208 Biograijhical Sketch of Br Prichard. 



upon ethnology. It has already been stated that Dr Prichard 

 did not embrace the profession of medicine from any strong 

 and early predilection. But what is of far greater import- 

 ance to the study of the wide range of subjects which the 

 science of medicine embraces, he brought to it that accurate 

 observation which is the result of habitual exercise ; and that 

 aptitude for continued and varied study, which spx'ings from 

 the union of talent with early education, and is the surest pre- 

 paration for sound professional knowledge, and safe and suc- 

 cessful practice. And I may here be allowed to remark that 

 nothing is more absurd than the vulgar error, that there may 

 be an intuitive knowledge and natural gift which of them- 

 selves confer on their possessors a mai'vellous skill in the 

 healing art. Dr Prichard applied himself with as much zeal 

 to the practice as he had done to the study of his profession. 

 He established a dispensary. He became physician to some 

 of the principal Medical Institutions of Bristol. He had not 

 only a large practice in his own neighbourhood, but was often 

 called to distant consultations. Notwithstanding the en- 

 grossing nature of these occupations, he found time to pre- 

 pare and deliver lectures on Physiology and Medicine, and 

 wrote an essay on Fever and one on Epilepsy, and subse- 

 quently a larger work on Nervous Diseases. 



Amongst the patients who came under the Doctor's care in 

 public practice were the inmates of a lunatic asylum ; and 

 combining the results of his own observation and experience 

 with that laborious research which he was accustomed to em- 

 ploy on all the subjects to which he directed his attention, 

 he was enabled to produce an excellent treatise on Insanity, 

 which was first published as one of the articles which he con- 

 tributed to the " Encyclopfedia of Practical Medicine." 



Notwithstanding his numerous avocations, Dr Prichard 

 continued his literary and scientific studies ; yet many of these 

 had more or less a bearing upon his favourite subject — the 

 History of Man. He acquired the German language, in which 

 so many profound works on philology and history are com- 

 posed ; and as an excercise, he prepared and published, in con- 

 junction with his friend W. Tothill, a translation of Miiller's 

 General History. He wrote an article on the Mithridates of 



