MEMORIAL OF DR. JOSEPH M. TONER. 643 



manuscripts may emulate the laudable example here set, and perpetuate 

 their names and render their collections in the highest degree useful 

 by endowing the American public, through its Government Library, 

 with the valuable stores which they may no longer use. 



Dr. Toner was honored by being chosen president of several societies, 

 including the American Medical Association, the American Public 

 Health Association, each of the two Medical societies of the District 

 of Columbia, the Literary society, the Columbia Historical Society, the 

 Washington National Monument Society, etc. He was offered, but 

 declined, professorships in medical colleges, preferring a more compre- 

 hensive field of labor. 



In the last few years Dr. Toner had suffered occasionally from internal 

 derangement of certain organs, evincing that his naturally strong con- 

 stitution was being slowly undermined. But he worked on, putting the 

 best face upon the visitations of disease, until the summer of 1896, 

 when he was in the midst of his vacation at Cresson Springs, Pa., 

 where he suddenly breathed his last, seated in his easy chair, on the 

 31st of August, 1896. 



In conclusion, all who knew him will concur with me that the seventy 

 years of our departed friend and brother represent an earnest, laborious, 

 and highly useful life. To few men, indeed, is it given to win so much 

 of public respect and honor ; so much, also, of more tender regard and 

 sympathy. His genial companionship, his warm and widely dispensed 

 hospitality, and his encouraging presence and aid in every good word 

 and work, will be widely missed and long remembered in the city of 

 Washington. 



