xlvii 



comparison of organ and function throughout the animal series. 

 Here he received much help from Mr. Clift, the faithful and excellent 

 Conservator of Hunter's preparations. 



It was about 1806 that his connexion with the Fellows of the 

 Royal Society may be said to have begun. Through Home he made 

 the acquaintance of Sir Joseph Banks, and (as the few who remember 

 the liberality and kindness of that illustrious and useful man will well 

 understand) met in his society the galaxy of scientific persons who 

 early in this century flocked daily to his residence in Soho Square. 

 In after days he used to refer to the advantage he had derived from 

 his early acquaintance with Davy, Hatchett, Wollaston, Brown (the 

 botanist), Dryander, Dr. Young, and others. He had been always 

 shy, and was still nervous ; modest, yet not without ambition : as he 

 listened to the discourse of these men, and admired the consummate 

 fitness of Sir Joseph Banks for his high station, he probably little 

 thought that he would himself be called upon at a future day to occupy 

 the same distinguished post, j 



By these several means he thus early gained a complete apprecia- 

 tion of what was needed to understand the nature of the diseases 

 which oppress mankind, of the relative importance of clinical obser- 

 vation, pure science, and philosophical culture, in procuring allevia- 

 tion of physical suffering. One can imagine the sadness, the almost 

 bitterness of spirit which a man so disciplined in youth must have 

 felt when, full of years and rich in vast experience, he felt himself 

 called upon to leave as one of his last legacies to his countrymen 

 his manly answer* to some of the ill- grounded fallacies which fashion 

 supports under the guise of medicine improved and reformed. 



In 1808, at the age of not quite twenty-five, he became Assistant 

 Surgeon to St. George's Hospital ; and he continued in the direct 

 service of the hospital for full thirty years. The absence of one of 

 his seniors at once threw the charge of many in-patients on his 

 hands. On these he bestowed the most assiduous care, and lectured 

 on the most important cases. He had declined on a former occasion 

 to give lectures on surgery, because he could have only given second- 

 hand, or book knowledge. But he now was able to draw his pic- 

 tures from the life ; he began not only to lecture in the hospital 



* Frazer's Magazine, September 1861. Consult also Quarterly Review, De- 

 cember 1842. 



