32 
PROFESSOR OWEN 
CH. Il- 
of the Abernethian Society/ and communicated 
to that body a few pathological papers. 
On August 1 8, 1826, Owen obtained his 
membership of the Royal College of Surgeons. 
His diploma is signed by John Abernethy, Astley 
Cooper, Anthony Carlisle, T. Forster, Everard 
Home, William Blizard, Henry Cline, William 
Norris, William Lynn, and Leigh Thomas. He set 
up as a medical practitioner at 1 1 Cook’s Court, 
Carey Street, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and gradually 
secured a small practice among the lawyers. 
Owen’s peculiar ability as a dissector had not 
escaped the eye of Abernethy, then President of 
the College of Surgeons, who, much concerned at 
the neglect of the collections formed by John 
Hunter, which had recently been purchased by 
the Government and handed over to the care of 
the College, insisted on his old pupil undertaking 
their arrangement. As Abernethy said, ‘ The 
collection was located near his private residence ; 
he could devote his leisure hours to the work i 
there was no one else equally qualified to do so. 
Owen undertook the task, and was thus associated 
1 The name of this society 
was formerly the ‘ Medical and 
Philosophical Society of St. 
Bartholomew’s.’ It was founded 
by Abernethy in 1795, and took 
the name of ‘ Abernethian So- 
ciety ’ in 1832, the year of Aber- 
nethy’s demise. In a Sketch 
of the Abernethian Society, by 
Rowland H. Coombes, in vol. ir- 
of St. Bartholomew's Hospitd 
Reports, 8vo, i868, we read r-' 
‘In 1826 Richard Owen read 
two papers : one On Encystd 
Calculus of the Urinary Bladdef , 
and the other A Case of Gluteal 
Aneurism with Ligature of tld 
Internal Iliad 
