36 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 



sent me (Oct. 1825) to Edinburgh University with 

 my brother, where I stayed for two years or sessions. 

 My brother was completing his medical studies, though 

 I do not believe he ever really intended to practise, 

 and I was sent there to commence them. But soon 

 after this period I became convinced from various 

 small circumstances that my father would leave me 

 property enough to subsist on with some comfort, 

 though I never imagined that I should be so rich a 

 man as I am ; but my belief was sufficient to check 

 any strenuous effort to learn medicine. 



The instruction at Edinburgh was altogether by 

 lectures, and these were intolerably dull, with the 

 exception of those on chemistry by Hope ; but to my 

 mind there are no advantages and many disadvantages 

 in lectures compared with reading. Dr. Duncan's 

 lectures on Materia Medica at 8 o'clock on a 

 winter's morning are something fearful to remember. 



Dr. made his lectures on human anatomy as dull 



as he was himself, and the subject disgusted me. It 

 has proved one of the greatest evils in my life that I 

 was not urged to practise dissection, for I should soon 

 have got over my disgust ; and the practice would 

 have been invaluable for all my future work. This 

 has been an irremediable evil, as well as my inca- 

 pacity to draw. I also attended regularly the clinical 

 wards in the hospital. Some of the cases distressed 

 me a good deal, and I still have vivid pictures before 

 me of some of them ; but I was not so foolish as to 

 allow this to lessen my attendance. I cannot under- 

 stand why this part of my medical course did not 



