394 WILLIAM WARING JOHNSTON 



and drugs, of which he was an early and enthusiastic advocate 

 — he soon acquired a large practice, the onerous duties of 

 which he continued with unremitting care and industry until the 

 end of his life. It was in this work of a learned, skillful and 

 accomplished practitioner of medicine that he acquired his most 

 distinguished eminence. In addition to his remarkable profes- 

 sional ability, which led to his being frequently called upon for 

 advice in difficult cases by his brother-practitioners, he also pos- 

 sessed, in an eminent degree, the power of inspiring his patients 

 with unbounded confidence, thus relieving their anxieties and 

 fears ; and by his gentleness and sympathy he always uncon- 

 sciously secured their affection and esteem. Thus Dr. Johnston 

 possessed all the qualifications to become, what in reality he 

 was — an ideal physician. 



Apart from the exacting requirements of a busy practitioner 

 he still found time to contribute to medical literature. The 

 productions of his pen, while never voluminous, comprised 

 something over thirty separate papers of recognized merit. 

 Notable among these were his contributions to Peeper's System 

 of Practical Medicine (Vol. II, 1885) ; Hare's System of Prac- 

 tical Therapeutics (Vol. IV, 1897), and Buck's Reference Hand- 

 book of the Medical Sciences (Vol. Ill, 1901). These papers 

 related chiefly to diseases of the intestinal tract, a subject in 

 which he had become especially] interested, and on which he 

 was a recognized authority. Other papers appear in the Trans- 

 actions of the Association of American Physicians and of other 

 medical and scientific associations to which he belonged. 



There is yet another sphere of professional labor in which 

 Dr. Johnston acquired distinguished eminence, namely, that of 

 teaching clinical medicine. His work as a teacher began in 

 1870, when he was appointed to give laboratory instruction in 

 ''Practical Histology and the Use of the Microscope" in the 

 Medical Department of Columbian Universit}^ During the 

 succeeding 3'ear he was appointed Professor of the Theory 

 and Practice of Medicine in the same institution, a position he 

 continued to fill until his decease in 1902. Besides his didactic 

 lectures at the Medical School he gave weekly clinical lectures 

 in the wards of the Children's Hospital for a period of twenty- 



