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strange contrast to the quiet of my father's house. In the spring of 1802 I returned to Winterslow. I had never been absent before for more than a fortnight at a time, and once only even for so long a period as this. I began at last to suffer from a kind of nostalgia, and I shall never forget the delight which I felt when, seated in the little Salisbury coach, which performed its journey of eighty-two miles in about thirteen hours, I once more breathed the country air, and looked out on green fields and trees, or recognised the scenes of my boyhood gradually disclose themselves as I walked from the Winterslow Hut (two miles off) to my father's house. During the following summer (1802) I passed my time much as I had done formerly. I thought, however, that I ought to do something towards advancing my professional knowledge, and, accordingly, I borrowed Benjamin Bell's 'System of Surgery' from Mr. Wyche, one of the surgeons to the Salisbury Infirmary. found it, however, a most unreadable production; indeed, I doubt whether it was ever read by any one. Yet, somehow, it had a sort of

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reputation in its day, which, I imagine, is to be attributed to its being the work of a leading surgeon in Edinburgh, and to its consisting of some half-dozen thick octavo volumes.

In the autumn I returned to London, and to our former residence near the Inns of Court. My elder brother, who had been staying in London during the summer, was a favourite pupil of Mr. Charles Butler, the eminent conveyancer, and the author of several literary works. Mr. Butler's family were at this time on the Continent (during a part of the short peace), and my brother having been ill, Mr. Butler very good-naturedly insisted on his staying with him at his house in Great Ormond Street. This introduced me to his acquaintance. He took, somehow, a liking to me, and from that time to the day of his death treated me with the greatest kindness. During the following winter I attended Mr. Wilson's lectures in Great Windmill Street, and worked hard in his dissecting-room. For learning anatomy, Mr. Wilson's school afforded much better opportunities than that of my former teacher. He had a

most profound knowledge of his subject, and his demonstrations were very far superior to those of any other anatomist of that day; and I may, I believe, add, to those of any one since. He kept up the attention of the diligent students, who were really anxious to learn, not by the aid of happy illustrations and appropriate anecdotes, but by the quantity of instruction which he conveyed. For those of an inferior class, his lectures were almost too good. With them, a neighbouring teacher, who was more of a private tutor than an anatomist (nomine Carpue), was more popular.

During this my second, as well as my first, winter in London, my professional studies were wholly limited to anatomy, except that in the early part of it, and afterwards, when I had no subject for dissection, by Dr. Baillie's advice, I attended in a chemist's shop, in order that I might gain some knowledge of the Materia Medica, and the making up of prescriptions. The shop was at the corner of Little Newport Street, and the proprietor of it was Mr. Clifton, who also practised as an apothecary, exercising his

art among the tradesmen of the neighbourhood. He was an apothecary of the old school, having no science in the ordinary sense of the word; yet, I have no doubt, a useful and successful practitioner. I come to this conclusion because, although there was nothing prepossessing in either his manner or appearance, his practice gradually increased, until at last he was able to give up his shop and live in a large house near Leicester Square, where he dispensed medicines only to his own patients. It is usual in these days to regard this class of practitioners with little respect; but the fact is, that they were very useful persons, and, having no very ambitious aspirations, they were within the reach of the poorer orders of society, which is not much the case with the better educated surgeon-apothecaries, or, as they are called, general practitioners, of the present day, who have expended a considerable sum of money in order to obtain a license to practise. Mr. Clifton's treatment of disease seemed to be very simple. He had in his shop five large bottles, which were labelled Mistura Salina, Mistura Cathartica,

Mistura Astringens, Mistura Cinchone, and another, of which I forget the name, but it was some kind of white emulsion for coughs; and it seemed to me that out of these five bottles he prescribed for two-thirds of his patients. I do not, however, set this down to his discredit; for I have observed that, while young members of the medical profession generally deal in a great variety of remedies, they generally discard the greater number of them as they grow older, until at last their treatment of diseases becomes almost as simple as that of the Esculapius of Little Newport Street. There are some, indeed, who form an exception to this general rule, who, even to the last, seem to think that they have, or ought to have, a specific for everything, and are always making experiments with new remedies. The consequence is that they do not cure the patients, which the patients at last find out, and then they have no patients left.

During my attendance at the Windmill Street school I worked hard in the dissecting-room, and learned a good deal of anatomy. If I did so, however, it must be owned that it was rather

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