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actly on the same grounds, have arrived at the same conclusions; and the anatomical discovery that the grey matter of the nervous system, in which it is supposed that the nervous influence is generated, exists in combination with the cardiac nerves, sufficiently explains some of the phenomena of which I was unable to give a satisfactory explanation formerly.*

During the session of 1808-9, and the three following winters, I had continued to deliver a considerable part of the anatomical lectures in conjunction with Mr. Wilson. In the spring of 1812, however, Mr. Wilson informed me that his increasing practice as a surgeon made it convenient for him to give up his occupation as a teacher of anatomy; and he proposed to me that I should take the anatomical school altogether off his hands, giving him 7,000l. for his anatomical museum and buildings in Great Windmill Street, including the house attached to them, in which he resided, and which had

* The Council of the Royal Society have allowed Mr. C. Hawkins to copy this paper, and it will be published in the complete edition of the Author's Works.

formerly been the residence of William Hunter, and then of his nephew Dr. Baillie. But I had no money of my own at my disposal, and even if my friends could and would have assisted me, I had little disposition to lay myself under such an obligation. I had at that time a very intimate friend, Dr. Harrison, who, like many others of my early friends, has long since been no more (a very zealous person in the pursuit of his profession and the sciences connected with it), and he suggested that we might establish ourselves conjointly as lecturers in anatomy elsewhere. This we might very easily have done and there is little doubt that we should have succeeded in the speculation; for Harrison was very energetic in whatever he undertook, and I had myself become very popular with the students. In saying this I do not at all mean to compare myself as a teacher of anatomy with Mr. Wilson, who, in that capacity, was really pre-eminent; but I had made my anatomical instructions useful by applying them to the explanation of surgical practice, and I had paid more attention than Mr. Wilson had done to

physiology, having on this subject a good deal of original matter to communicate, founded on my own observations. I had, however, good reasons for not acceding to this proposal. It would have been very ungracious towards Mr. Wilson, who had always treated me with much kindness, and such a step on my part would have made it difficult for him to dispose of his interest in the Windmill Street School to any one else; and I had myself abundant occupation besides afforded me in the performance of my duties at the hospital and as a lecturer on surgery. Having consulted Dr. Baillie and Sir Everard Home on the subject, I found that their advice corresponded with my own inclinations; and I therefore communicated to Mr. Wilson, first, that I must decline the offer which he had made me, and secondly, that I would not stand in the way of his making the arrangement which he wished to make with some other person, and that I would willingly retire whenever he had done so. The result was that Sir Charles Bell purchased Mr. Wilson's museum, and took my place as a lecturer on anatomy.

I had been engaged as a teacher of anatomy for seven years, passing always a part of each day in the dissecting-room. Thus I had become very familiar with the subject, so that the impressions made on my mind, and repeated over and over again at a period of life when the memory is in its greatest vigour, have never since become erased. Even at the present day, after the lapse of forty years, I retain all the anatomical knowledge which is required for the purposes of professional practice; and I have little doubt that if I were to return for a short time to the labours of the dissecting-room, I should have no difficulty in resuming my early duties as a demonstrator of anatomy. I have, therefore, nothing to regret in having ceased to be an anatomical teacher; while I am at the same time aware that if I had done otherwise I should not have been able to obtain so extensive a knowledge of diseases and of surgical treatment as I now possess.

During the two or three following years my recollection furnishes me with very little which is worthy of being recorded even in this egotis

tical memoir. My mode of life was uniform enough. I was constant in my attendance at the hospital, not only doing what was required for the patients, but taking notes of and studying their cases, attending to what little private practice I had obtained, seeing from time to time some of Sir Everard Home's patients when he required assistance or was out of the way, assisting him in dissections in comparative anatomy, and reading some professional books, not in any very systematic way, but for the most part using them for the purpose of reference, as the occasion required. At the same time, though there was little variety in my pursuits, my life was by no means monotonous. I had the advantage of a good deal of agreeable society, and in addition to those whom I have already mentioned, had acquired some valuable friends. Among these I may especially mention Sir Thomas Plumer, who, when I first knew him, held the office of Attorney-General, and afterwards that of Vice-Chancellor and Master of the Rolls. There was as much friendship between us as there could be between a very young man

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