in the hands of a publisher; a Synopsis of Pharmacy and Materia
Medica, a work of enormous labor, was well under way; and other literary
projects were actively planned; when, suddenly, the summons came which,
in an instant, with the shears of fate, slit the strand of this
activity. The rest of the story may be told in the words of the
biographer appointed by the Medical Society of the County of
Philadelphia to prepare a memoir of his life:--

"While earnestly laboring to prepare for the press his literary
collections, he suffered a severe blow by the sudden death of a person
to whom he was deeply attached. Over-work and this emotional shock
produced a result likely enough to occur in one of his ardent
temperament. One afternoon, while engaged in writing, he fell,
unconscious, from his chair, and for several days lay in a very critical
condition. On recovering his powers, it was evident his brain had
suffered a serious lesion. The old energy and love of labor had
completely gone; even the capacity for work seemed absent. Marked
melancholy followed, characterized before long by avoidance of friends
and the loss of a desire of life. This occurred with increasing force
until it led to his death, on July 1, 1876, through some toxic agent,
the nature of which was not ascertained.

"Thus early, and thus sadly, terminated a career of unusual brilliancy
and promise.

"It is probable that much that he has written will be read with pleasure
and instruction by future generations; and the memory of his genial
disposition, his entertaining conversation, and earnest sense of
professional honor, will long be cherished by those of his
contemporaries who enjoyed his friendship."--_Transactions of the
Medical Society of the State of Pennsylvania_, vol. xi, p. 720.

Various tributes were paid to his memory by the societies with which he
was connected, and by the scientific journals to which he had been a
contributor. One of these, after narrating some of the circumstances
attending his decease, spoke as follows:--

"Thus did our unfortunate associate close his short but brilliant
career. The emotions, the tender sentiments he has described with such a
magical pen, he felt himself with an unmatched keenness. They mastered
his whole frame with an intensity surpassing all romance. His
descriptions of the passions, descriptions which have been the wonder of
thousands, such is their fire and temper, were not rhetorical studies,
but the e