28 MEMORIAL SKETCH. 



reputation as a writer proved rather injurious than bene- 

 ficial to him. Moreover, he longed more and more to 

 devote himself to the pursuit and exposition of scientific 

 truth, and he found the distractions of professional work in 

 the highest degree irksome. Besides the difficulties risins; 

 from such interruptions, he was peculiarly susceptible to 

 the feeling of responsibility in connection with his cases. 

 They haunted him painfully, and he could not put them 

 aside. He was often ready enough in other relations to 

 incur responsibility without flinching ; but in the treatment 

 of disease his sensitiveness caused a continuous distress 

 which time and use failed to overcome. The summer 

 and autumn of 1839 were partly spent in harassing 

 attempts to obtain a more remunerative lectureship than 

 that which he held at the Medical School ; though he was 

 able, in addition, to gather general audiences at the Philoso- 

 phical Institution for popular courses on Natural History. 

 A step in this direction was made in 1840, when he 

 exchanged the subject of Medical Jurisprudence for that of 

 Physiology in the Medical School. He made up his mind 

 finally to seek his livelihood as a teacher and writer, and 

 abandon all further idea of medical practice. A second 

 edition of his treatise on " General and Comparative 

 Physiology " was required in 1841; and in 1842 he brought 

 out a new work entitled, " Principles of Human Physiology." 

 These years were marked for him by important family 

 incidents. He had lived so much away from home, and 

 his intellectual interests had been so keen, that he felt 

 afterwards that he had been too much absorbed by his own 

 aims. In the home labours, where his mother and sisters 

 were carrying on the school which provided the means for 

 his education, he had had no share — he had only accepted 

 their results. The strain of study, of thought, of production 

 had often been protracted and severe ; and he had not the 



