without seeking all means to allay it. Quimby followed implicitly all the doctor's instructions. His son, George A. Quimby, says:[1]
An hour before he breathed his last, he said to the writer: "I am more than ever convinced of the truth of my theory. I am perfectly willing for the change myself, but I know you will all feel badly; but I know that I shall be right here with you, just the same as I have always been. I do not dread the change any more than if I were going on a trip to Philadelphia."
His death occurred January 16, 1866, at his residence in Belfast, at the age of sixty-four years, and was the result of too close application to his profession and of overwork. A more fitting epitaph could not be accorded him than in these words:
"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." For, if ever a man did lay down his life for others, that man was Phineas Parkhurst Quimby.
Many mourned Quimby's death. No one felt greater grief or expressed it more emphatically and sincerely than Mary M. Patterson. She wrote at once to Julius Dresser, asking him to take up the master's work. Her letter follows:
Lynn, February 14, 1866.
Mr. Dresser:
Sir: I enclose some lines of mine in memory of our much-loved friend, which perhaps you will not think overwrought in meaning: others must of course.
I am constantly wishing that you would step forward into the place he has vacated. I believe you would do a vast amount of good, and are more capable of occupying his place than any other I know of.
Two weeks ago I fell on the sidewalk, and struck my back on the ice, and was taken up for dead, came to consciousness amid a storm of vapours from cologne, chloroform, ether, camphor, etc., but to find myself the helpless cripple I was before I saw Dr. Quimby.
The physician attending said I had taken the last step I ever should, but in two days I got out of my bed alone and will walk; but yet I confess I am frightened, and out of that nervous heat my friends are forming, spite of me, the terrible spinal affection from which I have suffered so long and hopelessly. . . . Now can't you help me? I
- ↑ New England Magazine, March, 1888.
