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physiology and on chemistry, for some years, to a private class. In 

 the year 1841, on the reorganization of the Faculty of Jefferson Me- 

 dical College, he was looked to as eminently qualified to occupy the 

 Chair of Practice of Medicine, to which he was accordingly appoint- 

 ed, and from that time forward ably fulfilled the various duties which 

 appertained to it. In the spring of 1856, he was attacked with hem- 

 iplegia, from which he gradually, but never wholly recovered. It 

 did not, however, interfere with the active exercise of his professorial 

 duties in the following winter. In the course of the subsequent ses- 

 sion, he experienced a second but slighter attack, which did not pre- 

 vent him from meeting his class for more than a week, and neither 

 of them seemed to have impaired his intellect. He never, indeed, 

 rendered the various services that devolved upon him as professor, 

 with greater satisfaction to his hearers. In the latter end of March, 

 1858, he was attacked with typhoid pneumonia, which speedily ter- 

 minated his existence, in the 65th year of his age. 



In the various relations of life, Dr. Mitchell was highly and justly 

 estimated. In his profession he was held in great regard. Kind and 

 attentive to his numerous patients, he was looked upon as a valued 

 friend, as well as cherished medical adviser; as a teacher of medi- 

 cine, he was faithful and energetic, aJive to every improvement, and 

 ever anxious to imbue his pupils with the great principles of their 

 profession, and with the divine art of applying these principles to 

 practice; as a cultivator of general science, he was full of zeal; and 

 whilst he was a lecturer on chemistry — and there are many who re- 

 tain a vivid recollection of his merits as such — he was watchful for 

 every suggestion of value, and hastened to adopt them, with modifi- 

 cations indicated by his own ingenious and fertile mind. An exam- 

 ple of this was the apparatus framed by him for the formation of solid 

 carbonic acid. His researches, too, into the phenomena of capilla- 

 rity, as exhibited in the pcnetrativeness of different liquids and gases, 

 and the penetrability of different septa, and respecting which a philo- 

 sopher of great distinction, Milne Edvv^ards, of Paris, has very re- 

 cently expressed his astonishment that they should have been treated 

 with neglect by the greater part of physicists, were replete with inte- 

 resting applications to physiology more especially. As a member of 

 society he was most estimable ; in his own family the beloved centre 

 of the domestic circle ; as a colleague in the college to which he was 

 attached, and in the various charitable and other associations to which 

 he belonged, courteous and gallant, and as a friend, firm and unwa- 

 vering in his attachments. 



