BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 21 



professional knowledge, either of disease or its proper 

 remedies, by study, he was among the first to discover 

 the difficulty and prescribe for the same. Hence it be- 

 came a common saying among those who were immedi- 

 ately acquainted with him (and not unfrequently when 

 the disease had batfled the skill of the experienced) to 

 say, " where is Jim? call him!" And in such cases he 

 seems to have been led by instinct (as it were), and aided 

 by the most scrutinizing observations and good judg- 

 ment to employ such remedies as were most sure to effect 

 a cure. 



Encouraged by the success he met with in this branch 

 of his business, he has been untiring in adding to the 

 knowledge he possessed; for he is one of those men who 

 never thought nor pretended that he knew it all; and his 

 researches after knowledge and association with profess- 

 ional men have enabled him to make many valuable dis- 

 coveries of his own in this science, besides bringing out 

 before the world many things that others had not the 

 knowledge to accomplish. This he has performed almost 

 regardless of the expense it was to him, although he had 

 not gained a wide-spread notoriety, for the very reason 

 he never made any effort to do so, but generally acted to 

 the reverse of what was necessary to gain what he was 

 justly entitled to He is a man of few words on this 

 subject; notwithstanding, whenever he saw one of these 

 noble creatures suffering, from whatever cause it might 

 be, he never hesitated to do or tell others what (in his 

 opinion) was necessary to relieve them. Of this there 

 could be found, along the path he had traveled, a goodly 



