22 DONE WITH DENTISTRY. 



lie wrote, he wished to exercise his hands and his mind 

 with other instruments, and with other subjects, than 

 "smith's forges, brass furnaces, and sand-grinding 

 stones." He was chagrined at seeing the dentist better 

 paid than the surgeon, when the only diseases he had 

 to treat were toothache and gum-boil, his only oper- 

 ation the extraction of teeth, and his whole pharmaco- 

 poeia tincture of myrrh. Ill at ease on the matter, he 

 sought to be free from his apprenticeship. Dentistry 

 and domestic details stood between him and life's plea- 

 surable enjoyment ; the one a constant gum-boil that 

 no tincture of myrrh could palliate, the other a half- 

 penny arithmetic beyond the aid of a ready-reckoner. 

 Soaring above the mechanical agencies of a speciality 

 like dentistry, his scientific aim became too impetuous 

 to be restrained by any bonds ; so Mr. Nasmyth very 

 kindly cancelled his indentures before the expiry of the 

 legal term. Goodsir's dislike stood in strange contrast 



© © 



to the progress he had made in an art for which his 

 head and hands were so well equipped — an art that 

 would have brought more money to his coffers than 

 the most favoured following of the natural sciences. 

 Mr. Nasmyth's confidence in his pupil's powers was 

 such that he entrusted his large practice to him during 

 the autumn of 1835, and with entire satisfaction. 

 Whilst his master's locum tenens, Goodsir wrote to his 

 father that Daniel O'Connell had been haranguing the 



© © 



Edinburgh worthies ; and that, wanting a tooth ex- 

 tracted, sent for Mr. Nasmyth, in whose absence he 

 went; that the " Great Agitator " made no demur to 



