MEMOIR 
OF 
ISAAC HAYS, M. D. 
[Extracted from the Transactions of the College of Physicians 
of Philadelphia, 3d Series, Volume V.] MEMOIR 
OF 
ISAAC HAYS, M.D., 
FORMERLY ONE OF THE CENSORS OF THE COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS 
OF PHILADELPHIA, PRESIDENT OF THE ACADEMY OF 
NATURAL SCIENCES, SURGEON TO WILLS 
HOSPITAL, ETC. 
Read before the College, February 4, 1880, 
BY 
ALFRED STILLS, M.D., LL.D., 
VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE COLLEGE. 
[Extracted from the Transactions, 3d Series, Yol. V.] 
PHILADELPHIA: 
1880. COLLINS, PRINTER. M EMOI R. 
Every thoughtful man seeks to order his life so that it 
shall afford him the greatest amount of happiness. But 
men’s ideas of happiness are as diverse as their features. To 
some sensual sloth is attractive, to others a feverish pursuit 
of pleasure, to others a lust for wealth, popularity, fame, or 
power. Even if they secure these objects, they are apt to find 
them as unsubstantial as shadows; and, when life draws near 
its close, they mourn with unavailing regret over blighted 
joys and disappointed hopes. 
If society were composed of men like these alone, it would 
be destined to a rapid dissolution ; indeed, out of such mate- 
rials it could never have been developed. Historically, we 
know that it emerged from the dark waste of barbarism, only 
by looking beyond the present into a future which might 
grow out of the elements of the past. While men have pro- 
bably lived in every age who moulded their conduct more 
or less successfully on this ideal, only very recent genera- 
tions have witnessed its general recognition and illustration. 4 
Even now the examples are not numerous of men from whose 
characters the grosser elements have been eliminated, and 
who seek happiness, first of all, in the culture of the intellect, 
the moral sense, and the affections. But whenever they do 
arise, their action is not confined to the development of their 
own intellectual and moral natures; its beneficent influence is 
apt to be felt over a wide sphere. Virtue has its contagion 
no less than vice; it vivifies and beautifies society as much as 
vice deforms and corrupts it, and its influence is none the less 
powerful because it is silent and unobtrusive. The world 
does not always nor readily recognize its greatest benefactors. 
They are not apt to be those whose names are most conspic- 
uously associated with public acts, or with the great changes 
that stir the political, social, scientific, or literary spheres. 
They are oftener modest and silent thinkers who, in the 
seclusion of their closets, lay plans or evolve ideas that become 
the inspiration and the law of more enterprising men who 
apply them to their purpose and render them practically 
efficient. Teaching by example rather than by precept, they 
illustrate the beauty and the power of a life steadily devoted 
to beneficent ends. 
A man of such qualities and of such exceptional virtues 
was our late Fellow, Dr. Isaac Hays. While yet only a 
student of medicine I learned to know him, and from that 
time until his death, I never had occasion to reverse my 
judgment of his character, or abate anything of my esteem 
and respect for his person. 
Isaac Hays, born July 5, 1796, was the son of Samuel and 
Richea Gratz Hays, of Philadelphia. His father was a 
wealthy merchant, and brought up his family with all the 
culture and luxury which his means enabled him to com- 
mand ; nor was it until mature manhood that the subject of 5 
this memoir was obliged by stern necessity to win his bread 
by acquisitions which had seemed intended only for the 
delectation of his life. The refinements of his early home 
and social circle doubtless impressed upon him that courteous 
and affable manner which always distinguished him. His 
school education was acquired while the traditions of English 
scholarship were still living influences, and when it was a 
cardinal doctrine that education was designed, not so much 
to fill the memory with facts as to cultivate all the natural 
powers and fit them for use in any field whatever. He was 
for many years a pupil of the Rev. Hr. Samuel B. Wylie, so 
famous in this city for his classical learning, and as a school- 
master, and who was afterwards elevated to the chair of an- 
cient languages in the University of Pennsylvania. At that 
institution Hr. Hays graduated A.B. in 1816. 
In those days the amenities of scholarship were habitually 
associated with the courtesies of life, as the frequent use of 
the phrase “a scholar and a gentleman” sufficiently attests, 
as well as the term “literae humaniores” which described a 
literature that was supposed to refine the mind and manners, 
and of which the classical languages were the indispensable 
foundation. It cannot be doubted, I think,that the delicate 
and refined literary taste of Hr. Hays was developed by his 
liberal education, although he was by nature fitted to bear 
more perfect fruit in such a soil than in one which, according 
to modern ideas of excellence, is filled with the hard facts of 
physical science. The influence of his severer and mathe- 
matical training was exhibited in his acute and very critical 
judgment which experience sharpened into a sagacious in- 
stinct. 
After leaving college the predilections of young Hays were 
for a professional career, but, at the urgent instance of his 6 
father, who desired to initiate him into commercial affairs 
that he might succeed himself in business, he entered the 
counting-house where he remained for about a year. This 
experience did but confirm him in his original preference, 
and, abandoning commerce, he began the study of medicine 
with Dr. Nathaniel Chapman, who, throughout his life, 
retained a lively friendship for his pupil, and more than 
once influenced the direction of his career. It would be dif- 
ficult to determine what motives inclined him towards the 
study of medicine. They may have been quite fortuitous; 
but the zeal with which he soon afterwards began to culti- 
vate the natural sciences, appears to prove that it was not 
chance, but a genuine predilection and fitness for the study 
of nature that made him a physician. In like manner it 
would seem as if his fondness for mathematical processes de- 
termined him to the culture of ophthalmology,the department 
of medicine in which, above all others, physical methods of 
observation and mathematical forms of reasoning prevail. 
He graduated in medicine in 1820, at the University of Penn- 
sylvania, and the subject of his inaugural thesis was “Sym- 
pathy” 
The earlier years of his professional life were actively de- 
voted to laying a firm foundation for his future position, and 
so determining its form and proportions that it might thence- 
forth be developed without his active intervention. It was 
only at the mature age of thirty-eight years that he was mar- 
ried to Miss Sarah Minis, of Savannah, Ga., who, with four 
children, survives him. We may venture to believe that this 
happy union was not without its influence in creating his 
fondness for domestic life, and perfecting the tranquillity of 
manner and of mind for which he was so remarkable. No 
doubt, also, the peacefulness and contentment of his home 7 
had much to do with the diligent and steady performance of 
the literary work which constantly occupied him. Even in 
the summer when recreation is generally felt to be essential 
to health and efficient labor, he was rarely out of town. I 
well remember that while accompanying him to New York 
in 1846, as a delegate to the Convention that originated the 
American Medical Association, he informed me that for 
twenty years he had never, but once, spent a night outside 
of Philadelphia for pleasure, and even in subsequent years 
he was rarely absent from home. 
Before offering a sketch of his medical career it may be 
mentioned that his strong bias towards Natural History was 
shown by his editing, in 1828, Wilson’s American Ornithology. 
There now lies before me a letter to Hr. Hays from his friend 
Prince Charles Lucien Bonaparte, himself one of the most 
eminent of ornithologists. It is dated “Off Leghorn, April 
9, 1828,” and in it the writer thus refers to the new edition 
of Wilson: “So great is the interest I take in that under- 
taking that I authorize you (if agreeable to and thought 
proper by your editorship) to offer in my name to the pub- 
lishers to conclude this edition with a volume of mine, bring- 
ing American ornithology, or rather Wilson’s Ornithology, 
to the order of the day.” 
In 1831, Dr. Hays read a paper to the American Philoso- 
phical Society, in which he described various jaws of the 
Mastodon Giganteus and the teeth contained in them. “He 
seems to have been the first writer who clearly pointed out 
the probability that the number of these teeth was six on 
each side of each jaw. He says: ‘The whole number of 
teeth possessed by the animal described by Dr. Godman 
(Tetracaulodon) is, then, at least twenty; and we think that 
it is at least probable that the animal possessed an interme- 8 
diate tooth between the second tooth with three denticules, 
and that with four denticules.’ ‘Should we be correct in 
our views, this animal possessed three teeth with three den- 
ticules in each side of each jaw, making the whole number 
of teeth twenty-four; but to render this certain would require 
specimens of intermediate ages to those hitherto described.’ 
These have since been obtained, and have fully confirmed the 
opinion suggested by the sagacity of Dr. Hays.” (The Mas- 
todon Gigamteus of North America. By John C. Warren, M.D., 
Boston, 1852.) 
The first published medical paper of Dr. Hays appeared as 
a leading article in the Philadelphia Journal of the Medical 
and Physical Sciences, in 1826. It is stated to be a “Lecture 
delivered to the Academy of Natural Sciences, 1823,” and its 
subject was “ The forces by which the blood is circulated.” It 
gives a summary of the successive steps in a knowledge of 
the subject, including the statement of Galen that the arte- 
ries conveyed blood; the demonstration of the pulmonary 
circulation by Servetus and his immediate successors; and 
the final description of the route of the greater as well as 
the lesser circulation by Harvey. But neither the illustrious 
Englishman nor his successors fully solved the problem by 
what forces the circulation is effected. Even Bichat’s decla- 
ration is quoted by Dr. Hays, “that when the blood has 
arrived in the general capillary system it is absolutely beyond 
the influence of the heart, and still less has the heart any 
influence on the motion of the blood through the venous 
system.” Moreover, this famous anatomist and physiologist 
was of the opinion that “the heart is the only power that 
puts in motion the blood in the arteries, and that these ves- 
sels are entirely passive.” Dr. Hays expresses regret at being 
obliged to differ in opinion from so eminent an authority, 9 
but he goes on to argue that “the blood is not circulated by 
the impulse received from the heart alone, but that its pro- 
gress is assisted and maintained by a contractile power in 
tbe arteries.” Among his arguments is the unanswerable 
one, drawn from his acquaintance with comparative ana- 
tomy, “that in fishes where there is no heart but for a pul- 
monary circulation, the blood must be moved through the 
body by the impulse of the arterial system alone.” In regard 
to the movement of the blood in the veins he is less clear; 
but he dwells upon the suction power exerted upon the blood 
in these vessels by the diastolic action of the right side of the 
heart and the expansion of the chest in respiration. Like his 
cotemporaries he overlooked the simple but sufficient fact that 
the circulatory system is always full, and that a movement 
of any portion of its contents must urge their whole mass. 
It may appear strange that only fifty-four years ago so great 
obscurity should have involved a subject which is now re- 
garded as hardly calling for a special demonstration. But 
while we may congratulate ourselves on living in the more 
perfect day of physiological science we should not be un- 
mindful of our debt to those who, even in a humble degree, 
like the subject of this notice, contributed to establish and 
disseminate a fundamental truth. 
In the same journal, in 1826, and while he was a surgeon 
to the Pennsylvania Infirmary for Diseases of the Eye and Ear, 
Dr. Hays published “ Observations on Inflammation of the Con- 
junctiva,” a paper on “ Inflammation of the Sclerotica,” and one 
on “ The Pathology and Treatment of Iritis.” These papers, 
which we have no claim to judge, appear to have laid the 
foundation of the high repute which Dr. Hays afterwards 
attained as an ophthalmic surgeon, and probably determined 
his selection as one of the first surgeons of Wills Hospital in 10 
1834. This appointment secured to him a larger field for 
observation and experience, and led to the distinguished 
position which he afterwards occupied among the ophthal- 
mologists of this country. Indeed, no one in Philadelphia 
enjoyed a higher reputation for skill in this branch of sur- 
gery, and from all parts of the United States patients sought 
the benefit of his counsel and operative skill. In those days 
neither ophthalmology, nor indeed any branch of surgery, 
rested upon a well-defined scientific basis; and in this country, 
as in Europe, surgeons were regarded by physicians as some- 
thing less than equals. Perhaps no other department of 
surgery has more rapidly or more securely advanced since 
then than that to which diseases of the eye belong; and if 
we must, in the light of existing knowledge, regard the 
writings of that period as crude and unscientific, and the 
operative methods as defective, we cannot refuse to those who 
used them with the judgment and dexterity of Dr. Hays, 
the admiration with which their cotemporaries also regarded 
them. 
The knowledge acquired by Dr. Hays through study and 
practice he embodied in several publications, the first of which 
was the Practice of Medicine, of Dr. Dewees, for which he 
prepared the chapter on Diseases of the Eye. This work was 
published in 1830, and in its preface the author alludes to 
the contribution of “his friend, Dr. Hays, whose long and 
attentive study of the subject, together with his experience 
in this branch of practical medicine, has amply fitted him for 
the work.” The chapter, in about seventy 8vo pages, con- 
tains a succinct account of the anatomy, physiology, and 
pathology of the organ of vision, and of the treatment of its 
diseases, which is certainly not the least meritorious in the 
work, although, like other cotemporary essays on similar 11 
subjects, it cannot be judged by the standards of the present 
day. 
In 1843, Dr. Hays edited an American edition of Lawrence’s 
treatise on Diseases of the Eye. In a letter of the author to 
the editor acknowledging a copy of the volume the following 
passage occurs: “I return you my best thanks for the book, 
and at the same time beg to express to you how highly I am 
gratified at finding that you not only think my work worthy 
of republication in America, but that you should have conde- 
scended to act as editor, and to enrich my treatise with those 
valuable additions which might well have constituted a sepa- 
rate publication. I feel that I could not have received a 
higher compliment, and I shall always hold the circumstance 
in gratifying remembrance.” In 1854, on receiving a copy 
of the third edition, Sir William wrote again to the editor a 
letter of thanks from which the following is an extract: “I 
feel it a particularly fortunate circumstance that one so 
thoroughly conversant with the whole subject, and so used 
to literary composition, should have undertaken the trouble- 
some task of making these additions to my treatise, published 
in 1840, which are necessary to bring it up to the present 
state of knowledge, and should have conferred upon it the 
new and interesting feature of so many beautifully executed 
pictorial illustrations.” The preparation of the successive 
editions of this work was to Dr. Hays a labor of love, for by 
it he not only associated his own name with that of perhaps 
the most eminent ophthalmic surgeon in England, with his 
consent and also high approbation, but it gave him the oppor- 
tunity, as he himself says in the preface to the second edition, 
of presenting the results of his own experience “derived from 
more than a quarter of a century’s devotion to the subject, 
during which period he had been attached to some public 12 
institution for the treatment of diseases of the eye.” In the 
third edition of the work, issued in 1854, Dr. Hays recorded 
the first case of astigmatism published in America. Donders, 
in his treatise on “Anomalies of Refraction and Accommoda- 
tion,” cites in historical order the earliest published cases of 
astigmatism. They are five in number, and of these three 
occurred in the persons of their reporters, the fourth is due 
to Dr. Hamilton, and the fifth to Dr. Hays. He was also the 
first, it is believed, to observe color-blindness as a pathological 
condition; it being generally a congenital defect. (See case 
of Mary Bishop, Amer. Journ. of Med. Sci., Aug. 1840, p. 277.) 
This case ended in recovery. It is cited by Dr. B. Joy Jeffries 
in his recent work on Color-Blindness. 
The bent of Dr. Hays’ mind towards the physical depart- 
ments of medicine is illustrated not only by his special devo- 
tion to ophthalmology but by the total absence from all his 
writings of theoretical discussions. Doubtless the same 
inclination determined him to edit Arnott’s Elements of 
Physics, in order that students and practitioners of medicine 
might become better acquainted with the physical phe- 
nomena of life. This work, which was first published in 1829, 
exerted a marked influence upon medical instruction while 
it was passing through three successive editions. Two years 
later, along with his life-long friend, Dr. Robert Eglesfeld 
Griffith, he translated the famous Chronic Phregmasice of 
Broussais, and, after a like interval, The Principles of Phy- 
siological Medicine of the same author. He was, perhaps, 
moved thereto by the semblance of simplicity and precision 
which distinguished the writings of this celebrated theorist, 
whose influence was distinctly marked on the opinions and 
practice of many American ph}rsicians, among whom the 
Professor of the Institutes of Medicine in the University of 13 
Pennsylvania, Dr. Samuel Jackson, was the most eminent 
and influential. If they attracted Dr. Hays by their seem- 
ingly logical character, they captivated the versatile imagi- 
nation of Dr. Jackson by the fervor of their eloquence and 
their all-embracing generalizations. They are now utterly 
forgotten, although at one time they formed the law and the 
gospel of the medical profession on both sides of the Atlantic; 
and their fate remains as a monument of warning to all who 
would attempt to construct science out of materials furnished 
by the imagination. 
The American Cyclopaedia of Practical Medicine and Surgery, 
of which only two volumes were completed, comprised titles 
from “A” to “Azygos,” and was produced under the editor- 
ship of Dr. Iiays between 1834 and 1836. It everywhere 
exhibits signs of his painstaking supervision, and contains, 
of his own, besides innumerable brief articles, a great many 
bibliographical additions to the essays of his collaborators. 
He contributed to it a large proportion of the article Ab- 
domen, including its symptomatology and pathology, its 
abscesses, fistulse, adhesions, tumors, pulsations, etc.; the 
whole of the article Abstinence, covering ten pages in double 
columns; Amaurosis, occupying fifteen pages; Aphlexia, or 
Revery, three pages, etc. The list of collaborators he secured 
included many of the foremost medical men of the time, in- 
cluding Bache, Chapman, Reynell Coates, Condie, Dewees, 
Dunglison, Emerson, Griffith, Thomas Harris, Hodge, Horner, 
Jackson, Mitchell, Robert Patterson, and Wood, of Philadel- 
phia, Geddings, of Baltimore, and Warren, of Boston, every 
one of whom, except Dr. Coates, he survived. Dr. Hays was 
admirably fitted for editing such a work. His knowledge of 
the medical profession enabled him to select the most com- 
petent collaborators; his courtesy combined with firmness 14 
Secured their cordial co-operation; his critical judgment 
assured the desirable harmony of opinions and unity of 
method among them ; and it can scarcely be doubted that the 
Cyclopaedia would have been carried to its completion by the 
editor and publishers, and have become a lasting monument 
to the attainments of the profession at that day, if it had not 
been smothered in its infancy by the country that should 
have fostered it. To-day, as nearly half a century ago, the 
class of our citizens which is least protected or encouraged 
is that which provides the intellectual, that is the highest, 
elements of civilization. From time to time encyclopaedic 
works have been issued in this country, but, with one or two 
exceptions, they have been reprints or translations of foreign 
books for which legal, if not legitimate, protection has been 
secured through the pious fraud of a putative American 
father who had little to do with the generation of the affili- 
ated work. No doubt the failure of his great literary pro- 
ject continued to rankle in Dr. Hays’ mind, and to animate 
his feelings against the irrational policy which our national 
government has pursued towards nearly all the higher forms 
of intellectual culture when not prosecuted directly by its 
own officers. 
The history of Dr. Hays’ connection with the American 
Journal of the Medical Sciences, which proved to be the most 
important event in his professional life, was not an accidental 
occurrence, nor was his selection by the editors and pub- 
lishers of that periodical an experiment. Mr. Isaac Lea was 
a member of the historic publishing house of Carey, Lea, & 
Carey, and still survives at a patriarchal age with senses 
and intellect unimpaired, and with that fresh and lively 
temperament which always distinguished him. He was also 
an active member of the Academy of the Natural Sciences 15 
to which Dr. Robert E. Griffith likewise belonged. The 
latter was a very intimate friend of Dr. Hays, and intro- 
duced him, in 1818, into the Academy, where he was soon 
made a member and chairman of its Publishing Committee. 
In this office he was earnest and indefatigable, and by his 
great industry and tact he procured the publication of no 
less than fifty-six numbers of the Society’s Journal. The 
active management of the Society then passed into other 
hands, and its Journal was suspended for many years. In 
1827 Mr. Lea became a member of the American Philosophical 
Society, and was soon afterwards made chairman of its Com- 
mittee of Publication, to which Dr. Hays, who entered the 
Society in 1880, was subsequently added. During all this 
period, as ever afterwards, Mr. Lea and Dr. Hays were united 
in a close friendship by harmony of character and a commu- 
nity of scientific pursuits. It was therefore natural, when the 
medical journal issuing from the publishing house of the 
former was in need of additional editorial ability, that he 
should gladly sanction the selection, as editor, of Dr. Hays, 
whose special qualifications he so well knew. The Journal 
at that time bore the title of the “ Philadelphia Journal of 
the Medical and Physical Sciences.” It was commenced in 
1820, with Dr. Chapman as editor, and in 1825 Drs. Dewees 
and Godman were associated with him in that office. But, 
in the following year, Dr. Godman having accepted the 
professorship of anatomy in Rutgers Medical College, Hew 
York, and the senior editors, owing to increasing business, 
being unable to devote their time to its interests, it became 
necessary that another editor should be selected. The long 
intimacy of Dr. Hays with Chapman and Dewees, and the 
community of tastes between him and Godman, seemed 
naturally to designate him as their associate. From Hew 16 
York Godman continued, as long as his engrossing duties 
and failing health would permit, to contribute to the Jour- 
nal ; but at last, finding that he could no longer do so, he 
withdrew from any active share in its conduct, which then 
devolved upon Dr. Hays alone. But he did not retire until 
he had prepared an announcement which, although it was 
not published in full, should here be cited in proof of the 
high estimate which Godman had formed of the subject of 
this memoir. It was as follows:— 
“ The Publishers, with the entire approbation of the Editors, 
announce with pleasure that they have secured the valuable assist- 
ance of Isaac Hays, M.D., who w;ill henceforth co-operate in con- 
ducting the Journal. Independent of this gentleman’s practical 
experience and zealous devotion to the interest and honor of the 
profession, we consider him as a great acquisition, on account of 
his long experience and well-earned reputation in the management 
of such a publication. The Journal of the Academy of Natural 
Sciences owes a very large portion of its success to his exertions 
and attention to the business of its publication. In adding him 
to the editors we give an ample pledge of our determination to 
make every effort to merit a continuance of the liberal support it 
has uniformly received.” 
On the cover, then, of the second number of the thirteenth 
volume of the “Philadelphia Journal,” published in Febru- 
ary, 1826, the name of Dr. Hays appears as one of the 
editors. By the close of the year, all his associates having 
retired, the responsibility of conducting it devolved upon him 
alone. Immediately he laid aside its local for a national 
name, and in its management, as the American Journal of 
the Medical Sciences, in November, 1827, gave it that cosmo- 
politan character which has constantly become more per- 
fect, and which was never tarnished by his negligence or in- 17 
discretion during the fifty-three years that elapsed between 
its birth and his own death. Looking back over this long 
period of time, every one acquainted with the Journal must 
admit that it honestly and thoroughly fulfilled its object, 
which was declared to be “ to establish a National work 
devoted exclusively to the improvement of medical science, 
and to the elevation of the dignity and character of the pro- 
fession, to the entire rejection of all local and individual 
interests and party views.” We cannot refrain from quoting 
in this place the accurate and striking terms which were 
used to describe the Journal by Dr. Billings, in his Centen- 
nial History of American Medical Literature. “ The ninety- 
seven volumes of this Journal need no eulogy. They contain 
many original papers of the highest value ; nearly all the 
real criticisms and reviews that we possess; and such care- 
fully prepared summaries of the progress of medical science, 
and abstracts and notices of foreign works, that from this 
file alone, were all other productions of the press for the last 
fifty years destroyed, it would be possible to reproduce the 
great majority of the real contributions of the world to 
medical science during that period.” 
Although from 1869 Dr. Hays was aided by his son, Dn 
I. Minis Hays, whom he thus trained to the responsible duties 
which he now discharges alone, he never abandoned his 
supervision of the Journal, nor abated his interest in it, and 
it survives not only as a monument to his steadfast industry, 
but is, we believe, without a parallel in the length of time 
for which one man has conducted a periodical publication.’ 
The career of Dr. Hays, as thus far sketched, is a striking 
illustration of the truth that each one’s place in life is gene- 
rally determined by himself. It is often remarked that a 
man’s first steps towards eminence are directed by some acci- 18 
dent without whose occurrence lives that have been eminent 
and brilliant might have been passed in obscurity. History 
is full of instances which are accepted as illustrations of this 
superstition, and are too often invoked by the indolent as a 
sufficient reason, or even as an apology, for their own inac- 
tion. They seem to say, “ If Fate will have me king, why, 
Fate must crown me without my stir.” But no such wait- 
ers upon Providence ever achieved the honorable distinction, 
which, on the contrary, has generally been reached by those 
who deliberately and faithfully prepared themselves for their 
high office, and who added to their fitness for its duties their 
conspicuous presence in the world and the support of influ- 
ential friends. The precise position one shall take may be 
uncertain, it may even seem to be determined by accident, 
but “ There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew 
them how we will.” Beyond a doubt men fall into their fit- 
ting place as certainly as the particles adapted to form a crys- 
tal come together to produce their destined form. And thus 
it was that all the peculiar elements of Dr. Ilays character, 
and his social, professional, scientific, and literary relations, 
combined to fit him for the duties of his life’s office and to 
raise him to it in the fulness of time. 
The gravity and dignity of the quarterly journal unfitted 
it for the discussion of subjects which concerned tlie medical 
profession as distinguished from the science and art of medi- 
cine. For this purpose the Medical News was established in 
1843 as a monthly journal which kept physicians informed 
of all that transpired of general interest in the various medi- 
cal societies and colleges of the country, and especially of 
everything that tended to advance or retard the paramount 
cause of medical education. A portion of its columns was 
also devoted to exposing the evils and iniquities of quackery 19 
both at home and abroad. In pursuit of the latter object, 
once, and only once, did Dr. Hays find himself called upon 
to answer for the maintenance of the truth. In 1846 a suit 
was brought against him, by the author of a quack remedy 
for having declared in the Medical News that the pamphlet 
describing this medicine, “ displays quackery in its most un- 
blushing and undisguised form.” The case was tried in the 
Nisi Prius branch of the Supreme Court of this State, before 
Judge Burnside. It is memorable for the professional interest 
it excited, for the wit and humor of the Judge, for the display 
of adroitness and eloquence by the plaintiffs advocate, the late 
David Paul Brown, and for the verdict of the jury which sus- 
tained the criticism of Dr. Hays by awarding merely nominal 
damages to his assailant. The Bulletin of Medical Science, edited 
by the late Dr. John Bell, commented on the case in the fol- 
lowing language: “We must not let the present opportunity 
pass without recording the obligations under which the pro- 
fession lies to Dr. Hays for his continued exposure of quackery 
and medical delusions.” In this exposure he persisted to the 
end of his life; not by denunciation or the use of bitter epi- 
thets, which the subject certainly prompted and warranted, 
but by simple narratives of facts. Within the medical pro- 
fession the faithful were encouraged by these publications, 
and it may be believed that the weaker brethren, who from 
imperfect education or the temptations of gain were in 
danger of being seduced into error or crime, were sometimes 
held to their moorings by the reiterated exposures of fraud, 
and the records of its punishment. It is even possible that 
this influence was radiated and reflected in some degree 
upon the general public ; for, however small and incapable 
of accurate measurement that influence may be, its existence 
and its power cannot be doubted. 20 
Dr. Hays was never a lecturer upon any branch of medi- 
cine. That he was not resulted only from an accidental 
occurrence. There lies before me a printed circular of the 
“Philadelphia Anatomical Rooms,” which were in College 
Avenue, now called Chant Street, announcing a course of 
lectures during the winter months by Dr. Godman, on Ana- 
tomy and Operative Surgery; by Dr. Griffith, on Materia 
Medica and Medical Jurisprudence; by Mr. Keating, on 
Chemistry; and by Dr. Hays, on Practice of Medicine and 
Diseases of the Eye and Ear. The lecture rooms in which 
this course was to be delivered had already acquired a local 
celebrity through the lectures of Lawrance and of Godman, 
which was destined to be maintained by a long line of 
teachers who were there trained to become professors in the 
medical schools. It is said that Dr. Hays was appointed to 
deliver the introductory lecture of the course, which, how- 
ever, was never given, in consequence probably of the removal 
of Dr. Godman to Hew York. Thus Dr. Hays not only lost 
an opportunity of overcoming the natural diffidence which 
restrained him from taking the part in public discussions 
which his merit entitled him to, but also of becoming what 
he was eminently fitted to be, one of the most accurate and 
thorough teachers of his day. It is probable that he with- 
drew from this career lest it might interfere with a proper 
discharge of the duties of the editorial office he soon after- 
wards accepted. 
The participation of Dr. Hays in the organization of the 
American Medical Association was doubtless prompted by 
the same spirit which led him on every fitting occasion to 
aid the efforts of individuals or societies to improve the 
culture of his profession. It has already been stated that the 
Medical News was constant in this purpose, and contained, in 21 
almost every issue at times, whatever could be gathered at 
home or abroad which denoted either the striving of indi- 
viduals after a better system of education or the action of 
societies in favor of greater strictness in teaching and licens- 
ing. Addresses upon education (and they never failed, for 
the subject was practically inexhaustible) were sure to con- 
tribute their most telling paragraphs to these columns when 
they clamored for reform; and not a few who advocated the 
least possible education as the best possible preparation for a 
medical career, found their base and treasonable platitudes 
pilloried with a quiet scorn that we may believe cut more 
deeply than any invective however crushing, or the sting of 
any wit however keen. 
In 1846 this subject was more than ever the order of the 
day, and Dr. Hays was sent by the Philadelphia Medical 
Society as a delegate to the Convention, which was held in 
Hew York City, at the call of the Medical Society of the 
State of Hew York. He took an active part in its proceed- 
ings, and was a member of the committee appointed to “ bring 
the subject of medical education before the Convention.” 
In that capacity it was he who presented the resolutions 
which proposed to create “a Hational Medical Association;” 
to adopt “a uniform and elevated standard of requirements 
for the degree of M. D.;” that “young men before being 
received as students of medicine should have acquired a suit- 
able preliminary education ;” and that “it is expedient that 
the medical profession in the United States should be 
governed by the same code of medical ethics.”1 
1 The following account of the origin of these resolutions is contained in 
a manuscript of Dr. Hays : “ The idea of taking advantage of that occasion 
to form a National Medical Association is due, I have reason to believe, to 
Dr. A. Still6, of Philadelphia. He consulted one of his colleagues [Dr. 22 
These subjects were assigned to several committees, Dr. 
Hays being a member of that appointed to prepare a Code 
of Medical Ethics. At the meeting held in the following 
year at Philadelphia he presented the Code, which has ever 
since been recognized as the ethical guide of the medical pro- 
fession in this country. 
When the Plan of Organization of the American Medical 
Association was under consideration by that Convention, Dr. 
Hays, in common with some others, feared that a merely 
representative and therefore transient body would be unfitted 
to inspire respect for its dignity and authority, or to make 
any steady progress in scientific or practical knowledge. He, 
therefore, proposed that the Association or Society should be 
composed solely of members elected directly by it or through 
its council, and that this council should be a permanent body, 
but renewable in part every year, and charged with the 
“general superintendence of the concerns and publications 
of the Association.” The suggestions of Dr. Hays did not, 
however, suit the views of the greater number of the dele- 
gates. The Convention, as is well known, adopted the popu- 
lar system, according to which representation and member- 
ship in the Association became dependent much more upon 
personal popularity than upon professional merit or distinc- 
Hays] in regard to a series of resolutions which he had prepared to offer for 
the consideration of the Convention; but as no opportunity for his offering 
them had presented itself, so great was the disorder on the first day of the 
meeting, a colleague [Dr. Hays], who had been appointed one of a committee 
to prepare business for the next day, asked to be allowed to bring them 
before that committee and try to obtain the recommendation of the passage 
of those resolutions. With some difficulty this was obtained, and the reso- 
lutions adopted by the Convention were substantially the same as those 
prepared by Prof. Stille.” 23 
tion; and the custom was maintained of discussing subjects 
of every kind at the general meetings, until at last the latter 
evil became intolerable, and a Judicial Council was created 
to which “all questions of an ethical or judicial character” 
were referred. By adopting this law the Association tardily, 
and still imperfectly, accomplished the object aimed at by 
Dr. Hays in the beginning ; and its failure to accept the other 
and more radical principle would seem in part to explain the 
want of interest in it shown for many years past by the more 
cultivated members of the profession, and especially by the 
medical colleges, ever since they were ostracized by the Asso- 
ciation. We have often heard Dr. Hays deplore these original 
defects and these later tendencies of our National Medical 
Congress, which he considered as having lowered its original 
dignity and lessened the amount of scientific work it was at 
one time expected to accomplish. 
It may not be generally known that the original and con- 
tinued publication of the Transactions of the Association in 
Philadelphia was due entirely to Dr. Hays, whose editorial 
experience and intimate relations with the chief medical 
publishers of the country gave him peculiar advantages in 
printing and distributing the volumes. He continued to be 
the Chairman of the Committee of Publication for five years. 
As a Fellow of this College, Dr. Hays always displayed a 
lively interest in its welfare. He was chairman of the com- 
mittee to which the erection of the present Hall of the College 
was entrusted, and was constant and unwearied in superin- 
tending its progress. He felt a special interest in the library, 
which he regarded as the most permanent and influential 
agency at the command of the College for developing a love 
of knowledge among its Fellows, and, through them, in the 
profession at large. His gifts of books from time to time 24 
entitled him to the thanks of the College, and to the inscrip- 
tion of his name upon the honorable roll of its benefactors. 
Among the contingent bequests in his last will, that to the 
College for the use of its library takes precedence of the 
others. It marks the interest felt in the institution by our 
deceased Fellow, and adds another to the many motives 
which we have to cherish and respect his memory. 
It will be proper in this place, and before adverting to the 
more personal relations of Dr. Hays, to enumerate the various 
public offices that he filled, and the honorary distinctions he 
received. 
In 1818 he became a member of the Academy of Natural 
Sciences of Philadelphia; in 1865 was elected its President, 
and re-elected until 1869, when advancing years obliged him 
to decline a re-election. He had been also a Curator and mem- 
ber of the Library and Publication Committees. 
In 1830 he was chosen a member of the American Philo- 
sophical Society, of whose publication committee he was also 
a member, as well as a Councillor and one of the Trustees of 
its Building Fund at the time of his death. 
He was for many years an active member of the Franklin 
Institute of this city, in which he was successively Manager, 
Corresponding Secretary, Chairman of the Library Commit- 
tee, and Chairman of the Committee of Publication. 
He was also a director of the Musical Fund Society; mem- 
ber of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; honorary 
member of the Historical Society of Georgia; corresponding 
member of the National Institution for the Promotion of 
Science, established at Washington, D. C.; of the Montreal 
Mechanics’ Institution; and of the Royal Society of Northern 
Antiquarians, Copenhagen. He was also a manager of the 25 
Society of the Alumni of the University of Pennsylvania, 
Department of Arts and Science. 
The medical institutions with which Dr. Hays was con- 
nected were the following::— 
From 1822 to 1827 he was a surgeon to the Infirmary for 
Diseases of the Eye and Ear; and from 1834 to 1854 surgeon 
to Wills (Ophthalmic) Hospital; he was also physician to 
the Philadelphia Orphans’ Asylum; Philadelphia Dispensary ; 
Southern Dispensary; and Pennsylvania Institution for the 
Instruction of the Blind. 
In 1832 he was chairman of a Medical Committee created 
by the Board of Health of this city to examine into the facts 
relating to the epidemic cholera. 
In 1835 Dr. Hays became a Fellow of the College of Phy- 
sicians of Philadelphia, and served it as chairman of its 
building committee, as Censor, and as one of its delegates to 
the American Medical Association from 1849 to 1853. 
In 1847 he was elected treasurer of the Convention out of 
which grew the American Medical Association, and was 
annually made treasurer of the latter from 1848 to 1852, 
when he declined being again a candidate for the office. He 
was chairman of the Committee of Publication from 1847 to 
1853. In 1852 he acted as chairman of a special committee on 
amendments to the constitution; and, in 1853, of a committee 
on plans for organizing State and County Medical Societies. 
In 1854 he was chairman of the committee on prize essays, 
and, in 1855, chairman of the committee of arrangements for 
the meeting held in Philadelphia. 
In 1848 Dr. Hays was a delegate from the College of Phy- 
sicians of Philadelphia to the Convention held in April of 
that year for organizing the Medical Society of the State of 26 
Pennsylvania. He was chairman of the committee which 
drafted the constitution of the latter society, of which, in 
1849, he was elected the corresponding secretary; and from 
1850 to 1854 he was a delegate from the Philadelphia County 
Society to the State Medical Society. 
Dr. Hays was also a member, and in 1825 was elected 
secretary, of the Ka7t7ta Aafifiba Society of Philadelphia; a 
Vice-President of the Society of the Alumni of the Medical 
Department of the University of Pennsylvania; the first 
President of the Ophthalmological Society of Philadelphia; 
a corresponding member of the Gynaecological Society of 
Boston ; an honorary member of the American Ophthalmo- 
logical Society; of the State Medical Societies of New York 
and Rhode Island ; of the Academy of Medicine of Abington, 
Va.; and of the Medical Society of Baltimore; and a corre- 
sponding member of the Medical Society of Hamburgh; of 
the Society Universelle d’Ophthalmologie ; and of the Con- 
gr&s Internationale de Paris. 
Having sketched the career of Dr. Hays in its more public 
and professional aspects, it remains for me to present some 
of the traits that distinguished his social relations. It has 
already been stated that he was the private pupil of Dr. 
Nathaniel Chapman, and it may be added that to the end of 
his life the interest of the teacher in his pupil was unabated. 
Dr. Hays was frequently employed by him to attend his 
patients, and, during the last illness of his old preceptor, was 
his medical attendant. He held similar responsible and con- 
fidential relations with Dewees, between whom and himself 
there existed a warm sympathy to which their fondness for 
music and painting probably conduced; and, at one time, if 
Dr. Hays had desired to cultivate obstetrics, the door of a 27 
lucrative practice would have been opened to him by Dewees. 
Very similar were the ties that bound him to Dr. Jackson 
during a long period. It is well known that this eminent 
physician and eloquent teacher was, for many years before his 
death, confined to his chamber, which almost until the end was 
brightened by his cheerful manner and tbe lively interest he 
showed in every subject of public and professional concern. 
At least once a week Dr. Hays was his welcome guest, and 
no doubt his visitor’s gentle and subdued tone and deliberate 
judgment exerted a calming influence upon the friend whose 
impetuous enthusiasm and animated manner often needed 
a soothing rather than a stimulating influence. At Dr. Jack- 
son’s death it was found that he had bequeathed to Dr. Hays 
one thousand dollars as a token of his esteem. Throughout 
his life Dr. Hays seems to have enjoyed the intimate friend- 
ship of an unusually large number of distinguished men, and 
to have preserved it with singular constancy, a fact as honor- 
able to him as to them, and tending to illustrate the sterling 
quality of his character. It is the more remarkable because 
such intimacies are rare among men of the same profession, 
and especially so among physicians. P>ut his fondness for 
natural science also brought him into close contact with some 
of the most eminent cultivators of that branch of knowledge. 
His relations with Mr. Isaac Lea and Prince Charles Lucien 
Bonaparte have been elsewhere mentioned, and it may now 
be added that among his most intimate and cordial friends 
were Thomas Say and George Ord, whose fame is indissolubly 
associated with the natural history of the United States. 
His social position and his active membership of the Phi- 
losophical Society made him a frequent guest at the Wistar 
Parties while he was still comparatively young, and subse- 28 
quently, in 1844, led to his being enrolled in that association, 
which was composed exclusively of members of the Philo- 
sophical Society. At its social meetings, which were held 
every Saturday evening during the winter, were assembled 
most of the gentlemen of the city who were distinguished 
in science, literature, art, or general culture, as well as emi- 
nent strangers sojourning in Philadelphia. Here Dr. Hays 
was always a pleased and welcome guest, for he delighted to 
converse upon intellectual topics with men whose profes- 
sional or social rank gave interest or weight to their opin- 
ions, while his own abundant information, his affable yet 
modest tone, as free from dogmatism or from pedantry as 
from flippancy, and his perfect exemption from any suspicion 
of selfish objects, made him a desirable companion for men 
of all parties and shades of opinion. When the civil war 
broke out, which absorbed the interest and activity of every 
citizen, and was destined to break asunder so many social 
ties, and alienate so many lifedong friends, the Wistar Party 
no longer interested its members as in the days of prosperity 
and peace, and several among them being out of sympathy 
with the greater number, its meetings gradually declined 
and were at last suspended. They have never been resumed. 
For several years, however, before this catastrophe, Dr. 
Hays conceived that such social meetings were too useful 
as well as agreeable to be confined to the winter months, and, 
accordingly, in concert with several friends, he organized 
the “ Saturday Evening Club” which met, except in midsum- 
mer, between spring and autumn. Its entertainments were 
simple, the number of the guests limited, and the members, 
not being all physicians, the subjects of conversation were of 
more general interest than they would have been among 29 
persons of one profession only.1 But this association, like 
the Wistar Party, gradually declined, and died through the 
operation of causes like those which terminated the career 
of the latter. Its founder, we may believe, recognized, with 
many others, that the medical profession in this city had 
completed its longest and one of its most notable cycles, and 
that henceforth the antique sense of honor and dignity which 
had so long distinguished it must give way to more tangible 
and perhaps coarser motives of action. Dr. Hays, as well as 
many others who had lived in both epochs of our history, 
could not doubt that the civil war, which had crushed so 
many of the amenities of life, had infused a more robust 
vigor into every branch of society, and that henceforth all 
the departments of our civilization had entered upon a new 
era. Of this no clearer demonstration can be found than 
the recent history of medical literature in the United States, 
and no more certain indication of it than in the rapid and 
vigorous development of the quarterly medical journal: 
which he founded. Ho doubt he was too wise to believe 
that any social institutions possess the secret of immor- 
tality; and therefore he could rejoice in events that set. 
the final seal on the independence of American thought 
and deed, however rudely they may have shaken the accu- 
mulated habits and prejudices of several generations, and 
impaired those gentle and almost family ties which the edu- 
cated physicians of this city had been accustomed to regard 
as inseparable from their professional life. 
1 The list of members included Mr. Isaac Lea, Prof. H. Copp6e, Mr. 
Samuel Powel, Drs. G. B. Wood, G. W. Norris, J. Carson, F. Bache, R. 
LaRoche, R. E. Rogers, T. Stewardson, S. H. Dickson, I. Hays, and A. 
StillA 30 
In attempting to form an estimate of Dr. Hays’ character 
we must allude to a very striking, if not the greatest, pecu- 
liarity it presented. It was well balanced. In nothing did 
he err by excess or by impulse. As his walk was measured 
and his conversation grave, although he was the opposite of 
indolent or dull, so the structure of his mind was remarkable 
for a due proportion and equilibrium of the reflective faculties 
which passion never overthrew and but seldom disturbed. 
In public assemblies as in private conversation he was always 
calm and as self-possessed as his modesty and aversion to 
disputation would permit. He neither achieved nor was 
ambitious of oratorical success, but whatever he was called 
upon to say went directly to the point, was tersely and cor- 
rectly expressed, and impressed his hearers with a conviction 
not only of the sincerity, but also of the weight, of his 
opinions. 
With a taste naturally delicate, and refined by culture 
and a long study of modes of thought and expression, he 
became very fastidious in regard to style. A verbose and 
declamatory manner in speaking or writing was supremely 
distasteful to him, and sometimes, perhaps, led him to under- 
value men of substantial merit whose defective training or 
exuberant imagination tempted them to step beyond the 
boundaries of moderation and good taste. This rigor of 
judgment, however, was not the result of his refinement and 
culture alone ; it was due, in part, to a certain peculiarity of 
character which may perhaps be described as a deficiency of 
imagination and enthusiasm, as compared with the deliber- 
ative faculties. A careful examination of his writings, so 
far as I have been able to make it, seems to reveal this char- 
acteristic; for while his narratives or criticisms are remark- 
able for the lucid arrangement of appropriate thoughts, they 31 
are never colored vividly, and are rather deficient even in 
contrasts of light and shade. The Ciceronian rule, “ Est 
oratoris proprium, apte, distincte, ornate dicere,” he, indeed, 
obeyed so far as to write and speak appropriately and clearly, 
but his genius was not to write eloquently. He lacked the 
perfervidum ingeniam which inspires “thoughts that breathe 
and words that burn.” And well, no doubt, that it was so. 
The duties of an editor, which he fulfilled with such remark- 
able distinction, demand far different qualities; an enlight- 
ened, unbiassed, and deliberate judgment, a suavity of man- 
ner that invites confidence, and a firmness that is proof equally 
against the cajoleries of designing flattery and the exactions 
of overweening self-esteem, the dictation of ill-advised coun- 
sellors, and the injustice of hostile criticism. Such influences 
neither disturbed the serenity of his feelings, nor warped the 
rectitude of his judgment, nor turned him from the straight 
path of duty. What he felt obliged to do, that he did ; not 
rashly nor even impulsively, nor with the zeal that is blind 
to the right of judgment in others, and to the truth so often 
proved by example that errors may be propagated fanatically 
by men who are honest in their convictions and aims. 
It is perhaps almost without example that a leading medical 
periodical for more than half a century should never have been 
known as the organ of a party, and never contained an edi- 
torial line that betrayed personal animosity. Even the Medi- 
cal News, which afforded a ready field for the display of such 
feelings, never exhibited them during the thirty years that 
he conducted it—not even at times when there was sufficient 
ground in the notorious misconduct of others to justify severe 
criticism or even moral reprobation. This peculiarity, so 
rare in the history of journalism, was determined neither by 
laxity of principles nor indifference: for no man ever lived 32 
who had a higher standard of moral right, or who felt more 
keenly the attacks of others upon himself or upon the cause 
that he was serving, or was more decided in his judgment of 
measures and of men. It was the result of his instinct of 
justice which always separated the individual from his act, 
and which led him while he condemned the latter to keep 
the former out of sight. He carried this principle even into 
his personal relations with men. It is remarkable that 
although he long held an office which is generally supposed 
to he more prolific of enmities than any other, he had very 
few personal enemies, and there were fewer still whom he 
held to be such without sufficient cause. For them his 
aversion was deep, but not loud. He indulged in no invec- 
tives against them, even wffien he spoke of them most 
severely; he would admit the good even while denouncing 
the evil that was in them, yet he seldom mitigated, still less 
reversed, a judgment he had once deliberately formed. A 
mean, a dishonest, a disloyal action stamped its author in his 
mind with perpetual reprobation; but his dignity of char- 
acter did not allow him to become a public prosecutor or a 
private executioner. In all allusions to men guilty of such 
deeds, or even to those whose general course or character he 
did not approve, he usually limited himself to the bare fact 
which he had to announce, unqualified by any opinion favor- 
able or unfavorable. He would not condescend to the un- 
manly act of “damning with faint praise,” nor would he 
covertly attempt to damage those whom he did not care to 
attack openly. He was a man of peace; and not regarding 
the triumphant issue of any personal conflict as important 
as a quiet life, he was neither apt to take offence nor prompt 
to resent it, except by a dignified and expressive silence. It 
would even be easy to prove that he was capable of taking 33 
the noblest revenge, by doing a substantial good in return 
for what he regarded as a malevolent injury. 
Although the weight of fourscore years rested upon him, 
and occasional indispositions confined him to the house, Dr. 
Hays continued to show a lively interest in public and pro- 
fessional affairs even to the very verge of his life. Of this 
the following incident offers a striking illustration. About 
two months before his death, while reading the Boston Medi- 
cal and Surgical Journal for Feb. 6, 1879, his attention was 
arrested by a statement attributed to the late eminent and 
venerable Dr. Jacob Bigelow of that city, who graduated in 
1810 at the University of Pennsylvania. After some allu- 
sion to several other professors, he is represented to have 
said : “ Physick was a savage, and would have no intercourse 
with us. We never were allowed to enter his house.” Pain- 
fully impressed by so erroneous a description, Dr. Hays felt 
bound to correct it, and he began to write a letter to the 
gentleman from whom it proceeded, which is interesting, 
not only as a vindication of the “ Father of American Sur- 
gery,” but also as a proof that age had not dimmed its 
author’s memory nor chilled his sense of justice. It is also of 
interest as being the last writing that Dr. Hays ever penned, 
sickness having overtaken him before he had finished it, and 
it deserves to be preserved, if only to show that the end of 
his life was in perfect harmony with his whole career. 
My Dear Dr. Bowditch : I have read with deep interest your 
account published in a recent No. of the Boston Medical and Sur- 
gical Journal of an interview with the late Dr. Bigelow when 
ninety years of age. I yield to no man in my esteem, respect, 
and high estimate of the judgment and extensive attainments 
and noble moral qualities of Dr. B., to whom I am indebted for 
many kindnesses; but justice to Dr. Physick, with whom I was 34 
well acquainted, compels me to say that Dr. B.’s estimate of Dr. 
Physick was a hasty one and altogether erroneous. He was not 
“ a savage”—on the contrary he was one of the kindest hearted 
men. He had a skeleton in his closet which depressed his spirits 
and rendered him shy of company and reserved with strangers, 
but it was said of him that he never performed a painful ope- 
ration, but that he had to go to bed on reaching home, sick, so 
sensitive was he to the infliction of pain. He had observed that 
persons fatally scalded seemed to suffer no pain, and he gave 
orders that every oyster should be dropped in boiling water, before 
being cooked for him, and he would not eat them unless so pre- 
pared. The last operation I witnessed with him was performed 
by his son-in-law, Dr. Randolph, for excision of the entire lower 
jaw. When the jaw was removed and the bloody flap laid on the 
neck, the sight was appalling. I held the ligatures to hand to Dr. 
Physick who was to tie them ; after applying one or two he was so 
overcome that he beckoned to me to apply them, turned his back 
to the patient and walked about the room in great agitation 
Even in the closing period of his long life the thoughts 
and affections of Dr. Hays turned most of all to the journal 
with which his name and fame were inseparably associated. 
While the silver cord was loosening that bound him to this 
almost life long companion, he doubtless felt a natural pride 
that his name would survive with it in the person of his son, 
and Ave cannot hut think that this reflection cheered the 
twilight of his life. For to the very last his mind \\ras un- 
clouded and his feelings were not blunted. In the month of 
February, 1879, he suffered an attack of influenza folloAved 
by exhaustion from which he did not rally, and, unable 
to take food, for Avhich he felt no desire, he gradually fell 
asleep on the 12th of April, 1879. His work was completed, 
and, full of years, he passed away, almost the last representa- 35 
tive in the medical profession of the generation to which he 
belonged. 
Nearly fifty years ago I began to know him as the pre- 
ceptor of one of my most intimate friends. He then lived at 
the N. E. corner of Eighth and Sansorn Streets, and I well 
remember the impression his gentle and courteous manner 
made upon me, and the wonder mixed with envy with which 
the well-filled shelves of his library inspired me. In the street 
he walked with deliberate steps, often with his hands behind 
his back and his eyes bent upon the ground, and this gravity 
of carriage, which, however, had nothing chilling or austere 
in it, never deserted him. It perhaps did not invite inti- 
macy; for the vulgar familiarity of recent generations was 
repugnant to him. Yet it formed no absolute barrier against 
any whose character or station deserved respect. His nearer 
friends were a distinguished circle composed chiefly of men 
who were something more than physicians by their general 
culture or their addiction to natural science. With some of 
these his relations were intimate, and continued as long as 
life lasted. They were all men of mark and character whose 
friendship conferred honor. That he retained it so long, and 
in so many instances, may be ascribed to the singular equa- 
nimity which prevented him from either giving or taking 
affront gratuitously. For although neither insensible nor 
cold he had great power of self-control, and seldom exhibited 
active emotion or vehemence of manner. Such indeed was 
the character a physiognomist would have read in his face, 
where the calm, honest look of the eyes harmonized perfectly 
with the habitual repose of all the features. But what he 
practised and loved he also exacted from others. Whatever 
might be the ties that bound him to a man,a corrupt or dis- 
honest action severed them at once and forever. By birth a Hebrew, he through life adhered to the ancient faith; but 
while fixed in his own views he was entirely liberal to those 
of others, often quoting Pope’s lines:— 
“ For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight; 
His can’t be wrong whose life is in the right.” 
To such a man, so industrious, zealous, steadfast, wise, and 
pure, whose long life had been devoted to promoting the 
noblest of sciences and most beneficent of arts, and cleansing 
them from the blight of ignorance and the stain of falsehood, 
its decline is the peaceful coming of the night’s repose, its natu- 
ral and necessary ending, as free from terror as from regret; 
and we cannot doubt that, apart from the sadness of quitting 
those who had been the joy and consolation of his home, he 
clung most fondly at the last to that work which he had 
reared as the fittest monument to perpetuate his memory.