MEMOIB OF DM WKKJHT. L75 



precated, was, with its attendant train of evils, ren- 

 dered at the same time in a great measure unneces- 

 sary. 



From the period of Dr Wright's return to his na- 

 tive country, he ceased to practise the art of medicine 

 professionally, yet he had always a considerable list of 

 poor patients, for whose use he maintained, in his own 

 house, a sort of private dispensary, the value of which 

 must have been deeply felt, when public institutions 

 for the gratuitous supply of medicines to the poor 

 were unknown in Edinburgh. Among the Professors 

 in the University, and other respectable families, who, 

 by the courtesy of the profession, are not permitted to 

 pay a physician's fee, Dr Wright had also a nume- 

 rous list of patients. By this gratuitous course of 

 practice, he never allowed his knowledge of an art 

 which he loved, to fall below the highest standard of 

 his contemporaries ; appropriating, at the same time, a 

 better title than others to the noble eulogy of Tul- 

 ly : — Nulla in re propius accedunt homines ad Deos, 

 quam salutem hominibus dan do. 



In the various departments of natural history, Dr 

 Wright had extended his researches with an assi- 

 duity and success in some degree proportionate to 

 their usefulness. Once engaged, indeed, in this at- 

 tractive and fascinating study, it calls for no ordinary 

 stoicism to stem the tide of inquiry, and to refuse to 

 allay the thirst for knowledge, because all its channels 

 are not equally fraught with obvious and immediate 

 advantages. The rare and curious in nature possessed 

 attractions for an inquiring mind, like that of Dr 



