67() OLIVER FAIRFIELD AVADSWORTH. 



The estimate in which Dr. Wadsworth was held by those who had 

 to deal with him in his daily life contains always expressions of appre- 

 ciations of his balance, his judgment, his kindness, and, admiringly, 

 of his power of concentration, and a gentleman who was intimately 

 connected with him in both the Massachusetts General Hospital and 

 the Massachusetts Charitable Eye and Ear Infirmary, says, " he was 

 an extremely just, honorable, and high minded man, I have never 

 known one who could do a kindness in so kindly a way, I never knew 

 him to be hurried and, so far as one could judge by outward appear- 

 ances, worried, as an illustration of the latter quality, after a long 

 evening's work with him on statistics which he was compiling he 

 remarked, just as I was leaving him, that one of his sons was very ill 

 and that his recovery was extremely doubtful. Under such condi- 

 tions to see a man his normal self through an entire evening and work- 

 ing over statistics with no indication of worry or anxiety impressed 

 me very strongly. That he did worry and was anxious no one will 

 doubt but he had the ability to an exceptional degree of being calm 

 and composed in the face of an impending great calamity. Another 

 quality which will come prominently to the minds of his friends was 

 his love of argument, no one associated with him could fail to believe 

 that there were two or more sides to every question, he never lost his 

 temper, made use of sarcasm to rout his adversary or in any way 

 showed contempt or want of consideration for the other opinion. He 

 parted with the best of feeling and usually with a laughing regret that 

 agreement was impossible. 



In his chosen specialty Dr. Wadsworth held high rank, at medical 

 meetings he was always prominent as a critic, a weak point in diagnosis 

 or in argument rarely escaped his notice and his criticisms were so 

 sound and well expressed that they were always received with excep- 

 tional interest and consideration. He was not a prolific writer, 

 probably for the reason that much material which might have been 

 placed on record did not pass his own criticism as to the accuracy and 

 value when it came to be seriously considered and he has been known 

 to spend much time and labor in preparing material for a paper that, 

 in the end, was not thought worthy of being written and printed. 



He was extremely successful as a practitioner and devoted much 

 time and care to the study of his cases, as a diagnostician in opthalmo- 

 scopy he was exceptionally brilliant and it is doubtful if he had a 

 superior in this branch of his specialty. 



Another hospital associate of Dr. Wadsworth has said — " his skill 

 in the use of the ophthalmoscope and the accuracy of his diagnoses 



