Page:Memoir of Isaac Parrish, M.D. - Samuel Jackson.djvu/27

 what he saw in his own mind; but he painted from nature, and we all know that the picture is true. When Milton began to aspire to posthumous fame, he hoped that he would be able to write something that his "countrymen would not willingly let die." What the great poet hoped to do for his country, Dr. P. has done for the family of Dr. Otto; they will surely cherish this biography, and thank the author through many generations; in the language of Milton, they will not willingly let it die.

In his various writings, he always appears fully master of his subject, and to have made the best distribution of the different parts, so as to render his piece both luminous and attractive; thus showing a full comprehension of his subject without neglecting the minute particulars, always abounding in medical description. Had he lived to practice and to write another twenty-one years, he might have proved one of the most distinguished benefactors of our science among the medical literati; for he not only had talents for communicating knowledge in an easy and pleasing way, but he was too good a man to pass through life without doing his part in the improvement of medicine, and "straining every nerve," as Sydenham said of himself, "that the cure of diseases after his death might be conducted with greater certainty."

With respect to his domestic and civil relations, he was a truly exemplary man; a tender husband and father, an affectionate brother, a kind neighbor. No disinterested man ever had reason to complain of his conduct and bearing; so that we may say of him as it was said of Sir Joshua Reynolds, "that if any man had quarrelled with him, he could not have found it possible to abuse him."

The accumulation of property he almost wholly disregarded. He did not affect to despise money, nor did he part with it imprudently; but he did not seek riches as earnestly as most other men, even the good, are accustomed to do. Leaving his pecuniary affairs to his wife and older brother, he pursued the even tenor of his placid way, in visiting the sick and relieving the distressed. We have already spoken of his faithfulness in attending the poor; it remains to be said that his purse was freely opened