52 MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON. CHAP. III. 



seeing I shall have abundance then to do in preparing for 

 my second examination, with all its delights of midwifery, 

 surgery, practice of physic, pathology, &c. &c., so that I 

 fear, even could I otherwise reach London, I should com- 

 mit an error in going, which you would be the first to 

 mourn. I shall likely go out to Haddington as soon as 

 I pass, but that will be a thoroughly practical journey, to 

 have the benefit of Sam Brown's laboratory and assistance 

 in carrying on my series of experiments in bromine, on 

 which, if my researches are successful, I shall early publish 

 a paper ; and I shall have a very extended series of experi- 

 ments to perform there, at home, and at Dr. Christison's on 

 the subject of my Thesis ; for my only hope, and it is a 

 feeble one, of getting on as a chemist is to succeed in 

 some projects which shall convince unwilling friends that 

 I have some chance of success in such a profession, 

 and this I must do before I pass as physician, for that 

 consummated, I must at once begin for myself in some 

 capacity. 



" I shall betake myself to the study of practice of physic 

 this summer and next winter, and fit myself for practice 

 when I am set afloat on the world, should such an alter- 

 native be my only resort ; but what I have ever felt is, that 

 even although I had no liking for chemistry, I should be 

 most miserable as a practitioner, for I am neither intellectu- 

 ally fitted for discerning the nice shades of disease, in 

 observing and detecting which a physician's sagacity is 

 shown, nor am I morally farmed to grapple with the tre- 

 mendous moral responsibility that in my eyes hangs over 

 my profession, and I am physically unequal and averse to 

 the eternal trot of going rounds ; and thus I feel, that if I 

 should practise, all labour at other things is hopeless. But 

 of course none of these are reasons for my staying to 



