364 RICHARD OWEN xxn 



His first published scientific works were in the direction of 

 surgical pathology, being on encysted calculus, and on the 

 effects of ligature of the internal iliac artery for the cure of 

 aneurism. 



At St. Bartholomew's Hospital he soon attracted the 

 attention of the celebrated Abernethy, through whose influence 

 he obtained the appointment of Assistant Conservator to the 

 Hunterian Museum of the Koyal College of Surgeons. This 

 was in 1827, and it caused him to abandon the prospect of 

 private practice, to which he had begun to devote himself 

 while living in Serle Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, for the more 

 congenial pursuit of comparative anatomy. The Conservator 

 of the Museum at that time was William Clift, John Hunter's 

 last and most devoted pupil and assistant, under whose faithful 

 guardianship the collection had been most carefully preserved 

 during the long interval between the death of its founder and 

 its transference to the custody of the College of Surgeons. 

 From him Owen early imbibed an enthusiastic reverence for 

 the great master, which was continually augmented with the 

 closer study of his collection and works, which now became 

 the principal duty of his life. In 1830 and 1831 he visited 

 Paris, where he attended the lectures of Cuvier and Geoffroy 

 St. Hilaire, and worked in the dissecting rooms and public 

 galleries of the Jardin des Plantes. In 1835 he married 

 Clift's only daughter, Caroline, and in 1842 was associated 

 with him as joint Conservator of the Museum. On Clift's 

 retirement soon after, he became sole Conservator, with Mr. 

 J. T. Quekett as assistant. 



He was appointed Hunterian Professor of Comparative 

 Anatomy and Physiology in 1835, an office which he held 

 until his retirement from the College in 1856, and from which 

 he took the title of " Professor Owen," by which he was far 

 more widely known than by the knightly addition of his later 

 years. 



Until the year 1852, when the Queen gave him the 

 charming cottage called Sheen Lodge, in Kichmond Park, 

 where he resided to the end of his life, he occupied small 

 apartments within the building of the College of Surgeons ; 

 these, however inconvenient they might be in some respects, 



