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favourite studies, and enjoy a more enlarged society of scientific 

 friends. He soon became an associate of most of the scientific so- 

 cieties of the metropolis, and an active labourer in their management. 

 In 1818, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society; was several 

 times placed on its Councils, and in 1832, filled the office of Vice- 

 President. He was for some years Secretary of the Geological So- 

 ciety, and in 182^ was appointed its President. Pie long held the 

 office of Treasurer of the Medical and Chirurgical Society, and took 

 an active share in the management of the Fever Hospital, not only 

 as a member of its Committee, but also as one of its House Direct- 

 ors. He was also, during a long period, one of the lecturers on 

 Chemistry at the Medical School of Guy's Hospital, being appointed 

 to that office on the death of his friend Dr. Marcet, in 1822. 



Amidst these multiplied public avocations, he found leisure for the 

 accomplishment of a great variety of literary and scientific labours, 

 the aggregate amount of which would appear astonishing to any 

 one who was not acquainted with his methodical habits, his perse- 

 vering industry, and his advantageous employment of every portion 

 of his time. His contributions to medical and scientific journals, 

 transactions of societies and cyclopaedias, amount to no less than 

 sixty-nine; of which twenty are contained in Nicholson's Journal 

 and Annals of Philosophy, eighteen in the Medico-Chirurgical Trans- 

 actions, and twelve in the Cyclopoedias of Practical Medicine, and of 

 Anatomy and Physiology. Only one paper by him appears in the 

 Philosophical Transactions (in 1829), namely, that " On the spon- 

 taneous purification of the Thames Water," recording the observa- 

 tions he made in the course of some analyses which he undertook 

 at the request of the Commissioners appointed by the Crown to 

 inquire into the supply of water to the metropolis. 



Some of the more finished papers and essays which had appeared 

 in these M'orks, were afterwards republished by him in a separate 

 form. Among these are his " Account of the History and present 

 state of Galvanism," originally published in Brewster's Cyclopsedia, 

 and which appeared in 1818 ; and his " History of Medicine," which 

 had been prefixed to the Cyclopedia of Practical Medicine. One 

 of his earliest publications was an " Essay on Respiration ;" his at- 

 tachment to chemical pursuits having naturally led him to the par- 

 ticular study of this part of the animal economy. At a later period, 

 he engaged in the compilation of a general work, embracing the 

 whole subject of physiology, which he completed in three volumes, 

 the last of which appeared in 1827, under the title of " Elementary 

 System of Physiology ;" the third and last edition, published in 1837, 

 comprised the whole in one thick octavo volume of nearly 900 pages. 

 It is a work of immense labour and research, containing condensed 

 and elaborate analyses of all that had at that time been published, 

 both as to facts and theories in the wide field of physiology. It con- 

 stitutes, in fact, an Encyclopaedia of this department of medical 

 science, where the student will find indicated, with scrupulous ex- 

 actness, the authorities for every statement, and the sources which 

 may supply him with whatever further information he might require 



