Biographical Memoir of the late Dr Turner. 235 



St Bartholomew's, the name of chemistry was scarcely ever 

 mentioned among the students but with contempt ; and in a 

 numerous circle of friends I did not know one who had a just 

 idea of its true bearings on medicine as a profession, or who was 

 acquainted with more than the simplest elements of chemical 

 knowledge. Matters are very differently circumstanced now-a- 

 days. Edinburgh can no longer boast of the same superiority. 

 And this change, as will presently appear, was mainly owing to 

 the exertions of the subject of the present memoir. 



Departing from Gottingen, where he left many delightful re- 

 collections, and an admiring, attached, and steadfast friend in 

 his preceptor, he gathered around him the several members of 

 his family not already settled in life, and arrived in Edinburgh 

 in the autumn of 1823. The subsequent winter was spent in 

 preparing his lectures, the first course of which was delivered 

 in the summer of 1824. From this time he gave an annual 

 six-months' course four years, till he commenced his duties as 

 Professor of Chemistry in the newly instituted London Uni- 

 versity ; and at the same time he regularly received practical 

 pupils, according to a plan introduced a short time before by 

 Dr Fyfe into the system of instruction followed in this city. 



Like most beginners, Dr Turner at first met with indifferent 

 success as a teacher. The number of his pupils during the 

 first three years was small ; and even in his fourth session, 

 when he had estabhshed for himself a first-rate reputation as an 

 author, and enjoyed also the fame of his recent appointment to 

 the chemical chair in London, his numbers did not exceed 

 thirty-six. This was partly owing to the firm hold possessed 

 over the students by our distinguished Professor of Chemistry. 

 But in truth Dr Turner had also to contend with intrinsic dif- 

 ficulties. It was not till his larger audiences in London, by 

 removing the temptation to a somewhat conversational mode of 

 lecturing, had insensibly taught him a more easy and sustained 

 delivery than what he first possessed, that he presented the full 

 qualifications of a popular teacher. Eventually, as we all know, 

 he rendered himself a teacher of the first order. Nothing in the 

 shape of public instruction could be more engaging and attrac- 

 tive than his appearances here during the meetings of the Bri- 

 tish Association in 1834. He then united an easy, mild, and 



