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perintendence of the dissecting-room, I assisted Mr. Home in his operations in private practice, visited some of his patients when unforeseen circumstances occurred, and he was out of the way, and made some dissections with him and Mr. Clift in comparative anatomy. Thus, although I had nothing that deserved the name of private practice, my life was one of great occupation. I had, however, although not of a robust constitution, considerable powers of enduring fatigue. My health was sufficiently good, and my prospects of advancement in my profession were as good as possible; and I have no doubt that the cheerful spirits which these gave me enabled me to accomplish easily what it would have been difficult for me to accomplish otherwise.

It was somewhere about this time that Dr. Bateman proposed to me to join Dr. Henderson and himself in the publication of a periodical medical work, under the title of the 'Medical Annual Register,' which was to consist partly of reviews of medical books, partly of miscellaneous intelligence connected with the medical

sciences. I declined taking any active part in the management of it, but promised to contribute some articles, at the same time suggesting that they should apply to Lawrence for his assistance also. The work was not very popular, and, after the appearance of a second volume, died a natural death. My own contributions were only to the first volume, and if my recollection be accurate, were only three in number; namely, a review of Dr. Hooper's 'Anatomist's Vade Mecum,' of Cooper's 'Surgical Dictionary,' and another of A Treatise on Lithotomy,' by an Edinburgh surgeon of the name of Allan. The truth is that, with the exception of Dr. Bateman, who was older and more experienced than the rest of us, there was no one among us who had sufficient practical knowledge to be qualified to do justice to such an undertaking, and I have looked back at it ever since as a very foolish concern, in which it would have been much wiser for me never to have interfered. I need scarcely add that I have never repeated the mistake, or written another medical review, unless an article on homoeopathy and other

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quackeries, published in the Quarterly Review' for December 1842, deserves that appellation.

Hitherto I had lived in lodgings at No. 24, in Sackville Street, with very indifferent accommodation, for which, however, I paid 1007. per annum; but in the autumn of 1809 I took a house at 22 in the same street, my mother having advanced me the money required for the purchase of the lease, and furnishing it. Now, for the first time, I placed my name on the door, and began to think seriously of private practice. I was able to accommodate three private pupils in my new residence, and this made an addition to my income sufficient to make up the difference between my expenses as a lodger and as a housekeeper. In the following year, in addition to a somewhat increasing income from my surgical lectures, I obtained between 2001. and 3007. from my private practice. Thus, in one way or another, I became much at ease as to my pecuniary circumstances, without having occasion to make any further demands on my mother. I was never once in debt, had always some money in hand, and being thus

free from any great anxiety, I was able, in the spring of 1810, to engage with some considerable interest in some physiological enquiries on my own account, having been led to do so chiefly by the perusal of those very remarkable books, for which we are indebted to the genius of Bichat. I had previously communicated a paper to the Royal Society, which I now hold to be of little, or rather of no value. The council, however, thought it worthy of being printed in the 'Philosophical Transactions.' On the strength of it, Sir Joseph Banks agreed that I should be proposed a Fellow of the Royal Society, and my election took place without opposition. During the winter of 1810 and 1811 I communicated to the Society two physiological papers; one, 'On the Influence of the Brain on the Action of the Heart, and the Generation of Animal Heat,' and the other, 'On the Effects produced by certain Vegetable Poisons.' The former of these was given as the Croonian Lecture in November, 1810. They made a favourable impression at the time, so much so, that the Council awarded me the Copley medal in

the autumn of 1811. At this time I was only twenty-eight years of age. I was told that when the question as to my having the medal was discussed in the Council, the only objection made to it was by one of the Councillors, who observed that it had never before been given to so young a man; on which Dr. Wollaston observed, that he thought if I deserved the medal, that was only an additional reason for my having it. Few events that have occurred to me have gratified me so much as this. This was, on the whole, a very happy period of my life. The most distinguished Fellows of the Royal Society whom I was accustomed frequently to meet at Sir Joseph Banks's and elsewhere, treated me with much consideration and kindness, and I obtained a place in my profession which I could not have obtained otherwise. Of course, I was not exempt from those anxieties to which all who depend on their own character and exertions for their support and station in society are liable in the early part of their career. Every case that I was called on to attend was magnified in my estimation as if my future.

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