Page:Transactions of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia (ser 03 vol 05).djvu/80

lxx increasing coldness of the weather compelled him to turn his face homeward, ere return in his weak and helpless condition should become difficult or impossible.

He came home—to die! No longer useful to the world, and a burden to himself, he awaited with Christian hope and unmurmuring submission the inevitable hour, daily growing more and more feeble, until death—long desired and immediately caused by suspension of renal action—came to his relief.

Dr. Wood died on Sunday, March 30, 1879, aged eighty-two years and seventeen days; and on the Wednesday after, his remains, followed by a long train of sorrowing friends, were silently interred at Laurel Hill, as the manner of the Friends is to bury. Not a word was uttered, not a note was heard, either at the house or at the grave. All instinctively felt that fulsome panegyric or trite remark would be alike out of place on such an occasion. They came "to bury Caesar, not to praise him." But though no religious rite was observed, no comforting service performed, those who were present felt none the less deeply that the object of their love and veneration—the Christian gentleman, the representative physician, the knight of stainless record—had been gathered to his fathers after a well-spent life ripe with years and honors, "in the confidence of a certain faith, in the comfort of a reasonable, religious and holy hope, in favor with God, and in perfect charity with the world."

He died amid universal sympathy and regret. The press everywhere gave expression to its sorrow; the institutions with which he was connected embalmed his services in loving obituaries; the medical journals poured forth their grateful tributes to one who was among the foremost of the illustrious men who have adorned the profession; all mourned