Biographical Memoir of the late Dr Turner, 229 



for professional knowledge and untiring application ; of his earlier 

 habits he retained only a love of country rambling ; and as an 

 angler, I can bear testimony to his having then possessed equal- 

 ly little skill and enthusiasm. 



At the age of fifteen, having made choice of medicine for his 

 profession, he was apprenticed with a country practitioner not 

 far from Bath. After remaining here for three years, at a pe- 

 riod usually the most important in the course of a young man's 

 education, he left his master's roof with a fund of general know- 

 ledge, and an amount of- acquaintance with literature and sci- 

 ence, very much the same with what he possessed on entering 

 it. I have his own authority for the fact, that, when he com- 

 menced his apprenticeship, he could scarcely solve a question in 

 the rule of three ; and he has often spoken to me of his three 

 years' servitude as a blank space of time, unmarked by the me- 

 mory of a single useful acquisition. His case in this respect is 

 far from being a singular one. Many of his contemporaries and 

 successors could tell a similar tale ; and, assuredly, of all the va- 

 rieties of a system of education, at the very best equivocal in 

 its results, a country apprenticeship between the ages of fifteen 

 and eighteen seems about the least calculated to supply either 

 the means of information or the incentives to use them. 



Quitting at length this scene of unprofitable occupation, Dr 

 Turner went to London in 1814, where he prosecuted his stu- 

 dies for two years as a house-pupil of ]\Ir Andrews, one of the 

 surgeons of the London Hospital. For the advice and instruc- 

 tions of this gentleman he often in after-life expressed his grati- 

 tude and respect ; and he used to consider his time during this 

 period as having been usefully spent. If such really was the 

 case, it illustrates well the defective state of his earlier education 

 and habits ; since even in London he was not at all distinguished 

 among his fellow-pupils, and did not betake himself with vigour 

 to the study of the medical sciences. 



In November 1816, being now in his twentieth year, Dr Tur- 

 ner repaired to the University of Edinburgh with the view of 

 graduating ; and after passing through the usual curriculum of 

 study, at that time limited to three years, he received his degree 

 in August 1819- It was about the middle of that term that 

 my acquaintance with him commenced. He was then, as ever 

 q2 



