20 MEMORIAL SKETCH. 



by Von Baer with regard to structure, — " a special function 

 " arises only out of one more general, and this by a gradual 

 " change ; " to which the Edinburgh student added another, 

 — " in all cases where the different functions are highly 

 "specialized, the general structure retains, more or less, the 

 "primitive community of function which originally charac- 

 "terized it." In working out these principles, the writer 

 sketched " an outline of the doctrine of unity of function 

 " with regard to the changes essential to the maintenance of 

 "individual organisms, both of plants and animals ;" and 

 finally expressed his belief that "even in tracing the gradual 

 " development of the functions peculiar to animals, namely, 

 "sensation and voluntary motion, we may find that the 

 " special type is evolved from one more general." 



After reading these papers before the Royal Medical 

 Society, William Carpenter returned to Bristol. He had 

 already lectured in Edinburgh, on Natural History, making 

 his appearance, on one occasion, to his extreme disgust, at 

 Wombwell's menagerie, where he was expected, in ac- 

 cordance with a precedent set by a former lecturer — " like 

 " myself, very respectable " — to meet his class before the 

 cages of the wild-beast show. He had now to deliver his 

 first course as lecturer on Medical Jurisprudence at the 

 Bristol Medical School, and he began at the same time the 

 actual practice of his profession. His leisure hours, how- 

 ever, were devoted to his scientific pursuits, and he became 

 a competitor for the Students' Prize, raised by the students, 

 and adjudged by certain of the Professors at Edinburgh. 

 The subject (proposed by Professor Alison) was highly 

 congenial to him, " On the Difference of the Laws regulating 

 Vital and Physical Phenomena." * In language v/hose 

 clearness showed how clearly he had already trained him- 



* His essay proved successful; he devoted the prize (;,^3o) to the purchase 

 of a microscope, and from that time microscopic research continued to absorb 

 more and more of his attention. 



