224 HEROES OF SCIENCE. 



his fellow clerks a little, and he was found amusing 

 himself and them with chemical experiments, when 

 he should have been copying papers or studying 

 the forms of legal proceedings. His master soon 

 saw that the young man's mind was not that which 

 W'Ould suit a lawyer, so, with much kindness and 

 good sense, he released his young friend from his 

 obligations. Young Hutton at once began to study 

 medicine, as that science which was the most closely 

 allied to chemistry. He attended lectures, and 

 studied well from 1744 to 1747. Then, as the 

 teaching at Edinburgh was not sufficient in all the 

 parts of medical studies, he went, as was usual, to 

 Paris, where he studied chemistry and anatomy 

 with great ardour. He was there for nearly two 

 years, and then went to Leyden, in Holland, where 

 he took his degree in September, 1749. On his 

 return to London at the end of that year, he began 

 to think seriously about settling in the world. 

 Edinburgh afforded no flattering prospect for his 

 establishment as a physician. The business there 

 was in the hands of a few eminent practitioners, 

 who had been long established ; so that no opening 

 was left for a young man whose merit was yet 

 unknown, who had no powerful connections to 

 assist him on his first outset, and very little of that 

 patient and circumspect activity by which a medical 

 man pushes himself forward in the world. 



Full of anxiety about the future, Hutton wrote 

 to a friend of his own age on the subject. This 

 was Mr. James Davie, with whom Hutton had been 



