WORMLEY
532
WRIGHT
accuracy. Never before perhaps li;ul
toxicological subjects been handled with
quite the high degree of Uterary skill and
the miraculous care for detail and truth
which appear in this volume. Tlie
work soon became known throughout
the lego-medical world. This famous
work is dedicated "To my wife, who, by
her skillful hand, assisted so largely in its
preparation, this volume is affectionately
inscribed." In the back of the book are
fifteen pages of steel engravings, num-
bering ninety-six engravings in all, each
of the utmost fineness and accuracy.
At the bottom of each page we read,
"Mrs. T. G. Wormley, ad nat. del. et
sculp." It is told by Dr. John Ashhurst,
Jr., that, when the manuscript of the
book was handed to the publishers, the
latter declared that it would be impos-
sible to find a draughtsman capable of
reproducing the illustrations by which the
manuscript was accompanied, so great
was their exquisite delicacy. In fact, a
number of engravers, to whom the
matter of reproducing these illustrations
was submitted, declared (according to the
"American Literary Gazette") that the
work, assuming that it could be done at
all, would cost the engraver who did it,
his eyesight. Thereupon Mrs. Wormley
set herself to work to acquire the difficult
art of engraving on steel. This feat she
accomplished to such a degree that the
desired engravings were produced by her
hand and remain to this day a marvel of
the steel engraver's art. Further en-
graving of a highly accurate sort was
done for the second edition of the book,
by Dr. Wormley's elder daughter, Mrs.
John Marshall.
Dr. Wormley was a man of medium height, always smooth-shaven, and had brown hair and blue eyes. He was a healthy, vigorous man, and delighted to pass the winter through without an overcoat.
He was not merely a scientist of super- abounding energy, but also a man of strong and sincere affections and senti- ments, a lover of nature, of music, and his homo.
His love of nature was more than mere
enthusiasm for dry-as-dust science. This
fact is shown by his wide-ranging investi-
gations in other fields than that of his
own particular specialty. He was inter-
ested in ornithology and icthyology, in
crystallography, in infusorial earth and
diatoms. He discovered a species of
fish (of brilliant coloring) to which he
gave the name of Etheostoma Iris. He
mounted many birds and fishes, which
are to be found at the present moment
in the Smithsonian Institution at Wash-
ington. And birds and fishes, crystals
and diatoms, were to him but parts of a
very great and very beautiful world
which he loved, and which he tried to
comprehend for the reason that he loved it.
During the summer of 1896, Prof. Wormley began to be attacked by the disease which eventually ended his life. At that time he was on a farm in Berks County, working among plants and flowers, as he very much loved to do. In the fall he went back to the city and his customary teaching, but soon it became apparent that he was seriously affected with chronic Bright's disease, and the end of the great worker arrived one quiet Sunday morning, January 3, 1897. The world of legal medicine lost perhaps its clearest mind; while a very much larger and broader world was undoubtedly the poorer for the dropping out of one of the very finest examples of a quiet, unassuming scholar and gentleman.
He was co-editor of the " Ohio Medical and Surgical Journal," from 1862-4 and a tolerably full list of his writings is in the the Surgeon-general's Catalogue, Wash- ington, District of Columbia.
T. H. S.
Journal of the Am. Chemical Soc, xix, No. 4. April, 18t«7 (port.), Edgar F. Smith; Trans. Coll. of Phys. of Philadelphia, 1897. John Ashurst; Univ. Med. Magazine, 1896-97, Alumni Notes; Universities and Their Sons (Univ. of Penna.) vol. i (port.).
Wright, John (1811-1846).
John Wright was born in Troy, Febru- ary 2, 1811, the son of John Wright. His earlv education was secured at Allen
