AUTOBIOGRAPHY 9 



eluding novels, and took up all sorts of pursuits to 

 drop them again quite as speedily. No doubt it 

 was very largely my own fault, but the only 

 instruction from which I ever obtained the proper 

 effect of education was that which I received from 

 Mr. Wharton Jones, who was the lecturer on 

 physiology at the Charing Cross School of Medi- 

 cine. The extent and precision of his knowledge 

 impressed me greatly, and the severe exactness of 

 his method of lecturing was quite to my taste. I 

 do not know that I have ever felt so much respect 

 for anybody as a teacher before or since. I worked 

 hard to obtain his approbation, and he was ex- 

 tremely kind and helpful to the youngster who, 

 I am afraid, took up more of his time than he had 

 any right to do. It was he who suggested the pub- 

 lication of my first scientific paper a very little 

 one in the Medical Gazette of 1845, and most 

 kindly corrected the literary faults which abounded 

 in it, short as it was ; for at that time, and for 

 many years afterwards, I detested the trouble of 

 writing, and would take no pains over it. 



It was in the early spring of 1846, that, having 

 finished my obligatory medical studies and passed 

 the first M.B. examination at the London University 

 though I was still too young to qualify at the 

 College of Surgeons I was talking to a fellow- 

 student (the present eminent physician, Sir Joseph 

 Fayrer), and wondering what I should do to meet 

 the imperative necessity for earning my own bread, 



