SKETCH OF DR. CARPENTER. 747 



critique on that portion of Whewcll's " History of the Inductive Sci- 

 ences " which relates to physiology ; and by an article on his favorite 

 m subject, " The Physiology of the Spinal Marrow," where the writer 

 discusses the doctrine of reflex action which Dr. Marshall Hall had re- 

 cently propounded as new. These are tolei'ably good beginnings for 

 a young man of twenty-four years. 



An impulse and direction were given to Mr. Carpenter's studies 

 about this time, by his becoming possessed of a microscope, which a 

 prize of thirty pounds, gained at Edinburgh University in l&Z 1 !, for 

 the best essay of that year, enabled him to purchase. He had already 

 formed, and begun to execute, his design to write the now famous 

 treatise entitled " General and Comparative Physiology," the first edi- 

 tion of which appeared in 1838. The scientific reader will not need to 

 be told the general character of this work ; and any account of it, to 

 be of use to the non-scientific reader, would transgress the limits of 

 this biographical sketch. Dr. Carpenter confesses that the course of 

 study he had to go through in bringing out the work was of immense 

 service to him, though it was rather detrimental than otherwise to suc- 

 cess in the practice of his profession. 



Up to this time the subject of this memoir had not received the 

 degree of M. D. According to one of the regulations of the Univer- 

 sity of Edinburgh, a three-years' attendance was requisite for gradua- 

 tion ; and when Mr. Carpenter accepted the post of lecturer at the 

 Bristol Medical School he had only completed his second year. Now, 

 however, a change in the rules enabled him to graduate in 1839 by an 

 additional residence of three months. His thesis on the occasion of 

 taking his degree " On the Physiological Inferences to be deduced 

 from the Structure of the Nervous System of Invertebrated Ani- 

 mals " gained for its author one of the gold medals annually dis- 

 tributed. The views advanced by the essayist, though meeting with 

 some opposition for a time, were at once adopted by Prof. Owen and 

 others, and have since passed into general acceptance among scientific 

 men. 



The scientific aspects of medicine having from the beginning pos- 

 sessed attractions superior to the strictly practical, Dr. Carpenter re- 

 solved to devote himself wholly to the study of physiology, the deliv 

 ering of lectures, private tuition, and writing. On being appointed 

 Fullerian Professor of Physiology in the Royal Institution, he resigned 

 his post in the Bristol Medical School, and came, in 1844, to London, 

 where he has resided ever since. Hitherto he had been engaged chiefly 

 in reducing to system the results of the investigations of others ; as in 

 his " Comparative Physiology," and " Human Physiology," the latter 

 of which first appeared during this year. But about this time he began 

 to be known as an original investigator, in connection with his re- 

 searches into the microscopic structure of the shells of Echinodermata, 

 Mollusca, Crustacea, etc. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal So- 



