DR. CHARLES FOLLEN FOLSOM. 749 



ally I feel a great debt of gratitude for his aid and encouragement when 

 I began the study of ophthalmology, and he was ever an interesting 

 and interested and stimulating friend. He was one of the most 

 valued members of the American Ophthalmological Society, was 

 vice-president from 1873 to 1878, and would have been president had 

 not his extreme modesty led him to decline the office; yet in spite of 

 his retiring disposition he more than once took a stand in opposition 

 to a popular judgment when he believed it to be an unjust one." 



DR. CHARLES FOLLEN FOLSOM. 



When the news of the death of Dr. Charles Follen Folsom was tele- 

 graphed from New York to Boston, on August 20, 1907, a large circle 

 of persons — social acquaintances, patients, and professional colleagues 

 — felt that they had lost the support of a faithful adviser, the compan- 

 ionship of a dear friend. 



It is a fortunate asset of the physician's life that he enters into inti- 

 mate personal relationships with many of the individuals who turn to 

 him for advice, and has an unusual chance to cultivate his powers of 

 sympathy. But there have been few physicians of this neighborhood 

 and generation in whom these fires of personal sympathy have burned 

 so warmly as they did in Dr. Folsom, or who have been able to in- 

 spire with reciprocal emotions so many of their patients and their 

 friends. The growth of these attachments was genuine and unforced, 

 for they were based on well-grounded affection and respect. 



Dr. Folsom had settled in Boston, with a record of two years' faith- 

 ful service for the freedmen, but without influential connections and 

 with no instinct for advertisement of himself. He showed, however, 

 marked ability as a practitioner, marked willingness to labor for re- 

 sults worth having, a high standard of thoroughness and obligation, and 

 the highest possible standard of friendship, and it was not long before 

 these qualities made him a real figure among real men and women in 

 our community. Some extracts from a letter to his intimate friend, 

 Rev. William C. Gannett, written about 1881, will recall some of his 

 characteristic traits. He says: "... I do not agree with you as to 

 not making friends, even if it does hurt to tear up the roots. Go as 

 deep, say I, into as many human hearts as you can. Never lose a single 

 chance for knowing one person, even, well. In fact, it is the only thing 

 in the world that pays. You do other things because you must, or it is 

 your duty to do so, but that does not pay. You do not get back any- 

 thing, and the volcano inside of one only rumbles and growls to itself 



