20 'Royal Irish Academy. 



work his gifted son was from an early age constantly associated ; and 

 though, from his father's peculiar views on the subject of education, 

 he was never sent to school or to the University, we cannot doubt 

 that, under such able guidance, the powers of observation which 

 were afterwards to make him famous were effectually cultivated. He 

 was also a pupil of John "Walker, a man of vigorous intellect and 

 varied learning, who, as well as Whitley Stokes, had forfeited, for 

 conscience sake, his position in the University. 



"William Stokes' medical studies were pursued at Edinburgh, 

 whither he was sent in 1823. He there became the pupil and 

 friend of Dr. Alison, whom he declared, long afterwards, to have been 

 the best man. he had ever known ; and by him he was taken as his 

 habitual companion in his charitable labours among the sick poor. 



Soon after his graduation he was appointed, at the early age of 

 twenty-two, Physician to the lEeath Hospital in succession to his 

 father ; and in this institution, in conjunction with Dr. Graves, he 

 carried out the great reform in clinical teaching which will be for ever 

 associated with the names of these two eminent men. The essence of 

 the new method was the systematic effort (in the words of Stokes him- 

 self) ''to teach the individual pupil, to encourage him to learn, to 

 show him how to teach himself, to bring him into the true relation in 

 which he ought to stand with his instructor, to make him familiar 

 with bed-side medicine, to show him the value which attends on every 

 new fact and observation in medicine, and to make him learn the duty, 

 as well as taste the pleasure, of original investigations." 



As a clinical teacher, Stokes, as all his pupUs testify, pre-eminently 

 shone. His thorough examination of every case — his accurate and 

 careful diagnosis — his treatmient, marked at once by caution and 

 courage — ^presented to the student the perfect exemplar of a practical 

 physician. As a lecturer he possessed very remarkable gifts of lucid 

 and forcible expression ; his earnestness of manner is described as sin- 

 gularly impressive ; and he had that special power of creating a living 

 interest in his teaching which belongs to the original investigator, 

 fresh from direct contact with nature. As he has himself said : 

 " Genius, the creative power, so far as such a power is given to man, 

 will, while it produces its golden fruits, find a descriptive language of 

 its own, which he who deals merely with the thoughts and discoveries 

 of other men can never speak." 



