5
still, he planned, and wrote the greater part of a novel of his own; which I have seen in manuscript. It was never published.
Amongst the papers above referred to there is, under the date of 1814, "An Oration spoken before the Citizens of Philadelphia, on the Independence of the United States." This was delivered a year before his graduation at the University. In the year 1817, he contributed to Poulson's American Daily Advertiser a very spirited reply to an aspersion upon the Society of Friends, charging its members with a want of charity outside of their own borders, which had been published in the Portfolio of that day. The editor of the latter periodical replied, withdrawing, or essentially modifying, his injurious expressions.
Upon leaving the Collegiate Department of the University, young Wood began the study of Medicine as the office student of Dr. Joseph Parrish. His advantages there were decidedly superior; and he availed himself of them so well as to become, after his graduation in Medicine at the University in 1818, his preceptor's associate in giving instruction to students. A private medical school grew out of this association; in which a number of our most eminent physicians and surgeons, of the generation now passing away, took part, first as pupils, and some of them afterwards as instructors. Under such circumstances, Dr. Wood matured those convictions upon practical medicine and medical ethics which he inculcated through his whole
