AUTOBIOGRAPHY 7 



covered, but for years I suffered from occasional 

 paroxysms of internal pain, and from that time my 

 constant friend, hypochondriacal dyspepsia, com- 

 menced his half century of co-tenancy of my fleshly 

 tabernacle. 



Looking back on my "Lehrjahre," I am sorry to 

 say that I do not think that any account of my doings 

 as a student would tend to edification. In fact, I 

 should distinctly warn ingenuous youth to avoid imi- 

 tating my example. I worked extremely hard when 

 it pleased me, and when it did not which was a very 

 frequent case I was extremely idle (unless making 

 caricatures of one's pastors and masters is to be 

 called a branch of industry), or else wasted my ener- 

 gies in wrong directions. I read everything I could 

 lay hands upon, including novels, and took up all 

 sorts of pursuits to drop them again quite as speedily. 

 No doubt it was very largely my own fault, but the 

 only instruction from which I ever obtained the proper 

 effect of education was that which I received from 

 Mr. Wharton Jones, who was the lecturer on physi- 

 ology at the Charing Cross School of Medicine. The 

 extent and precision of his knowledge impressed me 

 greatly, and the severe exactness of his method of lec- 

 turing was quite to my taste. I do not know that I 

 have ever felt so much respect for anybody as a teacher 

 before or since. I worked hard to obtain his approba- 

 tion, and he was extremely kind and helpful to the 

 youngster who, I am afraid, took up more of his time 

 than he had any right to do. It was he who suggested 

 the publication of my first scientific paper a very 

 little one in the Medical Gazette of 1845, and most 

 kindly corrected the literary faults which abounded 

 in it, short as it was ; for at that time, and for many 



