Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 26.djvu/508

 professions, indicating that their grandfather gave them good training.

During the '80s Dr. Wythe was called in on legal cases a number of times as a handwriting expert. By the use of the microscope he was able to detect a number of forgeries. One time, it is related, that when the judge asked him his profession Dr. Wythe replied, "Physician and Surgeon." "Ah," said the judge, "I thought you were a minister of the gospel." "Judge, that is my vocation," was the reply.

After his return to California Wythe also did much writing. In addition to revising "The Microscopist" for two editions, as already indicated, he also prepared a syllabus of his lectures at the Cooper Medical College, which was privately printed in 1892 under the title "Outlines of Normal and Pathological Histology." Another book, originally written in Pennsylvania, but revised and issued in new editions many times, and which appears to have been popular with the medical profession was "The Physician's Dose and Symptom Book." This little volume ran through fourteen editions and was translated into Japanese. As its name indicates, it was a much abbreviated guide to diagnosis and treatment, which the physician could easily carry in his pocket. It contains tables of weights and measures, abbreviations, poisons and their antidotes, and an index of diseases and their treatment. Also there is an alphabetical list of medicines and their doses, and a table of symptomatology, and other features, which no doubt made it a very handy quick reference guide for the medical practice of the time. The second edition of this book was quite favorably noticed in the North American Medico-Chirurgical Review for 1857, but the third edition excited some criticism because of errors which remained from earlier editions and which should have been corrected.