Note 236 — Chapter XIII · ILLNESS AND DEATH—1879—ÆT. 47, 48.

Dr. J. W. Lorraine of Castle-Douglas, in a letter addressed to Dr. Paget, and dated 5th October 1879, remarks as follows concerning his patient:—“I must say he is one of the best men I have ever met, and a greater merit than his scientific attainments is his being, so far as human judgment can discern, a most perfect example of a Christian gentleman.” This remark, Dr. Paget observes, “is a very unusual one in a letter from one physician to another.” Dr. Paget also says in writing to Mr. Garnett: “There is a deep interest in the fact of how such a man as Maxwell met the trials of sickness, and the approach of death. They are severe tests of amiability and unselfishness, and of the genuineness of religious convictions. It is something to say of a man that his unselfishness and composure remained undisturbed, and it is interesting physiologically and psychologically, that in the very extremity of bodily weakness, when the nourishment of the brain must have become so reduced, the mind remained perfectly clear” Dr. Lorraine’s remark on Maxwell’s personal character expresses the feelings of all, nurses included, that were about Maxwell in his last illness.