12 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. [ch. ii. 



and these were intolerably dull, with the exception of those 

 on chemistry by Hope ; but to my mind there are no advan- 

 tages and many disadvantages in lectures compared with read- 

 ing. Dr. Duncan's lectures on Materia Medica at 8 o'clock 

 on a winter's morning are something fearful to remember. 

 Dr. Munro made his lectures on human anatomy as dull as he 

 was himself, and the subject disgusted me. It has proved 

 one of the greatest evils in my life that I was not urged to 

 practise dissection, for I should soon have got over my dis- 

 gust, and the practice would have been invaluable for ail 

 my future work. This has been an irremediable evil, as 

 well as my incapacity to draw. I also attended regularly 

 the clinical wards in the hospital. Some of the cases dis- 

 tressed me a good deal, and I still have vivid pictures before 

 me of some of them ; but I was not so foolish as to allow 

 this to lessen my attendance. I cannot understand why this 

 part of my medical course did not interest me in a greater 

 degree ; for during the summer before coming to Edin- 

 burgh, I began attending some of the poor people, chiefly 

 children and women in Shrewsbury : I wrote down as full 

 an account as I could of the case with all the symptoms, 

 and read them aloud to my father, who suggested further 

 inquiries and advised me what medicines to give, which I 

 made up myself. At one time I had at least a dozen pa- 

 tients, and I felt a keen interest in the work.* My father, 

 who was by far the best judge of character whom I ever 

 knew, declared that I should make a successful physician, 

 meaning by this, one who would get many patients. He 

 maintained that the chief element of success was exciting 

 confidence ; but what he saw in me which convinced him 

 that I should create confidence I know not. I also attended 

 on two occasions the operating theatre in the hospital at 

 Edinburgh, and saw two very bad operations, one on a child, 

 but I rushed away before they were completed. Nor did I 

 ever attend again, for hardly any inducement would have 

 been strong enough to make me do so ; this being long be- 

 fore the blessed days of chloroform. The two cases fairly 

 haunted me for many a long year. 



My brother stayed only one year at the University, so 

 that during the second year I was left to my own resources ; 

 and thi3 was an advantage, for I became well acquainted 



* I have heard him call to mind the pride he felt at the results of the suc- 

 cessful treatment of a whole family with tartar emetic F. D. 



