27
though no religious rite was observed, no comforting service performed, those who were present felt none the less deeply that the object of their love and veneration—the Christian gentleman, the representative physician, the knight of stainless record—had been gathered to his fathers after a well-spent life, ripe with years and honors, 'in the confidence of a certain faith, in the comfort of a reasonable, religious and holy hope, in favor with God, and in perfect charity with the world.'"
In person, Dr. Wood was rather tall; until the last few years of his life slender, and very erect in carriage. His features were regular, though not striking; he wore a peruke, and no beard. He was always dressed in black, and very neatly. His manners were dignified and formal; his whole appearance grave and sedate. To strangers, and those of slight acquaintance, he seemed rather to repel approach, and to produce a feeling of constraint. Amongst intimate friends, however, in social intercourse, this severity was relaxed; so that, although never demonstrative, he was quite affable, and, at times, genial. As Dr. Packard describes him, in his brief biographical sketch,[1] "whoever learned to know him found in him a faithful friend, a judicious counsellor, and a true man." His uniform courtesy entitled him to be designated, as he was at the dinner given to him by the profession in 1860, "the model gentleman." Using again some of the words of
- ↑ Transactions of the American Medical Association, 1879.
