24 MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON. CHAP. II. 



and the exceedingly beautiful forehead towering over a 

 Grecian nose and well-formed features. I learned he was 

 a German, a valet de place, who had been travelling from 

 Aberdeen to Edinburgh, but in getting off the coach had 

 had the misfortune to twist his leg at the hip. The pain 

 and inconvenience was slight at first, so as not to prevent 

 him travelling on ; but on reaching Edinburgh he began to 

 suffer more and more, and at last the pain and inability to 

 move the limb which he experienced increased so as to 

 prevent walking, and he came into the Hospital. For some 

 days the injury appeared a trivial one ; he was cheerful, in 



good health generally speaking " 



At the death of this man, no friends were found to claim 

 his body ; and the thought that his " beautiful forehead " 

 should be touched by the dissecting-knife, George felt to be 

 unbearable. He could not, however, undertake to be re- 

 sponsible for the necessary expenses, so many demands 

 did the patients make on his slender stock of pocket-money. 

 The result of anxious pondering how his object might be 

 accomplished was, that he searched out some Germans, 

 waiters in one of the clubs in town, and telling them of 

 their countryman's death, he assured them that, if they 

 claimed the body, his stock of clothes would amply refund 

 all outlay. Their acquiescence was readily gained to this 

 plan, and he and they were the mourners at the funeral. 



This unprofessional cheating of the dissecting-room of 

 lawful subjects was not a solitary case. Where his love or 

 interest was excited in patients, their bodies had a sacred- 

 ness in his eyes, and at almost any sacrifice he would save 

 them from what he deemed desecration. It may be sup- 

 posed how much more strongly such feelings influenced 

 him in reference to relations and friends, for whom his 

 affection was so strong, and almost passionate in degree, 



