38 Memoirs of Erasmus Darwin, M. D. 



It is dissolved in ammonia; but by a slow evaporation it 

 is separated from it with its proper colour arid other proper- 

 ties, and particularly that of detonating by means of heat, 

 and not by simple contact. 



Finally, its property of most importance to consider is, 

 the action it has upon the animal ceconomv. M. Pajot-la- 

 For6t, who has made a great number of experiments upon 

 this subject, is convinced that very small doses are sufficient 

 to kill the strongest animals : when iried upon some cats, ;ill 

 of them expired in the most horrible convulsions. It is, in 

 short, without exception, one of the most violent poisons 

 with which the metallic combinations present us. 



VIII. Memoirs of' Erasmus Darwin, M. D. 



Oeldom do we find so great and diversified talents as were 

 united in the late Dr. Darwin. He shines forth as a meteor, 

 "even in an age conspicuous for extraordinary talents usefully 

 employed for the benefit and instruction ot ;.)ankind. We 

 shall pass over his education at Chesterfield school, where 

 the master, the Rev. Mr. Burrow, noticed strong signs, 

 even then, of a rising genius; and his being afterwards sent 

 by his father Robert Darwin, Esq. of Elslon, near Newark, 

 to King's College, Cambridge, where he distinguished him- 

 self by his attention to his studies. It is a melancholy fact, 

 that our English universities are incompetent to form the 

 physician ; but they lay the foundation of general knowledge, 

 which in the end may conduce to the formation of the per- 

 fect physician. With a stove of classical and niathematical 

 knowledge, young D.u'win went from Cambridge to Edin- 

 burgh, then in its zenith of splendour, and, at the proper 

 age to feel the force of instruction, imbibed all the know- 

 ledge that proceeded from that clear fountain of vast medical 

 erudition. Desirous of still deeper knowledge, from Edin- 

 burgh he went to London to perfect himself in anatomy 

 under the celebrated Dr. Hunter, which science, it must be 

 confessed, from the easy acquisition of subjects for dissec- 

 tion_, is even better taught in that metropolis than in the 



Scotch 



