Page:Transactions of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia (ser 03 vol 05).djvu/64

liv the feelings and judgment of junior and less experienced practitioners, is often recalled with grateful emotion.

Dr. Wood's practice—respectable in kind, and at one time considerable in extent—would not now be accounted large; nor, after the first few years, was an extensive business desirable; for the reason that its demands and distractions would have been incompatible with the proper prosecution of his studies. He preferred that it should be consulting rather than general, and his advice and assistance thus given—free from all assumption and parade—were always highly valued by those who sought them. Kind and considerate to the sick, be was a careful and judicious practitioner, punctual in appointments, cautious and accurate in diagnosis, full of resources in emergency, and sagacious, prompt, vigorous, and successful, in his treatment. Possessing thus all the qualifications of a skilful and accomplished physician, be was highly esteemed by his medical brethren, and was regarded by his patients, notwithstanding the reserve and formality of his manner, with the utmost confidence and respect.

His truthful and unselfish life was one prolonged and earnest protest against charlatanry and imposture of every kind; and he never hesitated to denounce them with indignant reprobation whatever guise they assumed, whether of individual fraud, or of organized deception. Medical quackery was of all others, from its reckless presumption and wickedness in trifling with the important concerns of life and health, the most abhorrent to his just and honorable nature. But he knew that as foul birds gather around their noisome food, so, where ignorance and folly abound, interested knavery and false pretension will always find greedy disciples and credulous dupes. He regarded with almost equal reprehension the employment by physicians of all illegitimate means