LIFE of Dr HUTTON. 41 



with chemical experiments, when he fhould have been copying 

 papers, or ftudying the forms of legal proceedings ; fo that Mr 

 Chalmers foon perceived that the bufinefs of a writer was not 

 that in which he was deftined to fucceed. With much good 

 fcnfe and kindnefs, therefore, he advifed him to think of fome 

 employment better fuited to his turn of mind, and releafed 

 him from the obligations which he had come under as his ap- 

 prentice. In this he did an eflential fervice to fcience, and to 

 the young man himfelf. A man of talents may follow any pro- 

 feflion with advantage ; a man of genius will hardly fucceed but 

 in that which nature has pointed out. 



The ftudy of medicine, as being the moft nearly allied to 

 chemiftry, was that to which young Hutton now refolved to 

 dedicate his time. He began that ftudy under Dr George 

 Young, the father of the late Dr Thomas Young, and at the 

 fame time attended the ledlures in the Univerfity. This courfe 

 of medical inftrudlion he followed from 1 744 to 1 747. 



Though a regular fchool of medicine had now been eftablifh- 

 ed in the Univerfity of Edinburgh for feveral years, the fyftem 

 of medical education was neither in reality, nor in the opinion 

 of the world, fo complete as it has fince become. Some part of 

 a.phyfician's ftudies was ftill to be profecuted on the Continent; 

 and accordingly, in the end of 1747, Mr Hutton repaired to 

 Paris, where he purfued with great ardour the ftudies of che- 

 miftry and anatomy. After remaining in that metropolis near- 

 ly two years, he returned by the way of the Low Countries, and 

 took the degree of Dodlor of Medicine at Leyden in September 

 1749. His thefis is entitled, Z)f Sanguine et Circulatione in Mi- 

 crocofmo. 



On his return to London about the end of that year, he be- 

 gan to think ferioufly of fettling in the world. His native city, 

 to which his views of courfe were firft turned, afforded no very 

 flattering profped for his eftabliftiment as a phyfician. The 



F 2 bufinefs 



