Page "George Engelmann" Paragraph 13

The confidence which he inspired in his medical clientage was such that as he grew older he could take long vacations and resume his practice almost at will.

After 1869, he no longer kept a medical office and attended the few patients he saw in his study.

Still, it was always difficult for him to refuse medical aid to those who sought it, and even up to the last year of his life there were old friends to whose families he was the only acceptable medical adviser and whose appeal for aid he could not refuse.

Illustrating this fact, as well as Engelmann's energetic manner, his son relates the following incident: “ It was a bitter, sleety winter night, when the ringing of the doorbell awoke me, and I heard an urgent call for father from the messenger of a patient.

I would not arouse him, and proposed to go myself ; but he had heard all, and, hurrying into his clothes, was ready to go in spite of my remonstrance ' What of the night?

' he said, vexed at my interference, ' Am I already useless, to be cast aside?

I would rather die in harness than rust out.

' So I helped him down the icy steps, through the blinding sleet, into his carriage, and off on his mission of mercy .”