has now reached a fourth edition. My Lectures illustrative of Local Nervous Diseases were published in 1837. They formed a thin volume, but I believe that I am not wrong in stating that none of my publications have been really more useful to the world than this, preventing a multitude of mistakes which surgeons were apt to make in confounding mere neuralgic affections with more serious maladies. These lectures have now been for several years out of print, it being my intention, if I live long enough, to republish them, with some others, at some future period. Though not belonging to this period of my life, I may here mention that in the year 1847 I published another volume of miscellaneous 'Lectures illustrative of various Subjects in Pathology and Surgery.' Besides these, I communicated various papers on Injuries of the Brain, Injuries of the Spinal Cord, and other subjects, to the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society, which have appeared at various times in the Medico-Chirurgical Transactions.

I have formerly referred to my having the ap

pointment of Serjeant-Surgeon conferred on me by his late Majesty. This was on the death of Sir Everard Home, in the year 1832.

Sir Everard had for a long series of years occupied a very prominent place in his profession. No account of him has ever been given to the world, and a brief record of what I know respecting him may not be unacceptable to those who may think it worth while to peruse what I am now writing.

He was one of an old Scotch family, and was rather proud of a genealogy, the details of which, if I ever knew them, have passed out of my recollection. He had two brothers, one of whom I have seen, a colonel in the service of the East India Company, and the other a painter, who practised his profession (chiefly in painting portraits) with great success in Calcutta. One of his sisters was married to John Hunter, another to Mylne, an architect and engineer of great distinction, one of whose works was the bridge over the Thames at Blackfriars. Home was educated at Westminster School, and had been elected from the college there to an exhibition

at Cambridge. At this time John Hunter had proposed to his young brother-in-law to have him educated to his own profession, and by the advice of the head master of the school he gave

up his exhibition at the University in order that he might at once avail himself of John Hunter's offer. He studied anatomy at first under William Hunter, and if I am not mistaken, resided for some time in his house, and assisted him by teaching the students in the dissecting-room. Before his education was well-nigh completed, there was some kind of disagreement between him and John Hunter, which led to his entering the army as an assistant-surgeon. In this capacity he was sent to the West Indies. After some time he became reconciled to his brother-in-law, the process of reconciliation having been promoted by his sending him some specimens of natural history, which were not then so easily obtained as they are at present. On his return to England he resided for some years in John Hunter's house, where he assisted him in his scientific researches, and at the same time taught anatomy to a limited number of pupils in a pri

vate dissecting-room. One of these pupils was afterwards John Thomson, who when the Whigs came into office with the Grenville party in 1806 was made by them professor of military surgery in Edinburgh. Some time before John Hunter's death, Home was elected assistant-surgeon to St. George's Hospital; and when that event occurred in 1793, he succeeded Hunter as surgeon to that institution.

On the resignation of Mr. Charles Hawkins, he became serjeant-surgeon to the King (George III.), with whom, however, he never had any personal communication. In the year 1812 he was created a baronet. The title is now extinct, his elder son, a captain in the navy, having died in Australia unmarried, and his other son having died two or three years before.

He retained the office of surgeon to St. George's Hospital until the year 1827. On the death of Mr. Keate in 1821, he was appointed surgeon to Chelsea Hospital, where he had an official residence, in which he passed the last few years of his life.

Sir Everard Home had some very considerable

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qualities. He had great perseverance, never wasted his time, and whatever special matter he had in hand, would return to his occupation in every interval of leisure from his ordinary pursuits. He had great sagacity, and was never deterred from any undertaking which he had once begun by the difficulties which he met with. What I said of him in my Hunterian Oration in the year 1837, I believe to present a just view of his professional character: 'He was a great practical surgeon. His mind went directly to the leading points of the case before him, disregarding all those minor points by which minds of smaller capacity are perplexed and misled. Hence his views of disease were clear, and such as were easily communicated to his pupils; and his practice was simple and decided. He never shrank from difficulties, but, on the contrary, seemed to have pleasure in meeting them and overcoming them; and I am satisfied that to this one of his qualities many of his patients were indebted for their lives. Much valuable information may be found in his surgical works, and his observations on Ulcers