1840-41. SEVERE ILLNESS. 115 



your kind, candid letter of this morning, for I am still an 

 invalid. I have been confined to bed all day for the last 

 week, and have to look forward to an imprisonment to the 

 house, at least for the next fortnight. Leeching and 

 poulticing were of no avail, and the end was an abscess, 

 which was opened two days ago, leaving a gash more than 

 an inch long to heal up before I am sound on my pins 

 again. If I could have looked to the thing in the country, 

 I might have prevented all this, but that was impossible ; 

 and my hurried departure, the very day the Association was 

 over, I feared might be thought a sign of extravagant 

 anxiety to be home again. . . . And now I must finish this 

 scrawl, and get back to bed, and try to get better in time 

 for your coming." 



It was while laid aside by this illness that his first course 

 of lectures was arranged, under many disadvantages. He 

 had received licence as a lecturer on chemistry from the 

 Royal College of Surgeons, a privilege at first confined 

 to the Fellows^ of the Royal Colleges of Surgeons and 

 Physicians, but afterwards granted by them to others quali- 

 fied to teach natural philosophy and chemistry. George 

 Wilson was their first lecturer on chemistry, and his tickets 

 qualified for their diplomas, though not for that of the 

 University. For the field of teaching thus opened to him 

 he was ever deeply grateful, as, nameless and with little 

 influence, no other opening could have offered similar 

 advantages. The title given to the teachers of medicine not 

 professors is, " Extra Academical Medical School," and of 

 this body he now formed one. After a time, the students 

 of those extra-mural classes were permitted to share the 

 rights of the University students in competing for de- 

 grees. The several schools had united under the name of 

 " Queen's College," and with that in Brown Square he became 



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