Ill 



out of the war and the approach of the French to Hanover. With some 

 difficulty he escaped to Hamburg, and reached London after passing a 

 month at sea in a Dutch merchant-vessel. 



In 1804 he resumed his duties as apprentice to his brother, and in the 

 autumn of that year, and in the seventeenth year of his age, he became a 

 pupil at the Anatomical and Medical School in Windmill Street. He 

 attended the lectures of Mr. Wilson and Mr. Thomas, and it was during 

 this period of study that he made the acquaintance of Brodie (the late 

 Sir Benjamin), Maynard, Ewbank, and other professional men of repute. 

 He now studied chemistry under Dr. George Pearson, and became one of 

 his pupils at St. George's Hospital. He here made the acquaintance of 

 Dr. C. R. Pembertcn, and by the aid of this gentleman he acquired a con- 

 siderable knowledge of disease and a great liking for the practice of physic. 

 About this time also he found a friend in Sir Everard Home, who w^as then 

 in the zenith of his reputation. 



A weekly meeting was held on Saturday evening at the Windmill-street 

 School : this was founded on the ruins of the once celebrated Lyceum 

 Medicum, and it may be regarded as the parent of the Westminster Me- 

 dical Society. The meetings were attended by many medical men of 

 repute ; medical and scientifle papers were read and discussed ; and as 

 chemistry was very often the subject of inquiry, Mr. Brande found that he 

 was frequently referred to as an authority on matters connected with this 

 science. Writing of this date, Mr. Brande states : — 



" I was now full of ardour in its prosecution (i. e. of chemistry) ; and 

 although my brother, with whom I still lived, whose apprentice I w^as, and 

 in whose shop, notwithstanding all other associations, 1 still worked and 

 passed a large part of my time, threw every obstacle in the way of my 

 chemical progress that was decently in his power, I found time, however, 

 to read, and often to experiment in my bedroom late in the evening. I 

 thus collected a series of notes and observations which I fondly hoped 

 might at some future period serve as the basis of a course of lectures, and 

 this in time they actually did. It was at this period that, in imitation of 

 Mr. Ilatchett's researches, I made some experiments on Benzoin, the results 

 of which were published in Nicholson's Journal for February 1805." 



This, it may be remarked, was his first chemical contribution to scientific 

 literature. lie Avas then only about sixteen years of age. Mr. Brande 

 also contributed to the same journal for June 1805 a paper on RespiralioUj 

 which had been read to the Westminster Medical Society. 



His first introduction to Sir Humphry Davy was about the year 1801, 

 when he was a boy at Westminster School, then in his thirteenth year. 

 He was introduced to Davy at the Royal Institution, which had been re- 

 cently founded. After his return from Germany in ISO'l-, he renewed his 

 acquaintance with Davy, and, as a result, his zeal in the pursuit of che- 

 mistry was greatly augmented. Sometimes he stole away from home, or, 

 instead of going to the Anatomical School in Windmill Street, contrived 



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