Page:Transactions of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, volume 2.djvu/593

 obliged me, on that day, to go to London; and when I saw him, four days afterward, (on the 10th of August) he was dying. I now reflect, with surprise, that I was so unprepared to find him so: but there is an unwillingness, it would seem, in the mind, to associate the idea of death with that of activity and life in those to whom we are attached, and whom we have only known as the participators of all life's active engagements. He was quite sensible; and I had the melancholy gratification of seeing him recognise me, and rouse himself to make au effort to speak to me in his customary tone of kind enquiry.

Medical men are not strangers to the scenes of bereavement which are presented by families overtaken by such sudden and hopeless calamities; and to the sacred sorrows of those who loved him I shall attempt to give no expression. But far beyond the limits of that house of mourning was felt the sorrow which Dr. Darwall's death occasioned. His friends, and the whole medical profession, felt that a most valuable member of society had been taken from them: his neighbours, and the inhabitants of Birmingham in general, strongly expressed the concern this unexpected loss had occasioned them; and among the poor many tears were shed, by those who had lost one of their kindest friends, and many a humble but heartfelt prayer was offered up, to that heaven in which such prayers find acceptance, for his eternal welfare.

In accordance with wishes very generally expressed, his funeral was a public one; and on the 16th of August his mortal remains were deposited in the family vault at Christ Church. Every physician