therefrom, he was yet by no means entirely disheartened; he remembered that the most useful medicines were not established without having done much evil through an incautious or ignorant use, and he therefore hoped the time was not far distant when ether and chloroform would prove as safe as bark and laudanum have now become. In this decision, his usual firmness, benevolence, and