ix 



studied at the universities of Wiirzburg, Berlin, Vienna, and 

 Heidelberg. A paper lie published in German obtained for him the 

 corresponding membership of the Physico-medical Society of the 

 Wiirzburg University. 



He returned to London at the end of 1855, and through the 

 influence of Professor Sharpey, obtained the post of Curator to the 

 Anatomical Museum of University College. In 1859 he was 

 appointed to the Professorship of Medical Jurisprudence, and not 

 long afterwards joined the Medical Staff of University College 

 Hospital. 



George Harley married, in 1861, Emma Jessie, the youngest 

 daughter of James Muspratt, of Seaforth Hall, Liverpool. Among 

 his children are Ethel, now Mrs. A. Tweedie, the known writer, and 

 Dr. Vaughan Harley who, following in his father's footsteps, is now 

 Professor of Pathological Chemistry at University College. 



In 1861 Harley received the triennial prize of the Royal College 

 of Surgeons for an Essay on the Anatomy and Physiology of the 

 Supra-Renal Bodies, and the College also granted him the John 

 Hunter Gold Medal, of which there has only been one awarded 

 since 1858. In 1864 he was elected a Eellow of the Royal College 

 of Physicians of London, and in the year following, a Eellow of the 

 Royal Society, having previously been made a Corresponding Member 

 of the Academy of Science of Bavaria, and of the Academy of Medicine 

 of Madrid. 



Harley's career was nearly cut short in 1864, while working with 

 a powerfully illuminated small-lens microscope, when a blood-vessel 

 burst in his left eye, ending in retinitis, which was so severe that 

 he was confined to complete darkness for a period of nine months, 

 ending, however, in a perfect cure. He had to wear dark-tinted 

 glasses for a considerable time before he could use his sight freely, 

 and remarked to the writer of this notice, that while wearing 

 "goggles," as he could not see well, he became accustomed to look 

 at things more carefully than he had done before, and that when 

 subsequently he dropped his glasses, could actually see better than 

 before, as from training he had improved his powers of observation. 

 Other men under similar circumstances would probably have 

 retired into a quiet private life, but the fact that Harley had suffi- 

 cient self-possession to accept a complete privation of light for nine 

 months shows the dogged resolution and perseverance which was, 

 perhaps, the main trait of his character, and carried him through 

 so much good and useful work. 



Harley loved to roam over a variety of subjects ; he would ponder- 

 over any matter of interest to him and then record his ideas in 

 print. 



Claude Bernard's lectures, which dealt with the physiological 

 vol. lxi. d 



