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cisely embraced in his section all our knowledge on that topic,—adding that I was agreeably surprised at so great perspicuity and method. At this last remark he started! Yes! replied he, in his peculiar emphatic manner, ‘you have the opinion which others have of me,—that I'm confused and thoughtless, and never take time to reflect. I confess that it is reasonable that you all should think so; for you judge me from my out-door manners and conversation. But there! pointing to his sofa, there! I can be found at study. I visit patients at the hotels and elsewhere, pick up the news, glance over the papers and talk politics, for amusement and relaxation, and back home to my study. I'm now engaged in this work. I read the washy stuff from the press, study other works, am posted up in Egyptian Archæology, and have lately read some of the classics. I have not only kept up my knowledge on all the branches of medicine and surgery and the collateral sciences, but also in history, poetry, &c.’ I know, continues he rapidly, ‘that I'm as hard a student as there is in the city, and always have been so. I toil and spend a large portion of my time at my books; and that is the reason I'm always at home except when called away by business. Yes, except for patients; and in the evening, I'm at home;’—and again pointing to the north end of his study sofa, ‘I'm there.’”
McClellan had an exoteric and an esoteric manner. In public, he was inconsiderate and irregular; alone, he was the grave, profound Philosopher. The forthcoming system of surgery will then not only not surprise us, but we shall expect it to give to him the character of a classical medical writer; and that it will be regarded an American standard work.
As an oral instructor he was not less distinguished. His principles were Hippocratic, Baconic, Hunterian. It
