ON 
THE LIFE AND CHARACTER 
OP THE LATE 
PROF. JOHN M. WATSON, M.D., 
m an 
INTRODUCTORY LECTURE 
TO THE 
JCourse of Lectures 
IN THS 
Hebual JOepin-fment xrf the |hnb£mtg af 
DELIVERED AT THE 
First Presbyterian Church, on the Sth day of November, 1866. 
BY 
W. K. BOWLING, M.IX 
jNaslpilU, &cnn.: 
UNIVERSITY BOOK AND JOB OFFICE, MEDICAL COLLEGE, 
W. n. f. LIGON, PRINTER. 
1866. EULOGY. 
Gentlemen of the Medical Class, 
and of Nashville Medical Society : 
I have been appointed by the Faculty of Medicine, in 
our old, time-honored University, to say something introductory 
to the regular course of lectures which begins on to-morrow. In 
the baby-hood of our department this duty was assigned to me 
by my colleagues, fourteen years ago. I said something 
then which seemed so incredible to medical contemporaries as 
rather to injure my prophetic reputation, had I preferred any 
claims in that department of human learning. But these proph- 
ecies subsequently were so accurately verified that I am unwilling 
to let the occasion pass without referring to them. I was violent- 
ly assailed in many quarters, especially in my own section of coun- 
try, for this production, so much so indeed that judicious friends 
stood rather aloof, regarding the reputation of the unfortunate 
lecturer as decidedly shaky, and ready for any course that events 
foreshadowed. I had spoken frankly what I honestly believed, 
and, if wisely, time, the great vindicator, would establish it no 
matter what men said. If I had spoken foolishly, my utterances 
with those of the millions, would mingle with the debris of a 
decaying world and be forgotten. And in neither case would I 4 
annoy myself with it. " What I had, written, I had written." 
At this moment some of the most influential minds of the 
North found strength and power in my paper that I had never 
dreamed myself it possessed. Yet I remember that I was soft- 
ened to tears by their kind notices. A splendid one from a 
master hand, that I had never grasped, and the light of whose 
eye had never fallen upon me ! That eye and hand have 
long since mingled with the dust, of which they were made, yet 
until the same happens to this eye and hand of mine, the grati- 
tude of my heart will never be extinguished. Lastly, when 
years had been added to the past, an order came from London 
to a publishing house in Philadelphia for this poor paper of 
mine, which was filled through the house of W. T. Berry & Co., 
of this city. The highest honor ever conferred on a Tennessee 
publication. 
In this paper, after showing the geographical advantages of 
Nashville for a medical school, we said : 
" In view of these considerations, which I have only time to 
suggest, not enforce, will any one undertake to say it is folly to 
] >redict, that in less than ten years Philadelphia, as a centre of 
medical education, will bo second to Nashville ? I put it upon 
record and risk the odium which attaches to a false prophet, as I 
did when I prophesied, when struggling with a few medical friends 
to organize a medical school here, amid the jeers of many, and 
misgivings of nearly all, that we would number at our first ses- 
sion the largest first class that ever assembled in America or 
probably in the world. What was then prophecy is now history, 
and what is this day prophecy will be history in ten years or- 
less, upon the single condition that the city or the State stand 
by us as it should. 'I am not mad but speak the words of 
truth and soberness '--I speak of the Nashville school-I speak 
not of those who now minister at its altars. It will go on in- 
creasing in greatness, no matter what be their destiny. Its very 
greatness may overwhelm and crush them, for a single spirit may 
raise a whirlwind that a legion can neither direct nor epiiet, but 5 
fate itself cannot expunge their efforts from its history. Let 
this be their reward?' 
At the end of these ten years Nashville and Philadelphia were 
at a dead lock. When the war came the eagle plumage of our 
medical school was bathing in the sun, the cynosure of the repub- 
lics of science throughout the world. 
Civil convulsions have checked, not defeated us. We " still 
live," and in a spirit of honorable, glorious rivalry, offer again 
the gauntlet to our old friends on the banks of the Schuylkill, or 
to those of Manhattan Island, in a little race of five years. 
Since our last meeting, gentlemen, Providence has removed 
from us a great worker in the bright achievements to which we have 
hurriedly alluded, and the Medical Society of our city has as- 
signed m e the task of saying something upon his life and character. 
His colleagues have also charged me with the duty of speaking 
to you of this loss to them, to you and to the country at large. 
Special pursuits are so circumscribed, all of them, that those 
shining in one are unknown to those shining in others, while all 
are pretty much unknown to the outside world. All history is 
taken up with the sayings and do ngs of the generalist. Special 
laborers must not let their distinguished dead pass away without 
struggling to spread the beauty and usefulness of their 
lives before both other specialists and the world at large. 
Medical men are men. Whatever truthfully can be said of 
mankind in general, may be said of medical mankind in particu- 
lar. Now let us take a type of each-general and special man- 
kind-and see if we, as physicians, can say of the one what the 
general critic and philosopher says of the others. Let us call up 
Shakspeare, for next to Moses he is most talked about, and con- 
sequently least understood-take up Shakspeare as a type and 
as analyzed by a great modern critic : 
" There are two things, for which, I think, the world has es- 6 
pecially to rejoice, in contemplating the position and circum- 
stances of Shakspeare. The first is, that he was not technically a 
scholar, that between him and the great ancient hearts whose 
secrets he was to read, there intervened, not the frosty twilight 
of antiquarian lore, but only the unpretentious dimness of trans- 
lation and tradition. How well that, in great Julius, the greater 
Sliakspeare had to recognize the heart only of a brother ! How 
well that the thaumaturgic hand had not to clip, and measure, 
and adjust, amid moth-eaten cerements and rusty helmets, in 
order to fashion forth the old Roman exterior and shell of Julius, 
but only to cast asunder the gates of the human heart that 
those deathless notes might be heard, which are the undertone 
of human emotion in all ages, and to show us Julius himself! 
How well that he, who was to give to the Anglo-Saxon tongue 
that tune it was never to lose, whose language, exhaustless in 
range, in delicacy, in force, in variety, taking every hue of 
thought and feeling as the sky takes shade or sunshine, as the 
forest takes breeze or calm, was to remain forever the emblem of 
the multitudinous life and lightly moved and all conceiving spirit 
of the modern time, as contrasted with the grave uniformity and 
petrified aristocratism of antiquity, was tempted, by no familiar- 
ity with ancient writings, to any formal rotundity of diction or 
obscure involution of sentence ! How dreadful the thought that 
he, whose hall of audience, increasing with civilization, is the 
world, he who has moved a broader stratum of human sympathy 
than any other man, might have passed not into that narrow 
chamber, narrowing with every generation, in which Gray, Col- 
lins, and such erudite minstrels receive frost-bitten compliments 
from critics and pedants. But it is wronging Shakspeare to sup- 
pose, even for a moment, that the temptation of learning could 
have overcome him. He, of all men, would have been least apt 
to prefer the poor glitter of learned paint of God's sunlight of 
living smiles, the classic drops of Naiad's well or Castalian foun- 
tain to the sacred dew of human tears. He, of all men, would 
have been least apt to set the icy guerdon of a pedant's appro- 
bation above the sight of simple emotion, welling irresistibly 
from the heart of a peasant. Only when one thinks how much 
learning has done to veil genius which it is not absurd to name 7 
along with Shakspeare's, and reflects that the throne of Milton, 
though of the loftiest, was never raised on its classic pedestal, to 
the height of Shakspeare's, it is impossible to suppress a sense of 
gratification that the greatest author of mankind was not learned. 
"The next thing for which, perhaps still more expressly, we may 
be thankful in the case of Shakspeare, is the complex fact, that 
he never attained to consciousness of his powers, that he heard 
not the voice of his fame, and that he was never surrounded by a 
circle of admirers. Healthy, whole-hearted, it perhaps never 
occurred to him to ask what precise position he, Shakspeare, 
might occupy in relation to other writers. His chief life-work 
he may have, on the whole, concluded was the realization of a 
comfortable living in his native Stratford : one can imagine him 
staggering in bewildered incredulity, if the eyes of all coming 
generations, hailing him as the mightiest of mere men, had 
gleamed suddenly in vision before him. Gruff Ben Jonson, too, 
wished he had £ blotted a hundred ' words of his dramas instead 
of boasting that he never made an erasure, and the other brave 
spirits of the Mermaid Tavern £ whistling him down,' when 
though indeed clever, he was becoming something of a rattle, 
were not likely to permit Shakspeare to dote over his faults, to 
coax him nto a belief that what the general common sense dis- 
liked in his poetry was its peculiar excellence, to make him ima- 
gine that any veil filming his genius was greater than his genius 
itself. Hero-worship is twice cursed; in the hero who is befooled, 
and in the zanies who befool him. The one is bewildered into 
extravagance, like, shall we say, Mahomet? or enervated by con- 
ceit, like, shall we say, Wordsworth? the other brings himself to 
rejoice in any feast of shells, if only it is laid out by his hero. 
The grand evil which hero-worship brings upon the literary hero 
is confirmation in his mannerism, instead of being left, like 
Shakspeare, and with nature always assisting him, more and more 
to cast off his mannerism in the broad light of truth. Living so 
near Wordsworth as this generation does, and recalling many 
phenomena allied to that presented by him, his hero-worshippers, 
and their mutual relation, one is tempted to say that the peculiar 
danger to which literature is in these days exposed is that of 
having mannerisms extolled into models. At all events, must 8 
we not rejoice that the subtlest of all poisons was never mingled 
in Shakspeare's cup, that he was all unconscious of his praises, 
perhaps even of his powers, that, like a great cataract, he rolled 
heedless down 1 the dust of continents to be.' " 
Here among the most learned of men says " it is impossible 
to suppress a sense of satisfaction that the greatest author of 
mankind was not learned." " Between him and the great an- 
cient hearts whose secrets he was to read, there intervened not 
the frosty twilight of antiquarian lore." 
When the great Julius is to come forth and the greater Shak- 
speare has to open up a corridor through eighteen centuries to 
make his hero visible to his Christian audience, he goes not with 
pick and spade among the dead. The " thaumaturgic hand had 
not to clip and measure and adjust amid moth-eaten cerements 
and rusty helmets;" 0 no ! Had he dug thus and found, it 
might be the bones of a Roman Knight and his rusty helmet, 
he would not have distinguished them from the bones of a North 
American Indian slumbering beside his porridge-pot. "To show 
you Julius, it was only necessary to gently tap at the door of 
your heart until it was opened, making audible to yourself those 
deathless notes which are the undertone of human emotion of all 
ages." 
So much for a general type of the loftiest of his species, so 
great and so unconscious of it! Now for a special type. Hip- 
pocrates stood in the temple occupied by his fathers through 
many generations. There is no evidence of his learning. He 
knew what had been written before him, in his profession, for 
much of it garnished the walls of his Asclepion at Cos, and he 
reduced it to order in a book upon ancient medicine. His ge- 
nius was not veiled by learning, and he became the great inter- 
preter of nature in disease, and is to-day in his specialty, what 
Shakspeare is to the world. Singular enough these general and. 
special types of mankind owed nothing of that mastery which 9 
astonished the ages to any learning beyond reading and writing. 
We have no evidence that Hippocrates-any more than Shak- 
speare-ever attained to consciousness of his powers, ever heard 
the voice of his fame, or was ever surrounded by a coterie of ad- 
mirers. He too, healthy and whole-hearted, it never occurred 
to him to ask what precise position he, Hippocrates, might oc- 
cupy in relation to other writers. He, like would 
have staggered in bewildered incredulity if the eyes of all 
coming generations of his kind, hailing him as the mightiest of 
mere physicinas, had gleamed suddenly in vision before him. Days, 
years and ages have each their heroes, poets, sages, and seers, and 
to the latter belong certainly Moses, Mahomet, Homer, Shak- 
speare and Hippocrates. Being destined for the ages their im- 
mediate generations might pass away without recognizing them. 
What is a generation to the duration of the family of man ? 
Who, among the spirits of the Mermaid Tavern, dreamed that 
the Fame of the play scribbler should outlast his ? Would 
not gruff Ben have been enraged at so foolish a prophecy ? 
0 rare Ben Jonson!-the ideality of whose genius in elabo- 
rating the mask of the fairies, amid the natural scenery of an 
English woodland-a mighty theatre carpeted with velvet green- 
sward, and lighted gorgeously by a midsummer moon-to wel- 
come the new Queen, consort of James I, to English soil, was 
enough to immortalize a dozen poets. The lioness and the last 
of the House of Tudor had gone down to the grave, and the 
first of the Stuarts appeared above the horizon of Albion. Ben 
welcomed the new Dynasty in so tasteful and unique a manner 
as to make him the idol of England. Imagine him at the Mer- 
maid Tavern after this achievement, in the society of Shakspeare, 
and in his own conceit perched immeasurably above him ! 
While the heart and brain of the latter, throbbing with the passion 
and thought of a Hamlet, was unconscious of the pres- 10 
ence of Jonson. Let us imagine a feast of the last of the 
gods and the first of the Titans. Athens, the place, and the 
time when Hippocrates , had first published his book on ancient 
medicine. At the head of the table is the great statesman 
Pericles, and on his right and left the famous poets JEschylus, 
Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes and Pindar. At the foot 
of the table is the peerless philosoper Socrates. On his right 
and left his great desciples Plato and Xenophon. Along each 
side of the table we recognize the venerable historian Herodotus 
and his rising rival Thucidides, the great statuary Phidias, with 
his pupils of distinction, and lastly Hippocrates. This is the 
most wonderful cluster of illustrious names that ever inhabited 
the earth at the same time. They were all men of the ages, but 
Hippocrates, then certainly least, will live when all the rest, in 
the far distant future, shall have succumbed to the fate of all 
things and disappeared forever. Yet, we see, a general writer of 
the IS th century can allude to these great men of antiquity 
without including Hippocrates. " Transport ourselves," says 
Macauly, " to the glorious city of Athens. Let us suppose we 
are entering its gates in the time of its power and glory. A 
crowd is assembled round a portico, all are gazing with delight 
at the entablature, for Phidias is putting up the frieze. We 
turn into another street; a rhapsodist is reciting there ; men, 
women and children are thronging around him ; the tears are 
running down their cheeks ; their eyes are fixed ; their very 
breath is still, for he is telling how Priam fell at the feet of 
Achilles, and kissed those hands, the terrible, the murderous, 
which had slain so many of his sons. We enter the public place; 
there is a ring of youths all leaning forward w'ith spariding eyes, 
and gestures of expectation. Socrates is pitted against the 
famous Atheist from Ionia, and has just brought him to a con- 
tradiction in terms. But we are interrupted. The Herald is 11 
crying for ' room for the Prytanes.' The General Assembly is 
to meet. The people are swarming in on every side. Proclama- 
tion is made-'who wishes to speak ? ' There is a shout and a 
clapping of hands ; Pericles is mounting the stand. Then for 
a play of Sophocles and away to sup with Aspacia." 
Such was Athens in her glory. But Hippocrates was a bright 
star in the galaxy, and had perhaps prescribed for the beautiful, 
accomplished, and most hospitable Aspacia that evening, that 
she might the better flash like a vision of glory through her 
brilliant parlors, and preside like an angel, of fearful beauty, 
over the feast of the gods. 
Aspacia, the superb Ionian beauty, the glory of Athens, the 
inspirer of Pericles, the light of the most wonderful period in 
the annals of our race. Woman, whence genius has ever drawn 
its inspiration ! Hers the agony of the ages for knowledge, which 
we proud men now call intuition or instinct, but the fire of genius 
has ever been kindled at her altar, from Adam to Isaiah, through 
"Burns, with pungent passioning? 
Set in his eyes " 
till now, and will on to the end of the world. 
In the wonderful cluster of Evangelists, which, with their 
central God, constitutes the most sublime Tableau that ever deco- 
rated Earth or Heaven, Time or Eternity, the profession of med- 
icine was not unrepresented, for Luke, the " beloved physician," 
considering his elegantly written Gospel, and his authorship of 
the Acts of the Apostles, was not least among them. 
And when Sir Isaac Newton, Charles I, and Cromwell, with 
the mighty Milton, had attracted the gaze of of the world, con- 
temporaneous medicine, in the person of her Sydenham, shone 
more divinely bright than since the days of Hippocrates. 
When the mighty trio that made the generation now sinking 12 
below the horizon illustrious, were yet unnoticed, an orphan 
boy, of uncommon brightness and comeliness, was sitting at a- 
widowed mother's feet, in the village of Wentworth, Rocking- 
ham county, North Carolina. The widow was very young and 
very beautiful, a Virginia woman, in good circumstances, and 
interested chiefly in her pretty black-eyed child. Looking in her 
old family Bible, lying open beside her, (for she was a pious, 
God-fearing woman,) we see recorded in a bold hand-writing, 
11 JOHN McCLARAN WATSON, 
Son of Peter Watson, and Elizabeth his wife, was born Novem- 
ber the 20th, 1798." 
The boy has recorded himself that he was the idol of that 
beautiful widow-that he was an only child, and how well he 
remembers her unremitting, affectionate solicitude about him, 
and a merternal affection which evinced itself through the 
whole course of her life-unchanged by him or the vicissi- 
tudes of his own life, some of which, he adds, were so well cal- 
culated to abate it. 
It docs not appear that Dr. Watson was ever regularly educat- 
ed. He acquired a very competent knowledge of the Mathe- 
matics and the Latin language at schools in his neighborhood. 
This was in Williamson county in this State, where his mother 
removed when John was about ten years of age. The Greek 
language Dr. Watson mastered without a teacher after he was 
grown. His patrimony being sufficient, in early manhood, he 
was placed in the office of Dr. Housack, of the city of New York, 
the great rival of Rush, and, next to the latter, the most cele- 
brated physician upon the American continent. In due time he 
graduated from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of New 
York, and returned to Williamson county and commenced the 13 
practice of medicine. The advantages he possessed, his fine 
person and handsome face, which he had inherited from his 
mother, immediately upon his return to Williamson, threw him 
at the head of his profession while a mere boy. In the 
social circle he was no less triumphant. The mother's love of 
the boy was swollen into idolatry for the hero. These honors 
fell upon him too fast, and at an age when few could bear them 
unhurt. Dr. Watson did not belong to that few. He took to 
drink, and was thrown. He arose, but drank on, and was again 
thrown. He became a common drunkard. Had delirium, 
tremens, recovered, and drank again, and was again thrown. 
He married in his struggle against the monster, but lost his 
wife early, and drank on. Would not this poor, shivering ine- 
briate, have been bewildered, could he have penetrated the future 
and beheld himself the adored apostle of his people ? While 
the son was drifting away to perdition, the loving, ever-hoping 
mother, hoping when Hope, in despair, had fled from every other 
bosom ; hoping against hope, and ever devoutly trustful of 
Him she so zealously served, with face averted from the sad 
picture of a beloved son,, sinking into everlasting ruin, and 
always looking up to Heaven, and ever and anon radiant with that 
light of which the throne of God is alone the source and foun- 
tain, hoped on and hoped ever. Oh the width, breadth and 
depth of a mother's love. In the beautiful language of this Son 
in after life : "Let no one attempt to describe a mother's love, 
for it is a simple fact that expresses itself in conduct and not in 
words." Suddenly it was announced that this poor sot was to 
preach the next Sabbath ! And he preached from the text "The 
Scriptures," to the wonder and admiration of a vast assemblage. 
On the following Sabbath he delighted a still larger audience 
from the text " Thus sayeth the Lord," and from that moment 
until he was no longer able to stand in a pulpit, he preached the 14 
Gospel of Christ. And after diligent enquiry, we think it very 
probable that more people have heard Dr. Watson preach than 
ever heard any man since John Wesley. He was, without dis- 
pute, the great Apostle of his Church, and bore through the 
greater part of his life the same relation to his congregations, 
throughout many States, that St. Paul bore to those which drew 
from him those immortal Epistles in our Sacred books. He has 
written and printed much on theological subjects, all of which, 
together with a large amount of manuscript never before pub- 
lished, will be shortly in press. This last work of his life he 
compiled for the printer when on his death-bed. We can not 
discuss further the theological phaze of Dr. Watson's character. 
He never wrote his sermons, and he has told the speaker that 
notes, long or short, before him, only confused him in speaking, 
and that he never used them. His sermons were regarded models 
by his friends, and I have heard a learned churchman, not of 
Dr. Watson's Church, declare that, for compactness, force, and 
purity of diction, he had heard no equal of Dr. Watson in the 
pulpit. 
So far from abandoning medicine when he commenced preach- 
ing, he devoted himself to it with the greatest possible energy. 
He settled at Murfreesboro'-married again, lived most happily, 
and enjoyed a splendid practice. As a Surgeon, he had no equal 
in the State. Nearly all the grand operations in surgery he per- 
formed with the ' most brilliant success. He rose to great dis- 
tinction in his profession ; yet his whole object in practicing it, 
he tells us himself, was to enable him to preach without being 
chargeable to the brethren. His fame as a Physician and Sur- 
geon, spread throughout the land, and when the Medical De- 
partment of the University of Nashville was organized no one 
else was thought of for the great chair of obstetrics but Dr. 
Watson. Just at this time he was overtaken by a terrible ca- 15 
lamity. He lost his wife, to whom he was greatly devoted ; and 
just before, by vesting his means badly, with a hope of getting 
a support outside of medicine, that he might devote his whole time 
to the ministry, he lost his entire estate, and was reduced to ab- 
ject poverty, when more than fifty years of age. Suddenly de- 
prived of his wife and fortune, without children, and alone in the 
world, he appeared among us here in Nashville. He was prece- 
ded by his medical fame, and opening an office, was immediately 
in an overwhelming and most lucrative practice. In the College 
he sustained himself to the admiration of his friends and delight 
of the class. His younger colleagues will remember how his en- 
ergy and activity often put them to shame. He would make 
distant professional visits, and leave at day-light and be in the 
city to breakfast. Every Saturday and Sunday he was off to his 
preaching appointments. Having no family, he established his 
lodgings and library in the College. At night he was the only 
living soul in it. In the dead hours of the night as we have 
passed the College pile, we have thought of its lone, breathing 
occupant, with his dispirited surroundings. His great heart 
beating on there with the rythm and softness of a child's, and his 
dreams as innocent and happy. We would then compare his 
condition with what it was a few months before, in his splendid 
parlors, gorgeously lighted, and his loving and beloved wife 
flitting like a vision of happiness before him, and in our tumult of 
emotions, wouid exclaim "Paradise Lost ! " Yet a better ac- 
quaintance proved to us that we were never more mistaken. The 
darkness and loneliness were but seeming. The love of God was 
shed abroad in that pulsating heart, and that sweet baby sleep 
was wached by Angel sentinels. The mother, too, long since dead 
to the world, in spirit, might keep vigil o'er the sleeping son, who, 
in by-gone days, through her Christian prayers, had at a single 
bound leaped from the lost one's darkness into the marvellous 
light of day. 16 
In managing the affairs of the College, though unseen by the 
public, his wisdom was always operating. The hand that held 
the helm ever and anon felt the gentle pressure of his fingers, 
and land-ward or sea-ward, accordingly. Of all men he was the 
gentlest in counsel, and for that reason, perhaps, the most per- 
suasive. It was a pleasure in a colleague to yield to him, be- 
cause he never asked it, and seemingly never desired it. The 
Doctor prospered greatly in his new home. Everything went well 
with him. He bought a new house and extensive grounds, and a 
few old servants, that would'nt be free, came to him, and he aban- 
doned the fossil companionship of the College and again sat with 
gown and slippers in his own comfortable parlor. His reputation in 
his specialty greatly increased, and he gradually withdrew from 
general practice. The afflicted came to him from a great dis- 
tance, and his fees were enriching him. That for which he had 
so long struggled-his own time to be devoted to the ministry-• 
was just at hand when the war came. His fine parlors were 
converted into wards of a small-pox hospital, his fences into 
Mcadamized roads and kindling, his costly shrubbery into 
wreathes of evergreens and flowers for gala days, his horses for 
cavalry, and his gardens for shanties for freedmen and refugees, 
while, as for himself, he was sent out, when over sixty years of 
age, as a wanderer upon the face of the earth ! Amid his great 
labors he found time to contribute valuable observations and re- 
searches to his profession. His work upon Trismus Nacentiam, 
yields extracts to the standards of systematic medicine, besides 
valuable papers, etc., etc., published in the Nashville Journal of 
Medicine. 
The phrase " a good man," is so trite and so often misapplied, 
and so intentionally, I think, misunderstood, that I dislike to use 
it in connection with the memory of Dr. Watson. A gentleman 
of honor and intelligence, and a neighbor of Dr. Watson for 
more than thirty years, told me in the last few days that the 17 
subject of Dr. Watson's liberality had been discussed by his old 
neighbors since his death, and they agreed that he had given 
away in absolute dollars, 'an amount exceeding one hundred 
thousand. To the poor he was the kindest of men. Only in 
eternity will it be known what he did for them. Cheerful himself, 
he carried about with him a luminous atmosphere that bright- 
ened the countenance of all whom he approached. 
As a teacher of his specialty, I believe he had no equal in our 
country. As a lecturer, he never strove to be eloquent, in his 
efforts to convey what he felt within him to be true he totally 
forgot himself, and the language for that purpose seemed always 
at his command. No circumstance could betray him into an 
effort beyond this. The ebb and flow, and sudden alternations 
of the flash and darkness of rhetoric-the " quick patter of the 
rain after the bolt had fallen," he carefully avoided. He always 
had his class to the work, from the opening word to the close of 
his lecture. His discourse was caroully prepared, but he ap- 
peared on the stand without a single note. His voice was remarka- 
bly soft, full and rich, and he never abused it, a single octave being 
sufficient compass for an entire discourse. As to " action," or 
gesticulation, he absolutely had none, if we except the occasion- 
al touching of the palm of the left hand with the fore finger of 
his right. He stood precisely on the same spot during his lec- 
ture, and yet he was by no means stiff and statue-like. The 
play of his handsome features produced a very agreeable effect, 
and his presence was at once striking and commanding. Every 
student pronounced him at once a master teacher.. 
Last spring he was a very regular attendant upon the debates 
in our City Medical Society and frequently participated in them. 
His health was seemingly never better. Age seemed lotli to fix 
its signs upon him, but even then the destroyer was at work ; 
for at a Faculty meeting in April he gave a minute history of 18 
symptoms of an obscure gastric disease which was then fasten- 
ing itself upon him. His stomach had always been his weak 
point, though the body was plump and well nourished. Still he 
had to be particular in his diet to avoid severe and prolonged 
attacks of dyspepsia. But in April lie said there was something 
at work there, pointing to his stomach, which was not dyspepsia, 
and so the result proved. Signs of malignant disease of the 
stomach were but too apparent. His flesh gradually melt- 
ed away, his smooth, healthy skin became shriveled and icterode, 
the light of his fine, expressive eye, grew dim, his appetite de- 
parted, and sleep was only commanded by opiates. Besides all 
this he suffered dreadful paroxysms of pain, which only yielded 
to morphine. 
On his death-bed he placed upon record that in the event of 
his recovery, he would devote the remainder of his life to the 
ministry, that the physician of the body should at last be merged 
in the physician of souls. 
He says, "While on the subject of my ministry, I will state 
that my health is at this time, June, very bad. My physi- 
cians are very doubtful of my recovery ; in fact, I am afraid that 
I shall not live long enough to superintend the printing of this 
work. Now, I may say, apparently in the shadow of death; I 
have no recantations to make about the doctrine for which I have 
so long contended, and trust that it will stand the test of death. 
My prayer is, that I may die with this blessed doctrine as much 
impressed upon my heart, as it was while I was trying to preach 
it. 0! Lord, let the pulpit and the death bed be the same to 
me in that respect. Should the Lord in answer to my prayer, of 
his great mercy spare my life a while longer, I shall regard it 
merely as a supplement to my ministry; the term of which, to 
be faithfully and jealously devoted to his services. But should 
it be His sovereign will to remove me by death, I want to feel 19 
resigned to His will, and that Death has lost its sting, and the 
Grave its victory. Thanks be to God who giveth us the victory 
through the Lord, Jesus Christ. Further, that I may be ac- 
cepted in the Beloved, and be found in Him, not having my own 
righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the 
faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God, by faith." 
Our friend, a great worker in the world, has gone down to the 
tomb. A few of the next generation may tell their children, 
in answers to enquiries about him, that he lived in the world at 
the same time with Jackson, Clay, Webster and Calhoun. But 
it is not improbable that when many centuries shall have been 
added to the past, that his name, like that of Luke, shall be rev- 
erently spoken by men as ignorant of the defender of New 
Orleans, the great American System, the Constitutional Ajax, or 
the mighty Nulifier, as we are of the political contemporaries of 
the "beloved physician" of the New Testament,