MEMOIR OP LAMARCK. 
21 
of success, iu a profession which he had made so 
many sacrifices to embrace, promised in time to be 
realized. But these prospects were speedily oyer- 
clouded by an accident which completely put a stop 
to his military career, and gave a different com- 
plexion to the whole tenor of his life and habits. 
Some one of his companions, in sport, had lifted 
him by the head, and thereby strained so severely 
the glands of his neck, that he was for some time 
placed in the greatest danger. After many reme- 
dies had been tried to no purpose, a cure was at 
last effected by the celebrated M. Tenon, by means 
of a complicated operation. But his health had by 
this time become so much impaired, that after 
residing for a length of time in Paris in the hope 
of its amendment, he found it necessary to abandon 
all intention of rejoining the army. 
In these circumstances it became necessary for 
him to think of some new occupation, and he seems 
not to have been long in forming a resolution to 
study medicine. Ilis pecuniary circumstances, how- 
ever, were so very limited, consisting of a pension 
of only 400 francs, that he was obliged in the mean 
time to employ himself as a clerk in the office of a 
banker in order to obtain the means of daily sub- 
sistence. The intervals he spent in study ; and 
such were the buoyancy and activity of his mind, 
that even when his prospects were most discou 
raging, he never seems to have lost the expectation 
of rising to usefulness and distinction. He reverted 
with eagerness to the physical studies which he had 
