was necessary. "That he decided in favor of operating when some of his associates hesitated, was due rather to his large experience than to an overweening fondness for the use of the knife." In his operations he was firm and decided. Gifted with an unusual steadiness of nerve and strength of muscle, he never allowed his sympathy for the patient to cause him to hesitate or inflict one pang less than the case required. He was prompt and ready in the event of unforeseen complications, and never permitted any thing to take him by surprise. His manner toward his patients was tender and sympathizing to a remarkable degree, and his brother surgeons used to say of him, that he seemed to have the power of cutting with less pain to the patient than was possessed by most operators. During forty years of his practice anæsthetics were unknown, and he had to operate with the full consciousness that his patient was suffering the keenest agony. Besides attaining such an exalted position as a surgeon, Dr. Mott won an enviable reputation as a physician. His practice was confined almost entirely to the best class of the people of New York, and he was for many years the favorite accoucheur in a large circle of families in that city.
He was an eminently progressive man. He fully recognized the advance of science with the growth of the world, and was always prompt to welcome any valuable discovery in medicine or surgery. He was among the first to adopt and advocate the use of anæsthetics, for no man had had more cause to understand the necessity of such assistants. He was himself the inventor of many valuable surgical instruments, but he gladly welcomed the introduction of others, even though they superseded his own in use. To the close of his life he was a diligent student, and watched the progress of his science with a keen and intelligent eye. He was the author of several works of merit, including a volume of travels, and the translator of "Velpau's Operative Surgery," to which he made extensive and valuable additions and annotations. He received numerous literary and scientific honors from colleges, universities, and learned bodies in the United States and Europe.