362 Obituary JYotice of Dr. Gaspar Spurzheim. 



" In Paris, Dr. Spurzheim married a lady of great merit. She 

 was a widow and had three daughters when he married her. Dr. 

 Spurzheim had no children of his own. Several ladies of this city, 

 who were introduced to Mrs. Spurzheim in Paris and in London, 

 remember her with the highest esteem and delight. Her whole 

 manner expressed a union of true humility, tender attachment, and 

 conscious power, which excited at once affection and confidence. — - 

 She entered fully into her husband's pursuits, and aided him by her 

 uncommon skill in drawing. To her pencil we are indebted for a 

 number of those excellent drawings used by Dr. Spurzheim in his 

 lectures. But far more important to him was the aid which he de- 

 rived from the unseen and inexhaustible treasures of a true and de- 

 voted heart. It was often observed how well their characters seemed 

 to be fitted for each other. They were both adepts in that profound- 

 est of all sciences, and most pleasing of all the fine arts — Christian 

 benevolence shown forth in beautiful manners. It is characteristic 

 of Dr. Spurzheim, that one of the reasons which influenced him in 

 the choice of his wife, was the knowledge that she had undergone 

 great suffering, which he thought essential to the perfection of human 

 nature. An ancient philosopher thought that no one could become 

 a good physician, who had not himself endured many diseases. — 

 Whatever be the merits of this speculation as. regards the medical 

 profession, it is certainly true in rnorals — that no one can so readily 

 perceive and deeply understand, and so successfully alleviate the suf- 

 ferings of others, as he himself who is a man of sorrows, and acquaint- 

 ed with grief. Dr. Spurzheim was devotedly attached to his vs^ife, 

 and he remained so after her death to the end of his own life. While 

 he was in this country, though surrounded by many whom he had 

 soon made his friends, he often mourned the loneliness of his sittua- 

 tion, particularly when indisposition, or fatigue, made him long after 

 those small services of domestic affection and ever watchful care, of 

 which those who devote themselves wholly to one of the great gene- 

 ral interests of mankind, be it the cause of religion or of science, 

 stand in special need — that wholesome atmosphere of constant love, 

 the absence of which seems to be felt more painfully the more un-' 

 conscious we are while we inhale it. In his last sickness, he, in a 

 mournful manner, ascribed his illness to the want of warm linen on his 

 return from his lectures, saying with a sigh, that if his wife had been 

 living, it would have been before the fire ready for him. The dis- 

 ease of his heart he ascribed to his loss of her, saying, his pulse had 

 intermitted ever since her death. 



