42 MEMORIES OF MY LIFE 



in later years, Justice Sir William Grove), still retain 

 their names. Electrotyping was invented by Smee, 

 and I recall well the humorously pathetic manner in 

 which Daniell explained to his class how the neglect 

 of drawing an obvious inference had prevented him 

 from figuring as its discoverer. He had noticed the 

 marvellous fidelity with which the marks of a file had 

 appeared on a copper sheath electrically thrown down 

 upon it, as the result of some chance experiment, but 

 he had failed to infer that medals and the like might 

 be copied by the same process. 



It is needless to go into particulars of my course 

 at King's College. They had much the same result 

 on me in opening the mind that a similar experience 

 must have on every keen medical student, but I do 

 not remember any special characteristic worthy of 

 record. I did pretty well at my studies. My chief 

 competitor was George Johnson, afterwards Sir 

 George (1818- 1896), whose thoroughness of work and 

 character I admired. He beat me in physiology, in 

 which I came out second. I think the only prize I ever 

 got all to myself was in the minor subject of Forensic 

 Medicine, in which I delighted. It had a sort of 

 Sherlock Holmes fascination for me, while the 

 instances given as cautions, showing where the value 

 of too confident medical assertions had been rudely 

 upset by the shrewd cross-questioning of lawyers, con- 

 firmed what I was beginning vaguely to perceive, that 

 doctors had the fault, equally with parsons, of being 

 much too positive. 



My friend Sir G. Johnson subsequently became 

 the leader of one of the two opposed methods of 

 dealing with cholera. His was the "eliminative " 



