688 THE LIFE AND WORKS OF BROWN-SEQUARD. 



lished himself at New York as a consulting physician. His marriages 

 were always one of the causes of the perpetual oscillations which pre- 

 vented him from taking root anywhere. He hastened, as was his inva- 

 riable method, to immediately found a medical journal, The Archives 

 of Scientific and Practical Medicine and Surgery. But few numbers 

 of this journal were published. It contained Brown's first paper upon 

 inhibition and dynamogeny. 



This new period of his life was not a happy one. Disturbed by 

 domestic troubles, finding nowhere about him the quiet necessary for 

 his scientific pursuits, tormented by a perpetual need for money which 

 he could not succeed in controlling, his tired faculties no longer suffi- 

 cing for the simultaneous efforts required for the enforced quiet of 

 scientific reflection and the struggle for material resources, Brown- 

 Sequard now passed some of the most painful years of his life. 



On February 12, 1873, in a private letter to a friend, he wrote: "You 

 are young, and you have a numerous family; you have, as a compensa- 

 tion for your exile, the constant assurance of sincere affection. But I, 

 who am growing old with frightful rapidity, have near me only people 

 destitute of any tender feeling. Alas! what will become of me?" 

 "Your departure," he again said, "is the greatest misfortune that has 

 happened to me for a long time. Not only were you a consolation to 

 me by your sincere attachment, you were also a living reminder of the 

 Society of Biology and of my Parisian friends. 1 can not endure the 

 idea of living here for the rest of my life. I am very unhappy. In 

 the future I intend," he adds, not without a certain artlessness, "to 

 pass four or five weeks in England, three or four months in Paris, and 

 the winter here. I can make a living." 



He succeeded in doing this by means of medical consultations. The 

 publication of the journal had led to some losses of money; his lectures 

 brought but little profit. But nervous disorders abounded; in this 

 respect he seemed not to want for resources. " I arrived from Boston 

 to-day (April 20). I have never seen anything like the scenes that 

 occurred yesterday. From 7 o'clock in the morning to S o'clock in the 

 evening, when I refused to see any more sick, there was an uninter- 

 rupted flow of very patient patients. The last which I saw had been 

 waiting for their turn for five or six hours." 



At this time, too, the scientific career of Brown-Sequard appeared 

 to be settled by a definite appointment in America. I refer to a chair 

 of physiology, provided with a vast laboratory and forming part of a 

 great scientific establishment that Agassiz had organized with the aid 

 of a generous patron. The matter should be reported in detail, as it is 

 characteristic of the state of science in the United States. 



"You know about Agassiz Island (on the north side of Long Island), 1 ' 

 writes Brown to a friend. " It is about as large as the various public 

 parks of London put together; it is very fertile, and is worth, together 

 with the houses that have been built upon it, $100,000. Mr. Anderson, 



