vi 



In 1830 he had the terrible sorrow of losing his wife, who died 

 suddenly three days after the birth of their second child. In 1836 

 Dr. Watson succeeded the late Dr. Francis Hawkins as Professor 

 of Medicine in King's College, and he retained that chair until the 

 spring of 1840, when at the opening of the newly founded King's 

 College Hospital he was called upon to resign either his office of 

 physician to the Middlesex Hospital or his chair at King's College; 

 and he decided to retain the former office. The resignation of his 

 professorship led at once to a result which proved beneficial alike to 

 Dr. Watson, to the profession, and indirectly to the public, namely, the 

 publication of his admirable lectures " On the Principles and Practice 

 of Physic." The lectures appeared first in the weekly numbers of 

 the "Medical Gazette ;" the first lecture was published on 20th Sep- 

 tember, 1840, and the last of the series on 23rd September, 1842. In 

 the following year, 1843, they were collected and published in two 

 volumes. Between that date and 1871, four large editions were 

 called for. The publication of these lectures, admirable as they were 

 by universal consent acknowledged to be, not less for the soundness 

 and wisdom of their teaching than for their lucid, elegant, and 

 scholarly style, greatly increased the reputation of their author, 

 acquired for him the well merited title of the " Cicero of English 

 Medicine," and led to a large and rapid increase of his practice. 



In 1862 Dr. Watson, having held most of the minor offices in the 

 College of Physicians, was elected President, an office to which he 

 was_ unanimously re-elected for four successive years. The College 

 would have gladly elected him for the sixth time, but he declined on 

 the plea of advancing years, and at the annual meeting for the election 

 of President in 1867 he bade the College farewell in the following 

 characteristically graceful terms : — " It only remains that I should 

 attempt to do that which I feel to be well nigh impossible — to embody 

 in any form of words that I can devise the deep and inextinguishable 

 sense of gratitude with which my mind is full for that kindness and 

 trust which have placed me year by year on five successive occasions 

 at the head of the College of Physicians, in other words, at the head 

 of the medical profession in this great country. According to my 

 estimation more than once expressed, there is no nobler position in 

 medicine, whether I look before me and around me to the body of 

 men from whom it comes, or backwards to the splendid list of names 

 of those who have preceded me in the presidential chair — Linacre, 

 Caius, Glisson, Sir William Browne, Pitcairn, Sir George Baker; 

 these, to go no later, are but a few of the eminent men and sound 

 scholars with whom it may well be deemed a proud distinction to 

 have had one's name in any way associated. But besides this great 

 and repeated honour — the greater because so repeated — I have much 

 else to thank you for. I have to acknowledge your indulgence towards 



