"The call for a sketch of Dr. Peaslee's professional life and work will be abundantly satisfied by the recorded tributes of his more immediate colleagues and associates, Drs. Barker, Thomas, Emmet, Flint, and others. These are but a part of the testimony which after his death came from far and near. Wherever men were gathered for the study and discussion of medical subjects it was felt that a fountain of knowledge was closed, a leader of opinion was gone, and they made haste to acknowledge their obligations and their loss. He was a member of many such organizations, and almost uniformly advanced to the front rank in position.
"President of the New Hampshire Medical Society; of the New York County Medical Society; the American Gynæcological Society; the New York Academy of Medicine; the New York Pathological Society; the New York Obstetrical Society; the New York Medical Journal Association, etc., etc., he reaped all the honors. Yet no one ever thought of him as a seeker of office. The tribute was always spontaneous, necessary: 'Palmam qui meruit ferat!'
"And these honors were not awarded for any great effort or success in some partial field. He was decorated for service in each specific line, as Physician, Surgeon, Pathologist, Gynæcologist, Bibliographer. His attainments were comprehensive and symmetrical.
"He had the very great advantage of a liberal general education. This gave him his broad outlook upon all departments of science. He had by nature a mathematical and logical habit of mind. This made him the accurate and complete student that he was, both in original investigations and literary research. At the outset of his career he sought the best schools. Just then (1840) reigned a new enthusiasm in the physical and experimental study of the Medical Sciences at Paris. Laennec, Andral, Louis, Malgaigne, Velpeau, and Bernard, were the worthy models and masters of the young American.
"Thus well-endowed, well-grounded, and well-guided, he entered upon a life of professional study, which he pursued with unremitting ardor and diligence even to the end of life.
"It would seem to be a great thing to say of any man that he was never idle, and never unprofitably employed; but it might be more justly said of Dr. Peaslee than of any other person known to the writer. He wasted no work. His conclusions were not reached by intuition or guess, but slowly and surely elaborated, exactly formulated and classified, so as to be always at his command.
"More than any other member of the profession known to the writer did he illustrate each clause of Bacon's category, that 'Reading maketh the full man; writing the exact man; and conversation the ready man.'
"From the first he was an agreeable and satisfactory teacher, year by year, increasingly so; this work he did for thirty-six years; in six Medical Colleges, in five different departments of the curriculum, before nearly a hundred different classes of students. Such training, such practice, made him a teacher in every professional circle. In societies he was wont to be a silent and often apparently an abstracted listener until near the close of the debate; then he would rise and review the whole subject with a memory so comprehensive, a knowledge so complete, and an appreciation so judicial, that nothing more remained to be said. His books and monographs for the time and era of their publication were standard, and will always remain exceptionally valuable. Only the lapse of many years may antiquate but never stale his elegant work on 'Ovarian Tumors,' of which one of his most famous compeers has said that he would 'rather have written it than any other medical work of any time or in any language.'
"In his personal relations to the members of the profession, Dr. Peaslee was genial, charitable, and just. His patients looked to him in perfect confidence and respect, personally as well as professionally. He was as remarkable for the diligent care as for the thorough study of his cases; and at every visit he dispensed with gentle humor the best medicines, faith and hope.
"From youth through middle life he passed in the light of growing knowledge; in the serenity of accomplished duty; in the prestige of gathering fame and fortune; and he died before age or decay had limited his scope of life."