Page:Transactions of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, volume 2.djvu/567

 and lost; we see a strong additional recommendation thus afforded, of every kind of meeting and society of medical practitioners, either local, or, as in this great Association, more general, by which the isolated knowledge of many minds may be concentrated, proved by multiplied comparisons, and so classified as to advance the science of medicine more rapidly. To me, who knew Dr. Darwall so intimately, every line of his practical writings comes with the strong conviction of their strict truth and invariable candour. His senses were so accurate, his imagination was so restrained, his memory so retentive, and his judgment so calm and admirable, that he was secured from the very common fault of being self-deceived by defective medical evidence; whilst his integrity made it impossible for him to attempt the deception of others. His disposition was so abhorrent to quackery, even the most indirect, and such as many men think compatible with respectability of character, that he even disdained to give to his opinions and his knowledge all the advantages of expression of which they were worthy; but he never published an opinion without being thoroughly satisfied of its truth, and the opinions published by him will seldom or never be found to be erroneous. Equal to his intense contempt for quacks and pretenders, and publishers of specious falsehoods, was his respect for all those writers of our own time by whom medicine has been improved. To possess their works, to know or to correspond with the authors, to make them his friends, and to do justice to their merits, were among the few pleasures for which he ever appeared to be anxious.