Page:Lives of British Physicians.djvu/267

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BAILLIE. 247 College over which he presides, on the character of his departed friend. " The same principles which guided Dr. BaiUie in his private and domestic life governed his pubhc and professional behaviour. He was kind, generous, and sincere. His purse and his per- sonal services were always at the command of those who could prefer a proper claim to them ; and every branch of the profession met with equal attention. Nay, such was his condescension, that he often incurred great inconvenience to himself by his punctual observance of appointments with the humblest practitioners. " In consultation he was candid and liberal in the highest degree ; and so industriously gave credit to the previous treatment of the patient, (if he could approve of it,) that the physician who called him in never failed to find himself in the same possession of the good opinion of the family as he was before the circumstances of the case had made a consultation necessary. " His manner of explaining the disease, and the remedies recommended, was pecuhar to him- self, and singularly happy. Tt was a short com- pressed lecture, in which the objects in view, and the means by which they were to be obtained, were developed with great clearness of conception, and in such simple unadorned language as was intelhgible to his patient, and satisfactory to his colleague. " Before his time, it was not usual for a physi- cian to do much more than prescribe remedies for the malady, and to encourage the patient by such arguments of consolation as might present them- selves to humane and cultivated minds. But, as