Professional Prospects. 87 



begin. In the apothecary's shop he had had a good 

 opportunity of dispensing medicine to persons of 

 various ranks and conditions. With the Royal 

 Infirmary he had become acquainted in more than 

 one capacity. He had satisfied all the preliminaries 

 for obtaining his diploma, and for the examination, 

 which he had no doubt of being able to pass. But 

 for some time past there had been a disturbing 

 element in his mind. Surveying the profession from 

 more than one point of view, he had begun to per- 

 ceive that " it is not all gold that glitters." To use 

 his own words about this critical period : 



" I had reasoned with myself," he says, " that I had 

 not any means of my own to make an independent 

 start, and that, if I struggled cm till I was able to do 

 so, the class of patients I should have, at any rate 

 to begin with, would be much more numerous in 

 their persons than their payments. Then there was 

 another phase of the matter to be contemplated. In 

 all the duties of the profession one is brought face to 

 face with pain to a more or less distressing degree, 

 nor is there any hour, night or day, that one can call 

 one's own. But the greatest consideration with me 

 was that all depended on myself. On the other hand 

 I thought that, if I got into business, even in a small 

 way, it might by industry and close attention increase 

 and enable me to employ other hands as well as my 

 own, and should illness or death overtake me the 

 business might be carried on without me. I was in 

 good favour with my employer, Mr. Douglas, and his 

 family. I had entered into an engagement with one 

 of his daughters. He had, besides the dyeing estab- 



