After about ten years of service at the Spanish military hospital, Auenbrugger resigned his position there and took up private practice. In this he was eminently successful, being, as might be expected, especially in demand for cases involving affections of the thorax. His practice appears to have been to a great extent among the better class of people, but he seems never to have neglected the poorer patients whom he had come to know during his hospital experience. There are traditions in Vienna of his unfailing willingness to assist the poor and even to put himself to considerable inconvenience in order to be of service to them. Tradition tells that he was very conscientious in the pursuit of his vocation as a physician, and among the family relics there is preserved a small lantern which he kept always by his bedside, to light him on his visits to the sick when called out at night. It must not be forgotten that city streets {78} were not regularly lighted at the end of the eighteenth century, and night calls even in city work must have been a source of great annoyance and discomfort. There is a family tradition, too, that the night bell at his house was connected directly with Auenbrugger's room, so that the others of the household might not be disturbed when night callers came for him. Every tradition points to him as a man among men in his unselfish readiness to save others trouble, and do all the good in his power. Auenbrugger was, according to well-grounded traditions, especially admirable in his relations toward other members of the medical profession. This may not seem a very significant sign of amiability to those outside the profession, but it is well recognized that even great physicians have not always been known to get on well with brother practitioners. Auenbrugger has, besides, the pleasant reputation of having been of great material assistance to a number of needy medical students during the time of their university careers, and to have frequently lent a helping hand to young practitioners in the city, who probably found it quite as discouraging, beginning practice in those days, as any of their young confreres of this generation find it at the present time. To physicians and medical students when ill, Auenbrugger was almost unceasing in attention. Two or three physicians of the generation immediately after his attributed to his unselfish care and devotion to them their recovery from what would otherwise have been mortal illnesses. In this way Auenbrugger seems to have been a man whom everyone who came to know him, even slightly, learned to love and respect. His relations to his family and relatives were always of the most happy, kind character, and family traditions show that his fatherly care was befittingly returned to him in his old age. The number of his friends was very great, {79} and he counted among them some of the most distinguished inhabitants of the Austrian capital.