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VITA MEDICA: 
 
 CHAPTEES OF MEDICAL LIFE AND WORK. 
 
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VITA MEDIC A: 
 
 CHAPTEKS OF MEDICAL LIFE AND WOEK. 
 
 SIE BENJAMIN WARD RICHARDSON, 
 
 M.D., LL.D., F.E.S. 
 
 "COKPUS QUASI VAS EST AUT ALIQUOD ANIMI EECEPTACULUM. "— Cicero. 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO., 
 
 39 PATEENOSTEE ROW, LONDON, 
 
 NEW YORK AND BOMBAY. 
 
 1897. 
 
WV*5\. 
 
 Printed by Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Ld. London and Aylesbury. 
 
TO 
 
 THE STUDENT OF THE FUTURE 
 
 WHO MAY WISH TO TAKE A GLANCE AT THE VICTORIAN ERA 
 
 THIS BOOK, 
 
 WRITTEN BY A STUDENT OF THAT ERA 
 
 WHO HAS SO FAR LIVED THROUGH IT, 
 
 IS RESPECTFULLY AND AFFECTIONATELY 
 
 INSCRIBED 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR, 
 
PEEFACE. 
 
 >N this book I venture to deal with, some of 
 the subjects to which my life has been 
 devoted. I learned from the first moment 
 in which I could read that there is a natural body 
 and that there is a spiritual body ; that the natural 
 body is first, and afterward that which is spiritual. 
 To me it became, I may say, inevitable that the 
 natural body should be most immediately studied, 
 the spiritual being too far off to be seen and 
 understood, but existent and open to revelation, 
 even to man. I trust that the work on the natural 
 body may take precedence of any personal details 
 with which it is incidentally interwoven. Some 
 studies, akin to it, are still in hand; but meantime 
 I have thought it best to issue what I have dared 
 to imprint on these pages. 
 
 It has been a pleasure to me to collect details of 
 the lives of many medical and scientific predecessors. 
 
viii PREFACE. 
 
 I have undertaken the task nearly fifty times, and 
 have never felt so happy as when I chanced to 
 gather the shortest sentence from their oivn pen or 
 from their spoken word to some one who could record 
 what was said. I have, therefore, ventured to put 
 down direct things that I have heard as well as 
 seen, hoping they may be of interest to some coming 
 scholar. 
 
 In delivering the annual oration as President of 
 the St. Andrews Graduates' Association in 1867 I 
 thus presumed to express to many colleagues who 
 surrounded me what seemed to be our duties for 
 the future : — 
 
 "The glories of that happier time, for which all 
 creation yearns, what are they but the glories of 
 life relieved from pain, from want, from care ? Are 
 not these reliefs our duties ? Is it not our office 
 to be the first of men to pluck the curse of pain 
 from the whole earth ? Is it not our office to 
 economise the gifts of nature, and lend her wealth 
 to health? Is it not our office to soothe the 
 troubled mind and bring the disturbed brain to 
 equilibrium of power ? If these be not our offices, 
 who are the blessed that claim them ? If they be — 
 then the sweetest singer of Israel, telling of the 
 
PREFACE. ix 
 
 times when 'There shall be no more thence an 
 infant of days, nor an old man that hath not filled 
 his days ; ' and the Roman poet singing the 
 
 ' Ultima Cumsei venit jam carminis a?tas 
 Magnus ab integro sseclorum nascitur ordo ; ' 
 
 and the mighty apostle, thundering through the 
 ages, 'The last enemy that shall be destroyed is 
 death ; ' then these are our prophets proclaiming 
 to us our mission, and assuring us that, if the 
 mission be faithful and their prophetic visions true, 
 we, in life or in death, shall be as kings in the 
 kingdom of our Father." 
 
 The sentiments conveyed in this passage and 
 faithfully rendered have never left my mind, but 
 have always carried the wish that I could have 
 done much more and much better for my day and 
 generation, so as to have helped to turn this earth 
 into a garden, with all races of one colour; all men 
 and women brothers and sisters, with the beautiful 
 lower animals as their companions ; with their high- 
 roads through the skies and their paths on the floors 
 of the sea. 
 
 BENJAMIN WARD RICHARDSON. 
 
 25, Manchester Square, London, W. 
 October 31st, 1896. 
 
NOTE. 
 
 These chapters of " Vita Medica " were finished 
 by my father on Wednesday, November 18th, 1896, 
 just before eight o'clock in the evening. At ten 
 he was seized with the illness which ended fatally 
 on Saturday morning, November 21st. 
 
 The last proofs were not revised by my father, 
 and, but for the few corrections that could be made 
 without him, the book is published as it left his 
 hands. 
 
 BERTRAM RICHARDSON. 
 
 January 1897. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 A FIRST WORD 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 A MATERNAL LESSON AND FAREWELL .... 6 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 SCHOOL-DAYS 10 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ENTRANCE INTO PHYSIC ....... 42 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 MEDICAL STUDENT LIFE 57 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 A STEPPING-STONE 100 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 A TURNING-POINT IN LIFE 106 
 
xiv CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 A NEW SPHEEE OF WORK — MORTLAKE . . . .133 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE BIRTH OF DISEASE AND DEATH . . . .145 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 EXPERIMENTS, ANTISEPTIC AND LETHAL . . . .159 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 RESEARCHES ON OXYGEN . 
 
 169 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 A LONDON CAREER IN MID-CENTURY . . . .178 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 STUDIES ON THE BLOOD 189 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 REANIMATION 210 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 EFFORTS TOWARDS THE EXTINCTION OF DISEASE — SANITA- 
 TION 224 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE MASTERY OF PAIN, RESEARCHES IN ANESTHESIA, 
 
 LOCAL AND GENERAL 279 
 
CONTENTS. xv 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 IN THE SPHERE OF PRACTICAL MEDICINE .... 309 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 QUESTS FOR REMEDIES AND MEANS OF CURE . . . 326 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THE BATTLE WITH ALCOHOL 350 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 THE NERVOUS CENTRES AND EXPANSES . . . .381 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 THE BREATH OF LIFE ....... 384 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 THE ANIMAL BODY AS AN INSTRUMENT . . . .394 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 UNIVERSITY ECHOES 399 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 REVOLUTIONS IN PHYSIC. — BLOOD-LETTING . . . 409 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 ZYMOSIS AND THE GERM THEORY . . . . . 449 
 
xvi CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 EECASTS AND FOEECASTS . 454 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 VITAL PHOSPHOEESCENCE 493 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 A LAST WOED 496 
 
CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 A FIRST WORD. 
 
 ►N my wanderings, not simply on this 
 earth — the whirligig which turns several 
 thousand miles a day on its axis — but in 
 the journey through the mighty space that seems 
 to me one of the mightiest of human considera- 
 tions, I must have travelled round the red-hot 
 globe we call the sun sixty-eight times at least, 
 and some way into sixty-nine. Of this journey- 
 ing I am giving infinitesimal outlines as memory 
 and ideal may inspire me. 
 
 Let it be understood that I have no intention of 
 composing what men are pleased to call an auto- 
 biography. I shall write largely from memory 
 what I have seen, and some events I have taken 
 part in during the long journeys made ; and, as 
 my memory has always been good — indeed the 
 best gift in my possession — this will not be a com- 
 plicated task. To the memories, such as they are, 
 
 1 
 
2 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 I have also to add researches and ideals that 
 stand apart from the memories. 
 
 In my young medical days I met a man with whom 
 I often consorted, with whom I was on good terms 
 always, and whose departure into some other world, 
 state, or condition I sincerely and long lamented. 
 His name was Dr. James Bird, a Scotchman, who 
 had, I helieve, heen a surgeon-soldier, and in India 
 had held a kind of medical command. He was a 
 hard-featured man, though he sometimes heamed, 
 and when he spoke he almost always asked for data. 
 He assumed to be ever a man of facts, and was 
 very severe on all men who differed from him. 
 " Pacts, sir, are what I want, not fancies ! " This 
 was his ordinary expression. At the same time he 
 was not himself altogether destitute of fancies, and 
 he held an idea which he much reverenced and often 
 repeated, that the " isothermal lines " were the lines 
 that should he known by all physicians and surgeons 
 who wanted to get at origins and to know the hidden 
 causes of phenomena. He spoke in the broadest 
 Scotch and in the most obscure manner, as if in 
 eternal parenthesis, exploding rather than explain- 
 ing, so that we who listened were inclined to smile, 
 to which he paid no heed, but perhaps rather pitied 
 us as stupid beyond hope. His oddities were 
 many, and none greater than his extreme liking 
 for me, who was, in many respects, his opposite. 
 
 One evening a few of us who constituted a society 
 bent on scientific work met together to discuss a 
 
A FIRST WORD. 3 
 
 great question — no less a question than the values 
 of human lives in a civilised community like our 
 own in this modern England. When it came to 
 my turn to express myself I was very definite 
 in stating that we might, by good management, 
 pull down our current death-rate to fifteen in the 
 thousand, perhaps to twelve, and even to ten. Bird 
 lifted up both his hands, and lowered rather than 
 beamed. He followed me in discussion, and as 
 far as he could bring eloquence to bear on my 
 industry, he derided, or thought he derided, my 
 conclusions. To him they were based on nothing ; 
 words to be forgotten. They were, he said, words 
 that were purely idealistic. He begged his audience 
 to accept them as from one who "was given to 
 ideals," who let ideals "take the place of data," 
 and whose dreams must not be always accepted 
 when data were called for. 
 
 As in this instance I had taken the greatest pains 
 in my argument, as the late Dr. William Earr had 
 given me access to his data since the year 1838, and 
 as I had done no more than exclude from those 
 data diseases that were preventable, I was rather 
 astounded at Bird's criticism. Next day, with the 
 kind assistance of an arithmetical friend, Mr. 
 Adolph Leipner, I went over all the calculations 
 again with the same results, results, the truth of 
 which had been sustained by what had transpired. 
 But all this did not signify one iota to Bird. He 
 had treated me as one who had ideals, and in that 
 
4 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 character I have stood until the present moment. 
 I have advanced many things and views that have 
 turned out right, but they have been called idealistic, 
 whether they were so or not, and I have become at 
 last so accustomed to the statement that it seems 
 part of my existence, as if it were true and even 
 natural. 
 
 On the whole, ideals have their advantages, and 
 I sometimes thought that James Bird himself, 
 though he did not know it, indulged in them. His 
 isothermal lines meant really points where diseases 
 crossed each other and ceased to develop. Typhus 
 fever marching towards the equator stopped at one 
 of these lines, and yellow fever marching towards 
 the North Pole stopped at the same place. This 
 was a big vision or ideal, if nothing more, and I 
 might have returned his compliment if I had liked. 
 Instead of so doing I kept my ideals by me for 
 occasional use, and always found them serviceable. 
 They lifted me largely from the world, and gave me 
 glimpses into vast fields which were pleasant to 
 look upon ; they have often filled time and swept 
 away loads of details from my mind, and I never 
 knew them do injury ; I rather have liked than 
 banished them, as if, in fact, they were a kind of 
 feast, or rarity of life. 
 
 This is the reason why I now sometimes attach 
 ideals to memories and researches, though they are 
 distinct, and I might leave to the reader without 
 another word the task of separation. 
 
A FIRST WORD. 5 
 
 However, to prevent any task of the kind I Avill 
 divide the matter to follow into three parts or 
 sections, in which memories, researches, and ideals 
 will be distinct. 
 
 To avoid the purely autobiographical, I shall not 
 follow up any of these subjects in direct sequence, 
 as though they formed definite parts of one career, 
 according to the age or life of the individual. It 
 will be best to take up each subject in a separate 
 chapter, as it occurs to me, whatever may be the 
 period of life in which it happened. 
 
 Recurring for a moment to the subject of memories, 
 I do not pretend that in this volume I shall touch 
 on all memories that occur to me. Most of those 
 will be recorded that have made or found a resting- 
 place in my mind. But I shall omit narratives 
 and events almost altogether that have reference to 
 living men, or to those who have been living up to 
 a late date. By this plan I shall be able to write 
 with a free mind, and speak of the past as if it were 
 a portion of the present. In no case shall I go back 
 to history except as it appears to me from my own 
 standpoint and as I saw it, with the impressions it 
 made upon me as it passed, probably, after all, the 
 best history I could leave for the after-scholar. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 A MATERNAL LESSON AND FAREWELL. 
 
 MEMORY connected with the clay MIoav- 
 ing Coronation Day, 1838, is painfully per- 
 sonal. I remembered when I woke that I 
 had a mother, who was ill, lying in front of her bed- 
 room window, looking out in the direction of the 
 distant Whatborough Hills which she loved to visit, 
 climb, and there tell me legends of fairies and giants, 
 dales and woods. I was soon by her side, and in 
 my child's language told of all I had witnessed the 
 day before, not omitting an account of a little girl 
 Queen who was carried round a field, nor that of 
 a showman who displayed Versailles and the river 
 of London, the streets of which city, I veritably 
 believed, were paved with gold. Eeeble though she 
 was, she listened to all my prattle with a loving 
 smile and caress. Then when I had finished she 
 took occasion to reveal truths I had not before 
 dreamed of. She reminded me that I had not 
 seen her eat her meals as the others of us did. She 
 had once met with an accident in swallowing a toy, 
 which would have proved fatal but for the skill of a 
 surgeon named Whitchurch, and she was now, since 
 
 6 
 
A MATERNAL LESSON AND FAREWELL. 7 
 
 the occurrence of a quinsy, reduced to her last term 
 of life, though she looked young by comparison 
 with others of middle age. She said she would not 
 much longer he my companion, hut I must re- 
 member her and must try to be a good boy ; must 
 follow lessons carefully, and above all things 
 must learn to be a good doctor, the profession of 
 medicine being in her opinion the noblest in the 
 world. I was born to it and must do my very best. 
 She would arrange with the Reverend W. Y. Nutt, 
 who kept Burrow Hill School, that I should be 
 educated there with the view to my medical future. 
 I should find near the Rectory the house in which 
 William Cheselden, a once great London surgeon 
 who gave sight to the blind, as she had been told, 
 was born, and who was the owner of an oil painting 
 which hung in our little dining-room, up to 
 which she had often lifted me to look at the man 
 with the long spear on one of the tombs, her father 
 having bought the picture at a sale of Colonel 
 Cheselden's, the nephew of William Cheselden — a 
 picture I must never part with, and which I never 
 have. In a few words she told me also that my 
 father would carry out her wishes in the way she 
 intended, and would suffer nothing to be omitted, a 
 promise he most faithfully kept. Then, seeing me 
 wonderfully astounded and grieved by her communi- 
 cation, she became impressive in her consolation. 
 Her sister Susan, who was married to Mr. Price, a 
 surgeon practising at Barrowden in Rutland, it was 
 
8 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 quite true, would be a mother to me, and I should 
 he sure to get on very well. The learning of my 
 profession and my work would fill my mind ; she 
 would never he entirely forgotten, hut would 
 practically fade, and there were endless means hy 
 which I might not only make sick people well, 
 hut might keep the people who were well from 
 becoming ill, so that, like those of the Golden City, 
 none would say, " I am sick." In the end, referring 
 to my accounts of the preceding Coronation Day, she 
 wished that the dear young Queen Victoria's life 
 might ever be loved and honoured by the world ; 
 that it might be as prosperous as prolonged ; that 
 she might never have a sorrow or a care. She 
 hoped also that I might live to make the Vic- 
 torian reign useful. For her own part she was 
 but a few weeks away from her heavenly crown, 
 which would be a solace for me to know. She had 
 fought the good fight, she had kept the faith, and 
 henceforth there was laid up for her a crown of 
 glory that would never fade away. 
 
 I am bound to say that the lessons my mother 
 thus instilled into me have never been out of my 
 heart and mind. They have been corrected by other 
 lessons and impressions, but they still remain. She 
 spoke as a godly woman, and to my recollection she 
 never referred again to this subject. She died in 
 the following month but one, August 6th, 1838. I, 
 like millions more, was thus left to fight my way 
 without a mother's counsel or consolation. But I 
 
A MATERNAL LESSON AND FAREWELL. 9 
 
 think it well to narrate the memory as explanatory 
 of many things that will have to be recorded in 
 the course of this work, and to add that my good 
 father, who, as I have said, faithfully responded 
 to her desires, survived her thirty-eight years, 
 reaching the extreme age of eighty-seven. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 SCHOOL-DATS. 
 
 *OKE depends on the manner in which a 
 hoy or a girl spends school-days than on 
 almost anything else in life. The mind 
 is formed during this time, and the environments 
 are of the utmost importance. 
 
 I am one of the helievers in heredity, and, in 
 watching the course of disease, I have rarely, if ever, 
 heen deceived in respect to the action of hereditary 
 transmission on the value of life ; hut I am sure 
 that the surroundings and influence of school- 
 life are amongst the most precious concerns that 
 give life its quality, failure, or success. The 
 natures of hoth men and women are modified hy 
 school-days, which especially they love or hate. 
 It is the most wonderful fact to find indifference 
 in this matter. There are those who at all times 
 rememher their school with actual devotion, and 
 there are some who recall the same period with an 
 aversion which can never he too fully expressed, 
 although on other subjects they may he moderate 
 in tone and example. Likes and dislikes are thus 
 
 10 
 
SCHOOL-DAYS, 11 
 
 expressed even to the dying day, and the course 
 of disease is tinctured by the remembrance. 
 
 For my own part I was fortunately well-favoured 
 in regard to school-days. The practice of teaching 
 boys to sew, not uncommon sixty years ago, and 
 a part of my dame's plan of education, was a good 
 practice, and to me proved uncommonly useful, 
 rendering me, in the profession of a doctor, more 
 than usually quick, not merely in stitching up 
 wounds, but in connecting bandages and making 
 them fit with neatness of adaptation. We learned 
 of her sums and tables, as well as geography and 
 maps, with elementary drawing. Once, and once 
 only, I played truant, and to this day excuse 
 myself. The lessons I had been set to learn 
 were unusually long ; one, relating to this England 
 of ours, being specially stiff, showing that, girt 
 by the sea, and cut off from the rest of the world, 
 we English became mariners by necessity, and 
 that what at first was a serious inconvenience 
 became, at last, so great a boon that we were 
 admitted by all nations to be the indisputable 
 Lords of the Ocean. I liked the idea and the 
 history, but had not the time to get it all up, 
 and in despair at my incompetency took refuge in 
 absolute silence ; that is to say, I did not venture 
 to school. I found a tree, crept under its branches, 
 cried for a while, learned my task completely, 
 and at eleven o'clock was not sorry at being 
 found out and taken back to school a truant 
 
12 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 culprit. I said my lesson, and just as the other 
 children were going away — it was Saturday after- 
 noon — was doomed to stand for an hour at a little 
 window which looked into the street, wearing on 
 my head a paper cap as long as my own body, 
 across which the word " Dunce " was written in 
 large letters, for the sightseers to see and laugh 
 at. I neither laughed nor cried, nor, indeed, 
 cared I a rush, for I knew I was not really a 
 dunce, and so did the dame, who let me off within 
 the hour; and, actually sorry to have set me up 
 as an example, took me into her pantry, kissed 
 me kindly, and gave me a splendid slice of a 
 savoury pie, which I much enjoyed, as a sort of 
 luncheon that should prepare me to spend the 
 rest of the day with my other companions. 
 
 Quite lately, a gentleman who had been to the 
 village — Somerby — told me he had met an old 
 villager there, nearly ninety years of age, who 
 carried the occurrence in his mind, taking him 
 to look at the window where, sixty years before, 
 he had seen me perched with the awful denuncia- 
 tion on my head, and my two little fists dug deeply 
 into my pockets, as though I were saying, "It is 
 a libel." 
 
 Miss Lane's was my elementary school, and here 
 I remained until I went to a mixed school, in which 
 I got on fairly as far as arithmetic was concerned, 
 and in which I learned, as did the other boys, to 
 measure land — a duty which never led to anything 
 
SCHOOL-DAYS. 13 
 
 practical, but which was of service to me in un- 
 expected ways in after scientific calculations. 
 
 I did not like this school, owing to the fault of 
 the whipping system carried out by the master of 
 it. Whipping was cruelly severe, a cruelty then 
 felt to be necessary. I never was a martyr to 
 this process myself, but I looked on and writhed 
 as much as if I had been. I did not remain here 
 long, and when I left it was not without feelings of 
 relief. 
 
 Prom the schools I have named I passed at last 
 to that for which my mother destined me, and in 
 which I spent several years. It was one of the 
 principal schools of the county of Leicestershire, 
 and was kept by a clergyman of the Church of 
 England, the Reverend W. Young Nutt. It 
 was a typical school of the period, and I was not 
 in it long before the settled terms entered into 
 between the principal and my mother were carried 
 out. By religious persuasion a Calvinist, my mother 
 had to attend her in her last illness a Calvinistic 
 doctor, who, during a medical visit, made an 
 observation far from agreeable to her. They had 
 got over the professional part very well, for he 
 was a clever man; but they had passed on to talk 
 of religion — always a dangerous topic with sick 
 people. She, on her part, praised the religious 
 sect to which she belonged, and that was all right ; 
 but she went a step further, as women are specially 
 inclined to do under such circumstances, stating 
 
14 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 her belief that she herself was one of the elect, 
 and predestined, even before the world began, to 
 become one of the saved. Death, therefore, was 
 to her no more than the word of release from a 
 long train of disease and suffering. I do not 
 know what led the doctor to dispute this hope, 
 but dispute it he did. He raised a warning note, 
 perhaps with the best intention. He said he had 
 known many who had closed their eyes in sight, as 
 they believed, of a glorious Heaven, and had 
 opened them, to their amazement, as he believed, 
 in a very different place. It was enough. He 
 was admitted to be a clever doctor, but he must 
 come no more, and he never did. The uncle of 
 mine, by marriage with my aunt, came instead, 
 from a greater distance, a retired doctor near also 
 coming occasionally. 
 
 Meanwhile, on the religious side, a doubt re- 
 mained, to settle which the Reverend Mr. Nutt, who 
 was then the incumbent of the village church, was, 
 by my mother's wish, sent for, and willingly came. 
 He was not of an austere school : he soothed each 
 doubt, and for a few weeks was her beloved pastor ; 
 he administered the last rites ; he preached in 
 eloquent words the usual funeral sermon, and 
 directed that Pope's Vital Spark should be sung 
 at the funeral service. 
 
 With many marks of attention he received me 
 at his school, arranged for my education in accord- 
 ance with my future prospects, and agreed with my 
 
SCHOOL-DAYS. 15 
 
 father, who was goodness itself for ever, in respect 
 to my welfare. I was now under proper supervision. 
 The profession I was to take up was fixed as that of 
 medicine, of the preventive section of which I had 
 an inkling or foretaste, for in the first vaccination 
 of our village, in which I was one of the vaccinated, 
 the operation was carried out in our garden. There 
 had been also a public meeting of the villagers, 
 at which they drew up a letter to the Lord Lieu- 
 tenant, praying that a man who had been executed 
 for a murder at Leicester might be removed from 
 the gibbet on which he was suspended ; first, because 
 his suspension there did no good, and, secondly, 
 because it led flies to carry from his remains 
 products which were very mischievous to all the 
 fruit near. To be brief, I never thought of anything 
 else than physic ; I commenced reading Latin 
 from the Latin pharmacopoeia, and eventually, not 
 merely from Valpy's Delectus, but from Celsus and 
 from Gregory's Conspectus. 
 
 The school in which I was now fixed was, as I 
 have said, a good specimen of its kind in the first 
 half of the present century. We began our work 
 at nine in the morning by delivering from memory 
 the lessons we had been set the night before. We 
 went next to our Latin lessons, which lasted a good 
 hour, and to the Latin some of us added Greek, so 
 that I read through the Diatesseron. We then passed 
 to arithmetic, the more advanced adding mathe- 
 matics — the first four books of Euclid — to the task, 
 
16 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 on which one hour more was fully expended. Then 
 we stood up and read from one of the great hooks 
 of antiquity, and listened to the exposition which 
 the learned master chose to apply. We were also 
 questioned on what we read and took our places 
 accordingly, hy which time the hour had arrived 
 for the dinner we very much enjoyed. Afterwards, 
 for between two and three hours, we had our play. 
 We were well-practised in this exertion. Outside 
 the school stood a little hoot-house, in which we took 
 off the thick slippers we were obliged to wear in 
 school and put on strong hoots, well-fitted for out- 
 door work, hut not considered proper in the house. 
 Our play was varied, controlled very much hy the 
 seasons. Hide-and-seek was a favourite game ; fox- 
 and-hounds was another ; so were climbing trees 
 and kite-flying. In the warm months cricket was 
 our great game, and in that we excelled, for we had 
 a good field near to us, and had considerable practice. 
 It was at this time that a grand revolution took 
 place in cricket, which I myself never cordially 
 liked. A change took place in the art of bowling. 
 In the original game, as it had been practised for 
 ages according to our ideas, and as the traditions 
 of Burrow Hill seemed to testify, the bowling had 
 always been what was called "underhand." The 
 bowler would run up to the side of one of his adver- 
 saries' wickets and deliver his ball to the wicket 
 at the other end of the pitch with his hand down 
 by his side, with much precision whether swiftly or 
 
SCHOOL-DAYS. 17 
 
 slowly. Sometimes lie was a fast bowler, and 
 went straight, sending his ball towards the opposite 
 wicket with all his might. The batsman had to 
 look out and hit or parry the ball, otherwise the 
 wicket fell, the bails at the top were scattered, and 
 all for the time was over with the batsman. Or 
 the bowler was slow and artful. He would let his 
 ball trail queerly along under the bat of the batsman, 
 to reach the wicket in that way ; or he pitched his 
 ball so that it would come just short of the bat, or 
 go just over it, a very difficult ball to meet and very 
 treacherous. These were feats of skill, and implied 
 considerable tact for which bowlers were celebrated. 
 Quite suddenly all this was changed and the system 
 of " round-arm " bowling came into fashion, for which 
 I think we are indebted to a Captain Barton, who 
 was an impulsive and merry Leicestershire man, 
 great in ballooning and in all sports of an active 
 character. The round-arm bowling altered the 
 entire aspect of the game. The bowler no longer 
 kept down his arm to his side ; he practically threw 
 the ball. He was not allowed to throw it overhand, 
 as if he were casting it for a catch ; he was obliged 
 to arrange that his fist should not rise above his 
 elbow, but still he pitched, and so gave rise to what 
 is called "round-arm bowling." The bowler did not 
 now try to give artful casts, but endeavoured by 
 sheer swift bowling, as a general rule, to go through 
 his opponent's wicket. There is no doubt that he 
 did bowl swiftly, as the padded legs of the batsman 
 
 2 
 
18 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 plainly indicated, but he was apt also to bowl very 
 much on one side or other of the wicket, and he 
 stood anything but gracefully. He bent on one 
 side, and his position was not at all elegant as he 
 delivered the ball. On this there became more of 
 side swing, of backing-up behind, of wicket-keeping, 
 and of wider outposts, great batsmen, such as 
 Pilcher, sometimes driving the ball to distances that 
 had never before been seen or heard of. We school- 
 boys were not slow in taking up the new method, 
 but I much doubt whether we particularly relished 
 it. It has held its own, and we scarcely ever see 
 a match now under the old system. I have once 
 or twice known it set aside, and a neat and skilled 
 bowler take an immense number of wickets by the 
 old system with astounding success ; but round-arm 
 and over-arm bowling hold the first place in the 
 mind of the present-day cricketer. 
 
 Besides cricket, we had other pastimes which were 
 pleasant. We often went in the spring-time to see 
 the sheep washed and sheared, and were greatly 
 delighted to chaff the washer as he stood in his 
 tub in mid-stream. At other times we used the 
 stream for our own bathing-place, and laved and 
 bathed and learned to swim and dive, like true 
 English boys. 
 
 We played a game called fox-and-hounds which 
 leads me back to an incident calling into view one of 
 the most remarkable statesmen of this country when 
 he was comparatively a young man, and when he 
 
SCHOOL-DAYS. 19 
 
 little thought of the great future that lay before 
 him. The game of fox-and-houncls most people 
 understand, but they rarely connect it with an 
 event such as befell us schoolboys. The custom 
 is for one boy, either by the choice of his fellows 
 or by a toss-up, to be elected fox for the game. He 
 is then divested of all clothing that would be incon- 
 venient, and round his neck is suspended a bag 
 filled with short cuttings of paper. He is next 
 allowed a ten-minutes' start, when he makes his 
 way as he likes, and at the end of ten minutes 
 indicates his path by throwing out his papers right 
 and left. I once, selected by virtue of the toss-up, 
 made for the station of a railway which had not 
 been many years open and which I wanted much to 
 see. I also wanted to catch sight of a gentleman 
 there who was stationmaster. This gentleman had 
 created a good deal of conversation about himself. 
 It was gossiped that he had been editor of a 
 paper called The Satirist-, that in that capacity 
 he had written some rhymes which were not well 
 received in high quarters, but that, being a man of 
 family, he had been permitted to escape the law and 
 to conceal himself. 
 
 I started for Syston, a long run, and finding 
 myself on the edge of a spinney, or small wood, 
 stuck some papers on the fence, and crept through 
 it into the wood. Some of the trees were high, and 
 finding them close together, I climbed one, from 
 the top of which I could see my companions making 
 
2,0 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 straight towards me. Losing no time, I practised 
 an art I had learned at Burrow of leaning over to 
 the next near tree in turn and descending by the 
 last in the wood. Then I crept along the spinney 
 until I found an opening on the opposite side to that 
 by which I had entered, escaped by it, and made my 
 way onwards. My comrades naturally stayed at 
 the little wood, and knowing my propensities for 
 lingering in such spots, they completely searched 
 it, climbed some of the very trees I had mounted, 
 and not finding me, crossed, and in time dis- 
 covered the bits of paper that denoted my course. 
 By this thorough search of the wood they lost a 
 great deal of time and gave me the opportunity of 
 pushing on a good way. I made for a village called 
 Queenborough ; talked to the people there, to whom 
 I told my destination ; scattered a few papers ; 
 drank a glass of good gingerbeer, and not very 
 long after reached the station named Syston, 
 where the stationmaster was busy in his garden. 
 I did not know him, but he soon began to talk 
 to me ; ascertained what I had been doing, and 
 seeming to revive under some old and long-forgotten 
 pleasure, asked me into his house and gave me a 
 glass of milk. It occurred to me to be best to wait 
 there until the rest came up, and all I did was to 
 watch the stationmaster meet a train that was just 
 coming in. Some passengers got out, and one of 
 them spoke to me in a kind of informal manner, 
 set up his little trunk on top of a seat, and then 
 
SCHOOL-DAYS. 21 
 
 began to walk with the stationmaster up and down 
 the platform, whilst I ran about and got on the 
 lines, from which I was summoned back to look 
 out for my friends. The passenger, who meanwhile 
 walked about, and had heard the history of the fox- 
 and-hounds, a brisk, active, comparatively young 
 man between thirty and forty years of age, was 
 obviously pleased with the game, and quite alive to 
 what it meant. He carried a short stick or cane, 
 which he often brought sharply to his right leg, 
 and he spoke with a rather slow and decisive 
 voice, with frequent turnings towards his little 
 trunk, as if to be sure it was quite safe. I knew 
 who he was by this time, but did not dream of the 
 important part he was to play. On his trunk, in 
 white letters, was conspicuously painted his name. 
 It was Benjamin Disraeli, Esq., the name of the 
 son of the author of Curiosities of Literature 
 and The Calamities of Authors, books I had often 
 perused with boyish pleasure. The present Disraeli 
 was, of course, new to my mind, but not all new in 
 name. He was slender in build, and dark-looking, 
 wearing a dress which alone would have told the 
 race from which he sprang. He was well-dressed — 
 that is to say, his clothes fitted his body as correctly 
 as was possible. His shoes were very bright ; his 
 trousers tight ; his waistcoat had a collar and 
 upper part of sealskin. His shirt looked dingy, 
 and round his neck was what was called a black 
 stock just showing the collar. His overcoat was loose 
 
22 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 and of a dark grey ; his hat, tall, narrow, and curved 
 a little, was worn on one side. As he tapped his 
 right leg with the short stick, he had a sidelong, 
 droll look, a look he never lost, and he spoke clearly, 
 hut with a kind of drawl, which sounded foreign. He 
 made several inquiries ahout our school, and was 
 intensely pleased with my account of Burrow Hill, 
 the races there, and the particulars of a pony, " Dead- 
 nap," that belonged to one of my schoolfellows, and 
 always won any race in which he partook. 
 
 While we were walking and talking some of my 
 schoolfellows arrived, and, after giving me a good 
 blowing-up for having led them so far out, seized 
 me as their prey and made a great prize of my 
 paper-hag, as if it were the tail of the fox that had 
 been caught. I dare say Mr. Disraeli would have 
 questioned us more, but just at the moment a 
 new train made its way in, the stationmaster was 
 fetching the famous bag, and we all gathered to 
 see the passenger off. He was handed into a 
 comfortable carriage for London, and, putting his 
 bag by his side, shook hands, to our surprise, with 
 the stationmaster, whom he evidently knew, bade 
 us all a cordial good-bye, and sped away to the 
 Leicester station, the next on his way ; the Syston 
 stationmaster telling us that we had met Master 
 Disraeli, whose father he had known, and predicting 
 for him a future career we scarcely understood : 
 " He is a wonderful young man, is that ; writes 
 stories, gets into and out of debt, and I shouldn't 
 
SCHOOL-DAYS. 23 
 
 wonder if some of you live to see him a Minister of 
 the Crown." 
 
 I did not see Mr. Disraeli again for many years 
 after this, and when I did he was in a very different 
 position. Some twenty years after the Syston 
 adventure I was one of the lecturers of " Lane's 
 School," adjoining St. George's Hospital, and was 
 going from Manchester Square to that school to 
 deliver the morning discourse. Mr. Disraeli was 
 taking his early walk, and in South Audley 
 Street I met him. He was very much changed ; 
 older, dressed differently, and extremely grave 
 and thoughtful. As we met he recognised me at 
 once, and came forward in a friendly manner. 
 
 "We have met before," he said, "but I do not 
 know when." 
 
 I reminded him and he immediately remembered. 
 
 " Yes ! " he said, " I well recall that interview 
 at Syston station ; but what are you doing at this 
 time ? " 
 
 I told him I had gone through my medical 
 examinations, was duly qualified, and delivering 
 lectures on Medical Jurisprudence at a medical 
 school close to St. George's Hospital. He turned 
 round, indicating that he was, for the moment, at 
 leisure, and accompanied me on my way towards 
 Hyde Park. We talked all the while. He re- 
 membered the game of fox-and-hounds, spoke about 
 the changes years had made, asked the subject of 
 my lecture that morning, and was much interested 
 
24 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 to hear it was " Spontaneous Combustion." At the 
 new grounds, which have now been turned into a 
 garden and which I have scores of times crossed 
 since, we parted. I met him again several times. 
 When the Shaftesbury Estate was opened we 
 spent most of the afternoon together in agreeable 
 converse, and on one occasion he sent me, through 
 Sir William Stirling Maxwell, a kind and useful 
 message from the House of Commons. But, 
 curiously, he remained always to my mind the 
 travelling stranger at the station, where, by acci- 
 dent, we first came together — he a brilliant young 
 man, I a playing schoolboy.* 
 
 I never recall those school-days at Burrow without 
 satisfaction; every incident connected with them 
 
 * The school in which Mr. Disraeli learned his own early lessons 
 still exists. It is situated at Higham Hill, near Walthamstow, and as 
 it stood in his time must have been a handsome place. The house 
 — Essex Hall — is now occupied by the widow and daughters of the 
 late Sidney Cooper, Esq. The house is large and commodious, and 
 on the right side of it are the schoolhouse and playgrounds just as 
 they were in the olden time, for the owner has not liked to disturb 
 them. When Mr. Disraeli — that is to say, Lord Beaconsfield — lived in 
 the house, there were as many as sixty boys all undergoing their 
 education, and the school was kept by a Unitarian minister — the 
 Reverend Dr. Cogden — a remarkable teacher and scholar. The school- 
 room is divided into two parts, which is exactly as it was originally ; 
 the desks continue in the same position as they were then placed ; the 
 fireplace where the boys warmed themselves is the same, and all over 
 the boarded walls and desks the names of scholars are cut, but the 
 Earl's name is not to be found. The late Recorder of London, Samuel 
 Gurney, was also educated here, and an old schoolboy, still living, 
 points out the beam running across one of the rooms on which the 
 boys would all climb on occasions. In one of the divisions of the 
 room the scholars partook of their dinner, which the servants had to 
 bring up from the house, and the bell that summoned to work, eat, or 
 
SCHOOL-DA YS. 25 
 
 comes back with pleasure, as if nothing were too 
 small to he recalled. I remember well an old 
 gentleman by the name of Dr. Wing who used to 
 ride a fine cob, followed on all occasions by two 
 greyhounds. He was a retired practitioner from 
 the Vale of Belvoir, and I heard that for a long time 
 he went regularly each week to Grantham, where 
 he carried on a kind of consultative practice which 
 paid him very well. I recall him as a private 
 gentleman, although he would now and then see a 
 patient and write out a prescription in a large hand 
 on a large sheet of writing-paper, charging five 
 shillings for the effort. I know not why, but he 
 took a great fancy to me, and often asked me to see 
 him. His housekeeper was a sister of a nurse who 
 once saved me from drowning. Dr. "Wing was very 
 fond of his profession, and would tell me a great 
 deal about it as he pictured it fifty or sixty years 
 before. He always told me to work away hard, 
 predicting that if I did I should one day be, as he 
 called it, "a star of the medical firmament." He 
 would also, with great care, describe the house near 
 to his own, though not in the same parish, in which 
 
 play is still suspended conspicuously on the outer wall of the mansion. 
 At this moment the divided school is used by the Misses Cooper as a 
 Sunday School. 
 
 Apropos of meeting Mr. Disraeli at Syston station, as recorded above, 
 I have no doubt that it was owing to the circumstance that he had 
 been on a tour or visit to Charnwood Forest, to which he was partial. 
 He evidently knew the forest very well, for in his story of Coningsby 
 he refers to many facts connected with it, and even to persons who 
 resided in it. 
 
26 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 Cheselden, the great surgeon in the reign of Queen 
 Anne, was born. He had known an old man who 
 had seen Cheselden, and he knew the nephew, 
 Colonel Cheselden, at whose sale my grandfather, 
 Richard Ward, bought the Panini picture that 
 once belonged to the great surgeon himself. 
 
 Old Dr. Wing lived on all through my time at 
 Burrow, and when I was established afterwards in 
 London he sent for me to see him in his dying days. 
 I am happy to say I went, and with his regular 
 attendant, Mr. Henry Hudson, of whom I shall have 
 to speak again, did my best to ease his pain and 
 prolong his life. He died very soon afterwards of 
 old age. 
 
 Our work at school was always full of interest, 
 which carried us along blithely. We had, among 
 other friends, if I may still call him so, a sad 
 specimen of the parish clerk of those days, and of 
 many long years previous. This clerk had always 
 a kind word for us, but sometimes we got entangled 
 in a quarrel with him. He was a droll reader, and 
 he not only had to read his parts of the service, but 
 had to select and give out the first lines of the 
 hymns sung by the choir. The leader, who was a 
 good musician for his time, and a violoncellist, did 
 not hesitate to take his seat on the altar-table, and 
 lead with his voice while following with his in- 
 strument. Our clerk, Johnnie as he was commonly 
 called, would never heed how he read, but we knew 
 his tricks. He would say, " Fill the hungry with 
 
SCHOOL-DAYS. 27 
 
 good things, feed 'em, and send 'em empty away," 
 the impossibilities of which he did not seem to 
 comprehend. But the drollest thing he ever did, 
 was, I fear, due in some measure to our mischief. 
 We boys at vacation were invariably allowed to ring 
 a peal on the parish bells. We had four bells; 
 merry ones they were. I myself used to ring the 
 tenor, and never was more delighted than when the 
 rope of it was in my hands. One Christmas -time, 
 we could not discover why, Johnnie took it into his 
 head that we should not ring. He cleaned up the 
 church, set out the green stuff on pulpit and pew, 
 and locked the door. It was fortunate and un- 
 fortunate that one of us boys knew how to get into 
 the church by a secret way, which we promptly 
 fathomed and entered in by. We, closing the church 
 door and securing the latch firmly, as well as our 
 own mode of entrance, made our way to the belfry 
 without disturbing a single leaf. Once there, 
 certain of us stripped off our coats, and, running up 
 our bells, commenced our usual peal, only to bring 
 Master Johnnie back in a furious passion. I 
 answer for no bell but the tenor, and I know that 
 not one pealed more joyously, indeed it never 
 seemed to ring so cheerily. The door and all 
 entrances being securely closed, poor Johnnie spent 
 his rage in vain. Meanwhile some of our fellows 
 mounted to the roof of the church and to the 
 battlements, while we in the belfry waited a short 
 time, and snow being abundant, those outside made 
 
28 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 heaps of snowballs, and calling aloud, brought 
 Johnnie, who was under close cover, into view. Then 
 the snowballs flew fast and furious ; we at the bells 
 joined the outside ranks, and very soon the invader, 
 who for a time stood as still as Lot's wife, had to 
 retire, for Jack Lambert, the lion of the school, who 
 afterwards lost his life while taking soundings in 
 the river Hooghly near Calcutta, threw a ball so 
 skilfully that it knocked off Johnnie's hat, with 
 telling consequences. We were molested no more, 
 and quietly ceasing our sport marched to the rectory 
 for tea ; corded our boxes ; told some good tales ; 
 dwelt on our last adventure, which we did not try to 
 conceal, and left in numbers the same night. 
 
 It was quite curious to all who had to stay a 
 few hours longer to observe how civil our good 
 friend Johnnie was to everyone. He said he had 
 only been played a boys' trick, and on our passing 
 his house he and his good lady together at the 
 parlour window kissed us with their hands a merry 
 good-bye, and seemed to proffer all their good 
 wishes for the new year : in our wish, father to the 
 thought, we hoped so. 
 
 Our Christmas vacation passed away as all such 
 times do. "We had a few lessons to learn, but my 
 time was mostly filled with merry parties and 
 games that were in progress, and with the reading 
 of Cook's and Anson's Voyages, Southey's Life of 
 Lord Nelson, which was then very popular, with 
 some of Charles Dickens' early works, which were 
 
SCHOOL-DAYS. 29 
 
 just catching the public mind, and with tales about 
 Jack Sheppard, who, though long dead and gone, 
 was becoming the hero of the hour. In those days, 
 too, we learned to shoot with the old flint gun, 
 which had not yet been replaced altogether by 
 the cap, and our sport was chiefly with fieldfare, 
 birds shy and timid when the cold was not intense, 
 but by no means bad game. 
 
 We came back to school at the end of January, 
 the usual time, found some new friends, and got 
 on very well. One day we started rather early to 
 Buttermilk, where the hounds met, and after they 
 had " found " we made our way back through the 
 village. There we were met by our friend Johnnie, 
 who, forgetting, or seeming to forget, old scores, 
 asked us all about our holidays and invited every 
 old boy into his house, but would ask none of the 
 new boys. His wife, as cordial as her husband, 
 laid out new presents, such as mince-pies, inviting 
 us with grace and enticement to partake as we 
 would have done if we had been at home, and in- 
 quiring religiously about every father, mother, sister, 
 and baby, if there were any. The mince-pies were 
 splendid, only too small in size, and how every one 
 devoured them, and how many, it is unnecessary 
 to tell. We went " galumphing back " to our 
 school, but oh ! the horrors I cannot repeat. They 
 were awful, and if some doctor had declared, 
 as a bait to his practice and skill, that Asiatic 
 cholera — which had not long left the locality — 
 
30 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 had returned with all its virulence, he need not 
 have been doubted. As to ourselves, we knew better 
 what was up, and when we got over the attack we 
 thought most deeply of our revenge ; but we did not 
 for the moment see our way to it, so we waited 
 many weeks. Revenge came at last, and that is 
 the pith of the story. In Burrow Church there was 
 a funeral, and when it was over, two of the naughty 
 boys who had been sufficiently punished got a quill 
 and a gum-bottle, and by the private way entered 
 the church after Johnnie had left. They found, as 
 expected, that he had got everything in order. He 
 had put in the proper marks at the lessons, the 
 psalms, the gospel, the epistle, and the collect, for 
 the next Sunday. He had seen the choirmaster 
 with the big fiddle, and had duly set out the hymns. 
 Finally, he had prepared his own reading-book, 
 which we sought. The psalm for the day in which 
 he had to read was the CXXXVIth, which tells the 
 children of Israel how they had been saved in their 
 great trouble, and how grateful they ought to be 
 to the God they worshipped for saving them. The 
 psalm begins with the solemn invocation to the Lord, 
 to give thanks unto Him because He is good " and 
 His mercy endureth for ever : " the clerk follows the 
 priest with a recital in the same strain, and so they 
 proceed verse by verse until the thirteenth and 
 fourteenth are reached. At that precise point poor 
 Johnnie suffered. The parson tells in verse thirteen 
 how the Lord divided the Red Sea into parts, and 
 
SCHOOL-DA YS. 31 
 
 the clerk reads, " And made Israel to go through the 
 midst of it " — by an interpolation always expected, 
 " dry shod " — "for His mercy," etc. But here the 
 clerk stopped. The two bad boys had done no great 
 wrong, but sufficient to be mischievous, which was 
 enough. Dropping the feathered end of the quill 
 pen into the gum, they had stuck down the margin 
 of the leaves in such a manner that the page ended 
 with "for His mercy," while the next leaf com- 
 menced " Thou knowest my down-sitting and mine 
 up-rising " instead of " endureth for ever." What 
 was to be done ? Johnnie turned back the leaf, 
 but it had no effect, so he read on, "And made 
 Israel to go through the midst of it dry shod, for 
 
 His mercy thou knowest No ! he did not 
 
 know," and in awful confusion he once more 
 turned back the page, exclaiming "for His mercy 
 endureth No! damn it! I'm wrong ! " 
 
 The exclamation was loud enough for all the 
 church to hear, but the consternation it produced is 
 better imagined than described. 
 
 " Sit down ! " cried the parson, and then turning 
 to the boy by his side, whose duty it was to read 
 the lessons, he bade him go on with the service. I 
 am ashamed to say the boy laughed so that the 
 clergyman, turning to the principal gentleman of 
 the parish who sat near, asked him to do what 
 the boy was unable to, and he, with much grace, 
 complying with the request, the service went on to 
 its close. 
 
32 CHAPTERS OF LTFE. 
 
 I have only one other word to say about Johnnie, 
 so famous a specimen of the ancient parish clerk 
 popular in my boyhood. He would always say " to 
 the cheruphim and serabim continual I do cry." 
 His learned master corrected him on this point more 
 than once, but it did little good. The first words 
 he would correct, but " continual I do cry " he 
 considered was more respectful than " continually," 
 and he stood to his text to the end. 
 
 This clerk was a wonder of our school, but we had 
 more wonders of a living kind than he. We had 
 dwelling not far from us a live marquis who did 
 the oddest of things, what he would call practical 
 jokes — sometimes practical, sometimes serious, and 
 I should say usually costly. He once painted 
 Melton Mowbray from end to end "brick-red," and 
 over the squire's house bestowed so much labour 
 that he stood on a staunch comrade's back, and 
 admonishing another friend to " give us another 
 brush, Jack ; it's best to do it well while we're 
 about it," he laid it on rather too thick and was 
 arrested. Visiting some friends in a parish a few 
 miles off, he rose in the night ; made his way 
 quietly to the churchyard; pulled the ropes of 
 the bells out of the belfry window; tied them 
 together with one cord ; tied the end of that to a 
 halter fixed on a jackass, and then sped home to 
 bed. When the animal came to the end of his 
 tether he naturally pulled, and, making the bells 
 ring, in his fright pulled harder. The row was 
 
SCHOOL-DA YS. 33 
 
 terrific. All the village arose armed, but no one 
 dared to proceed to the churchyard, except the 
 marquis's man. This man ventured, and loosing the 
 cord solemnly declared he could see nothing, and it 
 was not until some days after the master and his 
 man had left the district to hunt in another county 
 that the true perpetrators of the hoax were found 
 out. 
 
 We were constantly hearing rumours about this 
 noble lord, at some of which we laughed, while 
 in regard to others we were not so elate. We once 
 heard of a good-natured clergyman who preached 
 for him and his friends a charity sermon. The 
 clergyman rode over to the church, at which he 
 was to preach, on a slow but favourite old pony, 
 and put the animal up in the stable allotted to him. 
 Whilst he was conducting the service the legs of 
 the pony were dressed with deer fat, or something 
 of the kind, which dogs would follow. Then, when 
 the service was concluded and the clergyman was 
 returning to his college, the dogs were let out, and, 
 running after the scent, followed the poor old 
 gentleman at full cry into the midst of a weir in 
 a village he rode through, from which he was extri- 
 cated with the utmost difficulty. We were filled 
 with anecdotes of this sort which came to us from 
 all sides, until at last we wearied of them, many of 
 which I could repeat if repetition were necessary : 
 at last we heard that the half-mad originator of 
 them, venturing, at length, into some foreign city, 
 
34 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 received a crack on the head from a night-watchman, 
 which caused his death either at the time or soon 
 afterwards. 
 
 Amongst other things in our village we had, 
 almost as a matter of course, a great "black-jack" 
 centre, and it is worthy of note that the maker of 
 the article, one Nanny Brown, was the finest 
 manufacturer ever known. I am afraid we played 
 her many sad tricks. Her cottage was easily scaled 
 at the hack hy its roof, and one day when she was 
 engaged making the sweet in large quantities two 
 of us hoys ascended, while the rest remained helow. 
 Those at the top could look down the chimney, 
 and could see the iron pot on the fire hoiling or 
 simmering, with the sweetstuff in it. Calculating 
 the right time, they let down a long string and 
 hook, and, catching the pot, drew it up with its 
 load. On returning to the fire Nanny missed the 
 precious mixture, and rushed into the next house 
 to call assistance. Meantime the sweetstuff was 
 poured out on to a newspaper, pennies were poured 
 in to take its place, and the pot was let down 
 again. The neighbour coming in discovered the 
 pot in its right position, and proceeded to turn out 
 the money on to the floor ; hut when the two 
 women came to pick up the pennies they were burnt 
 by them, and exclaiming loudly " Oh ! I'll have 
 none of the devil's money ! " pious Nanny pitched 
 the whole into the sink without compunction. Very 
 soon after, all of us boys rushed in for our usual 
 
SCHOOL-DAYS. 35 
 
 share, and found none to be sold, to the apparent 
 great surprise of some of us. A few, however, were 
 too inquisitive, some too communicative, and some 
 sniggered so that they let the cat out of the bag, 
 and a sound scolding and refusal to let us sit on 
 the corner copper and tell tales brought the whole 
 of the joke to a close. Many years after Nanny 
 and I renewed our laughter at this adventure, when 
 she gave me a receipt for her famous mixture, and 
 I returned the gift — through the doctor who was 
 with me — -in the way of attendance and prescription. 
 Later on I heard in London of her death, and often 
 amused my own children by relating the incident 
 above described, as did other of the boys of the 
 same age who took part in it. 
 
 As boys at Burrow School we all kept on good 
 terms with each other, although now and then we 
 had a free fight. One boy, who had heart disease, 
 from which in a few years he died, was a splendid 
 boxer. He could thrash any other boy in the 
 school, and, as boxing was not forbidden, it is 
 a fact that he often did, especially when he was 
 nicknamed "body-snatcher," a name he cordially 
 resented, or when any reference was made to the 
 occupation of persons of that class. For my part I 
 took no share in any of these violent disputes, and 
 never exchanged a blow. I was a student among 
 students, and while I was obliged to take part 
 in the lessons that were set, I was not expected to 
 fight or quarrel. Often, indeed, I did not go out to 
 
36 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 the games in the yard except to build rabbit- 
 houses, or to play at " fives," which was always a 
 fine game. I was great at kites, constructing one 
 in cloth that was six feet high, and which, when 
 it was well up, would lift my own weight easily, 
 carrying me over low fences in the direction of 
 the wind. The kite seemed to me to be a most 
 applicable instrument for flight, and I wonder 
 still why it has not been vigorously turned to 
 account. 
 
 Several healthy years passed at this delightful 
 school, and, on the whole, we could not have been 
 better occupied. We all worked in anticipation of 
 what we were going to be. I got thoroughly versed 
 in the English pronunciation of the Latin language, 
 and, notwithstanding much after-labour later in life, 
 found it difficult to get it supplanted by the purer 
 and more ancient school. I read through and 
 through, the first four books of Aurelius Gelsus 
 and the whole of Gregory's Conspectus — the two 
 primary Latin books for the medical profession — but 
 I also read and construed the Latin Delectus, the 
 Selectee Drofance, Cyesar's Commentaries — the first 
 books of Virgil, and other classics. I learned the 
 Greek Grammar, the Greek Delectus, and a portion 
 of the Diatesseron. 
 
 I followed Euclid through the first four books, 
 and of course, was taught reading, writing, and arith- 
 metic, geography, manners make the man, natural 
 philosophy, and all the common school-works of 
 
SCHOOL-DAYS. 37 
 
 the day, entering into a general education for a 
 pupil about to join a profession. 
 
 Our schoolroom was a capital library, and Mr. 
 INutt took care to have its shelves well-stocked with 
 useful books, to all of which we had free access 
 in our leisure hours. To me, indeed, the library 
 was a treasure, and it was well-used on wet and 
 gloomy clays. Sir Walter Scott's novels were there, 
 together with the works of other famous authors. 
 
 One or two special matters are fixed in my memory 
 in regard to the school. We had two excellent 
 globes, a celestial and terrestrial, from which we 
 took regular lessons, until at last some of us were as 
 conversant with them as we were with our ordinary 
 maps, and extremely useful they became. But what 
 was most beneficial to us was our tutor's love for the 
 telescope and his mode of teaching us its meaning. 
 He had himself a good instrument, which stood on 
 its own framework and enabled us to see from over 
 a low wall in the yard the full outline of Charnwood 
 Eorest ; it showed us when the mill at a place called 
 Markfield, in, or adjoining, the forest, was in full 
 swing ; on fine days allowed us to see the miller 
 trimming the sails ; and at night another glass 
 resolved the satellites that surround Jupiter, and 
 the rings, or supposed rings, which encircle Saturn. 
 My own eyes were so good that I could see Jupiter's 
 satellites without the aid of the glass whenever they 
 were dominant on one side of their planet, but the 
 telescope greatly assisted us and became a good 
 
38 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 guide to our vision. The gazing on the stars neces- 
 sarily led us into the study of astronomy, so that 
 we knew something about the early, as well as the 
 late, history of the science. 
 
 Astronomy at the time I name was, in brief, 
 a favourite study, and we once, for some time, saw 
 the tail of a comet, which led us on to the theory of 
 comets, the nature of the Milky Way, the mighty 
 realms of the universal space, and that which filled 
 it. It staggered us to hear all about these wonders, 
 and we often recalled the words of Young, whose 
 Night Thoughts were duly before us : — 
 
 " What am I, and from whence ? I nothing know 
 But that I am, and since I am conclude 
 Something eternal. Had there e'er been naught 
 Naught still had been. Eternal there must be. 
 But what eternal ? " 
 
 Herschel was now a great authority. He, Sir 
 William, had, we were told, resolved the Milky 
 Way into stars, and his son, Sir John, was close 
 upon him in discovery. Sir John I much longed to 
 see and hear, advantages which fell to my lot in 
 the future, and did not disapj^oint me. 
 
 It has been already told that the school, some 
 incidents connected with which are given, was to 
 me like a home for many years, and I left it with 
 actual profundity of regret. On leaving, if the 
 matter may be put in this way, my literary life 
 commenced, for I ventured a parting poem which 
 was forwarded by Mr. Nutt to one of the local 
 
SCHOOL-DA YS. 39 
 
 papers, and was published in its columns. It is 
 curious to see one's name for the first time in print, 
 and although it was transitory it was a strange 
 sensation to me, while Mr. Nutt, very much pleased 
 with the effort, pinned it in his diary, and so long 
 as he lived deigned it his perusal and commendation. 
 In this poem was sketched a history of the school- 
 life : the entrance of my schoolfellows and myself 
 into learning ; the method in which we were treated 
 by our master ; the nature of our studies ; our 
 games and other recreations ; our afternoon's work, 
 and the close of our day, the final dissolution of the 
 whole being portrayed with acute sorrow. 
 
 I have seen many vicissitudes since those boyish 
 rhymes were constructed, and I dare say I should now 
 retract some views that were written, but they were 
 faithful at the time, were in full accord with my 
 youthful aspirations, were reflexes of what I had 
 learned and done, and I refer to them with all 
 candour in the pages of " school-days." 
 
 I might leave the history of school-days at this 
 point, but there is one other observation I should 
 not like to omit. It has been told that the library 
 of our schoolroom was well- charged with useful 
 books, and that good books of fiction formed an 
 essential part. It should be added that the library 
 was also thoroughly supplied with books of adven- 
 ture, and particularly with books of a biographical 
 character. There was scarcely a man of eminence 
 up to that time whose name was not enshrined in 
 
40 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 the works located on the shelves hefore us, and we 
 took full advantage of this department. As far as 
 I could myself obtain the advantage I utilised it, 
 and spent every moment of the time I could spare 
 in reading and learning the history of the lives of 
 the great men who have preceded us. On wet 
 days all the playtime was spent in this effort, and 
 no section of school-work was in after-life more 
 profitable, for from it I imbibed a strong literary 
 taste, and in writing found it at all times useful 
 to be able to refer to the past through the deeds of 
 the men who had lived in the past. This was 
 specially the case when I was dealing, as I often 
 did, with the lives of members of my own profession 
 and with the history of my own profession. As 
 early as 1853, when Dr., afterwards Sir, John Hose 
 Cormack was editor of the Association Medical 
 Journal, I contributed to it for him, with little diffi- 
 culty, a series of articles on "Medical History," 
 discussing it as a neglected branch of medical 
 education, and urging its practical applications in 
 the study of diseases and their treatments. Later 
 on, in the pages of the old Medical Times and 
 Gazette, I wrote another series of articles on " Our 
 Heroes of the Past," giving an account of their lives 
 and works, not supplying a tithe of what I wished 
 to supply, but filling a considerable number of 
 pages, and creating a great deal of interest in the 
 minds of medical, as well as general, readers. Still 
 later, indeed within the two last decades of my life, 
 
SCHOOL-DA YS. 41 
 
 I have pursued the same subject, and iu my own 
 medical work called The Asclepiad have written 
 over forty Lives, with epitomes of the works of 
 physicians, surgeons, and philosophers who have 
 assisted in the progress of medical science and art, 
 or have added to our poetry. The labour thus 
 exacted has ever been of the most delightful kind, 
 and I can faithfully say that, whether good or bad, 
 it was derived from the early studies of a biographi- 
 cal nature that were instilled into my mind. 
 
 Prom the experience thus obtained, from the 
 happiness that has arisen from it, and from the 
 use I know it has been to many others, I would 
 urge every student, whether medical or general, 
 to start life with a good biographical training. 
 Sometimes it seems to me as if the whole field of 
 knowledge were open to a man if he first become 
 conversant with the lives, characters, and works 
 of his predecessors who have cultivated the world 
 and its literature. The world is man, and in so 
 far as he possibly can, man governs everything 
 that is upon it : builds architectural structures, 
 carves roads, pierces mountains, spans valleys, con- 
 structs languages, discovers sciences, frames laws, 
 and becomes, in short, the living lord of all. If, 
 therefore, we know man as he has been, and is, we 
 know the history of the world as it appears before 
 us in what man has left behind him, the world 
 of all time and of all character. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ENTRANCE INTO PHYSIC. 
 
 NOUGH has been told to convey the fact 
 that, practically, I had no alternative 
 except to take up physic as my profession, 
 bnt I may candidly say that I was not personally 
 in any way prejudiced in the matter of choice. It 
 was my mother's wish and pride for me to folloAv 
 medicine, and her feeling was diffused throughout 
 her circle. My good aunt was of the same opinion, 
 and her husband, a medical man, would, I am sure, 
 have marvelled greatly if anything had distracted 
 my course. 
 
 The gentleman under whom I had been a scholar 
 had educated me for a fixed destiny, and my 
 schoolfellows, among whom I had no rival in physic, 
 greeted me as an embryo doctor. If with it all I 
 had an enthusiasm, it was for the sea ; for, like 
 many boys, I had read Southey's Life of Nelson and 
 was greatly impressed by it, as well as by Sir John 
 Richardson's work about his travels towards the 
 North Pole. Another schoolfellow, " the Lion," as 
 we called him, Jack Lambert, sympathised strongly 
 
 42 
 
ENTRANCE INTO PHYSIC. 43 
 
 with me, and we two, on one occasion, actually ran 
 away, intending to make for Portsmouth or Plymouth, 
 and to seek our fortune upon the ocean. Fortunately, 
 as we trudged along and discussed the subject 
 more fully, we determined, towards evening, to 
 return to our school and to say nothing about the 
 matter further. This resolution was lucky, at all 
 events for me, but poor Jack stuck to his deter- 
 mination, spoke of it to his friends, obtained their 
 aid, went out as a middy to Calcutta, and was 
 accidentally drowned while taking soundings in the 
 river Hooghly. 
 
 One of my other schoolfellows went also aboard 
 ship, and though he lived to return and take up 
 his residence in England, his experiences were not 
 happy. The two facts put together influenced me 
 finally to remain at home and make my way as best 
 I could on solid land. 
 
 The Church had a few temptations ; the Bar 
 many ; but, on the whole, Physic came first. 
 
 In the early part of this century it was the 
 custom for all youths destined to follow the practice 
 of physic as a profession to be bound for a certain 
 number of years to a man who was himself in 
 practice. It was an old rule, and, at one time, was 
 considered all-sufficient by the community at large. 
 
 Certain men of good position, and well off, 
 " walked the hospitals," or made the grand tour 
 of Europe, going to Leyden, Paris, Gottingen, 
 Montpelier, Padua, Pome, or some other foreign 
 
44 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 centre. These; returning home, retired to Oxford or 
 Cambridge, graduated as M.D., and becoming con- 
 nected with the Royal College of Physicians in 
 London, the only truly organised English corpora- 
 tion in Medicine, entered into practice either as a 
 Licentiate or Eellow of their College. These were 
 exceptional men, doctors par excellence. The 
 majority were bound or apprenticed to gentlemen 
 in general practice, established in cities or in 
 country places as practitioners. I have often said, 
 and again say it, that this method of introduction 
 to our profession, now practically abandoned, was 
 the best that could be, and ought to have remained 
 untouched. It was a fruitful source of income to 
 every respectable practitioner; it kept such practi- 
 tioners well up to the mark ; it made good openings 
 for introductions and practice ; it was warmly ap- 
 preciated by the public at large ; it cultivated well 
 a common field, and effected a sound and general 
 good. The chief benefit was to the student himself, 
 for he learned early in life all the practical branches 
 he afterwards most needed ; he soon acquired as 
 " the young doctor " the style and manners of the 
 medical man ; he learned the mode of entering the 
 sick-room, and of conversing with the sick ; he 
 practised naturally the true etiquette of physic ; 
 he became a good rider on horseback, and a good 
 driver of a gig or phaeton ; he was familiarised with 
 the night-bell ; he gained ripe experience as a 
 dispenser of drugs, and knew by sight, touch, and 
 
ENTRANCE INTO PHYSIC. 45 
 
 odour every drug he was called upon to dispense. 
 There were also inany branches of learning open to 
 him. There was botany ; a wide field of anatomy ; 
 a school of chemistry; and the whole course of 
 dietetics. Beyond all, there was the practical 
 teaching of the details of the art under the guidance 
 of one man. There was really not one detail of a 
 minor kind omitted. The pulse could be felt, 
 counted, and particularised ; the expression could 
 be noted with facility, and all kinds of motion of 
 the limbs observed ; the temperature of the body 
 in different conditions could be tested ; dyspeptic 
 symptoms could be chronicled and corrected by 
 diet and exercise ; the effects of age could be faith- 
 fully recorded ; if a patient should unhappily die, a 
 post-mortem examination of the body could often be 
 procured and carried out, to which the pupil was 
 admitted, and from which information wanted at 
 all stages of after-life was obtained ; accidents were 
 constantly occurring at which immediate aid from 
 master as well as from pupil was demanded, and 
 hosts of little oj3erations were going on, such 
 as tooth- drawing, venesection, the application of 
 bandages, frictions, and other acts. These acts, 
 though at the moment they might appear to be 
 trifling, were in reality not so, for they gradually 
 transformed the youth into the doctor, and most 
 successfully preceded, if they did not supersede, a 
 hospital career. 
 
 On leaving school I was fortunate in being the 
 
4G CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 pupil of a competent master, the late Mr. Henry 
 Hudson of Somerby, who was not only a good doctor, 
 but was also a general scholar, in many ways ad- 
 vanced, and by natural gifts a skilled mechanic. He 
 had his faults— who has not ? — but he knew how to 
 teach. He was the medical man of our neighbour- 
 hood, and I met him fortunately. A man, for some 
 misdemeanour, had been placed in the stocks, and sat 
 there very like a beer — or spirit-steeped idiot. Two 
 wooden pillars, erected under a tree at the foot of a 
 churchyard wall, had sliding in them two perforated 
 cross-bars, the upper one of which lifted up ; the 
 person punished was made to sit on a wooden seat 
 before the stocks ; the upper cross-bar was lifted ; the 
 legs of the culprit were laid in the perforations of 
 the lower bar, and the upper bar was brought down, 
 enclosing the shins immovably, and was then locked 
 at one side. The man in the stocks was now secure 
 enough, and a crowd soon gathered in which the 
 person insulted or injured was present. The man 
 locked up was not allowed to be ill-treated by having 
 stones or other hard substances cast at him, but it 
 was permissible for any person at his pleasure to 
 cast a Hour-bag or a rotten egg, so that, as the culprit 
 sat there for two hours or more with numbers of 
 people round him who were not always polite in 
 their language, he had enough to bear. 
 
 Henry Hudson was utterly opposed to this punish- 
 ment, and, in fact, in the end had the audacity one 
 night to dig up a pair of stocks and cast them into 
 
ENTRANCE INTO PHYSIC. 47 
 
 a fishpond. Upon the occasion I have named, he 
 stood near the imprisoned victim looking on, pro- 
 bably taking care that the unhappy man was not too 
 severely tried. He held by the hand his young and 
 only daughter, a child, and she, with anxious and 
 wondering face, held and gently embraced a dove 
 she was very fond of. A shower of eggs descending 
 on the poor prisoner before her gave her a start, and 
 caused her to let loose the dove, which flew to the 
 top of a neighbouring pine-tree. I was brisk at 
 climbing trees, and, therefore, quickly clambered up 
 the tree to the dove, laid my hand gently upon it, put 
 it in my breast, descended, and, to her great delight, 
 took it to the little girl, placing it once more in her 
 arms. She was immensely grateful, and her father, 
 at that time a stranger to me, was equally pleased, 
 asked me my name, and invited me in to tea. 
 
 It was natural that I should not only take tea 
 with Mr. Hudson and his wife and child, but that I 
 should be deeply interested in his occupations and 
 conversation. He was equally interested in me, 
 and to his life's end was a faithful and admiring 
 friend, often calling on me for advice. He showed 
 me his surgery, his workshops, his good little library, 
 and all that he possessed ; he also strongly persuaded 
 me to keep to the idea of following up medicine. 
 He had himself no blind faith, and no infatuation, 
 for, having read, and having been much impressed 
 with, the Book of Ecclesiastes, he believed there was 
 nothing new under the sun, and was inclined to ask, 
 
48 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 " What knowest thou of the spirit of man that 
 goeth upward, and of the beast that goeth down- 
 ward ? " He had been a pupil of the famous Joshua 
 Brookes, E.B.S., who once taught anatomy at the 
 Anatomical School at Blenheim Steps, and who was 
 a wonder of the day in a wide circle. He told me 
 a great deal concerning Brookes — how in Brookes' 
 theatre and rooms he dissected and listened, and 
 how with this master he had not infrequently break- 
 fasted after removing some part of a skeleton in 
 order to find a chair on which to sit. Of course, 
 all this was new to me, as well as were some 
 fine anatomical sections which he had made in the 
 Blenheim Street School. 
 
 We passed, altogether, a most pleasant evening, 
 not a little varied by a careful perusal of some of 
 the chapters of Hollin's Ancient History, a book I 
 had not read, but which I found afterwards very fine 
 and useful. He told stories, too, that were short and 
 happy. He described to me what the Egyptians 
 did in their method of embalming the dead, detailing 
 every step of the old process, and explaining that 
 however much they admired the method, and how- 
 ever much they followed it, they did their best to 
 inflict some injury on the man who, with his flint 
 or stone knife, made the first incision in the body, 
 and who was obliged to " cut and run " in order to 
 save his own skin, from whence, he said, the words 
 had their origin. We became mutually attracted 
 to each other on that first night, an attachment 
 
ENTRANCE INTO PHYSIC. 49 
 
 never broken, and I have no doubt it was my fate 
 to be his articled pupil as a first step of entrance 
 into physic. Soon after the thing was done. I 
 became his pupil, and was taught to beat opium and 
 soap together in order to make opium-and-soap pill ; 
 I wrote fresh labels for all the bottles; I learned 
 not only the names, but the nature and quality of 
 the medicines, and was soon a scholar in the mystery 
 as well as in the art. It was not long before I saw 
 patients on my own account, and once, on Mr. 
 Hudson going away, I was entrusted with the care 
 of the outside sick people who would have me, and 
 being called to a man with acute peritonitis, was 
 obliged to summon the kind assistance of old Dr. 
 Wing, who most graciously informed me for the 
 best. I also read, with the utmost desire to do what 
 was most useful, the famous work on The Practice 
 of Medicine by Dr. Mason Good, a splendid authority 
 in physic, and the learned translator of Lucretius, 
 as I afterAvards discovered. 
 
 My pupilage under Mr. Hudson continued many 
 months, and had its value in other directions than 
 the healing of the sick. He was of mechanical 
 tastes, and taught me good lessons in wood-carving, 
 in which I have ever felt a deep interest. But he 
 pleased me most with his electrical efforts. He was 
 considered locally a magic electrician, and spread out 
 his electrical apparatus with more care and pride 
 than he did his books or bottles. In accordance with 
 his day, he was more of a static than a dynamic 
 
 4 
 
50 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 electrician, and was only secondarily acquainted with 
 the Galvanic, the Aldinic, or the Voltaic systems. 
 
 " I am," he used to observe playfully, " a con- 
 tinuous or primary battery man, and you must take 
 me as I am." 
 
 He was thoroughly well-read in the works of 
 Franklin, Cavallo, Priestley, Fowler, Adams, and 
 all the older school, and was richly furnished 
 with the instruments they had depicted. He had 
 his big revolving glass globes, his amalgams, his 
 conductors, his collectors, his Leyden jars, his 
 chains, and his "toys." He could set off a peal of 
 bells, make water stream rapidly from a little pail 
 with a pin-hole in it ; cause the hair of a doll 
 to stand upright, and do endless tricks to the delight 
 of an audience. He could repeat the experiment 
 of Eranklin of causing a number of standing persons 
 to bow down lowly and to rise again without knowing 
 they had ever moved ; he could also make a straight 
 rod luminiferous in the dark. We often discussed 
 together what this widespread universal power 
 known as electricity could be ; why it existed at 
 all, and whence it could be derived ; what its uses 
 would be, and what it would do in the future. I 
 am sure my own study of it dates from these early 
 considerations and observations. 
 
 Besides being a practising doctor, a wood-carver, 
 and an electrician, my master was an antiquarian 
 scholar, and was anxious to infuse a liking for a 
 most graceful and useful pursuit. We had near to 
 
ENTRANCE INTO PHYSIC. 51 
 
 us that old military encampment Burrow Hill, the 
 ancient Vernometum, which the learned Stukeley 
 has depicted, and in this spot Ave spent many an 
 hour measuring out the seats of the various camps, 
 the position of the Eorum, the site of the ancient 
 Governor's House, the form of the raised walls, and 
 the four open gateways. Erom an excavation there 
 the skeleton of a man was taken, supposed to have 
 heen that of a Roman soldier, which interested us, 
 as it did many at the time. Erom different parts 
 on the raised walls we could command magnificent 
 views of the surrounding countrv, and could admire 
 the skill with which the forefathers of our race made 
 their surveys. We did not give to those fathers the 
 Roman nature, for we believed that the place was 
 pre-E/oman, and that the Roman soldiery had simply 
 occupied it because they found it suited their 
 purposes, but we admired it none the less as an 
 outlook and fortification. 
 
 We saw cricket-matches and races within the 
 encampment, and once we did our best to save, and 
 succeeded in saving, the life of a poor woman who 
 had been ridden down among the horses. 
 
 What made us wonder most was the adventure of 
 a schoolmaster whom we both knew, and who was 
 an odd character. He was a small but clever man, 
 with an obliquity in his vision which led him to 
 look askance. He was a good fellow and a capital 
 schoolmaster, always popular with his young fleck, 
 and anything but cruel. The only fault I ever 
 
52 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 heard of him was that he was very fond of pork- 
 pie, and too often ate so freely of it that it gave 
 him nettle-rash of a severe kind, for which we 
 had to treat him. He had his accomplishments, 
 one of which was that of playing upon the violin. 
 He played so often and so readily that, like 
 Paganini, he could perform on one string, and got 
 to be quite careless whether he had one or four 
 strings upon his instrument, which rarely left his 
 side. He would go into the village church aisle, 
 place himself at the bottom of the choir before 
 the pulpit, and lead the children through the most 
 difficult parts of the Bipon Collection of Songs 
 and Hymns, using only the single string, and at 
 last finishing in such a sharp tone that the top 
 note seemed to ascend above the head of the tall 
 vicar in his high pulpit, touch the ceiling, and, 
 reflected back, strike him at the back of his head, 
 making him bow forward down the church, and 
 causing all the congregation to turn their eyes 
 round on the player, as if he had done some dark 
 deed. 
 
 One day the droll medical master of mine was 
 persuaded by me to turn out for a long stroll. 
 He had been from home ; the practice had been 
 left in my sole charge, and I had been over to a 
 village known as Ashby Folville to see patients 
 there. To one of these I had sent out of the 
 •common drawer " pil <pro tusse" a little box of 
 pills which had worked so miraculously that the 
 
ENTRANCE INTO PHYSIC. 53 
 
 sufferer declared — not in joke, though, it was one 
 of the best jokes I had ever heard — he would 
 "never again touch a pill for his cough unless it 
 came from the young doctor." We saw him and 
 others, and were satisfied. We left, and proceeded 
 in the dark on our way towards home. It was a 
 bitterly cold day ; snow was beginning to fall ; 
 and passing a little country inn we, attracted by 
 the bright fire, went in to refresh ourselves. The 
 landlady, a good, loquacious woman, told us she 
 had had a patient of the doctor there only a few 
 minutes before, naming the schoolmaster, and 
 adding that, fearing the night, he had just started 
 across Burrow Hill (Vernometum), the same road 
 as that we had to follow. We quickly started off, 
 hoping we should catch him up and be company 
 for him. At the foot of a rising ground we both 
 thought we saw him at the top, and did our best 
 to catch him, but to no avail. We reached the 
 hill, and walked along its walls slowly and with 
 difficulty, until we came to a place where it looked 
 as if somebody had fallen. We stopped and shouted 
 without getting a reply, and I tried to follow what 
 was possibly a sheep-track, but, owing to the abrupt 
 descent, was obliged to return. We strolled on 
 to a cottage we knew, and found the cottager — a 
 man great at arithmetic — who affirmed that he could 
 see figures before him and reckon them up in the 
 dark. He had heard footsteps a little before 
 proceeding from the hill, and, so assured, we made 
 
54 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 our way, and got home all right, sending to inquire 
 if the schoolmaster were also safe. He had not 
 reached his house, hut was shortly expected. Next 
 morning (Sunday) we were apprised that the 
 missing man had not heen home, and we not only 
 gave all the information we possessed, hut joined in 
 every endeavour to find him. There was no trace 
 of him all that day and night. The snow, as fast as 
 possible, was turned aside. On Monday his fiddle 
 was found on the hillside, which made us certain 
 he was not far off. The search was renewed by 
 many toilers, and on Tuesday he was discovered 
 lying enrolled in the snow at the foot of a fence at 
 the bottom of one side of the hill, far away from the 
 place we thought we had seen him in, and far away 
 from the spot where the fiddle was found. He was 
 alive, but drowsy ; and, being carried to a cottage, 
 quickly came to himself, and recovered so completely 
 that he could teach as usual the next day. He had 
 no knowledge of his fall, but had felt, on the top of 
 the hill, as if he must lie down overcome with sleep, 
 went to sleep, and forgot all else until he was 
 brought to — a good illustration of the facts that 
 snow is one of the best non-conductors, that cold is 
 a fine anaesthetic and jneserver, and that a living 
 body, under the conditions described, may lie an 
 immense number of hours without injury. 
 
 It would be possible to recount a great many more 
 circumstances connected with this early entrance 
 into medical life, but it is not convenient to find 
 
ENTRANCE INTO PHYSIC. 55 
 
 room for them. I saw here the first case of small- 
 pox I ever witnessed, and remember how the doctor 
 dreaded taking me to it, while feeling it was neces- 
 sary for me to learn to face the worst evils. I 
 remember performing the task of extracting a tooth 
 for the first time, from a village shoemaker, and 
 that, steel forceps not then being popular as they 
 are now, the old-fashioned instrument called the 
 " claw " was successfully used. I recall also seeing 
 sick people leeched, cupped, and bled, and subjected 
 to other professional operations. 
 
 We had our amusements and lectures in the 
 schoolroom, and mesmerism played its part. A 
 man named Norman was mesmerised, and Hall the 
 lecturer, about to give his lecture, was recommended 
 by a lady to stand on a round table and be turned 
 steadily round, so that all the audience might see 
 and hear him. 
 
 These remembrances, however, must pass, for 
 time went inexorably onwards, and it became neces- 
 sary that I should leave for a wider sphere in which 
 to pursue my medical course. The sphere was 
 Glasgow. My cousin, the late Henry Swann, had 
 followed his medical studies in Anderson's College, 
 or, under the title it then had, Anderson's Uni- 
 versity, in the city of Glasgow. He knew all the 
 professors there, as well as the physicians and 
 surgeons of the Royal Infirmary, and, being a great 
 admirer of them, recommended that I should follow 
 in his footsteps, a recommendation backed up by 
 
56 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 a letter of introduction which I bore to the late 
 Professor Easton — the original prescriber of the 
 famous Easton Syrup — who received and treated me 
 as if I had been a member of his own family, and 
 whose kindness I can never forget. 
 
 No name I have ever heard in my time has been 
 more familiarised to all classes than that of Pro- 
 fessor Easton. As a scientific doctor and as a 
 professor of materia medica he was particularly 
 interested on the subject of the action of medicines, 
 and was fond of giving a specific value to every 
 remedy. He did not like to mix up several remedies 
 together, and told a good story about a practitioner 
 in the Salt Market, who was accustomed to give 
 to any one patient a separate drug for every pain, 
 so that the patient would get a large number of 
 remedies blended in a single dose. " I only test one 
 drug, or at most three, at one time on one patient," 
 Easton would say ; and this predilection led him to 
 prescribe the famous syrup of iron, quinine, and 
 strychnine, which bears his imprimatur. He was 
 a good lecturer, though rather pompous in style, 
 and an able physician. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 MEDICAL STUDENT LIFE. 
 
 Y studies as a student of medicine com- 
 menced in the year 1845 in the College, 
 called at that time Anderson's University. 
 It had been founded about the beginning 1 of the 
 century by Dr. Anderson, one of the most esteemed 
 GlasgoAV citizens, as a kind of school not in opposition 
 to the College or University that had long existed 
 and which gave the instruction of a curriculum 
 together with degrees in the arts and sciences — 
 including the degree of Doctor of Medicine — but 
 rather as an aid to the College as a technical 
 institution. Dr. Sexton, the present Professor of 
 Mineralogy at the Andersonian, has just published 
 a valuable book reporting the origin of Anderson's 
 and its course through the century, with the portraits 
 of those who have been teachers since Anderson's 
 time, a work well worthy of perusal. For some 
 years the school seems to have been technical, but it 
 gradually lapsed into a medical school, and as such 
 became strictly organised. Dr. John Burns, whose 
 book on Midwifery was for years the great text-book, 
 
 57 
 
58 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 was elected Professor of Anatomy and Surgery, 
 and other professors were soon appointed as his 
 colleagues. 
 
 When I joined the school it was carried on, as it 
 had long been, in George Street, and it was well 
 filled with students who came to it from Scotland, 
 Ireland, and, to some extent, from England, although 
 those from the latter were comparatively few in 
 number. The famous David Livingstone, the 
 traveller, had been a student there, and his name 
 was well-known. There were other students, John 
 Reid of Newbiggin amongst the rest, a man I knew 
 personally, who became one of the most famous 
 lifeboat captains Scotland ever had, and with whose 
 adventures I could fill a volume. 
 
 It was held up to us — such was the proof of his 
 industry — that Livingstone every day walked from 
 the factory at Blantyre, where he worked, a distance 
 of eight miles, to the Andersonian classes, and back 
 again in the evening, sixteen miles in all. It was a 
 tough journey to keep up all the winter months, 
 but, as I found by taking it, a pleasant one, and had 
 a sreat deal in it to commend it. After a time he 
 went to Africa as a missionary, and so commenced 
 that career on earth that ended in the quiet of a 
 grave in "Westminster Abbey, an end which those 
 who saw the beginning could never have contem- 
 plated. It has been many times reported that I was 
 Livingstone's fellow-student, though really he was 
 before me. At lecture I occupied a seat close to his, 
 
MEDICAL STUDENT LIFE. 59 
 
 and I suppose we must have met each other on one 
 of his returns to Glasgow, for some twenty years later, 
 when we chanced to meet at the city of Bath, he 
 recognised me ; came up to greet me in a student- 
 like way ; accosted me by my Christian name ; re- 
 ferred with zealous warmth to Anderson's College ; 
 asked me whether Dr. Moses Buchanan, the 
 anatomist, and other teachers we both remembered, 
 were still alive, and attached himself to me as one 
 of his old fellow-students. 
 
 There were others than Livingstone at the 
 Anderson College and in the old College, who have 
 been retrospected, but we must certainly give to 
 David Livingstone the paean of praise amongst them. 
 He was not a man of whom the greatest things 
 were expected. He was not brilliant ; he was 
 not — ordinarily speaking — enthusiastic ; he was not, 
 in appearance, winning ; but he was earnest, courage- 
 ous, and, as it was said of him always, a plodding 
 man. It was as a plodding man who loves those 
 who help him, and believes that there is good in 
 every living thing, that he connected — what he had 
 never dreamed of — the glory of history with his 
 own name. 
 
 Amongst others who should be mentioned was 
 the anatomist Dr. Moses Buchanan ; Professor 
 Hannay, one to whom Dr. Hope dedicated the first 
 work in our national language on Diseases of 
 the Heart ; Professor James Lawrie, as fine a 
 surgeon as ever lived, and Professor J. A. Easton, 
 
60 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 to whom I have already referred in the preceding- 
 chapter. For a time the Chair of Chemistry 
 was filled by Dr. Thomas Graham, a chemist of 
 whom the world has never seen a superior, who 
 discovered the law of diffusion of gases ; the law 
 that one gas diffused into the other, as if gases 
 were vacua to each other ; who divided the organic 
 world into two classes, the colloid or jelly-like, and 
 the saline, changing the words " endosmosis " 
 and iC exosmosis " into the one word " osmosis." 
 Graham was most illustrious as an experiment- 
 alist and observer, but it must be confessed that he 
 was a bad lecturer. I kneAv him in Gordon Street, 
 London, when he was Master of the Mint. He 
 raised the name of Anderson's to a high pitch, 
 and was greatly honoured. He was succeeded in 
 Glasgow by Professor Penny, a lecturer as brilliant 
 in speech as Graham had been faltering. Penny 
 was likewise an admirable teacher in the laboratory, 
 and a fine experimentalist. There were Andersonian 
 professors besides these, and one of the same name 
 as the founder of the University, indeed a relative of 
 his, Dr. Andrew Anderson, renowned amongst the 
 students, much beloved by them, at first teacher of 
 Physiology, afterwards of the Practice of Medicine, 
 and it is hard to say in which dejoartment he 
 most excelled. He was, in the strictest sense, a 
 philosopher, and cared only to teach those who 
 were willing to be led. He would quote from 
 Oliver Cromwell with sincere feeling : " Do I tell 
 
MEDICAL STUDENT LIFE. 61 
 
 you that I come to tie you to this war ? No ! 
 But this I do tell you, that if with nie you come 
 to prosecute this war, prosecute it vigorously, or 
 do it not at all. I think it iny duty to deal 
 plainly, and therefore I say, prosecute it vigorously." 
 He, Anderson, was made President of the Faculty 
 of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow, and met 
 with every one's good word. A thin, thoughtful, 
 energetic man, always doing his best, and in naming 
 whom, not long since, I saw the eyes of a widow 
 lady, whose husband he had attended, fill with tears. 
 Alas ! he died too early, and to him the words of 
 Cicero — which he remembered well by heart — 
 applied wonderfully, " Oh praBclarum diem quum 
 ad illud divinum animorum concilium coetumque 
 profisiscar quumque ex hac turba et colluvione 
 discedam ! " 
 
 In the old College there were in my day several 
 who attach themselves to the memory. There 
 was Dr. John Burns, the Professor of Surgery, 
 avIio was doubly sealed to us because originally 
 he was Professor in the Andersonian School to 
 which we belonged ; and there was the well-known 
 chemist of the world, Dr. Thomas Thomson, whose 
 book on Heat, Light, and Electricity led the 
 thoughts of men. In my house there is a picture 
 of a group of scientists, Fellows of the Boyal 
 Society of the year 1800, and Thomson by the side 
 of Sir Humphry Davy is there, a conspicuous 
 figure, the only one of that immortal set I have 
 
62 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 ever met. Thomson was a man of deep insight, 
 Imt rather rough in his exterior, and anecdotes 
 which I recall in reference to him were exceedingly 
 popular. 
 
 During these student days I experienced the 
 sensation of taking a first fee in physic. A gentle- 
 man by the name of Henderson left a sum of money 
 — I do not know how much — in order to establish a 
 Chair of Phrenology in the Andersonian Institution. 
 The trustees elected to the Chair a well-known 
 physician in. Glasgow, Dr. William Weir, or, as he 
 was called by the student fraternity, " Woolly Weir." 
 He was not a professor, but a teacher in the Royal 
 Infirmary, as one of the physicians there. His 
 practice was good, and he was generally popular as 
 an expounder at the bedside, but as a phrenologist 
 his appointment caused considerable surprise, and, 
 in the opinion of the students at large, did not add 
 to his fame. I remember him well, and recall 
 making him a visit in his old age, trying to persuade 
 him to come for a short turn to London to see the 
 great city. He was an earnest man, but not such 
 an one as was likely to take the lead in a branch 
 of education which, inaugurated by Dr. Gall many 
 years before, had created a considerable fluster in the 
 scientific world, and had then died away as so many 
 things do. To give eclat, therefore, to the new, or 
 rather revised, undertaking, he or the trustees 
 invited the famous Mr. George Combe, the author 
 of the book on The Constitution of Han, to deliver 
 
MEDICAL STUDENT LIFE. 63 
 
 the introductory address. Combe was an ardent 
 phrenologist ; he had been a pupil of Gall, and 
 was a great follower and admirer of a friend of Gall 
 named Spurzheim, who, accepting Gall as a master, 
 was himself a master on the philosophical side of 
 the question, and in that way was so great that the 
 term " the system of Gall and Sjmrzheim" became 
 the usual phrase. Combe accepted the term and 
 admired the pupil as much as he did the master, 
 and no man could have been found who was more 
 likely than he to draw together a class of a minor 
 kind. He, Combe, was ambitious himself to lead, 
 and came to Glasgow with a considerable power of 
 attraction. He had many texts for his doctrine. The 
 cast of the head of the then so-called infant Sappho, 
 a child who sang with extraordinary success, Avas in 
 his possession, and he owned many more casts, some 
 of which he had taken himself from men and women 
 remarkable for some peculiar faculty, or for the per- 
 formance of some deed, good or bad, that had caused 
 surprise. I recollect George Combe exceedingly 
 well, and had copies of his portrait, one taken in the 
 Daguerrotype style which was the wonder of the day, 
 and the other on the later photographic method. He 
 was in person a lithe man, of rather quick move- 
 ment of the limbs ; of most expressive features, but 
 of slow utterance, speaking as though he measured 
 every word, and ever doing his best to make his 
 address so clear by argument that every pupil could 
 follow and understand. To me and other students 
 
G4 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 he Avas something less than his eminent brother, Dr. 
 Andrew Combe, a physiologist of fame, author of 
 a book on physiology, and who, having lost the use 
 of one lung, was practically an invalid confined to 
 his house, though by his writings he affected 
 every reader. 
 
 Mr. George Combe gave a fine opening lecture 
 on phrenology at the Andersonian. He was not a 
 medical man and did not personally like medical 
 or anatomical duties, but was strong on the anatomy 
 and physiology of the human brain from a phreno- 
 logical point of view. Like Gall, he hated to see 
 the brain cut up for teaching "as if it were a 
 Dutch cheese." He liked to trace it out by its 
 fibres and show the character of its parts. Its 
 central masses, according to him, were ganglia ; its 
 commissures were bridges ; its nerves were highways. 
 He wished to make of the brain a new and beautiful 
 demonstration, and wanted a youth who would, 
 according to his method, dissect it for the evening 
 lecture. Dr. "Weir, fortunately for me, selected 
 me from the Infirmary class to perform the duty 
 demanded, and it was for that service I obtained 
 my first fee. I received also Mr. Combe's thanks, 
 and got far more than a mere money fee, for I 
 learned all that was modern at that time about the 
 nerves and brain. After this the physiologists — 
 nay ! many of my fellow- students — looked upon me, 
 not unnaturally, as a phrenologist myself, bitten, 
 as they said, by the art, and in that sense a pupil 
 
MEDICAL STUDENT LIFE. 65 
 
 of Coinbe. This view, however, had no truth in it, 
 and although I once delivered a series of lectures 
 on Gall in St. George's Hall, I was never a 
 professed representative of the school. Gall was 
 to my mind a most illustrious man, and Combe did 
 not say a word too much in his favour. He, Gall, 
 was a figure of history, and, respecting the brain and 
 its functions, both clear and original. His book 
 of plates and descriptions is a splendid addition to a 
 library, and my own was never better lined than when 
 I was fortunate enough to be able to put the book 
 on its shelves. It appeared to me that Combe's 
 earnestness and minuteness gave his opinions force, 
 but that he had become, in plain terms, too 
 mechanical, and had omitted one great essential 
 that lay before him. "We had all learned since the 
 days of the great Bichat that, in addition to the 
 cerebro- spinal system of nerves, we have in our 
 bodies another system, which ministers throughout 
 to the viscera of the organism with which it lies in 
 contact ; which has its own ganglia and filaments, 
 and which is as much a part of man as anything 
 else. A seat of the passions ; a seat of growth and 
 development — this system rules impulses, desires, 
 and acts. When Combe became excited, as he 
 sometimes did, exhibiting what is described as 
 impulse, the part of his nervous organisation — the 
 part that moved and acted, or made action — was in 
 play, and not the brain which he was descanting on. 
 He was dealing with the head, its size, its contour ; 
 
 5 
 
66 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 he was dealing with the brain that is within the 
 head, its shape, size, construction ; but he did not 
 laugh by that part, did not feel by it, did not weep 
 by it, was not moved by it into work. It was his 
 sympathetic half, his organic half, that was express- 
 ing itself, and that grand centre was altogether out 
 of his sight or mention ; he never named it. 
 Characteristic skulls were only secondarily and 
 indirectly concerned. They typified what was formed 
 and permanently instituted — nothing more. What, 
 therefore, I wanted, and still want, to see, is the size 
 and quality of those hidden, those secret, centres of 
 our living action. I felt them, I feel them; they 
 are in the body, they are not in the head ; they are 
 mind as well as matter, matter as well as mind, and 
 if they do not retain the facts and observations 
 registered in the brain, they, at all events, receive 
 them, and their nature must be known as intimately 
 as the brain itself, or there is no such thing as 
 phrenology, even should the outward readings of the 
 skull be in every particular demonstrable. 
 
 The introduction of phrenological studies was not 
 alone a novel part of our discussions on the nervous 
 system. There existed in those days of student-life 
 a man who, as an anatomist, was widely known, 
 especially in Scotland, and who imbued us with new 
 learning on the subject of the brain and nerves. 
 This man was none other than the genius John 
 Knox, about as famous a teacher of anatomy as his 
 great predecessor had been of religion. Knox the 
 
MEDICAL STUDENT LIFE. 67 
 
 Second, our man, had not led a peaceful life with 
 the world. He had been stamped by one of his 
 rivals as of " one-eyed obliquity," and he knew and 
 felt what was meant, morally at the least, and some 
 said physically also, although Ave could never detect 
 more harm, from a physical point of view, than 
 "a cast of the eye." It is true that a mere cast 
 may mean a great deal ; it has given rise to what has 
 often passed in the world as " the evil eye ; " has 
 led even wise and good men astray more than once, 
 and has inflicted much suffering upon innocent 
 persons who have by some hereditary mishap been 
 the possessors of a vital flaw. Knox was an enthusiast 
 in anatomy, an ingenious reasoner, and, as I have 
 said above, a genius, particularly in the art of 
 teaching. He seemed as if he had naturally imbibed 
 the old saying of Pope — 
 
 " Men should be taught as though you taught them not, 
 And things unknown be told as things forgot," 
 
 for he certainly made all matters in which the 
 student was interested exceedingly clear, and that 
 in such a way that his hearers, in listening to him, 
 were reminded of something they had formerly 
 acquired. He was also an eloquent man, was 
 never at a loss for a word, and never spoke a word 
 too much. One of my colleagues said that as a 
 lecturer Knox was "warm and comfortable," and 
 there could not be a better description. 
 
 It has been said that Knox had not led a 
 
68 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 thoroughly pleasant life with the world : he was 
 not shoulder to shoulder with it, and was one of 
 those men who are liked, but are not spoken of 
 cordially. If he were walking in a public place 
 one of the crowd would be likely to touch a friend 
 and ask curiously, — 
 
 "Did you ever see that man before? Have you 
 any idea who he is ? " 
 
 And if the friend did not know, the questioner's 
 reply would be, — 
 
 " Why ! it's Knox, the anatomist ! " 
 
 And then both would stare with all their eyes, 
 and probably would turn away trying to conceal 
 themselves quietly, as if they had seen the devil. 
 
 Unfortunately, it was not the mere look of the 
 man that stood in his way, for a cat may look at a 
 king, and the ugliest man I ever threw a glance 
 upon was one of the most popular speakers ; there 
 was a patch in the clothes of Knox's history that 
 branded him. He was the Edinburgh teacher most 
 notorious in connection with the persons named 
 Burke and Hare, one of whom, Burke, was executed 
 and from whom the word " burking " took its origin. 
 
 Warburton, statesman and public benefactor, was 
 not in harness, and there was no Anatomy Act. 
 Anatomy, however, was felt to be absolutely 
 necessary, and at all costs subjects must be obtained 
 for dissection. Body-snatchers became the vultures 
 of dissecting-rooms, and we students had stories 
 upon stories, which I could narrate here if it were 
 
MEDICAL STUDENT LIFE. 69 
 
 the proper place. Knox, before Warburton's Act, 
 was a teacher in the " modern Athens ; " he was a 
 well-known authority, and had a class, as well as 
 a dissecting-room. Connected with the dissecting- 
 rooms were men commonly known as "janitors" 
 or "porters," men who kept the rooms clean and 
 possibly helped to arrange the museums. They 
 were handy men ; they knew the work of the 
 body-snatchers, like all persons of their class ; 
 they got hardened in what they had to do and 
 avaricious in what they had to get. At last it was 
 suspected that they did not hesitate to kill the living 
 for the sake of science if the opportunity occurred, 
 and two men were seized by the authorities, and 
 brought up before the law as murderers of a new 
 kind who " burked " people by putting a plaster 
 over the mouths of their victims, killed them by 
 suffocation, and sold the bodies to the anatomists. 
 The trial was an awful one. Burke was executed 
 as stated, while Hare, who saved his life by con- 
 fession, lived to become, for some years, a street- 
 sweeper in London, watched over by one whom 
 he had known in better days and trustful of her 
 tender care. 
 
 As a matter of course the anatomists did not 
 altogether escape suspicion, and the genius Knox 
 especially came under it. This was the blot on the 
 man, and sorely it haunted him. Still, stirred by en- 
 thusiasm — or by want, as a few held — he continued to 
 teach, and came to Glasgow to try his fortune there. 
 
70 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 There was a medical school in Glasgow known 
 as the " Portland Street School." It was a small 
 place, but had attached to it the necessary con- 
 veniences for conducting little classes, and was 
 recognised as affording the signatures demanded by 
 the examining boards. It had a lecture-room, a 
 dissecting-room, and a good laboratory presided 
 over by a downright good chemist, Dr. McGregor. 
 To the Portland Street School, Knox became 
 attached, and issued a circular to the effect that he 
 was about to give a course of demonstrations and 
 lectures on "The Brain and Nervous System." He 
 did not go the most dignified way to work — perhaps 
 he could not help himself — for he had his circulars 
 distributed by a porter at the gate of the Royal 
 Infirmary, by which means they reached the hands, 
 or I had nearly said the pockets, of the students. 
 A few of us — not more than half a dozen — deter- 
 mined to attend. Some of us were students of 
 the old College, and others of the Andersonian, for 
 at neither school was it felt that the brain had 
 its full description, and we who joined the new 
 class were most attentive listeners and learners. 
 We were well paid by a most brilliant course of 
 lectures on the obscurest of subjects. The dissec- 
 tions we saw were admirable, and we were so limited 
 in numbers we were able to dissect, under super- 
 vision from our master, for ourselves. We were 
 instructed in lessons quite as original as those which 
 Combe taught, and, for examination purposes, by 
 
MEDICAL STUDENT LIFE. 71 
 
 methods far more practical and freer from dogma 
 or speculation. 
 
 I was personally very sorry when the course was 
 over, as there could not have heen a more perfect 
 teacher, nor a more accomplished man, than Knox. 
 He aired none of his own sorrows, resented none of 
 the attacks made upon him, whispered not a word 
 about his own poverty, but did what he was paid to 
 do and did it well. I found that Knox's lectures were 
 appreciated far beyond the circle to which they were 
 delivered, for many a student who did not attend 
 them was glad to copy from the notes of those who 
 did and to exchange conversation upon them. On 
 my part I gathered no information that extended 
 beyond the lectures. I entered into none of the 
 heated current debates respecting the conduct of 
 Knox, and during the course I never spoke to him 
 on any subject except that one on which he was en- 
 gaged as a teacher. Many years afterwards he came 
 to London, and as I was then pretty widely known 
 he called occasionally upon me. His visits were 
 peculiar. He invariably made them in the evening, 
 when the " gloamin','' as the Scotch say, was on. 
 He had a favourite pupil whom he spoke of as 
 William, whom I knew. He always called his pupils 
 by their Christian names, and William evidently was 
 to his mind a cherished one. He would sit with 
 me a loug time, and then would leave " to have a chat 
 with William ; " but he spoke on no other subject 
 than science, and never, under any pressure, how- 
 
72 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 ever courteously invited, would taste a particle of 
 refreshment. There would sometimes be a stranger 
 or strangers in the drawing-room, but he never would 
 be introduced into it. He would listen to Lady 
 Richardson, who is a good musician, playing over in 
 the distance some piece of music on the pianoforte 
 which she had been set to learn by her favourite 
 and admired master, the late Sir Sterndale Bennett, 
 or would hear her playing some of the works of 
 Mendelssohn, whom she personally knew. In fact, 
 Knox showed that he had musical tastes, but would 
 never leave the library to go into the drawing-room. 
 I told him I had written words to Handel's 
 " Harmonious Blacksmith," and that I would sing 
 them as my wife played. He replied that he would 
 sooner continue to converse about skulls, so the 
 subject dropped, and in his usual way he retired at 
 last to see his old friend William, at whose house he 
 went through precisely the same details. Where 
 Knox lived while he was in London I did not know, 
 nor when he entered the metropolis. I was pleased 
 to see him, although I did not at any time, nor in 
 any way, invite him, and when one night I said 
 good-bye I had no idea it was for the last time. I 
 simply read in the newspapers that he was dead and 
 buried. His book on the Races of Men, which he 
 gave me a copy of and begged me to peruse, is still 
 in my library. It has been well-thumbed, and has 
 given me many hours of gratification, but not such 
 instruction as did his lectures on the anatomy of 
 
MEDICAL STUDENT LIFE. 73 
 
 the brain and nerves ; lectures which afforded early 
 enlightenment on life and existence in regard to 
 structural organic manifestations. I am told that in 
 Scotland the name of this famous anatomical master 
 has nearly died out, not only among the public, but 
 even in scientific coteries. He was an authority of 
 the first rank there, but he allowed his enthusiasm to 
 overcome his judgment, allowed common sentiment 
 to take its own course, and committed — without 
 meaning to do so — a moral suicide. 
 
 Vis medicatrix natures was one of the subjects 
 which we students at term-time were fond of 
 discussing. We were led into it very naturally. 
 One of our teachers at the Uoyal Infirmary was a 
 supporter of the theory, and he had his adherents. 
 He was a professor in the old College, but that made 
 no difference, for the College Medical School and 
 the Andersonian Medical School were quite distinct 
 from the Infirmary, where practice only was taught, 
 and he was, as one of the physicians to the Infirmary, 
 an instructor of students of all schools, respected by 
 them and listened to with equal pleasure. His name 
 was Dr. William Thomson. He was a middle-aged 
 man; a grave and painstaking physician; in figure 
 tall and thin, and in voice and gesture commanding, 
 so that some of the audacious ones compared him 
 with the ghost in Hamlet. One of Dr. Thomson's 
 views was that the vis medicatrix naturae did all the 
 work of cure — that is to say, the remedial force of 
 nature — and he enforced his argument so ably that he 
 
74 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 made an army of converts. Ambrose Pare, had he 
 been a listener, would certainly have belonged to the 
 convert class, and would have said more boldly than 
 ever, " I treat ; God cures." At last, one day in the 
 class, while lecturing on the case of a man who had 
 died from rheumatic disease of the heart complicating 
 rheumatic fever, the fervent teacher showed from the 
 specimen before him, which he removed from a jar, 
 what Nature had been attempting to do. She had 
 thrown out an effusion on the pericardial surface, 
 and that effusion having adhered to both surfaces, the 
 heart had ceased to beat owing to mechanical clutch, 
 and death — not cure — had resulted. The most 
 willing amongst us was not convinced, and I, and 
 many more, felt that on the whole we would rather 
 not be tampered with by the vis medicatrix natures, 
 however skilful Nature might be. It was the right 
 lesson ; it has never been forgotten, and there is not 
 a thoughtful physician living who does not daily 
 learn it. He does not question that Nature ought to 
 be the senior partner in his concern, and he does not 
 doubt that it is the tendency in all disease for Nature 
 to laugh at the too officious doctor, and to cure the 
 patient without his interference. Yet he must see 
 and know that Nature has no fixed design of cure 
 out of beneficence towards the afflicted. He knows, 
 and we all know, that Nature has no bowels of com- 
 passion ; that she takes her own course, and goes her 
 own way without caring a bit what may happen to 
 man individually, to masses of men, or, for the 
 
MEDICAL STUDENT LIFE. 75 
 
 matter of that, to the universe altogether. She 
 would, therefore, glue down a man's heart as readily 
 as she would loosen it, and she cannot always be 
 trusted as a power of cure— a point Dr. Thomson 
 himself conceded, for, with all his argument, 
 he was a splendid common-sense practitioner and 
 master. 
 
 During the period of this student career there came 
 to Glasgow a new physical apparatus which interested 
 us very greatly. A German named Dr. Faber had 
 invented an instrument which, under the action of 
 bellows and keys, could speak. We had been listen- 
 ing to our professor on the subject of voice. We 
 had seen the voice-box, the larynx of the human 
 body, dissected ; had learned the muscles that are to 
 be found there ; had inspected the vocal cords, and 
 had been told the manner in which they are relaxed 
 or made tense. 
 
 Some of us had gone a little further than above 
 stated. We had obtained the larynges of the carcases 
 of inferior animals, had inflated them with small 
 bellows, and had produced by this process certain of 
 the familiar sounds which we hear in the herd. So 
 that when we were told that a machine had been made 
 by Dr. Faber that would utter, however badly, some 
 vocal sounds, we were glad to accept the invitation 
 he sent us to pay him a visit, and we had the marked 
 advantage of Dr. Moses Buchanan, our anatomist, 
 
 "5' 
 
 being with us. 
 
76 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 The machine consisted of a half-human figure 
 fixed on what resembled a small pianoforte. There 
 was nothing in its appearance that betokened mystery, 
 but when, with his foot on a pair of bellows, the 
 inventor blew air through the windpipe of the 
 machine, a noisy gust was heard from the nose and 
 mouth, and when he put his fingers on the keys this 
 noise was slowly translated into vocal sounds like 
 words. It had not many sentences, but they were 
 understandable. It said " Good-day ! " and it said 
 very distinctly, " Excuse my slow pronunciation, 
 because I am a foreigner." The professor who 
 accompanied us was shown the mechanism in the 
 artificial larynx, and found it to consist of elastic 
 cords which gave forth a sound as the air was driven 
 over them, and which, by the action of the keys, 
 would change in tension, so that the sounds could 
 be modified into words to a slight extent. It was 
 an ingenious mechanism, and I have often wondered 
 why it has never been more completely elaborated. 
 Whether there is anything like it at this time I 
 cannot say, but to us it seemed a little wonder, and, 
 as it happened, it afforded some amusement. We 
 had been taught that anatomy lessons would be 
 much simplified if we accepted that all anatomical 
 structures were divisible into threes. The coeliac 
 axis, an abdominal artery, divides into the hepatic, 
 the gastric, and the splenic, and all other parts 
 could, it was urged, be apportioned in like manner ; 
 muscles, arteries, and nerves were mapped out for 
 
MEDICAL STUDENT LIFE. 77 
 
 us on this simple plan. It is true the text-books 
 did not say so much, but our teacher said so, working 
 out what he called " a ternary classification," and 
 maintaining that if we kept this in mind we should 
 acquire a knowledge that was sound by a process 
 which was ready and rapid. When Faber's speaking 
 euphonia was before us, the theory occurred to us, 
 and one more wicked than the rest ventured a poem 
 on the topic : — 
 
 " When I first came to study, full soon did I find, 
 Let me work as I would, curse, pray, read, or grind, 
 The muscles ! the muscles ! I never could mind 
 
 Their origin, course, and relation. 
 Repulsed at each point, I grew almost forlorn, 
 When aid came like lightning. How ? In the form 
 Of the ternary classification. 
 
 " Go, Wilson, and Knox, and Cloquet, and Quain ! 
 Stick the pen in its stand, take the scalpel again, 
 And try like kind souls if you can't make it plain 
 
 For the good of this new generation, 
 That muscle so strong, and artery and nerve 
 Can be grouped without making from Nature a swerve, 
 In the form which it's said they rightly deserve, 
 
 The ternary classification. 
 
 " Could the speaking euphonia own but a brain, 
 I think I could hear it slyly exclaim, 
 
 Yet mixed with some slight admiration, 
 ' Oh ! Faber, what labour untold, but now done, 
 In the placing of muscles to make me thus groan, 
 Might all have been saved thee hadst thou but known 
 
 The ternary classification ! ' " 
 
 We had frequent meetings among ourselves. We 
 had our histories, one of which I cannot stay to tell, 
 
78 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 but which formed a pathetic narrative. It is well 
 now that I should deal with a major matter which 
 marked our period, and to this, owing to its enormous 
 importance, I must refer at some length, for it deals 
 with the latter-day, our day, discovery of the abolition 
 of pain. 
 
 Hitherto all engaged in medicine, practitioner or 
 student, had been acquainted with the phenomenon 
 of pain as it was indicated whenever an operation 
 had to be performed ; but now all was suddenly 
 changed : news came from America by the ship 
 Arcadia that the abolition of pain had been made 
 manifest in the operating theatre at Boston, U.S.A. 
 In London, List on, following up the plan of Wells, 
 Morton, and Jackson, had removed a limb painlessly 
 by letting the patient previously breathe the vapour 
 of ether, and we were soon to see the advantages of 
 this immortal advance in the profession of medicine, 
 the most striking advance, probably, that the world 
 has ever witnessed. 
 
 It had been our fate to learn surgical art in the 
 midst of suffering, and I remember, still even with 
 sorroAV, what operating day meant as each week 
 came round. I had become, by habit, accustomed 
 to the scene, and custom does, without doubt, bring 
 the mind and heart to bear many severe necessities. 
 When I asked my first practical teacher how he 
 thought I should get through the ordeal of seeing 
 and taking part in an operation, he replied that, as 
 
MEDICAL STUDENT LIFE. 79 
 
 in learning to smoke, time brought tolerance, but 
 that a man must keep his hand in if he meant to 
 retain his firmness and presence of mind. I recall 
 that when I had to witness the first capital operation 
 I sought the companionship of a student much older 
 than myself, but it turned out that he was more 
 nervous than I, and prudently left the operating 
 theatre as the patient entered it. I made up my 
 mind to face the ordeal bravely, and for a time was 
 quite taken out of myself by seeing the consummate 
 calmness and dexterity with which the operator — 
 the late Professor Lawrie — proceeded in his painful 
 task. "The quicker the surgeon, the greater the 
 surgeon," was the order of the day, and such was the 
 rapidity in this case the operation was actually over, 
 in so far as the major part of it was concerned, before 
 the patient uttered a single cry. If all had stopped 
 there, all had been well ; but just at that moment, 
 as if giving vent to a long-suppressed agony, the 
 patient uttered a scream, and, in spite of the tender- 
 ness and firmness with which the nurses assured 
 him it was all over, continued to scream and struggle, 
 so that he had to be securely held whilst the final 
 steps of the operation were performed. Some of my 
 comrades, neophytes like myself, became faint, and 
 some left the theatre. I kept my legs, saw in a kind 
 of haze the man being carried away, but soon came 
 back to thorough consciousness. Several weeks went 
 over my head before composure of mind accompanied 
 such scenes as these. I think we all got hardened 
 
80 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 at last, but it was not permanent hardening. If we 
 were away a few times from the scene, we had a 
 return of the terror, in a minor degree, so soon as 
 we resumed work ; and the eminent surgeon I have 
 named told me that he never woke on operating day 
 without feeling a load of care and anxiety that 
 would not wear off until the labours of his day 
 were ended. 
 
 It requires one who has witnessed the before and 
 after of the abolition of pain to understand, in all 
 its fulness, the change that followed the triumph of 
 science in this one particular art. I feel oppressed 
 still as I recall the time when the unhappy victims 
 were brought, one after another, into conflict with 
 the agony. They differed greatly in the way they 
 took the conflict ; but it occurs to me that, all in all, 
 the women faced the ordeals as well if not better 
 than the men. Some of both sexes were astound- 
 ingly brave, going through every stage of the process 
 without expressing a word of complaint or of 
 suffering. Now and then we saw, unexpectedly, a 
 kind of trance state which favoured the labour of the 
 operator. This was most common in the feeblest 
 subjects, and was brought about possibly by what 
 would in the present day be called spontaneous 
 hypnotism. In these instances the patient kept up 
 a steady gaze on some particular object, and appeared 
 as if all the mind were intently fixed on one point 
 at some distance off. We often endeavoured to 
 divert the attention of sufferers towards another 
 
MEDICAL STUDENT LIFE. 81 
 
 subject, as a mother is seen to divert the attention of 
 a child, in pain or in fear, .towards some glittering 
 thing or something entirely new, and here we 
 experienced what the mother experiences — that is to 
 say, we either made matters better or worse. Two 
 facts I remember amongst the best of any : namely, 
 that I rarely knew any person, who had positively 
 made up his or her mind to undergo the operation, 
 shrink from it at the last moment through fear of 
 the pain, and that I rarely, if ever, saw one shed 
 tears during the infliction of the pain. Regarding 
 the first of these experiences, there was a remarkable 
 psychological exhibition. A patient during first 
 conversations on the subject of the ordeal and the 
 suggestion of it would absolutely refuse to think of 
 submitting to it ; but this was followed by reflection, 
 reflection by resignation, resignation by submission 
 to the inevitable, and submission by a kind of holy 
 courage, which lasted completely until the suffering 
 began, upon which there was an almost certain 
 change of view, and insistence, of the strongest kind 
 at first, that the operation should be stopped at all 
 risks; a resistance which had to be gently but 
 resolutely overcome, followed, when resistance was 
 useless, by as energetic a request for the proceedings 
 to finish as rapidly as possible : " Make haste ! make 
 haste ! " These different pleadings, frequently 
 repeated, became stereotyped on the mind of the 
 observers so distinctly, that the actual stage of an 
 operation might be calculated from them by those 
 
 6 
 
82 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 who were accustomed to the proceedings. After 
 all was over, there was, under the most favourable 
 circumstances, great nervous shock — a shock which 
 not infrequently was full of danger, and which left 
 deep depression for long periods of time. I heard 
 many express that if they had known beforehand 
 what the suffering was, and the effects subsequently 
 endured, they would rather have faced death than 
 such a fearful struggle for continued existence. I 
 have no doubt that this depression interfered 
 seriously with the healing of the wounds which the 
 surgeon was forced to inflict ; and I know that the 
 fear of the depression hindered some of the boldest 
 surgeons from attempting many operations for saving 
 the lives of feeble and excitable people, operations 
 which are now carried out with perfect success. 
 
 I have described that it was rare to see any sufferer 
 weep during an operation. It was so. Sufferers 
 would scream, protest, pray, and sometimes give out 
 freely what was not prayer ; but shed floods of tears, 
 not at all. There was another strange thing. From 
 an unusually painful operation the sufferers, however 
 feeble, rarely if ever fainted, except from loss of 
 blood. I asked a man once after an amputation if 
 he felt faint during the operation. His reply was 
 very curious and characteristic. " Did I feel faint ? 
 What a question to ask ! Did I feel faint ? Why, 
 of course I didn't. Neither would you if you had 
 had the same reason to keep you from fainting. It 
 was a good deal too bad for that." 
 
MEDICAL STUDENT LIFE. 83 
 
 As these memories of the days when the aholition 
 of pain was practically unknown are read, the reader 
 will not wonder at the statement that the most 
 treasured day in my life is that day when I witnessed 
 for the first time the physical miracle of the aholition 
 of pain during a surgical operation, the grand trans- 
 formation of the phenomenon of agony into the 
 phenomenon of sleep. The news of Morton's trial 
 of anaesthesia by the inhalation of ether was brought 
 as soon as possible to Glasgow, and was conveyed at 
 once to the different learned professors of medicine 
 in that city. According to custom, the large class 
 was seated in that lecture theatre in which Living- 
 stone once sat, waiting for the midday lecture. The 
 professor we were under, Dr. Moses Buchanan, was 
 one of the most punctual men in the world in 
 respect to lecture time, and after we students had 
 sat for five minutes at least, with no professor in 
 view, we began to get a little bit restless and noisy, 
 wondering what had happened. At last the janitor, 
 John MacDougal, opened the door at the back of 
 the lecture table, and the missing professor appeared. 
 To our astonishment, he told us there would be no 
 lecture that day ; and then, not without emotion of 
 pleasure, for he was as good a surgeon as he was 
 an anatomist, he informed us that he had to 
 communicate a piece of news which marked a new 
 era in surgical science, nothing less than the discovery 
 of a method by which the most important operations 
 could be performed while the patient undergoing 
 
84 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 the operation was asleep. "I am," lie added, "on 
 my way to the Royal Infirmary to take part in the 
 first trial of the new system there, and by-and-by we 
 shall all meet to learn if the news that has reached 
 us, and that seems to be satisfactory, is really true. 
 If it be, this day is a red-letter day in all our lives." 
 As a matter of course, this news created the 
 utmost excitement. We trooped off to the Royal 
 Infirmary as fast as our legs would carry us, and 
 in due time were crowding into the operating 
 theatre. The operating theatre was then under the 
 fine dome which still crowns the Royal Infirmary. 
 The room formed a chapel on a Sunday, and in the 
 rush for seats the best places were speedily secured. 
 I and one or two other students got into the pulpit, 
 which formed an excellent place for observation ; 
 others seized the precentor's pew — I think it was 
 so called — both forbidden places except on such 
 a memorable day. The late Professors Lawrie, 
 Andrew Buchanan, Moses Buchanan, Dr. Fleming, 
 Mr. Anderson, with the other house-surgeons, and 
 the dressers in their blue striped gowns, were in 
 the arena and on the tiptoe of expectation. The 
 task of operating belonged to Professor Andrew 
 Buchanan, who, before the arrival of the patient, 
 stepped forward and, in a gentle and nervous manner 
 natural to him, described the news that had come 
 from the Massachusetts Hospital, explaining that 
 the process consisted in laying the patient in deep 
 sleep by the inhalation of the vapour of ether ; that 
 
MEDICAL STUDENT LIFE. 85 
 
 it had been carried out in America and in London ; 
 that it was called anaesthesia — a word derived from 
 the Greek, signifying " not to feel " ; and that he 
 and his colleagues, after due consultation, had deter- 
 mined to put the new method to the test with as much 
 care and precision as they could command in a first 
 attempt. The patient was then sent for, and came in 
 with quite a smiling face, delighted with the idea of 
 being cut without pain, and rather proud, I fancy, at 
 being the first man in Scotland selected to enjoy the 
 honour as well as the pleasure. At all events, he 
 agreed with the utmost readiness to the proposal of 
 the professor that he should be put to sleep, and 
 Dr. Fleming, with the house-surgeon of the day 
 for Buchanan's ward, commenced to administer the 
 ether vapour from a sponge surrounded by a towel. 
 In a short time the patient — whose name, I think, 
 was Macleod — began to talk and sing in a loud 
 voice in the style not uncommon to the second stage 
 — as we afterwards designated it — of the ether 
 narcotism, giving us a line or two at least from 
 " Bobby" — the poet Burns — and communicating one 
 or two secrets which he might just as well have 
 kept to himself. He then lapsed into perfect 
 quietude, and soon afterwards was allowed to wake 
 up with the operation completed, without knowing 
 that he had passed through anything more than a 
 curious dream, feeling, as he affirmed with a broad 
 grin, just " a wee bit fou," and in no degree 
 ashamed of his acquaintanceship with that condition. 
 
86 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 The day we witnessed this event, with some others 
 like unto it, was indeed a red-letter day with us, for 
 in it we had seen the last of the surgical science of 
 agony and the opening scene of the abolition of pain. 
 We were entranced. We made experiments on 
 each other. I remember my much-esteemed fellow- 
 student George Buchanan of Glasgow, still living, 
 son of the distinguished Moses Buchanan to whom 
 reference has already been made, offering himself, 
 like a valiant young martyr, for experiment, and 
 allowing his enthusiastic confreres to put him into 
 the deepest ethereal sleep for the sake of practice ; 
 and I remember that when he came to himself again 
 he looked about him, as if he expected that, for the 
 sake of practice, some one might have lightened him 
 of a limb or two while he sat an unconscious and 
 helpless victim. I recall to mind also that at a 
 meeting of the " Faculty " at the Faculty Hall, where 
 the new subject was being discussed by the sages of 
 the profession, student John Chalmers, a sturdy and 
 frolicsome youth, having been put partially to sleep 
 for experimental service, for which he had volun- 
 teered, rose in his doubtful state, and, stalking up 
 to the presidential chair, did there and then roundly 
 box the ears of the official occupant of that dis- 
 tinguished seat, and was with some difficulty pre- 
 vented from carrying out further acts of violence, 
 greatly to the amusement of all, except the President 
 and himself when, afterwards, he " came to." 
 
 The excitement of the first demonstrations of the 
 
MEDICAL STUDENT LIFE. 87 
 
 discovery quickly quieted down, and the practice of 
 anaesthesia became an accepted part of medical life. 
 Paris took up the wondrous tale and confirmed it ; 
 the success in London re-assured America; and 
 before long the abolition of pain was an accomplished 
 art common to all the civilised world. 
 
 It was the frequent practice in the art of medicine 
 to confound or mix together two or more diseases. 
 Previous to the days of Sydenham, two diseases, 
 measles and scarlet fever, were confounded together. 
 A physician named Morton discovered that they 
 were distinct maladies, and separated them, showing 
 that they had different symptoms, different periods 
 of attack, and a different duration. 
 
 In our day the more common Fevers were isolated. 
 Cullen, a tremendous organiser and divider of diseases 
 into classes, considered that there were three sev- 
 eral kinds of fevers, "continued," "remittent" and 
 " typhus" We followed that division, and sometimes 
 used the word " typhoid" not as signalising a par- 
 ticular malady, but rather as indicating the lapse 
 into a dangerous sinking state. We expressed " The 
 patient is becoming typhoid," by which we meant 
 that the powers of life were waning. At last the idea 
 arose that two diseases, or fevers, were confounded. 
 There was an acute and violently progressive disease, 
 called typhus, which had been formerly known as 
 Plague or Black Death, and was the cause, at times, 
 of a fearful epidemic affection. There was another 
 
88 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 disease, also epidemic and often very fatal, which 
 was developed in the alimentary canal, was marked 
 hy disturbance there, and killed a great many 
 victims, hut was not contagious hy mere exposure 
 of the unhealthy hody to the healthy. It was truly 
 contagious, hut only through the absorption of the 
 fluid discharges, chiefly from the bowels of the 
 afflicted. The disease had also different symptoms 
 and ran a different course. 
 
 The late esteemed Dr. Perry of Glasgow was the 
 first man there to note the distinction of these diseases 
 and to act upon the knowledge. The cases affecting 
 the bowels he denominated, after Bretonneau, "dothin- 
 enterite" and he showed that patients suffering 
 from it might be safely treated in the general 
 wards amongst patients suffering from all kinds of 
 diseases, that it was the true typhus patient that 
 required to be separated, and, as far as possible, 
 isolated. Perry had the courage to divide the 
 different fever cases in the manner suggested, and 
 to retain fever wards for the reception of typhus only. 
 He met with opposition, as a matter of course, but 
 he was right, and in the end the victory lay on 
 his side. By some strange circumstance, neverthe- 
 less, his " dothinenterites " were called typhoids, an 
 accidental mistake that has remained in force up to 
 the present hour, with the result of the absurdest 
 confusion, particularly by the ordinary people. 
 The term that ought to have been given to the 
 disease admissible into the general ward was 
 
MEDICAL STUDENT LIFE. 89 
 
 " Enteric fever" Unfortunately it is widespread, 
 and is so often connected with bad drains that the 
 late Sir Edwin Chadwick called it — not inappro- 
 priately — " drain fever." 
 
 Dr. Perry was most successful in what he under- 
 took. He was a much-esteemed man, and was 
 honoured, though not adequately, by his compeers. 
 He had one pupil who gave him more than honour, 
 for he followed and apostleised. This was the late 
 Dr. Alexander Stewart, afterwards Physician to the 
 Middlesex Hospital and long a resident in Grosvenor 
 Street. I knew Stewart intimately ; was his 
 friend for many years, and often joined him in 
 travel and social communion. He had one fault, 
 that of being always late and behind in his work ; 
 but he was fond of work, and when he left Glasgow 
 to come to London he disseminated far and near his 
 knowledge of the difference between typhus and 
 enteric fever. We knew the difference as did he, 
 since we learned it from the same source, and it is 
 full time that the public generally should know the 
 origin. 
 
 Dr. Perry was not the originator of the new 
 theory about the division of fevers, but he was the 
 first real developer of it, and was not only a great, 
 but a very kind man. He was particularly anxious 
 about his students, as I have occasion to remember. 
 I was passing one day the post-mortem room towards 
 the fever wards when Perry asked me, " Where are 
 you going ? " I replied, " To see the fever patients." 
 
90 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 " Yes," he responded, " you must do it, of course, 
 but they are all contagious there, for the ' dothin- 
 enterites ' are sent into the general wards, and you 
 are young and susceptible, but keep by my side 
 and I will lead you through in the safest possible 
 manner." He led me like a boy, explaining all he 
 could as we went along, and finally bade me good- 
 day, begging me not to be afraid. 
 
 A man entered the Hoyal Infirmary to have 
 replaced an anchylosed and dislocated shoulder. It 
 was in vain ; but I formed an idea that if a curved 
 plate of wood were fitted on the chest, and a long 
 arm on a swivel joint were attached to the plate, 
 a pulley at the end could be made to give an 
 extension from the wrist that would be safer, 
 stronger, and more precise than anything that had 
 been attempted. I was taken by a friend at my 
 lodgings to a carpenter who worked in the very 
 shop in which the famous surgeon John Hunter 
 had commenced to carry out his first mechanical 
 efforts. There the carpenter and I made a model of 
 the contrivance that had settled on my mind, and 
 when it was completed I took it to Professor Lawrie, 
 who was good enough to speak very warmly of the 
 apparatus, pointing out at the same time where 
 it was defective, telling me that in the case I had 
 seen even search after success might be attended 
 by fracture, with consequences which I did not 
 fully anticipate, but advising me to keep on in 
 
MEDICAL STUDENT LIFE. 91 
 
 original lines of research, akin to what I had shown 
 him, and that in the end I must succeed. 
 
 The professor's recommendation stirred me to 
 further action, and the great subject of the produc- 
 tion of anaesthesia, every detail of which was a study 
 to me, led me to invent the double-valved closely 
 fitting mouthpiece, and the method of drawing over 
 the vapour of ether through a long tube fixed in 
 a Wolff bottle. I also perceived that the inhaling 
 tube commonly used was too small, that it ought not 
 to be narrower than the windpipe. The double-valved 
 mouthpiece I constructed, and which, though broken, 
 I still possess, has for many years been one of the 
 displays at soirees and exhibitions. It was after- 
 wards improved upon by the late Dr. Erancis Sibson, 
 who used thin soft lead as its material ; was adopted 
 by the late Dr. Snow as an addition to his apparatus, 
 and was turned into a separate inhaler by the late 
 Professor Murphy. 
 
 About the time when we were first interested in 
 anaesthesia and witnessed one of the most marvellous 
 advances ever made in medicine, we were engaged 
 in meeting the ravages of that awful pest which went 
 by the name of the " Irish Fever," and which was 
 really due to famine. By bad government we had 
 allowed Ireland to fall into the worst of conditions. 
 The people lived and languished, became irritable 
 to the degree of savagery, and uncontrollable beyond 
 
92 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 the line of sanity. If we could have fully pictured 
 in our minds the national calamity, the cause of it 
 would have been clear and natural. If any of us 
 should have to keep marching along, marching, 
 marching, marching, without rest or food, we know 
 what we should come to : we should lead a wretched, 
 hopeless existence, and at last, seeing there was no 
 chance of change, we should cease to care for 
 others and do what, in our forced madness, we 
 thought best for ourselves. We should, in our 
 starved condition, become victims of fever, and as 
 a necessary result should be the dread and terrible 
 menaces of all who thoughtlessly oppressed us. 
 Our mode of government starved the Irish people 
 into two states — rebellion and disease. It was 
 often said that what we saw was due to the peculiar 
 Irish character, but this was mere selfish deception. 
 It was really due to the manner in which the 
 character was, by force, educated and trained, with 
 the result that will always follow under the same 
 circumstances, a widespread fever as the outward and 
 visible sign of the inward distress. No physiological 
 experiment intentionally worked out ever showed 
 more misery than Ireland did under the English 
 physiological process, and the miserable victims fled 
 as if they were being driven, as in truth they were, 
 to the larger island at all points where there was 
 a way. Among other places they fled to Glasgow. 
 Tenements had sometimes to be roughly erected for 
 their reception, and they were literally carted from 
 
MEDICAL STUDENT LIFE. 93 
 
 the shore of the Clyde, known as the Broomielaw, 
 into the city, to the fever-houses, or fever-dens, 
 where they died hy hundreds, communicating their 
 disease right and left to the evil and to the good, 
 irrespective of nation or person. I have never been 
 able to forget that sad scene, nor the friends and 
 companions who were swept away. We simply saw 
 bodies that were trying to live without necessary 
 constituents of food ; we inhaled from them an air 
 polluted by their disease, and we suffered pro- 
 portionately. The doctors naturally suffered most. 
 I was not much more than a mere boy, but had 
 entered as a student an institution, in the then St. 
 Andrew's Square, known as the St. Andrew's Lying- 
 in Hospital. Dr. Wilson was the leading physician 
 there, and a bold, kind, and able physician he was. 
 Mrs. Ferguson was the matron, and there were 
 several female aids who were educating themselves 
 for the service of the Highland homes and who 
 were called " houdies." Mrs. Finlayson was one 
 of these, and she first taught me the mystery of the 
 obstetric art, so that under her supervision I saw 
 how babes were born into the world, and noticed 
 the perils and pangs of pitiable womanhood. I did 
 not at first reside in the hospital ; I used to have 
 my own lodgings in College Street, and was learning 
 very well from my daily and nightly lessons, when 
 one day Dr. Wilson called upon me and said, " You 
 must go to live at the hospital ; these are stirring 
 times, and you must buckle to." I pleaded my 
 
94 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 youth and inexperience, but it was of no avail. 
 The last house-surgeon was dead of fever ; two of 
 his predecessors had shared the same fate, and I 
 must accept the risk. It was a hard destiny, even 
 for one who had been imbued with Calvinistic ideas, 
 and I had no alternative but to do as I was bidden. 
 I went ; found a kind of father in Dr. Wilson, 
 a mother in Mrs. Ferguson, a sister in Mrs. 
 Finlayson, a very comfortable home in the walls 
 of the institution, and respect and attachment 
 on all sides, especially from another student, who 
 had come in, called Dick, a youth who was of the 
 strongest, and, some would declare, of the wildest, 
 nature, but who had one of the tenderest hearts I 
 have ever known. Things went on quite smoothly 
 for a short time ; I was looked on as getting quite 
 clever, a kind of prodigy, and was proud of walking 
 at any hour through the long and dirty old and new 
 " Wynds," where you could shake hands across from 
 the windows. I was known to all the inhabitants 
 of the packed rooms as a kind of travelling light, 
 that must not even be breathed or blown upon lest 
 it should go out. At last I was one morning 
 summoned to attend a poor Irishwoman in a 
 crowded court. She was in the middle of fever, 
 although near her confinement. She was lying on 
 a bed of straw, so it was reported to me, and her 
 wretched husband was with her lying on another 
 bed of straw, dark over all his body with the fever 
 and now and then raving. As I heard this report 
 
MEDICAL STUDENT LIFE. 95 
 
 I confess that for the first time in my life a kind 
 of solemn awe crept over me. I felt inclined to 
 resign my appointment, to swallow my ill-gotten 
 pride, and to return to my own country. But the 
 thought was at once checked by an old memory 
 which I had gathered from the great William, who 
 I fancy could never have anticipated my application 
 of it :— 
 
 " Cowards die many times before their deaths ; 
 The valiant never taste of death but once ; " 
 
 and bidding good-bye to all fears I went with the 
 guide and did my duty. 
 
 It was a sad duty, but imperative. The room in 
 which we were immured was no better than a 
 London coal-cellar ; it was like a room in " darkness 
 visible." Fortunately it was not overcrowded : 
 there was the patient herself on a kind of straw 
 couch in the centre ; there was her husband on a 
 straw crib in one corner ; there was an old haggish- 
 looking woman acting as a kind of nurse, probably 
 the mother ; and there was myself with Mrs. Fin- 
 layson now and then looking in. The air was 
 terribly close, and by my occupation I was held 
 there for at least two hours. That I was breathing 
 fever I was as sure as I could possibly be of any- 
 thing. The fever was of the character of typhus, 
 and it was usually denominated typhus, although it 
 was to our medical minds of a remittent type, 
 marked not only by a dry and baked tongue, but by 
 
96 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 a yellowness of the skin and often by a bloodshot 
 eye. The puerperal woman did not seem to me to 
 be conscious of her condition, and the child was 
 born dead. The old woman as she took it from me 
 leered horribly, as if she thought it was a happy 
 release. She crossed herself vigorously and ex- 
 pressed that she would see the " praste " and tell 
 him, but why I understood not. Altogether it was 
 not so bad a case, barring the fever, as might have 
 been expected, but I knew or rather felt fully 
 assured that I was in for fever. On my return Dick 
 cheered me and laughed at my fears, his manner 
 being rather agreeable than controversial, but it did 
 not remove the anxiety. I went on with my work 
 as usual, feeling nothing acutely. At last, a few 
 days afterwards, being rather low and inclined to 
 nausea, Dick proposed to row up the river Clyde to- 
 wards R/utherglen, and I went with him. He was a 
 good pair-oarsman, and carried me smoothly along, 
 allowing me to steer, but letting me do nothing else, 
 and often, in fun, upbraiding me for the way I did 
 that. Returning along the river, we arrived just in 
 time for the theatre, and we saw on the bills that 
 Mr. Charles Matthews and Madame Yestris were to 
 appear at the Theatre Royal in Dunlop Street, so 
 we went there. One of our fellow-students, 
 Alexander, was the son of the proprietor, an actor 
 of celebrity commonly called " old Alec," Avith 
 whom not infrequently "the gods" had a combat. 
 At the door of the house we met our colleague, who, 
 
MEDICAL STUDENT LIFE. 97 
 
 until a fearful accident occurred causing the death 
 of a little multitude, was a fine, healthy fellow, 
 and he, finding me unwell, gave us two seats that 
 splendidly commanded the whole stage. I never had 
 a better place or view, and was deeply interested in 
 the scene before me, although the players were, I 
 thought, too frolicsome and too gaudy. Gradually 
 they seemed to recede, and their voices to become 
 faint and low. At last Madame Vestris, on tiptoe, 
 stepped forward holding out in her hand a small 
 timepiece, and as she danced sang a little strain I 
 have never forgotten, and have often recalled 
 unintentionally, though I have no knowledge of 
 the play — 
 
 " Tick-a-tick-a-tick, just like a watch, 
 Tick-a-tick-a-tick " — 
 
 and as she sang the whole scene seemed to widen 
 out and go round like a wheel, and then to vanish 
 away. 
 
 That day one of our fellow-students had died in 
 the hospital whither he had been carried, and I, 
 dwelling on his fate, had called on my old landlady, 
 Miss Cumming, of College Street ; had told her of 
 my own apprehensions, and had prayed her, if 
 affected, to let me come to a large room in her 
 own flat ; to attend to me herself ; to send for Dr. 
 Andrew Anderson, of Woodside Crescent, our Pro- 
 fessor of the Practice of Medicine, in whom I had 
 supreme confidence, and to ask him to look after 
 
 7 
 
98 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 me. She promised to fulfil all these requests, and 
 so faithfully did she fulfil them that hut for her I 
 douht if I should ever have written this memory. 
 The next day I returned to her guided hy friend 
 Dick, went to bed without knowing it, was attended 
 by Dr. Anderson, and lay, I understand, in the fever 
 and the recovery from it for the long space of 
 fourteen weeks. I must have tasted the delirium 
 of the fever deeply, for I know from attendants I 
 did the most chaotic things : thought that I had 
 been sent for to attend Her Majesty ; took umbrage 
 at a pair of scissors which a barber had brought to 
 cut my hair, and to his infinite horror chased him 
 round the room with them until he fled, and sang 
 wildly a song I had read from a story called The 
 Prime Minister. Ultimately the fever went ; my 
 mind returned to its natural bent ; my recovery was 
 completed by repose, first at Rothesay, and after- 
 wards in the town of Dunoon — now a brilliant 
 watering-place, then a little village of cottages. 
 
 The suffering from Irish fever put a stop to all 
 my physiological pursuits for the moment, and led 
 Dr. Anderson to think it necessary that I should 
 return to my native country for a session at least. 
 I therefore made my way to Barrowden in Rutland, 
 where my Aunt Susan was married to Mr. Price, 
 who had practised there many years as a surgeon, 
 and who had in partnership with him his stepson, 
 Mr. Henry Swann, who had been looked on as a 
 distinguished Glasgow student. At Barrowden I 
 
MEDICAL STUDENT LIFE. 99 
 
 rested with my relatives and helped theni as much 
 as I was able, but the scope of their business not 
 permitting me to stay I responded to an adver- 
 tisement in the Lancet from a surgeon named 
 Mr. Thomas Browne, of Saffron Walden in Essex, 
 closed with him, and became his visiting assistant. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 A STEPPING-STONE. 
 
 >T was my fate to live in Saffron Walden for 
 a considerable time, and I have many 
 singular remembrances in connection with 
 it, but shall chiefly relate how the residence affected 
 me in practical and scientific research. 
 
 There was an institution devoted to natural 
 specimens. Who started it I cannot say, but the 
 late Dr. Forbes Winslow and the late Dr. Edwin 
 Lankester, who had been assistants in the town 
 before me, had assisted in sustaining it, and their 
 efforts stimulated me to do the same. The deter- 
 mination did me a great deal of good and made 
 me curious. Mr. Spurgeon, in practice in Saffron 
 Walden as a surgeon, was indefatigable with 
 the museum, setting up specimens and arranging 
 lectures and demonstrations. At the village of 
 Duddenhoe End, near by, a boy by the name of Womb- 
 well was born, and became devoted to natural pur- 
 suits. He collected animals of all kinds, showed 
 them about, and in the end became well-known as 
 the owner of the finest travelling menagerie in the 
 kingdom. We were very grateful to Wombwell, as 
 
 100 
 
A STEPPING-STONE. 101 
 
 I have often told his mother, who was a patient of 
 mine, for in order to serve us he sent many animals, 
 after they were dead, to the museum. He sent lions, 
 leopards, tigers, bears, and many sorts of birds, some 
 of which were dissected, their skeletons being set up 
 and their skins stuffed and preserved. I had the 
 opportunity of learning a vast deal from this 
 museum; the leading points of difference between 
 the herbivora and the carnivora, including observa- 
 tions that have lasted me as subjects of study up 
 to this hour, and have always been useful at my 
 lectures in numbers of institutions. Dr. Carpenter, 
 C.B., F.R.S., came down to us and treated us to a 
 splendid lesson on " Instinct " as an animal pro- 
 perty, a topic which, curiously enough, formed a 
 matter of discussion between us very shortly before 
 his own sad and accidental death. There were 
 other influences which led me in the pursuit of 
 physiological knowledge. There were some who 
 were able to lead, there were many who were 
 anxious to follow, and there were a few who were 
 desirous to help. In this last class I recall one 
 gentleman, who, although he would not have applied 
 that title to himself, for in truth he was only a 
 mechanic, really deserved it. He was pleased to 
 work for me in making models of any kind in metal. 
 He saw me dissect the eye-balls of dead animals, and 
 learned from me the function of every part as far as 
 we knew it, while it was his delight to mould for me 
 models of the eye in tin, to construct a transparent 
 
102 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 lens, and to adapt the whole to the illustrations of a 
 lecture. With his aid, and with my own attempts 
 to make diagrams and tables, it became a most 
 instructive and pleasant task to construct lectures 
 and teachings on natural designs. I gave my first 
 lecture on this line, taking the subject of vision as 
 the starting-point, and creating a general interest in 
 the endeavour. The ordinary topic of vision as a 
 mechanical adaptation was, in time, familiar to us, 
 but we were led by it into other paths. "We learned, 
 for instance, much about light, and that what is 
 duly recognised as the colour of things is not in 
 the things themselves but in the light which falls 
 on them and which they reflect. 
 
 Erom the eye we were led to the aids that have 
 been invented, including telescopes and microscopes, 
 with the objects which they reveal. On my part, in 
 preparing to teach I read through what Bernardin 
 de St. Pierre, the author of Taul and Virginia, has 
 to say about the insect world, and not only grasped 
 a very beautiful lesson myself, but held others spell- 
 bound by it, to our mutual advantage. 
 
 A nobleman near by, the late Lord Braybrooke, 
 had at Audley End, where he lived, beautiful gardens 
 and a fine aviary. He was a liberal-minded man, 
 a scholar, and editor of the well-known Pepys' 
 Diary. He liked the people who surrounded him 
 "to visit his grounds. We recognised, as stated, that 
 the colours we saw, in flowers or animals, were 
 not a part of them but a part of the wider nature 
 
A STEPPING-STONE. 103 
 
 by which we are enveloped. We traced also, by our 
 museum specimens, how different animals were 
 constituted for different regions, and how we our- 
 selves were modified according to our different 
 climates. It was altogether a fine study, and at 
 that period was not commonplace. 
 
 At the time of which I write, fifty years ago, 
 Saffron Walden was celebrated as a wonderfully 
 musical town. At the beautiful church of which 
 Mr. Ralph Clutton was rector, the late Mr. John 
 Pry presided at the organ, and did so, I believe, 
 for sixty years. He was a magnificent musician, 
 of whom the eminent Sir Sterndale Bennett was a 
 good admirer, and he served to diffuse the musical 
 spirit everywhere where he had influence. There 
 was a good violinist by the name of Spicer, and 
 several amateurs who were all fine musicians. 
 There were other allurements : a bowling-green, 
 an active cricket club, and billiard-tables. Times, 
 however, were not satisfactory. Bright and Cobden 
 were making themselves heard ; the old Corn Laws 
 were trembling; rick fires were breaking out here 
 and there, and the poor, I fear, were much neglected, 
 while the face of society was undergoing change. 
 Still, the days were comparatively happy, and I 
 have often wondered why, to an inhabitant met 
 by outsiders, it was so often said, " God help you, 
 Saffron Walden 1 " as if he bore an aspect of hopeless 
 sorrow, when, in fact, he bore nothing of the kind. 
 The Quakers were dominant people, but they 
 
104 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 interfered with nobody and were generous on all 
 sides. Mr. George Gibson, who more than once 
 acted as mayor, made donations of books ; encouraged 
 a corn exchange, of which I saw him lay the first 
 stone ; collected Saxon skeletons ; revealed the relics 
 of dead ages, and was never happier than when he 
 was doing some curious and useful thing. A Mr. 
 Joshua Clarke, who embellished his home with 
 artistic treasures, was proud of having what he 
 called " little bits of marble " — sculptures — and 
 possessed the most splendid collection of stuffed 
 humming-birds known, besides copies of Gould's 
 works and of other books that were instructive. 
 He was mayor fourteen or fifteen times, and when 
 he was presented once to the King of the Belgians 
 was recognised by His Majesty as " the permanent 
 Mayor of Saffron Walden." There was also in the 
 town an old gentleman, a " newsmonger general " 
 oddity, who took notes of all events that were of 
 local interest that did occur, and some, I fear, that did 
 not. His notes were full of a number of droll inci- 
 dents and practical jokes that ought to be recorded. 
 
 After all, there was nothing that filled me with 
 so much gratification of learning as the museum of 
 natural history with its able curator, Mr. ~E. Clarke. 
 It was a school, and I left it with the utmost 
 sorrow in order to proceed in the world. I have 
 never lost sight of it ; have returned to it more than 
 once to give a lecture ; have distributed prizes to 
 boys of its King Edward's Free School ; have a 
 
A STEPPING-STONE. 105 
 
 specimen of a fine Saxon skull once belonging to 
 Mr. Gibson, and have admired a new library he left 
 to the inhabitants. When Mr. Browne, the gentle- 
 man I assisted, was in the last extremities of life, 
 I went, at his request, from London to attend him 
 medically, in conjunction with the late Sir George 
 Paget, E.R.S., of Cambridge, for whom I had the 
 warmest regard and respect, and who more than 
 once expressed what I most earnestly repeat, his 
 wish that every similar town in the country would 
 set — as it easily could — the same example for the 
 advantages of the rising generations as the little 
 town of Saffron Walden. 
 
 In the district of Saffron Walden we had great 
 racing, hunting, and shooting ; and we were all fond 
 of doing our best whenever we were on horseback. I 
 remember a black mare bolted with me into an inn- 
 yard at Wendon, under clothes-lines that spread across 
 it, throwing me over her haunches with such violence 
 that the sturdy assistance of the late Mr. Rule, who 
 caught me in his arms, was a true piece of good luck. 
 
 In addition to the pursuits mentioned, I entered 
 largely into practice in this district, became so 
 installed, and had such hosts of friends that my 
 own inclination would have been to remain there 
 all through life, to qualify and become one of the 
 practitioners of the place, with most of whom I 
 held a brotherly attachment that years did not 
 break. I called the place " the first stepping-stone," 
 but it was necessary to leave it and find another. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 A TURNING-POINT IN LIFE. 
 
 .VERY man and woman has a turning-point 
 in life, and mine I have always felt came 
 in the change which was, now effected. I 
 made my way from Saffron Walden once more into 
 the midlands ; visited my old master to whom I had 
 been articled, Mr. Henry Hudson, when we recast 
 some of the medical experiences we had had 
 together. I had learned to lecture, and in the 
 schoolroom of the village of Somerby, with the 
 Reverend W. Y. Nutt, who had taught me for so 
 many years, in the chair, ventured to give a de- 
 monstration and lecture, which was largely attended 
 and awakened a great deal of interest. 
 
 But the most useful thing to me was the fact that 
 I obtained from Mr. Hudson a letter of introduction 
 to an elder brother of his, Mr. Edward Dudley 
 Hudson, a surgeon who lived and practised at 
 Littlebury, Narborough, near to Leicester, in the 
 midst of the " stocking " district. 
 
 The bearing of this note from Mr. Hudson to his 
 brother has always seemed to me to be the true 
 
 106 
 
A TURNING-POINT IN LIFE. 107 
 
 turning-point in my life ; it was attended by a shower 
 of rain as a kind of natural accompaniment. I had 
 two special pastimes which I sometimes took together 
 — long walking and long reading, with a book in my 
 hand, which I carefully perused. I have walked 
 as far as sixty miles in one day, and, after rest, felt 
 none the worse. In one of these humours of walking 
 and reading I took a book in my pocket and set forth 
 for a very long spin to a place called Sapcote, the 
 road to which led through Narborough. A beautiful 
 church in Leicester, St. George's, had, a year or two 
 before, been struck and partly demolished by a flash 
 of lightning, and I made my way to see the manner 
 in which the building had been reconstructed. I 
 started with the sunrise, under the impression that 
 to make the sun a fellow-workman was one of the 
 best feats of the pedestrian, and, having visited the 
 church, made my way on towards my intended 
 destination. 
 
 It was a bright April day, but uncertain in regard 
 to the weather, and as I was going through 
 Narborough there came on one of the keenest of 
 winds, accompanied with the most violent downpour 
 of rain one could ever have to encounter in this 
 climate. For protection I took refuge in a small 
 shop, of the owner of which I inquired whether Mr. 
 Hudson lived near. I was told I had only to turn 
 up a road to my left, and there I should find his 
 house in the hamlet called Littlebury, and, in all 
 probability, himself in it, for he rarely issued forth, 
 
108 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 unless lie were specially summoned, until after his 
 dinner, for which reason he was characterised as 
 " The Evening Mail," in contradistinction to his 
 partner, who was known as " The Morning Post." 
 When the rain abated, therefore, I turned into 
 Littlebury, soon reached a rather large house on 
 my left, and was informed that Mr. Hudson lived 
 there. The house had its stables and stable-yard 
 on its left, a long high wall, evidently enclosing a 
 garden, on its right, and a central entrance door 
 between. I knocked at the door, which was opened 
 by a tall, fine-looking, active, middle-aged woman, 
 who afterwards I found out was " Susan," while at 
 the same time out of the stable-gates came a short, 
 active man, " Stephen," quite a factotum in his 
 way. Inquiring if Mr. Hudson were at home, I 
 learned that for a wonder he was not ; that he had 
 been called out urgently, very early for him, and 
 was not expected back until three o'clock, but 
 Mrs. Hudson was at home and would see me. I 
 explained that I merely brought a note of introduction 
 to Mr. Hudson, and it would suffice to leave it, but 
 Susan, taking it from me, begged me to wait a 
 minute. She ran off, but soon came back asking 
 me to walk in, and led me into the dining-room, 
 where sat Mrs. Hudson all alone working busily at 
 crochet. She dropped her work willingly to cross 
 the room and welcome me, asking any number of 
 questions about her brother-in-laA\ r , and about a 
 brother of her own, a Mr. Garrett, who lived near 
 
A TURNING-POINT IN LIFE. 109 
 
 to him. She told me she expected her husband 
 hack to dinner, and hoped that I would stay and 
 dine with them. There was something so hearty 
 about the invitation I could not say no, although 
 I had my fears about the great man, of whose 
 learning, whimsicality, and judgment I had heard 
 many stories, and I accepted the invitation. 
 There was every inducement for me to stay, and I 
 had a curious idea in my mind that I had reached a 
 turning-point in life, although I did not dream to 
 what it would lead. Everything I saw was quite new 
 — a world, in fact, that I practically did not know 
 of in its details. The room itself was a wonder. 
 It was surrounded with bookshelves filled with 
 books of science and medicine, the volumes being 
 old and new, all well-bound and neatly arranged, 
 with dictionaries and encyclopaedias. In one corner 
 near the window stood a very pretty table or cabinet, 
 on the top of which rested the most splendid 
 microscope I had at any time seen. This instrument, 
 I was told by my hostess, had cost what appeared 
 to me to be an incredible sum, and would enable one 
 to look at the minutest objects. It had been manu- 
 factured and sent by the famous Smith & Beck of 
 London, and Mrs. Hudson said her husband would be 
 sure to explain it to me and give me a demonstration 
 with it when he had had his dinner. " Nothing 
 would gratify him so much, for no child was ever 
 more pleased with a doll." She knew it had cost 
 a great deal of money, but everybody had their 
 
110 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 hobby, and if he had not that he would probably 
 have some other which might be more expensive, 
 more dangerous, and not so interesting or useful. 
 
 While we were thus talking a monkey I had seen 
 sitting on the garden wall came pounding down the 
 long broad gravel walk of the lovely garden that 
 stretched out before us. 
 
 " Oh ! here is Jacko," said Mrs. Hudson; "he 
 has come to see whether he likes you." 
 
 " Is he gentle ? " I asked. 
 
 " Well ! that depends upon his first impressions. 
 He likes some people, hates others and makes them 
 quite frightened. He hates a postman, and he took 
 such an aversion to a lady who was staying as a 
 guest here last week that he positively terrified 
 her. He is not particularly fond of me, but he is 
 very fond both of Susan and Stephen. He fears 
 his master, whom he worships, and takes to every- 
 thing and to everyone his master likes. He sits 
 on his master's shoulders and appears to talk to 
 him ; lets him play any joke, and always gets on the 
 wall to see him go out and come in. One day he 
 actually followed him into a wood through which 
 there is a bridle road, and got lost somewhere there : 
 it was three days before we found him, and although 
 he has not done that again, for his master gave him 
 the cane for it, he does a number of mischievous 
 tricks : steals the eggs from the fowls ; pulls the 
 young nuts from the trees ; takes the golden 
 pippins, when he can get at them ; covers his paws 
 
A TURNING-POINT IN LIFE. Ill 
 
 with jam, if by accident lie creeps into the jam 
 cupboard, and has a trick of climbing up to any 
 window of the house and looking in at it, which 
 is not at all pleasant to those who don't know his 
 habits." 
 
 At this moment the clock struck three with a 
 loud sound, and Susan began to lay the cloth for 
 dinner. She opened the garden door without 
 ceremony, and seizing the piece of an old pulley that 
 was hung round his neck, she brought in Jacko. 
 He passed his mistress with a sort of reserve or 
 dislike, and made one spring at me which caused me 
 hastily to draw back. 
 
 " Oh ! don't be alarmed, sir," said Susan ; " he 
 has evidently a liking for you, and you will get on 
 well together. Where's your paw, Jacko ? " 
 
 The monkey thereupon held out to me his right 
 forefoot, skipping along the table, and bestowing 
 upon me the most friendly look, very much in- 
 tensified as I offered him a nut that had been 
 laid out with others on the sideboard. He cracked 
 the nut with ability, extracted the kernel from 
 the shell and munched it with gusto, while a 
 large parrot I had not made the acquaintance of 
 bawled out as plainly as any human being could, 
 " Capital, capital, capital ! Go to bed, Tom I 
 Go to bed, Tom! " 
 
 Mrs. Hudson and Susan both laughed at my 
 surprise, and Stephen, who had just come in with 
 some of the dinner, joined in the fun. 
 
112 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 " Jacko seems to get on well with this gentleman," 
 said he, " and if he does so the master is sure to fall 
 in. Oh ! he's a knowing one, he is. Come, Jacko ! " 
 And Jacko thereupon leaped upon Stephen's hack, 
 and, snatching up another nut on his own account, 
 was marched out, while the parrot gave a shriek 
 which made her cage rattle and almost hroke the 
 window. 
 
 Dinner was soon laid, and a chair at one end 
 was placed for me, my hostess taking the other 
 end, observing that we would not wait, for the 
 doctor — meaning her husband — was such an un- 
 certain man it was of no use doing so. At the same 
 time I noticed that covered dishes were brought in 
 hot, and very nice pieces of food carefully put aside 
 in them — slices of beef, vegetables, pudding, and 
 fruit, which were evidently selected according to 
 some one's particular taste. Also a little decanter 
 of what seemed to be sherry was placed before an 
 empty plate. 
 
 We had got through quite a fourth of our meal 
 when the near sound of horses' feet told us of 
 an arrival, and the new arrangements that were 
 at once set in progress suggested to me that the 
 master of the house had arrived. The hot plates 
 were brought in ; an empty chair was placed 
 ready ; a clean serviette was laid down near 
 the plate, and the knives and forks and spoons 
 were set in due order. In two or three minutes 
 Mr. Hudson entered. He was a rather short, thick- 
 
A TURNING-POINT IN LIFE. 113 
 
 set man, apparently about fifty years old. He wore 
 a well-fitting greyish overcoat; " antigrophiles" — a 
 kind of leather overboot with straight iron spring and 
 long sides, extremely comfortable, and then fashion- 
 able ; a knitted muffler round his neck, and a rather 
 low hat. I rose, but at once was requested by the 
 lady hostess to resume my seat, and addressing the 
 master with the casual remark that he was rather 
 earlier than expected, she suggested that he should 
 take off his things, a suggestion he immediately 
 followed, sitting a moment by the fire ; throwing 
 off the " antigrophiles ; " removing his overcoat, 
 scarf, and hat ; putting his gloves into his overcoat 
 pocket, and handing the whole to Susan to take 
 into the hall, together with a riding-whip which he 
 regularly carried. Then he rose and walked to his 
 place at the table, lifted the chair before his plate 
 and bumped it down again as if it were not an 
 altogether safe chair, gave a short grunt, helped 
 himself to a glass out of the decanter, sat down, 
 and began to eat heartily. Meantime Mrs. Hudson 
 told him who I was, and passed him the note I had 
 brought from his brother Henry, which, however, 
 he did not read, but laid by his plate, still eating. 
 He did not himself utter a word, and I began to feel 
 uncomfortable, as if I were an intruder. 
 
 " I have been showing this young gentleman," 
 Mrs. Hudson explained, " some of your curiosities. 
 Jacko has been introduced, and has taken quite a 
 fancy to him ; the parrot has called him Tom and 
 
 8 
 
114 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 bade him go to bed ; we have had down two of the 
 books, and he has set his eyes on the new micro- 
 scope, as if he wanted to eat it, but of course I 
 dared not meddle with that." 
 
 The listener, still eating, now gave a second 
 grunt with a smile, and for the first time spoke. 
 
 " Have you shown him the ichneumon ? " 
 
 " No ! " replied his wife, " I forgot that, for I 
 haven't got used to him yet ; " and rising she went 
 to the couch, and stooping down to a mat in a 
 warm corner, she lifted up what looked like a cat 
 and brought it for me to look at, saying, " They 
 say it sucks the eggs of the rhinoceros or some 
 such creature." 
 
 " Rot ! " struck in the host as he brought his 
 knife-handle smartly down on the table. " The 
 rhinoceros has no eggs to be sucked ; it's the 
 crocodile," and he grunted once more. 
 
 " Ah yes ! the crocodile ! So it is. I always 
 forget and make some mistake. It sucks the 
 crocodile's eggs." 
 
 "Yes," I said, " and a very useful animal it must 
 be. I've heard of it, though I never saw one before ; 
 but I believe it does eat the eggs you speak of." 
 
 " Rot ! " replied the master, " an ancient lie 
 altogether. Here ! kneel down in that corner, 
 and on the shelf there you'll find an encyclopaedia 
 that will tell us all about him, and we'll read it 
 up." 
 
 It was a most singular mode of introduction, but 
 
A TURNING-POINT IN LIFE. 115 
 
 I guessed it was all right, and so at once obliged 
 him and brought up a beautiful book coated with 
 dust, for it lodged near the carpet, and Mrs. 
 Hudson had to send for a duster, to give it a good 
 rub ; taking it also to the fire, flapping it vigorously, 
 and then turning up the name of the animal, she 
 found the place, and laid it open before me so that 
 I could read the account. 
 
 The master seemed gratified by my reading; 
 filled the wineglass before him from the decanter; 
 held it out at arm's length and peered through it in 
 the most inquisitive way, and then drank the wine 
 off, while Polly, to Mrs. Hudson's obvious delight, 
 crowned the whole by screaming " That's good ! " 
 emphasising the statement by a term common 
 among sailors, but not quite the thing in a dining- 
 room or in ears religiously polite. 
 
 " Shut up ! " cried the master hastily to the bird, 
 and then turning more slowly to me held out his 
 hand with, " Very glad to see you, sir, and how did 
 you leave old Harry ? " 
 
 I knew he meant his brother, who was as eccentric 
 as himself. 
 
 " He was out shooting yesterday with a gun 
 shaped like a walking-stick." 
 
 " He'll shoot himself next." 
 
 " Well ! he is certainly very odd. I was articled 
 to him and soon found him out." 
 
 " Oh ! I know all about you. He was very much 
 taken with you, and when he comes here you are 
 
116 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 always at the tip of his tongue. You carve wood, 
 make kites and all that sort of thing." 
 
 " And read books." 
 
 " Yes, I know ! Pollin's Ancient History has been 
 one of the subjects." 
 
 " Yes, and Sir Walter's Waverley, and Miss Porter's 
 Thaddeus of Warsaw." 
 
 " Hot ! I told Harry so. Rollin's Ancient History 
 I could swallow, but t'other books are a packet of 
 lies. I could tell 'em better myself if I tried; so 
 could Mother Popples, if she didn't eat the candles." 
 
 I didn't see the bearing, but it was explained to 
 me by my gentle hostess that Mother Popples was 
 an old' neighbour near, who was by repute very rich 
 and an awful miser, who once, gloating over her 
 money, like Daniel Dancer, lived a week in a cellar 
 on the rushlight she had carried in a lantern, trying 
 to eat the horn of the lantern too as a sort of dessert 
 after dinner. 
 
 The subject dropped, and we began to enter on 
 others. Beginning with the new microscope, it was 
 taken to pieces and put together again so as to show 
 its powers, which went up to an eighth, a marvel 
 as it was considered at that time, in which I was 
 deeply interested. Then we stepped into a little 
 laboratory in an adjoining room where my mani- 
 pulative craft was tested for making up a chemical 
 preparation, until we were apprised of a call by 
 Professor Thomas Taylor, to whom we repaired. 
 Taylor had agreed to stay to tea. To me he was 
 
A TURNING-POINT IN LIFE. 117 
 
 a stranger, but I soon found he was a teacher of 
 chemistry in the Middlesex Hospital, London, and 
 one of the wisest men the most ambitious student in 
 physic could desire to know. He told us all about 
 the new advances that were being carried out in 
 physic, and of the new drugs that were being pre- 
 pared, but the point I remember best was the state- 
 ment of the proper mode of trying to save the rich 
 steeples of churches, or rather, the effect of trying to 
 mend them in an improper manner. It seemed that 
 the steeple of one of the City churches — I fancy 
 Bow Church — was losing its grip ; so to meet the 
 difficulty long iron rods were fixed in the stone at 
 a time when the temperature happened to be low. 
 The job was finished and the steeple left as secure. 
 The weather became hot, and under the heat the 
 rods expanded ; grew longer than they ought to have 
 been ; by the expansion loosened the stones and 
 caused the steeple to come down as if it had been 
 stricken by lightning. 
 
 I recall that afternoon as if it were but yesterday, 
 and the statements the guest made about the 
 London men, their habits, researches, and modes of 
 thought, as if they were but now made. He had 
 soon, however, with real regret, to leave us ; but I 
 had accepted the Hudsons' kind invitation to stay 
 all night, and we found plenty of things to discuss 
 and do. We went out to a churchyard near, where 
 we met the sexton, who had a treasure for us. In 
 digging a grave he had found at the bottom, amongst 
 
118 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 some remains, nearly half an ounce of fluid mercury 
 which he had collected, and which appeared, in a 
 dry bottle he had obtained, as bright and good 
 as if it had been just bought at the chemist's. 
 Whence came it ? Had it exuded from the bones 
 which had once been made to receive it as a cure for 
 a specific disease ? We turned up the pages of 
 Astruc in order to discover if such a mode of 
 treatment was at any time fashionable, and we 
 came, finally, to the conclusion that the metal had 
 had another mode of application. Some unhappy 
 specimen of humankind had, more probably, in a 
 day long past, suffered from obstruction of the 
 bowels, and the mercury had been administered in 
 order that it might, by its weight, find its way 
 through the alimentary intestinal canal. The 
 suggestion was entirely new- to me, but my monitor, 
 although he had not used it on his own account for 
 the purpose assigned, had known in his young days 
 an old doctor who had tried the experiment. 
 
 A little later on there came round to the door a 
 chariot called the " Pillbox," for the purpose of 
 making the usual daily, or rather nightly, visits. It 
 was the queerest affair that can be described, but for 
 a time it found favour. It was a covered-in carriage, 
 capable, on an emergency, of holding four people, and 
 standing on two wheels. You got in from behind, 
 and the reins came through a slot under the middle 
 window in front, while a side window opened, out of 
 which the arm could be put for the use of the whip 
 
A TURNING-POINT IN LIFE. 119 
 
 when necessary. It was awkward driving, but we 
 were kept warm and dry, and we progressed at the 
 rate of some six miles an hour. It is probable that 
 we stopped at some five-and-twenty houses on the 
 round we made, and it appeared that there was uni- 
 versal welcome. It was not necessary often for me 
 to alight, and so I sat in the vehicle holding the reins, 
 usually conversing, while we waited, with one of the 
 family who had found his way out and discovered 
 the occupant. But I was occasionally asked to get 
 out and see some patient who was suffering from 
 severe disease out of the usual course. Good cheer, 
 both in words and in what were thought to be 
 necessities, was general, and I do not believe there 
 was one house of any importance in which a special 
 table was not laid out for refreshment; biscuits, 
 sandwiches, port, and sherry were at our command, 
 with an occasional request that we would try a 
 glass of the October brew. We could, in fact, have 
 lived altogether on the good things we met with in 
 the course of the round, and many of the kind 
 people who provided them were apparently oppressed 
 by the very bounties, shares of which were offered to 
 us. With the exception of the liquid refreshments, 
 with which my companion was evidently most con- 
 versant, we were deaf to all invitations, and made our 
 way without impediment. At what hour the sick 
 got their medicines I was most puzzled to make out, 
 but it must have been on the following morning, for 
 the place that supplied it was far away, and when 
 
120 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 we arrived home a long list had to he sent off by 
 a waiting messenger, who looked tired, hut was 
 accustomed and resigned to his fate. 
 
 I never remember a happier day than that which 
 has been described; I went to bed in one of the 
 loveliest rooms to dream it all over again, and 
 when, next morning, I was awakened by Susan's 
 loud rapping at the door, I experienced with sorrow 
 what it meant — the turning over for ever of a leaf 
 in the book of my life. I am proud enough to think 
 that I made as good an impression as I had felt, for 
 at breakfast the course of coming events was talked 
 over as if I were expected to take part in them, and 
 before the sun set I made an arrangement which led 
 to my participating in the work for many months, 
 in and during which I had a persistent delight. 
 But my satisfaction is most complete in the reten- 
 tion of the memory of the strange and brilliant man 
 I had been destined to meet. He is before me as I 
 write, and I formed such a friendship for him that 
 I saw his virtues even through his faults. I have 
 made a man sing of many qualities that he sighed 
 for, with one above all most coveted : — 
 
 " What is my heart's desire 
 Above all these? 
 A friend who will not tire 
 Of friendship's subtleties, 
 Though all my faults he sees ; " 
 
 and I became that friend. 
 
 I was attracted neither by the manner nor person 
 
A TURNING-POINT IN LIFE. 121 
 
 of Mr. Dudley Hudson. He was a rather stern - 
 looking man of middle age. One might say he was 
 gnarled ; his face rather long, and ruddy-dark ; his 
 eyes small, hazel, and piercing ; his manner some- 
 times impetuous ; his shoulders square ; his dress 
 countrymanlike, but neat ; his limbs clumsy-look- 
 ing, but his hands so educated he could thread a 
 fine needle as readily as he could drive through a 
 gate, and he could draw a small tooth as delicately 
 as he could cut off a limb, which latter task no one 
 could do better when duty imperatively demanded. 
 His voice was rather coarse, and his delivery abrupt 
 and jerky. He told jokes, but rarely laughed ; he 
 hated as hard as he loved, and sometimes his kindly 
 spirit was the dupe of his heart, as Rochefoucauld 
 expresses it. Once, for this reason, he, Mr. Hudson, 
 became the subject of a joke which he never ceased 
 to be reminded of. As he was riding through a 
 village, he was called in to see a girl who was very 
 poor and who presented to him all the symptoms of 
 death. He was much touched, used all the means 
 at his command to restore her, and galloped to the 
 surgery to prescribe the best remedies for her case. 
 He found that the dispensers were well-acquainted 
 with the character of the case, and were, as he 
 thought, slow in their work, one of them saying 
 it was only that " Hysterical Harriet " who would 
 cure herself with a peppermint drop. He got 
 angry ; affirmed that this time hysteria had nothing 
 to do with the illness ; that the girl was dying, and 
 
122 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 would probably be dead before the medicines arrived. 
 The dispensers were aroused rapidly; made up the 
 medicine, sent it off by special messenger, and were 
 inclined to shake in their shoes. 
 
 The doctor himself, so beneficent, went home to 
 pass a restless night, and in the morning positively 
 rose so early as to ride off to see his patient before 
 he had taken his breakfast, to find — when he reached 
 her home — that she was as well as could be, and 
 singing away at a wash-tub. Nor had she touched 
 his physic. How we all laughed at this incident I 
 need not tell, but it afforded a splendid illustration 
 of what a distinguished brother has called " the 
 mimicry of disease." Of course the good doctor 
 himself merely smiled at the mistake he had made 
 whenever it was referred to, and he not infrequently 
 told the story in detail for our diversion. But there 
 was another story, quite correct, about which he 
 never spoke, but at which he felt natural pride and 
 satisfaction. There lived near to him a strange man 
 whom he knew — a nervous man, a lonely man, a 
 man essentially of a generous and feeling heart, but 
 of a sad nature. One unfortunate day this man 
 committed suicide, and some of the neighbours were 
 horrified. The minister, or clergyman of the church, 
 who was thought to be a hard, resolute, and ex- 
 tremely orthodox rector, granted — to everybody's 
 surprise — burial in the churchyard, and there the 
 suicide was laid. The grave was a conspicuous 
 object, an object of much comment, people fancying 
 
A TURNING-POINT IN LIFE. 123 
 
 that the parson contemplated the same deed. A 
 month afterwards it got about that the doctor was 
 going to erect a stone at the head of the suicide's 
 grave, that the rector had given his assent, and that 
 nothing stayed the proceeding except the want of 
 an appropriate epitaph, which the doctor had much 
 trouble in searching out and selecting. At last the 
 thing was reported as having been accomplished, and 
 one morning early the stone-cutter brought the stone 
 on a truck and set it upright in its permanent place. 
 The stricter persons were astounded, as were the 
 unconcerned in heart, who are usually led by fashion 
 or opinion rather than by intellect. There was, 
 therefore, quite a nocking to the stone to read the 
 epitaph, by which they were all thunderstruck and 
 brought to a stand. There, five feet above the earth, 
 stood out a rather wide gravestone, with no flowers 
 or other artistic designs upon it. There were not 
 many lines of letters, but what were there were 
 cut deeply, and pointed cleanly so that it was 
 impossible to have doubt about them. First came 
 the full name of the deceased, where he lived in the 
 parish, and when and where he died. Then just 
 below it, as in admonition to the living reader and 
 as a criticism to all sticklers, were two, and two 
 only, very pronounced words, " Judge not ! '' It is 
 worth while noticing that nothing more was said in 
 later times ; even the sticklers were dumb. 
 
 For some few months after the time when I first 
 visited Mr. Hudson, I remained, as the reader will 
 
124 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 not be surprised to hear, as an aid in the practice 
 which belonged to him. 
 
 A great many practical experiences occurred to 
 me while I was living at Narborough, where I 
 rode, read, and learned night and day. It was an 
 extensive, poor neighbourhood, composed largely of 
 persons engaged in the weaving of stockings, so that 
 the rattle of the stocking-frames in the villages 
 seemed heard from every door. The men were 
 sickly, full of political troubles, and the women and 
 children, markedly anaemic, appeared to live on very 
 little food, the women taking far more tea and 
 bread-and-butter than were good for them. There 
 were agriculturists in the district who broke the 
 monotony of disease, but they were relatively few. 
 The practice was extensive and very hard, and, 
 including two dispensers, there were five of us 
 regularly engaged. We had thirteen horses also 
 in our service. 
 
 Such a busy practice yields endless details I must 
 pass over, excepting one which, from the moment of 
 it, has been on my mind and has led me to many 
 researches and beliefs that in its absence might 
 never have been thought of. 
 
 About twelve o'clock one night I was hastily 
 summoned to see a man four or five miles distant 
 who had met with a misfortune which caused his 
 death. I galloped to the spot, to learn a curious 
 story. In those days India, America, Australia, 
 and Africa were indeed foreign parts, and persons 
 
A TURNING-POINT IN LIFE. 125 
 
 who went to them were thought to be separated 
 from their friends, almost as if they were dead 
 and buried. In the place whither I went there 
 lived a small innkeeper who some years before had 
 lost sight of his son. The lad had left home, had 
 migrated to Australia, had occasionally, but rarely, 
 written, and was practically considered to be lost 
 for ever. 
 
 One day — the day before that I am writing about — 
 this lost youth suddenly appeared in his own flesh 
 and form at the house of his birth. His father, 
 mother, and sister were astounded and filled with 
 joy. They were literally maddened with excite- 
 ment. A flag was put out of the window, a band 
 poured forth its strains, the skittle-alley gave out its 
 sounds, the belfry bells rang their peals, and, to use 
 the words of one of the inhabitants, " It was just as 
 though there had been an unexpected club feast." 
 The news travelled into the neighbouring hamlets 
 and villages, and it caused no surprise that all the 
 people about were invited in the evening to partake 
 of a grand supper in the club room of the public- 
 house, to smoke a pipe, and to lay in any amount of 
 the October brew. The invitation was, of course, 
 widely accepted ; the tables were speedily crowded, 
 and before the supper was ready quoits, marbles, 
 and penny toss-ups were indulged in in the paddock, 
 while a solo singer, with some talent for extempore 
 versification and songification, attracted and pleased 
 his audiences, who cheered and chimed in in the 
 
126 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 choruses, especially when the grand guest of the 
 evening happened to saunter near and recognise 
 one or more of those who were congregated. 
 
 Everything went on as well as the most sanguine 
 could expect or desire, and the supper was an im- 
 mense success. The health of the unexpected 
 traveller was proposed by his jocund father, was 
 seconded by his godfather, and was cheered to the 
 echo by the company. The healths of the father 
 and mother were treated in a similar manner amid 
 congratulation and delight, and triumph reigned 
 boisterously. 
 
 At last it was seen that two men were leaving 
 the feast, and that one of them looked more than 
 usually pale. Soon one of these returned, hastily 
 calling for aid, saying that his companion, the pale- 
 looking man, had fallen to the ground in an adjoining 
 paddock and was groaning as if in danger. There 
 was a rush of friends ; the sick man was lifted off 
 the ground, was carried into a stable, and was laid 
 down in one of the stalls, while a doctor was sent 
 for on the swiftest horse that could be found. 
 
 I was the doctor called, was on the spot as 
 quickly as possible, and found an unusual com- 
 motion. The facts presented to me were that the 
 unfortunate patient was a young man of about 
 thirty-five years of age ; he was a carpenter by 
 trade, and known to be a man of voracious appetite, 
 swallowing his food as fast as he could get it, 
 " regularly gobbling it," as his aunt described, so 
 
A TURNING-POINT IN LIFE. 127 
 
 that she was always frightened lest he should 
 choke himself. He was one of the first to come to 
 the supper, one of the best to "lay to," and how 
 many plates of animal food he devoured the man 
 who carved was unable to remember. He " tackled " 
 everything — corned beef, ham, sausages, and what- 
 ever else he could get ; he drank only a mug or two 
 of beer, but he never let his plate be empty, and so 
 he went on until he had to leave the table from 
 satiety. This created little wonder, for it was 
 known he was accustomed to over-eat. He had 
 been knocked over at the Coronation banquet, at 
 pretty nearly every club feast, and when Miss 
 Osborne, a lady of the village, was married and her 
 friends gave a public supper, he had had to be carried 
 home, but had always got well in a day or two, and 
 suffered from nothing worse than chaff and the 
 reputation that no man of any neighbouring place 
 could eat so much. This time the celebrated gobbler 
 had gone too far and had fallen with a vengeance. 
 He was lying with all about him intensely cold, 
 for a hoar frost was on the ground, and there was 
 practically nothing between him and the stable- 
 floor. He looked '" stone dead," was indifferently 
 clothed, and an object of universal sympathy. 
 
 In accordance with the feeling of the day, I 
 supposed that the patient was lying in the most 
 unfavourable circumstances for recovery. The 
 " calor vitalis " was the one thing demanded, the 
 one thing absent. It was a cold air, cold enough 
 
128 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 to kill anything, and no wonder he looked dead. It 
 was long afterwards that I learned the error of this 
 idea, and that, in fact, he was not really cold 
 enough. I did what appeared to me hest. There 
 were no haths there, and we could not niake a fire 
 in the stahle, where there was no fireplace. I there- 
 fore turned up my coat -sleeves and commenced 
 vigorously to set up artificial respiration, getting a 
 man to help me who took my place, and who, heing 
 strong, was an efficient aid. We kept this up for 
 half an hour, and some thinking that the man's feet 
 were getting warmer and that his Moated face was 
 more natural, we kept steadily vigorous. At last 
 it seemed as if he choked, and it was found that 
 it was not so easy to squeeze out the air from his 
 chest as it should he, as if there were something in 
 the way that stopped the hreathing; so, with my 
 penknife, I freely opened the trachea, or windpipe ; 
 with a quill that was at hand cleared the windpipe, 
 pushing up an obstruction into the space above, 
 and removing what could he removed by his 
 mouth. To my wonder, the artificial respiration 
 began to take effect ; the feet became warmer, and 
 at last the man swung round his head, breathed of 
 his own accord, and looked as if he were struggling 
 into life. He moved his hands, and letting him 
 alone for a few minutes he astonished every one by 
 the signs of life he manifested. Soon, however, he 
 became choked up again from the stomach ; all our 
 efforts failed to restore the breathing, and, in the 
 
A TURNING-POINT IN LIFE. 129 
 
 end, I had to ride home leaving a veritable lifeless 
 body, but duly accredited for many a long day after- 
 wards with having " raised a dead man." 
 
 At the inquest that followed, the jury, after 
 hearing all the details, brought in a verdict of 
 " Accidental death," and I was complimented by 
 the coroner for the part I had played. 
 
 A curious circumstance lso occurred at the 
 inquest which added to my credit. It was put as 
 a question, " What hour in the night did the man 
 fall ? " when one witness swore one time and another 
 quite a different time. In the dilemma the coroner 
 asked me when I had arrived on the scene. I named 
 the hour by my watch, and then went out of the room 
 to see how it tallied with the clock in the bar. To 
 my surprise, the two appeared entirely different. 
 
 " That's the hour," said the landlady, looking up 
 straight before her ; but I knew my time was right, 
 and discovered that, standing at the bar door and 
 looking over the landlady's head, I was not looking 
 at the house clock at all, but at a reflection of it. 
 The clock was attached to the wall opposite the bar, 
 while on the wall facing it, over the bar, there hung 
 one of those old-fashioned, round, gold -framed 
 mirrors which at one time were extremely popular 
 and are now coming into use again. Into this the 
 face of the house clock shone, and the mirror reflected 
 a time which, in a hasty look by the witness, passed 
 for the true time, yet in fact was, as I was able 
 to explain, entirely false. 
 
 9 
 
130 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 The history of the case just before noticed does 
 not appear on these pages in any way as a digression. 
 The fact that a man could lie seemingly dead for 
 nearly two hours in a very cold atmosphere, and 
 could then, under artificial respiration, show distinct 
 signs of recovery, was an eventful fact, new, and, 
 may I say, to me momentous ? It gave me food 
 for reflection for years, and could not be forgotten 
 in subsequent researches. 
 
 To return to matters more immediately personal, I 
 may state that I had now gone through the greater 
 portion of my curriculum, and it was suggested to 
 me to complete it, qualify, and hold my office per- 
 manently. A solicitor was consulted, the plan drawn 
 up but not executed, and I was preparing for the 
 final effort of qualification, when one morning, while 
 riding on horseback to Littlebury, Professor Taylor, 
 whom I had met, and with whom I was so much 
 impressed, hailed me. He came to my side, putting 
 his hand on the horse's mane, and told me that he 
 wanted me to settle near to town. He had a friend 
 at Barnes, Dr. Robert Willis, whose sister had been 
 married to Mr. Syme, the illustrious surgeon, and 
 he, Willis, wanted an " old young man " to join him 
 in what had been one of the best practices in the 
 United Kingdom, and in the very cream of British 
 society. I at once explained my position, to find 
 that he, Taylor, had anticipated me. He had talked 
 everything over with our mutual friend Mr. Dudley 
 Hudson, who would give me his own ideas on the 
 
A TURNING-POINT IN LIFE. 131 
 
 matter. In a few minutes we met him, when he 
 told me that nothing could have been more congenial 
 to him than the completion of our proposed contract, 
 but that he could not stand in my way ; that on his 
 own part he never regretted anything more than 
 that when he was in London, a pupil of the famous 
 anatomist Joshua Brookes, he had not remained there 
 to fight and win his way to both fame and fortune ; 
 that a country life for a doctor was both hard and 
 obscure, and that the offer now made to me was one 
 of the best he had ever heard of — was, in fact, a 
 kind of providence, which, apart from all sentiment, 
 I must accept. 
 
 It was quite impossible to avoid sorrow on leaving 
 Mr. Dudley Hudson, for I shall never, to the end of 
 life, forget the good fortune and kindness that had 
 befallen me while with him, or the knowledge I 
 had been permitted to acquire. But I accepted 
 the offer Professor Taylor made, and went with him 
 to London, where I saw Dr. Willis, of whom I shall 
 have more to say. 
 
 To a youth and a stranger there is nothing more 
 bewitching than London. The theatres had to be 
 visited. At the Haymarket Lady Boothby was 
 playing in The Taming of the Shrew ; Macready was 
 beginning to create his last wonderful revivals ; 
 Charles Kean was coming to the front ; Phelps was 
 already established, and for a few nights there was 
 a veritable dream of variety. I had the felicity of 
 finding a home with Mr. Taylor in Vere Street, 
 
132 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 presided over by his aunt and two sisters, with one 
 or two of his brothers as companions. I visited the 
 Middlesex Hospital wards and the school, gaining 
 the friendly acquaintance of Mr. Alexander Shaw, 
 who had living in his house Lady Bell, the widow 
 of the famous Sir Charles Bell. I heard Faraday 
 lecture; was introduced to Drs. Bright, Brande, 
 Hodgkin, and Addison, and paid the expected visit 
 to Dr. Willis at Barnes. Very soon I came to terms 
 with Dr. Willis, settling that I was to live at 
 Mortlake, and from a centre there conduct the 
 practice with him. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 A NEW SPHERE OE WORK — MORTLAKE. 
 
 ;ETEE, leaving Narborough I went once 
 more to Anderson's University in Glasgow, 
 completed my studies there, passed the 
 Eaculty of Physicians and Surgeons, and entered 
 Mortlake with the full expectation of settling 
 for life in practice with Dr. Willis. There was an 
 absence of all flash appearance about the practice, 
 and of all promise of wealth; but no young man 
 could, I think, find himself more fortunate from a 
 medical and scientific point of view. I had as much 
 to do in seeing the sick as I could reasonably expect, 
 never neglecting any who might be under my care, 
 and letting practice take the first place, a plan I 
 have ever conscientiously followed. 
 
 I met with many who were far more than mere 
 patients. Mr. E. Cooke, E.A., the famous artist, told 
 me all he knew about the stones of Venice and 
 Ruskin's views in relation to them, as I sat watching 
 his skilful hand traversing the canvas. Mr. Dawson 
 Turner would fill me with antiquarian details. Bob 
 Coombes' pupils on the Thames, which flowed at the 
 foot of my little garden, would imbue me with 
 
 133 
 
134 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 the mysteries of boating, and Mr. Coombes himself 
 would give me instruction. The Vice-Chancellor of 
 England, Sir Lionel Shadwell, who lived at Barn- 
 Elms, would come to me, much more enthralled with 
 the Apocalypse than with the law, unfolding his 
 views about Apocalyptic wonders. Sir James Knight 
 Bruce, afterwards one of the Lord Justices of Appeal, 
 who lived at the Priory, Boehampton, mightily 
 taken with some of my researches, would bring me 
 from Spain glass flasks which were so thin and 
 strong they would stand the fire. He gave me 
 permission to take possession of any live stock on 
 his lands that might afford me useful specimens 
 for investigation, and once sent me a note from the 
 bench respecting a paper of mine he had perused 
 and on which he wished to be more enlightened. 
 
 I also began to know some of the Esculapian lights. 
 Dr. Bright, then at the acme of his fame, came 
 regularly to one of our patients, and never returned 
 to London without bearing from us a pretty bunch 
 of flowers cut in Dr. Willis's beautiful garden. Dr., 
 afterwards Sir, Thomas Watson, came in the same 
 way, and in London I became acquainted with 
 the eminent Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie, and Mr., 
 afterwards Sir, William Eergusson. Professor Owen 
 was a neighbour, but the man to whom of all others 
 I was most attracted was Dr. Willis himself. 
 
 Willis was a Scotchman with a marked accent ; of 
 good appearance, except that he was obliged to wear 
 spectacles and read with the paper held close up to 
 
A NEW SPHERE OF WORK—MORTLAKE. 135 
 
 his eyes. He was now about fifty years of age, 
 and knew everything. He was great at budding- 
 roses, loved music, was strong in political debates, 
 and particularly admired the late Bernal Osborne's 
 witty speeches. In his early days he had traversed 
 the Continent of Europe, and had travelled as a 
 fellow-student with George Combe, on whose 
 Constitution of Man he was rather severe. He had 
 settled in London ; was an Abernethian Scholar ; 
 Librarian of the Hoyal College of Surgeons, and a 
 lecturer on " The Practice of Physic " in Aldersgate 
 Street School of Medicine. He was content to 
 settle down as a general practitioner in a pretty 
 house with a fine garden close to the church at 
 Barnes in Surrey. He had translated and published 
 many books — Wagner's Physiology from the German, 
 the works of William Harvey from the Latin, and 
 Bayer on Skin Diseases from the French. He 
 was an original thinker, holding excellent views on 
 the " Portal System" and on the " Functions of the 
 Skin." Just before I knew him he had brought out, 
 in conjunction with Professor Marks of Gottingen, a 
 little book on " The Decrease of Disease by Civilisa- 
 tion" a work of which he was not a little proud. 
 As a practitioner of medicine Willis was not a man 
 of push or energy. He despised all cant or cunning ; 
 had not the strongest faith in physic, and held by 
 Ambrose Pare's motto, " I treat ; God cures," with 
 a tenacity which knew no limit. He told capital 
 stories, and once dropped on an unqualified London 
 
130 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 specialist who had carried his trade to Barnes itself, 
 and who, when suddenly found out, was glad to fly. 
 
 The choicest things to Willis in all physic were 
 that he had a thoroughly good memory and a 
 capital little library, and as he entered heart and 
 soul into my work he helped me both with memory 
 and hooks. After I parted from him for London 
 life he took to more remote studies. He wrote for 
 Mr. Scott of Ramsgate, and also for Mr. Nicholas 
 Triibner, presenting the life and works of Michael 
 Servetus, whom he literally worshipped ; he anno- 
 tated the works of Spinoza, and composed a cate- 
 chism of an advanced kind according to theological 
 representations. He died, full of years, in 1878, 
 his memory still unfailing, planning with me a 
 fortnight before his death to go to Hempstead Church 
 in Essex to see a leaden chest in which reclined all 
 that was left of William Harvey. It is a matter of 
 wonder to me that so illustrious a man should have 
 been left to fade away so quietly by a world that 
 has allowed so many of its worthless to live. He 
 was one of the lights of this little earth, and it 
 might have been from the knowledge of some man 
 like him that Gray framed one of the most famous 
 verses of his Elegy. Willis was not a rich man, 
 and notwithstanding all his learning held to a 
 theory which always shook and offended the pedantic 
 scholars. He held that learning by grammar was 
 not half so good as learning by words or sounds, and 
 that it was easier to learn by speech than by written 
 
A NEW SPHERE OF WORK—MORTLAKE. 137 
 
 rules. What has the word " Va " to do with the word 
 "Alter"? It might have suited the old monks to 
 employ their time in tracing out or inventing 
 formulas, and a man like Milton himself might, 
 by trained imitation, have taught on their system. 
 But what did it lead to further than that a few 
 industrious students mastered, at great labour, a few 
 classical books, and were esteemed scholars ? They 
 were not fluent readers at the best. They were 
 poor composers, and limited in their vocabularies, 
 whereas if they had been taught the words of other 
 languages as they were taught their own, all had 
 been under their command, and they were not men 
 of one mind if all readings came before them. 
 
 Willis chose the Hamiltonian system as his basis, 
 a system now so steadily gaining ground that I was 
 surprised recently to hear a well-known academical 
 professor talking of it as the method which was 
 cultivated in his classes with extraordinary success, 
 as if it were a new device. 
 
 It will be seen from what I have written that 
 the life in Mortlake was happy, and, indeed, I 
 began here the greater part of what I might 
 consider my true work in this world. I have said 
 that I began to pick up literary tastes, and many 
 others followed that will appear in detail as my 
 record proceeds. 
 
 I recall that what s;ave me the most steadv 
 pleasure was the fitting up of a small laboratory in 
 my house, with a bedroom adjoining. The church 
 
138 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 clock acted as my timepiece ; shelves all around 
 afforded me room for specimens and chemicals ; a 
 pneumatic trough occupied a convenient place ; and 
 an old Franklin battery with all its apparatus — an 
 instrument which had been used at an institution for 
 lecture purposes in the south of London by Benjamin 
 Franklin himself, since lent by me to the South 
 Kensington Museum — filled up one end. 
 
 I could not have had a pleasanter room for 
 research, and Willis used to call it the " life shop," 
 in which he was anxious, though no experimentalist, 
 to watch the goings on and to contribute any assist- 
 ance in his power. Dr. John Rose Cormack too, 
 who had taken the famous Fairfax House at Putney, 
 and his assistant at that time, the well-known Dr. 
 Alexander Henry, were my constant companions ; 
 while Drs. Snow and Edwards Crisp, after a time, 
 came to join me when they could give the leisure. 
 
 It would have been difficult to find a happier 
 union of necessities for research, and when I added 
 a good microscope and a balance to my establish- 
 ment, I thought myself one of the most fortunate 
 of men. 
 
 A historical event that took place at the date to 
 which I have now come falls on my mind, and as it 
 influenced medical practice, at all events practice 
 near London, I am bound to refer to it. The great 
 Exhibition was opened in Hyde Park and was the 
 wonder of the world, the wonder through all time 
 as far as we now know. The constant supervision 
 
A NEW SPHERE OF WORK—MORTLAKE. 139 
 
 of the Prince Consort no doubt caused the first 
 success of the project, but everybody who could 
 joined in it, not least the great gardener Sir Joseph 
 Paxton, who devised this brilliant Palace of Glass 
 which Chaucer foreshadowed. Say what men may, 
 there has been nothing anywhere since the Palace 
 of 1851 equal in brilliancy and splendour of original 
 conception, or usefulness of intention. It illuminated 
 the world with a new light and set an example. It 
 was not merely an exhibition, it was the Mother of 
 exhibitions, and we who remember it forget our years 
 instead of envying our younger brethren who have 
 since been born. I used to go regularly to see it 
 constructed, and after its removal it was once my 
 delight, in company with one of its founders, the late 
 Sir Henry Cole, to measure out the points where it 
 first stood, and to mark out where the outlines of it 
 might still be found. In its existence, and in its 
 original grandeur, it was a marvel, a marvel of 
 beauty as well as of industry. To Dr. Willis and 
 myself it put forward a temptation that was simply 
 irresistible, but, worse than that, it put tempta- 
 tions before other people upon whom we depended 
 for our bread and cheese. Ours was an old 
 practice, and had been one of the most remunerative 
 of any in this kingdom or any other. The late Dr. 
 John Scott, of Chandos Street, who for many years 
 held the practice, told me that he and his partners 
 had realised as much as five thousand pounds a year 
 out of it as a business, and I have no doubt of the 
 
140 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 correctness of his statement. The practice, as I knew 
 it, was still of a good class, though not so profit- 
 ahle. But the Exhibition had its effect. The older 
 patients, women especially, had often kept the house 
 for years, and looked upon the visit of the doctor as 
 the event of the day ; his visits were a kind of 
 expected right. Scott told me that for years he 
 had attended a lady who invariably turned night 
 into day, and, whatever might happen, had to 
 call on her at her breakfast hour, nine o'clock at 
 night. The Exhibition broke up all such arrange- 
 ments, and patients Avho went to it being greatly 
 taken by it, and in better health than supposed, 
 would not keep to the house as they had done before. 
 They met their doctors there as they met other 
 people, and they kept their pockets at Christmas 
 much closer than they had been wont to do. 
 
 Here, in the Citadel of Eascination, I saw my old 
 friend Mr. Dudley Hudson and wandered through 
 the various scenes with him. He was unchanged in 
 his habits and modes of expression, but I thought he 
 looked careworn and smaller in size. 
 
 In the Exhibition we met with a very clever old 
 man called Josh, who had never been in London 
 before, and who was the leech-man of the practice 
 at JSTarborough. He was a splendid layer-on of 
 leeches, and would get them to bite when everybody 
 else failed. We were much amused at seeing him 
 look with all his might at an equatorial telescope 
 which stood in the building, and after a few friendly 
 
A NEW SPHERE OF WORK—MORTLAKE. 141 
 
 •observations we were interested in getting a ques- 
 tion from him in reference to the instrument. 
 
 " Wouldn't it fetch 'em down ? " he said at last, 
 and we, thinking that he mistook it for a cannon, 
 asked in reply, " What would it fetch down, Josh, 
 do you think ? " when he took us both aback by 
 saying, "The stars, in my opinion." 
 
 Mr. Hudson stayed at Professor Taylor's, and one 
 night I dined with him there, promising to meet 
 him again. We returned to our respective duties, 
 however, without meeting. He went his way, I 
 mine, and, alas ! a little later I was informed that 
 he fell suddenly near to his own home at Littlebury, 
 and, despite all the measures to save him, died. 
 
 To have a work-room of the kind I have named 
 like that at Mortlake, and to have a library, formed 
 a taste which has never left me, and I have passed 
 through life with it. I have improved on both 
 from time to time as I have been able, and have 
 been secluded in them very closely. It has fallen 
 to my lot to have at times an active outdoor life, 
 but that has been extraneous, and, I had almost 
 said, forced, from which fact the notion that I 
 am of ascetic nature has had its origin, a notion 
 absolutely untrue. 
 
 The two rooms, or centres of action, are, never- 
 theless, the choicest resorts of mine. In the library 
 you become friendly with all the great men of the 
 past. They are always delighted to meet you ; they 
 have no worldly desires or ambitions, no jealousies, 
 
142 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 no quarrels, no hates. They tell what they were, 
 why they were, and in linking them with the world 
 they link themselves with you, yet allow you to 
 leave them so soon as you are tired. You are in 
 the hook- world of man. 
 
 The work-room is, in one way, the same, but in 
 other ways it is different. In it you are in com- 
 panionship with Nature, whom you ever see in form, 
 or in act. All she does, like an invisible spirit, is 
 for your observation and learning ; she never deceives 
 you, never conceals anything from you, never puts 
 on a voice or face of compassion, but seems to be 
 all mind and no heart ; invariable, like the ancient 
 Roman soldier, performing her tasks in the same 
 methodical fashion. In her presence you are in 
 sweet, yet awful, company, and even if nothing 
 seem to be before you she is there as busy as ever. 
 Men and women meet, contest, conceal, ramble, and 
 often babble. They become afraid of each other or 
 of what others will say of them, but the mistress 
 of your laboratory shows no contention. 
 
 I have dealt at some length on the room set up 
 at Mortlake, because it became so useful to me and 
 such a good model. A few weeks ago I revisited 
 it after a lapse of between forty and fifty years, and 
 by the kindness of Dr. Mcintosh, at present living 
 in the house, took a good look at it. 
 
 The laboratory is a drawing-room now, and seemed 
 much smaller than I remembered it, but in the 
 bedroom attached, looking on to the river, I could 
 
A NEW SPHERE OF WORK— MORT LAKE. 143 
 
 discover no change. I saw the place where every- 
 thing was set up in my time, going through a kind 
 of dream of past researches, and recalled that as 
 Robinson Crusoe had his bower away from his 
 castle, so I had had mine away from the world. 
 
 I recalled also many other events of that young 
 time : my first dinner-party, the dining-room library 
 in which I lived, the books I used, the walk to Kew 
 Gardens, and the Gardens themselves. I heard, in 
 fancy, the knock at the door of Henry Hirschfeldt, 
 who used to teach me French and German, and who, 
 long years afterwards, died in the "Oxbridge Road, 
 leaving me his quaint library. I remembered some 
 lectures prepared for the schoolroom, together with 
 an accident from flaming phosphorus ; the old lady 
 whom I helped over the puddles, and who was of 
 opinion that " politeness had returned to Mortlake." 
 I reflected on the composing of the Pother gillian prize 
 essay on " Diseases of the Ecetus in Utero," 
 epitomised in this work under the title of " The 
 Birth of Disease and Death." I met in imagination 
 Drs. Henry, Rose Cormack, Grant, Alfred Carpenter, 
 and a number more of us who united to found our 
 "East Surrey Cholera Society," in order that we 
 might have a common bond of observation in regard 
 to a fearful outbreak of the disease then stalking 
 amongst us. I remembered the old straggling 
 village itself — the spot where Dr. Dee would 
 wait for Queen Elizabeth to exhibit his marvellous 
 crystal by which he shadowed forth events, and 
 
144 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 cast a glance at the corner in the churchyard where 
 he lies buried. I peered into an alley where the 
 people once wrought tapestry, and where I witnessed 
 a fire and carried an old damsel from the flames. I 
 refreshed my mind with the memory of the now 
 widely known Lethal Chamber, which I invented 
 there, under the ideal of making death painless. I 
 recalled the time of falling in love with Mary J. 
 Smith, the lady who is now my wife, and who was 
 then head and ears in music — an ardent student 
 of Dr., afterwards Sir, Sterndale Bennett, and 
 from whose metronome I conjured up an electric 
 measurer. 
 
 I summoned all these memories and many more, 
 with the final recollection of the preparation for 
 taking, by examination, my degree in Scotland, and 
 of hearing the Principal of the ancient University of 
 St. Andrews, while laying on my head the cap cut 
 out of John Knox's breeches, pronounce the words 
 " Te doctorem medicinse creo." 
 
CHAPTER, IX. 
 
 THE BIRTH OF DISEASE AND DEATH. 
 
 JME, that nothing-everything, in the absence 
 of which we were not, in the presence of 
 which we are, did not creep at Mortlake — 
 it new, so fast as almost to engender fear. Occupa- 
 tions of varied kinds were ever present, but at the 
 moment, my mind was most absorbed in the lesson 
 of poor humanity holding and grasping death. 
 
 There was a wide expanse near Mortlake called 
 Barnes Common. It was covered with grass and 
 furze gently spreading out of the ground, and I was 
 first led to it by professional duty. A number of 
 tents of canvas and straw were dotted over it here 
 and there, in which people called " gypsies " lived 
 and breathed. One day a youth at the back of one 
 of the tents attempted to harness a donkey to a little 
 cart. By mere accident the donkey, meaning no ill, 
 made a start before its time, ran the shaft of the cart 
 into the back of the boy, and broke his spine. I 
 reached the tent a little time afterwards, and there 
 jon the straw lay the half-dead lad, his legs insen- 
 sible to pain. He knew everybody, could swallow 
 everything administered to him, tasted everything, 
 
 145 10 
 
146 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 spoke about everything he knew, told the story of 
 the accident, and, to my great delight, prayed that 
 the poor donkey, who had done no intentional wrong, 
 might not be punished. This vagrant child knew, 
 in fact, that mercy is twice blessed — a saying I had 
 heard pronounced many times, but had never before 
 seen put into practice. From that moment I loved 
 the poor boy, attended to his injury, put him in 
 the right position, made up his rough bed, and saw 
 him take his food. The lower half of his body was 
 as dead as it could be, and the active young lion, 
 pierced through the back by an arrow from the hand 
 of a Pharaoh, was not stretched out more helplessly. 
 Walking home I saw in a butcher's shambles the 
 carcase of a sheep hanging with its back cleft in 
 two from top to bottom, and I could see in the 
 protruding spinal marrow the precise spot where, 
 under a slight division or bruise, it might in life 
 have ceased to act. The lesson was not lost upon 
 me, and never has been. I never see a sheep 
 hanging in the shambles but it comes back to me; 
 I never see a picture of Pharaoh and the lion but 
 it comes back to me; and I never see a patient 
 suffering from hemiplegia but it comes back to me 
 in all its details as vividly as ever. 
 
 One thing in nature leads to another, and it was 
 so now. The poor woman who, some years before, 
 had given birth into this world to that beautiful 
 injured boy while her husband lustily swore, was 
 now about to bring forth another child, and was not, 
 
THE BIRTH OF DISEASE AND DEATH. 147 
 
 as she said, "the woman she used to be." She asked 
 me if I would attend her if her husband should one 
 day come for me, and I promised to fulfil her 
 request. 
 
 The father of many children since the firstborn 
 had meantime become marvellously changed. He 
 had not ceased to swear, but he had by this time 
 raised himself to the dignity of a sot, and he carried 
 about with him a tambourine which he had stolen of 
 somebody, and which, by virtue of a natural gift, he 
 had learned to play in a jingling style. One day 
 he came to me, and instead of ringing the bell 
 played the tambourine before my door until I was 
 called. Learning his errand, I went with him to 
 his tent, and stayed there until the unhappy wife 
 gave birth into this little sphere to another victim 
 on the straw bed while the clattering tambourine 
 was within earshot. 
 
 These sad events are not without their meaning, 
 and this one had, to me, its definite meaning. 
 Through the tents it was soon known that near by 
 was a young doctor who did not disdain to come to 
 poor mothers, reclining even on straw, and more 
 than one husband, directed by the sot with the noisy 
 tambourine, sought my services, and I became a 
 noted accoucheur in their large and humble com- 
 munity. The Arab children of this community 
 were not all of the most perfect health, and some, 
 from their first moments, were branded with disease. 
 There was one touched with rheumatic fever, and 
 
M48 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 more than one gave evidences of the fact that 
 earliest life is sometimes a mere struggle with early 
 death. I noted these truths, and was aided by them 
 to improve in knowledge in the direction of research 
 that lay, with other evidences, before me. 
 
 The study I was engaged upon was not an 
 inappropriate one for a man who was destined to 
 enter into conflict with the powers which tend to 
 lay the highest in the dust. I began to see disease, 
 not only from looking at it in the face day by day 
 in the young and old, but as it was manifested even 
 in those who had not yet come into the world. I 
 saw it as it entered the world, and learned how man 
 was born to die as the sparks fly upward. It is 
 astonishing to discover what one can learn even in a 
 short time when the opportunity presents itself, and 
 when the will leads to the opportunity. Friends, 
 books, experiments, all coalesced in my case, and it 
 was curious that the Medical Society of London just 
 then offered its Fothergillian Gold Medal for the 
 best essay on the subject of " Diseases of the Foetus 
 in Utero " — " Diseases of the Child before Birth." 
 I took up the subject and concentrated my energies 
 on a synopsis of it that might be useful, the first 
 synopsis of the subject that had been drawn up. It 
 was a good beginning for a young man on the 
 threshold of a practice to study patiently and 
 practically the diseases of the unborn. It was not 
 the usual beginning, but it was sound, and very soon 
 became of the greatest interest, brimful of new facts, 
 
THE BIRTH OF DISEASE AND DEATH. 14& 
 
 and suggesting new ideas. The subject was one in 
 which the world at large had made little or no 
 progress whatever, that I could find, and Dr. 
 Willis, with all his widespread and mature learning, 
 declared himself unable to point to a treatise of 
 medicine that would much enlighten me, and the 
 notes which I made out from natural observations 
 were as new to him as they were to me. The views 
 of the medical profession generally were limited ; 
 it was the outline of discovery only that had been 
 reached, and that narrowly, by Harvey, Fallopius, 
 and the Hunters, who were long dead. We had, 
 however, arrived at the conclusion that in the 
 uterine life were two stages — the stage of the 
 embryo, and that of the foetus. In other words, 
 there was a first stage, when living matter was 
 apparently chaotic, when in all creation there was a 
 soft mass of structure not discernible as differing 
 between one animal and another; and a second 
 stage, when the soft mass began to resolve itself into 
 intelligible form, marking out what the animal was 
 to be, and founded on the characters of the animal 
 from which it sprang. 
 
 My teachers, reflecting the most common opinion, 
 had taught me that the foetus must be looked upon 
 as if it were a section of the body of the mother and 
 must derive its qualities from her. But as Nature 
 unveiled herself the idea did not bear this inter- 
 pretation. The foetus, by receipt of nourishment 
 from . the blood of the mother, was a complete 
 
150 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 body of itself. It had its own circulation, its 
 own build, its own nervous system, its own move- 
 ments, its own organs, and it might have its own 
 sex independently of either of its parents. At 
 the same time, by some absolutely inscrutable 
 condition, it might have a tendency to its male 
 parent's diseases as well as to his form and general 
 nature. The proposers of the Pothergillian prize did 
 not enter into this abstruse difficulty. Accepting 
 the natural fact of heredity, for there was no 
 disputing it, they wished only to know what the 
 diseases were, without reference to cause, and that 
 inquiry, extending through a wide circle, was my 
 business. I readily found that both disease and 
 death were coupled with the dependent yet inde- 
 pendent existence before birth. I found and 
 classified diseases arising from perversion of the 
 nutritive process, including increase, decrease, com- 
 plete arrest or decomposition, local or general. I 
 found inflammations and their consequences — in- 
 duration or hardening, ramollissement or softening, 
 suppuration ; the mucous membranes, the serous 
 membranes, the skin, and the structures of organs 
 being involved. I found exudations; I traced out 
 communicable diseases like smallpox, chickenpox, 
 scarlet fever, gonorrhoea, and syphilis; I detected 
 transformations, malignant tumours, softening of 
 bones, and fatty degeneration. I saw parasitic de- 
 velopments of the nature of hydatids and entozoa. 
 I discovered inorganic products in cavities and 
 
THE BIRTH OF DISEASE AND DEATH. 151 
 
 ducts, gall-stones, calculi, salivary concretions, scaly 
 layers, false membranes, and various diseases of the 
 skin. I noted mechanical alterations and injuries, 
 with aneurism in the vascular system. In the bony 
 system I found fractures, luxations of joints, and 
 anchylosis ; in the muscular system, derangements 
 of functions, convulsions, rigidity, paralysis, and 
 epilepsy. 
 
 In these findings lay the truth that the patho- 
 logical or diseased condition found after birth might 
 precede it, and what is more, that death even 
 might precede birth. 
 
 It would be incorrect for me to say that I gathered 
 all the data from what I learned in the midst of the 
 stray gypsy population met with on Barnes 
 Common. I learned many details there, and 
 treasured them up while they were fresh in my 
 memory. I was appointed, in earlier life, a student 
 surgeon in a lying-in hospital in a great city. I 
 was now acting as surgeon to a lying-in charity, and 
 was in what may be considered a large mixed mid- 
 wifery practice. I had numbers of medical friends 
 around me who were pleased to render me all the 
 assistance and information in their power, and had 
 at command some of the best museums in the world, 
 as well as recourse to the best libraries. All 
 avenues were, therefore, open to me, and nothing 
 was wanted but application and industry, which 
 being also mine, the research I was upon progressed 
 steadily towards completion and to what turned out 
 
152 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 to be success in a competitive sense. If it had not 
 succeeded from that point of view, the research would 
 still have had its advantages as a field of instruction 
 for a young man. 
 
 The grand lesson was that disease and death 
 afflicting the human family, not to say all other 
 families on the earth, were a part of the birth, but 
 commencing in different shades of degree according 
 to the surroundings or environments. It is certain 
 that I never once saw birth without some remote 
 indications of death through some particular signal 
 of disease, but it also sometimes happened that 
 disease, and even death, appeared with the birth, 
 owing to the surrounding conditions, both, by 
 proper antecedent provisions, avoidable. The chief 
 cause of disease and death was enfeebled or 
 perverted nutrition. It was not necessary to look 
 upon offspring as actual parts of the mother, or to 
 consider the direct failure as a complete failure on 
 her part; yet the failure she must suffer had its 
 bearings : the infant she carried might have been 
 quite independent, but it must have had its source 
 of supply, and indirectly, through the placenta, from 
 the blood of the mother, while all the changes of cir- 
 culation, of construction, and health in the placenta, 
 however brought about, must have been reflected in 
 the being, or beings, that were supplied from it. In 
 knowledge of this most important point I soon be- 
 came so familiar that at last I could, from the 
 placenta or secundines, read the state of the body, or 
 
THE BIRTH OF DISEASE AND DEATH. 153 
 
 bodies, supported; and the changes of nutrition 
 which were indicated in the foetus were, I believe, 
 invariably dependent on the modifications in the 
 structure which acted as the food-market of the child. 
 Amongst the poor of all classes defective nutrition 
 lay at the root of the parent evil. The poor little 
 object born, even if it were alive, was made up of 
 the most forlorn material, and could no more be 
 expected to work well than an engine could that 
 had been constructed out of the poorest metal, 
 instead of out of the best steel. The feeling crept 
 over me that it was no penalty to these unfortunates 
 that they should prematurely die ; they had, at the 
 best, hardships to go through, of which better born 
 children knew nothing, and they were the worst 
 prepared to go through any difficulty. 
 
 In addition to the failure of nutrition it became 
 manifest that the birth of disease and death in the 
 unborn was connected with the many other calami- 
 ties that lead to them in the full-born. There 
 was at work a powerful, mysterious, and unseen 
 influence that comes from parental origin — comes 
 from the father, and perhaps really descended 
 to him through his mother; there were influences 
 direct from the mother, influences of fear, joy, 
 expectation, thought in every phase. 
 
 In one of our museums was a set of skins with 
 stripes of the quagga marked upon them. Upon 
 one, all the stripes were more or less distinct ; upon 
 another, a smaller number and so on, but never a 
 
154 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 skin free of stripe. Why was this ? The mother 
 was a mare, and no stripe proceeded from her ; the 
 father of the first thoroughly striped animal was a 
 quagga, and the occurrence of the stripes, therefore, 
 on its offspring might be called natural. But in all 
 the others the father was a horse, and was not 
 responsible for any stripe at all, and yet the stripes 
 were there. A white woman was married to a black 
 man, and a child born of her was a mulatto ; it was 
 not a wonderful thing according to the common idea. 
 The black man died ; she then married a white man, 
 and by him had other children. They were not 
 actually black, but they were all tinted by the dark 
 stain, the degree varying with the date of the birth 
 of each child, and in the earliest of the last group 
 some other of the negro characteristics were seen, 
 such as the thick lips. They had characteristics of 
 a black father from the white source on both sides. 
 
 We do not know why these events should ever 
 occur ; they are inexplainable, and certain other 
 events in the features of disease developed at birth 
 are equally undefined. They come from the placenta 
 as from a common centre, but how they come 
 remains in obscurity. Atrophy is not invariably 
 the fact ; hypertrophy may come also. Sometimes 
 a largely developed child sprang from the worst 
 developed parents. Occasionally other affections 
 were shown which were more traceable, but even 
 then there was some obscurity. There were signs 
 of impregnated disease presented in the foetus, 
 
THE BIRTH OF DISEASE AND DEATH,, 155 
 
 but whether derived from the mother or the 
 father remains still the problem. Hardenings of 
 the skin, scales, and ulcers might show themselves, 
 and appear to have their origin on the male side, 
 but might be present with proof of the same either 
 from father or mother. This, moreover, was the 
 case even with hard deposits, as in gall-stones and 
 stone in the bladder. Inflammations and their 
 results had representations as if of independent 
 nature. Infectious diseases of a well-known type, 
 such as fever, rheumatic fever, and scarlet fever, 
 seemed to be transmissible direct from the placental 
 blood, the mother being at the time affected with 
 the like complaint. On the other hand, doubtless, 
 the foetus alone might suffer from one of the same 
 maladies and actually die from it, as if the poison of 
 the disease could pass through the blood of the parent 
 so as to infect the intermediate organ lying between 
 mother and child, and yet not be communicable to 
 any part of the mother herself. It was also striking 
 that disease, like cancer, ultimately fatal to the 
 mother did not always affect the child, while the 
 selfsame disease, as I twice saw, and others have 
 seen, might destroy the child and not communicate 
 itself — at all events not at the time — to the mother. 
 When the essay on " Diseases of the Foetus " was 
 finished it was duly sent in, with a motto, to the 
 Medical Society of London, accompanied by tables 
 of weights and measures, and other necessary state- 
 ments of phenomena. After it won the prize, and 
 
15.6: . CHAPTERS -OF LIFE. 
 
 the ancient Gold Medal was in my possession, I 
 carried the work — swelled with pride, I have no 
 doubt, at my success — to the late Mr. John Churchill, 
 the then well-known medical publisher, feeling sure 
 he would be glad to publish it. Churchill was a 
 man of fine commercial instincts who had made his 
 own way in the world and stood, very properly, 
 among the heads of his profession. He always 
 calculated before he undertook, and although he 
 laid no claim to a medical scholarship, he had a 
 shrewd knowledge of what every work contained 
 and of its value and " go," even among medical 
 men. He told me he did not know a word about 
 the subject, was surprised at seeing the award of 
 the prize announced, and would be glad if I would 
 tell him what the words " Diseases of the Foetus in 
 Utero " meant. I explained to him, and heard him 
 express his wonder that the Society had not used 
 plain English. "Diseases before Birth," he said, 
 would have been a much better title, but even that 
 might not be sufficiently explicit. 
 
 " How is it likely," he said, "that my numerous 
 readers — all of whom are engaged day and night in 
 treating the diseases after birth, the diseases of their 
 living patients — will care a rap about the diseases 
 which took place before birth ? Their time is 
 already sufficiently occupied, if they are worth 
 anything, with what is ; and how can they occupy 
 themselves with what may have been, but is not ? 
 No, no ! It won't do ! It is a ponderous work ; I 
 
TEE BIRTE OF DISEASE AND DEATE. 157 
 
 am sure it lias cost you euornious labour, and I 
 know it will call for a very large sum in printing, 
 to say nothing about the corrections ; and, to your 
 annoyance as well as to my own, it will fall 
 stillborn from the press." 
 
 It was so true what he said, and I was so 
 astounded, that I could not reply a word, but, 
 folding the book up in its paper coverings, left 
 quicker than I had entered, a very much wiser man. 
 
 Churchill used to write with his pen straight 
 down on the paper as if it were a short stick, and he 
 made figures as though he were still drawing lines 
 and hooks. But he had a sweet laugh and bright 
 twinkle in his eyes, and as he laid down his pen 
 to shake hands with me, the old proverb, " Let 
 him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he 
 fall," seemed to be whispered to me by some invisible 
 being, and it impressed me for good. 
 
 As I was leaving Mr. Churchill's house I met the 
 well-known Dr. Stevenson Bushnan, whom I knew. 
 Churchill had bought up the Medical Gazette, a 
 paper which Sir Benjamin Brodie had founded, 
 and which Drs. Malcolm, Willis, and Alfred Taylor 
 had in turn edited. It was considered a paper of 
 the first class, and when the eminent publisher I 
 have named bought it, it was combined with his 
 paper The Medical Times, went under the title of 
 The Medical Times and Gazette, and was edited by 
 Dr. Bushnan. Bushnan was a man of extraordinary 
 •capacity, a fine scholar, and one whom it after- 
 
158 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 wards delighted me to know, and, according to my 
 powers, to aid. He saw the Fothergillian product 
 and was much pleased with it, disagreeing altogether 
 with the commercial view, and stammering out — 
 for he was a tremendous stammerer — very strong 
 epithets in regard to publishers. From that day I 
 was one of the staff of the journal he conducted, for 
 many years contributing some hundreds of columns 
 to its pages. For my part, I had no money to spend 
 on publishing "The Foetus in Utero," and it seemed 
 to me that the commercial estimate of Mr. Churchill 
 Avas sound. The work has always continued as a 
 book in name only, but I have never regretted the 
 labour I bestowed upon it. The labour was worth 
 all it got from me, since it gave me an insight 
 into particulars I could not otherwise have obtained. 
 It enabled me to write with authority " On the care 
 that ought to be taken of the expectant mother," a 
 paper which, if it was nothing else, was of value, 
 not to the medical world alone, but to every mother 
 influenced by its perusal. It was a practical protest 
 against the birth of disease and death, still so 
 decidedly wanted by the world everywhere. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 EXPERIMENTS, ANTISEPTIC AND LETHAL. 
 
 I/THOUGH it took nie many months to 
 write the essay on diseases of the child 
 before birth, I did not let that altogether 
 engage my time. It was a kind of experimental 
 inquiry truly, but other inquiries lay before me from 
 which I could not keep away, and in the experiment 
 room there lay at hand an immense number of 
 important questions to be asked directly of nature 
 herself. 
 
 One of the first of these had relation to the 
 
 antiseptic qualities of gases, and I, very early in life, 
 
 sent a paper on this subject to be read to the 
 
 Medical Society of London, and was fortunate 
 
 enough to be very favourably noticed in the columns 
 
 of the Lancet. In this research, through the 
 
 pneumatic method, I made gases of various kinds 
 
 and sealed up in them portions of dead animal 
 
 structure, ascertaining by comparison with other 
 
 specimens in the air what effect the gases would 
 
 have in resisting putrefaction or other change. 
 
 The gases made for the purposes of this inquiry 
 
 159 
 
160 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 were hydrogen, arseniuretted hydrogen, sulphuretted 
 hydrogen, phosphoretted hydrogen, chlorine, chloro- 
 form vapour, nitrogen, nitrogen impregnated with 
 iodine vapour, nitrous acid gas, ammonia vapour, 
 cyanogen, coal gas, carbonic oxide, carbonic acid, 
 and all the hydro-carbons that I could work with in 
 the gaseous form. 
 
 The inquiry was a very laborious one. I some- 
 times had as many as twenty specimens on my 
 shelves, and the late Dr. Snow repeatedly came to 
 make his observations upon them. In conclusion I 
 arrived at -the opinion that arseniuretted hydrogen 
 was, on the whole, one of the best preservers, but I 
 was very much struck with the effects of cyanogen, 
 and was only prevented from extensively using it by 
 the dangers of working with it. The preparations 
 shown at the Medical Society of London that attracted 
 most attention were those in which the specimens 
 were immersed in arseniuretted hydrogen, and a 
 specimen of a heart so immersed retained its perfect 
 appearance for no less than two years. At the same 
 time I observed several other facts which were of 
 great interest, some of them very practical ; for 
 example, seeing that ammonia vapour preserved so 
 well, I proposed it as a means of keeping preparations 
 which had been removed at post-mortem examina- 
 tions, suggesting that the operator should carry with 
 him a carefully made jar through which ammonia 
 vapour was diffused, and that the specimen to be 
 preserved should be kept in the jar. I also brought 
 
EXPERIMENTS, ANTISEPTIC AND LETHAL. 161 
 
 forward a box nicely fitted and divided into com- 
 partments, through which ammonia vapour could be 
 diffused and in which specimens could be separately- 
 placed. This suggested practice was rather largely- 
 seized, and at this day it is not uncommon for 
 practitioners to use ammonia as an antiseptic in the 
 manner described. In the teaching of anatomy 
 the anatomist might employ the vapour with con- 
 siderable advantage, since a careful dissection might 
 be made and retained for demonstration throughout 
 the whole of a course. These observations led me 
 later on to communicate another paper to the Society, 
 which was published in their Transactions. 
 
 In other instances I also found new facts. I 
 discovered that when nitrogen was obtained in the 
 pure form it acted as a negative substance, and as 
 such preserved, but that it was most difficult to 
 separate it altogether from oxygen, in the presence 
 of which a peculiar decomposition was produced. I 
 also found that ammonia itself, though it for a time 
 preserved, had a tendency to lead to a fatty degenera- 
 tion of tissues, and that from the tissues a kind of 
 adipocere could be formed. The action of chlorine 
 vapour on fresh muscle was particularly marked, the 
 muscle being changed in colour to a yellowish tint 
 and giving off a vapour having the odour of hydro- 
 cyanic acid. Carbonic acid sustained preservation, 
 but caused a bluish tint of structure, while carbonic 
 oxide gave a brilliant red tint, so that a natural 
 appearance was observable until the specimen was 
 
 11 
 
162 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 exposed to the air, when the red colour rather 
 rapidly vanished and the substance decomposed. 
 
 I tried to make phosphorus play the part of 
 absorbing oxygen from a limited portion of air, 
 and immersed specimens of flesh in the air so 
 deoxidised, but I did not succeed as I could have 
 wished, a peculiar process of oxidation seeming to 
 go on in spite of the presence of the absorbing body. 
 
 Another very interesting research consisted in 
 tracing out the effects of the smoke of the common 
 puff-ball, the " Devil's Snuff-box " according to the 
 vulgar, or Ly coper don giganteum. This is a fungus 
 eaten in the fresh state by the Italians as a food, 
 bovista, and in the dry state is used in surgeries 
 generally for stopping haemorrhage. My first master, 
 Mr. Henry Hudson, had told me that puff-ball smoke 
 was largely used in the midland counties for putting 
 bees in their hives into so deep a sleep that the hives 
 could be robbed of honey and wax without the know- 
 ledge of the bees, and this, he believed, in his district 
 had been going on for centuries. I witnessed the 
 proceeding, wondered whether in large animals 
 sleep could be induced by the same kind of inhala- 
 tion, and tested this matter at the time in every 
 variety of administration, to find that the smoke of 
 the puff-ball did produce sleep and insensibility in 
 every class of animal. I performed a large number 
 of painless operations on lower animals under the 
 smoke, such as castration, removal of tumours, closing 
 
EXPERIMENTS, ANTISEPTIC AND LETHAL. 163 
 
 openings or wounds. The animals were placed in 
 a small glass chamber and subjected to the fumes 
 of the vapour burning in two joined funnels 
 which were fastened together mouth to mouth, and 
 which carried air, by bellows, through the burning 
 fungus into the chamber. It was not pleasant air 
 to breathe because it contained particles of smoke- 
 dust, and I, therefore, made a plan for passing the 
 smoke through alkaline water, when it entered the 
 chamber free and transparent, and answered well. 
 Further, I burned the fungus in oxygen itself, and 
 still found that the narcotic property of the vapour 
 was preserved. These observations gave rise to a 
 paper on the fumes of the Ly coper don giganteum, 
 read before the Medical Society of London, accom- 
 panied by experimental demonstrations, a paper 
 which became widely known and led to analyses 
 of the vapour in order to see what was the narcotic 
 that caused the effect. The late Dr. Snow, and the 
 late Mr. Thornton Herapath of Bristol, took up the 
 inquiry as well as myself, and they came to the 
 united opinion that the narcotising agent was car- 
 bonic oxide, in which opinion I joined, for the 
 evidence was incontrovertible. 
 
 A further subject connected with this work at 
 Mortlake which I best remember has reference to 
 what is now of world-wide interest — the means of 
 putting domestic animals painlessly to death and 
 the invention of the Lethal Chamber. It occurred 
 
164 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 to me one day that no method of destruction could be 
 more humane than anaesthetic narcotism, and I made 
 a chamber for this mode of death which answered 
 perfectly. One day the brother of the lady to whom 
 I. was engaged and whom I subsequently married, 
 came to me, bringing a beautiful retriever of his 
 which had been bitten by a rabid animal, and asking 
 me if I would give it a dose of poison. I begged 
 him to bring the kennel and put the dog into it, 
 which he did. I closed all the openings of the 
 kennel with soft clay, covered it with an oil-cloth, 
 and then rapidly diffused through it some purified 
 puff-ball smoke that had passed through chloroform. 
 The animal, by inhaling these vapours, quickly fell 
 asleep and was allowed painlessly to die. 
 
 The proceeding was so satisfactory I was led to 
 transform the kennel so as to make it more con- 
 venient. It was set up in my garden, and from that 
 time, about the middle of 1853, my neighbours were 
 accustomed to bring to me all their pets for whom 
 they wished to secure a rapid and painless death. I 
 designated it the " Lethal Chamber," and some 
 years later I set up the same kind of thing on a 
 much larger scale at the Dogs' Home, Battersea, 
 where it has been in constant use ever since, and 
 where each year many thousands of dogs have slept 
 their last sleep. 
 
 The more my mind reverts to life in Mortlake the 
 more crowded memory seems to become, for work 
 
EXPERIMENTS, ANTISEPTIC AND LETHAL. 165 
 
 was ever in progress. I was never wanting for a 
 friend like Dr. Willis to propel me on, and I had an 
 excellent ally in Mr. Adolph Leipner, a tutor by 
 profession, who had exceedingly fine manipulative 
 skill, a good artistic taste, and excellent calculating 
 powers. Mr. Ives, a national schoolmaster, who 
 afterwards graduated as M.A. and became a 
 clergyman of the Church of England, acted as 
 secretary, and copied for me the Eothergillian 
 essay. Dr. Alexander Henry, whose literary and 
 microscopical abilities were ever at my disposal, 
 with many other friends, was by my side. 
 
 I was deeply interested in the subject of the 
 formation of "Fibrinous Clots in the Heart," and 
 carried on a brisk controversy on them with the 
 late Mr. Henry Smith, who had the kindness, in the 
 end, to endorse my views on the matter. I received 
 a specimen from Italy of Pagliari's Haemostatic, a 
 description of which I gave, after a due trial of it, 
 to the Medical Society of London, and from which I 
 was led to take up the question of arresting haemor- 
 rhage. I introduced the method of treating cholera 
 by the plan of introducing water into the bodies of 
 the sick by injection of it into the peritoneum, or 
 subcutaneously, making artificial ascites or anasarca. 
 
 Not infrequently in the evenings I used to meet 
 some of the rowing men who were on the river. 
 The training master, who won the belt many times 
 
166 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 and was a most intelligent man, took a pleasure in 
 the tasks he had to perform. He it was who told 
 me how bad the effects of glasses of wine on rowing 
 men were, and I learned from him, as a patient, 
 more, I fear, than he ever learned from me as a 
 doctor. 
 
 In the competitors who were in training I saw 
 for the first time a truth, for the announcement of 
 which I have been severely criticised, and that not 
 always fairly — namely, that athleticism, good as it 
 may be, has its disadvantages. These had not to 
 be looked for specially ; they stood out plainly. It 
 was certain that the rowing man suffered, and 
 required to be taught that competition had its 
 dangers. It seemed to me that the breathing 
 powers of the rower were often oppressed, that he 
 could make himself breathless, that his circulation 
 through the lungs suffered, and that winning money 
 and fame were not the certain means of winning 
 health and life. 
 
 The observations thus made led to the publication 
 of the papers on " Diseases of Overworked Men," 
 and to the heated controversy respecting the fate 
 of the oarsmen engaged in the Oxford and Cambridge 
 annual race. Successful men in these trials were 
 often thought to be superior to winners at the 
 Universities of mathematical or classical honours, 
 and my contention simply was that, whatever might 
 be the opinions of lookers-on at the time, the 
 athletic rowers did not become of necessitv the 
 
EXPERIMENTS, ANTISEPTIC AND LETHAL. 167 
 
 strongest, healthiest, and longest-lived of all the 
 rest. 
 
 A case that occurred in Mortlake, and an 
 account of which I have published under the title 
 of " Pulsatile Pulmonic Crepitation," showed, almost 
 for the first time, that a piece of the left lung may 
 become adherent to the chest wall over the heart, and 
 that the pulsation of the heart may, by the pressure 
 that follows, produce in the lung a crepitation very 
 much like that which occurs in pneumonia. 
 
 I reported and published that scarlet fever may be 
 followed by rheumatism and may give rise to what 
 I call rheumatic scarlet fever. Investigating a 
 widespread epidemic of scarlet fever, in the course 
 of which I myself became a victim, I wrote for the 
 Epidemiological Society a compendious paper entitled 
 " Pacts Relating to Scarlet Pever," in which it was 
 shown that this disease has its own special months 
 of mortality ; that Withering was right in asserting 
 that babes and very young children were exempt 
 from its ravages ; that it sometimes took the idio- 
 pathic type and was not then contagious, and that 
 the best treatment for it in those afflicted by it was 
 the free use of ammonia. 
 
 A number of us at this time banded ourselves 
 together to consider medical meteorology and 
 public health, and the late eminent Dr. Moffat of 
 
168 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 Hawarden joined with me in constructing a paper 
 for the Epidemiological Society, on " Meteor- 
 ological Changes in Relation to Disease," a paper 
 accompanied by a large number of charts and maps, 
 in which it was indicated that there is a close 
 connection between the direction of winds and the 
 development of human maladies, and that, accord- 
 ing to Moffat's ever-prevailing view, the phenomenon 
 called " phosphorescence " plays a most important 
 part in regard to health and life. 
 
 All these topics, engrossing at the period of their 
 representation, would of themselves make a modest 
 volume, but I must not be tempted to enter into 
 them here at greater length, or into the kindred 
 subjects which sprang out of them. 
 
 There is, however, one special subject that cannot 
 be omitted. I refer to a series of inquiries in regard 
 to oxygen, which deserves attention in the special 
 chapter that immediately follows. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 RESEARCHES ON OXYGEN. 
 
 HE subject of oxygen was with me for a 
 long time a literary study, and connected 
 itself with the lives and works of men of 
 the past who had become well-known to fame. It 
 came to me originally, perhaps, under the title of 
 Phlogiston, and, practically, it was always before me 
 in the common term antiphlogistic. In this study 
 one name grew specially familiar, that of Dr. Joseph 
 Priestley, whose experiments on dephlogisticated air 
 were so on my mind that at length they became a 
 veritable piece of my own life. I saw him, in 
 fancy, in his secluded den, as it might be called, 
 working with the new gas which he had liberated ; 
 saw the almost extinguished taper relight and burn 
 brightly in it ; saw the animal, on which Mrs. 
 Barbauld wrote her pitiful poem, breathing the gas ; 
 saw the grand discovery that plants possess the power 
 of taking up the gas in combination with carbon 
 — carbonic acid — and, feeding upon the carbon for 
 their own structure, give back the oxygen to the air 
 for the use of animals. I saw the existence of the gas 
 both in the water of the sea and river, in the clouds, 
 
 169 
 
170 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 in the air. My mind crossed over to revolutionary 
 France and to the unhappy Farmer- General Lavoisier. 
 I summoned up the picture of a gathering in his 
 room, including Priestley, Lord Shelburne, and that 
 Madame Lavoisier who at one moment was Priestess 
 of the Madeleine, and later on the ill-starred wife of 
 Benjamin Thompson, Count E-umford. I saw her 
 standing at Priestley's back, and taking down his 
 words for the use of Lavoisier, who, after making the 
 new gas, found that it combined with other elements, 
 fancied that it had the property of producing acids, 
 and named it oxygen. 
 
 The incidents laid bare in this discovery of oxygen 
 remained veritable wonders of history, and to Willis, 
 as well as to me, were an endless delight. He read 
 up all that chapter of history in which the discovery 
 came forth, and there was not a man political or 
 scientific whom he did not recognise. But his wide 
 knowledge did not lead me away from the one 
 wonderful fact, the discovery of oxygen and the first 
 early speculations about its qualities as the balance 
 of the universe, making both animals and plants one, 
 the unity of a vast engineering design. 
 
 The study captivated me beyond mere student 
 methods obtained from text-books and original 
 treatises ; it led me to read from the thing itself. I 
 made oxygen after Priestley's plan and other methods 
 since known, and began to estimate its character as 
 a gas and its influence on life, from which inquiries 
 came that I am now about to relate. 
 
RESEARCHES ON OXYGEN. 171 
 
 Rarefied Oxygen. 
 
 It had been discovered that in the air oxygen 
 exists in combination with another gas known as 
 azote or nitrogen. Oxygen is combined with nitro- 
 gen in air in the proportion of twenty-one parts to 
 seventy-nine of nitrogen ; it is diluted to that 
 extent, not by any chemical combination but by 
 mere mechanical admixture,, so that an animal may 
 make use of it direct without any demand of a 
 chemical kind for its separation. In the case of fish 
 it was soon detected that the oxygen of the wa/ter in 
 which they lived was loose and directly absorbable. 
 Oxygen of water is in chemical combination with 
 hydrogen, but that knot has not to be untied, for 
 there is plenty of free oxygen derived from the air 
 in common water. What the proportion of the loose 
 oxygen must be for animals that breathe in air is 
 indicated by nature, showing that the figures of 
 twenty-one and seventy-nine are requisite for all 
 practical purposes in various climates. However, it 
 was as well to test the fact. 
 
 I made pure specimens of oxygen and of nitrogen 
 and kept them separately. Then I arranged series 
 of glass vessels in which those gases could be com- 
 mingled in definite measured proportions, so as to 
 make an artificial atmosphere, and I tried with 
 small animals, animals of warm blood and animals 
 of cold blood, to see how they would exist in such 
 atmospheres ; how their temperatures would vary, 
 
172 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 and how their products of respiration would he 
 modified. 
 
 The results were most conclusive. It came out 
 that, when the oxygen was in excessive measure and 
 duly warmed, the respiration was quickened and 
 life generally intensified ; hut when the oxygen 
 went helow the standard, then respiration was 
 reduced and languid life passed slowly into death, 
 so that the measure given to us hy nature for the 
 support of life, without exaggeration or reduction, 
 was the exact atmosphere that we require. No feat 
 of engineering, in point of fact, could he more 
 perfect. 
 
 We know that the dilution of oxygen in nitrogen 
 must he of a certain character, so that we should 
 receive at least a fifth of oxygen, hut oxygen, as a 
 gas, admits of heing rarefied so as to represent one 
 fifth, and the point was whether thus rarefied it 
 would of itself support life. The question was asked 
 of nature, with the reply that rarefied oxygen is 
 capahle of performing the function demanded of it, 
 hut to carry this out would call for processes of an 
 extremely complicated kind, and would deprive the 
 air of what is prohahly one of its most important 
 elements, the nitrogen which forms so large a part 
 of it, and which, prohahly, may he itself performing 
 duties that, passive as they may seem to be, may 
 he essential to a continued existence. It therefore 
 stands out as a truth that the process of diluting 
 oxygen in another gas, if that gas be practically 
 
RESEARCHES ON OXYGEN. 173 
 
 negative, is the best design that can be successfully 
 accomplished. 
 
 A question that had to be settled was whether 
 any other gas than nitrogen could be as truly 
 effective as nitrogen. There was at hand the gas 
 hydrogen, which admitted of being diluted with 
 oxygen mechanically to any extent that might be 
 desired. I made, therefore, an artificial atmosphere 
 in which oxygen and hydrogen were combined in 
 exactly the same proportion as oxygen and nitrogen 
 are in the air. I formed, that is to say, an oxy- 
 hydrogen atmosphere and afterwards tested its 
 capacity. A burning taper dipped into such an 
 atmosphere exploded, so that in the presence of 
 burning bodies such an atmosphere would not have 
 succeeded safely, because a whole atmospheric sea 
 of it surrounding the earth might as well explode 
 as the small quantity of it in a bell-jar. What was 
 more, the combination was not effective even in 
 regard to the life of animals ; it formed a narcotic 
 atmosphere; caused modification of every function^ 
 and led to death. 
 
 Another line of experiment was pursued. There 
 are certain gases besides oxygen which support some 
 kinds of combustion ; thus, if turpentine carried on 
 a feather be dipped into chlorine, combustion takes 
 place, and it was a point whether animal combustion 
 could be sustained in a similar but modified manner. 
 
174 • CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 I took great pains, therefore, in diffusing chlorine 
 in various proportions through nitrogen; collected 
 the atmospheres produced, and tested their effects. 
 It turned out that unless the chlorine were extremely 
 diluted it prevented respiration hy its own activity, 
 so that when I tried to inhale it myself I could not, 
 without danger, continue. The larynx was irritated ; 
 spasmodic contraction followed, and breathing 
 became a dangerous process. On the other hand, 
 when the chlorine was so * diluted that it could 
 be inspired, it did not lead to the usual vital 
 maintenance. The chemical changes that followed 
 were perverted ; there was no true combination with 
 carbon resembling in any way the carbonic acid that 
 is formed from oxygen, and life was evidently 
 rendered insupportable. 
 
 Effects of Re-breathing Oxygen. 
 
 Entirely satisfied by experiment that in the study 
 of respiration no other element need be considered 
 except oxygen, it seemed to me most desirable that 
 oxygen in itself should be the basis of further 
 experiment, and thereupon I proceeded. I fitted up 
 two immense reservoirs for the gas, filled them with 
 it, and arranged that it might pass in continuous 
 current from one to the other, and showing its loss 
 according to its effects on the living things it came 
 into contact with. Then it was that I made the 
 unexpected discovery that warm-blooded animals 
 
RESEARCHES ON OXYGEN. 175 
 
 living in chambers fed by pure oxygen in current, 
 continued to live, showing no indications, except of 
 a ravenous desire for food and drink, a certain 
 feverish condition, and a glow in their transparent 
 parts ; but that so soon as they began to breathe 
 oxygen over and over again, however thoroughly it 
 might be purified, they went to sleep, and died 
 asleep, unless they were supplied, through the gas, 
 with electrical vibrations, when they continued to 
 live. These phenomena were not observed in cold- 
 blooded animals such as frogs, and they led me to 
 the conclusion, which has over and over again been 
 discussed with various expressions of opinion, that 
 there is in oxygen something more than the mere 
 substantial gas which helps to support life, or which 
 — de facto — is life. 
 
 Oxygen as an Anaesthetic. 
 
 It was in the course of these experiments on 
 oxygen gas that I came upon the equally remark- 
 able observation that if subjected to extreme cold 
 oxygen becomes an anaesthetic. I made it by this 
 means quite as anaesthetic as air impregnated with 
 chloroform, and learned the difference in the actions 
 of different anaesthetics under the influence of tem- 
 peratures of various degrees ; that heat quickens 
 action, and that when young animals, like kittens, 
 are to be destroyed, it is always the safest mode of 
 taking life to raise the temperature of the water to 
 
176 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 that of the body that is immersed in it. I noticed 
 that what is known as rigor mortis, or the muscular 
 rigidity of death, is suspended under cold and quick- 
 ened by heat, and that consequently fresh blood can 
 be kept liquid in cups of ice, and that fresh muscles 
 can be kept free of rigor for long periods in very 
 cold air, a fact entirely subversive of that which had 
 been previously taught. 
 
 Ozone, or Electrical Oxygen. 
 
 Oxygen can be charged with electrical force and 
 can take the form of what Schonbein called ozone. 
 To manufacture ozone was not by any means a 
 difficult process. I knew how to keep, for a certain 
 time, a store of it ready for use, and I reported and 
 illustrated its worth and character as a purifier, 
 a decomposer, and a supporter or destroyer of vital 
 action. I specially showed the influence of tempera- 
 ture in causing modifications of ozone in its general 
 and vital power, and learned that in excess it led, 
 when it was inhaled, to congestion of the lungs and 
 rapid death from that cause. Diluted largely with 
 air, I utilised it as a method of ventilation, and in 
 a large assembly caused it to be felt by all present. 
 
 Summary. 
 
 As a summary of these inquiries on oxygen I was 
 led to a conclusion I have still continued to hold, 
 that oxygen must not be looked upon, as it usually 
 is, in the mere light of a gas which combines and 
 
RESEARCHES ON OXYGEN. 177 
 
 forms part of a body. I have not the slightest doubt 
 that this ought to be more widely recognised, and 
 that the poet in speaking of the chameleon was 
 quite close to the mark when he sang 
 
 " Stretched at its ease the beast I viewed, 
 And saw it eat the air for food," 
 
 for oxygen enters largely into the composition of the 
 body, forming, perhaps, a third of the body ; gives 
 weight and substance, combining, in fact, with other 
 material in the body as it does combine with iron 
 out of the body, in the form of adherent rust. 
 
 But far beyond the part which oxygen may play 
 in ultimate construction it has always looked to me 
 as if, in entering the body in the form of a gas, it 
 carries also vital force — energy — which, in the course 
 of distribution is liberated, giving the activity we 
 define as motion; in plain words, animating every 
 structure. 
 
 12 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 A LONDON CAREER IN MID-CENTURY. 
 
 iESIDENCE in London in the middle of this 
 century was a very different thing from 
 what it is now. I entered the place in 
 1853-4, and although the changes that have occurred 
 seem too gradual to he startling, they are, when 
 duly compared in respect to details, remarkable. 
 
 I commenced residence in the house numbered 
 12 in Hinde Street, Manchester Square, which house 
 I held up to the year 1880. It turned out to be the 
 house in which, probably with its neighbour No. 13, 
 the Honourable Henry Cavendish, who discovered the 
 component gases of water, used once to reside. In 
 the Regency the house belonged to a Captain Eowler, 
 who, by turning all the ceilings into arches built 
 with inverted earthenware tubes, believed he had 
 made a fire-proof dwelling. Two cracks in the roof 
 of the back room on the ground floor, which ex- 
 tended from corner to corner, crossing each other in 
 the centre, indicated, as I was informed, that a huge 
 fire had been made beneath as a test of the fire -proof 
 qualities of the ceiling, and that while it burned 
 the Prince Regent took his luncheon comfortably 
 
 178 t 
 
A LONDON CAREER IN MID-CENTURY. 179 
 
 in the room immediately above. Captain Fowler 
 had also made over this and the next house arched 
 roofs, and had covered them with a kind of asphalte 
 called Val de Travers, a substance introduced into 
 England about the year 1828. Beautiful roofs they 
 were, for we could walk on them and utilise them in 
 many ways. They formed the driest roofs imagin- 
 able, although they caught a great deal of snow in 
 winter. On the asphalte roof of No. 12 I planted a 
 telescope, through which Hampstead and the nor- 
 thern heights were commanded, and here I was told 
 the first news of the great impending American War 
 against slavery, in the literature on which I was led 
 to take an active part, my sympathies being against 
 slavery. The article entitled The New South Sect 
 Bubble was written by me when we in England were 
 about to lend a large sum to the Southerners, as most 
 people believed, on the security of cotton. I also 
 entered keenly into the question of the feeding of our 
 people, in order to see what the expenses would be 
 under the withdrawal of the importation of food stuffs. 
 In the house No. 12, Hinde Street, I at once set 
 up a laboratory, or workroom, like the one I had left 
 at Mortlake. At first it was not so good, for I was 
 obliged to transform it out of one of the cellars in 
 the area, which, in the life of my predecessor, Mrs. 
 Woodgate — one of the sisters of the Commander-in- 
 Chief, Lord Hardinge— had been a kind of lumber- 
 room ; but I soon built a new room in the back-yard, 
 with light streaming in from above, and — for the 
 
180 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 term of twenty-six years — it became a physical 
 workshop, in which I carried out my experimental 
 researches. 
 
 For a few years I took another house in St. John's 
 Wood ; there built another laboratory for investi- 
 gating the question of preserving dead animal 
 substances from putrefaction in air. I retained 
 nevertheless the old house and laboratory in Hinde 
 Street for general and medical study, making it the 
 centre in which researches were carried on that 
 illustrated the lectures of a post-graduate course 
 which lasted for several sessions, and is remembered 
 by medical men who attended it, many of whom still 
 live. When I finally left Hinde Street in 1880 and 
 moved into the house in which this is written, 
 Damely, 25, Manchester Square, I had to find another 
 similar workshop, which I easily did, and which I 
 still retain. 
 
 Residence in Hinde Street at first was not lonely, 
 for I had with me as companions two friends 
 who became rather widely known. The first was 
 a gentleman named Barton. He was advanced in 
 life, but of very active habits, and belonged to the 
 young sect called Positivists founded by Auguste 
 Comte in Paris, and established in this city by 
 the Reverend Mr. Congreve, who, for the sake of 
 consistency, studied physic, and passed the Royal 
 College of Physicians. Barton translated Comte's 
 Catechism, and was a sincere and practical teacher 
 until his death, which did not occur until about his 
 
A LONDON CAREER IN MID-CENTURY. 181 
 
 ninetieth year, long after he left nie. The second, 
 a learned medical scholar — Dr. Henry — was of 
 affectionate disposition and of secluded and peculiar 
 hahits. He undertook the re-editing and republica- 
 tion of Maynes' famous Medical Dictionary, and 
 himself wrote a little glossary of medical terms ; he 
 was very fond of revising my early proofs, the 
 matter of which interested him exceedingly. He 
 was by my side, under the same roof, until 1857, the 
 year in which I married, and then made for himself 
 a new home, in which he carried out the pursuit of 
 literature in preference to that of practice. 
 
 The first appointment I obtained after settling in 
 London was that of physician to the Blenheim Street 
 Dispensary, a large dispensary in the street running 
 from Blenheim Steps. This institution was of great 
 interest, inasmuch as it was the old anatomical school 
 of the distinguished anatomist Joshua Brookes, a man 
 to whom I have previously referred. In Brookes's 
 day there were few, if any, medical schools 
 attached directly to hospitals. Medical education 
 was free, and was undertaken by any man who had 
 the ability to teach. This was as it should be, and 
 Brookes took full advantage of the position. He 
 was a first-class anatomist, and his demonstrations 
 as well as his lectures were appreciated by every- 
 body who visited him. In order to make everything 
 effective he bought or rented the large building 
 which became our dispensary, and, in another form, 
 
182 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 still stands. By the side of the large central door 
 of the building in its front were two full-sized 
 statues of Sydenham and Harvey, and inside there 
 were the hest arrangements for teaching. A large 
 room in the centre formed a museum, and on each 
 side were smaller rooms, in one of which Brookes 
 dissected, while in one or two others his students 
 worked in a similar manner. Below there was a large 
 lecture-room lighted from above by a central dome, 
 and there was a yard in which it was rumoured that 
 eagles were kept. It seems to have been a fashion 
 in Brookes's time to decorate in a kind of Syro- 
 Egyptian style, or in an Indian style. John and 
 Mrs. Hunter carried out the decoration very fully 
 in their own house at Earlscourt, as I have myself 
 many times seen. A gentleman, whose name is 
 unknown to me, opened a cave or grotto at Margate 
 which was inlaid or ornamented on a somewhat 
 similar design, and there have been many houses in 
 this country in which the same fashion was adopted. 
 Brookes was an evident admirer of this idea, for his 
 school was a model of it. Columns ran up in the 
 museum engraved all over with Eastern symbols ; 
 the lotus flower was everywhere, and birds and beasts 
 were depicted upon the pillars, doors, and walls, 
 wherever there was a vacant spot. The effect was 
 lasting ; remained during the dispensary period, and 
 was tempting in its appearance. Had I been wealthy 
 enough I certainly should have bought the whole 
 place for a medical school ; as it was I could only 
 
A LONDON CAREER IN MID-CENTURY. 183 
 
 act as a dispensary physician. The place passed 
 gradually away into other hands. The lecture-room 
 hecame a tinman's and brazier's workshop ; the 
 museum became a waiting-room for the dispensary 
 patients during the week and a Methodist chapel 
 on Sundays ; the dissecting-rooms changed into 
 private rooms for the physicians and surgeons. 
 Finally, I believe, the whole building was transmuted 
 into a huge dyers' establishment, and as a medical 
 school was entirely forgotten, the images outside 
 altogether disappearing. We had a large practice 
 at this dispensary and a complete staff, the members 
 of which, all on excellent terms, met at each other's 
 houses once a month for a gossip, supper, and cards. 
 
 Another institution with which I was connected 
 professionally was the Royal Infirmary for Asthma, 
 in the City Road, now called the Royal Hospital 
 for Diseases of the Chest. Her Majesty's father, 
 the Duke of Kent, was said to have been the founder 
 of the Royal Infirmary for Asthma, asthma being 
 the term once applied to almost all affections of the 
 lungs. The leading physician for a long time in 
 this institution was one Dr. Ramage, who was 
 elected in his early life a Fellow of the Royal 
 College of Physicians. He was living in my time, 
 and I knew a patient who consulted him, but I 
 never saw him. From what I gathered he was a 
 man of ability, although from his professional 
 brethren he did not gain approbation, for it was 
 
184 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 believed that he pushed his own private practices 
 too far, inventing a " chest- whistle," made in large 
 numbers, and recommending it right and left without 
 hesitation. He had other curious practices, on which 
 I will not dwell, and had given up the infirmary 
 for some years when I joined it. 
 
 The infirmary itself was a very good school of its 
 kind, and in it I obtained the observations which 
 led me to write the paper originally on alcoholic 
 phthisis, in which it was indicated that the disease — 
 pulmonary consumption — may become the consump- 
 tion of drunkards, and that all the signs of it, even 
 to the spitting of blood, may develop in persons past 
 middle life, alcohol being the prompting cause. I 
 remained fourteen years at this infirmary, and was 
 the senior officer at the time of retirement. 
 
 Adjoining the St. George's Hospital there was for 
 many years a Medical School called the St. George's 
 School of Medicine. Tattersall's yard, where horses 
 were tested, bought, and sold, was at that time in 
 existence to the right of the hospital as you passed 
 out of it, and the school named stood in the yard. 
 It had been founded many years before by the late 
 Mr. Samuel Lane, a Professor of Anatomy of great 
 ability who died about ten years ago at an advanced 
 age. The school was distinguished by many men 
 besides Lane ; Marshall Hall taught there, and 
 several others of celebrity. In the latter part of the 
 forties, however, a new project was started to found 
 
A LONDON CAREER IN MID-CENTURY. 185 
 
 the St. Mary's Hospital at Paddington, and in time 
 that valuable institution was erected, and a school 
 connected with it. Mr. Samuel Lane, who had 
 lost election as surgeon to St. George's, the late 
 Mr. Tatum being the successful candidate, put in a 
 natural claim to be made one of the surgeons of the 
 new St. Mary's. He was this time successful, and 
 became head of the new school, a fact which left the 
 old one without its leader, but with a rival called 
 the Kinnerton Street School, conducted by the 
 St. George's Hospital staff, in dangerous proximity. 
 Lane let his old school to the late Dr. Edwin Lankester, 
 who had been for some time Professor of Botany, and 
 he undertook to re-organise it. He obtained several 
 confreres, Sir Spencer Wells and Mr. Adams as 
 Professors of Surgery, and Dr. Amadee Deville, a 
 refugee from Paris, as Professor of Anatomy. In 
 this primary selection Deville — whose father was 
 said to have been leader of the Mountain during the 
 First Republic of Prance, and to have been trans- 
 ported to Cayenne when Napoleon III. was master 
 — was a host in himself. He taught anatomy and 
 operative surgery superbly, and, although as time 
 went on his mind tottered so that he ultimately 
 died in an asylum in Paris, he was for the time a 
 power. I could tell many astounding anecdotes of 
 Deville, but will simply state that I was one of his 
 colleagues on Lankester's invitation, taking first the 
 chair of Porensic Medicine, the details of which 
 were as full of narrative as of science. No chair 
 
186 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 could have suited me better, and I had the good 
 fortune to be the first lecturer of public hygiene, 
 which I concurrently added to the course. I was 
 obliged in the end to give both up for Physiology, a 
 subject that remained under my care for several 
 years. At last I became Dean of the School in 
 place of Dr. Lankester, and remained at that post 
 until the school itself was dissolved, and the very 
 building, with the other buildings in Tattersall's 
 Yard, was demolished. 
 
 While public teaching in a private school was form- 
 ing in the way described, a part of my life, a great 
 attempt was made to establish a new institution. 
 The dentists of England having then no qualifications 
 determined to take the game in their own hands, and 
 to found a College of Dentists which should be an 
 educational body, and, at the same time, an exami- 
 national one. The Council of the intended Society 
 took a part of the Royal Polytechnic Institution, 
 and fitted up a lecture-room, in which I, who had 
 previously delivered a course of lectures to dentists 
 on " The Medical History of Diseases of the Teeth," 
 afterwards published by Bailliere, was asked to take 
 up Anatomy and Physiology as one of the lecturers. 
 Mr. Hulme, a distinguished dentist, joined me 
 as lecturer on Surgery ; Professor Bernays of St. 
 Thomas's, as lecturer on Chemistry; Drs. Spencer 
 Cobbold and Francis Webb, P.S.A., as lecturers on 
 Natural History, and Mr. Perkins — a practical 
 
A LONDON CAREER IN MID-CENTURY. 187 
 
 dentist in Baker Street — as teacher of Mechanical 
 Dentistry. We worked together as a school for a 
 long time, but there was opposition ; the Odonto- 
 logical Society was formed ; the Royal College of 
 Surgeons took their side, and finally took possession 
 of the power to give a licence, to he called the 
 Licentiateship of Dental Surgery, a power they ulti- 
 mately obtained for their College, and which still 
 remains. The original plan, therefore, broke up, 
 and dentistry unfortunately became a subordinate 
 part of surgery. 
 
 My hands were necessarily very full of work in 
 connection with the duties above referred to. I not 
 infrequently lectured twice in the day; had large 
 practical duties and a good spread of social life, to 
 say nothing of the investigations that were continu- 
 ously going on in the library and experimental room. 
 With it all, however, I prepared for the College of 
 Physicians, and in 1856 took the membership by 
 examination, having Professor Rolleston of Oxford 
 as one of my fellow-competitors, with whom I 
 formed an acquaintance which lasted to the end of 
 his life, and with whom I also became a Pellow of 
 the College as soon as the time was ripe for the 
 enjoyment of that distinction. 
 
 Prom the date of my entrance upon London life, 
 as above given, and onwards until now, professional 
 and scientific life can only be reckoned as one long 
 
188 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 endeavour, and as such I shall treat it, dividing 
 the narratives according to the nature of them, hut 
 not specifying the particular periods that were 
 devoted to particular ohjects. The latter task would, 
 indeed, he superfluous, for the simple reason that I 
 have regularly published and made known all the 
 work I have been enabled to accomplish, with dates 
 attached. The titles, therefore, will be sufficient 
 references. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 STUDIES ON THE BLOOD. 
 
 HAD at home, as previously mentioned, 
 my own laboratory, and worked there 
 steadily ; but in order to carry out re- 
 searches on blood more perfectly, I sought and 
 found, in Bulstrode Mews near by, a series of 
 slaughterhouses in which cattle were killed and 
 dressed, and in which blood could be obtained quite 
 fresh. I took one of these ; had a space fitted up 
 with the necessary apparatus, and while the workmen 
 were engaged in their task followed up my inquiries. 
 It is impossible to say that the work I here under- 
 took was of a pleasant nature, but it was of an 
 important character and taught me some very 
 necessary scientific and social facts. It showed me 
 the nature of the slaughterer's life and habits ; it 
 disclosed the character of the bodies of the animals 
 on which we depend for food ; it showed me the 
 Jewish modes of inspection of food ; it led me to 
 consider the qualities of the different methods of 
 taking animal life, and it made me acquainted 
 practically with a large number of useful truths. 
 It was my custom to go to the slaughterhouse early 
 
 189 
 
190 . CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 in the morning, returning for breakfast. One morn- 
 ing there had been driven into the lair a sturdy, 
 savage bullock, that would not settle down with the 
 other animals in captivity. The lair in which he was 
 confined consisted of a compartment railed off in the 
 slaughterhouse, with bars of quartering extending 
 across from the floor to the ceiling, and to these rails 
 my bench was attached, before which I worked. I 
 had been engaged in seeing how cold prevented the 
 coagulation of freshly drawn blood, and cups, sur- 
 rounded by frozen material, were the principal 
 implements before me, with a small timepiece 
 marking periods. The lair was empty of all animals 
 except the savage bullock, and, in fetching him out, 
 he made his escape into the more open place, leaving 
 the two men in the lair. The first movement of the 
 animal was at me, who was looking between the bars 
 at the moment of his escape, when one of the men 
 we called " Jemmy " shouted out, " Climb up the 
 bars, sir, quick! or he'll gore you to death." I 
 fortunately did so in good time, for he immediately 
 struck the bars beneath my feet with his stiff, short 
 horns so powerfully that he made the whole railing 
 vibrate as if it were coming down, as it well 
 might have done, for it was not very strong. He 
 then poked his horns under the lower rail as a lever 
 and began to heave. The moment was critical, so, 
 taking the poleaxe from the hand of Jemmy in the 
 lair, I seized the handle of it in my right hand, and, 
 letting myself down carefully rail by rail, took 
 
STUDIES ON THE BLOOD. 191 
 
 advantage of the head of the furious animal beneath 
 and dealt it such an accurate and heavy blow, just 
 in the right spot, that the poor creature fell as it 
 would have done if it had been properly led forth. 
 Jemmy in an instant ran out, pithed the spinal 
 column, and all was safely over. 
 
 By good luck my life was saved, but in another 
 respect I was not so fortunate. I had had made a 
 long brass tube, shaped like the letter U ; the two 
 side stalks were a foot long and half an inch in 
 diameter. I had filled it with oil, and by means of 
 a conducting string drew under the oil a portion of 
 a vein with the blood tied in it, taken from the 
 bullock just dead. Fixing the vein firmly, I then 
 displaced the oil with a quantity of mercury that 
 had cost me no trifle, and left the vein under the 
 mercurial pressure in order to see whether the 
 pressure would or would not, like cold, keep the 
 enclosed blood in the fluid state. The experiment was 
 made successfully, when, unhappily, Jemmy, in the 
 flurry of clearing away, and not understanding what 
 he was removing, had the misfortune to capsize my 
 XJ-tube with all its mercury in it into the gutter, so 
 that I lost every drop. However, on repeating the 
 experiment, I succeeded many times. 
 
 From the researches on coagulation I won the 
 Astley Cooper prize of £300, and had the felicity 
 of receiving it from the hands of Dr. Addison, who 
 was then one of the physicians to Guy's Hospital, 
 and the discoverer of "Addison's Disease," the 
 
192 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 terrible malady to which, human beings are some- 
 times subjected. 
 
 After the award my Astley Cooper Prize Essay 
 was published in full, and became well-known in the 
 medical world. It is, therefore, unnecessary to refer 
 to it, except in a few sentences stating the pith. 
 
 It was in my mind that the solidification we see 
 taking place in blood freshly drawn, forming a plug 
 or clot, and which we call coagulation, is of itself a 
 distinct process of which we have many examples, 
 as in the coagulation of an egg, the setting of some 
 iron solutions, and the solidification of muscle. I 
 knew that coagulation could take place by the 
 addition of fluids of a chemical substance like nitric 
 acid, and that it could be suspended by the addition 
 of other substances such as common salt ; but it did 
 not appear to me that this circumstance implied 
 the necessity for a chemical substance in order 
 to produce the spontaneous coagulation of blood 
 naturally observable. 
 
 I soon found that the process of solidification by 
 coagulation was absolutely different to the solidifi- 
 cation that takes place when fluids are exposed to 
 cold. In other words, coagulation is an entirely 
 different process to congelation ; indeed, the pro- 
 cesses are so different that they should be accepted 
 as precisely opposed to one another. Thus, blood 
 frozen in a solid form like an icicle could be held in 
 that state for any length of time ; could be snapped 
 
STUDIES ON THE BLOOD. 193 
 
 across ; be ground into a fine powder like glass 
 powder, and yet not coagulate. When, in this frozen 
 state, it was subjected to heat, it, for the moment, 
 became quite fluid, and then on being subjected to 
 greater heat it became solid again — that is to say, it 
 coagulated, and in the state of coagulation remained 
 solid until it decomposed. Cold and heat in this 
 manner exchanged powers and places, just as if the 
 naturally fluid blood held something it derived from 
 the body which would condense or freeze under cold, 
 or would dissipate under the influence of heat, 
 causing the fluid to become solid by adhesion of its 
 own particles, coagulation. 
 
 I found that chemical substances, that for the 
 moment were greedy for water, maintained the 
 fluidity of the blood in the same manner as cold did. 
 Thus, common salt added to blood kept up fluidity 
 for long periods, as Gulliver had already shown, but 
 when water was added in large quantity so as to 
 take up the salt freely, there would be adhesion of 
 the blood particles and coagulation. 
 
 I found that by adding various chemical bodies to 
 blood it was possible to obtain differences of result. 
 The mineral acids excited coagulation ; the vegetable 
 acids suspended it. Alkalies suspended it, and most 
 salts, especially if they were soluble, did the same. 
 This fact led me to the conception that if an alkali, 
 or any other substance that was soluble, were 
 volatile as well as soluble, it would, dissipating by 
 heat and condensing by cold, possess the precise 
 
 13 
 
194 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 characteristics both for congelation and coagulation, 
 according as heat or cold were brought into action. 
 
 Many experiments were made with heat and cold, 
 and the differences were noted. I learned the art 
 of making cups of ice, and of surrounding glass cups 
 with ice. Blood placed in these cups was kept 
 fluid, while other blood from the same source, and 
 simultaneously subjected to warmth, coagulated. 
 The rule was absolute : cold had the effect of sus- 
 pending coagulation, heat the effect of quickening it. 
 
 I passed from cold and its effects to those of 
 pressure on the one hand and the vacuum on the 
 other, and the results were as might have been 
 anticipated. Pressure suspended coagulation; the 
 vacuum quickened it. 
 
 In the end I came to the inevitable conclusion 
 that fresh blood, at all times alkaline in its 
 reaction, was held fluid by the volatile alkali known 
 as ammonia, which solvent condensed or diffused 
 according to temperature. The view offered seemed 
 to strike large numbers of people as the only true 
 one, and so the ammonia theory produced a marked 
 and favourable impression. The theory was sustained 
 by the circumstance that in experiment I could hold 
 blood fluid by the volatile alkali, and let it undergo 
 coagulation by withdrawing that added substance, 
 either by warmth, by the vacuum, or by the addition 
 of bodies that caused its evolution. In further proof 
 of the theory I was able to catch ammonia naturally 
 escaping or dissipating from natural blood that was 
 
STUDIES ON THE BLOOD. 195 
 
 undergoing the process of coagulation, and could fix 
 the ammonia as it escaped. 
 
 The theory broached in my essay on the coagula- 
 tion of the blood meeting first with favour, was 
 afterwards subjected to severe, and I do not think, 
 from every point of view, just criticism. It is most 
 unfortunate in science that we still exist in a time 
 when some men let the passions rule. We have 
 our likes and dislikes, even as regards the inter- 
 pretation of nature. I have myself never belonged 
 to this impetuous school. It has at no time 
 mattered to me how, or by whom, an interpretation 
 has come, so long as it has come at all, and is, with- 
 out hesitation, on the whole, deemed correct. I could 
 never see a reason for disputing an obvious principle 
 on the ground of an error in some technical detail, 
 inasmuch as all men are liable to err. It gave me 
 no surprise to see my views criticised, and after a 
 full review of them and of the counter-arguments, 
 I did, in a certain sense, voluntarily withdraw a part 
 of what I had stated, for which act one of my critics 
 extended to me unbounded praise. My act was 
 merely the admission of a possible error, and had 
 the critical objection been strictly accurate it would 
 have been sufficient to satisfy one for a lifetime ; it 
 was a good, generous expression, which I am sure its 
 author, although now long dead, really meant, but it 
 was not strictly accurate, and therefore not reliable. 
 What happened was that in repeating my experi- 
 ments I found out in them some technical errors. 
 
196 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 One probable error was that in the places where I 
 
 worked while testing for ammonia it was possible 
 
 that the ammonia found and fixed might have had 
 
 its origin in the surrounding air. There was no 
 
 place absolutely free from decomposition ; there was 
 
 no animal decomposition there that was free of 
 
 ammonia as a product. I might, therefore, have 
 
 been mistaken ; that is to say, the ammonia might 
 
 possibly have been formed outside, and not inside, 
 
 the animal body. I saw no method of settling 
 
 the difficulty so as to convince the thinking world, 
 
 and came to the conclusion, as a consequence, 
 
 that an observation or deduction not resting on 
 
 absolute proof should be, at least temporarily, 
 
 withdrawn. 
 
 But the principle involved in the theory and 
 derived from demonstration has never been with- 
 drawn. I am as sure as ever I was that the 
 principle is perfectly sound ; that it is above all 
 quibble, and that in the future — for I can scarcely 
 myself expect to see it — some student of science 
 will prove what is now written. 
 
 I am satisfied that there exists in the living blood 
 a, volatile spirit, which, on the one side, is as easily 
 condensable by cold as the blood is itself, and, so 
 condensed, is congealed or congelated with the blood, 
 holding its own place and helping to make the 
 solidification, or solidified mass ; on the other side 
 the spirit is evaporisable from the blood, leaving the 
 blood particles to attract each other, squeezing out 
 
STUDIES ON THE BLOOD. 197 
 
 the water in which they previously floated, and 
 causing, in fact, coagulation. 
 
 The effect of extreme cold proves to me the truth 
 of the plan stated. Cold condenses the whole — the 
 volatile spirit, the particles of the blood, the water, 
 and other structures. But if the frozen parts be 
 suddenly influenced by heat, the separations are not 
 equal ; the most volatile portion goes first, leaving 
 behind it the particles that attract each other, and 
 they, being no longer congelated, are coagulated, 
 and, as a result, dead. 
 
 The effects of heat and cold are thus equally 
 decisive. A fluid like the blood, or a soft structure 
 like muscle, holding the solid particles in water in 
 combination with a volatile spirit, is solidified the 
 moment the volatile spirit is driven off from it ; 
 the solid particles unite, and the mass becomes 
 coagulated. 
 
 In the above I have dealt with the more potent 
 influences of cold and heat, but the whole truth 
 does not seem to me to rest there. The volatile 
 spirit may also be absorbable by structures with 
 which it is in contact, and, being absorbed, may be 
 withdrawn from the universal sphere of its action, 
 so that some parts may become hard or practically 
 coagulable. There may thus be origins of local 
 disease, like cancer or induration of tissues, such as 
 sometimes occur in nerve or brain. 
 
 Again, the volatile spirit of the blood or body 
 may be a compound, and may be lost in part by the 
 
198 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 process of its decomposition. There may be local 
 degeneration from its disintegration, or there may 
 be death from its general disintegration. I have 
 seen, I believe, in disease, in anaesthetic conditions, 
 in death, the various states of the body due to dis- 
 turbances of the volatile spirit of the blood, and 
 am sure every other medical man, if he looks fairly 
 at the matter, has seen the same over and over 
 again. In the collapse of death, in death itself, 
 the escape or the absorption of volatile spirit 
 is one of the most striking and visible of phenomena. 
 In the sudden expansions which occur and which so 
 frequently cut life short in the supposed healthy, in 
 the phenomena of agitation or fear, the signs are 
 often manifest. 
 
 In so far as name is concerned — I mean the name 
 of the ordinary common volatile alkali we know of, 
 ammonia — I withdrew the theory, but not more. I 
 am as convinced as ever of the principle, but the 
 solvent at work I do not define verbally. This 
 solvent is probably alkaline, and is certainly 
 soluble ; it is volatile at a comparatively low tem- 
 perature, that probably of the heat of the body ; it 
 diffuses through the particles of the blood, making 
 the blood a fluid ; it condenses under cold ; it 
 possibly decomposes with readiness when the con- 
 ditions for decomposition are at hand, and in many 
 respects it represents ammonia more nearly than it 
 does anything else. An engineer requiring a fluid 
 having the qualities of blood would find it absolutely 
 
STUDIES ON THE BLOOD. 199. 
 
 necessary to employ an agent of this nature, and I 
 found in treating fresh blood with common ammonia 
 that the conditions required were very fairly supplied. 
 I kept blood fluid by the addition of ammonia. I 
 kept some in the fluid state for several years with- 
 out decay or any trace of decomposition, and I 
 could cause the ammonia to escape by warmth ; by 
 the vacuum ; by agitation, and by gradual evolution 
 under the action of lime. I could also condense the 
 ammoniated fluid by cold, and after thawing the 
 congealed mass could produce the final solidification 
 by the processes that lead to coagulation. 
 
 There are some forms of combination of carbon, 
 nitrogen, and oxygen, other than exist in common 
 ammonia, which, acting in the same manner, may 
 constitute the spirit of the blood, and may play the 
 part that is required as between the constituents of 
 blood and the necessary solvent; may condense by 
 cold, and may diffuse by a slight warmth ; may 
 continue, under pressure, maintaining fluidity ; may 
 pass off into a vacuum and lead to coagulation. I 
 have not found such a combination, but it lies open 
 for some more fortunate successor to discover it, or 
 to see some better reading than I have seen. At the 
 same time, I have found certain facts in trying to 
 translate fairly the theory submitted, which are of 
 practical value and repay all trouble. In the work 
 done an observation was made and reported in full 
 to the Medical Society respecting the power of 
 
200 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 ammonia in preserving blood and other animal 
 substances. By bringing animal tissues merely into 
 contact with the vapour of ammonia they were pre- 
 served, as has been shown, for long periods with the 
 utmost ease. On the sad day on which the nation 
 lost Prince Albert I had to make a post-mortem of 
 a child that had died of scarlet fever, and having 
 enclosed specimens of various sections of the intes- 
 tinal canal of the deceased in jars containing the 
 vapour of ammonia, I was able to keep them intact 
 for many years, there being no sign of putrefaction. 
 
 I also found that blood held fluid by ammonia 
 could be injected into the veins of animals, and I 
 employed it, therefore, for purposes of transfusion, 
 as described in a special chapter in the essay on 
 coagulation. 
 
 A most important and useful service, rendered 
 to me by the research on the ammonia theory on 
 coagulation, has consisted in the application of 
 ammonia to the treatment of disease. The older 
 practitioners seem to have been fully aware of the 
 value of hartshorn, by which term they described 
 ammonia, as a medicinal solvent for external injuries, 
 hardnesses, and swellings. They rubbed hartshorn 
 and oil into injured parts ; spoke as if they had 
 discerned a specific in the practice, and certain it is 
 that since their time ammonia has been the basis of 
 all the legitimate external remedies and of the pre- 
 
STUDIES ON THE BLOOD. 201 
 
 tended secrets of all the quack embrocations. How- 
 ever good it may be in this method of using it, and it 
 is undeniably of some good, it is poor in this use as 
 compared with what it can do when it is administered 
 internally in the right cases. It was my business 
 when I observed its direct effects on blood, not 
 only in holding blood fluid, but in the action of it on 
 the corpuscles, to try what it would do in the solvent 
 direction on separated fibrine divided into parts more 
 or less large. I dissolved portions of fibrine in it so 
 as to make them at first into a kind of jam, or 
 rather, into a sort of thick albuminoid solution. 
 Then I began to try as a medicine the doses in which 
 ammonia could be taken, and the action of it on 
 the body after repeated administrations. Using the 
 ordinary aqueous solution of pharrnacopceial strength, 
 I commenced by taking it myself in measured doses, 
 and found that in water, ice-water, or milk, it could 
 be safely swallowed in five-minim doses every two 
 hours. Repeated many times in the dose named, it 
 affected the blood, causing solution of the corpuscles, 
 and acting after the manner of a solvent, without 
 seeming to injure the digestive organs. 
 
 The mode of administering the solvent as a 
 medicine varied in some details, but, on the whole, 
 was the same in effect. To some it was administered 
 in combination with small doses of glycerine, with 
 which it blended readily in water ; to others it was 
 given with ice-cold water. It admitted of being" 
 mixed with what is known as "mindererus," the 
 
•202 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 solution of acetate of ammonia, a very good mixture 
 when the tongue and skin are dry and when a high 
 temperature prevails ; hut the most common practice 
 was to mix it with the milk that was supplied as 
 food, occasionally adding an agreeable quantity of 
 sugar and cream to let medicine and food go 
 together, a plan against which nothing reasonable 
 can be urged, and which has many advantages for 
 the doctor and nurse as well as for the patient. 
 
 Quite apart from the theory of coagulation, the 
 ammoniacal treatment of fibrinous deposit has got 
 installed into practice beyond any other, and I am 
 bound to say that in my hands it has exceeded 
 expectation in many instances in which it has been 
 adopted. I safely recall at least nine patients in 
 whom life has been retained by it, and for whom I 
 knew of no remedy until this line of treatment was 
 carried into operation. I was summoned once by 
 Mr. Bramley of Halifax to visit with him a lady who 
 had just been confined, and in whom the distinct 
 symptom of fibrinous deposit on the right side of the 
 heart had appeared. There could be no mistake in 
 the diagnosis he had been obliged to make. The 
 physical signs indicated the presence of the obstruc- 
 tion, and of the condition of the sinking body that 
 suffered from it ; the act of bleeding to death could 
 not have been more apparent. No time could be 
 lost ; the lady was laid in the horizontal position, and 
 was not permitted to be raised or moved. Then the 
 
STUDIES ON THE BLOOD. 203 
 
 amraoniated food was commenced and continued 
 zealously. A milk solution of ammonia was made 
 in which five minims of the strong solution of the 
 alkali were blended with four ounces of milk 
 containing a teaspoonful of cream, and this was 
 taken every hour. The body was brought under the 
 thorough influence of ammonia — to use a common 
 phrase, was saturated with the remedy. The odour 
 of it was detectable by the emanations from the 
 breath, body, and excretions generally. When a 
 point of blood was drawn and microscopically exa- 
 mined the elf ects of the remedy in the solution of 
 the blood corpuscles were sufficiently manifested. 
 The physical quality of the body was changed, and 
 the mental tone was distinctly changed, though not 
 so much as to create alarm. It was observed that 
 the senses were not so acute as usual, and there was 
 no decided manifestation of the will. It was also 
 noticeable that there was no over-action of muscle, 
 nor any marked excess of excretion like to the 
 salivation that can be produced by mercury or the 
 flux that can be made to follow a purgative. All in 
 fact was quite passive, but with the solution 
 going on the symptoms that were most alarming 
 became favourable. The disturbance that had been 
 heard in the heart was reduced ; the breathing was 
 easy ; and the extremities, which had been cold, were 
 warmer, rising from 98° Fahrenheit to 99°. Sleep 
 also was improved. After two days the dose of 
 ammonia was reduced a third, and next day half, 
 
204 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 and the worst symptoms of obstruction were so 
 decidedly relieved that ammonia was, on the fourth 
 day, brought down to the proportion of five minims 
 in four hours, with return of the ordinary symptoms 
 of life. I presumed that the obstructing clot on the 
 right side of the heart had undergone solution and 
 that immediate danger was over. The idea was a 
 little hasty, for as the blood made its freer course 
 over the pulmonic circuit there was a febrile attack 
 as if an abscess had been discharged, and a distinct 
 pneumonia which lasted for several hours and caused 
 some anxiety. With the rise of temperature that 
 ensued, a rise that brought the thermometer up to 
 101°, the ammonia was again given more freely, five 
 minims every three hours, with benefit, and the 
 temperature fell. In the end this patient slowly 
 recovered, and when I last saw her she had made 
 a complete recovery, the blood corpuscles having 
 assumed their natural shape and form, so that one 
 could not have known from them that they had ever 
 undergone so marked a solution and separation as we, 
 during her illness, had witnessed under the extreme 
 action of the blood solvent. 
 
 In another case — that of a young girl living in 
 Wigmore Street — symptoms of obstruction on the 
 right side of the heart came on suddenly during 
 what seemed to be an attack of pneumonia. Mr. 
 Oarr Beard summoned me, his diagnosis being that 
 of deposit in the right heart. I was obliged, un- 
 happily, to confirm his view, and was further obliged 
 
STUDIES ON THE BLOOD. 205 
 
 to confirm his opinion that the obstruction was too 
 serious for life to last. We proceeded, however, on 
 the same plan of treatment as that adopted in the 
 last-named case, and after many hours — sixteen — it 
 looked as if it were about to have the same success, 
 when quite suddenly fatal obstruction was pro- 
 nounced and death took place. We were allowed 
 a post-mortem examination, and then found what 
 had happened. The fibrinous deposit was there 
 on the right side of the heart, as we had predicted. 
 It was soft, saturated with ammonia, and was 
 partially dissolved, having a column of red blood 
 going through it towards the lungs; unfortunately 
 it had given way at its lower part where it had 
 been adherent to the chords of the pulmonary valve, 
 and, like a wedge, had been carried into the narrow- 
 ing pulmonary artery, which it had effectually 
 obstructed. 
 
 In a third patient, to whom I was called by Mr. 
 Andrews of Haverstock Hill, the symptoms were 
 identical with those of the lady at Halifax, and were 
 treated in the same manner and with the same good 
 result. 
 
 A further and remarkable instance came before 
 me in the wife of a medical friend ; there were not 
 only the cardiac and pulmonic indications of 
 obstruction, but, in addition, signs of obstruction in 
 the right femoral vein were noticed, the vein itself 
 being felt filled with fibrinous deposit, so that 
 nothing could pass along it. The patient herself 
 
206 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 looked upon the attack as, what we may consider, 
 septic. In a bad state of health she had gone to 
 see a sister who was lying dead, and while in the 
 room was overcome by the inhalation of what she 
 thought — probably correctly — was a gas of decom- 
 position from something she was near. I need not 
 relate the symptoms of obstruction, nor say more 
 than that they were local as well as general, and 
 that we knew we could easily have pushed the 
 concretions in the femoral vein into the wider upper 
 circulation, and so into the heart. We were scrupu- 
 lous not to act in this dangerous way. We laid the 
 body recumbent, and administered ammonia as freely 
 as in the previous examples. The husband of the 
 patient was as persistent as we were, only he 
 preferred that the ammonia should be given in the 
 form of ammoniacal spirit, sal volatile, which I did 
 not object to, and which was diluted with milk as 
 the food on which subsistence was maintained. The 
 patient was rendered completely ammoniacal ; the 
 corpuscles of the blood, which were under constant 
 watch, were dissolved as before, and in the end as 
 good a recovery took place as could have been 
 expected or wished. At the same time two or three 
 new and corroborative points ought to be narrated. 
 
 The relief to the obstruction that first appeared 
 was shown in the heart, but now also followed the 
 lung mischief, as in the previous case. The solution 
 of the fibrine and relief of the circulation caused a 
 rise of temperature attended with pneumonic dis- 
 
STUDIES ON THE BLOOD. 207 
 
 turbance, together with cough and expectoration of 
 mucus. The symptoms passed away, and we were 
 apprehensive that the liberating clots in the femoral 
 vein would escape into the circulation. Fortunately 
 they did not, but underwent fluidification, and so 
 became diffused, with a rise of animal heat as each 
 j>art was carried away. In the end this lady made 
 a good recovery, and, I believe, still survives, 
 although many years have gone by. 
 
 It was observable in this, as in the preceding 
 example, that the patient bore the ammonia 
 thoroughly well. It never disagreed with the 
 digestion, although it occasionally "rose" and was 
 tasted in the throat. It did not affect the mind, 
 or produce any cerebral noise or delirium, and it 
 was found by accurate measurement that no less 
 than three pints of the solution were administered. 
 
 I briefly note these illustrations as typical. 
 Many more could be added if they were called for, 
 and I could relate a number of additional facts 
 respecting the uses I have made of ammonia in 
 cases of inflammation of the body in pneumonia, 
 bronchitis, and their allies, in which the real cause 
 of death is some kind of obstruction induced by 
 the deposition of fibrine. It is unnecessary here to 
 repeat the facts, because I have written at such 
 length on the subject and been so many times over 
 the same ground. . I ought not, however, to leave 
 the recollection and retrospection of studies on the 
 
208 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 blood without reference to descriptions I have 
 supplied by pencil, as well as by pen, of the varied 
 forms of depositions of fibrine, and the symptoms 
 or diagnoses denned. 
 
 Sometimes I fear I have wearied both seers and 
 hearers by the persistency in which, at first 
 especially, I have pressed these points, and have 
 been many times struck by the way in which 
 cotemporaries and compeers — by the use of such 
 terms as " embolism" and " thrombosis," terms 
 I have never seen the necessity for, or used — have 
 commented on fibrinous depositions. The student 
 of the future will clearly understand it all, and will 
 relegate the words that have been coined, simply 
 as the jargon of the time, to nothingness, as we 
 relegate such words as " vapours," " peripneumonias," 
 " surfeits," and their likes. The enduring lessons 
 will be : (a) that there is present in the body a 
 compound of the ammonia type, volatile, diffusible, 
 absorbable by the blood, condensable by cold and 
 pressure, decomposable and antiseptic ; (b) that 
 this compound governs animal combinations and 
 disintegrations ; (c) that the compound sometimes 
 escapes from the blood, leaving it to its new fate 
 of coagulation ; (d) that it sometimes accumulates, 
 causing too marked a fluidity, and disease from 
 that change. 
 
 These are questions for the future ; for the present 
 I am content to leave the observation that ammonia 
 dissolves fibrinous deposits in the blood when it 
 
STUDIES ON THE BLOOD. 209 
 
 is freely administered as a medicine; that it may 
 be carried to the extent of dissolving the red blood 
 corpuscles, and that its use in proper cases marks 
 a new era in positive therapeutics. It has, in fact, 
 made so distinct an era that practitioners, who seem 
 practically to discard the tenets of the old therapeu- 
 tical schools, have accepted and adopted ammonia as 
 a solvent remedy mixing well with fluid foods like 
 milk, and making a compound thereby that feeds as 
 well as cures. 
 
 14 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 HEANIMATION. 
 
 IN whatever way we look at an animal body, 
 it stands forth as a mechanical device or 
 design. Every part of it is mechanically 
 displayed. The skeleton is a mechanism out and 
 out. The muscles are mechanisms ; the brain is a 
 mechanism. The vibrating membranes and the 
 condensing bodies like the lenses of the eye are 
 mechanisms, and the nature of the force by 
 which the parts are all made to act is of a 
 mechanical character, vibratory. The evidence of 
 all this is most striking and convincing when the 
 body is looked at in its immediate living, and in 
 its immediate dead, state. In either case it is 
 a mechanical combination, and the only difference 
 is that in one instance it moves and in the other 
 it can only be moved. No one feels this so keenly 
 as does the man who makes a post-mortem examina- 
 tion, while to the working physiologist it is at every 
 instant present. A part of a machine, or a machine 
 altogether, has ceased to work. It may be all right 
 for work ; nothing may be wanting ; it might begin 
 to indicate life just as determinately as the person 
 who looks on it feels as if a mere turn of the 
 
 210 
 
REANIMATION. 211 
 
 mechanism, almost a touch, would bring back into 
 motion that which has ceased spontaneously to move. 
 Yet another thought occurs to me. In reanima- 
 tion we may have gone astray in exciting secondary 
 phenomena, the acts of respiration and beating of 
 the heart. We may have to commence at the centre 
 of organic life, setting into play the sympathetic 
 nervous system, and waiting to see the phenomena 
 that arise from central movement. 
 
 We shall, probably, some day not only restore 
 life on this basis, but rectify disease, the secondary 
 phenomena being absent, while the primary remain, 
 unless the parts by which they are manifested 
 sustain some special injury. 
 
 There is no animal that proves this statement 
 better than a fish proves it. It is one moment a 
 living animal on its own account ; it floats in 
 water from which it derives oxygen through 
 exposed lungs ; it holds in its body cavities from 
 which it preserves and liberates oxidised material ; 
 it has an apparatus through which the prepared 
 fluid can circulate towards the oxygen; it has 
 vessels through which the oxidised fluid can 
 circulate into all the tissues ; it has interspaces in 
 which the process of oxidation can take place ; it has 
 a nervous system and nervous centres from which 
 the force liberated by the oxidation can diffuse ; it 
 has muscles in which the liberated energy can be 
 utilised; and it has nervous surfaces through 
 which the vibrations from the outer world can be 
 
212 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 communicated to the susceptible muscular organs, 
 giving to them the power that is demanded for mo- 
 tion, and giving them also, through the controlling 
 centres, the direction that may be wanted. 
 
 The result is that the combination of these proper- 
 ties constitutes life. 
 
 I attempted to make a fish exhibit all these 
 qualities according to my desires. Carp were 
 allowed to exist in water of such a temperature that 
 they could live and move. The water was left so 
 that it could solidify or freeze, and the fish were 
 allowed to freeze in the water by which they were 
 surrounded. Thus in the bodies of the animals the 
 substance in which the generated force was entombed 
 was allowed to pass into the solid condition, not to 
 escape from the bodies, but to be — so to say — buried 
 in them. For twenty days the immersed animal 
 organism was held firmly fixed. One animal was 
 then removed, and could be snapped or broken across 
 just like an icicle, feeling nothing, and differing 
 little from the solid water. Then another in 
 precisely the same state was removed uninjured, but, 
 under the influence of gentle warmth, was caused 
 by thawing to resume its pristine condition. Its 
 tissues relaxed ; the force it made refilled them ; its 
 life was rediffused, and by care that it should not 
 contract and coagulate by adhesion of its particles, 
 it moved again under external vibration and took 
 on all its original characteristics. It was once more 
 a living organisation. 
 
RE A NIMA TION. 2 1 3 
 
 I plunged an empty thin glass cup into ice and 
 salt, and drew into it fresh hlood from a living 
 animal, exposing the blood with a slow and gentle 
 motion to the action of cold. The blood did not 
 coagulate ; it froze in layers on the surface of the 
 glass, and at last into a mass or lump. It was still 
 alive, for it held in the condensed form that which it 
 had become endowed with during its living state, 
 and it was ready to move again when it was set at 
 liberty. It was so hard it could have been ground 
 into a powder like so much fine glass, but instead 
 of that it was cautiously warmed so that it could 
 liquefy without loss or escape of its solvent. It was 
 thus brought into fluidity. The temperature was 
 then raised, the fluid was exposed to a vacuum, or 
 distributed with motion over a wide surface, when it 
 went solid in consequence of what it had lost ; it 
 became solid by the adhesion of its own particles, 
 and the adhesion squeezed out the water it contained. 
 It had permanently coagulated. 
 
 In preparing my lectures on Life for the Medical 
 Society of London in 1858-9 I made a more curious 
 observation than that just recorded, and exhibited 
 the same to the Society. A young dog was lethalised, 
 and was allowed to sleep as if it were dead ; one of 
 the limbs was then frozen and made entirely rigid 
 by the cold, the arterial vessel feeding it being sub- 
 jected to pressure so that no blood could flow into it. 
 The rigid chilled limb was permitted slowly to thaw, 
 
214 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 and the compression on the vessels was slowly taken 
 off, by which a little blood was allowed to recircnlate 
 in and through the vessels at the normal tempera- 
 ture, pressure, and pulsation which attended the 
 liberation. The effect was that the limb entirely 
 recovered its functions ; the muscles commenced first 
 to quiver ; at last moved definitely, and the surplus 
 force generated being carried off by the uninjured 
 nervous surface through the nervous cords, there was 
 natural reaction. Ultimately there was the requisite 
 co-ordination, not only to the animal, which awoke as 
 it came out of its narcotism, but with restoration of 
 the frozen dead limb, so that the fact of there ever 
 having been a change was unobservable. 
 
 A leech was allowed to feed itself by drawing 
 blood from my own arm. Then it was freely frozen, 
 but not with such rapidity as was likely to kill by 
 the expansion of its fluids. In this frozen condition 
 it was practically dead, but was gradually thawed, 
 upon which its blood once more assumed the fluid 
 state; the circulation was restored, and, floating in 
 the water into which it was immersed, it was 
 impossible to tell that it had ever been touched, or, 
 indeed, to distinguish it from another leech which 
 had all the time been in the water. The reanimation 
 was complete. 
 
 There are some substances which, entering into 
 the body, are carried universally over it, and so 
 
REANIMATION. 215 
 
 modify the blood that they maintain its fluid state 
 and do no injury further than lowering the tem- 
 perature. But in time the substances may undergo 
 decomposition, change into a new form, and escape 
 from the body, leaving it in its original and vital 
 state. Amongst these singularly acting substances 
 the most common, as it is the most striking, is the 
 hydrate of chloral. This salt, mixed and dissolved 
 in the living blood, divides into two parts, one of 
 which acts like an alkali, and the other spreads 
 out or diffuses, acting as an anaesthetic. In 
 time the anaesthetic, which is an antiseptic, not 
 only diffuses through the tissues of the body, but 
 escapes from them, while the saline part of the 
 chloral is removed by the action of the membranes, 
 so that time only is required, with a sufficient 
 influence of warmth, for the body to be left as it 
 was before the chloral was administered — left entire 
 and free of decomposition — whereupon it resumes its 
 vital functions and lives again after the full appear- 
 ance of its being dead. If heat sufficient to 
 evaporate the chloroform be not supplied, the body 
 remains in its apparently deathlike state, and is, 
 in fact, dead. Or if the heat is applied so rapidly 
 and intensely that the chloroform is too quickly 
 driven off and the particles of the tissues are allowed 
 to come together — that is to say, if coagulation is 
 allowed to solidify them — then there is no recovery, 
 but death by coagulation. But if the evaporation is 
 just sufficient and no more, then the body is left in 
 
216 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 its pristine condition, and the vital acts resuming 
 their parts the body lives again, and, to the marvel 
 of all beholders who do not understand the details, 
 is raised to life and escapes without a trace of injury. 
 At the meeting of the British Association for the 
 Advancement of Science, held at Exeter in the year 
 1869, the facts just described took place. Liebrich 
 had, a little time before, studied and introduced 
 chloral, and the late Mr. Daniel Hanbury, F.R.S., 
 had brought over from Germany a specimen of the 
 salt, for presentation to me. I was elected to 
 inquire into its value, and in my experiments I 
 narcotised with it, by needle injection of its solution, 
 six pigeons. They all lapsed into sleep, and lay 
 before me so like dead animals I could detect no 
 sign of life in them, and after some hours I had 
 them laid on one side as dead. It was to my 
 intense surprise that next morning the porter told 
 me he had seen one of the birds move one of its 
 wings. He brought the animal to me, and I saw 
 that it was living. I then had the pigeons 
 produced : slightly increasing the warmth, they 
 began to recover, and I was able to place them 
 before the meeting at which my lecture was 
 delivered, all living, and two of them so alive as 
 to be in condition for active flight in the air. I 
 have since repeated my observations so often as to 
 bring the test recorded to a certainty, and I have 
 three times witnessed the revival named in men 
 themselves who have taken the chloral as a poison, 
 
REANIMATION. 217 
 
 desiring to commit suicide. I once also witnessed 
 the same reanimation in a horse that was apparently 
 killed by a large dose of the salt. 
 
 There are other substances than chloral hydrate 
 which have the power of suspending life so that 
 the suspension resembles death even in a more 
 extreme degree, and yet reanimation is possible. 
 Nitrite of amyl is one of these substances when a 
 cold-blooded animal is subjected to it. I once 
 put a number of frogs under its influence for the 
 study of severe paralysis induced by it. They lay 
 as dead for several days, and were so far gone into 
 death that the webs of their feet began actually to 
 decompose. It was thought time to bury them 
 lest they should become offensive, when it was 
 observed, for the first time, that the muscles of one 
 of them were plainly contracting, and they were all 
 retained under observation with gentle warmth as 
 the means of treatment. In a few hours the motion 
 first noted was more evident, and in the end they 
 all were reanimated and continued to live precisely as 
 if they had not been subjected to any life-destroying 
 or life-suspending agent. 
 
 I do not doubt that in the course of the disease 
 called catalepsy, occurring in the human subject, a 
 similar thing happens to that which has been 
 induced in the lower animal. In the chemistry of 
 the body, or rather in the chemical processes which 
 have been going on in it, there has been formed an 
 
218 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 organic substance which has the properties of such an 
 organic body as the nitrite of amyl, under which the 
 body collapses and is, to common observation, dead. 
 
 As the facts already named on the subject of 
 reanimation have been gathered, I have held always 
 in remembrance the case of the man I was called 
 to near Narborough * That case first excited my 
 curiosity and made me anxious to know more. The 
 man, I felt sure, was accepted as dead, and in the 
 common course of natural events would have been 
 considered so decidedly dead that he would, without 
 hesitation, have been buried. He was laid in the 
 cold as dead for the long period related, and yet, 
 under artificial respiration, showed temporary signs 
 of life — was, in fact, for the time reanimated, which 
 was of itself a sufficient lesson by demonstration. 
 
 In the Croonian Lecture delivered to the E-oyal 
 Society in the year 1873 on " Muscular Irritability 
 after Systemic Death," I related the curious history 
 of a birth in which two children, united, were born 
 at the same labour. In one of these children 
 death took place, and all the indications of death 
 for many hours were marked. Then, without any 
 effort to bring the change about, the dead child 
 again showed signs of life. 
 
 I also recorded that Mr. Warrington, while at the 
 Apothecaries' Company, had to destroy the life of 
 a cat by administration of hydrocyanic acid. The 
 • See Pages 124-8. 
 
REANIMATION. 219 
 
 animal seemed perfectly dead, and in the dead state 
 remained for many hours, but, exposed to a water 
 current, suddenly came again to life, 
 
 A complete series of examples of resuscitation 
 after what appeared to be absolute death are well- 
 marked in the attempts to restore the lives of human 
 beings who have collapsed under cholera. I do not 
 know who the doctor was who first thought of 
 injecting with fluids the veins of choleraic sufferers, 
 but it was a very great idea that has never been 
 duly appreciated. In Edinburgh, during one of 
 the choleraic epidemics, a saline fluid was discovered, 
 which, introduced into the body by a vein, restored 
 animation for a time so strikingly that it seemed 
 as if the dead actually came to life, until, by 
 the recurrence of the disease, they relapsed. An 
 illustration of this nature came under my own 
 observation in London. A lady in a square near to 
 this place seemed to die from cholera, and when I 
 was called in by two medical friends all attempts to 
 assist her seemed in vain. However, the apparatus 
 was ready for injection, the saline solution prepared, 
 and we threw in three pints of it, at least. On this, 
 reanimation was manifested in so perfect a manner 
 that the lady was able to arrange the particulars of 
 her will and even to sign the same. She ultimately 
 died from the recurrence of the disease, but this merely 
 showed us our ignorance of choleraic treatment and 
 did not prove the less the possibility of reanimation. 
 
220 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 In the experiments related above there was gen- 
 eral reanimation of living bodies. I made many 
 more in regard to local reanimation, which were 
 not so remarkable, but may deserve mention, 
 because they bear on the whole subject. Prom the 
 limb of an animal just dead I cut out a straight long 
 muscle, and plunging two fish-hooks in the tendons 
 of it, one at each end, and surrounding it with thin 
 guttapercha, placed it in ice and salt and kept it 
 frozen in that condition for twenty days. At one of 
 my lectures I removed this muscle, fixed one end of 
 it by the hook to a firm standard, and the other end 
 by a thread from its hook to the trigger of a rifle 
 loaded with a blank cartridge and also firmly fixed. 
 Then I gradually applied warmth to the muscle 
 until it was thawed, when it suddenly made a suffi- 
 cient contraction to fire the rifle, and afterwards 
 passed into permanent rigidity or rigor. 
 
 A similar but more remarkable experiment was 
 carried out in the following manner. A young dog 
 that had slept to death in chloroform vapour had its 
 body opened and had a tube firmly tied in its 
 ascending aorta. It was then taken out into 
 an atmosphere where the temperature was below 
 freezing point, and was left there for ten hours, 
 during which exposure it became universally rigid 
 from the cold. Connection was now made with the 
 tube tied in the aorta, so that through it the arterial 
 system of the animal could be fully injected. The 
 body was carried into a warm room and simple water 
 
REANIMATION. 221 
 
 was injected to 125° Eahr. The results were most 
 surprising. The muscles not only relaxed, hut began 
 vigorously to move, and continued to move until 
 under the action of the heat they ceased owing to 
 coagulation. 
 
 In another line of inquiry I approached the sub- 
 ject in a different direction. I made use of cold for 
 suspending the life of the nervous centres, by which 
 I prevented them from conveying the impressions 
 that had been derived by their surfaces from the 
 external vibrations. This caused sleep rather than 
 death, and interfered locally rather than generally. 
 Indeed, I showed that local action could be modified 
 through the nervous centre acted upon by the cold. 
 It was not lost labour, for it told me that between 
 sleep and death there is no absolute difference, that 
 sleep is a local, death a general, condition, and 
 that a hibernating animal lying asleep for many 
 weeks is, during that time, practically dead. 
 
 It must be fully understood that for securing 
 reanimation there can be no break of substance — 
 that is to say, there must be no such injury to the 
 machine as shall interfere with its vital functions. 
 I name this specially because some have been led 
 to infer from my researches that reanimation has a 
 much wider range than I would assign to it. It 
 is true that a man once fell under the ice in the 
 Welsh Harp water ; was submerged for over ten 
 minutes ; was rescued ; carried to an adjoining 
 
222 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 house, and, after artificial respiration, set up by Dr. 
 Belgrave of Hendon, recovered ; lived for many 
 hours, and died from an entirely different cause 
 than the immersion. In a lecture on drowning and 
 cold I published the details, in which it was shown 
 that this man, whose fate caused much comment, 
 was not physically injured nor distinct from other 
 persons subjected to intense cold. 
 
 One day considerable excitement will be created 
 because a number of persons supposed to be killed by 
 sudden immersion in cold water or shrouded in the 
 vapour of a mine, will have been under advancing 
 knowledge, reanimated. The fact will, however, be 
 no new discovery, for reanimation, as described above, 
 must be accepted as a current fact requiring nothing 
 more than correction in details to demonstrate its 
 value and confirm its reality. 
 
 In conclusion, it will be seen that in these 
 attempts at resuscitation I trusted largely to in- 
 jection of the blood vessels, and in the paper on "The 
 Restoration of Life after Certain Forms of Death," 
 read before the Royal Society in 1865, I used the 
 term " artificial circulation " as descriptive of this 
 process, although I showed that there were other 
 methods that could be adopted. In 1885 I reviewed 
 the whole subject in the pages of The Asclepiad, 
 pp. 171-187, arriving at the following summary : — 
 
 1. That resuscitation under the conditions of 
 suspended life — now often practical death — in which 
 
REANIMATION. 223 
 
 the body is not mechanically injured, nor struc- 
 turally diseased, nor charged with a fixed poison, 
 may, in course of patient investigation, become a 
 demonstrable fact of modern science. 
 
 2. That the modes of death in which the restoration 
 of life will be possible will include a large class, 
 such as (a) various forms of sudden death from 
 anaesthetics, from choke-damp in mines, from 
 mechanical suffocation ; (b) deaths from drowning, 
 and especially deaths from drowning in very cold 
 water, as in immersion under ice, in which the 
 suspension of life is extremely prolonged; (c) 
 sudden deaths from shock or stun; (d) deaths 
 from sudden and profuse loss of blood. 
 
 3. That the mode of procedure will be by 
 artificial respiration combined with artificial cir- 
 culation, or by some modifying combination. 
 
 4. That the great obstacles to success which have 
 to be met are obstruction to the circulation by 
 coagulation of the blood, aggregation of the blood 
 corpuscles in the minute vessels, contraction of the 
 capillaries, the occurrence of rigor mortis, and the 
 intervention of putrefactive changes commencing 
 in the blood. These difficulties are probably sur- 
 mountable by the use of one agent which suspends 
 them all and holds them in abeyance — extreme 
 cold. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 EFFORTS TOWARDS THE EXTINCTION OF DISEASE. 
 SANITATION. 
 
 \HE chapter I am about to write is as impor- 
 tant to every intelligent reader as it ever 
 can have been to me, because it concerns 
 every living being. It concerns everyone in his or 
 her own person, for it deals with the idea that in 
 this world it is possible to extinguish every kind of 
 disease. It does not assume that every person is 
 born to live for ever; on the contrary, it supposes 
 nothing more than a term of life, but it gives 
 to that term a definite set of stages. The body 
 grows, becomes developed, becomes fully developed, 
 becomes matured, passes maturity, fades into a 
 kind of second childhood, and then runs out, passing 
 into the nothingness or obscurity that preceded 
 its birth. The idea carries with it, therefore, this 
 proviso, that in the space intervening between the 
 first and the last stages of existence there is no 
 occasion for those outbreaks and disturbances to 
 which we attach the term disease. There are 
 natural conditions, one of which — the subsidence 
 into final sleep or death — might be called, and even 
 
 224 
 
EFFORTS TOWARDS THE EXTINCTION OF DISEASE. 225 
 
 looked upon as, disease, about which there need be no 
 question. But there is unnatural disease, known 
 by the occurrence of certain signs denominated 
 symptoms, which may appear at any period, and for 
 which we appoint ministers who have to recognise, 
 and, if possible, treat and remove. Theirs is a 
 delicate business, depending on both the knowledge 
 and wisdom of those who have to watch, as well as 
 upon those who have to suffer ; at its best theirs is a 
 doubtful business, because two persons at least — -the 
 watcher and the watched — must be concerned in it, 
 and because the lapse into disease itself is not always 
 clear and not always accounted for. Disease is, in 
 fact, a deceitful lapse to us, and, although repeated 
 and repeated as if necessary to conditions not 
 proclaimed to everyone, is really unnecessary. 
 
 The best idea, therefore, is that the disturbance or 
 catastrophe called disease — excluding accidents — is 
 not simply to be met by treatment, although that 
 may be necessary and beneficial, but is to be pre- 
 vented, and that with so much perfection that it 
 shall altogether become extinct, or remain as a mere 
 historical ghost. 
 
 The ideal is a grand one, but very few have as yet 
 been attracted by it — few indeed have understood it 
 at all, but it has had a kind of poetic basis and is 
 not so extreme as to be destitute of all friends. In 
 the early fifties it commenced to be practically 
 acknowledged, and even to expand. There were men 
 who declared that prevention was better than cure, 
 
 15 
 
226 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 and a great change promised to mark out the middle 
 of the nineteenth century. We had made advances 
 in the proper directions. There had heen appointed 
 a puhlic officer called the Registrar-General, and, 
 although he was not originally intended to become 
 an important officer of health, he was fated to he one 
 of health's greatest pioneers, not for this country 
 alone, but — by imitation — for the whole world. It 
 was felt to be a part of his duty to collect facts 
 respecting the births, marriages, and deaths of the 
 people, and if a man of true sanitary instinct, he 
 might also report on diseases when the people were 
 afflicted. The suggestion — which sprang from the 
 mind of the late Sir Edwin Chadwick — took root, and 
 he was allowed to draw out the scheme. Fortu- 
 nately the plan was submitted to the notice of the 
 eminent Dr. William Earr for exposition, and he 
 was appointed as superintendent, or chief officer, to 
 act under the new Registrar- General ; he organised 
 the tables that were published weekly by that officer, 
 and from the year 1838 became the official index of 
 life and death in this country. Dr. Earr's labours 
 were an inestimable boon, and have ever been so. 
 
 Again, it was felt that an awful evil was being 
 carried out in the way in which the dead of the nation 
 were disposed of, and on many sides the details of 
 the manner, and of the danger, were rendered, with 
 suggestions for improvement. Chadwick, always 
 urgent and always important, allowed no one to stand 
 before him in this matter, and he was vigorously 
 
EFFORTS TOWARDS THE EXTINCTION OF DISEASE. 227 
 
 supported. A gentleman named George Alfred 
 Walker was imbued with the subject. His eyes 
 were everywhere ; his pen knew no rest, and the late 
 Mr. Thomas Wakley, founder and editor of the 
 Lancet, was only too glad to give him scope and 
 encouragement. It is impossible, even at the present 
 moment, to read "Walker's vigorous and awful 
 disclosures without a shudder — how the dead in 
 chapels and churches were buried up to the floors 
 of the buildings. Churches and churchyards were, 
 therefore, closed, and the cemetery took their place, 
 to the temporary advantage of the whole community. 
 Chadwick also, as a Poor Law Commissioner, swept 
 through the land disclosing abuses innumerable, and 
 trying to lay the foundations of a system which, had 
 it been developed as he wished, would have turned 
 the land into a very Paradise of Health. Other 
 reforms made their way, and a great outbreak of 
 Asiatic cholera opened the eyes of the multitude 
 to an impression, never properly felt before, that 
 epidemics themselves were due to influences begotten 
 of human ignorance, and preventable by human 
 intelligence. 
 
 One day, as I have often told, I was requested 
 to support and render service to a Society which 
 it was hoped would assist in explaining and 
 quelling the diseases of an epidemic nature, and, 
 under the impression of the value of the work, I 
 became one of the Fellows of " The Epidemiological 
 Society of London," which Mr. Tucker founded. 
 
228 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 The tasks I was engaged in crippled me, but a 
 number of incidents occurred which lent a hand to the 
 labour of the new Society. It happened that Asiatic 
 cholera broke out in Mortlake — where I then was — 
 and the surrounding district, and called for full 
 attention. The local vestry asked for help, and, 
 appointing committees of inquiry, selected as one the 
 late Vice-Admiral Lord William Pitzroy, the late Pro- 
 fessor Sir Richard Owen, F.R.S., and myself. Lord 
 William, who was rather nervous about the disease, 
 had not much method, but was most attentive to his 
 duties, and being — as he described it — a lazy man 
 with time on his hands, was most solicitous not to 
 interfere with the work of his colleagues. We met, 
 as a consequence, without trouble and without 
 interruption. In Professor Owen I found a man 
 full of energy in sanitation. He was then at the 
 zenith of his fame; was one of the leading men 
 of science of the day, and had just been presented 
 by the Queen with the sweet little lodge in Rich- 
 mond Park in which he continued to live for a 
 long series of years, and where, at an advanced 
 age, he died. There was nothing connected with the 
 cholera that we in our district did not, as a com- 
 mittee, investigate, if it were within reach. By our 
 directions as to isolation and perfect cleanliness 
 there can be no hesitation in saying that we cut 
 short the epidemic. In order to be on a level with 
 the rest of our medical brethren, I founded the 
 West Surrey Cholera Society for investigation, and 
 
EFFORTS TOWARDS THE EXTINCTION OF DISEASE. 229 
 
 brought together, ably assisted by the late Dr. Alfred 
 Carpenter of Croydon, a considerable number of 
 medical men. Of this Society Dr. Willis was elected 
 President, and we held our meetings at the board-room 
 of the Hospital for Children at the foot of Waterloo 
 Bridge, on the Surrey side. I was invited to deliver 
 an address there; it was published and widely cir- 
 culated. The point of it was that, to the doctors, 
 an epidemic outbreak of any disease was like the 
 appearance of a comet to the astronomers, and ought 
 to be viewed with particular care. It ought to be 
 followed in its course, and all its history noted as it 
 passed the observers. 
 
 In the Epidemiological Society the subject of 
 cholera created the utmost attention, and men such 
 as the late Dr. John Snow stood forward promin- 
 ently. Snow was the first to surmise that cholera 
 spread by the drinking of water impregnated with 
 the cholera poison. He traced out the difference in 
 respect to prevalence of the affection in districts 
 supplied by different water, comparing Southwark 
 and Vauxhall specially ; he showed up the astound- 
 ing fact about the epidemic caused by the water 
 supplied by the Broad Street Pump, and created 
 a tremendous sensation by his demonstrations and 
 references. In the Epidemiological Society his con- 
 duct was as much beloved as his industry and 
 originality were admired, and his sudden death at 
 the early age of forty-eight years was a matter of 
 universal regret amongst his brethren. 
 
230 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 Pursuits connected with epidemiology became 
 naturally incentives to the art of preventive 
 medicine. It would be superfluous to say that 
 preventive medicine assumed at once a first place 
 over curative medicine, but assuredly it placed itself 
 on a level with that method, and planted the 
 idea that if it were possible to bring about the pre- 
 ventive part, the curative would be of minor worth. 
 It also became obvious that, as the living world was 
 wallowing in disease, the sooner its peoples ceased to 
 wallow the sooner they would be happily freed from 
 the terrible curse to which they were subjected. In 
 the young mind the truth thus presented seems 
 to glow, and what is more, the accomplishment of 
 prevention seems to be so easy that nothing further 
 is, as it appears, wanted save the spread of know- 
 ledge and of sanitary principles far and wide. We 
 suffer from disease through ignorance ; we escape 
 through knowledge. I was very soon certain then 
 that these views were sound, and in the heyday of 
 youth and strength came to the resolution that I 
 would do my best to make both the knowledge and 
 the truth broadly known. I determined conse- 
 quently to publish and circulate a journal devoted 
 to Health, and to obtain all the assistance possible 
 from friends who held similar views to my own. 
 In 1855 I convened a meeting, therefore, at Dr. 
 Benjamin Guy Babington's in Hanover Square, 
 and proposed the plan of the Journal of Public 
 Health and Sanitary Review, a title reversed a 
 
EFFORTS TOWARDS THE EXTINCTION OF DISEASE. 231 
 
 few months later at the suggestion of the late 
 Dr. John Chapman into the Sanitary ILeview and 
 Journal of Public Health. I undertook to puhlish 
 in it the Transactions of the Epidemiological 
 Society, if each Fellow would in turn take a number 
 of the new work. These terms were considered fair, 
 and the periodical began to appear. The enthusiasm 
 felt in it can only be appreciated by the perusal of 
 the early numbers. 
 
 The new journal met with a favourable reception 
 both from the profession and the public, but it was 
 not attended by the signs of progress expected of 
 it. The expectations I had for it are expressed 
 in the first article, and it is after this long 
 period a wonder to me that they were not 
 more fully realised. Certain progresses have been 
 developed, but not all. For instance, in the first 
 volume I broached a plan for the registration of 
 all diseases in the kingdom, so that we might be 
 able to say how diseases originated, and why, in par- 
 ticular parts, they were most prevalent. To carry 
 out this project, I wrote to medical men in different 
 centres of the country and asked them to fill up 
 for me a printed table for regular publication. 
 The table gave the latitude and longitude of the 
 centre ; the dates of observation ; the diseases of 
 the human family that had appeared, ranged in 
 regular order ; the diseases of the lower animals, if 
 they could be specified ; the diseases of the vegetable 
 world ; the states of the weather, and points connected 
 
232 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 with the conditions of the inhabitants of the district. 
 The observers from the first were widespread, and as 
 the design was popular they extended at last from 
 the Scilly Isles to the Shetlands, Dr. Moyle of the 
 Scilly Isles being at the southern end, and Dr. Spence 
 of Lerwick at the northern. The care with which 
 the observers followed up their task was beyond all 
 praise, and, indeed, it was their energy and enthu- 
 siasm that at last actually caused me to give up my 
 labours. The observers increased to sixty, and would 
 have gone on increasing to as many hundreds, but 
 the task of communicating with so many was more 
 than I could undertake. The costs, moreover, grew 
 beyond my means, and in extremity, I was obliged to 
 give up the attempt. As a final effort, in 1857, 1 made 
 application to Sir Benjamin Hall, then President of 
 the Board of Public Health, a body that has prac- 
 tically ceased to exist under that name, but which 
 has never actually been abolished. Sir Benjamin 
 Hall, who ultimately became Lord Llanover, listened 
 most patiently to my design, carefully examined all 
 the reports laid before him ; expressed his own warm 
 admiration, and consulted some of his staff on the 
 subject. At last, however, he was obliged to tell 
 me that he could not entertain the project as a 
 Government scheme ; there were neither the funds 
 for it nor the organisation, nor did he see that it 
 would be possible for one like myself, however filled 
 with energy and enthusiasm, and however usefully 
 educated and actuated, to carry on such a national 
 
EFFORTS TOWARDS THE EXTINCTION OF DISEASE. 233 
 
 undertaking. The country, not ripe for the design, 
 would require to live another century before the 
 development of sanitary registration, and it must be 
 given up as a plan that would not grow if forced 
 unduly. 
 
 I felt too keenly the truth of these statements to 
 doubt their accuracy, and was compelled to close the 
 record. Yet there are one or two words I must say 
 for it. It showed conspicuously how ready men of 
 physic were to write a history of their time that 
 could only have one end, that of enfeebling their 
 craft and of lessening its value as a commercial 
 concern. It brought up earnest investigations of 
 natural phenomena, and illustrations of them, in 
 public literature, and it proved how usefully the 
 public interests could be served. On the last-named 
 point one truth stands prominently forth. Two of 
 the observers and recorders at Canterbury, Dr. Heid 
 and Dr. Haffenden, noted that in a village near 
 them called Ash there broke out a fatal malady 
 known as the "Ash Pever." The malady was most 
 prevalent amongst children ; the throat was affected 
 malignantly, but the disease was not scarlet fever. 
 It turned out to be an epidemic now recognised as 
 diphtheria, so named in the South of Prance by 
 Bretonneau, and it has, since its appearance at Ash, 
 extended all over the kingdom, with the loss of 
 thousands of lives that might have been saved could 
 we have grappled with it at its onset. 
 
 An immense number of other questions were 
 
234 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 brought up in the Sanitary Meview. The water 
 supply of London was discussed ; the organisation of 
 the Medical Officers of Health was first described ; 
 vital statistics were unfolded and examined ; the life 
 of the English soldier, and all its dangers — irre- 
 spective of war — -were exposed; the homes of our 
 population were described, and numerous improve- 
 ments, in the home, in the hospital, in the 
 workhouse, in all our public institutions, were 
 suggested with no niggardly mind, and in a manner 
 that has led to useful changes. The Crimean lessons 
 were treasured up, and in the Transactions of the 
 epidemiological department Mr. Keith Johnson 
 enumerated and classified the diseases of the world 
 in the then current stage of civilisation. 
 
 On the whole, I expect that in this first English 
 journal devoted to Health, I erred in trying to do 
 too much, but this was not the universal opinion. In 
 calling upon me to say that two copies of the work 
 had been taken for the Royal Library, the late Sir 
 James Clark, Bart., warmly congratulated me and 
 took me by surprise in saying that the late Prince 
 Albert had read with delight the article on the 
 " Health of the English Soldier " — which article had 
 come from my own pen — and had expressed to him 
 the fear that our only danger was that of going too 
 far in our efforts to bring about sanitary reforms, an 
 opinion in which he, Sir James, entirely coincided. 
 
 This communication of Sir James Clark was 
 highly prized by me, but another matter was, as 
 
EFFORTS TOWARDS THE EXTINCTION OF DISEASE. 235 
 
 showing a wider sentiment, even more grateful. 
 The printer of the journal — Mr. T. Richards — had 
 asked me, when the first number was in the press, 
 to construct a motto that would suit the drawing of 
 Hygeia on the cover. I did so by inventing the 
 sentence " National Health is National Wealth," a 
 sentence which was seized almost universally and 
 used as a proverb, attributed to numerous authors 
 other than the real one, and which, I trust, has been 
 of general service to Sanitation. 
 
 A good many years passed on, during which we 
 made slow and varied progress, looked upon in turn 
 with doubt and approval. Edwin Chad wick already 
 mentioned — who caused a change in the Poor Laws, 
 but who had not been properly understood, and, in 
 fact, had seen some of his noblest ideas perverted — 
 was not, as a sanitarian, invariably free of personal 
 criticism. He was sometimes treated as though he 
 were an extremist, and, resigning his position as a 
 sanitary state officer, retired into private life, while 
 many of his colleagues and rivals retired from 
 life itself. He, however, still retained his interest 
 in sanitary work, and never allowed an opportunity 
 to escape. " Pair above, sire, and foul below," he 
 remarked to the late Emperor Napoleon III., when 
 that monarch asked him what he thought of Paris. 
 
 Like him, we all laboured in our respective ways, 
 hoping for the extinction of Disease, but influencing 
 so few the thought dawned upon us that the world 
 
236 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 cared less for our recommendations than we had 
 anticipated. The world admitted the truths we 
 proclaimed, but did not utilise them. A big Society 
 was founded, called the Social Science Association ; 
 held its perennial meetings in large towns ; secured 
 the still powerful but faltering aid of Lord 
 Brougham — who to us was always very kind — and 
 gave to Health a helping hand. It aimed at culti- 
 vating Law and Education, but also commended 
 Health as a study. In course of time it invited me 
 to preside over its Health section, giving the leading 
 presidency, including all the sections, to the late 
 Lord Aberdare, who, as the Honourable H. A. Bruce, 
 had for some time played a leading part. 
 
 The meeting of the Association was fixed for 
 Brighton in the year 1875, and a good deal was 
 expected from it. All the sections were powerfully 
 represented, and we congregated as a goodly company. 
 The question that I had to settle was the subject of 
 the Presidential Discourse. It was a golden oppor- 
 tunity, if it could only be so used as to create effect. 
 But there was the rub. There were two courses 
 before me : either to go on in the old way dealing 
 with data and keeping religiously in tune with the 
 Association, or to plunge into imagination, for the 
 pleasures of which, in private life, I was greatly 
 indebted to Mark Akenside, but which I had never 
 dared to air in public. In my anxiety I wrote two 
 addresses, one on " The Statistics of Death Bates," 
 the other on a model city or what a city ought to be if 
 
EFFORTS TOWARDS THE EXTINCTION OF DISEASE. 237 
 
 Sanitary Science were ever to be advanced — a city to 
 be called after the goddess of Health, Hygeia, or 
 Hygieopolis. Both essays were in my pockets. I 
 and my family took up our residence at Little- 
 hampton, so as to be near Brighton, and I thought 
 I would try both the addresses on a young and 
 unbiassed mind, so I began to submit my little 
 daughter Stella, then a mere child, to the ordeal. 
 With her I found at once that the statistics of 
 death rates — learned, and, as far as such an essay 
 could be, perfectly simple — neither attracted her 
 attention nor gratified her understanding ! In short 
 it was a dead letter. But when I got on to the 
 other subject; briefly explained its bearings and 
 meanings, and when on the sands I traced out with 
 my stick the streets and buildings of my proposed 
 city, as an old Greek might have traced it out on his 
 abacus, the scene was entirely changed and the 
 utmost interest was excited. We even named the 
 streets as well as the public places. My mind was 
 soon made up, and the Model City became the theme 
 for my address. Sketched out on the sands at night, 
 the wind would often blow it away, and it had to be 
 sketched out again in the morning. Still it held its 
 place as a presidential effort, and a friendly Ameri- 
 can critic says of it, " The winds blew it away, but 
 they blew it all over the world," a result I certainly 
 had not anticipated. 
 
 It was appointed that my address should be 
 delivered under the Dome at Brighton on a 
 
238 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 Monday, and I had as predecessors at the same 
 place Lord Aherdare, Sir Charles Reed — the 
 Chairman of the London School Board — and Mr. 
 Justice Creasy, the author of The Fifteen Decisive 
 Battles of the World. On Saturday the officers, 
 and some others, were invited over to Glynde, 
 the residence of the Speaker of the House of 
 Commons, Sir Henry Brand. We all had an 
 extremely pleasant ramhle in the grounds and a 
 delightful dinner, the Mayor of Brighton startling 
 us by applying to the toast of " Sir Henry " the 
 lines of Shakespeare, 
 
 " What a piece of work is man ! " 
 
 and almost killing us when he came to describe his 
 host in the Shakespearian words. 
 
 On Monday morning there was an influx of 
 visitors and my presidential turn came. The old 
 document on Statistics of Death Rates still lumbered 
 up my pocket, and might have been drawn out had 
 not the late Dr. Patrick Stewart met me near the 
 platform, and, in gravest tones, assured me that the 
 company was worn out with statistics, and if I had 
 not something more lively to give them than that I 
 had better set the example of going home. Not a 
 syllable more was wanted. I took the chair and 
 delivered the address long so well-known as 
 " Hygeia : a Model City of Health." 
 
 No one was more surprised than myself at the 
 success of this effort. The Dome over my head 
 
EFFORTS TOWARDS THE EXTINCTION OF DISEASE. 239 
 
 seemed to echo the address. Lord Aberdare was in 
 an ecstasy; the late Sir George Campbell declared 
 he had never been more charmed, and all who spoke 
 to me followed suit. Ghadwick was quite demon- 
 strative ; Sir Cordy Burrows gave me a luncheon, 
 and one old gentleman declared that as he knew 
 where the city was he would at once go to it. All 
 this was as pleasing as it was new, but it was 
 eclipsed by the newspaper comments that followed. 
 The Times had it as its leading article ; the other 
 papers gave favourable notices ; the Belgian 
 Moniteur republished it entire, and I was apprised 
 that Royal personages had read it. I received 
 notes and questions from residents of many centres 
 of the habitable world ; tradesmen labelled the 
 goods they had for sale as Hygeian ; rich old 
 people pitched on Hygeian residences in which to 
 prolong their days, to the disgust of their younger 
 successors ; Mr. Punch was good enough, through 
 Mr. du Maurier, to give it in his Almanac a favour- 
 able recognition, and the secretary of a literary and 
 learned institution to which I was about to lecture 
 introduced me to the enthusiastic audience simply 
 as " the author of Hygeia." 
 
 Acknowledgments such as are here faithfully 
 narrated, pleasant as they may be, are rather dis- 
 turbing than sustaining. They are apt to lead not 
 only the man who receives them astray, but the 
 cause also he is desirous of representing and 
 upholding. Fortunately this was not the case in 
 
240 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 regard to my attempt. It had been my wish to 
 catch the attention of the world on the dry subject 
 of sanitation. " Yon have changed the nation's 
 tastes," wrote Chad wick, in one of his dry humours, 
 respecting sanitation. "You have shut up drain- 
 pipes, and you ought to be prosecuted." There was 
 no prosecution of myself, but there was, as I had 
 hoped there might be, such a prosecution of the 
 subject of Health that it became suddenly quite 
 popular. In starting the Sanitary Review with 
 the utmost zeal the number of names favourable 
 to the hygienic effort only filled one page of the 
 cover. Now every leaf of all the volumes would 
 not afford space enough for them. 
 
 I could not for a moment indulge in the thought 
 that the appearance of a single essay could have 
 produced changes we now behold, for the Crimean 
 War, the American "War, the Franco- German War, 
 and the labours of many thousands of able, scientific, 
 chemical, mechanical, and commercial men have 
 had their effect, far beyond anything that I can 
 have excited. But Chadwick was right in his 
 saying that my design modified the tastes that 
 were prevailing, and I would claim no more. 
 
 For some time before the delivery of the essay on 
 the Model City, Hygeia, I had let the journal known 
 as the Social Science Review replace the Journal of 
 JPublic Health, and it included many subjects re- 
 lating to sanitation. I started it in 1862 ; edited it 
 
EFFORTS TOWARDS THE EXTINCTION OF DISEASE. 241 
 
 first as a weekly, then as a monthly journal, and 
 at last was obliged to give it up because the claims 
 of practice rendered me incapable of conducting it. 
 There were published in it several papers which 
 helped on, I hope, the sanitary cause. In it I 
 brought out the papers on " Diseases of Overworked 
 Men," but the most original one was on " Alcoholic 
 Phthisis, or the Consumption of Drunkards," which 
 appeared in 1864. 
 
 By the time the discourse on Hygeia was delivered 
 it had become a part of the business of my life to 
 help in every way possible the sanitary cause, and, 
 to commence with, those who were promoting it. 
 The late Dr. Lory Marsh had founded the Sanitary 
 Institute, to which its Council elected me their first 
 Chairman. We instituted examinations for those 
 gentlemen engaged in daily sanitary duties under the 
 Medical Officers of Health who had been appointed 
 by the local authorities to supervise their localities 
 in the matter of health. We did our best to bring 
 the Medical Officers into concert, and we began to 
 hold yearly, at different towns in the kingdom, 
 Sanitary Congresses, with exhibition of sanitary 
 appliances. Our first meeting of this last-named 
 kind was held at Leamington in 1877, when I pre- 
 sided, several other gentlemen acting as presidents of 
 sections, with the Mayor of Leamington conducting 
 all the local arrangements. It was an extremely 
 successful s meeting, and novel, not simply because 
 
 16 
 
242 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 it was the first of its kind, but because tbere was 
 an exhibit from Coventry of a small set of machines 
 for riding out of doors on two wheels — bicycles — with 
 the first tricycle, a machine worked by the common 
 lever. This machine was afterwards greatly improved 
 by a chain, but it worked well, and I was enabled to 
 ride it along the main road from the Skating Bink 
 — the place in which the exhibition was held — 
 in the presence of a large concourse of people. Sir 
 Edwin Chad wick, who was present, saw, as I did, 
 the importance of the cycle for outdoor health 
 exercises, and up to his death, thirteen years later 
 on, rendered the most useful services in promoting 
 the improvements of the machine and the application 
 of it. 
 
 After the Leamington meeting the Sanitary 
 Institute held a Congress at Croydon in 1879, over 
 which also I had the honour of presiding. It has 
 kept up the practice, always inviting some sani- 
 tarian to fill the chair. 
 
 I presided over the Sanitary Institute for four 
 years, and am a member still, but we came to an 
 unfortunate misunderstanding on a point of opinion. 
 The people of Brighton wished to hold a Congress 
 of their own in their own town, and elected me 
 President. I thought that as the Institute existed 
 for the encouragement of sanitation and for 
 attempting to abolish disease, it was quite com- 
 patible to accept the offer, but I was anxious to 
 leave the meeting to the general guidance of the 
 
EFFORTS TOWARDS TEE EXTINCTION OF DISEASE. 243 
 
 Institute. The authorities at Brighton held out, 
 declaring that the effort should be purely local and 
 self-sustaining, while the Institute, or some of its 
 active members, determined that its Council should 
 go down and manage the whole affair as if it were 
 its own. They sent to me asking me not to preside 
 over a mere local gathering, a request I respectfully 
 declined, and in the end the Congress, as a local 
 one, passed off brilliantly.* 
 
 A few years later, 1889, the inhabitants of the town 
 of Hastings, headed by the Mayor and Corporation, 
 invited me to preside over a local Congress of the 
 same kind in their town, an invitation I accepted. 
 The meeting had the same gratifying results as 
 those which followed that at Brighton, and in a 
 similar manner published its records. I regret the 
 proceeding broke my long official connection with 
 the Sanitary Institute, the Council of which ruled 
 that no one officially connected with it could hold 
 
 * A singular circumstance occurred at this Brighton Congress. 
 A large number of Medical Officers of Health met at one of the 
 hotels at breakfast, and a fine ham, which the waiters served was 
 placed on the table. When my slice came I noticed that it had a 
 singular appearance, and inspecting it closely found it filled with 
 trichinae, the parasite discovered in muscle by the late Professor Sir 
 Richard Owen, and a known cause of severe, and often fatal, disease 
 — "trichinosis." I immediately gave the alarm, and begged the 
 guests to eat no more of the affected food. The caution came too 
 late, and one of them, who had partaken freely of it, was in great 
 disquietude. Luckily no further harm was done, because the ham 
 being well cooked, all the trichinae were dead and did not visibly 
 differ in effect from the food in which they were embedded. 
 
-244 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 office elsewhere. I objected, and so we parted. 
 The difference of opinion and action caused, I am 
 sorry to say, my separation from the Institute, but 
 I still maintain that the conduct pursued by me 
 was on the right basis. The Institute does not, and 
 never was intended to, exist for its own displays 
 and none other. It exists for the support of 
 sanitation by whomsoever and wheresoever it may 
 be given. It can set an example, but it cannot 
 grasp all examples, and it ought to have no 
 monopoly. 
 
 Happily there was scope for sanitary effort in other 
 directions. When medical men began to be appointed 
 Medical Officers of Health they required the assist- 
 ance of others, who, under their orders, would go about 
 a district to inspect, report, and carry out the many 
 improvements or reforms needed. I recommended 
 to a medical officer — he had beaten me in a contest 
 for office — the first man who fulfilled the required 
 duty. In time the necessary Inspectors grew into 
 a large body and began to organise. The members 
 of the organisation became Sanitary Inspectors with 
 regular duties, and formed themselves into Societies, 
 with — in the end — a central London Society, over 
 which Sir Edwin Chad wick became first Honorary 
 President. He wished me to succeed him in the office, 
 speaking to me in his latest days about its usefulness 
 and importance. I naturally acceded to his wishes, 
 and have been President of the Sanitary Inspectors 
 now for many years, accompanying them on the 
 
EFFORTS TOWARDS THE EXTINCTION OF DISEASE. 245 
 
 Continent and taking an active part in their practical 
 endeavours. They help the work of sanitation and the 
 abolition of disease amazingly, spreading a desire for 
 health amongst the masses, diffusing the principles 
 on which they act in every locality and homestead 
 into which they enter in an official or general 
 manner. It is impossible to say what, in time, 
 they will not effect for the good of our English 
 community. Sanitary inspection is rich in promise, 
 for the reason that it instituted the first systematic 
 lay element in sanitation we have as yet possessed ; of 
 energy its members have any amount, and as their 
 position improves they will take a most important 
 place in the art of abolishing disease. 
 
 The incident that occurred at the Leamington 
 Congress in respect to cycling gave me a new 
 inkling as to the reduction of disease and a means of 
 advancing the general health. I argued that if, on 
 trial of it, we could go about in the open air as we did 
 on horseback, it must be healthful to us physically, 
 as it must be charming mentally. The idea led me 
 to Coventry to see the work going on there in the 
 manufacture of cycles, and I saw in it a new trade, 
 a constructive trade, not only of tricycles, such as 
 have been described, but of two-wheel machines also, 
 bicycles. In journeying some time previously, 1868, 
 in Prance, from Dieppe to the old and ruined Chateau 
 d'Arc, I had seen in a village a bicycle, known since 
 as a " bone-shaker," standing against a wall, and 
 
246 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 had learned that it was the doctor's " iron horse " on 
 which he made successfully his round to his patients. 
 The advance of the "bicycle at Coventry gave 
 promises, therefore, of the most cheering character. 
 Irrespective of all the disputes and wars that were 
 then beginning to show themselves in the cycling 
 world, I joined it and became a cyclist, accepting 
 the post offered to me of President of the Tricycle 
 Union, which was then in active life. It soon 
 transpired that, whether on a tricycle or a bicycle, 
 the new so-called " sport " was beneficial to health 
 when it was properly carried out, and that was 
 enough. Cycling had its dangers and its objections, 
 but, on the whole, it did good service. It dissemi- 
 nated abroad what had long been a want, an exercise 
 that would benefit the masses ; it let fresh air 
 lave bodies that had been long confined in-doors ; it 
 encouraged women as well as men to go, not only 
 out of doors, but out of towns, and it infused into 
 the mind new scenes and new thoughts. The 
 results were surprising, and soon outstripped 
 custom. My desire was to make the new exercise 
 something more than a " sport." I strove to 
 give it a scientific and antiquarian character, and 
 founded the Society of Cyclists in order to carry 
 out these objects, to the advantage of riders of 
 both sexes of tricycles and bicycles. We combined 
 for the purpose of holding regular meetings in 
 London, and we rode out of London, and founded 
 annual congresses in the country. We asked noble- 
 
EFFORTS TOWARDS THE EXTINCTION OF DISEASE: 247 
 
 men and other owners of estates and curiosities 
 to throw open their grounds, houses, and other 
 treasures for our inspection, and we got Mayors of 
 boroughs and kindred authorities to sustain our 
 efforts. We did all we could, in fact, to accomplish 
 our endeavours, and I held office as President of this 
 Society for no shorter a period than ten years. All 
 the world is for cycling now, as if a new pair of 
 legs had been invented, and the advance in health 
 and strength has been unparalleled. By cycling the 
 sanitation of this country, to say nothing of other 
 countries that have adopted it generally, has 
 advanced a hundred years. Personal health has 
 improved ; sanitary necessities in wayside inns and 
 public-houses have been introduced; the home life 
 has developed freer than before of disease and care, 
 and outside games, so favourable to healthy life, 
 have become the order of the day. In a word, as 
 advocates for the abolition of disease — as earnest 
 as a Wilberforce or a Clarkson could ever have been 
 for the abolition of slavery — the sanitarians have 
 seen nothing that gave so grand an impulse to the 
 health movement as the cycling crusade, which, with 
 some drawbacks of a slight kind, all removable, is 
 one of the leading features of the century.* 
 
 * There are two notes I would like to make on this subject of 
 cycling. (1) It has been insisted upon by many persons that the 
 construction of the cycle was the result of a French discovery. We 
 must admit that the French people have very greatly improved 
 cycling by the invention of the pedal movement, but the origin is 
 unquestionably English. In the first year of the Victorian era 
 
248 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 As one of the physicians to the Royal Infirmary 
 for Diseases of the Chest it was impossible not to 
 see the most serious and singular variations from 
 healthy function induced by occupation. This was 
 so obvious a fact that I began to draw up records of 
 disease brought about by the labours pursued, and 
 under the title of " Life and Labour " I published 
 in 1859 a special essay, in the Sanitary Review, 
 which attracted considerable attention and conten- 
 tion, and which made a distinct call on my time, 
 although I gained my object of benefiting working 
 people. The subject came before the Council of 
 the Society of Arts, and afterwards I was engaged 
 by that body to deliver a course of lectures on 
 " Occupations in Relation to Health and Disease." 
 In that course I save a table in which it was shown 
 
 o 
 
 1837-8, I was taken as a boy to see a cycle that was in frequent 
 use in the town of Leicester. This cycle was made entirely of 
 wood, was constructed by two brothers who rode it together, 
 and was worked on the principle of the lathe. It did its work 
 uncommonly well, and the brothers were able to accomplish on it 
 many miles an hour upon a good road. The late Mr. George 
 Oruikshank, the famous artist, whom I knew for many years, told 
 me that he recalled the hobby-horse, a machine ridden and propelled 
 by the action of the foot, which he depicted with great skill, drawing 
 comic pictures that greatly amused the people but did no more. 
 The machine seen at Leicester was called the velocipede, and it, 
 together with the hobby-horse, formed the germ of the machine 
 now so universally employed. 
 
 (2) In speaking of the invention of the modern cycle it is but 
 fair to give due credit to Mr. John Browning, F.R.A.S., for having 
 shown the fallacy of using large wheels, and for introducing the small 
 wheels now so general among the cyclist fraternity. 
 
EFFORTS TOWARDS THE EXTINCTION OF DISEASE. 249 
 
 that there were in England and Wales people of 
 seventy occupations, and that their lives respectively 
 could he estimated with fair precision, clergymen — 
 with the exception of Catholic priests — standing at 
 the top of the vital scale, and persons connected with 
 the sale of intoxicating liquors at the hottom. 
 
 In expounding these natural lessons I was greatly 
 aided by the late eminent Dr. William Parr, P. U.S., 
 Superintendent of the Registrar- General's Office. 
 He was so deeply interested in them that he made 
 the subject a part of his annual report and wrote a 
 summary of it, which I ultimately published in a 
 widespread manual of health, written at the request 
 of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 
 entitled Health and Occupation, having previously 
 published the complete lectures in the Journal of 
 the Society of Arts. In preparing the details a sum 
 of fifty pounds was supplied to me through the 
 Society by the late Bernard Shaw, Esq., which sum 
 enabled me to visit the Potteries in Staffordshire and 
 other seats of labour in order to gather the facts 
 from the veritable centres in which they could be 
 witnessed. It was a great opportunity for a 
 sanitarian, living in a country of trade, to have. The 
 field of observation was fertile, and I have many 
 times deeply regretted I had not the means at 
 command to publish all my investigations in a 
 separate and utilisable form as portions of the life- 
 history of England in the century that is fading 
 away. 
 
250 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 The subject altogether came into mind in the 
 middle of the century, and I named it to Dr. Earr 
 while I was resident in Mortlake, indeed called 
 upon him in regard to it. He was most kind and 
 courteous, and promised, while encouraging me to 
 proceed on my own account, to give me every 
 assistance in his power, and to introduce the matter 
 into his own papers and reports as he saw the 
 opportunity. He was faithful to both promises, for 
 which I warmly pay tribute to his memory. I 
 ought also to remember the encouragement I met 
 with from Sir Richard Owen, Dr. A. Parkes, Sir 
 Edwin Chadwick, Mr. Bernard Shaw, Lieutenant- 
 Colonel Wilmot, Sir John Forbes, and many other 
 friends who received and assisted me during my 
 researches. 
 
 Few of my cotemporaries have presided over so 
 many meetings as I have, and one Society alone has 
 elected me annually for thirty-eight consecutive 
 years. It has also been my duty to deliver an 
 immense number of lectures in the educational 
 centres of the United Kingdom. Both sets of tasks 
 were severe tasks, however honourable they may have 
 been, but I have not shrunk from them, because 
 they gave me the happiest possible opportunities of 
 teaching publicly the lessons I wished at the time 
 to inculcate, and on sanitary subjects they have been 
 the best openings for instruction I could avail 
 myself of. Reference has already been made to some 
 
EFFORTS TOWARDS THE EXTINCTION OF DISEASE. 251 
 
 of these opportunities, but many others occurred 
 in which an endeavour was made to carry out 
 sanitary work. At the Sanitary Institute I once 
 delivered an address as a rider to that on the Model 
 City, in which an effort was made to describe, not 
 a town alone, but a country of health. 
 
 The conditions under which health may be 
 maintained amongst the masses were carefully 
 depicted. The people were delineated ; their policy 
 was defined; their various games and occupations 
 were pointed out, and taking the country as a whole, 
 it was compared to a vast garden, that might be made, 
 if it be not presumptuous to say so, into an ideal 
 paradise. It is a great temptation to publish in full 
 in this place an account of this sanitary ideal ; to 
 show how no artificial lights were required because 
 the people lived by the sun as well as with it, and 
 were thus possessed of an electrical light, the like of 
 which no man has ever invented and never will. It 
 is a temptation to recur to the ideal people and 
 to that nervous system of theirs which took in the 
 outer universe ; was stirred by its vibrations ; slept as 
 they slept, and found its natural times for work 
 and for rest, the whole lying down like one vast 
 living world to enter oblivion and to wake from it 
 filled with another spell of life, ready and happy to 
 greet another day. But I must not linger on a 
 retrospection, however delightful. It did not fail 
 to stir the sanitary world, but had, I regret to say, 
 too brief an influence. 
 
252 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 In another address to the Sanitary Institute, 1883, 
 I took up the subject of happiness, individual and 
 general. The address was entitled " Felicity as a 
 Sanitary Research," and was intended to show that 
 the only perfect condition for felicity was good 
 health, which could only come through sanitary 
 efforts. Some patient, as unhappy in mind as in 
 body, had written to me telling me she had been 
 informed that I had a medicine which not only 
 relieved physical symptoms, but also brought about 
 a state of mental serenity that meant a continued 
 happiness. Would I send her a prescription for the 
 same ? Alas ! I had no such prescription to send, 
 but the request set me thinking out what were the 
 terms or characters that would answer, not for one 
 individual, .but for all, and in the address delivered 
 I endeavoured to write and speak them, not 
 altogether without success. I urged that the 
 tendency to felicity or its opposite is planted in 
 childhood. The parent, the schoolmaster, the school- 
 mistress, hold the book, not of learning simply, but 
 of Fate. To the imitative mind of the young, 
 absorbing all that its senses can carry to it and 
 that the nervous centres can retain, the character of 
 the presiding mind, ever present with joy or sorrow, 
 justice or injustice, love or hate, cruelty or mercy, 
 has its influence — is the beginning of the end. 
 I strove also to indicate that in the physiological 
 economy man is endowed with two living natures 
 which distinguish him from the lower creation — the 
 
EFFORTS TOWARDS THE EXTINCTION OF DISEASE. 253 
 
 pure animal and the pure intellectual natures — and 
 that felicity belongs to the animal nature, so that an 
 intellectuality which would separate man from the 
 animal would leave him beyond either felicity or 
 infelicity. Happiness, in fact, is, I held, not an 
 intellectual quality ; it is not centred in the brain. 
 It is not a quality into which a man can think 
 himself, or directly will himself. It is like the 
 beating of his heart and the circulation of his blood, 
 a vital process going on independently of his volition. 
 He can, by rude process, destroy happiness for 
 himself, as he can for others. He can kill it, as he 
 can stop the motion of his blood by stabbing himself 
 to the heart, but still the quality is so independent 
 that he is often made happy by things, acts, and 
 circumstances which his reason scorns. " Why does 
 this fool of a book make me happy ? " said a patient, 
 as he twitched his Pickwick to the foot of his 
 bed. Felicity and infelicity are not intellectual 
 faculties, neither are they passions, neither have 
 they any direct relationship to physical pain. They 
 are the only true emotions, and the centre of the 
 emotional felicity is not in the brain. The centre is 
 in the vital nervous system, in the great ganglia of 
 the sympathetic, lying, not in the cerebro-spinal 
 cavity, but in the body itself, near the stomach 
 and on the heart. We know where the glow that 
 indicates felicity is felt; our poets have described 
 it ever with perfect truthfulness as in the breast, 
 whence it comes as if from a fire kindling there. No 
 
254 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 living being ever felt happy in the head ; everybody 
 who has felt it has felt it as from within the body. 
 We know, again, where the depression of melancholy 
 is located ; our physicians of all times have defined 
 that, and have named the disease of misery from its 
 local seat. The man who is always miserable is a 
 hypochondriac whose affection is seated under the 
 lower ribs. No man ever felt misery in the head. 
 Every man who has felt misery knows that it springs 
 from the body, speaks of it as an exhaustion, a 
 sinking there. He is broken-hearted ; he is failing 
 at the centre of life ; he is bent down because of the 
 central failure, and his own shoulders, too heavy to 
 be borne, feel as if oppressed by an added weight or 
 burden, under which he bends as if all the cares of 
 the world were upon him to bear him down. 
 
 There were, of course, a good many other state- 
 ments in this address, all of which I left with the 
 audience — a Glasgow audience by the way — for its 
 contemplation. They might, perchance, think of it 
 as an enthusiasm. Never mind, so long as they 
 thought of it. The truths I had endeavoured to 
 implant would grow upon them as a study if they 
 once took root. They would strike them in time as 
 the summimi bonum of sanitary labour, a re-echo 
 of the divine declaration " On earth peace, goodwill 
 towards men." 
 
 Apart from the Sanitary Institute, I laboured in 
 many other places and in many other ways on behalf 
 
EFFORTS TOWARDS THE EXTINCTION OF DISEASE. 255 
 
 of Sanitation. One effort — a novel one of its kind — 
 had special reference to the sanitary condition of the 
 Jewish population, in which the late distinguished 
 Chief Rabbi, the Rev. Dr. Adler, though he was far 
 advanced in years, took a lively interest. I com- 
 posed a report on the vitality of the Jewish race, 
 which I read one Sunday afternoon in St. George's 
 Hall to a mixed auditory. The facts narrated 
 surprised no one more than myself, for they showed 
 that in the midst of all their wanderings, dangers, 
 and troubles, the vitality of the Jews remained as 
 the strange feature of the ages, so that their young, 
 even in confined Ghettos, survived very much better 
 than did the young of Christian communities. I 
 wrote another report or essay on the Mosaic Sanitary 
 Code, which I delivered to a large body of English 
 clergy in the Armoury room of St. Paul's Cathedral. 
 I went among the poor Jews of East London on 
 Sundays, witnessed their various ways and works, 
 and delivered to them series of lectures on the 
 health of the people, and particularly on the 
 health of the Jewish people, one of which lectures 
 occupied large space in the leading papers, including 
 the Times. The Jews themselves were gratified 
 by these efforts, and many of them have told me 
 that the endeavours tended largely to change the 
 feeling that was current in respect to them and their 
 habits. Sir Edwin Chad wick himself spoke to me of 
 the attempts, and said he thought they were amongst 
 the best I had put forward, particularly in regard to 
 
256 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 the elucidation of the truth that suicide is much less 
 prevalent in Jewish than in Christian communities. 
 
 In all sanitary teaching it seemed to me to he 
 of first importance to reach, not the wealthier 
 and ruling classes, hut the poorer and most unedu- 
 cated, and I still feel this to he so correct that I 
 visited Manchester within the last two years in order 
 to show the working people that the husiness of 
 sanitation belongs not exclusively, hut rigorously, to 
 them, so that if they would only take it up and 
 lead the way all the country would he converted to 
 sanitary principles. I have observed that well-to- 
 do persons make it a kind of fashion to breed and 
 maintain health. They know that there can be no 
 peace or rest without it, and they like to live and to 
 enjoy life. The poor have no such fashion, and, as 
 they are ignorant of prime principles and disregard- 
 ful of what they do not understand, they are 
 peculiarly situated, want simple explanations, and 
 ask for instructions which the happier and more 
 widely cultivated look upon as common-place. 
 Some think I have gone too far in this direction of 
 instruction, and that I have done wrong by being, as 
 it were, too simple in arguments and persuasions, 
 because I could if I wished say more competent 
 things. I do not for a moment admit this criticism. 
 We must educate the lowly, and that in their own 
 manner. By this process we transform them into 
 powers, so overwhelming in numbers, probably 
 
EFFORTS TOWARDS THE EXTINCTION OF DISEASE. 257 
 
 twenty millions to one million, that when we get them 
 to move in the proper direction everything mnst move 
 with them and every movement must thrive. Poli- 
 tics, learning, nay, religion itself, go, and ever must 
 go, with the masses. We make them hope, and 
 Hope is Health. 
 
 In a more practical way I entered, at various 
 times, into working details and efforts. Upper 
 London was a conception in which I proposed that 
 gardens and pathways should be carried along the 
 housetops of this great city, thereby relieving the 
 traffic and ensuring the means of disposing of the 
 smoke emanating from the fires below. I proposed, 
 too, that the Cathedral of St. Paul's should not be 
 hidden by houses, but that a grand esplanade and 
 gardens should be made from it down to the river, 
 with good streets extending each side of the building 
 and a boulevard at the back of it, so that the 
 cathedral really might be a grand sight for the 
 Londoner by every line of approach. 
 
 One of the best propositions in regard to household 
 health was, I believe, the plan of main drainage 
 which I ventured to suggest. London is said to be 
 drained, and all towns are assumed to be drained, 
 in a fashion. The drainage, however, is inefficient 
 and faulty. My proposition was not to drain a 
 town, but the whole country. It seems to me that 
 the railway system has laid down the levels of all 
 drainage, and that if along the lines of railroads 
 
 17 
 
258 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 sewers with proper interceptions were placed, there 
 is not a house in the kingdom that might not get 
 rid of its sewage at every moment, the sewage being 
 distributed on the land for its own destruction and 
 the land's nutrition. In regard to London the late 
 Colonel Hayward, who designed the Holborn 
 Viaduct, computed for me that the metropolis in 
 ten years could be completely drained on the main 
 drainage plan named. The drainage of England 
 would be universal and perfect, and the products 
 derived as sewage might all be restored to the land 
 so as to fertilise it and to let nothing whatever be 
 lost that could be applied to correct fertilisation. 
 
 There was something else added to this scheme 
 which met another serious and not infrequent 
 difficulty. If we could convey sewage from towns 
 on one side of a railway we could equally well 
 convey water into towns on the other side of the 
 line, and this to any distance, so that there could 
 never be a water famine anywhere. Our great lakes 
 in country districts might be directly the reservoirs 
 of water for the whole of the country, and we might 
 receive water from "Wales, or any other good district, 
 in London just as easily as we receive passengers 
 who come by train from the same districts. In 
 short, were these two plans — for sewage and water 
 — correctly followed out, with the addition of 
 the necessary well-known engineering appliances, 
 England would become altogether the best sanitary 
 
EFFORTS TOWARDS THE EXTINCTION OF DISEASE. 259 
 
 centre in the range of civilisation. We should get 
 all we wanted removed from towns and cities and 
 utilised for fertilisation ; and we should get into 
 towns and cities the water we require, in abundant 
 supply, while the two systems would be at every 
 moment in working order. 
 
 On the political side of sanitation the practical 
 opportunities afforded me have not been so wide as 
 could have been wished, though I have not been idle 
 politically. When Medical Officers of Health were 
 first introduced I did my best to point out what 
 the duties of such officers would be, and wrote a 
 communication on " The Sanitary Police of London," 
 which bore upon those duties. I also wrote an 
 essay on " The Thames Water Supply," and at 
 Stafford gave an address in 1878 on " The Election 
 of a Minister of Health; " on the departments over 
 which such an officer would have to preside, and on 
 the political and social position he would have to 
 occupy. His position, I argued, should be of the 
 first quality socially, but it should also be a firm 
 position, not changing with change of party, as is 
 usual in the case, since a true Minister of State — 
 in the matter of health — cannot possibly learn his 
 business in the brief period of a ministerial term 
 of office. His duties are fixed by nature, or ought 
 to be, uninfluenced by party feeling, and should, 
 at all times, be progressive under the guidance of 
 pure science. 
 
260 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 In local politics it was my lot to take a share of 
 work for a long series of years as a member of the 
 large Vestry of this parish, St. Marylebone. We 
 were not mature in the matter of sanitation, but 
 were, during the whole time, fortunate in the way the 
 Medical Officers of Health discharged their important 
 duties. Our first Medical Officer was Dr. Dundas 
 Thomson, nephew of the well-known professor of 
 the Glasgow University, Dr. Thomas Thomson, 
 whose published works helped to create a new era 
 in science. He was followed by Dr. Whitmore, 
 who entered under unfavourable impressions as to 
 his position and scientific quality, but who turned 
 out to be an admirable officer. Amongst my own 
 efforts in the Vestry I recall one which I still 
 hope to see practically accomplished — the local 
 parochial establishment of workshops, or working 
 offices for the poor. I had been attending, from one 
 of the dispensaries, the children of a poor tailor, 
 who were suffering from scarlet fever. The tailor 
 made his living wearily by the production of 
 riding habits, for which he received from his 
 master lengths of rich and warm cloth. The 
 weather was cold, and on the beds of the stricken 
 children I found spread out over their bodies pieces 
 of the cloth, as though it were sent to make 
 blankets, not riding habits. Of course the cloth 
 was infected, and as it went out as a garment, or 
 garments, it became a poison-bearer to the persons 
 who wore it. It was a trap of disease. The tailor 
 
EFFORTS TOWARDS THE EXTINCTION OF DISEASE. 261 
 
 had nowhere else to work than in his own rooms, 
 and he could not help what was occurring; he 
 was a good tailor and a steady man. I witnessed 
 many cases of the same nature, but what was 
 to be done ? Without giving names I put 
 the facts before the Vestry, with the suggestion 
 that we, as a public body, should erect in parts 
 of the parish a number of small buildings included 
 in a court, which should only be occupied by 
 men during worktime. A tailor should have a 
 shop for work, a shoemaker one, and so on. 
 Each man should pay for the shop a modest sum 
 per week, and, under the supervision of special 
 inspectors, should have entire possession ; but he 
 should never live there nor entertain there any 
 members of his family, who would reside in his 
 living-house or lodgings, and to his shop he should 
 go as a lawyer might go to his chambers. There 
 still was slight danger of his conveying contagion 
 indirectly, but the shop was a wide improvement and 
 tended to bring contagious disease within bounds, 
 and, under good management, the workmen's court 
 or yard would be at all times well ventilated 
 and clean. To the people, this proposition was 
 most acceptable, and many men applied to me, 
 asking when the plan was about to commence and 
 where the places for work could be secured. By 
 the Vestry it was not so well received. It appealed 
 to many minds favourably and secured a great 
 amount of support, yet on being put forward in 
 
262 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 the way of a resolution it was lost, and has never 
 since been repeated. 
 
 A trouble sometimes arose in our local administra- 
 tion, having reference to the outbreak of epidemics 
 and the mode of dealing with the infectious sick. 
 We occasionally dealt with the question by the 
 process of erecting some temporary house or hospital 
 in which the afflicted could be isolated and 
 separately treated for the occasion, the hospitals 
 being cleared away when the epidemic was over. 
 All parishes, as well as our own, are liable to the 
 same anxiety; and my suggested mode of meeting 
 the difficulty was that, throughout a parish, there 
 should be erected on the top of some particular 
 house or houses specially constructed permanent 
 iron hospitals, into which the patients, children or 
 grown-up persons, could be raised, housed, and 
 treated. We are inclined to put patients in private 
 houses in the upper rooms, and have at times, in 
 large houses, quite a series of hospitals indirectly 
 connected with the private dwellings of the inhabi- 
 tants, and we find it as good a plan as can, under 
 the circumstances, be adopted. By my own plan 
 there would be the most marked improvements. 
 The affected persons would be carried up in a lift 
 into the new hospital without coming into contact 
 with anyone except nurse and attendant ; they 
 would be carefully housed; they would be com- 
 pletely isolated, and would have all the advantages 
 
EFFORTS TOWARDS THE EXTINCTION OF DISEASE. 263 
 
 of fresh air and separation from the rest of the 
 world. There would he great advantages, too, in 
 the construction of the hospital and in its purifica- 
 tion. I proposed that each of the hospitals should 
 have distinct wards, and a plan of ventilation so 
 arranged that the air of all of them, admitted from 
 below, should he drawn through a furnace at the 
 top, in which infective matter could be destroyed 
 by passing through fire. The method attracted so 
 much attention amongst the working-classes that 
 an enthusiastic workman constructed a model in 
 iron work, presented it to me, and allowed me to 
 exhibit it. It had all the properties I have just 
 related, and it could be completely purified in parts 
 or in the whole by the one grand purifier — fire. 
 
 It never was obvious why this simple idea has 
 not been carried out. It has been known for 
 years, and, if acted upon, could have saved an 
 immense amount of disease and death at the most 
 trifling comparative expense. One parish could 
 have communicated or corresponded with others, 
 so that all the epidemic sick of a town could at any 
 moment have been properly treated under the 
 direction of the constituted medical authorities, 
 including the medical officers of health ; while vans 
 and ambulances would have been abolished, to the 
 immense benefit of the diseased as well as healthy. 
 
 Touching the question of hospitals generally my 
 experience, which has chanced to be very extreme in 
 
264 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 regard to them, is here dwelt upon. It has always 
 seemed to me improper to favour large hospitals 
 as if they were storages of disease; and with what 
 are called the out-patients' departments nothing 
 satisfactory has ever been fair or promising. It is 
 absurd for one man to sit continuously looking at 
 people, feeling pulses, and prescribing medicines for 
 hours together, getting a poor return, at best, for his 
 services, either in experience or money, and keeping 
 out of employment an army of his fellow-practi- 
 tioners, who are obliged to wait and starve. It has 
 always appeared to me that small hospitals and 
 efficient staffs are correct principles ; and I 
 ventured to propose — in which proposition I was 
 warmly supported by the late Dr. William Parr — 
 that when the great St. Thomas's Hospital, on the 
 site of which we mutually reported, was being 
 sought out, it would be best not to erect one huge 
 building, but to divide it into a dozen at least, and 
 spread them out as St. Thomas's Hospitals all over 
 the metropolis, with a central school altogether 
 apart. The local practitioners of every district could 
 thus be the members of the medical and surgical 
 staff ; every practitioner might share in the experi- 
 ence, and every student might see and learn all 
 forms of practice and art that might be obtainable. 
 
 These suggestions applied only to the poorer 
 population. For the wealthier I assume that it 
 would be advisable to have numbers of small, 
 
EFFORTS TOWARDS THE EXTINCTION OF DISEASE. 265 
 
 properly constructed, and properly furnished sick 
 houses, to which everyone out of health could 
 retire ; have his own doctor, nurse, and friends, and 
 have every facility for getting well at instant com- 
 mand. This, beyond dispute, would be the best for 
 the sick person, and infinitely best for the family, 
 the members of which would be free of immediate 
 danger, and would be saved the most painful remem- 
 brances, the constant sight of rooms in which the 
 sick persons were tended when ill, and sometimes 
 died. 
 
 In promoting sanitary reforms I have always 
 been greatly opposed. to everything that savoured 
 of compulsion. You cannot, in treating disease, 
 successfully save a life by force; and I never saw 
 the slightest difficulty in carrying out vaccination 
 until the magistrate and policeman were called into 
 requisition as aids to the skill and persuasion of the 
 doctor, I have vaccinated a whole village when 
 smallpox was prevalent and threatening, without a 
 repulse ; and once, when smallpox broke out in a 
 large establishment of working men, I took a course 
 that was eminently successful. No force was put on 
 at all : but I called together the men ; explained to 
 them in a body the assumed benefits arising from 
 vaccination ; in their presence vaccinated myself ; 
 afterwards repeated the process on the chairman; 
 and then said that the vaccination officer would 
 appear at a certain time, and would be ready to 
 
266 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 vaccinate, without the slightest compulsion, anyone 
 who would ask him, and that he would charge 
 nothing for the service rendered, because we, the 
 governing body, would meet that demand. The 
 effect was instantaneous ; the vaccinator did not 
 meet with a single objection ; and I am of opinion — 
 though I admit possible error of opinion — that the 
 spread of the malady was promptly arrested. At all 
 events we heard no more about it. 
 
 At the London Institution, and other places of a 
 similar kind, I lectured on the question of dress for 
 both sexes. I spoke as freely as I could against 
 black dress as mourning dress ; showed how the 
 custom injured health and was a false indicator of 
 true grief; called for substitution of some much 
 simpler device, such as a band on the arm, if any 
 device were necessary, and was not injurious by 
 the effect it had on the mind. I also supported 
 the improvements in plan of attire for the female 
 sex, so as to give it that freedom of movement 
 possessed by man, Avhich has helped to make man 
 definitely a master in creation. He would pro- 
 bably have been no stronger than woman had his 
 limbs been as uncomfortably impeded. The English 
 nation could never have existed if the fashion had 
 been to bandage the feet like those of a Chinese 
 female child. 
 
 The years 1862-3 were years of great activity 
 from a sanitary point of view, and the Social 
 
EFFORTS TOWARDS THE EXTINCTION OF DISEASE. 267 
 
 Science Hevieiv, which. I then edited and brought 
 out in weekly parts, teems with articles of various 
 kinds in relation to work and overwork, food and 
 feeding, the taking of animal life, and the manage- 
 ment of abattoirs and bakehouses. The great 
 American War was at this time occupying all 
 thoughts and suggesting the most comprehensive 
 lessons. Ladies as well as gentlemen were taking 
 the most active part in everything that related to 
 the health of the people. The Ladies' Sanitary 
 Association had been formed and was doing its 
 best to introduce education in sanitation amongst 
 the masses. A school was formed, and the lectures 
 Avere largely attended by ladies. I was elected as 
 chairman of a lecture faculty. Professor John 
 Marshall, F.R.S., lectured on anatomy and physio- 
 logy ; Dr. Albert Bernays on chemistry ; Dr. 
 Spencer Cobbold, F.R.S., and afterwards Dr. Francis 
 Webb, F.S.A., on natural history ; I myself taking 
 public health. One lecture which I gave on " Work 
 and Overwork " on July 13th, 1863, was so much 
 liked I was asked to publish it in full, which I did in 
 the Social Science Heview of July 18th of the same 
 year. The late Dr. Lankester was in the chair, 
 and the case of a Miss Walkley who died from 
 overwork in a fashionable milliner's house about 
 that time was the talk of everybody and excited 
 many wealthy ladies to determine that they would 
 spend no money in support of ill-conducted 
 milliners' establishments. 
 
268 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 Bakehouses and modes of making bread came 
 particularly under notice. Dr. Dauglish, a few 
 years before (1856), had got out his patent of an 
 invention of a new method for making bread, and 
 the Society of Arts had awarded to him their silver 
 medal. He was a comparatively young man, for he 
 died in the forty- second year of his life, on January 
 14th, 1856. Dauglish had set us all astir by 
 introducing the method of raising bread by aeration, 
 or introduction of carbonic acid gas by machinery, 
 instead of by yeast and fermentation of flour. He 
 immensely shortened the process of bread-making 
 and had rendered it delightfully cleanly. Our eyes 
 were thus opened to the condition of bakehouses 
 and the manner in which they were kept. To me 
 the subject was most engrossing, and for months I 
 wandered London two or three times a week during 
 night hours in order to see in what manner bread 
 was manufactured. It was an astounding sight 
 to behold. Flour in the shape of dough was not 
 only kneaded, it was " treaded." The unfortunate 
 bakers were subjected to the severest labour, and 
 nothing but the intense heat derived from the 
 ovens kept the consumers of bread from suffering 
 even worse penalties. I felt it a duty to back 
 up the aerated method, and on every occasion to 
 expound the errors that were common, so that 
 in the end I was invited to take a part in 
 the work of the Aerated Bread Company, which I 
 have maintained as zealously as possible up to the 
 
EFFORTS TOWARDS THE EXTINCTION OF DISEASE. 269 
 
 present hour ; reporting on its methods ; portraying 
 the life of Dauglish himself, and of others who 
 worked cotemporarily with him, and never failing 
 to suggest such improvements as might occur to me. 
 I think this has been a true sanitary labour, and 
 though I do not pretend that every advance in the 
 manufacture of the staff of life has been perfected, 
 or that improvements have been so widely sown all 
 over the country as are desirable, I am quite sure 
 that in the past thirty-six years we have reaped 
 much health from what has been successfully 
 accomplished. 
 
 It has not been in the manufacture of bread 
 alone that I have laboured as a food sanitarian. 
 For many years we have debated the question 
 of animal food and its preparation for our tables. 
 If bakehouses required to be corrected, private 
 slaughterhouses demanded no less consideration, 
 and every opportunity I had for their inspection I 
 made use of. Prom the manner in which I have 
 opposed the slaughter of animals it has been widely 
 spread that I am a vegetarian, and it is quite true 
 that I lean strongly towards the vegetarian move- 
 ment. I have not, however, become a strict vege- 
 tarian, but have rather busied myself in showing 
 how animals can be painlessly killed and carefully 
 cleansed for the meat-market. I have also introduced, 
 as I shall show further on, the idea that as all 
 carnivorous animals live on herbivorous, it may be 
 quite possible, without employing the intermediate 
 
270 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 carnivorous body, to produce in the laboratory, 
 direct from the vegetable world, substance for food 
 that shall have all the qualities of animal food. 
 In the laboratory, working under this thought, I 
 have striven to effect the transformation, and have 
 more than once brought the subject before the 
 Society of Arts and the learned world. 
 
 Ten or twelve years ago I made another move- 
 ment here in regard to animal food and sanitary 
 development. I established the London Model 
 Abattoir Society, and have ever since remained 
 its president. The objects of this Society have been 
 to encourage every town to build its own abattoir ; 
 to open the eyes of the public to every method 
 of slaughter and preparation of animals for food ; 
 to encourage every improvement that can be sug- 
 gested ; to bring into the slaughterhouse and 
 convey away from it animal bodies in their most 
 healthy state, and to teach on the broadest scale 
 whatever favours economy, sanitation, and civilisa- 
 tion. We are still working at all these projects. 
 
 Not to mention several other subjects of a sani- 
 tary kind, I cannot pass over one other proposition 
 which I trust will some day be carried out. I mean 
 the establishment all over the kingdom of residential 
 homes in which those who are suffering from chronic 
 affections, or recovering from acute ones, can be 
 healthily and systematically lodged. 
 
 I once lived for some months with my family 
 
EFFORTS TOWARDS THE EXTINCTION OF DISEASE. 271 
 
 (Lady Richardson, our two sons, and daughter) in 
 what we were pleased to call " our castle in the air." 
 We were on the edge of a large plain which had as 
 wonderful a history as any place in our island ; and 
 we were in mid-air, for we rested ahove all other 
 residences near. Prom one window, at which I 
 wrote, we could see, when the air was clear, a place 
 as high as we were at a distance of fifty miles. 
 
 I could fill many pages with reminiscences of life 
 and events on the delightful common in which our 
 temporary home stood, and of the history of the 
 explorations we made, hut I must be content with 
 the chief result that a sanitarian might arrive at. 
 We were surrounded by what are called Roman 
 Camps, and my observations were chiefly directed 
 to them, and led me to infer that in England we 
 possess many hundred centres that ought to be 
 utilised for our sick men and women, and might 
 become, in truth, winter and summer Palaces of 
 Health with advantages of the best kind for those 
 who should supply the means for fitting them up ; 
 for the landlord who should hold them as property, 
 and for the well-being of those who would occupy 
 them and find them beautiful sanitary homes. 
 
 It is constantly the puzzle of the English 
 physician to find out what is to be done with those 
 who confide themselves to his care. He thinks 
 what a good thing it would be if such and such a 
 patient could for a time reap the benefits of an 
 Italian climate. As a supplementary means of 
 
272 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 health, or even as a change from one pleasant scene 
 to another, we should be rendering an important 
 service. To thousands of invalids who are anxious 
 for a warm winter residence, and who require such 
 residence, there stands in the way the absolute 
 impossibility of going to it so long as it is abroad. 
 One cannot afford the expenses of the journey. A 
 second has an objection to cross the sea. A third 
 has friends whom it is not advisable or not possible 
 to leave. A fourth is really too ill to undertake a 
 journey to the south of Prance or other spot equally 
 distant. A fifth has been abroad and has not been 
 benefited by the change, or has received a doubtful 
 advantage with so many discomforts or dislikes 
 that return to the same is not palatable. A sixth 
 does not like to be removed from the care of friends 
 to whom he or she is accustomed, or from medical 
 advisers who have inspired particular confidence. 
 Lastly, many require to be at home in order to 
 secure, as suitable for their particular case, certain 
 aids and appliances which may not be continuously 
 obtainable in a foreign place. 
 
 Supposing a hundred Mentones or other similar 
 places were in existence, and were all well-filled, 
 there would remain still an enormous population 
 which would be glad to avail itself of the 
 advantages derivable from residence in the ideal 
 health-spots which I am about to describe. 
 
 I have thought of these changes as connected 
 with English towns and watering-places, and in 
 
EFFORTS TOWARDS THE EXTINCTION OF DISEASE. 273 
 
 the Medical Times of March 15th, 1875, I wrote 
 about Bath specially as such a resort and a good 
 starting-point ; but at the moment of which I write 
 I was attracted by these Roman Camps, which have 
 led me to the conviction that by utilising the camps 
 we could send the sick to places of an elevated 
 position where the air is light, bracing, and dry. 
 These I should call camps of health on high levels. 
 
 In a great number of places in these islands 
 there exists on the highest ground — with the most 
 magnificent vieAvs, extending in some instances to 
 fifty miles of the surrounding country — the elevated 
 site in which was the Castra Stativa, or pitched 
 camp of the Roman legions during the Roman 
 occupation of Britain. 
 
 Whether these camps were of Roman construction, 
 or whether they existed before the Roman conquest 
 and were merely seized upon and adapted by the 
 conquerors, does not call for notice here. I am 
 dealing simply with the sites as they now are for 
 the purpose of indicating to what a grand use they 
 might be applied. 
 
 These sites are centres of health. With excellent 
 judgment, in many of them a pine wood is planted 
 at the south-west point, by which the prevailing 
 wind of these islands is tempered to the camp, 
 and by which the odorous air from the pine trees 
 is wafted over it for more than two hundred days 
 of each year. 
 
 The encampment is a square more or less perfect, 
 
 18 
 
274 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 including within its embankments eighty to a 
 hundred acres of land. In some which I have 
 measured, the distance round, on the top of the 
 embankment, is two thousand yards, broken in two 
 or four places by the gateways or wide entrances. 
 The centre of the ground enclosed by the embank- 
 ment is in some cases raised ; in others, owing to the 
 excavations which have been made, the surface is 
 irregular or even depressed in the centre. 
 
 Outside the entrenchment there are commonly 
 two ramparts, broad and well-laid ; and from the 
 surrounding country there is a road, more or less 
 j>erfect, leading up the ascent to one at least of the 
 grand entrances. ' Few men have climbed more of 
 these ascents than I. I have climbed them at all 
 seasons, and I know no spots more invigorating. 
 The air at the summit is usually light, clear, and 
 bracing, even in warm weather; dry and bracing 
 cold weather, so that one is almost led to believe in 
 that the great engineers who selected these eleva- 
 tions had the health of the camp before them as the 
 prime consideration. 
 
 Some of these camps are placed by the sea, so as 
 to command a grand sea view, as at Cissbury Camp, 
 near Worthing, in Sussex, or at Cadbury Camp, near 
 Clevedon, in Somerset. Others are on the high lands 
 inland, as in the Cots wold range. 
 
 Wherever they may be — and this is the point I 
 wish to dwell upon — they are sites for camps of 
 health within our own British territory. Utilised 
 
EFFORTS TOWARDS THE EXTINCTION OF DISEASE. 275 
 
 properly for health, there would be no necessity to 
 send our sick people, who would be benefited by 
 pure air at a considerable altitude, from their native 
 soil. In the strangest manner, these camps are 
 already constructed for the purpose we require. 
 They may remain just the historical mounds they 
 once were, and yet serve the purposes of health as 
 they once served the purposes of war, serving, 
 indeed, still for war — the war against disease and 
 on behalf of health. 
 
 After visiting one of these encampments, I once 
 had a sanitary vision of a health-camp stretched out 
 before me. Looking down the line of the encamp- 
 ment leading to the plain or valley below, I saw 
 two ramparts repaired and relaid. Each one of 
 these had a road twenty feet wide, level, hard, 
 and smooth as a Roman road ought to be, over 
 which a carriage could run almost noiselessly. I 
 saw also broad roads from the gateways of the 
 camp, at right angles to the higher rampart 
 joining that with the lower rampart. The upper 
 rampart road was two miles round, the lower three 
 at least. Erom each gate of the camp, the roads 
 descended into the valley, and connected the camp 
 with the highways and bye-ways leading to the towns 
 and villages of the surrounding country. Outside 
 the great mound the work of the Roman engineers 
 had been so well imitated and matched, that Csesar 
 himself, or his follower, the architectural Emperor 
 Hadrian, might have said, " Well done ! " On the 
 
276 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 new ramparts my invalid friends were taking their 
 evening drives, or were sitting about on the western 
 side watching the sunset over the sea. 
 
 Turning from the outside to the central part of 
 the camp, I saw in the centre, where, perchance, 
 once stood the Roman Pharos, a beacon or watch- 
 tower still, but of a newer order. In time, as 
 night brings the darkness, there would stream out 
 from above that modern Pharos, not the beacon-fire of 
 the Caesars, but an electric sun, which would fill the 
 whole place with its light. 
 
 Below the beacon I saw also, standing out ready 
 for work, the telescope of the observatory which 
 might show through the night the homes of those 
 star-gods whom the Romans worshipped. Then, 
 looking anew, I imagined the whole camp as a 
 palace of health, pavilion and pavilion spread out 
 fan-shaped from the centre, homes of the sick with 
 gardens of beauty; a palace of health, provided 
 with every art that can tend to bring conditions 
 in which health shall be regained and death 
 defied. 
 
 In England alone I could find twenty, at least, 
 now useless encampments ready, under a few months 
 of skilful preparation, to meet, without a touch 
 of historical injury, this great want of our people, 
 
 MOUNTAIN AIR IN CAMPS OF HEALTH. In these 
 
 camps, by boring, water would be found in abundant 
 quantity ; from them all that is dangerous could be 
 drained away with a facility unexampled. In the 
 
EFFORTS TOWARDS THE EXTINCTION OF DISEASE. 277 
 
 valleys, and on the hill-sides around, farms and 
 industries would spring up to minister to all wants, 
 and what is practically now a desert would soon 
 become a centre of fruitful vitality. 
 
 In these suggestions I have referred to England 
 alone, hut it would he as unfair as impolitic to leave 
 out of consideration the sister countries. Scotland, 
 especially on her western side, offers the most 
 magnificent scope for palaces and camps of health. 
 It is sinful, indeed, to think that such healthful 
 beauty as Scotland affords should remain unutilised. 
 The same applies with equal force to portions of 
 Wales. 
 
 Ireland too has her sites for palaces of health, 
 sites unique in excellence. I remember a valley in 
 Donegal which appeals to me as made for the very 
 purpose. It is like a basin of land, foliage, and 
 pasture, filled to the brim with purest light and 
 brightest, lightest air. Whilst, in the glorious 
 south of Ireland is Grlengariff, where, with little 
 more of art than Nature herself affords, a series of 
 winter homes, unrivalled in any part of the world, 
 wait only for patriotic skill to tempt visitors from 
 all lands. 
 
 In such a time as this, when nothing but political 
 wrangle is heard high and low, when party is 
 tearing party to pieces, until the body politic is as 
 bare, uncomely, and savage as a moulting eagle, are 
 there none who will help to create a wholesome 
 diversion by inaugurating a new era of national 
 
278 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 progress, in palaces and camps of health on native 
 soil ? 
 
 En resume, in all sanitary work and teaching it 
 was my object to hold up Cleanliness as the right 
 hand of Health, and I did not care in how humble 
 a way I could teach Cleanliness either to men or 
 to women. I invented the metal dustbin now so 
 popular, and for a time allowed it to be used under 
 my name that it might be widely introduced. I 
 taught the female sex that the members of it must 
 be, one and all, sanitary reformers, and that there 
 was no place in the household that required to be 
 so clean and embellished as that secluded spot 
 known as the water-closet. In fact, nothing that 
 was conducive to health was to let anything else 
 stand before it. " Sanitas Sanitatis," as one of our 
 statesmen once said, stands above " Vanitas Vani- 
 tatis," and deserves a regard as sincere as its rival 
 deserves condemnation. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE MASTERY OF PAIN. RESEARCHES IN 
 ANAESTHESIA, LOCAL AND GENERAL. 
 
 IT has been shown that in my earliest 
 professional life — student's life — the tre- 
 mendous subject which called for the 
 attention of the medical mind the world over was 
 that of Anaesthesia. To be able at will to master 
 pain, and to inflict acute suffering, as it would have 
 been inflicted, without causing sensation, was con- 
 sidered by many to be a modern miracle, and some 
 of us were immediately absorbed in the investigation 
 of it. I was one of the first of these, and for a 
 good half-century it has never gone out of my 
 mind or out of my work. 
 
 The first examples of the phenomena of anaesthesia 
 were presented in the operating theatre, but further 
 extension succeeded. Dr. Andrew Buchanan of 
 Glasgow began to invent a new instrument for 
 inhalation of ether which arrested our notice, and 
 although it did not succeed as it ought to have done, 
 it was sufficient to lead us all to think. It was an 
 attempt to apply the principle of Wolff's bottle to 
 
 279 
 
2R0 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 the administration of ether by inhalation, and it has 
 since been, as improved upon, largely employed. I 
 soon, on my own investigation, went to work at a 
 new mouthpiece for inhalation, and constructed what 
 has been since known as the double-valved inhaler. 
 A hard material, strong leather, was moulded to 
 the mouth and chin, and a valve was attached 
 to it at its lower part, which opened towards the 
 mouth of the patient. At the top section of the 
 mouthpiece another valve was placed, which opened 
 from the patient and let out the expired air. Thus, 
 when the vapour was drawn in by the patient, the 
 lower valve was opened, the upper one closed, and 
 when the breath was breathed out the vapour was 
 shut off, while the breath found a ready exit. I have 
 the remnants of this mouthpiece still preserved, 
 and, although by frequent lendings of it to medical 
 meetings and conversaziones it has somewhat lost 
 its pristine appearance, it survives still to indicate 
 the original design. The mouthpiece was made for 
 me by a shoemaker named Taylor of Barrowden, 
 Rutlandshire, and was first used by me while my 
 cousin, Mr. Henry Swann of that place — a very 
 accomplished surgeon — amputated the second finger 
 of a man suffering from erysipelas, in the village 
 of North Luffenham. The instrument answered 
 well, but the tube running from it to the ether 
 bottle was too narrow, and it was not agreeably 
 adaptable to the mouth. A little later on I showed 
 it in action to Dr. John Snow; he added a larger 
 
THE MASTERY OF PAIN. 281 
 
 tube, a tube as wide as tke windpipe, and be also 
 added a turbine and some otlier useful details. It 
 was tben taken up by anotber friend, tbe late Dr. 
 Francis Sibson, and immensely improved on. Sibson 
 saw at once its failure in adaptability, and for tke 
 hard leather substituted thin lead. The change 
 gave rise to the Sibson Inhaler with Snow's tube, 
 and was adapted by Snow to his bottle or flask 
 which held the narcotic fluid. 
 
 While improvements in mode of administration 
 were going on, a great change took place in the 
 substitution of chloroform for ether, chloroform 
 acquiring reputation and soon taking first place. 
 To Dr., afterwards Sir James, Simpson, the introduc- 
 tion of chloroform has usually been ascribed, and 
 there can be no doubt that from his description and 
 use of it it gained its important place. Simpson, 
 however, was neither the discoverer nor the original 
 introducer of chloroform. In the year 1831, Mr. 
 Guthrie, an American chemist, distilled together 
 chloride of lime and alcohol, by which what he called 
 chloric ether was obtained; soon after Liebig sepa- 
 rated the chloroform and named it chloride of carbon, 
 under the idea that it did not contain hydrogen. 
 This incorrect idea was put right by Dumas, the 
 Erench chemist, who separated chloroform from 
 alcohol, defined it, and gave it the name of chloro- 
 form. Then chloric ether was made methodically 
 by mixing together chloroform and alcohol, and it 
 was this mixture that was first given by inhalation 
 
282 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 after the discovery of anaesthesia by means of 
 nitrous oxide gas, or ether. In the form of chloric 
 ether, chloroform was administered by Dr. Bigelow of 
 Boston, U.S.A., and by Mr. Jacob Bell, the well- 
 known chemist in Oxford Street, London. Dr. 
 Bigelow was not entirely successful, but Mr. Bell 
 was, and under its influence the late Sir William 
 Lawrence, Surgeon to Bartholomew's Hospital, 
 operated successfully with it. 
 
 The agent chloroform which really narcotised 
 was detected as the true anaesthetic by the late 
 Mr. David Waldie, of the Apothecaries' Company, 
 Liverpool, and he stated that in Edinburgh in 
 October 1847 he told the fact of the use of chloric 
 ether to Dr. Simpson, explaining that the substance 
 at work was chloroform and recommending Simpson 
 to try it, promising to make him a specimen for 
 such trial. Meanwhile Dr. Simpson tried chloro- 
 form alone on his own account, and announced the 
 discovery of it to the Medico-Chirurgical Society 
 of Edinburgh in a paper entitled " Notice of a New 
 Angesthetic ilgent as a Substitute for Sulphuric 
 Ether." The paper met with unusual success, and 
 chloroform soon became so universally popular 
 that it entered into general use, and the word 
 itself was actually modified, so that it was said 
 that a man or woman was " chloroformed," and that 
 a specialist in the art of administration was a 
 " chloroformist." 
 
 To Simpson an immense amount of credit is due, 
 
THE MASTERY OF PAIN. 283 
 
 and he was singularly happy in his answer to some 
 theological sophists who urged that pain was a 
 necessity hecause Scripture said, in respect to 
 woman, " In sorrow shalt thou bring forth children." 
 Simpson's reply was that, when God Himself per- 
 formed the first experiment on man by removing one 
 of his ribs, He put man under a deep sleep. But 
 he, Simpson, was really the seventh explorer of 
 anaesthesia, the first, as far as we know, being 
 the great Sir Humphrey Davy, who narcotised with 
 nitrous oxide and suggested its employment in some 
 cases of surgical operation. 
 
 In the course of research chloroform became the 
 distinctive fluid for purposes of anaesthesia, nor did a 
 number of experiments with it by the great physio- 
 logist Mourens, through which its great fatality was 
 shown, in any way seriously disturb its progress. 
 
 It was my good fortune to make an early ac- 
 quaintance with Dr. John Snow. He Avas at first an 
 administrator of ether, but afterwards gave up ether 
 for chloroform on the ground of its convenience, and 
 tried to discover the action of anaesthetics and their 
 composition. I and some others laboured in the 
 same direction, and in a paper entitled " A Synopsis 
 of Anaesthetics," published in the Asclepiad, Vol. II. 
 (1885), have recorded our experiences. I collected 
 all substances known that had narcotic properties 
 and put them to the test, getting quite familiar 
 with every line of procedure. Snow was most 
 energetic in working with "Dutch Liquid" — ethene 
 
284 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 chloride — ethylene, and amylene, and, at last, deter- 
 mining for a while that amylene was the readiest and 
 best, he began to administer it to the human subject. 
 He had not used it three hundred times when 
 unfortunately two deaths occurred from it, and 
 obliged him to give it up and go back to chloroform. 
 These deaths affected him very seriously, and his 
 sudden and early demise may, in some measure, be 
 attributed to their effects upon him, for he had given 
 chloroform in most cases and had met with no fatal 
 result. He had not in amylene accounted sufficiently 
 for its insolubility, and it was not until I ventured 
 to show him separation of amylene in the blood, a 
 separation which looked like the formation of minute 
 plugs, that he fully realised the danger. 
 
 After this, Snow could never be induced to leave 
 chloroform. Mr. Nunnerley brought in bromide of 
 ethyl ; I followed him, and the bromide answered, 
 but it rather too readily underwent decomposition, 
 and, therefore, had to be laid aside. All the sub- 
 stances had some disadvantages when compared with 
 chloroform, and so chloroform held its ground, but 
 with an increasing mortality. I made the round of 
 English hospitals and collected a series of facts from 
 medical men, coming to a general calculation about 
 chloroform deaths. At one period I had no fewer 
 than seventeen thousand cases without a death, 
 but as the round increased so did the deaths, and 
 in the end I was forced to conclude that the 
 average of deaths was one in two thousand five 
 
THE MASTERY OF PAIN. 285 
 
 hundred, a calculation practically confirmed by Dr. 
 Andrews, and which has been, until late times, 
 accepted by the profession as a body. 
 
 LOCAL ANAESTHESIA : ETHER SPRAY. 
 
 The more certain the mortality from chloroform 
 became, the steadier I laboured to discover some new 
 and less dangerous method, and by degrees I was 
 brought to study more industriously local, instead of 
 general, anaesthesia. I knew that some centuries 
 ago a Neapolitan fencing-master had produced local 
 anaesthesia by the application of cold to the body. 
 He had put frozen ice into a thin glass flask, and by 
 applying the chilled part of the flask to the skin had 
 deadened it so completely that an operation could be 
 performed on it without pain. I had also seen an 
 •extraordinary cotemporary of mine, the late Dr. 
 James Arnott, a man of consummate skill, so deaden 
 a part of the body by the application of ice and salt 
 that no doubt remained as to the effect of extreme 
 cold as a local anaesthetic. It seemed to me, there- 
 fore, that cold would answer the purpose if it could 
 be obtained in a ready way. I unfolded my ideas on 
 this matter to Snow, and he obtained for me carbonic 
 acid like fine snow, which so benumbed that it would 
 have done what I wanted but for the circumstance 
 that it was too active ; it not only benumbed and 
 froze, but it sometimes killed outright. I sought 
 then whether the method might not be improved 
 by the employment of narcotic liquids. 
 
286 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 One night my wife and I went to a ball after I 
 had been busy in the laboratory for many hours. A 
 young lady with whom I was about to dance let 
 a little eau de Cologne fall on my forehead, by 
 blowing it briskly through a small tube. The cold 
 produced was intense, and pinching the bit of skin 
 affected by it I found that it was benumbed. 
 " Thank you I " I said, and seized upon the fact. 
 On returning to the laboratory next day I began to 
 evaporate from the skin light fluids like amylene 
 and ether, and found what I was looking for. Then 
 I constructed instruments that made sprays for 
 the light liquids, and devised the little apparatus 
 worked by bellows which afterwards was known as 
 ether spray apparatus, anhydrous ether, as the 
 evaporised substance, being found the lightest, 
 readiest, and cheapest fluid. Other light fluids, 
 such as amylene and rhigolene, were used, but the 
 ether, from a practical point of view, was the most 
 commendable. 
 
 A curious circumstance occurred when I first 
 brought out ether spray. I feared that the freezing 
 as well as insensibility would not pass away quickly 
 and safely enough, and that thought led me to freeze 
 large sections of my own skin by way of trial. 
 On one occasion I froze the whole of my forearm 
 before I went up to tea, wondering if any bad 
 results would follow. They did not, and during 
 the meal all signs of the benumbment fairly passed 
 off. I ventured upon this result to let the late 
 
THE MASTERY OF PAIN. 287 
 
 Mr. Peter Matthews of Berkeley Street extract 
 two front teeth from a lady who was under my 
 care. After I had sprayed the gum thoroughly 
 both teeth came out under the pull of the 
 forceps without giving the slightest sensation. 
 Next I exhibited the method to Mr. William 
 Adams, the surgeon, and went with him to the 
 Great Northern Hospital. He had a patient there, 
 a young man who had caries of the tibia in the right 
 leg. I sprayed the parts ; he made a long incision 
 through the skin, dissected the skin back, gouged 
 out the portion of bone which was dead, and caused 
 no pain. 
 
 The facts of this operation were soon widely 
 known, and another operation, performed by Mr. 
 Adams, was largely witnessed. 
 
 I was asked to use the spray for a case of 
 Caesarian section performed by Dr. Greenhalgh, 
 and did so with entire success. In a few months 
 the use of the spray became almost universal, 
 operations of a very formidable character being 
 performed under it. Teeth were extracted, abscesses 
 were opened, tumours were excised, and breasts 
 amputated under it, without a slip or an accident 
 that I ever heard of. In one of our military 
 hospitals to which I was summoned, the surgeon 
 in attendance, the late Surgeon-General Sir T. 
 Longmore, was able in one day to perform twenty- 
 two operations painlessly under the spray, and in 
 not one instance had he a mishap. 
 
288 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 A gentleman who came under my care had six 
 tumours painlessly cut out under the spray, and I 
 have ever found it, in cases suitable for it, eminently 
 successful. I made some variations : I employed it 
 in combination with pressure, and found the combina- 
 tion all that could be desired. 
 
 I am told that the local system has fallen into 
 some disfavour, first because it is troublesome in 
 comparison with the general plan, secondly because 
 the apparatus employed easily gets out of repair, 
 and thirdly because human subjects are not easily 
 operated upon when they are conscious. How 
 far these ideas are true it is impossible to say, 
 but Idonot conceive that there is any real ground 
 for them. I suppose that some error has lain 
 in the fact that under the local method cases 
 were found that were out of its range, and that no 
 one plan can be universally carried out fitted for 
 every case. Some day the local method, perhaps 
 a trifle modified, will become the sole plan. Pain 
 will be utterly abolished, and as a part of an 
 operation will not be taken into consideration, 
 because it will never be called forth. The advance 
 in this direction will probably be from the action 
 of compressed gaseous compounds. 
 
 In addition to the exposition of the benumbing 
 process by cold, and by cold and pressure, I had in 
 view another advance in anaesthesia by the use of a 
 painless cutting knife. When a blade is made to 
 
THE MASTERY OF PAIN. 289 
 
 cut, or a blow is administered with sufficient rapidity, 
 pain is reduced to a minimum by the swiftness of 
 the vibration. The old surgeons knew this, and my 
 friend Mr. de la Garde of Exeter was, before the 
 days of anaesthesia, so brilliant an operator that 
 people went to him from all parts of England, in 
 order that he might use the knife, or knife and saw, 
 on their bodies. William Cheselden, the eminent 
 surgeon, seems to have been possessed of the same 
 quality so strongly that one of his patients sang of 
 him : — 
 
 " So swift thy hand, I could not feel 
 The progress of the cutting steel ; " 
 
 and Dr. Willis told me that his friend Liston was an 
 operator of the same type, one who could amputate 
 the thigh in twenty-five seconds, so that there really 
 was little time for agony. The same truths have 
 been observed in battle, and I knew an officer 
 whose lower jaw was severed by a shot and carried 
 clean away, without his knowledge. 
 
 The effects of the painless cutting knife have been 
 exaggerated in some particulars, but the principle 
 was so correct that at a lecture at York I was able 
 to cut through my skin without pain as I stood 
 at the lecture-table. The difficulty that came in 
 the way was one entirely of mechanism. It was 
 necessary to make the revolving blade so fine and 
 sharp that it was liable to splinter and leave por- 
 tions of itself in the wound, and the haft, or 
 
 19 
 
290 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 apparatus that carried the blade, was too large for 
 the pocket. 
 
 I tried for a result of the same painless character 
 by means of electricity, and passed through parts 
 of the body electrical vibrations at such a pace as 
 to make distinct obliteration of pain, with a good 
 prospect of further development in this direction. 
 
 I tried to make living parts dead to pain by 
 passing through them lethal substances by means of 
 electricity, and gave to the proceeding the name 
 of " Voltaic Narcotism." The parts to be rendered 
 insensible were covered with fluid narcotic, such as 
 carbolic acid, aconite, or aconite and chloroform; over 
 this narcotic was laid a metal plate connected with 
 one pole, the anode, of the battery, and then the 
 current was allowed to pass, while the end of the 
 other pole was fixed to a different portion of the body. 
 The effects were most singular : pain was abolished, 
 and several operations were painlessly performed. 
 Destruction of surface sometimes followed, and a 
 question was raised whether it was not simple 
 absorption that took place and nothing more. An 
 able physiologist, the late Dr. Waller of Birmingham, 
 warmly supported the latter view, but one of my 
 American brethren, Professor Peterson, who, under 
 the term of " Anodal Diffusion," has specially 
 investigated the experimental work, has recently 
 maintained that I was originally quite correct, and 
 that it was a great pity the matter was ever given up. 
 
THE MASTERY OF PAIN. 291 
 
 Another mode of inducing local anaesthesia which 
 occurred to me consisted in the abstraction of blood 
 from a part. The late Dr. James Wardrop, a 
 surgeon in large practice in London before the days 
 of anaesthesia by the inhalation of vapours, had 
 learned that he could bleed a patient into deliquium, 
 or syncope, and while the sufferer was in this 
 exhausted condition could amputate without the 
 infliction of pain. A lady I knew had been 
 operated upon by him for removal of the breast. 
 She felt nothing whatever of the operation, and 
 only remembered that on coming to she experienced 
 extreme lassitude, from which she did not recover 
 for several days. The process was, I suspect, too 
 dangerously extreme to introduce to the profession 
 at large, although, at the time it was practised, 
 bleeding was not thought of moment. My ideal was 
 not to extract blood generally, but to take it locally 
 from the part that was about to be operated on, 
 which ought to answer the same purpose. We 
 cupped frequently at one time, and I noted that if 
 three round cupping-glasses were put on the skin 
 close together, there was left a triangular portion of 
 the body outside the rims which was white, brawny, 
 and from the absence of blood insensible to pain. 
 I took advantage of this fact in order to prosecute 
 inquiry. There had come to London a Continental 
 physician named Dr. Junot for the purpose of 
 introducing and promoting a boot he had invented 
 which was called " Junot 's boot." It consisted of 
 
292 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 a metallic boot larger than the leg which was 
 inserted in it, and at the upper part there was an 
 indiarubber fillet which grasped the limb. The 
 boot, fixed in its place, was exhausted of air, and 
 acting as an enormous cupping-glass drew the blood 
 of the body into the structure enclosed, and so was 
 presumed to cup the whole body, relieving pressure 
 from the lungs, the brain, and other parts of the 
 trunk when they were inflamed or congested. I 
 called on Dr. Junot, spent the greater part of a day 
 with him, saw all his plans, and worked the 
 apparatus myself. He was a very shrewd and 
 competent operator, giving me his ready assistance. 
 Then I had made for me a metallic boot, which I 
 still keep, but constructed with this difference, that 
 I let the toes project through another indiarubber 
 opening so that they could be seen and felt. The 
 boot, put on in this way, was exhausted, and, 
 according to my expectation, the toes were emptied 
 of blood and remained for the moment lifeless. I 
 had the boot first placed on my own leg, and with 
 the exhaust syringe I pumped out the air, and 
 found that in the toes there was no sensation while 
 the exhaust was on. Detecting this, I unscrewed 
 the syringe and let in the air. I was, however, too 
 rapid in what I did, and the sudden letting in of the 
 air current caused so extreme a recurrence of flow 
 of blood into the toes I thought I should have died 
 from the pain excited ; it was like the most violent 
 toothache I had ever experienced, and the skin 
 
THE MASTERY OF PAIN. 293 
 
 became as red as if I had received a burn, or was 
 under an extreme erysipelas, from which, no relief 
 could be obtained except under cold and pressure. 
 However, I got the boot off, and all the symptoms 
 quickly subsided. I fixed the boot on a patient 
 suffering from ingrowing toenail, and being master 
 of all the details I made the toe so insensible that 
 Mr., now Sir, Spencer Wells removed the nail 
 with the most perfect success, the patient looking 
 on, experiencing no pain whatsoever, and knowing 
 nothing except that her foot was cold and dead. 
 The blood was re-admitted slowly, and the trial was 
 as satisfactory as it could be. 
 
 To this method of abolishing pain there were 
 objections, so it was not pressed. The apparatus 
 was clumsy ; its application was very limited ; the 
 employment of it called for unusual care, and it 
 passed out of hand as a form of practice. But in a 
 physiological direction it was of great value to me, 
 and has remained of value. It told me that the 
 blood in its natural distribution through the body 
 gives something to the nervous expanses, which, 
 being collected by them, supplies sensibility, and, on 
 the other hand, that when that something is not 
 supplied by the blood the result is insensibility 
 and practical death in the local part, even though 
 there may be movement. 
 
 In the many attempts to remove pain by local 
 measures I should not like to forget an assumption 
 
294 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 which came from America, that electricity by the 
 Faradic current might be usefully employed, especi- 
 ally for the extraction of teeth. When this was 
 first made public I did my best to ascertain the 
 truth of it, and wrote a communication to the 
 Medical Times and Gazette in which I showed it was 
 a kind of repetition of the schoolboy trick, where 
 a hair was pulled out of the head while a smack 
 was administered, any success that might have 
 followed being due to diversion. The late Professor 
 Marshall endeavoured to apply the principle of the 
 battery to cutting experiments, but signally failed, 
 as did many other inquirers. At first it appeared 
 to me that we might have been in error in regard to 
 time, and that the intermitting current long con- 
 tinued would possibly produce anaesthesia. To test 
 this point I asked Dr. Julius Althaus to pass a 
 strong Faradic current through my own ulnar nerve 
 from the funny-bone to the little finger, and to keep 
 it up for a long period. He was good enough to do 
 so, and I cannot deny but that after application for 
 an hour my limb was somewhat benumbed. The 
 process was, however, too long for practical work in 
 which cutting operations had to be performed. 
 
 The dentists took the greatest pains with this 
 new method, and, I believe, now and then on the 
 diversion theory were somewhat successful. There 
 was a meeting of dentists at the College of Dentists 
 in their rooms in Cavendish Square, and a Committee 
 was formed, over which I was requested to preside, 
 
THE MASTERY OF PAIN. 295 
 
 in order to see if any real practical utility could be 
 secured. The Committee included some most com- 
 petent operators, and patients were drafted from all 
 sides to bear witness from their own sensations to 
 the effects of the current. The current was applied 
 by attaching one pole of the battery to the forceps 
 used for extracting the teeth, while the terminal of 
 the other pole was grasped by the patient. We met 
 a great many times, and drew up a report, which, I 
 am bound to say, taking it all in all, declared a 
 negation. Some curious things happened, never- 
 theless. A gentleman well-known in the medical 
 world by the name of Dr. Elliottson — a man about 
 whom the late Mr. Charles Dickens wrote with 
 energetic praise, who edited the Zoist, was Physician to 
 the Mesmeric Hospital, and passed as a mesmerist — 
 sent me a note saying that he should very much 
 like to be present during the experiments of the 
 Committee. My reply was a cordial invitation, 
 and it led him to come regularly and sit by my side 
 while the operations proceeded. There was another 
 gentleman there, a friend of Dr. Elliottson, an earnest 
 mesmerist, and he was allowed to make his passes 
 on every patient, if he liked, the facts being recorded. 
 One day an energetic electrician brought a battery of 
 his own ; he attached one pole to the forceps, placed 
 the other firmly on the body of the patient, and 
 requested the operating dentist - of the day — Mr. 
 Peter Matthews — to proceed. To my surprise, as 
 the dentist put the forceps on the tooth, the patient, 
 
296 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 a small, nervous woman, fell back in the chair in 
 deliquium, or faint, and the tooth was extracted 
 without pain or knowledge. The electrician cried 
 " Eureka ! " as did also the mesmerist, who was 
 making passes at the same time ; hut Elliottson, as 
 well as myself, felt sure that the woman had simply 
 fainted ; that the destruction of pain was due to that 
 condition solely, and was owing to the intense shock 
 of the electricity. The electrician and the mesmerist 
 quarrelled, each of them claiming the discovery as 
 his right, and each urging that his respective claim 
 should be placed on the report, against which a large 
 majority of us protested, so that the act was never 
 carried out. 
 
 I give these details in order to record fully a 
 peculiar circumstance. Dr. Elliottson, a tabooed 
 man in physic, who had lost his position at the 
 University College Hospital, and who had been 
 severely censured by the late Mr. Wakley, founder 
 and editor of the Lancet, walked home with me 
 from Cavendish Square, speaking freely about the 
 phenomena we had seen. He agreed that the 
 electricity merely produced a faint, and also agreed 
 that his friend the mesmerist had done nothing to 
 account for the painlessness of the operation, an 
 admission which led him to make a remarkable state- 
 ment, I now, for the first time, publish. He said : 
 "You are too young to remember all that I have 
 had to go through for mesmerism, and you cannot 
 imagine what it is to drop from the heights of a 
 
THE MASTERY OF PAIN. 297 
 
 profession to its deepest depths. I believe," he 
 continued, " I was not wrong ; I believe that in 
 what I originally saw mesmerism played the parts 
 precisely that I claimed for it. It is a wicked error 
 to suppose that I was a party to a deception, or to 
 a whole series of deceptions, if you like ; but I 
 candidly say that the phenomena which have been 
 presented by your committee now show me that 
 mesmerism, at the present moment, has no power 
 to remove pain. It is a mystery; it had power, 
 and I once saw a leg painlessly removed under its 
 influence ; but we are now in another cycle, and 
 it seems to me that there are special periods only 
 in which mesmeric phenomena can be induced, 
 and in which there are persons anxious to give 
 them full trial and effect. In point of fact, there 
 are at times, I surmise, some external or electrical 
 influences, of which we know nothing, but which 
 play their part for a season on the mind as well as 
 on the body, so that the most cautious man may be 
 misled by what he sees, without, for a moment, 
 trying to mislead." Whether there was any truth 
 in this theory of Elliottson I was unable to say, 
 but some recent opinions in reference to what is 
 called " hypnotism " — which is, in fact, only a 
 kind of mesmerism — give countenance to the truth 
 of his observation. 
 
 Returns to General Anaesthesia. 
 The new method of local anaesthesia by the 
 
298 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 Faradic current melted away, and, as far as I remem- 
 ber, all the history of local efforts has been narrated 
 from personal knowledge. It is time, therefore, 
 that I should return to the general method, about 
 which I may say there are pros and cons. The 
 arguments for it are that it causes universal in- 
 sensibility in the form of deep sleep, and that, 
 during the operation, it creates no sensation of alarm 
 or expression on the part of the patient, a signal 
 comfort to the operator and his assistants. The chief 
 argument against it is that with all its excellences 
 it has one bad quality, as bad as can be — it occasion- 
 ally kills. I would not claim that deaths under it 
 are invariably due to it, for before it existed there 
 were deaths from fear. Nay ! I once saw a man 
 under local anaesthesia all but die in consequence of 
 extreme fear while the late Sir William Pergusson 
 was removing a tumour from the ball of his thumb. 
 Very often, however, general anaesthesia actually 
 kills. I have administered general anaesthetics of 
 the most varied kind to the human subject many 
 times, and never saw a death, but I believe that 
 except for some fortunate accidents, which saved 
 me from the sight, I should have seen three deaths 
 that occurred under administrators quite as skilful. 
 
 The late Dr. John Snow, to whom reference has 
 more than once been made and who was the leading 
 practitioner in anaesthesia, employed chloroform in 
 four thousand cases without a death ; he had two 
 deaths from amylene, but none from chlorofoim ; 
 
THE MASTERY OF PAIN. 299 
 
 lie held the first place in his department, and 
 administered chloroform twice to Her Majesty 
 the Queen. He died rather suddenly at the 
 comparatively early age of forty-five years, on 
 June 8th, 1858. His last work was the preparation 
 of a hook on Chloroform and other Ancesthetics, and 
 singularly, the last word he wrote was " Exit." 
 The work, at the time, was looked upon as a 
 standard, and after his burial his brothers and 
 sisters asked me to edit it and add a Life, which 
 task I undertook. They also invited me to take 
 his anaesthetic practice, but it was not in accordance 
 with my predilections, and so it passed largely into 
 the hands of the late Mr. Clover. 
 
 The specialistic position of an anaesthetist did not 
 suit me, but I never ceased to be an inquirer as to 
 the best mode of producing general anaesthesia, of 
 inquiring why it was produced, and of taking 
 means of restoring life after its use. 
 
 Bichloride of Methylene. 
 
 As the synopsis of anaesthetics published in the 
 second volume of the Asclepiad, pp. 257-277, will 
 show, I went over the whole field of anaesthetic 
 substances and introduced no fewer than fourteen 
 on my own account, two of which ought to 
 be mentioned — the one, bichloride of methylene, 
 or methylene, as it is commonly called, and the 
 other methylic ether. I was led to bichloride of 
 methylene by ascertaining from experiment that 
 
300 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 in the haloid or chlorine series of chemical hodies 
 the danger lay in the presence of the chlorine in 
 them. There are several hodies in the haloid 
 class— namely, chloride of methyl, hichloride of 
 methylene, chloroform, and tetra- chloride of carbon. 
 To understand the series you must open the fingers 
 and thumh of one hand, letting the thumh represent 
 carbon all through, and you see the facts. In the 
 first, methyl -chloride, the thumb represents carbon, 
 the first finger chlorine, and the three last fingers 
 hydrogen. In the second, methylene, the thumb 
 represents carbon, the next two fingers chlorine, and 
 the third and little finger hydrogen. In the third, 
 chloroform, the thumb represents carbon, the first, 
 second, and third fingers chlorine, and the little finger 
 hydrogen ; and in the tetra-chloride of carbon, the 
 thumb still represents carbon, and all the fingers 
 chlorine. As the danger lies with the chlorine, 
 a heavy body that does not adumbrate freely and 
 is an irritant, it occurred to me that if I could 
 produce a liquid like to chloroform, with one equiva- 
 lent of chlorine less than in chloroform and one of 
 hydrogen more, I should have a lighter liquid, a 
 quicker anaesthetic, and less danger. I substituted, 
 therefore, hydrogen for one part of chlorine and 
 so produced methylene, a fluid which had true 
 anaesthetic properties, as I had anticipated, and as 
 I proved by administering it to inferior animals. 
 When I became familiar with it I got the late Mr. 
 Peter Marshall of Bedford Square, in the beginning 
 
THE MASTERY OF PAIN. 301 
 
 of 1867, to administer it to myself. I found its 
 vapour agreeable; went rapidly into a deep sleep; 
 lost all consciousness of pain, and recovered without 
 a sign of danger. Upon this I ventured on the same 
 day to administer the substance to a lady on whom 
 Sir Spencer Wells was going to operate for ovario- 
 tomy ; caused her to sink into a deep sleep ; bear 
 the surgeon's knife without being conscious of it ; 
 remain asleep for more than an hour, and finally 
 come to herself without the slightest danger. Since 
 that time I have over and over again admin- 
 istered bichloride of methylene, and have never 
 seen from it a shade of risk. On the point 
 of its safety and efficiency many other practi- 
 tioners have agreed with me, and none more 
 thoroughly than Sir Spencer Wells, who since its 
 introduction has invariably used it, without any 
 death from its use. Others have not been so 
 fortunate, but there cannot be a doubt that, while 
 it is as easy to administer as the chloroform, it is 
 less fatal. It has been estimated that the deaths 
 from it are one in seven thousand, a figure I cannot 
 confirm, because in one instance, at least, it was not 
 the bichloride that was employed, but chloroform. 
 
 One morning when I was at Sheffield a leading 
 dentist wrote to me asking if I would come to see him 
 administer methylene. I went and inspected all his 
 appliances, which were most complete. He had a 
 room filled with patients, and had one good 
 administrator. He made it a custom to narcotise 
 
302 CHAPTERS OF LIFE, 
 
 the patient and operate for the extraction of a tooth 
 in nineteen seconds of time ; and I am bound to say 
 that he was successful, and that by stop-watch I 
 never saw him make a slip during half an hour. 
 His plan was to let the patient sit and breathe the 
 vapour for the precise time named, and then, in 
 whatever state he was, he was subjected to the 
 operation. " There is not time," argued the dentist, 
 "for any one to die, and not one will feel." Not 
 one did feel. I questioned each leisurely about the 
 operation, and not one could remember any painful 
 sensation. They could remember what the operator 
 said, and they could obey him as to situation, 
 opening of the mouth, rising from the seat, and 
 rinsing of the mouth, but that was all. 
 
 In the above instances I have no doubt that 
 rapidity helped the methylene, but in other instances 
 methylene alone was the factor. 
 
 I have written many papers on methylene, 
 explaining the endeavour aimed at in introducing 
 it and the limitation of its mortality when the 
 true substance has been given; but I have never 
 enthusiastically pushed the matter, because I 
 am sure that the chlorine series is altogether a 
 mistake, and that chlorine should be entirely 
 omitted. I am satisfied that the chlorides, when- 
 ever used, should be inhaled in the smallest possible 
 dose, and that ample time should be given for the 
 anaesthesia. The vapour of chloroform should be 
 diluted to the utmost degree, eighteen grains of it 
 
THE MASTERY OF PAIN. 303 
 
 being sufficient in the blood to produce the deepest 
 insensibility, while a greater portion is dangerous. 
 Care should also be taken in regard to the 
 temperature of the air, because a low temperature 
 defers the action, a high temperature quickens it. 
 To a class of medical men, sixty or seventy in 
 number, I made a demonstration of all these facts 
 in a post-graduate course of lectures. I illustrated 
 the action of Snow's Balloon and an analogue of 
 it, known as Clover's Bag, in which the narcotic 
 vapour is so diluted with air that the compound 
 breathed is charged only with five per cent of the 
 narcotic. I have also in practice persistently induced 
 general narcotism by extreme reduction of the 
 volatile narcotic and its very slow administration. 
 
 Methylic ffiher. 
 
 But the great object of my research has been to 
 find a new narcotic altogether that shall make an 
 atmosphere perfectly safe, and, at the same time, 
 perfectly anaesthetic, so that a surgeon himself 
 may, without any hesitation or fear, attend to the 
 giving of it — if necessity should call for that 
 procedure — as well as operate. 
 
 By constant inquiry I have come to so near 
 an approach to accuracy that if a chemist were 
 to bring to me a fluid, and recount to me its 
 composition, specific gravity, boiling point, and 
 vapour density, I could tell at once whether it 
 were or were not an anaesthetic ; how much of it 
 
304 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 would be wanted to cause anaesthesia ; what length 
 of time would be required for its inhalation, and 
 what length of time would be necessary for its 
 escape from the body and for recovery from its effects. 
 I am also convinced that there is a new chemical 
 to be found which will destroy sensibility with- 
 out necessarily destroying consciousness, and the 
 chemical that has appeared to me to present the best 
 qualities for general anaesthesia is what is called 
 methylic ether, a substance on which I have reported 
 several times and have administered over thirty 
 times for surgical operations. I discovered it to be 
 an anaesthetic in 1867, and I repeat what I then 
 said — namely, that it may be considered the safest 
 anaesthetic that has yet been discovered, although it 
 is troublesome to administer and would have to be 
 condensed if it were to be brought into use. It 
 has a curious faculty of destroying sensibility before 
 it destroys consciousness, and recovery from it is 
 exceedingly rapid. Its effects were very well mani- 
 fested in a patient to whom I once administered it 
 while Mr. Brudenell Carter operated. The j>atient, 
 though feeling nothing, was quite conscious of all 
 that went on during the operation. I observed also 
 that the gas is so safe an animal under its influ- 
 ence may remain breathing it for twelve minutes 
 without dying, and, if allowed apparently to die, may 
 be recovered by artificial respiration so long as seven 
 minutes after the cessation of respiration — that is 
 to say, after what appears to be actual death. 
 
THE MASTERY OF PAIN. 305 
 
 Means of Recovery. 
 
 The introduction of these new anaesthetics 
 naturally took up a great deal of time, but there 
 is another subject in connection with anaesthesia to 
 which it has been necessary to devote the most care- 
 ful attention, and which, indeed, bears on the chapter 
 on " Reanimation ; " I mean the best methods to be 
 adopted for restoring life when life seems to have 
 been extinguished by the administration of a narcotic 
 vapour. No man living can be in a more deplorable 
 condition than the man who, talking for the moment 
 to a patient in a friendly and possibly assuring way, 
 applies something to the mouth or nose, which the 
 patient breathes and is silent for ever. A dear old 
 friend of mine, by occupation a dentist, an accom- 
 plished man and a very feeling man, occupying a 
 good position, one morning experienced the sad fate 
 noticed. A lady drove up to his house to have a 
 tooth extracted; she, full of grace and beauty, 
 smilingly sat down to breathe chloroform, and died 
 before the tooth was touched. The poor dentist could 
 not believe the sight that was before him, and he 
 never got over it ; it was ever on his tongue and 
 on his heart, and he became an old man in an hour. 
 These and other facts encouraged me to carry out 
 months of experiment to learn how to meet such 
 catastrophes, but, in the end, I got no further than 
 artificial respiration as a remedy, some lower animal 
 being, of course, the subject tested. 
 
 20 
 
306 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 A kind of ad captandwn belief had suggested 
 electricity as the mode of recovery, and unquestion- 
 ably the current — especially the Faradic — makes 
 quiet muscles move, and gives appearance of 
 vitality ; but, alas ! it is only appearance, and 
 I found that when the current played upon the 
 heart, it merely wore it out and clinched the 
 danger. 
 
 I invented another instrument that would move 
 the muscles of respiration in regular order, using 
 my wife's metronome as the throbbing instrument 
 that governed the current, and imitated natural 
 respiration so orderly that it was hard to tell if 
 the animal were living or dead ; but I only wore 
 out the muscles and clinched the danger. 
 
 I constructed a third instrument which by the 
 electrical current moved the heart and the respira- 
 tion at the same time in their natural ways, but 
 fell into the same error. I used baths of various 
 kinds without effect. I invented what I called 
 artificial circulation in 1860, tried by it to restore 
 the circulation of the blood, and was so enthusiastic 
 as to possible success that I actually got up in the 
 middle of the night to test its value. I instructed 
 Mr. Osborne, a mechanician living in Clerkenwell, 
 to construct for me an instrument that would, 
 by different movements of the piston, either inject 
 or exhaust the vessels, and, in short, I could not 
 repeat all the mechanical contrivances that were 
 devised and applied, to no purpose. 
 
TEE MASTERY OF PAIN. 307 
 
 Notwithstanding many disappointments, I came at 
 last to the conclusion, that simple artificial respira- 
 tion, promptly applied, not infrequently succeeded, 
 and I gave a lecture to medical men on this subject, 
 which was afterwards published. The effects were 
 very singular, and so striking that I could, and 
 can, if the experiment be in my hands throughout, 
 administer a narcotic until it produces what the 
 world would call death of the animal, and then, by 
 the timely application of a double-acting pair of 
 bellows I constructed — which fills the lungs with 
 air by one stroke and empties them by another — 
 actually reproduce the phenomena of life once 
 more, so that there is positive re-existence with 
 entire recovery. 
 
 There was a great meeting of the British Medical 
 Association at Leeds in 1868, and a gentleman was 
 lecturing on anaesthesia. He narcotised an animal 
 until everybody believed it was dead, and he left 
 it as dead on the table. After he had finished 
 his discourse I asked him if I might try to 
 restore the quiescent victim, which would otherwise 
 have been buried, and, obtaining his ready per- 
 mission, I set up artificial respiration with my 
 double-acting bellows, taking particular care first to 
 exhaust freely. The result — to the surprise of every 
 one — was that after a few minutes the animal began 
 to breathe of itself, and made so perfect a recovery that 
 it ran the length of the table, found its own lair in a 
 box there, and was restored in the happiest manner. 
 
308 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 In death from narcotics nothing seems to me to 
 be so effectual as artificial respiration ; flipping, and 
 other methods of a minor character, are trifles which 
 may do good when life has not passed away, but the 
 distinctive method known up to this hour is that of 
 restarting the breathing. More will undoubtedly 
 come, so that if we do not get a narcotic vapour 
 which will not kill, a possession we hope for and 
 have all but got in methylic ether, we have still 
 to anticipate means of restoration even against the 
 effects of more serious agents intended for the 
 extinction of pain. 
 
 One suggestion I would merely add in this place. 
 It is that in carrying out artificial respiration the 
 operator should always begin, not by pushing in 
 fresh air, but by drawing out. Drawing out 
 removes any chloroform that may be resident in 
 the bronchial tubes, and causes the blood in the 
 lungs to give off its vapours ; it does more than 
 this — it causes the fresh air to re-enter without any 
 effort or danger, and that, absorbed through the 
 lungs, is a definite assistance. I have often pointed 
 this out to my classes, and have shown that the very 
 question of life or death may depend on the way the 
 respiration is artificially recommenced. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 IN THE SPHERE OF PRACTICAL MEDICINE. 
 
 GREAT many years of work are demanded 
 before a man can acquire all the details 
 of medical education. Medical life is 
 hard, and often short. The early part of it is 
 singularly arduous and exposed to danger. The 
 studies and examinations are, in severity, beyond 
 comparison with any other. The attendance in the 
 dissecting-room is alone a tax which has to be felt 
 to be understood, and the observations of surgical 
 operations, much as they have been modified by 
 the use of anaesthetics, are severe ordeals. The 
 work at the bedside in the presence of contagious 
 cases calls forth the most uncommon risk, and the 
 variations of speech and mind of the sick are often 
 of the most trying kind. The last named anxiety 
 never quits practice, and is probably, on the whole, 
 the worst. The other troubles, if they do not 
 wear away, are tempered by nature, but the mental 
 tone of the affected never loses its character and 
 rarely its variability. Disease of the body is ever 
 attended with a certain aberration of the mind, or, 
 as usually expressed, "the sick have their fancies." 
 
 309 
 
310 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 A truer saying was never uttered, and the doctor 
 must always be ready to accept and meet it : it 
 becomes a part of his duty; he will be praised to 
 the skies for what he has never done, and he will 
 be damned to the lowest depths for what he has 
 never dreamed of, much less effected. People wonder 
 why a doctor of the sick has so little faith in 
 physic, and why he so little relies on any one of 
 his brethren : they would not wonder if they knew. 
 I have been obliged to write at least a thousand 
 prescriptions for medical men, but I never heard 
 of a hundred being taken even casually, nor of ten 
 systematically. 
 
 As a body, doctors are good, generous, and in- 
 dustrious men : their anxieties do not immediately 
 increase upon them by the sights they see ; they may 
 even leave a dying patient and partake in a 
 friendly meeting as if nothing had oppressed them 
 mentally — a fortunate circumstance for everybody 
 as well as themselves. They are constantly misin- 
 terpreted, and on this point they are, as it seems, 
 callous. They get into practice, and stick in a 
 groove for the whole of a lifetime, feeling strongly 
 that " all things are alike to all." I once so 
 greatly surprised and interested a bishop by saying 
 that the writer of Ecclesiastes must have been a 
 doctor, that he — the bishop — formed the same idea, 
 with this reservation, " You mean a pessimistic or 
 a godless doctor," at which we both had our quiet 
 smile. 
 
IN THE SPHERE OF PRACTICAL MEDICINE. 311 
 
 The groove in which a doctor will stick is a narrow 
 one, and as people are usually to the world just 
 what they seem to be, the doctor is left to his fate. 
 One of the best qualified practitioners I ever knew 
 in London lived to the end of his life in a house 
 where he kept an open shop. He saw his patients 
 in a neat little room on one side of the shop, in 
 which room he piled up the choicest hooks, collected 
 the finest instruments that could he obtained, and 
 expressed the best opinions that anyone could listen 
 to. He knew what a qualified man should be ; but 
 he was never hard on any member of his profession, 
 so far as I heard, except once in his life, and then 
 he had just occasion, since he was snubbed by a 
 bragging official. 
 
 In my own way I was, on the whole, fortunate. 
 I made up my mind early to be a prescribing 
 physician, and found ample scope for my labours 
 in that direction. Pour large public dispensaries— 
 namely, the Blenheim Street, the Metropolitan, the 
 Marylebone, and the Margaret Street— gave me 
 fields for practice, and for fourteen years the Royal 
 Infirmary in the City Road did the same — so that 
 sometimes I would see two hundred sick persons a 
 day, and every class of disease common in an English 
 community. The practice was wide, and the customs 
 witnessed were most singular. I remember once 
 that a good soul of a woman who kept a fuel store 
 in a side street off a crowded thoroughfare used to 
 
312 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 bring her husband to me in a little cart with his 
 body covered with small coal, under the idea that by 
 this means she was keeping him warm. I found 
 another woman with the medicine she was taking-— 
 an ether mixture, and therefore volatile — making it 
 warm in a long pointed tin vessel, such as is used for 
 warming beer, in order that it might be agreeable to 
 take. Several other vagaries of a like kind came 
 before me, but they were all well-meant. Once I 
 was called to visit a servant in Russell Square, who 
 resided in a large, rich house, with kind people who 
 subscribed to the dispensary. They were enter- 
 taining a party to dinner, and when I went in I was 
 attended to at once by a motherly housekeeper, who 
 took me upstairs to the patient, afterwards bringing 
 me down again into a charming little drawing-room, 
 while she went to her mistress, whom she brought 
 away from her guests. The two women came into a 
 room adjoining the little drawing-room, and I could 
 not help overhearing their conversation. 
 
 " Has the doctor seen Rebecca ? " 
 
 " Oh yes, ma'am ! and we have only to send to 
 the dispensary for the medicine." 
 
 ' What sort of man is he, and how did he come ? 
 Did he drive ? " 
 
 " Oh ! I think you'll like him, ma'am ; but — 
 poor devil ! — he is only a walking doctor yet." 
 
 Then they both appeared before the " walking 
 doctor," heard his opinion, acted upon it, and 
 became the tenderest and most successful of nurses. 
 
IN THE SPHERE OF PRACTICAL MEDICINE. 313 
 
 All kinds of professional characters appear in the 
 sphere of medicine. One man considers himself a 
 practical man, and, "because he finds it a good card, 
 tells everybody so night and day. He doesn't know 
 the circulation of his own blood, or, even if he did, 
 has forgotten it. But he is a practical man : says 
 that " a grain of practice is worth a bushel of theory," 
 and usually thrives. He is a plausible creature. 
 He never meets you but he puts out of the window 
 of his carriage a strip of paper as long as your 
 arm containing a list of the patients he has to 
 see before he can sit down to his dinner. His wife 
 declares that nobody waits at meals for him, and so 
 she always keeps something ready for him. He gets 
 out of the carriage with a step peculiarly his own ; 
 knocks at the door in his own way, and washes his 
 hands in a manner that everybody might swear by. 
 But altogether he is not a bad fellow ; and when he 
 retires he may not be sorry to fill up his time by 
 becoming a Bible Reader or by holding the plate at 
 the church door. 
 
 I recall with great satisfaction and pride an event 
 which formed a striking part of my career. The 
 profession had read my works largely, and its 
 learned bodies over the world had conferred on me 
 their honours with liberal hand ; while several other 
 societies — just out of the domain of physic, but in 
 that of science — sent me their honourable decorations. 
 The Royal College of Physicians of London had 
 
314 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 made me one of its Fellows ; the Faculty of 
 Physicians of Glasgow, and the Pathological Society 
 of Berlin had done the same ; the Royal Society of 
 London had conferred on me its degree — the blue 
 ribbon of Science ; the Society of Antiquaries had 
 made me an P.S.A., and my University had conferred 
 upon me the degrees of M.A. and LL.D. ; the 
 Imperial Leopold-Carolina Academy of Natural 
 Sciences sitting at Dresden had enrolled me as 
 its Dr. Haller of the nineteenth century ; the 
 Academy of Physiological Sciences of Turin had 
 sent me its diploma ; those useful bodies the Societa 
 Italiana d'Igiene and the Societe d'Hygiene Publique 
 of Prance had treated me in a similar manner; 
 the Philosophical Society of America added my 
 name to the list of those who, from the days of 
 the illustrious Benjamin Pranklin, had figured on 
 its rolls ; in Wales I was made an Ovate of the 
 Eisteddfod ; and on one occasion was requested by a 
 small Welsh village to deliver a scientific lecture to 
 an assembled multitude under the wall adjoining the 
 church on a Sunday afternoon — a distinguished duty 
 I had never expected, but gladly fulfilled. These 
 and other honours came upon me; but there was 
 not one I prized more than that which the Pro- 
 fessors of Physic gave to me in the form of a 
 testimonial consisting of a beautiful microscope, 
 worth a hundred guineas, and a purse of a thousand 
 guineas. They gave both, as their Chairman, Sir 
 James Paget, expressed for them, in recognition 
 
IN THE SPHERE OF PRACTICAL MEDICINE. 315 
 
 of the spirit in which the works by which I 
 was known had been carried out. It is nearly 
 thirty years since this event occurred, and it has 
 ever been a gratifying remembrance, telling me 
 what the members of the medical body felt and the 
 class of work they deputed to me to continue to 
 carry on. It is my privilege to say that the mission 
 entrusted to me by the professors of practical 
 medicine has been faithfully discharged ; and al- 
 though in respect to one grand subject that closely 
 affects medicine both as a science and an art I have 
 been guided by Nature — who is All-supreme — to 
 differ on the question of alcohol from the majority 
 of my brethren, I have no fear for the future. In 
 fifty years the majority will think and act as I 
 have done, and will praise, rather than depreciate, 
 the researches and deductions I will endeavour to 
 delineate in a following chapter. 
 
 Books, Essays, and Papers. 
 
 Up to the time, or nearly so, when the testi- 
 monial was presented to me, the different inquiries I 
 had followed out had been made known in various 
 ways. Public health had been discussed in the 
 old Sanitary Bevieio ; many social topics had been 
 subjects of discussion, in verse as well as prose, in 
 a journal, conducted by me from 1862 to 1868, 
 called the Social Science Review ; the old Medical 
 Gazette, the Medical Times and Gazette, the 
 
316 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 Association Medical Journal, and the Lancet 
 were periodicals in which a great many of my 
 papers on medicine were written. To the British 
 and Foreign Medico- Chirurgical Review I was a 
 regular contributor, publishing every six months, 
 for some years, the forensic Reports of that quarterly, 
 besides other papers ; and at last, in order to keep my 
 communications in form, I started the Asclepiad 
 on my own account, commencing with a small 
 volume, and continuing later on in regular quarterly 
 numbers, until, with the first attempt, as many as 
 tAvelve volumes have been issued, or, in all, some 
 five thousand octavo pages including about five 
 hundred articles. In the Asclepiad the attempt 
 was made to submit long-studied clinical observa- 
 tions ; addresses that affected the public health and 
 the public welfare ; practical opuscula useful to 
 those who are engaged in the battle with disease ; 
 outlines of some of the past great leaders in physic ; 
 original researches, and reviews. 
 
 It is not possible in this place to enter into details 
 on any of the works named : they must stand for 
 themselves, and answer for themselves in the j)ages 
 in which they were originally placed ; but there are 
 a few of them I hold in particular memory as roads 
 open for the future studious investigator, to which 
 I might add some records of original treatises 
 published independently of medical journals, and 
 not infrequently in a separate form, as a pamphlet or 
 as a book of different size — as, for instance, " Diseases 
 
IN THE SPHERE OF PRACTICAL MEDICINE. 317 
 
 of Modern Life," " The Field of Disease," and " The 
 Commonhealth." The particular labours which 
 have been most engrossing are included in some 
 of the chapters of this volume, the researches on 
 B.eanimation and on Anaesthesia holding a pro- 
 minent place. But others, of interesting character 
 in their way, have been allied. An inquiry into 
 the existence of a nervous ether, or a volatile 
 medium spread out through living animal bodies — 
 a medium that adumbrates under the external 
 vibrations ; connects one animal body with another, 
 and is absorbed by the dead structures — excited 
 considerable attention and discussion. An attempt 
 to find out and describe, for the benefit of the world, 
 the absolute signs and proofs of death was zealously 
 and practically made, and the effort to change the 
 colour of animal tissues, and thereby restore the 
 natural complexion and features of dead persons, 
 was, at least twice, successfully carried out. 
 
 Lectures. 
 
 In addition to the labours incident to the practice 
 of attending on the sick, I had the duty of giving 
 many lectures and demonstrations to my medical 
 brethren and to those who were interested in medical 
 labours. A course of Lettsomian lectures was given 
 at the Medical Society of London on "Certain 
 Phenomena of Life ; " a course chiefly on "Medicines " 
 before the Royal College of Physicians ; a Croonian 
 lecture, before the Royal Society of London, on 
 
318 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 "Muscular Irritability after Systemic Death;" 
 the Cantor courses, before the Society of Arts, on 
 " Alcohol," " The Preservation of Animal Poods," 
 " The Diseases Incident to Occupations," " Nature 
 and Man as Mechanicians ; " and also some on 
 varied subjects before the Royal Institution and 
 the London Institution. 
 
 But the courses that cost me most time and atten- 
 tion were connected with certain " post-graduate " 
 courses prepared for medical men, and delivered in my 
 own private lecture-room, or, when more convenient, 
 in one of the lecture theatres of the late Royal 
 Polytechnic Institution in Regent Street. These 
 lectures, entitled " On Experimental and Practical 
 Medicine," not unusually extended over many 
 months, and were largely attended. The substance 
 of some of them is included in previous chapters of 
 this book, but not all. Some were devoted to the 
 subject of " The Measurements of Life ; " " The 
 Art of Embalming the Dead;" "The Effects of 
 Electricity on Animal Bodies ; " " The Condensing 
 Power of the Lungs ; " " The Study of Disease by 
 Synthesis ; " " The Action of Extreme Cold on the 
 Brain and Nervous System ; " " The Effects of 
 Injection of the Nervous Cavities;" " The Action 
 of Chloral Hydrate and of Methylal ; " " The 
 Constitutional Character of Remedies ; " The In- 
 fluence of Various Medicinal Agents, such as Amyl 
 Nitrite and the Members of the Nitrite Series ; " 
 " The Ethylates ; " " The Negative Action of Opium 
 
IN THE SPHERE OF PR ACTIO AL MEDICINE. 319 
 
 on Birds and of Tobacco on Goats; " "On Artificial 
 Respiration and of Double-acting Bellows for 
 Emptying and Inflating the Lungs," with "De- 
 monstrations on the Blood in its Extreme Eluid 
 as well as Condensed Conditions." 
 
 It would fill this volume altogether if I were to 
 attempt to publish these lectures in detail, and it 
 would be republishing what has already appeared in 
 the Medical Times and Gazette, the Lancet, the 
 Society of Arts Journal, in separate treatises, as well 
 as in periodicals like the Popular Science Review, 
 Longmans Magazine, and the Gentleman's Magazine. 
 Two or three, however, deserve special mention 
 because of their bearing on progressive medicine. 
 
 Synthesis of Disease. 
 
 In treating on the study of disease by synthesis I 
 illustrated that rheumatism could be induced by the 
 introduction into the body of organic acids like the 
 lactic ; that cataract could be temporarily induced 
 by raising the specific gravity of the blood — a fact 
 deduced from the experiments of Dr. Weir Mitchell of 
 Philadelphia, and shown to be the result of the action 
 of all saline substances that maintained their composi- 
 tion as such in the body, but not of substances like 
 iodide of potassium, which underwent decomposition. 
 I also showed that the blood is only capable of 
 receiving a certain degree of dilution with water, and 
 that when it is charged with the fifth of its own 
 weight there must be exudation and dropsy. 
 
320 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 Electricity. 
 
 A considerable interest was taken in my work on 
 electricity. A current was made to flow from one 
 pole to another, nineteen inches apart. Rigor 
 mortis was developed. The current of electricity 
 in various states was made, through various struc- 
 tures, including blood, and white and grey nervous 
 matter. Marks were produced on the surfaces 
 of membranes, and the varied effects of ordinary 
 lightning were displayed as exhibited on animals 
 and on men. 
 
 Researches on the Brain. 
 
 The influence of extreme cold on the brain was 
 made manifest ; and, for the first time, brain centres 
 were artificially frozen, and the effects of freezing 
 different parts were manifested by the perversions 
 exhibited in muscle. The brain could be seen in 
 the frozen state, and when the cold was withdrawn, 
 perfect recovery of the unconscious animal could 
 be observed. 
 
 A demonstration that created considerable interest 
 was one showing the effects of injection of the brain. 
 It was made clear that if into the cranial cavity 
 of an animal like a rabbit — recently put to death 
 without pain by the inhalation of a lethal vapour, 
 such as the vapour of chloroform — a hollow needle 
 were immediately introduced through the optic 
 foramen, and if through it, directed by a small 
 
IN THE SPHERE OF PRACTICAL MEDICINE. 321 
 
 syringe, a column of fluid mercury were introduced 
 into the centre, the injection first appeared in the 
 lower iliac veins, filling them and rising through the 
 ascending vena cava to the heart ; the inference 
 was that the cerehro-spinal fluid empties itself 
 into the venous system independently, and that, 
 through venous obstruction caused by an obstacle 
 present in the lower part of the abdomen, pressure 
 of fluid on the brain may take place with symptoms 
 resembling those of eclampsia or vertigo. This truth 
 I once saw corroborated in a patient — visited with Dr. 
 Cooper Rose — in whom consciousness, lost by pressure 
 of fluid on the brain, was perfectly restored by the 
 simple process of drawing off an accumulation of 
 serous fluid lodged in the cavity of the peritoneum. 
 
 Cardiac Pulmonic Balance. 
 
 Great attention was paid to an attempt to deter- 
 mine the cardiac pulmonic balance, which may be 
 presented in the course of disease. The force of the 
 heart and of the respiration were shown to be due 
 to the two motive powers of the body derived from 
 the two primary forces — the attraction of the earth, 
 which tells on the whole body, and the force of com- 
 bustion, which develops within the body — each of 
 them regulated during life by the respiring and 
 circulating apparatus. The balance between the 
 " two forces, exhibited by the body, was shown to be 
 essential, the balance disturbed being always a 
 cause of danger, and, actually broken, always fatal. 
 
 21 
 
322 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 Biometrieal Measurement. 
 
 A subject that led to considerable discussion had 
 reference to the measurement of life as an exact 
 science in practical work, in assurance of lives, and 
 in other relations, social as well as medical. 
 
 Auto -Poisons. 
 
 On several occasions the minds of the audiences 
 were drawn to the acceptance of the view that the 
 living body, under a perverted chemical process, 
 could be the manufacturer of its own poisons. This 
 was exemplified in instances of uraemia, and still 
 more strikingly in other septic examples. 
 
 From the abdominal cavity of a patient, operated 
 on for ovariotomy by Sir Spencer Wells, a pint of 
 dark septic fluid was drawn from the peritoneal 
 cavity, and was subjected by me to treatment as 
 if it had been a fluid containing an alkaloid like 
 morphia. It yielded a fine acicula crystalline sub- 
 stance, to which I gave the name of "septine," and 
 which I showed to be capable of exciting in healthy 
 animals direct septic disease, its intensity of action 
 being so increased by extension of the infectious 
 process that at last it could be diluted in the most 
 remarkable degree and retain its virulent power. 
 At the moment excitement was being created by 
 what was later called the " germ theory " — a con- 
 ception which was, in point of fact, a repetition of 
 Dr. Dwight's animalcular hypothesis, founded on a 
 
IN THE SPHERE OF PRACTICAL MEDICINE. 323 
 
 false analogy, and not, I thought, so clear as what I 
 called the " nervous theory " of spreading disease, 
 depending upon the conversion under nervous influ- 
 ence of specific poisons generated like the alkaloids of 
 excretions and affecting the organism as septic par- 
 ticles that were thrown off by glandular exudations. 
 
 It has been fortunate for me that in the delivery 
 of lectures, both at home and abroad, I have often 
 used for brevity's sake words and phrases which 
 afterwards took root, and which, to my own won- 
 derment, became set forms of speech. Thus the 
 term " cardiac apncea," intended to convey the idea 
 of breathlessness with open air-passages, breath- 
 lessness commencing not in the lungs but in the 
 heart, has been employed as a familiar term in the 
 medical sphere ; and " hydrops bronchialis " is taking 
 the like course. So, in a still wider sense, the terms 
 " The Lethal Chamber," " The Synthesis of Disease," 
 "The City of Hygeia," "The Devil in Solution," 
 " Brandy Palsy," " National Health is National 
 Wealth," " The Poverty of Wealth," and others of 
 like quality have gained prevalence. The words as 
 spoken suited the occasion in the first instance, and 
 later on occasion suited the words. 
 
 Apart from lectures and personal practice, I found 
 in the sphere of medicine much good from outside 
 comminglings. 
 
 I once had to carry out a peculiar and special 
 duty. I was commissioned by the late Mr. John 
 
324 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 Churchill, the publisher, to write for the Medical 
 Times and Gazette a set of essays on " The Medical 
 History of England." I went from city to city, 
 from town to town, and from hospital to hospital, in 
 order to see the practice of physic and state of physic 
 as it existed then ; and afterwards — though I did not 
 publish the facts— I got into the way of observing 
 the medical history of other countries in which I 
 happened to move. Here and everywhere the same 
 professional traits were present, generosity being the 
 leading spirit. In England I could not have met 
 with that quality in better form. Every medical 
 man visited was hospitable to the last degree : he 
 strove to make his home mine ; he put himself to 
 every inconvenience to assist me ; his wife was 
 always his true helpmate ; and his children, when 
 he had any — and he mostly had — were his and his 
 wife's second selves. He was more than hospitable 
 in his own house : he would drive me all over the 
 district in which he practised ; point out to me its 
 places of interest ; recount to me the most remark- 
 able stories of its history; visit his professional 
 neighbours in order that I might personally know 
 them ; lead me through the hospitals he knew, and 
 acquaint me with every detail, good or bad, of their 
 construction ; describe varieties of practice, and 
 their results, and call my attention to any number 
 of cases of disease. Constantly as we were walking 
 or driving we would meet some person of whom 
 there was a strange life history told to me clearly, 
 
IN THE SPHERE OF PRACTICAL MEDICINE. 325 
 
 and not unusually corroborated by the person 
 himself ; so that if it had been my wish, and time 
 could have been then at my disposal, I could have 
 composed many a story from what I heard — in fact 
 I did keep notes of the most remarkable. 
 
 The inquiry for the " Medical History of 
 England " lasted many months, and the account of 
 it extended over many hundred columns. Unfor- 
 tunately, practice was ever calling me to London. 
 I had to travel by night in my journeys ; often had 
 to write in the train, and to work like a slave at 
 all times. My rest was very much broken, but I 
 was in the prime of life, between thirty and forty 
 years of age ; was physically built for the task ; 
 could sleep on a board; mentally had my eyes 
 open to all that was shown to me, and nothing 
 impeded me. It has since more than once occurred 
 to me to put the history presented, in regard to its 
 more striking incidents, into one readable volume 
 that might be as interesting to the general as to the 
 medical reader : for I saw the pale of physic in its 
 widespread distribution; met with its members in 
 full life, in budding life, and in old age when they 
 could tell stories of predecessors long gone and of cus- 
 toms and practices withered, or even dead and buried. 
 Phantoms of the old friends haunt me in these days ; 
 sit by me as they did in the old time ; tell me their 
 experiences and histories, and show me their curio- 
 sities, so that I myself carry several generations of 
 those within the pale of physic in loving memory. 
 
CHAPTEE XVIII. 
 
 QUESTS TOR REMEDIES AND MEANS OF CURE. 
 
 jN the earliest days it was a part of the 
 work of the physician to go out with his 
 " basket " to seek the means of cure and 
 find the natural remedies that lay at his command. 
 The professors of the art have been divided in their 
 search : some have sought for the means of cure 
 solely in the vegetable kingdom ; others have tested 
 the properties of the mineral world, and a few 
 have wandered in both. With the natural instinct 
 of my many predecessors I have gone out to find 
 remedies and means of cure, but have neither made 
 Galen or Patin the exclusive guide. 
 
 It has been shown that in my first days the study 
 of ammonia as a medicine engaged my thoughts, as 
 well as the medicines of the haloid or chlorine series. 
 I detected, in working with bodies of the chlorine 
 series, like chloroform, that they possessed the pro- 
 perty, when their vapours were inhaled, of reducing 
 the animal temperature ; and I several times under- 
 took, with signal success, the treatment of diseases 
 of the febrile type by putting the sick under the 
 influence of the vapours named, inventing for the 
 
 326 
 
QUESTS FOR REMEDIES AND MEANS OF CURE. 327 
 
 purpose the bead-inhaler, in which a string of beads 
 was made to receive the remedy, and from which its 
 vaponr might be regularly drawn. 
 
 Hydrogen Peroxide. 
 
 After I had settled in 12, Hinde Street, London, 
 and had furnished my laboratory, I passed to a new 
 study by the investigation of the medicinal qualities 
 of a chemical fluid which the famous French chemist, 
 Thenard, discovered in the year 1818, and to which he 
 gave the name of Peroxide of Hydrogen. The fluid 
 was water charged with oxygen, which gas it gave 
 off freely on coming into contact with different 
 substances, animal, vegetable and mineral. What 
 led Thenard to discover this peroxide I could never 
 detect, although all his works were in my hands 
 in volumes that once belonged to the well-known 
 historian Buckle. I was not the first aspirant in 
 respect to the peroxide itself, for the authorities of 
 the University of Haarlem had offered a tempting 
 prize in regard to it. I was the first to make the 
 inquiry into it as a remedy ; and although the award 
 claimed for me by the late Dr. Macdonald of St. 
 Andrews was withdrawn, I had never any occasion 
 to regret the researches I carried out. 
 
 It was in the early fifties I commenced, and the 
 reason for the commencement rested on a dispute 
 then actively in progress as to what remedy was the 
 best in the treatment of diabetes. It seemed to 
 me that to give oxygen freely was the most scientific 
 
328 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 course, and, following Thenard's method of manu- 
 facture, I made the peroxide, for I could obtain 
 none in any chemical depot, and I could hear of 
 none except a little specimen that had been made for 
 the late Sir Benjamin Brodie of Oxford, a chemist, 
 and son of the well-known surgeon of that name. 
 An immense deal of difficulty was experienced in 
 this inquiry from the necessity there was to get a 
 pure salt of baryta with which to start. At last the 
 difficulty was overcome, and a fluid containing so 
 many volumes of oxygen gas was obtained. Next, 
 I had to ask what volume of oxygen should be 
 used in medical art. Thenard had proceeded up to 
 a high standard of volumes, which I, following him 
 to the letter, could never reach. I easily got up 
 to a strength of ten volumes, and there stopped, so 
 as to make that the medical standard, which, except 
 in America, where fifteen volumes have been used, 
 remains the same. I next had to determine the 
 dose of ten volumes solution, and did this by 
 partaking of it myself in measured quantities mixed 
 with water ; and from one to four fluid drachms was 
 determined on. Lastly, I had to administer the 
 substance in disease, and in that direction arrived 
 at the most unexpected results. I found that blood 
 added to the solution became of a brighter red colour, 
 and that oxygen was liberated. This fact led me to 
 try what the effect of the addition of pus derived 
 from an abscess would do. I found that pus caused 
 the most copious evolution of oxygen, and that the 
 
QUESTS FOR REMEDIES AND MEANS OF CURE. 329 
 
 matter derived from the vaccine point was sufficient 
 to start the disturbance or ferment. I tested the 
 question by the microscope, and saw that the peroxide 
 broke up pus cells. 
 
 I found also that it could be thrown into cavities 
 containing pus, and would cure without danger, if 
 care were used. In another research the curious 
 subject of colour came under notice. I observed, from 
 the accident of stirring the peroxide solution with 
 feathers, that they assumed a golden colour — a fact 
 exhibited at the Medical Society of London in 1858, 
 when I read the first paper written on the physio- 
 logical properties of the peroxide. Prom the fact of 
 change of colour under its use arose the process that 
 once made the hair of our ladies become conspicu- 
 ously stained or dyed a golden hue. 
 
 The original attempt to cure diabetes by the 
 peroxide did not turn out so advantageously as 
 was expected, but a widespread medical use of 
 the solution followed. I discovered it to be of true 
 service in whooping-cough, in phthisis pulmonalis, 
 in typhoid fever, in many other diseases, and of 
 special service in all instances where it could be 
 brought into contact with purulent substance. 
 Thus, in the course of time, in the hands of my 
 brethren it has become one of the most widely used 
 and distributed medicines that has ever been 
 employed. 
 
 In manipulation with peroxide of hydrogen I 
 dropped on the manufacture of the substance to 
 
330 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 which I gave the name of Ozonic Ether — a fluid 
 that has proved of value in disease, and has gained, 
 through the labours of the late Dr. Day of Geelong, 
 a large amount of attention as a chemical test in 
 regard to fluid animal excretions. 
 
 Amyl Nitrite. 
 
 One day, after delivering a lecture at the College 
 of Dentists, I met a gentleman named Morrison, 
 an Edinburgh dentist, who was reported to be a 
 strange and accomplished man. He was said to 
 possess a spark of the old attachment and admira- 
 tion which used to be held for Mary Queen of 
 Scots, whose gloves and some trinkets he owned 
 and kept in reverent memory. It was to another 
 subject, however, that he now called attention. He 
 brought out of his pocket a two-drachm bottle— I 
 still retain it — that was three parts filled with a 
 brownish liquid, having a strange, pear-like smell, 
 and which he told me was nitrite of amyl. He related 
 that he was a friend of the eminent Professor 
 Guthrie — a chemist I afterwards knew as occupying 
 one of the chairs of the South Kensington Museum 
 — and that in distilling over from his retort nitrite 
 of amyl, the fluid in the bottle to which I have 
 referred, the vapour was diffused, which vapour acci- 
 dentally inhaled by Guthrie, made him breathless, as 
 if he had been running. On Guthrie's explanation 
 of this phenomenon, Morrison concluded that nitrite 
 of amyl might be of benefit to dentists ; that they 
 
QUESTS FOR REMEDIES AND MEANS OF CURE. 331 
 
 might keep it in their consulting-rooms, and that 
 if their patients became faint they might give them 
 a whiff of it, as they gave smelling salts or 
 carbonate of ammonia. The history interested the 
 Council of the College of Dentists ; but Morrison's 
 statement alarmed them, and instead of accepting 
 the remedy at once they moved and carried that it 
 should be placed in my hands and that I should 
 report to them upon it. I accepted the duty, and 
 at once began to make nitrite of amyl a particular 
 study. 
 
 Research with the nitrite of amyl proceeded in the 
 usual way. I made myself the first victim, and 
 tried the effects of the substance by taking it, both 
 in the form of vapour and fluid. I had also some 
 friends who were willing to follow in my wake, 
 amongst others the late Mr. Kimpton, a dentist 
 deeply interested in the investigation, Dr., or as he 
 was more commonly called, Sir Duncan, Gibb, and 
 Dr. Henry. It came out that the nitrite acted on 
 the organic or sympathetic nervous system ; that it 
 was not an anaesthetic, but that it quickened, in the 
 most striking manner, the circulation of the blood. 
 It acted in the same way on the inferior animals as 
 on man, and I discovered that on both it caused the 
 most distinct phenomena of muscular relaxation. I 
 had seen nothing before that completely resembled 
 it, the nearest to it being nitro-glycerine, which had 
 been used by Mr. Field, a surgeon of eminence and 
 of good observation. My description of the effects of 
 
332 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 the nitrite was that it relaxed the living muscles of a 
 limb completely ; and one day a medical practitioner, 
 Mr. Stedman, who lived at Sharnbrook in Bedford- 
 shire, and who now and then came to see me, 
 breathed the nitrite so freely, in my absence, that 
 he fell on the floor and laid there for several hours 
 in such extreme muscular collapse I was in alarm 
 for fear he should not recover. He was like a 
 person in catalepsy : he could not move a limb ; but 
 it turned out that he knew everything that was 
 going on and heard every word spoken. He made 
 a perfect recovery, and returned in about ten hours 
 to his own home. 
 
 At the meeting of the British Association for the 
 Advancement of Science, held in Newcastle-on-Tyne 
 in 1863, I read the first paper on " Amyl Nitrite " 
 and illustrated its effects. There was a large 
 audience, and I met with an event I did not expect. 
 Professor George Bolleston was in the chair, and 
 was in rather a sceptical humour. I explained 
 that the nitrite excited the circulation ; that it 
 was a substance producing local results like those 
 following the division of a sympathetic nerve, and 
 that the blood-vessels first dilated freely and then 
 became what is called congested. To this statement 
 the Chairman listened carefully ; but when, in 
 pouring some of the fluid on a piece of filtering 
 paper, I explained that the vapour which diffused 
 through the room would, without affecting the 
 consciousness, make every person's heart beat more 
 
QUESTS FOR REMEDIES AND MEANS OF CURE. 333 
 
 quickly than was natural, he smiled incredulously 
 and held out his hand for the paper. Thereupon I 
 handed it to him, warning him not to inhale from 
 it. He disobeyed the warning, however, and, 
 before I could stop him, inhaled for a few 
 moments freely, soon showing the consequences. 
 His face became blood-red ; he felt the pulsations 
 indicated, and was obviously alarmed as well as 
 astonished at what had occurred. I was able to 
 assure him that there was no danger; and when 
 he got over his shock, he not only apologised, 
 but explained to the audience the folly of being too 
 incredulous about what they heard from experimental 
 observers. 
 
 At a subsequent meeting of the Association held 
 at Bath I returned to the subject, explaining that 
 we possessed in nitrite of amyl the most potent 
 anti-spasmodic we had ever known ; enumerated the 
 diseases that might be successfully treated by it — 
 such as asthma, angina, colic, and even spasmodic 
 tetanus, in which latter disease it has been success- 
 fully used no fewer than nine times to my own 
 knowledge, the late Mr. Poster of Huntingdon being 
 the first to resort to it in tetanus. At this Bath 
 meeting Bishop Colenso, David Livingstone, and 
 Dr. Hughes Bennett were present. They were all 
 extremely interested by the address. Livingstone 
 talked with me about it and its history, as well as 
 about the old school (Anderson's University) where 
 we were both educated ; and Dr. Bennett arranged to 
 
334 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 call upon me in London to get further particulars, 
 respecting the nitrite, to introduce into his annual 
 opening lecture coming on at Edinburgh — a visit he 
 duly made, and during which he wrote down the 
 list of spasmodic affections that were likely to be 
 relieved or cured by the inhalation of the vapour. 
 
 The readings I had given before the Association 
 had an important bearing on my career : they led 
 the committee of recommendation, at the instance 
 of Mr. Gassiott, inventor of the Grassiott tubes, to vote 
 me a small sum of money in order to continue my 
 therapeutical inquiries, and for some years the 
 vote was repeated. The sum was small, never 
 exceeding thirty pounds, and never approaching the 
 outlay I had to make ; but it helped me on, and 
 certainly, as an encouragement, kept me bound to 
 my labours, many of which are reported in the 
 Transactions of the Association. 
 
 Mercaptan, 
 
 In pursuing the quest for remedial measures, I 
 studied the action of bichloride of methylene and 
 the other anaesthetics already mentioned ; but many 
 others came under my observation of which some- 
 thing should be said. 
 
 One chemical which occupied much of my 
 attention was mercaptan, sometimes, but not quite 
 correctly, denominated " sulphur alcohol," an alcohol 
 in which sulphur stands in the place of oxygen. 
 It is a most offensive substance to the smell, and 
 
QUESTS FOR REMEDIES AND MEANS OF CURE. 335 
 
 not agreeable to the taste, although by dilution it 
 is just tolerable. I took it because of its singular 
 effects ; and it gave me a remarkable suggestion, 
 which I have published. It affects the mind, 
 making it, as it were, turbid and melancholy, under 
 which the impulse or tendency to commit suicide 
 is one of the leading symptoms. Strangely, too, 
 mercaptan is a body that can be manufactured by a 
 perverted animal chemistry in the living organism, 
 and has been detected in the intestinal excretions. 
 I have no doubt that by its veritable presence in 
 the body it does contribute to deranged mental 
 conditions, and that it is specially deserving of 
 remembrance by those who are engaged in the care 
 and treatment of the insane. 
 
 Substitutional and Constitutional Lessons. 
 
 Previous to the time when these effects of 
 mercaptan had been reported, I had inferred from 
 the researches on nitrite of amyl that a new method 
 of inquiry in regard to therapeutical substances 
 might be carried out. 
 
 It had been shown to me from natural phenomena 
 that nitrite of amyl not only relaxed muscular fibre, 
 but that for a long period after what seemed to 
 be death, it caused the muscular irritability to be 
 retained, so that, as stated in the article on reanima- 
 tion, animals under its influence would remain 
 alive for several days, cold-bloods until the web 
 of the foot showed actual signs of decomposition. 
 
336 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 I stated at the meeting in Birmingham, in 1865, 
 that medicines onght to he studied from their 
 constitutional side, and that we might, by a 
 complete knowledge of the action of the elements 
 of which the remedies are composed, see what a 
 combination of elements would perform in a 
 medicinal way. I also taught what might he 
 learned from nature herself as conclusions derived 
 from the action of remedial substances, and sug- 
 gested three lessons. 
 
 I showed, first, from the effects of amylene, iodide 
 of amyl, acetate of amyl, and others of the series, 
 that they might he understood according to the 
 phenomena they seemed to induce, and in a case of 
 hopeless tetanus, as an example, I reasoned that 
 there ought to he no hesitation in administering 
 nitrite of amyl until decided reduction of muscular 
 rigidity was indicated. 
 
 The second lesson deducible from the researches 
 brought forward was that in the animal chemistry 
 itself substances might, by a perverted nutrition, 
 produce symptoms that actually resembled disease. 
 Nitrite of amyl, for instance, induced a condition 
 of system allied closely to the disease known as 
 catalepsy. Amylene, again, produced phenomena 
 like those of somnambulism, and caused some forms 
 of paralysis of voluntary muscular power showing 
 peculiar dyspeptic derangements, as if the organism 
 itself made from its own organic material some- 
 thing that in character was allied to an amyl or 
 
QUESTS FOR REMEDIES AND MEANS OF CURE. 337 
 
 starch compound. I tested this point by inhaling 
 ten grains of amylene diffused through one hundred 
 cubic inches of air, and produced in my own body, 
 in the most distinct manner, phenomena allied 
 to somnambulism. Soon after inhaling I forgot 
 myself altogether, but four minutes later was quite 
 conscious again, waking as if with a start. I 
 thought the experiment would not answer ; but, 
 glancing at my own wrist, I found I was wrong in 
 the suspicion I had formed, for there were deep 
 marks of pinches at several points, and the bottle 
 containing the amylene vapour had been moved by 
 myself and the stopper re-inserted, so that I had 
 been performing acts preconceived and carefully 
 carried out without remembering any single fact 
 connected with the process : in short, a kind of 
 somnambulism had been induced. 
 
 A third and last lesson had relation to the 
 modification of action exhibited by charging the body 
 first with the same chemical base, afterwards with 
 divers compounds of it. I took amyl as the base, 
 and to it added new elements, trying the different 
 effects of these additions. The order of variation 
 was most interesting. A simple hydro-carbon like 
 hydruret of amyl acted as a negative body, not 
 differing from nitrogen in this respect, but des- 
 troying motor force and partly consciousness, and 
 nothing more. I introduced the element oxygen 
 to the amyl, and there was added to the above- 
 named phenomena violent and persistent tremor . 
 
 22 
 
338 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 I added iodine instead of oxygen, and the phenomena 
 indicated the free elimination of fluid from the 
 body, with vascularity of the extreme parts and 
 increase of the action of the heart and respiration. 
 I changed the combination once more, to bring 
 nitrogen and oxygen into operation combined with 
 the base, and found that the vascular action was 
 raised beyond what is seen from any other sub- 
 stance, followed by a prostration so profound that 
 the still living animal might for a time pass 
 as dead. 
 
 It seemed to me, therefore, that in these experi- 
 mental truths, so simple and yet so striking, we 
 have presented to us a line of experimental inquiry 
 running parallel with that so prominent amongst 
 our learned and more exact brethren of chemistry, 
 and called usually the " law of substitution." "Is 
 there not," I asked, "a physiological law to be 
 worked out similar in character, and might we 
 not, by following it, become sure and determinate 
 in our knowledge by a new and sound application 
 of remedies ? " What if, after having learned the 
 exact action on the economy of an organic base, we 
 took compounds moulded on such a base and learned 
 their true physiological values ? Surely if we did 
 this, long though the labour might be, we could in 
 time lay down 
 
 " this osier cage of ours 
 With baleful weeds and precious juiced flow'rs," 
 
QUESTS FOR REMEDIES AND MEANS OF CURE. 339 
 
 and, without forgetting the other words of the wise 
 friar, 
 
 " O ! mickle is the powerful grace that lies 
 In herbs, plants, stones, and their true qualities," 
 
 might begin to approach that accuracy of know- 
 ledge, the absence of which makes the learned so 
 weak and the charlatan so presumptuous. 
 
 Arriving physiologically at a correct knowledge of 
 organic chemical compounds, a plan that would aim 
 at establishing a principle in medicine would soon 
 be accomplished, and the difference in regard to the 
 action of elements themselves be determined upon. 
 In respect to amyl as the base, there can be no 
 doubt that differences of compounds were shown to 
 exist ; but elementary distinctions were scarcely less 
 obvious. For example, in regard to mercaptan the 
 difference from alcohol was that, in it, sulphur 
 replaced oxygen, and we were simply introducing the 
 work of sulphur as compared with that of oxygen. 
 Perhaps we were doing the same thing in every case 
 where sulphur was the element representative of 
 oxygen. The same rule might apply to iodine when 
 it took the place of oxygen, for I showed at Dundee 
 in 1867, that when iodine was combined with methyl, 
 making iodide of methyl, an agent was produced 
 which, by careful inhalation, could bring about 
 anaesthesia, but was not so good as when methyl 
 was combined with chlorine, though extraordinary 
 in some other respects, and notable in its sedative 
 effect, about which I have a word to add. 
 
340 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 I commenced to learn the use of the iodide of 
 methyl by taking it myself in diluted alcohol. 
 I found that a grain could be taken with perfect 
 safety. I then prescribed it in an inveterate case 
 of specific ulceration, in which iodide of potassium 
 had failed, and, carrying the dose up to three grains, 
 found the most rapid curative result. Further, the 
 great pain and irritability of ulcerated surfaces were 
 singularly relieved by it. Repeating this observa- 
 tion with further success, I solicited permission of 
 Mr. Thomas Nunn, then surgeon to the Middlesex 
 Hospital, to treat some hopeless cases of cancerous 
 ulcers in the cancer wards of that Institution. Four 
 cases were assigned to me, and the suggested plan 
 was carried out by Mr. Nunn himself. His report 
 of the results, after four months' trial, was of the 
 most encouraging character. One case of ulceration 
 was reported as healed, so that the patient left 
 the hospital; another, in which there was intense 
 hyperesthesia — extreme sensibility of the skin — a 
 symptom which had resisted all previous means, was 
 directly relieved, and the patient greatly improved ; 
 in a third example, pain of an extreme kind was 
 relieved, and in the fourth the symptoms were kept 
 in abeyance. Mr. Nunn stated that his observations 
 showed that iodide of methyl could be safely admin- 
 istered for long periods of time ; that it removed 
 pain — particularly the form of pain called hyper- 
 esthesia, and that cancerous ulceration might heal 
 under its use. 
 
QUESTS FOR REMEDIES AND MEANS OF CURE. 341 
 
 Amylaceous Origins of Disease and Sleep. 
 
 In addition to the lessons given above, I added 
 a fourth, easily demonstrated, but not publicly re- 
 lated anywhere. It was my intention to explain it ; 
 but such is the flight of time in the life of a busy 
 man that I put it aside, and allowed it to become 
 forgotten for a period of not less than thirty years. 
 What occurred to me was, that taking amyl as a 
 base, and getting compounds having visible varying 
 effects, the base being itself derived from starch, we 
 might easily account for a whole cluster of diseases, 
 or, rather, causes of diseases, from no harder a task 
 than that of learning what compounds could be 
 made from starch by chemical manipulation. But 
 it was as easy to make starch compounds in the body 
 as out of it, and, made in the body and diffused 
 through it, they could not fail to provoke symptoms 
 of disease just as they did when, after being made 
 outside the body, they were swallowed or inhaled. 
 Amylene induces a somnambulistic state ; amyl 
 nitrite a kind of catalepsy ; but either, derived from 
 a common constituent of food, might with equal 
 readiness be made out of the body, or by a modified 
 vital chemistry within it, without any conception of 
 our own. I followed up my idea by determining 
 what the result would be of administering for a 
 long time minute doses of amyl nitrite, and by that 
 method synthesised so remarkable a form of phthisis 
 pulmonalis that the symptoms, as well as the 
 
342 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 pathology, were the most striking features, extending 
 even to the occurrence of haemorrhage in the pul- 
 monary organs. It seemed also to me that the 
 common and nightly phenomenon of sleep might be 
 due to the formation within the body, during waking 
 and working hours, of a sleep-producing or, more 
 correctly speaking, anaesthetic compound diffused 
 by the blood. 
 
 Colloids and Dialyses. 
 
 It would take a volume of itself to record all 
 the practical researches made and the conclusions 
 arrived at. I believe they are mainly published 
 in the Reports of the British Association and in 
 similar works ; but I cannot fail to recall two 
 other researches before I conclude. 
 
 I became deeply interested in the subject of col- 
 loids owing to the teachings of the late Dr. Thomas 
 Graham, the Master of the Mint, whom I knew, 
 and whose able assistant— the late Dr. Frederick 
 Versman — became an assistant of my own when 
 Graham ceased to require his services. The division 
 of organic substances into crystalloids and colloids, 
 which Graham pointed out as naturally existing, 
 was a discovery of singular comprehensiveness, and 
 whenever I visited him in Gordon Square, whither 
 he had retired, his conversation was of the most 
 useful and edifying character. He was an old 
 Professor of Anderson's University, where I had, as 
 before mentioned, been educated, and he could recall 
 
QUESTS FOR REMEDIES AND MEANS OF CURE. 343 
 
 the famous David Livingstone ; but the richest of 
 his expositions had reference to the diffusion of gases 
 and to the colloid and crystalloid qualities of matter. 
 Both states of matter claimed my attention, the 
 colloid especially, and the word "pectus," which 
 Graham applied to the term " coagulation " of 
 colloids, was employed by me, subjecting me to the 
 foolish criticism of some commonplace writer who 
 did not understand what the word meant, and whom 
 we never condescended to notice. 
 
 It was natural enough for me to repeat the 
 experimental researches which Professor Graham 
 had made on the subject of the colloids and 
 crystalloids, and on the phenomenon he called 
 " dialysis," when bodies of an organic nature are 
 simply separated from each other by a thin 
 membrane. He seemed to me to have alighted 
 on a profound organic law when he showed that 
 osmosis — not endosmosis or exosmosis — must be the 
 term employed in regard to the matter ; and in the 
 old Literary Gazette, in which I had charge of the 
 scientific weekly article, and of which, I think, at 
 the time the eminent John Morley was editor, I 
 wrote two or three columns on osmosis that 
 Graham highly commended, and from which he 
 explained to me the vital nature of the process 
 according to his views. These views have ever 
 since remained in my mind, and have led me to 
 take up the study of dialysis in various ways, 
 especially in reference to exudation of fluids in 
 
344 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 which a crystallisable salt forms a constituent part. 
 I lahoured at the work of dialysis in the nervous 
 material, and strove to find if the membranous 
 envelope surrounding the nervous pulp or fluid 
 admitted water through the membranes or absorbed 
 through them, and whether there was a coagulation 
 of nervous substance, as there was of muscle and 
 blood. I gave a lecture on these points before 
 the Hunterian Society at the London Institution, 
 which lecture was afterwards published in the 
 Medical Times and Gazette, and another one at the 
 Royal Infirmary at Hull, showing that water could 
 be removed from a colloid like albumen, and that 
 albumen could be left in the solid form and be also 
 transparent : in fact, I artificially constructed 
 transparent lenses so like the crystalline lens that 
 the artificial resembled the natural, and possessed 
 magnifying power. 
 
 But the most practical result of the experi- 
 mentation consisted in the formation of remedial 
 substances in the form of colloids. Eluid colloids, 
 like collodion, were tested in order to see what 
 substances they would absorb so as to produce 
 remedial solutions, and the bodies, afterwards called 
 " colloids," were introduced by me and brought 
 into general use. Styptic colloid came first, and 
 proved useful, not only in stopping haemorrhages, 
 but in covering and healing wounds, and in covering 
 inflamed surfaces like those of erysipelas. Then 
 followed iodised colloid, which acted like styptic 
 
QUESTS FOR REMEDIES AND MEANS OF CURE. 345 
 
 colloid, with, the addition that it afforded at the 
 same time an antiseptic, and provided a means by 
 which iodine conld be slowly introduced into the 
 system, or into parts of it. I thns obtained what 
 we found to be truly useful remedies in a practical 
 form, always ready to hand when called for; and I 
 have had the pleasure of living to see few remedies in 
 greater demand. I wish I had done more in regard 
 to the study of dialysis, but I could not have done 
 better, I hope, than introduce the colloids as 
 remedies. 
 
 The Ethylates. 
 
 The other remedial research to which reference 
 has been made relates to the substances known and 
 used as the ethylates, or, as they are sometimes 
 called, caustic alcohols. I reported on these at the 
 meeting of the British Association at Liverpool in 
 1870, and the Report will be found in the Trans- 
 actions. As it was a curious research, it may 
 appear in these pages. I had found that some bodies 
 could be decomposed by water, and, while they 
 were decomposing, active remedial qualities could 
 be evinced which would prove of service. This was 
 the case with the ethylates. Sodium or potassium 
 was dissolved in pure ethylic alcohol. When one 
 of them, say sodium, was dissolved in pure alcohol 
 brisk action took place, owing to the circumstance 
 that the alcohol was, for thu moment, decomposed, 
 an equivalent of its hydrogen being set free and 
 
346 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 becoming replaced by sodium. In this way an 
 ethylate was formed which, with care, could he turned 
 into a beautiful crystalline salt or could be kept in 
 solution by the addition to it of more alcohol. In the 
 form of ethylate the salt could be kept safely so long 
 as water was excluded from it; but when it was 
 brought into contact with water a reaction took place. 
 The water became decomposed; its two elements, 
 oxygen and hydrogen, were divided ; its oxygen went 
 over to the sodium, forming caustic soda; and its 
 hydrogen replaced that which it had lost previously, 
 re-forming alcohol, and making ethylate of sodium 
 or a caustic alcohol. It struck me that the water in 
 the tissues, or in blood or albumen, would act in 
 the same manner as ordinary water, and so I treated 
 blood and albumen with an ethylate to discover if 
 this were the fact. The water again was broken 
 up ; caustic soda was formed, which acted on the 
 organic substance of the blood or albumen, trans- 
 forming it into a solid substance concreted or held 
 together, or, we may say, coagulated, by the newly 
 formed alcohol. This was quite a singular dis- 
 covery, and I soon made it applicable in practice. I 
 found a patient suffering from a vascular tumour who 
 had been surgically, but unsuccessfully, attended 
 by the late excellent surgeon, Mr. John Gay, and I 
 treated the tumour by covering it with a solution of 
 the ethylate. The phenomena were the same as anti- 
 cipated. The water of the tumour was decomposed ; 
 caustic soda was produced which disintegrated 
 
QUESTS FOR REMEDIES AND MEANS OF CURE. 347 
 
 the mass ; alcohol was formed which coagulated 
 the organic parts, transforming them into a scale, and 
 the whole was removed by the formation of a dead 
 scab or scale-like surface. The tumour on which this 
 operation was successfully carried out was classified 
 as a vascular nsevus, and since then many have been 
 removed by the ethylate. I myself have removed 
 a hundred, and other external uses of the remedial 
 substance have taken place. Much more also is 
 promised by employing the more active potassium 
 ethylate, which destroys with astonishing rapidity, 
 and with which I have removed much larger and 
 more solid tumours than nsevi. In many instances, 
 indeed, potassium ethylate might be applied as a 
 successful rival of the knife itself, and, mixed with 
 some favourable local anaesthetic body, like cocaine, 
 might be quite painless in operation. 
 
 Mechanical Contrivances. 
 
 Hitherto I have referred only to such remedial 
 means as have appeared to me in the medicinal f orm ; 
 but others have come to light of a mechanical, rather 
 than a chemical, nature. The oxygen-holder, or 
 table, by means of which oxygen becomes the bearer 
 of other remedies, is of this nature. The movable 
 electric apparatus which wheels from bed to bed is 
 a useful mechanical arrangement. The serrated 
 scissors, which divide tissues without causing them to 
 bleed, are a mechanical contrivance taken from the 
 observation of the way in which, with their teeth, 
 
348 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 female bovine animals divide the foetal cord. The 
 sphygmophone, which renders the pulsations of the 
 pulse audible, and the system of rubber tubes which 
 conveys a hot or cold current of water around the 
 neck, partake of the mechanical character; while the 
 proposal, which met, some years ago, with criticism 
 and incredulity, that an ovarian cyst might be 
 treated without a formidable operation by simply 
 compressing the pedicle through which it is 
 fed, stands in the same category, and will one day 
 be adopted as a mechanical operation worthy of 
 reconsideration . 
 
 Embalming the Dead. 
 
 Before I conclude this chapter it is well I should 
 devote a few lines to the practice I have carried out 
 in the ancient art of embalming the dead. A great 
 many years ago a French gentleman by the name of 
 Ealcony brought over a powder to which his name 
 was attached — Palcony's Powder — and indicated 
 that by means of it he could preserve the dead 
 body. The powder consisted of sulphate of zinc 
 and sawdust, and the dead body was buried in it 
 in an open chest. The water of the body exuded 
 into the sulphate of zinc and escaped by the exposed 
 surface, so that the dead body was really dried 
 down or mummified, and remained in a state of 
 preservation. Mr. Falcony asked me, as the then 
 Dean of the Grosvenor Place School of Medicine, to 
 lend him the dissecting-room for his demonstrations, 
 
QUESTS FOR REMEDIES AND MEANS OF CURE. 349 
 
 which, with the consent of my colleagues, I did. 
 The demonstrations were exceedingly satisfactory 
 in result, and they led me to make the whole question 
 of preservation of the dead a careful study. On 
 this the art of embalming came before me for in- 
 vestigation, and I made so much progress in it that 
 I carried out embalming in no less than forty-eight 
 instances, and introduced so many improvements in 
 regard to embalming fluids that at last I could 
 inject them by needle injection with entire success 
 without performing any post-mortem operation at 
 all. I did not like to continue the art further, 
 for two or three reasons. To begin with, it meant 
 a disagreeable undertaking. In the next place, it 
 seemed to me an idle and absurdly sentimental 
 practice to preserve a body that had served its 
 purpose and could in an hour or so be destroyed 
 or removed in the crematory by the influence of 
 fire. Lastly, in embalming, incidents arose which 
 were not consonant with my nature, and affected 
 me so much I determined to give up the practice ; 
 it is many years now since I carried out a task I 
 never wish to resume. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THE BATTLE WITH ALCOHOL. 
 
 )OH about half my life it has been my fate 
 to be in opposition to the general custom 
 of using alcohol in the form of wine, 
 spirits, or beer as drink. What started the battle 
 I am unable to say, inasmuch as I was not trained 
 to the idea of the conflict by any friend or leader. 
 I was not led into it by habit, as some have 
 been, and of all things ambition or desire to shine 
 in the contest has been the last provocative. The 
 part I have taken has been to many objection- 
 able from the commencement of the fray, and in a 
 certain sense injurious to me. 
 
 I was brought up to believe in alcohol, and the 
 brewing of October ale in my father's house is one 
 of my earliest recollections ; to me it was quite 
 an event. The arrival of materials for the brewing 
 was to my little mind an important matter ; the 
 preparations and boiling of the copper a delight. 
 I watched the washing of the barrels, and fermen- 
 tation of the malt with admiring wonder, and 
 enjoyed the sitting up late at night, while the 
 occurrences of the morning of the next day are 
 
 350 
 
THE BATTLE WITH ALCOHOL. 351 
 
 memorable. The neighbours would all come in to 
 taste, in a wooden bowl, the new brew, or to sip the 
 sweet- wort. I was allowed to use a little wooden 
 bowl, and permitted to see the different classes 
 of the fluid drawn off. The strong beer looked, 
 when it was cleared and the yeast removed, like 
 wine ; but the middlings and small beer had to be 
 strained before they were stored ; then, some time 
 afterwards, when they were ready, they, too, had to 
 be tasted and tested, taps inserted into their barrels, 
 and marks made upon the fronts that they might 
 be readily recognised. It was a grand day. Beer- 
 glasses were brought, of which I still retain a 
 specimen — long glasses beautifully engraved with 
 a depending ear of corn. With my dinner I was 
 allowed to use a plate which I still have, and which 
 later School Board reviews often reminded me of. 
 On it King George III. was the subject of a well- 
 devised picture. He was robed as a king, and seated 
 on his throne. In front of him stood a sweet-looking, 
 ill-clad little boy, who was receiving from him a 
 book, and hearing the words : "I hope the time will 
 come when every poor child in my dominions will 
 be able to read the Bible." 
 
 I also recall that one old gentleman who came 
 to taste and praise the new brew would pipe to us 
 a song, which my grandfather, Richard Ward, who 
 lived a jolly kind of independent life, used, I 
 heard, to sing on similar occasions. His friends 
 gave him the credit of writing the song, which 
 
352 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 they said he sang in a fine musical voice ; but 
 whether he composed it or whether he borrowed 
 it I could never learn. Anyway, here it is : — 
 
 " Says Plato : ' Why should man be vain, 
 
 Since Heaven's bounty has made him great ? 
 Or why looks he with rank disdain 
 
 On those undeck'd with wealth or state ? 
 
 " ' Can costly robes, or beds of down, 
 
 Or all the gimp that decks the fair — 
 Can all the glory of a crown 
 
 Give health and strength apart from care ? 
 
 " ' See ! through the air the meteor flies 
 And spreads along its gilded train. 
 When shot, it's gone ! Its beauty dies, 
 Dissolves, and comes not here again.' 
 
 " So 'tis with us, my jovial souls ! 
 
 Let friendship reign while here we stay : 
 Let's crown with joy our flowing bowls ; 
 When Jove commands we must obey." 
 
 At the end of the song the doctor of the district, it 
 is said, invariably quaffed his cup, and the parson, 
 doing the same, always said, " I never heard you to 
 greater advantage, Mr. Ward. You should subscribe 
 half a crown to the choir and the waits," which I 
 dare say he did. 
 
 The brewing of beer was not the only picture that 
 influenced me in our little circle. My mother was 
 pronounced on the matter of domestic wine, which 
 she was proud to make and store away. She had her 
 elder wine made from the berries of a tree, under the 
 leaves of which we used to doze in summer weather ; 
 
THE BATTLE WITH ALCOHOL. 353 
 
 cowslip wine made from the field flowers we used to 
 pluck; mead made with malt and honey; currant 
 wines of different kinds ; and gooseberry wine from 
 the fruit of that name, which nearly rivalled 
 champagne. One of these wines would be brought 
 out with cake ; and there is still living a nobleman, 
 far advanced in years, whom I remember seeing 
 when I was quite a child, sipping the cowslip 
 as he discussed an election in which he was a 
 candidate, and for success at which he was 
 canvassing. 
 
 These feastings, if I may call them so, were 
 general. Scarcely a soul believed that there could 
 be a world without wine or beer. At the annual 
 club-feast beer ruled the roast ; at the ordinary feast 
 it did the same. The working man or woman 
 expected their glass; and at the "statutes," where 
 servants were hired for the year, " beer-money " was 
 the order of the day. The harvest supper was 
 incomplete without beer ; and a man would ask you 
 for a glass if he only opened a gate for you and 
 your horse to go through ; also, if a person were 
 faint or weak or sick in any way, alcohol was 
 resorted to. 
 
 In the first case of confluent small-pox I ever 
 witnessed I found wine and spirits familiar reme- 
 dies, and whenever doctors prescribed they almost 
 always ordered wine. They were not absolutely 
 unanimous ; for there was an Esculapian teacher 
 — Dr. Cheyne — who said that when people were 
 
 23 
 
354 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 actually sick, wine ought to be stopped, and ought 
 not to be resumed until indications of recovery 
 proclaimed it safe to give it. In Edinburgh also 
 the illustrious Cullen and his school practised a 
 kind of abstinence — a method which the erratic 
 Brown, founder of the Brunonian System, opposed. 
 But taking it all in all the doctors were in favour 
 of wine; and I knew one compromising doctor 
 who, foreseeing the disfavour into which blood-letting 
 Was passing, continued to bleed and at the same 
 time administered alcohol freely, as if he thought the 
 one remedy checkmated the other. Things could 
 not be either mirthful or funny unless alcoholic 
 drinks played their part. The Esculapian, under 
 whom I entered the fraternity, gave alcohol its full 
 credit as a reviver of wit and manners, and offered 
 a good many clever illustrations. One night when 
 he was toiling up a steep hill on his trusty steed 
 he saw a man lying on the wayside grass. He 
 dismounted, and, advancing to help, recognised the 
 sufferer, not only by what he saw, but by what he 
 heard — for it was dark. The man was a lay-preacher 
 of one of the sects, and the words by which the 
 doctor recognised him were those of a text from 
 which he was so greatly accustomed to preach that 
 the wicked said he could preach from none other. 
 
 " Why will ye die, O house of Israel ? Why will 
 ye die ? " 
 
 " Why, get up from the ground, and don't die ! " 
 responded the doctor. " I know you ! Come, get 
 
THE BATTLE WITH ALCOHOL. 355 
 
 up ! " and so saying he lifted the drowsy man on to 
 his feet, helped him on to the horse, with his face 
 to the tail of the animal, took him to the nearest 
 public house, and there made him preach the whole 
 sermon to the assembled cronies, much to their 
 delight, but to his own future discouragement and 
 the loss of his best discourse. 
 
 There was on no side any lack of alcoholic drinks 
 and usages. If two parties played at skittles or 
 cricket, or had a race, it would be for " a half- 
 gallon ; " and any book that introduced sufficiently 
 the pranks of the intoxicated, the better the chances 
 of the book and of its publishers. Squire TVeslon 
 was a " good 'un," and the book Pickwick, which 
 I have from time to time seen read by men up to the 
 point of death, would be nowhere were it not for 
 the cup that does excite and does inebriate. 
 
 In introducing these incidents I simply wish to 
 show that in my early days nothing transpired to 
 lead me to doubt the value of alcoholic drinks, except 
 that I knew a man who, in his cups, lost for a wager 
 all his flocks of sheep, and once saw a clerical 
 lecturer draw from his coat pocket, with a part of 
 the pocket itself, a lump as large as a cricket 
 ball, from which he said, " the accursed stuff " 
 could be distilled by heat. Neither of these events, 
 however, affected my mind ; they passed by me 
 like an idle wind. 
 
 There was nothing in the treatment of the sick, 
 as I learned it, that suggested a word of opposition. 
 
356 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 Every one of my instructors was imbued with the 
 idea that disease could not be met without alcohol, 
 either as a food or as a remedy. Even the ac- 
 complished Dr. Andrew Anderson was in favour of 
 a little spirit. I first saw whisky-punch as an 
 addition to the professional table, and I first learned 
 to become quite an adept at making it from a lesson 
 I acquired in the art at the house of Sir John 
 Rose Cormack at Putney at the hands of a famous 
 botanist, upon whom some adventurous student had 
 fixed the name of " Woody Eibre," by which he 
 was generally known in his own immediate circle. 
 There was never a dinner where I took an active 
 part in which I was not selected as the connoisseur. 
 The price of the dinner ticket might be high, 
 but with j)lenty of wine — and good wine — it 
 mattered little what the viands might be, for the 
 wine would wash them down. We committed 
 the folly of proposing and drinking our own healths 
 in wine ; and one gentleman who presided, and 
 whose legs I had bandaged up in the morning — they 
 being dropsical from alcohol — was sitting up in the 
 evening with his feet resting on a stool, while his 
 health and long life were toasted amid vociferous 
 cheering and the declaration that he was a " jolly 
 good fellow " by all who were competent to stand 
 and sing it. But if anything painful had transpired 
 we should have been touched equally by regret. I 
 could laugh then because I did not appreciate the 
 absurdity of a helpless man having his health 
 
THE BATTLE WITH ALCOHOL. 357 
 
 destroyed by the very liquor which was the damning 
 cause of his illness ; but I could equally have wept 
 if danger had really arisen. 
 
 I recall yet another incident. There was a 
 meeting of medical men in a large hall in 
 Birmingham. We were congregated in numbers, 
 and the organ pealed forth its sounds. I was 
 marked as a young man who had just gained a prize 
 and who had many friends. A little group of us — 
 including the late Sir John Forbes, Sir Charles 
 Hastings of Worcester, Mr. Nunnerly of Leeds, 
 and some others — were conversing together in 
 familiar terms, when suddenly there strode up the 
 hall with a firm step a gentleman I did not know. 
 I was struck by the stranger's nobility of look; by 
 the sadness that clouded his brow, and by the 
 calmness which he nevertheless displayed. He 
 walked up the hall, with his beautiful old-fashioned 
 buff coat buttoned, his hands crossed behind him, 
 and as he scanned our little group Sir Charles 
 Hastings left us to go and shake hands with him. 
 
 " Who's that, Sir John ? " I asked of Forbes, who 
 looked nervously on. 
 
 " Oh, that's the well-known Higginbottom of 
 Nottingham," he answered. " Hastings is talking 
 to him, and when he has finished his chat I will 
 say a word to him myself." 
 
 Sir Charles Hastings was not long away from us. 
 Forbes walked off, and I, curious to learn the 
 history, inquired of Sir Charles about the stranger. 
 
358 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 "What," said I, " has he done to make everybody 
 so shy of him ? " 
 
 "Nothing whatever, I assure you," replied 
 Hastings. " He is one of the hest practitioners in 
 England ; has made quite a notable use of nitrate 
 of silver in medicine ; is a man of true science ; a 
 Fellow of the Royal Society, and strictly honourable 
 in all his proceedings ; but unfortunately he has a 
 * bee in his bonnet ' — he denounces wine and all 
 alcoholic drinks, and is himself a 'total abstainer.' ' 
 
 " What has that to do with it ? " 
 
 " Nothing at all ! I like the man," he replied, 
 " for he has been useful to me as the founder of the 
 British Medical Association. But here's Sir John 
 back again. Did you have a satisfactory interview, 
 Sir John ? " 
 
 " Perfectly," replied Sir John, and, turning to me, 
 he added, " I never could see any harm in the man." 
 
 " Sir Charles seems to like him, and I wish you 
 would introduce me to him," I responded. 
 
 " I would with pleasure, though I almost fear 
 it might do you no good. It does not hurt us old 
 stagers, but you might not be equally invulnerable, 
 and we've lost our chance, for there he goes." 
 
 Down the open path made by the critical crowd 
 Higginbottom strode, speaking to no one and 
 nodding only now and then to some old friend. It 
 was clear he knew and felt his position : no one 
 could help feeling it ; and so he passed away, and I 
 never saw him again. 
 
THE BATTLE WITH ALCOHOL. 359 
 
 When he had gone I heard enough about this 
 curious man Higginbottoni. There was one com- 
 paratively young man very much liked, it seemed — 
 a goodnatured character who nearly split his sides 
 on the subject, but who was not long before he 
 succumbed to the enemy of his health and peace ; 
 and there was another strong man who denounced 
 the offender in language such as only a wine-bibber 
 can use. 
 
 I very quickly repaired to my own hotel, the 
 " Hen and Chickens," recalling what I had witnessed 
 — not to laugh or see any fun in it, but to reflect. I 
 had seen a pilgrim father — a man who feared God, 
 eschewed evil, and who would have been as ready 
 to meet the rack or the fire as he was to meet the 
 assembly through which he had passed, and I give 
 this memory of him as sincerely as I hope any 
 future pen may write it. But at the moment the 
 scene had no telling effect upon me : the man, I 
 thought, really had a " bee in his bonnet ; " he must 
 be wrong, and the majority, because it was a 
 majority, must be right. 
 
 A circle of fine young men sat round the table of 
 a friend of theirs in a country house which I was 
 visiting professionally with a medical friend. It 
 was eleven in the morning, and these men were 
 lunching and "boozing." They partook freely of 
 alcohol. In three years they were all dead. They 
 partook generally too freely : that was the argument 
 that ruled with me, and it mastered. 
 
360 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 A poor, weak, ill-clad woman fell dead near 
 Welbeck Street one cold day, and I was summoned. 
 It was said, " Could she have had a glass of some- 
 thing stimulating, as wine, or brandy-and-water, 
 she would have been saved." But this is what 
 she had had, for a glass of spirits was the last 
 thing supplied to her, and the post-mortem showed 
 that there was still some alcohol remaining in her 
 stomach. The revelation bore no lesson with it : 
 it was part of the admitted experience, and the jury 
 promptly returned as their verdict " Death from the 
 visitation of God." 
 
 In the early sixties I became, as told, editor of a 
 weekly journal — the Social Science Review — and all 
 social movements and gatherings were referred to in 
 its pages. The temperance cause could not escape 
 notice. I was literally deluged with communications 
 on the subject, and I carefully perused the articles 
 sent me, but they did not affect me in the least. 
 It is true I never reviled, but I could not avoid 
 an occasional friendly critique. We looked upon 
 total abstinence in our pages with feelings of pity 
 rather than of anger. We exposed what we con- 
 sidered the extreme views of its promoters, and I 
 suggested to them to spend their lost time use- 
 fully by trying to set up a system of temporary 
 teetotalism, not only for the world to see how 
 it liked it, but also for it to see how temporary 
 abstinence suited. Let a person who felt he or 
 she would be the better for abstinence take the 
 
THE BATTLE WITH ALCOHOL. 361 
 
 formal pledge resolutely for a short period — say three 
 weeks, or even three months; if the abstinence did 
 real good, and seemed to suit them, let them go on 
 with it for the same periods or longer, or even for 
 life. But if they began to " run down " or grow 
 weary of it, and especially if the doctor thought so, 
 let them throw up the practice conscientiously and 
 consistently, and make known their experience. The 
 idea was not altogether unsuccessful : some tried the 
 temporary plan, thought it failed, and abandoned it ; 
 others found it at fault from the first, and did not 
 go on with it, while a few found it so good that they 
 continued with it until they were complete and 
 permanent abstainers. One of this class was so 
 converted that not many years since he wrote to me 
 to say that he was obliged by the advice he had 
 read, that he had gone on for over thirty years in 
 the " right path," and that there was not a happier 
 day than that " birthday " on which he had been 
 led to test his fate as I had recommended. The 
 true temperance fraternity on their side were not 
 displeased; the members of it assured me that if 
 their method were only tried, even for a short time, 
 success would be sure to follow. 
 
 If anything, I went my own old way in these times 
 more resolutely, if not more logically, than ever. I 
 had written that my old friend Dr. John Snow, who 
 had been bitten by the temperance cause — whose 
 brother, the Rev. Thomas Snow, remained bitten 
 by it until his life's end, a year or so ago — agreed 
 
362 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 towards the end of his life to take a glass of wine. 
 I knew the late Dr. Todd, who was fond of coming 
 into my laboratory to see what experiments I was 
 going on with, and he insisted on the value of 
 brandy both as food and as medicine. I dined 
 often with Sir Thomas Watson, M.D., and always 
 found wine as a supposed necessary beverage. I 
 breakfasted with a distinguished medical Professor 
 at Cambridge, and discovered the Burgundy decanter 
 supplied on the breakfast table. I travelled in 
 the country, and was glad to see and taste the 
 glass of wine that welcomed me at the first meal 
 that followed my arrival. I did not, indeed, object 
 to see, as occurred at some houses, the jug of ale, 
 with bread and cheese, which sometimes appeared 
 as a part of the tea-time meal, and which probably 
 was the meal between dinner and supper before 
 tea was introduced into this country. 
 
 Notwithstanding these predilections I had my 
 rebukes, which were not wanting in character. On 
 an extremely cold day the late Alexander Henry, 
 a scholar of excellent repute, was walking with 
 me from the nearest railway into Newport Pagnell. 
 We were getting on well, but felt the cold air, and, 
 passing a place where mulled drinks were sold, we 
 spontaneously went in and had a modest draught. 
 It seemed at the moment the very thing we Wanted ; 
 but when we went out, and resumed our walk, we 
 were so soon exhausted that we had the utmost 
 delay and difficulty in reaching our homes. We 
 
THE BATTLE WITH ALCOHOL. 363 
 
 arrived quite collapsed, and although the warm fire 
 rallied us, and the good food restored our strength, 
 we were glad to find our beds and sleep off our 
 depression. We were like the Arctic voyagers whom 
 Admiral Sir Edward Belcher, Sir John Richardson, 
 and Dr. Rae, the northern explorer, described to 
 me as men beaten by the two powers that run 
 together — spirit and cold. 
 
 Another rebuke lay in treatment. By one of 
 those strange coincidences common to medical life, 
 two patients suffering from acute carbuncle came 
 under my care. They were both advanced in 
 years and of almost the same age, about threescore 
 and ten. They had both retired; but one lived 
 in luxury; the other despised what the world 
 usually calls luxury, and cared little for assistance — 
 liked, indeed, to be left alone. The first, and most 
 comfortably situated, and it might be presumed the 
 safest, had friends and doctors all around him. He 
 was treated secundum artem, and he was steadily 
 supplied with wine and other stimulants. Nothing 
 appeared to be omitted that could sustain life ; and 
 yet, despite all, he died — sank is a better word — he 
 sank into death. The other, less numerously tended, 
 and, some would think, less comfortable, although 
 not an abstainer, refused stimulants in every form 
 because he was ill. He suffered from a larger 
 carbuncle, which discharged freely, and on water 
 treatment, varied a little by milk and cooked 
 fruit, went through a sharp ordeal, but recovered 
 
364 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 splendidly, and lived on for seventeen years. One 
 of my own children — a boy of the most active and 
 intelligent nature — was taken suddenly unwell. I 
 had the advice and assistance of physicians of my 
 own immediate circle, and we left nothing, as we 
 believed, undone. We treated with the best wines 
 we could obtain, and yet our patient sank before our 
 eyes. What the pang of his loss cost his parents 
 none but those who have similarly suffered can tell ; 
 and though thirty-two years have fled, the sorrow is 
 still alive. 
 
 I saw a person live to be ninety-seven years of 
 age and die in what was really second childhood 
 and natural decay, who, for sixty years, had never 
 touched an alcoholic. 
 
 It would be possible for me to fill many pages 
 with the memoirs of these rebukes were it neces- 
 sary ; but I only want to add emphatically that they 
 had at first no influence on my mind. I thought 
 rebukes natural occurrences, and so impressed was 
 I of the value of — nay ! the necessity for — alcohol, 
 that if ever a patient wishing to insure his life 
 came to me for a certificate and told me he was an 
 abstainer, I did not fail to state the fact to the 
 directorate, which I knew well they would accept 
 as adverse to the claim. 
 
 At last, as I worked onwards in my own way, a 
 medical substance to which I have referred — nitrite 
 of amyl — came before me for investigation, and in 
 time I was naturally led to the methyls or methylic 
 
THE BATTLE WITH ALCOHOL. 365 
 
 group, in which alcohol is included. There was not 
 a particle of variation in research, and if I expected 
 anything it was that the ordinary opinions respect- 
 ing alcohol would be verified. The second member 
 of the group was common alcohol, ethylic alcohol, or 
 that fluid which forms part of alcoholic beverages ; 
 but some of its allies — methylic, propylic, butylic, 
 amylic, and heptylic — did not escape observation. 
 
 It happened that I was, by another means, made 
 unusually familiar, in a physical way, with ethylic 
 alcohol in alcoholic drinks. One of the philan- 
 thropists in London had taken great interest in the 
 amount of the spirit present in the beverages then 
 being sold to the public, and from all parts of the 
 metropolis brought some specimens of these beverages 
 to me for analysis. My able assistant and friend, 
 Dr. Frederick Versman, obtained for me from 
 Dresden an admirable alcohometer that worked by 
 heat, and set it up in my laboratory. 
 
 With a clear experimental foresight, as it 
 seemed to me, that the temperature of the animal 
 body would be raised or sustained by alcohol, the 
 most careful trial on the point was instituted, and 
 repeated over and over again with attention to every 
 detail, when, to my surprise, the fact elicited was 
 that alcohol does not raise the animal temperature. 
 For a short time it causes a little glow and that 
 sensation which, by the common people, is called 
 tingling of the hands and feet, with temporary 
 
366 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 flushing of the countenance, as if a faint hlush 
 were produced ; hut these symptoms invariably 
 pass away, and the body loses its warmth, becomes 
 in truth, cold — so cold that, if the alcohol be 
 carried far enough, there is danger of death from 
 cold. Cold and alcohol go hand in hand, and a 
 complete reversal takes place from what is ex- 
 pected, while the products of respiration caused by 
 internal combustion are reduced systematically. I 
 laid these facts out at a meeting of the British 
 Association for the Advancement of Science at 
 Birmingham in 1866, Professor Sir Henry Acland 
 being in the chair. Brisk comment was made upon 
 them by Dr. Kelburne King of Hull ; by Dr. Heaton 
 of Leeds, and by the chairman and other debaters 
 present. It was unquestionably the opinion that I 
 had made a mistake in observation, and my report 
 was handed back for correction. It was held to be 
 absurd that alcohol taken into a living body chilled 
 it, banked out the animal fire, and reduced the 
 products of the animal combustion : but recurrence 
 to the inquiry only confirmed the fact more, until at 
 last it was not only admitted, but was held to be 
 an accepted fact ; proved by the experience of Arctic 
 travellers ; proved by the circumstance that if two 
 persons were found insensible, the point whether the 
 insensibility arose from brain disease or from alcohol 
 could be determined by the thermometer, which rose 
 if disease were there — brain disease — fell if alcohol 
 had produced intoxication; proved by the observa- 
 
THE BATTLE WITH ALCOHOL. 367 
 
 tion that some children inadvertently rendered un- 
 conscious by drinking whisky were brought three 
 degrees below their natural temperature. 
 
 That which to me at first was a wonder was fully 
 confirmed by all the observations made, and I then 
 studied the effect of alcohol on vital processes, with 
 the result of discovering that muscular collapse and 
 failure, which we see so perfect in the drunken man 
 —the dead-drunk person — is but a failure in degree, 
 commencing so soon as the first drop of alcohol 
 is imbibed. I found that the smallest quantity 
 interfered with muscular action, leading to muscular 
 failure. I found also that it created digestive 
 disturbance ; that its effects on the nervous system 
 were to produce disturbance, and to give no quality 
 of strength or precision of motion. I was led from 
 these to other observations which I have repeated 
 in my published books and lectures, and I was 
 induced to study the degenerations that occur in 
 the tissues themselves by the presence of alcohol 
 in them. It was a new field, although we had seen 
 " gin livers " and found other modifications arising 
 from alcohol. I now, for clearness' sake, employed 
 the words "alcoholic degenerations," and also 
 applied the word " alcoholic " to describe diseases — 
 as "alcoholic phthisis," "alcoholic heart disease," 
 and the like — a term which was extended by others 
 to alcoholic paralysis and various forms of disease, as 
 if, in short, there existed a pathological alcoholism, 
 a statement too sad and too true. I also found, 
 
368 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 in considering occupations as causes of bad health, 
 that those who were most exposed to alcohol were 
 the most exposed to the dangers of death. It 
 was quite impossible to traverse the whole field of 
 observation, it was so entirely different from what 
 I had expected, and so convincingly revealed new 
 phenomena. I heard all the moral denunciations 
 against alcohol, and found that in principle they 
 were correct ; but here was the physical evidence, 
 and what more did I require ? The moral evidence 
 did not stir me into action : it was impossible to 
 find fault with it, and, properly stated, it was 
 impossible not to admire it and give it sympathy. 
 But the physical was the strong and immovable 
 evidence telling that alcohol was not only quite 
 unnecessary for life, but an enemy to life ; and as 
 that was my knowledge, so it was my duty to 
 proclaim the truth. I did this in the old medical 
 paper, the Medical Times and Gazette, designating 
 alcohol as "a deceiver from beginning to end," and 
 naming it "a temporary shroud, in which the 
 ignorant man covers himself — a process as foolish 
 as that of the man who, in dark caverns, should 
 wander in search of illumination until all is night." * 
 Por the half of a long lifetime it has been my 
 duty at all hazards to make these revelations more 
 and more distinct to the world, and I am neither 
 ashamed nor tired of the effort. By tongue and pen 
 I have denounced alcohol, and see no reason to cease 
 
 * Medical Times and Gazette, December 7th, 1869, pp. 703-6. 
 
THE BATTLE WITH ALCOHOL. 369 
 
 or to repent. I have tested its medical value in the 
 treatment of human maladies, and, while admitting 
 it to he a stimulant, a quickener of the circulation, 
 have seen that the very act of using it in this 
 sense is a mistake, causing the heart and the 
 nervous system to wear out the more quickly, 
 without giving to them any more capacity or any 
 more sustainment. 
 
 I have, hy election, taken the head of a medical 
 society of hundreds of memhers supporting these 
 views. I have, hy request, been, and am still, 
 physician to a hospital that receives all cases, and 
 where we never use alcohol. I have tried the 
 action of the other alcohols named before. I have 
 tried the resisting powers of alcohols to electrical 
 currents, and in various ways I have given to the 
 alcoholic group of chemical substances all the 
 attention in my power ; but I have never been 
 able reasonably to return to my earlier views and 
 predilections concerning it. I have no prejudices in 
 relation to it ; no dislikes concerning it ; no feelings 
 of a personal kind for or against it ; and if I could 
 logically see the slightest value in the use of it I 
 would employ it with the utmost satisfaction. If 
 alcohol were good, and something else were as good, 
 I would take or give the alcohol first in consequence 
 of old associations and predilections ; and if any 
 brother physician could, with prudence and logical 
 exposition, show me that there were occasions when 
 alcohol was absolutely required as a weapon of our 
 
 24 
 
370 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 medical armoury, no one would be readier than I to 
 listen to him and arm in the same manner as he. 
 But no less a course could lead me to conviction, 
 and a temptation of the kind has never been offered 
 or presented. I have stood the " hazard of the 
 die " over and over again, and have not once been 
 cheated or seen cause for regret. On the whole, 
 everything has shown abundantly safe argument 
 and practical benefit on the abstaining side and has 
 proved beyond dispute the old proverb, "Wine is 
 a mocker, strong drink is raging, and he who is 
 deceived thereby is not wise." 
 
 To be as clear as possible it appeared to me, and 
 appears so still, that in the construction of a living 
 body, whether man or animal, the weight of the 
 fluid, that under heat gives the motion which indi- 
 cates life, must be a prime necessity. Water — 
 not alcohol nor alcohol blended with water — is the 
 fluid of the proper weight as well as of the proper 
 diffusibility, and the one necessary thing. Water 
 does not merely distribute the particles of solid 
 matter ; does not merely give form or shape ; does 
 not simply give flexibility ; does not simply carry 
 away the used up parts of the organism ; but it ex- 
 pands and condenses so as to produce motion, and is, 
 in fact, the cause of motion — the means of motion. 
 
 The living body is a water engine. It could not 
 carry on the work it does on any other system. It 
 is as much a water engine as a steam engine is, 
 although I cannot deny that other fluids than 
 
THE BATTLE WITH ALCOHOL. 371 
 
 water will act as motors, for I have seen a spirit 
 engine : but the body is not an engine of this class, 
 and no one can treat it as such. Some try to make 
 it one ; live as if it were one, and at last get them- 
 selves into so morbid a condition under it they feel 
 as if alcohol were the only natural fluid, even 
 though fatal, so that the smallest accident may snap 
 the machine or break the balance between mind 
 and matter. 
 
 A certain temperature raises water to the heat 
 required for the transformation of water into vapour 
 or steam in the engine ; and then, under correct 
 adjustment, comes the action, like life, manifested in 
 the steam engine. It is the same precisely in the 
 animal engine itself, excepting only that a lower 
 heat for evaporation is perhaps demanded ; but it is 
 water and nothing else that is called for. At the 
 same heat a lighter fluid, like spirit, would be too 
 evaporisable and would cause too much distension, 
 so that if the parts which the vapour distended were 
 as they are in a living thing, elastic, they would 
 only act while the elasticity held good, and being 
 too severely strained, would, as they often do, give 
 way or burst. It appears indeed as if dead- 
 drunkenness and even something short of it were 
 nothing more than the undue distension of vessels 
 charged with the vapour of a fluid that has been 
 driven off by the temperature of the body — a 
 fluid not wanted if water alone played its part, 
 as was originally intended. I have more than once 
 
372 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 defined the phenomena of intoxication as being 
 excited in the mechanical manner here pointed 
 out, and I have explained that the philosophy of 
 craving, or desire, for more and more liquor does 
 not indicate central impairment, but that the con- 
 sumer of the alcohol feels that he wants to live 
 on a more ethereal fluid than that which nature 
 supplies to him. 
 
 I would leave the reader to ponder well over this 
 explanation of inebriety : it explains what he daily 
 sees ; it explains the nature of the mental shock of 
 drunkenness ; it explains the cause of unnatural 
 distension of vessels and their too early failure in 
 the inebriate ; it explains the certain occurrence of 
 organic lesions and the diseases of organs that 
 take place under pressure ; it explains congestion, 
 vascular rupture, and sudden death ; it explains 
 effusion, and, above all, it explains why an animal 
 engine, damaged by the constant work of a false 
 fluid, becomes an engine permanently weakened, and 
 calling for a lighter fluid than water, that it may 
 work on from hour to hour. 
 
 In nature altogether I was forced to remark that 
 water alone suffices for what has to be done. It is 
 only men, and not all men, who ask for a modified 
 mode of motion which they themselves must invent* 
 All other living machines are water engines, be they 
 large or small. The merest insect works on water ; 
 the largest mammal does the same — so that the mite 
 and the whale are both water engines. Swiftness,, 
 
THE BATTLE WITH ALCOHOL. 373 
 
 strength, agility, endurance, are the results of the 
 same motor fluid, and it is simply man who assumes 
 to correct the order of the First Cause he pretends 
 to adore as his Creator, Designer, and God. 
 
 It is often urged against us abstainers, who have 
 the strongest, simplest, and best reasons for our 
 beliefs, that we are not progressing in the way we 
 ought to do. That is not my belief at all. I think 
 we have progressed rapidly. We were the citizens 
 a generation or two since of an alcoholic world. 
 Alcohol literally, as well as nominally, ruled the 
 roast. A man or woman who would not offer a 
 glass of wine was branded as mean, ignorant, or 
 vulgar. Not a medical consultation could be held 
 but that in the consulting -room were found the wine- 
 bottles and wine-glasses. They are rarely, if ever, 
 there now. Every solemn act, down to the pre- 
 paratory gathering at a funeral, was solemnised by 
 wine. The solemnisation has disappeared. Peats of 
 speed, of courage, of hard work, were encouraged 
 by wine. The encouragement has lost its bearing. 
 People who were about to insure their lives were 
 rejected if they were abstainers. They are certainly 
 now daily rejected because they are imbibers of the 
 very substance that once secured them. All great 
 responsibilities are accepted and welcomed if they 
 are undertaken by abstainers, and they are con- 
 sidered vulgar who press the wine-cup. At one 
 time ministers in the pulpit were in fear whenever 
 
374 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 they raised their voices against the use of strong 
 drink as a beverage or sustainer. Now they com- 
 pete in speaking against drink wisely and well. 
 
 The greatest change, however, I have observed is 
 in medical opinion. I recall most painful scenes in 
 regard to physic. It was impossible to broach the 
 subject of avoidance of strong drink without some 
 insult or indignation. I had, for instance, an old 
 friend, who, with other friends at table, proposed to 
 give George Gruikshank and myself a dinner round 
 the Aldgate Pump, and I saw daily the manner in 
 which abstaining men were treated, while in the 
 present hour nothing is ever mentioned at table that 
 could annoy the most fastidious. You may even 
 take a part in a masonic banquet and not hear an 
 adverse syllable because you happen to abstain. 
 The bills of a public dinner are printed as at a given 
 cost, exclusive of wine — a proceeding of the utmost 
 significance, as testifying change of sentiment to 
 such an extent that a cost of £2 14s. per head, which 
 I once had to pay, has fallen to 10s., with a better fare 
 than was given at more than five times the money. 
 
 A most important change has also taken place 
 in the treatment of the sick. Wine, wine, wine, 
 was the cry of a quarter of a century ago, and 
 the head was despairingly shaken if the liquor 
 were not dispensed. Brandy was the so-called 
 " sheet-anchor." It has been all but universally 
 taught that, whatever could be said about total 
 
THE BATTLE WITH ALCOHOL. 375 
 
 abstinence amongst the healthy, alcohol was never- 
 theless a remedy in the treatment of disease. " Give 
 wine unto him who is about to perish " is a saying 
 that has rarely had its equal in repetition. The 
 saying is going out, and from many has gone com- 
 pletely. It was bound to go in the course of time, 
 as men began to consider that what was not good for 
 the healthy might not be good for the unhealthy; 
 while the theory of medicaments as special agencies 
 began to retreat from the medical mind, and preven- 
 tion commenced to take the place of cure. At last 
 alcohol, even as a remedy, has ceased to retain 
 influential sway, either as a food or as a medica- 
 ment. As a logical consequence I have witnessed 
 two events : a hospital erected from which alcohol 
 is practically excluded, and a society formed con- 
 sisting of medical men who treat the diseases under 
 their care without alcohol. At the same time 
 there have also gradually appeared medical men 
 who, although they do not think it wise to denounce 
 alcohol publicly, or to belong to any institution that 
 is adapted to teetotal principles, are yet strong 
 in their own abstinence, and, whenever they see 
 the opportunity, are willing to treat the sick on 
 abstinence principles. There were, and are, hospitals 
 in which alcohol still finds its place, and at times 
 the nurses may be met carrying their trays with 
 the measured glasses of spirit for the patients as it 
 may have been prescribed. 
 
 " Why," says abstaining physician A. on this 
 
376 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 point to his colleague B., " why do you gorge the 
 lungs of the patient with pneumonia by giving him 
 brandy, which can only have the effect of making 
 his heart pump in more blood, of which there is 
 too much already ? " 
 
 ' • Because I have been taught to do so," replies 
 B., but in a manner that expressively signifies his 
 doubt and makes him think and hesitate. 
 
 And so things stand, while the alcoholic public, 
 ignorant of the merits of the controversy, waits for 
 the Faculty to decide, making excuses of all kinds, 
 and wondering how it will all terminate. 
 
 Abstinence, meantime, marches on in physiological 
 order. The society, of which I have the honour to be 
 president, reaches nearly five hundred in numbers, 
 and young men student-associates keep on adding 
 their names. The hospital, in which I am senior 
 member of the staff, continues its course. In twenty 
 years it has used alcohol seventeen times only, and 
 for some time has never resorted to it at all. In my 
 department I have rigorously insisted that severity 
 of the case shall be the first reason for admission, 
 and, that the experience may be as fair as is possible, 
 I have forbidden, not only the administration of 
 alcohol, but of any substitute for it, and in no other 
 establishment in the world are the curative results 
 better. 
 
 So far every movement is progressive and satis- 
 factory, leading to the consummation we, who are 
 engaged in the battle with alcohol, would expect. 
 
THE BATTLE WITH ALCOHOL. 377 
 
 We are strong; we have divine nature as 
 our commander-in-chief; we win as we encounter 
 or as we are encountered ; we have no fear of 
 defeat, and the people look on fairly, if not 
 ecstatically. Let it not be supposed, however, 
 that, with us who have led, it has been all glory. 
 Par from this, it has been all toil and danger. For 
 my own part I remember nothing like the mischief 
 that befell me in 1869, when I made the first 
 sortie. Before then my lecture-rooms had been 
 filled by medical men, who liked to see new 
 experiments and to listen to what might now be 
 styled " post-graduate courses." Afterwards the 
 rooms were simply vacant. From the outside world 
 the sick sought me : I never sought them, never 
 jockeyed anybody, doctor or patient — and life was 
 on the crest of the wave. The charm ceased so 
 soon as I declared for the principle of abstinence, 
 and nothing could have been more disastrous. In 
 a city in which I had once given a demonstration 
 on chloral, a grand supper was spread for me; an 
 eminent medical citizen was in the chair, and I was 
 toasted with highest honours by one of the largest 
 and liveliest assemblies I have ever seen. A few 
 months later — it was by accident — I happened to be 
 present at an important ceremony in the same city, 
 meeting the same men; but I was marked, like 
 Higginbottom, with the sin of disbelief in the 
 ancient faith, and was known by only one friend. 
 The others kept at that cold distance from me at 
 
378 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 which I had seen him placed, and I do not hesitate 
 to say that his conduct gave me comfort and resolu- 
 tion. I had done none of them a shadow of wrong, 
 and I had left them all in peace and happiness ; but 
 I had let nature lead me, and was no longer one of 
 them. Such has been the effect of my altered views 
 for many a long year ; it was no more than might 
 have been expected, and no more than has had to 
 be gently tolerated. 
 
 The battle with alcohol still rages. We hear the 
 wild cries for and against it, and I am in the front 
 of the battle as firm as ever; but I keep to my 
 quarter of it, mixing with those w r ho stand on the 
 physical side. It is not a battle that will last 
 many generations, because our alcoholic opponents 
 must give way. They fight wildly, trusting in their 
 own numbers, wealth, and influence. In another 
 age it will be thought wonderful how the battle 
 could have been fought at all, and alcohol will fall 
 into historic oblivion both as a food and a medicine. 
 
 From the moment when my own eyes were opened 
 to what I felt to be the truth I can faithfully say 
 that not a stone has been left unturned in support of 
 the cause I w r as led to espouse. I explained my 
 views in every place I could and in the most open 
 manner. I lectured on the subject in every avail- 
 able spot in our islands, visiting and traversing 
 Ireland and Scotland, as well as England and Wales, 
 on behalf of the crusade, addressing, in twenty-five 
 
THE BATTLE WITH ALCOHOL. 379 
 
 years, great multitudes of our race — it has beeu 
 estimated amounting altogether to more thousands 
 than I dare venture to state. In these addresses 
 nothing was held hack, nothing put forward, hut 
 what was duly weighed, so that they fell short of 
 hesitation on the one hand and exaggeration on the 
 other, yet showed that a world without alcohol would 
 be, not only a happier world than we have seen, but 
 a more active and healthy world than an alcoholic. 
 
 I have never denied that alcohol may be a medicine 
 when properly understood in regard to its action ; but 
 it must be employed either in determinate and distinct 
 doses with water, or in measured combination with 
 other medicinal substances. I have treated with it 
 occasionally on this basis in medical practice, and 
 have observed the important fact that, as a rule, better 
 results were obtained when it was omitted altogether. 
 At the same time I never entered into personal 
 controversy with those of my medical brethren who, 
 thinking their skill strengthened by a continued 
 administration of it with observation of its action, 
 let it run as a stimulant amongst stimulants, and 
 hold that direct stimulation may be an aid to those 
 environments in which, in emergencies, we place the 
 sick, so that, as far as we can arrange, they cannot 
 die — the summivm bonum of our art. I have been 
 always ready to use alcohol in a commonsense and 
 harmless manner, and remain in the same mind in 
 respect to its services as an antiseptic, a local 
 counter-irritant, or a medium for remedies we could 
 
380 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 not use unless it dissolved them equally and carried 
 them effectively. 
 
 In the end I wish it quite to be understood that 
 I fully admit what is commonly called a stimulating 
 action. For a short time it quickens the motion 
 of the heart ; whips on the circulation ; excites the 
 nervous system ; raises temporarily the warmth of 
 the body, and seems to urge on the processes of life. 
 But this expedition of the vital processes does not 
 convey to me the mending of them or their mainten- 
 ance. If it did, alcohol would be remedial without 
 the dangers it so systematically induces. 
 
 Note. — One remarkable advantage of the temperance movement 
 has been its influence in bringing men of different sects, creeds, 
 and positions into common action. I have attended meetings 
 in which representatives of different creeds, and of Medicine and 
 Law, have joined in one object. The union has also brought 
 together Jew and Gentile, Parsee, Buddhist, and Mussulman. 
 I was strangely affected on two occasions by what transpired. 
 I heard, the Chief Rabbi discussing with English clericals a 
 lecture of mine on the Mosaic Sanitary Code in no less a place 
 than St. Paul's Cathedral ; and in another instance I was still 
 more 'personally affected. The Jewish community invited me 
 to preside and to distribute the prizes at one of their schools. I 
 did so ; and after the ceremony the choirmaster begged me to sit 
 another moment, and, turning to his choir, bade it sing to me, 
 without any. prearrangement, two verses composed by the late 
 Rev. Lee Richmond, beginning 
 
 " Forgive, blest shade, the tributary tear," 
 
 verses which, fifty years ago, I had had engraved as an epitaph on 
 my own mother's tomb, and which I had never heard or seen from 
 that time. It was a touching indication of the communion that 
 has commenced to exist between Christian thought and Jewish 
 sentiment and sympathy. 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 THE NERVOUS CENTRES AND EXPANSES. 
 
 *HE opinion that has heen generally put 
 forward in my time, and which has been 
 accepted for a long series of years — I had 
 almost said ages — is that the nerves of the body 
 spring, as it were, from the brain as a centre, or 
 from the elongated spinal cord, and, spreading out 
 in all directions, return to it. We have been told 
 with great minuteness of the construction of this 
 cerebro- spinal system ; we have examined it after 
 death ; we have examined it experimentally in 
 various ways, and, practically, it has been the one 
 nervous system. We have known, however, of 
 another nervous system, the ganglia of which are 
 planted in the body near the great vital organs, 
 like the heart, the stomach and liver, and which has 
 had given to it the name of the " sympathetic " — the 
 organic, or the vegetative system. Its nerves have 
 been traced from its centres along the blood vessels 
 to their extreme points. It was a nervous system 
 that especially interested the great Bichat, and 
 many have followed his descriptions ; but it cannot 
 
 381 
 
382 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 be easily reached so as to be examined. I once saw 
 it in its entirety, owing to the industry and skill 
 of the late Dr. Amadee Deville ; but I have known 
 many medical men who have never seen it at all, 
 and who, in their daily work, have never taken it 
 into account in regard to seats of disease. To my 
 mind the sympathetic system has been neglected, 
 and the cerebro-spinal, much better known, has 
 often been misinterpreted. To me it seems that the 
 nervous fibres everywhere in the skin, or in an 
 organ of sense like the retina in the eye, are simply 
 expanses laid out to catch the impressions of the 
 universe, which impressions are conveyed and stored 
 in their centres, so that feeling, seeing, or hearing 
 are practically the same acts, and that whatever 
 difference there may be in the two nervous systems 
 is in the centres, the cerebral centres being those 
 of reasoning and of impressions or memory, the 
 sympathetic of impulses and promptings to action 
 — perhaps even centres of motives. I touch an 
 expanded nervous surface of the skin, and the 
 impression made is conveyed from the external 
 vibration to the nervous centre in the brain ; is 
 recognised there, and may return by other filaments 
 it meets there or only by those which brought it. 
 The food taken into the digestive canal may, and 
 does, feed the organic centres, which centres become 
 seats of impulses communicated to the cerebral 
 centres, and light up the reason or intelligence : 
 hence injuries and surface irritations produce 
 
THE NERVOUS CENTRES AND EXPANSES. 383 
 
 markedly the symptoms of disease. In brief words, 
 impulses spring from the organic centres, or, as it 
 is vulgarly hut correctly expressed, from the heart, 
 and the reasoning power or management of them 
 from the brain, the circulation of which, like all 
 other vascular parts, is under the control of the 
 organic life, and may be excited or relaxed 
 altogether. Thus primary animation rests on the 
 organic bases, and is derived from, if not directed 
 by, them alone. The feelings of fear, joy, grief, 
 love, hate, hunger, thirst, all the animal qualities, 
 have their centres there, and failure and death are 
 the same phenomena modified simply in degree. 
 There might be life without a brain : there could 
 not be without an organic nervous system ; and 
 the place where the organic and, in so far as life 
 is concerned, the reasoning centres meet in the 
 higher animal, must indeed be vital. Nature, the 
 true experimentalist, teaches us on this matter 
 on the widest and most unmistakable scale. She 
 performs the first and greatest act of all, without 
 which there would be no life — namely, the repro- 
 duction of the species by means of a comparatively 
 small surface of the organic nervous system, the 
 cerebro-spinal system having nothing to do with 
 the impulsive desire. 
 
 In brief, the generated force of the body in health 
 or disease is lodged in the organic or vegetative 
 centres ; the direction of the force in the cerebro- 
 spinal. 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 THE BREATH OP LIEE. 
 
 .VERY living being nurses life — life, which 
 rests as a film over the face of every living 
 world. It is not necessary to look for life 
 as a variable thing, influencing by its own varied 
 nature and accounting for caprice, but rather as an 
 invariable thing, which, entering the animal sub- 
 stance more or less, and moulding it, animates it, 
 enables it to grow, to move, to live. We should be 
 vain if we supposed that the film of life existed only 
 on our little planet, for the suggestion is that it 
 extends through all the mighty space, and is the soul 
 which envelops each planet that is alive. The wonder 
 is that so many millions of suns and planets, vastly 
 mightier than our own, should not have furnished 
 richly trained beings who could more frequently 
 have visited these smaller spheres and dealt with 
 us according to their might, as we have dealt with 
 lower creatures than ourselves when we have visited 
 obscure and remote corners or parts of our globe. I 
 suppose it is merely a matter of time, which, in the 
 grand total, is after all nothing to the Eounder and 
 Governor of all. It concerns us, however, in our 
 
 384 
 
THE BREATH OF LIFE. 385 
 
 little ways, to feel and know that we are of two 
 parts — of an instrument, mouldable, pliable, variable, 
 of the earth earthy, and of a soul, comparatively 
 eternal and unchangeable. With such an ideal before 
 us such terms as materialism and spiritualism, as 
 separate systems of belief, pass away. 
 
 The atmospheric sea of life in which we breathe 
 may be expressed as meaning the existence in which 
 we are, for the moment, cast, so that as we are 
 moulded and maintained in the mould we are what 
 we are. Our differences depend, not on the anima- 
 ting spirit, but on the mould that receives it, and we 
 are progressive or stationary, civilised or uncivilised, 
 according as we are corporeally fitted. The first and 
 prime duty, therefore, is to adapt the instrument to 
 its correct uses ; to adjust the fleeting body, assured 
 that the animating soul is provided for us eternally, 
 as we understand the phrase. The breath of life 
 will respond to the instrumental constructions, what- 
 ever they may be — the minutest insect, the man, the 
 bird of the air, or the monster of the sea. 
 
 All nature opens to the candid teacher and ex- 
 pounder of Life the two manifestations, (1) the breath 
 of life, (2) the impressionable body or instrument. 
 The breath of life exists in every human being, 
 in every animal, in every flower, and even in the 
 earth itself, rendering parts alive, in a certain degree, 
 which, from their apparent motionlessness, may be 
 considered dead. We may look upon this presence 
 of life as a breath, and may account for the pheno- 
 
 25 
 
386 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 mena of the highest character as understandable 
 on the ground of its invariability and immortality. 
 I live, but I converse with Csesar, who lived ages 
 before, and Csesar and his followers conversed with 
 those who lived ages and ages before their time in 
 chaos, as chaos was according to their conception. 
 We live, in fact, eternally, as the breath of life — 
 our true potential — while our material half is 
 undergoing the very havoc of changes from day 
 to day. 
 
 It is our material half that does change, and makes 
 us what we are — a passing crowd of moulds under 
 the influence of a permanent power. In ourselves 
 we are mere earth moulded into form, changing, 
 changed : here present, there gone ; but, while extant, 
 changed, animated, and moved by that which exists 
 but cannot be touched, measured, or weighed; 
 by that which to us is strictly immaterial, and 
 yet, like time and motion, is, ever has been, and 
 ever is to be. 
 
 The universality of the breath of life is the 
 universality of the world, and accounts for that 
 which has never been attributed to it. We, mere 
 passing shadows, in all our presumed greatness or 
 debased lowliness, know, as a rule, nothing more 
 than what we see, hear, taste, and feel. The breath 
 of life we know not, although it is the primary part 
 of our nature and our existence. No disturbance 
 influences it, yet all disturbances influence through 
 it — for it fills all space in us, and we cannot, in the 
 
THE BREATH OF LIFE. 387 
 
 minutest part or for the shortest time, be physically 
 changed without it in so far as we, personally, are 
 concerned — affecting it as if it were a wave of motion 
 that has been touched, and being touched by our 
 physical nature is felt, indeed moves, in us, and, for 
 anything we are conscious of, throughout all the 
 spheres. 
 
 The breath of life is staid as well as widespread. 
 It never corrupts, and, therefore, is immortal ; so that 
 death of the instrument or animal body is the one 
 perfect purification of the soul or eternal spirit that 
 animated it. There is in my memory a man — very 
 many men are there, but one particularly — who feels 
 the breath of life and at the same time does not feel 
 it ; he is to me both alive and dead. Prom a purely 
 physical cause he began to die in his foot, and the 
 foot refusing the breath, his breath of life, became 
 corrupt and died, whilst the rest of him did receive 
 it and lived down to the line that lay between 
 the living and the dead — a strange and wonderful 
 phenomenon. 
 
 I have seen the dead many times : they are not in 
 a condition to take in the breath of life, the soul in 
 which the living animal world is enfolded ; but the 
 physical conditions go on just as iron rusts, and they 
 decompose, or, in common language, become corrupt. 
 In plain words, the change of the physical, and 
 therefore visible, has taken place, while the breath 
 of life, which is not visible, continues the same 
 for ever. 
 
388 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 The breath of life binds together all lining things, 
 animal and vegetable, man and beast, world and 
 world, as far as worlds are animate. In respect to it 
 the cat at my foot, the bird that flies by the window, 
 the fish that float in the glass bowl, and the flower 
 that stands in earth in the balcony, are all one. All 
 the difference is that I am of a different shape and 
 form, which distinguishes me as apart from them. 
 So all beings of the human sort on the earth, big or 
 little, young or old, are one, as all living things are. 
 They may differ through the effects of place on the 
 ^arth, of temperature, of height; or depth, or con- 
 struction, but that is merely physical difference ; 
 they are one with me as regards the breath of life, 
 they are in regard to it everything or they are 
 nothing, except in respect to the breath, or 
 -enveloping life. 
 
 Sometimes we wonder how we can know so much 
 and be so little. I once met on a pleasure trip he 
 whom we men, in our physical way, recognised as 
 Adams the astronomer — Neptune Adams — who first 
 pointed out to wondering men the place, time, and 
 character of one of the orbs that roll round the sun. 
 He was much pleased with a little spectroscope of 
 mine which I had the delight of presenting to him, 
 and which he placed among his treasures. We were 
 in a steamboat and as we leaned over its side, 
 peering at the big waves that passed us, we conversed 
 on many scientific subjects. He charmed me by 
 pouring into my ear how he had found far-distant 
 
THE BREATH OF LIFE. 389 
 
 Neptune. He explained how he, originally a very 
 plain, simple, and homely lad, had traced mere 
 lines on maps, sometimes on nothing more than 
 bricks and mortar, to the great astonishment of his 
 parents and schoolmates. Then he had gone on, 
 even to his own astonishment, and by study of lines in 
 varied forms had become, under education, a mathe- 
 matician. It was a simple, yet wonderful and artful 
 science he had mastered ; it seemed to him beyond 
 every possible expectation. In time he was a 
 teacher ; in further time a professor, and amongst 
 the envied. His eye turned into the illimitable 
 space ; he conjured with his lines there, and dis- 
 covered a body he had neither seen nor heard 
 of. He told the world, through the Royal Society, 
 where it was he found the planet, and when. In his 
 calculations he was right to the letter — the first 
 right amongst all men. From the words and 
 thoughts relating to physical discovery we passed to 
 other subjects bearing on the field of astronomy, 
 when, for my' part, I ventured to wonder why we, 
 such small and, compared with the universe, petty 
 creatures, should be able in our intelligence to 
 grasp the infinite and write on paper the widest and 
 greatest problems of suns and worlds. Adams 
 agreed in the idea. It was wonderful, truly, to 
 know and weigh a sun which could not be seen 
 without a glass — that glass a mere man's in- 
 vention. And so we spent our day in wondering 
 consideration. 
 
390 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 I saw Professor Adams more than once after that 
 interview, and I heard from him more than once ; 
 but we never met without a recurrence to it, and it 
 has many times rested in my mind. It recurs less 
 since I formed this conclusion about the breath 
 of life as the eternal animator, and the body as an 
 instrument moved by it. It is not startling any 
 longer to me why the owner of such a breath, 
 even for the briefest period, should be familiar 
 for the time with all that can be grasped and 
 retained. The whole universe is his universe ; he 
 is immortal while he can hold, but when he 
 falls to pieces physically he is dead, and is 
 no more immortal than the thing on which he 
 has written his learning — a parchment, or, better 
 perhaps, a stone, and is just as mutable. The 
 breath of life never dies, although the instrument 
 that receives it may everlastingly perish. 
 
 The breath of life connects us altogether, — suns, 
 worlds, human beings, animals, plants, — and we are 
 in respect to it all one while we have it. Entirely 
 passive itself, it adumbrates or vibrates through 
 immensity, if I may use such a term. It is neither 
 old nor young : it stirs or influences all that it 
 enters ; it never decomposes, calls neither for food 
 nor drink, wearies not, nor sleeps. Like light, it is 
 ready for any instrument or organ that is fitted to 
 receive it and be animated by it — and is eternal. 
 
 That which seems to be stronger than the breath 
 of life, and as invisible, is what men call attraction — 
 
THE BREATH OF LIFE. 391 
 
 attraction of the earth, that in its way governs the 
 animal instrument. A man, as an instrument, 
 wearies because the attraction of the earth is pulling 
 upon him. A man falls from the same cause. A 
 man bends, and we say he is getting old, while the 
 fact is that it is a mechanical bending of the 
 instrument in obedience to the attraction of the 
 earth. A young man is so placed that he can draw 
 in the breath of life, and by the power it gives him 
 can resist the attraction ; but he matures, gains his 
 full capacity as an instrument, and then begins to 
 decline, because the persistent attraction, ever 
 present, gradually overcomes his vitality. So the 
 needle of my galvanometer stands at a fixed point, 
 as the earth bids it stand, until I vitalise it with an 
 electrical current, when it diverges so long as the 
 current is supplied, but not a moment more. The 
 attraction in the end wins. Invisible, therefore, 
 and as mysterious as the breath of life itself, made 
 obvious only through an instrument, attraction is' a 
 primary power, ruling probably over life, the key 
 of the world's vitality. 
 
 What is the vital power that moves an engine ? 
 
 When we construct an engine of our own we use 
 a power for movement. We may not know the 
 nature of the power, but we know it by name — heat, 
 light, or electricity. But when we watch the move- 
 ments of a living engine we do not know the motor 
 or propelling power, that appears to act spontane- 
 ously. We may give it a name, but we are not sure 
 
392 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 about it as yet, and this is what has ever been the 
 case, although recent investigations tend to bring us 
 nearer to the truth. 
 
 It is not necessary that we should unite the vital 
 power with the vital understanding : they may be 
 one, or two, or more in combination ; yet the vital 
 power or force we ought to understand, for it is 
 something universal and possesses distinct properties. 
 The ancient fathers seem to have conceived that it 
 was light, and the expression in which they spoke 
 that " Grod is Light " gives a grand definition of 
 their idea. To one looking with modern eyes at the 
 subject the old idea has presented much that is 
 valid. Light is everywhere, promotes many things, 
 and even in some instances— as in the muscular 
 fibres of the living iris — creates motion, all of which 
 acts are in its favour. When Galvani found muscu- 
 lar motion was excited by electric force, everyone 
 jumped at the idea that "electricity was life," and 
 there is no force we have investigated, in regard to 
 its vital activity, with more care. When Samuel 
 Metcalfe, an American philosopher, produced two 
 volumes on Caloric and its Vital Agencies, a book 
 I have studied ever since it fell unnoticed from the 
 press over fifty years ago, he insisted on the exist- 
 ence of a subtle power which he called caloric, 
 which repelled its own particles and attracted all 
 those of other bodies, and by which he endeavoured to 
 account for the commencement and continuance of 
 movement. We have since inferred that there are 
 
THE BREATH OF LIFE. 393 
 
 other powers which are none of these named, or are 
 some of them in subtle combination. They are 
 spiritual essences according to our limited apprecia- 
 tion, but they are as mighty as subtle, and the 
 breath of life is one of them. 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 THE ANIMAL BODY AS AN INSTRUMENT. 
 
 >N all my researches, medical or experimental, 
 the one ideal presented to me has been 
 that the body, whether of a man or of a 
 lower animal, is an instrument played upon by nature, 
 and can only be accepted as such — as distinctly so 
 as a violin, or a steam engine, which latter it 
 wonderfully resembles, because a steam engine has a 
 kind of stomach from whence its work emanates. 
 Everything points out what the body is. It is not 
 the body that lives, but the soul or life with which it 
 is endowed. Nothing proclaims this last fact better 
 than the inspection of the body while it is endowed, 
 and when it ceases to be endowed, with life. 
 
 Still more curious it is that the body in all its 
 various parts is mechanical in build : all parts 
 fitted to obey the prime and working outside power. 
 The eye is purely instrumental ; the ear is an in- 
 strument — so is the heart and other muscles. The 
 quality evinced is according to the instrumental 
 capacity : thus I found that the pulmonary artery, 
 which carries the blood of the lesser circulation, is 
 exquisitely proportioned to the aorta, which carries 
 
 394 
 
THE ANIMAL BODY AS AN INSTRUMENT. 395 
 
 the blood charged with the vital oxygen over the 
 body. 
 
 There are also in the body the two kinds of 
 oxygen which it wants — the free and the condensed. 
 The free oxygen is in the vital blood, transfusing 
 in all directions and supplying vitalising energy ; 
 the condensed is locked up in every organ, giving a 
 considerable weight of matter, and perhaps seizing 
 and fixing hydrogen, so as to constitute water, but 
 acting as a condensed thing, and having no relation 
 with that free spirit with which it is combined when 
 inhaled — adding to the mass, but losing its energy. 
 
 Sometimes the structure of the body is 
 purely instrumental — as it is in a valve like the 
 mitral — there is no escape from the conviction con- 
 cerning it, except on the supposition that man has 
 invented valves out of the body in imitation of those 
 found within the body. In a course of lectures I 
 delivered before the Society of Arts on " Mechanisms 
 of Nature and Mechanisms of Man " I did my best 
 — not altogether with the success I had hoped for — 
 to show that the divine and human mechanisms are 
 distinct, and that the human are not mere imitations 
 of the divine; nothing more clearly demonstrates 
 this fact than the valve. Nature and man are one 
 as mechanists, and, although Nature is primary, 
 are one and the same. Even jmin has its analogue. 
 
 The body on the earth, as an instrument forming 
 a part of the earth, is a visible and obvious thing 
 — obvious in its parts as in its whole : a temporary 
 
396 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 instrument, acted upon by an influence which lies 
 around it outside, we may truly say, in the air, 
 invisible and immortal. 
 
 To a medical mind the distinction is as clear as 
 day. The charged instrument plays to nature just 
 as it is allowed. It is the prime duty of the doctor 
 to keep it in tune, and, as far as he can, to keep it 
 alive — that is to say, ready to receive vibrations or 
 impressions. This duty gives a higher position to 
 medical men than was ever assigned to them in the 
 ages that have passed, intimating that they ought to 
 lead the living world and keep it in order. To man 
 generally the distinction indicates that the visible 
 instrument spoils or degenerates, while the invisible 
 spirit lives in it according as the instrument is in a 
 condition for the reception of the spirit. There once 
 was no instrument. Then one was made : " God 
 breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and 
 man became a living soul." 
 
 It seems to me that this view best of all explains 
 qualities and most clearly differentiates species. 
 All living beings breathe life and are under the 
 universal influence. How they develop the 
 influence depends on the form they take, singly 
 or combinedly, whether it be physical or mental. 
 Hence variety of character and hence variety of 
 species and even the difference of sex. In other 
 words, if two animal instruments were in every 
 respect the same, they would be in act one 
 instrument, and, though they might appear 
 
THE ANIMAL BODY AS AN INSTRUMENT. 397 
 
 as two, would behave as one. The varieties of 
 what is vulgarly called constitutional formation 
 or temperament are necessary, in order to have 
 differences of kind or species, and the instrument 
 is according to its construction. Memory itself in 
 this way becomes nothing more than an impression, 
 fixed or fleeting, according to the condition of the 
 surface that receives it and, so to speak, retains it. 
 To the common view there is an endless variety 
 of instruments, — but that is not the fact : the moulds 
 are comparatively few, although there may be many 
 shades which seem to indicate a large number ; and 
 there are outside influences which create changes 
 of appearances without instituting actual change 
 of substance. A black animal is not essentially 
 black because of its possession of a particular 
 colouring principle, but because it absorbs the colours 
 which come from the sun, while a white animal 
 reflects them — facts which constitute the difference 
 between the white and the black races with inter- 
 vening modifications. 
 
 The force that is evolved by the instrument, and 
 which to us is invisible, is known only by its effects 
 as we are enabled to see them in animal movements. 
 Once I was summoned to see a sick man and when 
 I arrived he was dead, so I could enter into no 
 converse with his force or spirit as manifested in him 
 himself. And yet I did so. Some hours before he 
 ceased to breathe he had wound up his timepiece 
 by his bedside, and it was still going; that is 
 
398 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 to say, his vibrating, indestructible part was still 
 manifesting itself in another instrument that was 
 giving me certain information his lips, earlier in 
 the day, might have given me. The hands of the 
 clock he wound up told me the hour, in fact, in 
 another language, and he, although dead, was still 
 speaking. 
 
 To treat the animal body as the instrument of a 
 superior power is reasonable ; is in accordance with 
 speculation, and with the fate of everything that has 
 been, is, and is to be. The power is eternal; the 
 instrument, through which it displays itself, mutable, 
 so that seven ages of the instrument would mean 
 seven men. The endowed instrument may make 
 the race better, raising all that is below the common 
 towards the highest. We civilise the earth in this 
 way, and construct out of it many things that before 
 were practically dead. 
 
 As instruments we are everything, so long as we 
 are endowed with the power that animates us ; but 
 when we cease to be endowed and are dead, we are 
 no more than matter waiting to be resolved, recast, 
 and filled with life. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 UNIVERSITY ECHOES. 
 
 jN the borders of the northern sea there lies 
 a city, the university of which has, until 
 recent years, been almost forgotten. The 
 university I refer to is that of St. Andrews. This, 
 the oldest university in Scotland, was once the light 
 of learning of the country. A pope organised it. 
 It was the seat of much commotion in the Reform- 
 ing period ; and one of the leaders of the Church, 
 Cardinal Beaton, was killed there. John Knox, 
 a leader of the reforming Church, preached there, 
 and his pulpit still remains. It is said that the 
 cap which the Principal puts on the head of a 
 candidate for a doctorship as he pronounces the 
 ancient Declaration is made out of a remnant of 
 the nether garments of the Reforming hero. Dr. 
 Samuel Johnson and Boswell visited this venerable 
 city, and the first of them made the anglicised grace 
 delivered at dinner the subject of critical remark. 
 The university, full of history, unfortunately did 
 not at all times retain its fame or its magnitude. 
 The more active living centres of Edinburgh, 
 
 399 
 
400 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 Glasgow, and Aberdeen shot before it ; it still held 
 its rights, and was able to confer degrees as it willed. 
 There was a custom in Scotland that its universities 
 could confer medical degrees on receipt of the 
 necessary fees, and men of eminence, such as 
 Arbuthnott and Jenner, availed themselves of the 
 privilege at St. Andrews. As time advanced the 
 proceeding, though not confined to one centre of 
 learning, was modified ; the introduction of an 
 examination for degrees of medicine was instituted, 
 and numbers of men who held medical or surgical 
 diplomas of practice took advantage of the privilege 
 and flocked to the northern city to be examined 
 and to obtain their title. Useful as this was 
 in meeting the wants of a large community that 
 had been duly educated, but were not students of 
 a regular university, it fell under censure. The 
 universities of London, Durham, and that of 
 Ireland, followed out the method with success as 
 well as St. Andrews ; but the latter was the most 
 popular and the most unduly criticised. After the 
 year 1868, therefore, the number of its medical 
 graduates was reduced to ten annually, each of 
 them to be men in practice who had reached forty 
 years of age. 
 
 In the year 1854, the new rule not having been 
 introduced, I and many more qualified men went to 
 St. Andrews to undergo the requisite examination, 
 and nothing could have been more fairly conducted. 
 The written examination, prepared by Professor Day, 
 
UNIVERSITY ECHOES. 401 
 
 M.D., E.R.S., the professor of medicine, was a model 
 of its kind, and was supplemented by verbal exam- 
 inations by himself, Professor Andrew Anderson of 
 Glasgow, Dr. Connor, and other distinguished men. 
 The examination lasted altogether two days. The 
 strictest impartiality prevailed ; the rejected candi- 
 dates were as well known as the accepted, and 
 there was no shadow of complaint. I was one of 
 the legally constituted new doctors of medicine, 
 and on my return to England took my place as 
 such. 
 
 A considerable number of medical men were 
 brought together as graduates of the ancient 
 university, and became a powerful medical body. 
 It included some who had been in general practice 
 for several years, and who were ready either to 
 expand their practice by means of their degree; 
 to accept some local office ; to accept the member- 
 ship or fellowship of the colleges ; to become local 
 consultants, or to retire from the labours of public 
 work. It included also younger men, who, having 
 missed the teachings of a university, were ambitious 
 of taking honours by examination. 
 
 For a few years no change took place in the 
 organisation ; and it might have continued, but 
 comment was made upon it, not by the older 
 universities of Oxford and Cambridge, nor by the 
 private and external schools of any city ; not by 
 London, Durham, or Dublin, but by the other univer- 
 sities of Scotland. It was the most absurd opposition 
 
 26 
 
402 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 even for themselves ; for when once a inan had 
 graduated at St. Andrews he theoretically became a 
 Scotch physician, proud of the Scotch universities, 
 and ambitious that all the young students under 
 his care should, if they qualified for medicine, enter 
 the Scottish universities, which taught as well 
 as graduated. We were all of one mind in this 
 particular ; but when once a thorough-going blunder 
 is set afloat there is no checking it. 
 
 In course of time a blunder was set afloat. It 
 was agreed that St. Andrews, not being a leading 
 school in medicine, ought not to be considered a 
 place fitted for examining and conferring degrees, 
 and a Bill was brought into the House of Commons 
 to which the names of the Right Honourable Mr. 
 Cowper and of Mr. Brady were attached, giving 
 the powers of graduation to the universities of 
 Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Aberdeen, but with- 
 holding such power from their more ancient and 
 venerable colleague. Mr. Cowper, in commenting 
 on this proceeding, urged that St. Andrews was 
 omitted because, practically, it was not a university ; 
 it existed as such only in name ; "it was now 
 merely a fishing station." I thereupon summoned a 
 number of graduates to consider the matter. We 
 had all passed a meritorious examination ; we were 
 by law doctors of medicine ; we had duly paid the 
 money we were called upon to pay, both to the 
 Government, for the stamp, and to the university ; 
 we knew and felt the advantage we had gained, both 
 
UNIVERSITY ECHOES. 403 
 
 by money and labour, and was it possible that we 
 were to be the last persons who would share the 
 benefit ? 
 
 We agreed that the public should also be 
 considered, for the public were benefited as much as 
 we were. Medicine is a progressive science, and, in 
 view of its professors, was year by year making new 
 advances which its representatives were forced to 
 follow and practise for the public good. It was 
 well, therefore, that practitioners should be obliged 
 to pass through the new trial as they endeavoured 
 to acquire new qualifications — and how better could 
 they do this than by passing through a new ordeal 
 bearing on professional activity and knowledge ? 
 Further, we considered that it was positively advis- 
 able that they should prove themselves advanced 
 men, not in an institution that was a school possess- 
 ing prejudices of its own, but in one that was free 
 and independent, and only represented in science 
 and medicine by those who were appointed to test 
 the candidate. 
 
 We were ourselves singularly happy in regard to 
 the examining Board we possessed. The Board of 
 Examiners was, in fact, complete, and in the method 
 of its examinations was as strict as it could be, 
 framing its course by the light of the other ex- 
 amining bodies, such as the Royal College of 
 Physicians of London. 
 
 Appreciating these facts, we graduates of the 
 University of St. Andrews found that in Fellows 
 
404 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 of the Royal Society, in Fellows of the Royal 
 Colleges, and in various public positions, as in 
 magistracies, and in the institutions of the nation, 
 we were as soundly represented as were the members 
 of any other body, while in our own profession 
 we were as much trusted as we could possibly 
 expect. 
 
 All these points considered, we made up our 
 minds to institute an organisation, to be called " The 
 St. Andrews Medical Graduates' Association," and 
 in this determination we were warmly supported by 
 Professor Day and his colleagues. The new central 
 committee did me the honour of electing me 
 as their president, and from then until now they 
 have annually repeated that honour — a space of 
 thirty-eight years — a repetition which I look 
 upon as one of the eventful features of my life. 
 Dr. J. H. Paul was soon afterwards elected 
 treasurer, and a large council was formed. Names 
 of members came in from all parts of the world, 
 and we were soon constituted into one of the 
 strongest associations of medical men. 
 
 "We naturally, being of one mind, made ourselves 
 felt, and although we did not carry all we desired, 
 we changed the aspect of things. The first step 
 we took was to see Mr. Cowper and Mr. Brady. 
 Mr. Brady was himself a medical man as" well as 
 a member of Parliament, representing Leitrim; he 
 sympathised with us warmly, and quickly arranged 
 a consultation with his colleague. We met at 
 
UNIVERSITY ECHOES. 405 
 
 Mr. Cowper's residence in Hertford Street, Mayfair, 
 and I, having at my fingers' ends all the facts about 
 St. Andrews University, was soon able to show that 
 we were infinitely more than a " fishing station," 
 and that we had legal rights, learning, and numbers. 
 Mr. Cowper, who afterwards became Lord Mount- 
 Temple, confessed himself wrong as to the statement 
 he had made, and promised to help us, but did not 
 see his way to suggest the appointment of a member 
 of Parliament for each of the four universities of 
 Scotland : indeed, he was of opinion that even three 
 were too many. I saw the point, and suggested two : 
 one to be a member for Edinburgh and St. Andrews ; 
 the other for Glasgow and Aberdeen. No proposi- 
 tion could have been more readily received, and, 
 giving me a pen, he begged me to put it upon paper, 
 and so I drew out the clause that is embodied in 
 the Act giving the two universities, Edinburgh and 
 St. Andrews, the seat filled first by Lord Play fair 
 and now by Sir William Priestley. 
 
 Organised as an association, we went on our way 
 with energy. We took an active part in the 
 formation of the new Medical Council, in which we 
 were this time elected to take a representative part 
 in combination with Glasgow, and which prevented 
 the extinction of the university as a medical ex- 
 amining body, although unfortunately the graduates 
 admitted were reduced to ten a year — a most illogical 
 compromise. 
 
 Notwithstanding all opposition we held together 
 
406 CHAPTERS OF LIFE 
 
 and maintained our views by starting the publica- 
 tion of a series of Transactions, which lasted for 
 many years, most ably edited by our learned 
 honorary secretary, Dr. Leonard Sedgwick. To those 
 Transactions a large number of the members 
 contributed. I wrote several essays, including 
 addresses given at our annual meetings ; but that 
 one which gave me most satisfaction, in a practical 
 sense, was on " The Treatment of Wounds by the 
 Second Intention," in which I indicated what 
 method ought to be pursued when the treatment of 
 wounds by the " first intention " failed. 
 
 In addition to our other work we held our regular 
 meetings for scientific discussion, and gave our 
 annual public dinners and conversaziones. They, 
 from first to last, have been attended by eminent 
 men, well-known to the world, such as Professor 
 Allen Thomson, Sir Richard Owen, Dean Stanley, 
 Principal Tulloch, Sir Sterndale Bennett, Admiral 
 Sir Edward Belcher, Sir Andrew Clark, Thomas 
 Woolner, B.A., the Marquis of Bute, Lord Elgin, 
 Lord Balfour of Burleigh, Sir Charles Cameron, 
 Mr. Hepworth Dixon, Professor Bell Pettigrew, 
 Professor Donaldson, and others, who charmed us 
 with their eloquence. The best post-prandial speech 
 Professor Owen ever made came to us from his 
 lips in response for " Science." 
 
 After a few years the University graduates elected 
 me as one of the members of the University Court 
 in place of Lord Jerviswoode, who had resigned. 
 
UNIVERSITY ECHOES. 407 
 
 was elected as General Assessor; represented the 
 graduates— graduates of Divinity, Arts, Medicine 
 —and held that distinguished post, with one short 
 break, for no less than sixteen years. The Court, 
 which had in its hands the governance of the Univer- 
 sity in all supreme measures, and which owned the 
 University Chest, in my time, comprised the 
 Lord Chancellor — His Grace the Duke of Argyll; 
 Principal Tulloch ; Mr. Whyte Melville — the father 
 of the author of that name, and one of the best golf- 
 players in the United Kingdom — with the Lord 
 Rector. Mr. Stuart Mill, Lord Selborne, Dean 
 Stanley, Mr. Eroude, and Sir Theodore Martin served 
 in turn as Lord Rectors ; their Assessors being Mr. 
 Skipworth and the Earl of Elgin ; the Assessors of 
 the Senatus were Principal Shairp and Professor 
 Eischer. 
 
 The University Court is now a little modified, 
 every faculty having its Assessor, but its poAver and 
 functions remain unchanged. 
 
 The position of Assessor to the University for a 
 long series of years brought me, of necessity, into 
 communion with many men of learning, besides 
 affording me the most interesting sights of travel 
 and facilities of communication. I journeyed to 
 Scotland from England frequently, and when in 
 Scotland was invited to lecture at the great centres 
 — Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Dundee, Perth, 
 Stirling, and Eorfar. I was also led to make good 
 friends, such as the late Sir William Collins, who 
 
408 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 took me on pleasure trips down the Clyde, or on 
 yachting expeditions along the western coast, in 
 which many incidents occurred which could not 
 possibly escape the memory, and, as impressions, 
 are still alive — pictures retained in the' organ of 
 the mind. 
 
 Since the days already referred to some changes 
 have taken place. An attempt has been made to 
 unite Dundee with St. Andrews, but the effort 
 has not succeeded, and at the present moment 
 St. Andrews stands as an independent school with 
 three additional chairs ; one of Botany, another of 
 Materia Medica, and a third of History. Anatomy 
 has also taken its position there, and in addition to 
 the red-gown male students, ladies have entered its 
 colleges, and in very considerable numbers have 
 taken the degree of LL.A. and even M.A. As an 
 Association we graduates remain the same except 
 that our numbers are smaller. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 REVOLUTIONS IN PHYSIC. 
 
 Blood-letting. 
 
 ?HEKE is no greater revolution of a medical 
 kind I can recall than that relating to the 
 treatment of disease by the letting of blood 
 from the body. It is the rarest thing in these days 
 to see a doctor carefully carrying about him the 
 means for instantly producing venesection, and I have 
 lately seen two who thought it necessary in bleeding 
 a man to proceed by exposing a vein with forceps 
 and scalpel, neglecting, at the same time, the old- 
 fashioned fillet which we were accustomed invari- 
 ably to use, and which everyone knew how to 
 apply. The transformation is astounding. I have 
 in my waistcoat pocket a pretty tortoiseshell case 
 holding two bright little instruments called lancets, 
 which were presented to me on Christmas Day, 1844, 
 as a first necessity in medical practice. The people 
 went with us heart and soul by their commendation, 
 and thought nothing of our drawing off even a pint 
 of blood. Nor was the doctor alone in this ancient 
 art, for although the writer of Gil Bias had 
 
 409 
 
410 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 fiercely and widely exhibited Dr. Sangado, and had 
 possibly produced a good effect, blood-letting went 
 on. Even after Gil Bias' day the surgical barbers 
 set up their poles, with the red and blue lines, 
 representing arteries and veins, and the customer 
 walked in to be bled as readily as he does now to be 
 shaved or shampooed. 
 
 It was not always that a person who went to be 
 bled was in bad health, for it became a popular idea 
 that regular bleedings at " spring and fall " were 
 necessary, that the body might be kept in health. 
 The collecting of persons to be bled became a steady 
 source of income, and one of my early friends, in 
 buying a practice, was actually obliged to pay 
 specially for " spring and fall venesection." The 
 fact that anybody ever died from the practice was 
 unheard of, and the skill of a man in performing 
 venesection was frequently a recommendation to his 
 patients, while at this day the practice of systematic 
 bleeding has almost passed away. 
 
 Why blood-letting became in a few years unpopular 
 so that few men now dare to encourage it, is difficult 
 to say, for it was really a remedy, and Dr. Munk 
 has recently told how a President of the Hoyal 
 College of Physicians — the well-known Sir Henry 
 Halford — fell into disrepute because so late as 1845 
 he failed to bleed an ailing practitioner who was 
 travelling with him, leaving him at Tring to be 
 attended by Mr. Dewsbury — a local surgeon who had 
 no punctilious scruples. What also is strange is 
 
REVOLUTIONS IN PHYSIC. 411 
 
 that blood-letting was both old and potent, and that, 
 considering the body as an instrument, it was on 
 the right tack. If it had never been known, and 
 was only now just discovered, it would probably be 
 on the crest of the wave, and the adopters of it 
 would ride thereon amid acclamation. It may yet 
 revive, and another old plan may also come to life 
 again — that, namely, of drawing off blood from a 
 diseased body and transfusing into another vein of 
 it a healthier blood. 
 
 The art of blood-letting collapsed, but it did not 
 drop suddenly and altogether, for when the once 
 familiar lancet ceased to hold sway, the lighter 
 local methods, by cupping and leeches, still 
 prevailed. I knew a gentleman — a dentist by 
 profession — who was so expert a cupper that he was 
 sometimes called upon to cup as often as five times 
 a day, and, with that and the dental work combined, 
 had his hands quite full from morning to night. I 
 also knew a professed cupper — the late Mr. Beck. 
 Lastly, I knew a firm of doctors who paid £250 a 
 year to one house for the leeches they required. 
 
 Blood-letting, in its course of more than a 
 thousand years, was not always wrong. The late 
 Sir George Paget of Cambridge was, some half 
 century ago, in consultation with me at Elmdon in 
 Essex in the case of a Mr. Clarke. Mr. Clarke 
 was lying near to death with double pneumonia, 
 a disease that had followed the act of leaning 
 out of his bedroom window one cold night. We 
 
412 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 feared he could not recover, but as a last chance 
 we drew from his arm a full pint of blood. It was 
 magic ! it was like pulling him out of a pond. His 
 dark and troubled face became ruddy, and, to make 
 a long story short, he began to breathe by the 
 affected lungs and to recover from that hour, living 
 for many years after, and honouring me by calling 
 on me in London on several occasions. I once saw 
 the late Dr. Willis of Barnes save the life of a child, 
 convulsed from congestion of the brain, by drawing 
 off blood from the jugular vein. I feel quite sure 
 that I myself have saved life by bleeding in 
 apoplexy; like Galen, I have noticed the relief 
 of pain from the abstraction, and, as already stated, 
 the late James Wardrop, when anaesthesia by 
 vaporous inhalation was still unknown, produced 
 deliquium or faintness, and therewith insensibility, 
 by bleeding, and then performed, painlessly, opera- 
 tions which would otherwise have caused great 
 suffering. 
 
 Some think that the cessation of the abstraction 
 of blood was nothing less than an evolution of 
 the science and art of medicine. It was, however, 
 a very rapid evolution, the like of which has never 
 before been seen. It has been so rapid that in my 
 own career I have been the cause of stopping two 
 legal trials based on entirely opposite extremes. 
 In my early life some men driving a cart rather 
 furiously were thrown out in trying to pull up at 
 a public house, and one fell so heavily that he was 
 
REVOLUTIONS IN PHYSIC. 413 
 
 stunned and quite insensible. A neighbouring rival 
 young surgeon was called in, and, being imbued with 
 the new ideas just coming in about blood-letting, 
 refused to draw blood from the wounded man. It 
 was an unexpected refusal, and in the end the 
 friends of the man commenced a legal action for 
 malpractice. They came to me for evidence on the 
 old and established side, as they thought. I, seeing 
 the difficulty, and also inclined towards the new 
 ideas that were springing up, persuaded the relatives 
 of the supposed neglected man not to pursue the 
 course they had commenced, and resolutely refused 
 to give any evidence in their favour, as did also 
 the members of the firm with which I was then 
 connected; in the end the pleadings were with- 
 drawn — so that my opposition to the practice of 
 blood-letting had its influence. 
 
 Much more recently a practitioner in London, 
 having attended a lady in her accouchement, saw 
 symptoms for which he thought it right to bleed, 
 but the lady died. Her husband, therefore, came to 
 me complaining, and begged me to give evidence 
 against the practitioner, in an action for malpractice, 
 on the ground that blood had been improperly 
 abstracted. I could not, for I had actually recom- 
 mended it as a remedy for the very class of case in 
 hand, and the action was withdrawn. 
 
 In the history of the world and of the habits and 
 beliefs of mankind there is no revolution more 
 remarkable than this of blood-letting. If the blood 
 
414 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 is the life this revolution means the saving of life ; 
 and I think I may say that when the life-blood was 
 let there was one disadvantage, namely, that the 
 patient was very often an undue time in regaining 
 power. I never saw anyone killed by a system, 
 which the long antique pole in varied colours, before 
 it was rotten to the core, proclaimed in every village. 
 A man one day, when thunder was in the air, 
 sought the shelter of a windmill. A flash of 
 lightning came across him and laid him low. 
 He was carried as a dead man to the nearest 
 chirurgeon, and I remember his helpless body being 
 borne into the garden and placed on an old- 
 fashioned settee. The surgeon had no fears : he 
 had learned his art, and performed it bravely. He 
 exposed the two arms of the man, and tried to 
 draw blood from both at the same time. It was 
 his only chance, he said, for taking off the tension 
 of blood ; but it was the right chance — it succeeded, 
 and the helpless mass that was carried in by 
 other men's aid walked out by its own. The fact 
 is far too tense and demonstrative to be forgotten, 
 and blood-letting can only be laid aside absolutely 
 when it is seen with full perspicuity in the clearer 
 light of the future. 
 
 Mercury, Opium, Antimony. 
 
 The revolution that took place in regard to blood- 
 letting has not been, by any means, the only 
 
REVOLUTIONS IN PHYSIC. 415 
 
 revolution that has occurred. The administration 
 of mercury, especially in the form of calomel, or 
 calomel and opium, was almost as general a 
 practice, and it is curious to remember how 
 mercury commonly ran in concert with blood- 
 letting. We were told to bleed and then to 
 mercurialise, and salivation or complete mercurial- 
 isation was accepted as a definite line of treatment. 
 I have seen swollen gums and loosened teeth from 
 mercury many times, and have come into contact 
 with several persons whose teeth had been completely 
 destroyed under the mercurial regime. In some 
 institutions, as, for instance, the Haslar Hospital, 
 mercurial inunctions were the order of the day, 
 and not infrequently were carried on until salivation 
 developed itself. In the treatment of acute pneu- 
 monia mercurial treatment was for a time set aside 
 in favour of antimonial. We were advised to give 
 antimony in the form of tartar emetic, coup sur coup, 
 until the system was completely palsied by it. The 
 patients were rendered sick literally ; the action of 
 the heart was reduced, and the pulse extremely 
 lowered. Sometimes it even seemed as if patients 
 died from the treatment, and they always were 
 brought into a state of debility from which they 
 slowly recovered. The times have altogether 
 changed, and antimony as well as mercury have 
 passed out of date in civilised medicine. Antimony 
 seems almost to have lost its place, and mercury 
 is merely claimed by a comparatively small number 
 
416 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 as necessary for the treatment of specific disease, or 
 occasionally as a purgative of the alterative kind. 
 
 Counter- Irritation. 
 
 Together with blood-letting, and mercury or 
 antimony, blistering as a counter-irritant had its 
 full swing, and in writing the Life of John Snow 
 I have recorded what he told me — namely, that a 
 master of his who had a large practice kept a 
 drawer in which a returned blister from one patient 
 was used for another, such was the demand for 
 counter-irritation. The idea of counter-irritation 
 has not altogether died away, and I must confess 
 that, although I have never used a blister that has 
 previously been used, I do sometimes apply blisters 
 for particular purposes, not without effect of a 
 favourable kind. I and others frequently employ 
 counter-irritants of a milder nature, such as mustard 
 and other allied medicaments. We have, however, 
 in regard to counter-irritants, greatly modified the 
 tone, and we certainly are much less disposed to 
 poultices of all kinds, especially to such as press 
 heavily on the chest and affect the breathing. 
 
 Purgation. 
 
 I remember very well when the Hamiltonian 
 system of medicine was in high favour. Hamilton 
 was a northern physician, and taught that it was 
 always a good plan freely to relieve the bowels. 
 
REVOLUTIONS IN PHYSIC. 417 
 
 He was fond specially of saline purgatives, and 
 there was a good story told by the late Sir Astley 
 Cooper which bears on the purgative method. Sir 
 Astley was accustomed to meet a Scotch physician 
 who would say to him, — 
 
 " "Weel, Mr. Cooper ! we have only twa things 
 to keep in mind, and that'll serve us for here and 
 for hereafter. The first is always to keep the fear 
 of God before oor een, and that will serve us for 
 hereafter. The next is always to keep oor boo'els 
 open, and that'll serve us for here." 
 
 There is a good deal of sound common-sense in 
 this northern teaching, and I sometimes think we 
 do not adopt it in this present day as we might do, 
 but whether that be so or not we have mightily 
 changed, and apart from some watering-places 
 where there are springs of a purgative nature, we 
 rarely think of following up persistent purgation as 
 a means of cure. 
 
 I need not dwell any further on what has been 
 said about the gradual disuse of alcohol in disease, 
 neither need I touch on the abolition of pain as 
 the most striking feature in this century of medical 
 advancements. 
 
 The Stethoscope, Sphygmograph, and iSphygmophone. 
 
 The stethoscope was coming into common use when 
 I entered physic, but I knew of at least one doctor 
 who had never employed it, who considered it useless, 
 
 2.7 
 
418 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 and who, when he saw it in the hands of some- 
 one else, would ask, with a good-natured laugh, 
 " whether it were possible through it to hear the 
 grass grow ? " It was not professed that we could 
 hear the grass grow, but the stethoscope instituted 
 a true revolution in physic, and we, in our later 
 day, were reaping the benefit. We followed our 
 masters, Laennec himself, Hope, Andral, Louis, 
 Chambers, Latham, and Williams, as our authorities, 
 and we were not wanting in knowledge, but we 
 were not content. Soon after the middle of the 
 century we formed in London a Society which we 
 called "The Society for the Study of Chest Disease," 
 and were industriously but quietly engaged at new 
 work in investigating diseases of the lungs and 
 heart. We met in the evenings at each other's 
 houses, partook of tea and light refreshments, and 
 then proceeded to work. Most of us, if not all, 
 were engaged in hospital practice, and we were able 
 to request some patient to come to us, whose case 
 we carefully examined and discussed, by which 
 means, in the end, he became as much benefited 
 by our combined experience as we were by our 
 observations. A great many of us, deeply interested 
 in chest disease, were thus bound together in useful 
 work, and a few are living still, though the majority 
 are dead. The observers I best remember, as if I 
 could speak or write to them still, are John Snow, 
 William Baly, Francis Webb, Andrew Clark, 
 Francis Sibson, Risden Bennett, George Johnson, 
 
REVOLUTIONS IN PHYSIC. 419 
 
 Frederick Anstie, John Cockle, and Thomas Hawksley. 
 Snow was a genius ; Paly, a consummate German 
 scholar, who translated Muller's Physiology and was 
 a clear observer, became appointed Physician to Her 
 Majesty, and would have made a great mark before 
 now had he not been killed in a railway accident ; 
 Webb was one of our classical scholars and 
 physicians, an F.S.A. of strong antiquarian tastes ; 
 Sibson was a fine clinical artist ; Andrew Clark was 
 keen and penetrating ; Kisden Bennett, who became 
 a President of the Royal College of Physicians, was 
 exact and critical ; George Johnson was minute, 
 critical, and cautious ; Anstie was zealously acute ; 
 Thomas Hawksley was never so satisfied as when 
 he was hearing the views of his colleagues, and 
 John Cockle was most suggestive. 
 
 One day there came to London a Mr. Groux, who 
 had a singular development of the chest. He 
 resembled, in the way of construction, a man pre- 
 sented by William Harvey to King Charles I. in 
 order that the King might place his royal hand 
 over the heart. The bony structure covering this 
 part was incomplete. The bony structure over the 
 heart of Mr., afterwards Dr., Groux was also so 
 deficient that the movements of the heart could be 
 seen and its pulsations felt as if it were a distinct 
 organ. Several of us had Mr. Groux before us for 
 examination, and watched the pulsations, both of 
 his heart and arteries, by fixing feathers with wax 
 over the pulsating centre. Out of these and pre- 
 
420 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 vious researches sprang the instrument called the 
 sphygmograph, by which we caused the pulse to 
 write its own message, an entirely new art. The 
 sphygmograph was most thoughtfully devised by Pro- 
 fessor Meyer and simplified by Anstie, Mahommed, 
 Pond, Dudgeon, and myself. I made the sphyg- 
 mograph, when in use, cut the lines on which the 
 movements of the pulse could be traced. I caused 
 the body to be inverted so that the pulse could be 
 read while the body was standing on its head, or was 
 laid at any angle. Also, after Professor Hughes 
 had invented the microphone, I constructed a new 
 instrument — the sphygmophone — which caused the 
 pulse to deliver sounds through a telephone, so that 
 it could talk as well as write. We had now two 
 new ways of taking pulse-records in addition to 
 the process known from time immemorial of feeling 
 it, counting it, and guessing at its quality. 
 
 Hydropathy and Homoeopathy. 
 
 It has often been asked of me what I think of 
 the introduction of new systems of medicine such 
 as hydropathy and homoeopathy, and what is my 
 experience of them as I have seen them in the 
 course of my life. I may say candidly, and 
 without any desire to be hypercritical, that no 
 system of medicine, standing apart from the old 
 high-road of medical science, has ever impressed 
 me as a new and great development. I recall 
 
REVOLUTIONS IN PHYSIC. 421 
 
 hydropathy springing into great position for a time 
 through the labours and ingenuity of a German 
 peasant named Priestnetz, and I have known the 
 introduction of hydropathic establishments at home 
 and abroad. They have provided little specially 
 curative, but have induced numbers of people to 
 sally forth from their homes and places of business 
 to get fresh air and rest. Arbuthnott wrote to Dean 
 Swift to go to G-eronsker " because the Geronsker 
 waters would not carry," by which he slyly 
 conveyed that it was not the waters that cured 
 but the journey, with change of air, habit, and 
 scenery. We might apply the same reading to 
 modern hydropathy, and, acting on this very 
 principle, many of us physicians have often recom- 
 mended, with the best intentions, the hydropathic 
 process of living, and apparently, in numerous in- 
 stances, with the best results. In fact hydropathy, 
 revolutionary as it has sometimes seemed, has 
 been occasionally an aid to scientific medicine. 
 
 In the early days of my career the system 
 called homoeopathy had come into full prominence, 
 the physician named Hahnemann having been its 
 promoter, and, some think, its founder. He does 
 not appear to me to have been the founder, but he 
 certainly was the first expounder. In the same 
 University where Hahnemann taught, the Univer- 
 sity of Halle, there lived through a long life 
 Michael Albertus, and he, the great journalist of 
 his time, published three essays, one styled " De 
 
422 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 Curatione per Similia; " another, " De Curatione per 
 Contraria," and a third, "De Curatione per Expecta- 
 tionem." The three embrace the whole art of 
 medicine from the first to the last, and he is the 
 wisest physician who adopts them all as occasion 
 may call for them. Hahnemann, after some fluctua- 
 tions, seized on the " Per Similia," built a system 
 upon it, and established a schism, under the term 
 "similia similibus curantur." We must understand 
 the plan to understand the man. He began by 
 giving large doses of physic ; saw the evils ; dropped 
 to infinitesimal doses ; saw the good ; and then, in 
 order to account for the results of the contrast, 
 invented the dogma about similars, a convenient 
 invention that seemed to account for everything he 
 saw. In plain words, he took Nature into his firm 
 and then did not acknowledge the partnership, or 
 perhaps did not know of it, a concession we ought 
 to allow. Hahnemann made a great commotion and 
 division among professors of medicine, the like of 
 which had never before been seen since the days 
 of Paracelsus, if then. It was, perhaps, a necessary 
 commotion, but as we saw it in its early times it 
 appeared to be an error, and gave rise to much 
 anger and tumult, in which the public took part. 
 It led to the introduction of the absurd opposing 
 word " allopathy," as descriptive of a system which 
 we never saw ; it fixed in the mind of the people the 
 impression that when a doctor was called in some- 
 thing must be done, even though a globule were 
 
REVOLUTIONS IN PHYSIC. 423 
 
 concerned, and it gave rise to all sorts of silly 
 notions as to the effects of globules and infinitesimal 
 doses. The homoeopathic administrations also were 
 not always sincere; they were sometimes really 
 active remedies like bichloride of mercury in full 
 dose, although in globular form, and created cura- 
 tive effects that could not be acknowledged. Some 
 accounted for symptoms, misled by the fanciful 
 statements of the naturally recovering sick, and 
 claimed the advantages from the new system 
 to be superior to those of the older. Nature does 
 not try to save, but in her course she often saves 
 without going out of her way, and the homoeo- 
 pathists had the advantage of this fact. We, of 
 legitimate physic, could not sympathise with their 
 system, and they could not help, in accepting it, 
 separating it from ours as if they felt separation 
 their safety, even though, in examination for their 
 diplomas, they concealed themselves under what 
 they might conceive to be the allopathic veil. 
 
 As time has gone on matters seem to have become 
 a little more settled. It is felt that to brand a regu- 
 lar profession with the term "allopathic" is simply 
 grotesque, and that, as a descriptive term, allopathy 
 is just as ridiculous as homoeopathy, while treatment 
 by expectation is becoming day by day the safest, 
 and very often the quickest, of our endeavours after 
 cure — natural recovery. It will take a good many 
 generations to repair the damage that has been done 
 by the breach that has occurred. It is impossible 
 
424 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 for men of legitimate physic, however liberal they 
 may be, to foster a delusion, and it is hard, if not 
 impossible, for men who have committed themselves 
 to an error to make the acknowledgment. 
 
 Surgical Revolutions. 
 
 Up to this time I have dwelt only on the revolu- 
 tions that have taken place in medicine, and now 
 it is necessary for a moment to refer to those that 
 have taken place in the field of surgery. In early 
 days, as has been already intimated, the object of the 
 surgeon was to be very quick in all his operations ; 
 celerity was his fame, and to see an observer take 
 out his watch in order to note the seconds during 
 which a Liston, a Lawrie, or a De la Garde could 
 remove a limb was a perfectly natural event. 
 Anaesthesia has taken away this art of celerity to 
 so considerable an extent that every bold and 
 thoughtful man, physician, surgeon, or general 
 practitioner, can perform an operation at his com- 
 parative leisure, if not pleasure. Anaesthesia has 
 also permitted many operations, and with success, 
 which could not previously have been dreamed of. 
 
 There have been certain other advances which 
 have belonged to our time. Through the labours 
 of the late Dr. Strohmeyer, and in our country the 
 late well-known Dr. Little, the art of subcutaneous 
 surgery, which John Hunter seems to have glanced 
 at but let alone as a practice, has been most wonder- 
 
REVOLUTIONS IN PHYSIC. 425 
 
 fully developed, to the great advantage of those 
 living bodies that are deformed, crippled, and 
 unable to carry out with facility the ordinary duties 
 of mankind. 
 
 Another great advance has been in the perform- 
 ance of such operations as ovariotomy, by which 
 from the female subject the ovarian cyst, loaded 
 with fluid, has been removed entirely from the 
 abdomen, and the lives of women previously doomed 
 to death by disease have been saved. I have 
 already shown in Asclepiad, Vol. XI., p. 98, that the 
 suggestion of this remarkable operation was first 
 made to Erasmus Darwin, on March 29th, 1793, 
 by Mr. Power, a surgeon of Market "Bosworth in 
 Leicestershire, but it has required a full century for 
 complete development, a development which has 
 led it to become one of the most startling improve- 
 ments in surgical art, the chief steps of which I 
 have seen taken, with all the controversies connected 
 with them, in my own short life. 
 
 Treatment of Wounds. 
 
 The greatest advance of all, perhaps, has been 
 made in the treatment of wounds. In my young 
 days disease was a field of uncleanliness and a 
 mass of corruption. The sick-room and sick- ward 
 were almost as bad as the dissecting-room. Wards 
 were kept closed, and the excretions of the patients 
 were barely concealed. The excretions were literally 
 
426 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 stored in the utensils beneath the conch that they 
 might be preserved for the doctor's inspection. In 
 these days cleanliness has become universal, and 
 the improvement that has taken place in water- 
 closets alone is one of the most astounding character- 
 istics of civilised communities. Preventive art has 
 changed the whole system of cure, and, such has 
 been the progress, it becomes difficult to trace 
 out the value of individual methods. Many think 
 the introduction of antiseptics was the cause of 
 prevention; some others believe in purity — pure 
 air and pure water — as sufficiently remedial, and 
 that nothing extraneous is wanted. It has always 
 seemed to me that iodine and similar bodies that 
 may be called antiseptics have played a conspicuous 
 part in the results, and I was probably amongst 
 the first to use iodine in its antiseptic form, but 
 it is so obvious that the evolution may have been 
 due to cleanliness alone, it is hard to come to a 
 conclusion. 
 
 Remedial advocates, by mixing up many subtle 
 questions, such as the action of antitoxin, immunity 
 agents, and assumed bacteriological inquiries, have 
 made some of the worst failures, and have not 
 cleansed the world, as they have proudly supposed, 
 of its current causes of disease, while they have, 
 unfortunately, drawn the minds of men away from 
 some of the most important physical problems in 
 regard to the relation of disease to heat and cold, to 
 climate, electricity, influence of journeyings in space. 
 
REVOLUTIONS IN PHYSIC. 427 
 
 and effects of heredity, problems that lie straight 
 before the sight and that will have to be solved. 
 
 Treatment of the Insane. 
 
 No greater change in medicine has taken place 
 in the two past generations than in the management 
 of those members of the community who differ from 
 the mass of their fellows in being of what is called 
 unsound mind. Persons of unsound mind have ever 
 been the mystery of mysteries of this mortal life. 
 They may be built outwardly like the rest of the world, 
 as it seems to us, but inwardly are evidently different. 
 They have the same general construction, but their 
 actions are special and often apparently wandering 
 and objectless. They are at best the irregular verbs 
 of existence. Whatever their peculiar characteristic 
 depends upon, it is not of recognisable quality. 
 Insanity is ruled by laws of its own, and it seems 
 to be hereditary by a reproduction which descends 
 along the chain of life. The insane organisation is like 
 an instrument out of tune, and, as the wolf in a violin, 
 insanity is never actually absent from any animal 
 instrument whatsoever. Insanity is a thing of itself, 
 but as it usually takes the human family to develop 
 in, it forms an element of humanity. It is not 
 entirely confined to the human family, for there are 
 insane animals — insane horses, for instance — but it is 
 most notably seen in the human form, and has played 
 most important parts in the human family. It has 
 
428 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 shown itself at the head of the social group, 
 ruling it according to its own manner ; ruling it 
 beneficently or savagely, usually savagely. Anon 
 insanity has taken its place in the religious sphere, 
 stamping itself there, and occasionally making for 
 itself a name or reputation for virtue or other 
 qualities that call together worshippers ; gets itself 
 into the niches of temples or the pictures of art, 
 and at last is recognised in living forms, running 
 amongst its fellows as pitiable or dangerous, or 
 requiring to be kept under watch and control, and 
 calling forth either sorrow or laughter. 
 
 Whatever form it takes, and however obscurely 
 it may manifest itself, insanity is, by comparison, 
 weak ; its irregularities cause it to bend, and it 
 may, conscious of its feeble guidance, be glad to be 
 guarded, ever distrusting itself, and wanting com- 
 panionship and support from what it may even 
 consider enfeebled aid. Savage it may not be, 
 though it often is, showing itself off by unexampled 
 deeds of violence. It may build a tower that shall 
 try, like Babel, to reach heaven ; it may strive 
 after fame by finding heroes and inventing wars 
 with all wantonness and bloodthirstiness ; but in 
 the end it falls and its deeds are set at nought 
 because it has no cohesion. 
 
 We are beginning at last to understand better the 
 meaning of insanity. We feel it indicates a faulty 
 instrument requiring superintendence, and so we are 
 becoming more humane in its treatment, as who 
 
REVOLUTIONS IN PHYSIC. 429 
 
 should say, " May not any of us become mad ? ". or 
 as though we say, with truthfulness, " Do we not, 
 as we creep into old age, become childishly insane ? " 
 as if we were played out and laughed when the rest 
 wept, or treated as a joke that at which the rest 
 wondered. 
 
 The way in which, in the history of the world, 
 the sane, as they are believed to be, have treated 
 the insane, is the most curious of pictures, often, in 
 fact, as if insanity had governed insanity and as if 
 nothing but force prevailed, or as if the insane could 
 be made to change their nature and become rational. 
 
 If the sanest man in the world were to breathe 
 for a few minutes a simple gas, like nitrous oxide, 
 put before him, he might lose his mental balance 
 and do the silliest things and acts that could be 
 imagined. If Dame Nature were to diffuse through 
 this atmosphere a little of the same gas, which 
 she could easily do by means of her electrical 
 vibrations, and which, for anything we know, she 
 may do, or may have done, all persons exposed to her 
 humour and rendered practically insane might die 
 laughing at the scene, caring nothing about it. If 
 the sanest man in the world were to drink too much 
 of a liquor, such as alcohol, he might go stark, 
 staring mad ; and if all the world did the same, the 
 world would share his fate, and do stranger things 
 than are done in any asylum, a fact we can easily 
 learn by seeing what happens when one drunken 
 person advises or tries to correct another. 
 
430 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 I have not digressed, but that which I want to 
 recall is the great change that has taken place 
 in my recollection as to the nature and treatment 
 of the insane mind and matter. We seem, at last, 
 to acknowledge that every man and woman born 
 has two natures ; that these may not be truly 
 balanced ; that they may take into themselves, 
 willingly or unwillingly, agents which upset the 
 balance; and that kindness is the only corrective 
 of that class of human ill, disordered or unbalanced 
 mind. 
 
 I remember when, in regard to the insane, there 
 was nothing in force except Law, and that Law 
 barbarous. A mad person was a mad person ; he 
 was unaccountable for many of his own acts, as he 
 is still, but he was under the eye of the Law, and 
 they who had charge of him were not. The mad- 
 man was treated much as a lower animal, although 
 altogether distinguishable from one; or, being on 
 the borderland of insanity, he might be recognised 
 as above the same, and might be supported in doing 
 what affected the mass and what nobody else dared 
 to do. He might, in fact, be worshipped, or he 
 might be cursed. The worshipped mad are objects 
 of idolatry ; the cursed are objects of oppression. 
 How they have divided, or have been divided, is a 
 strange feature in the life of man, for while some 
 quite common by birth have risen by their madness 
 to be kings and emperors, others born as kings 
 or emperors have been sent by their cotemporaries 
 
REVOLUTIONS IN PHYSIC. 431 
 
 to durance vile. One man whose name we all 
 remember was born of such a generous nature that 
 he declined the legal robe because in it he would 
 have had the duty of condemning some of his own 
 kind to death, and yet in the end became one of the 
 most incomparable of murderers, and himself died 
 a felon's death. Another man, born to nothing, 
 rises for a season to everything ; puts himself at 
 the head of a great slaughtering power; loses his 
 place altogether, and as a mere slave dies in mid 
 life declaring himself what he is not, the tete 
 d'armee. A third man, born in the purple, and con- 
 sidered by some a good man, rises eventually to his 
 full glory, and, sitting at the head of the rulers of 
 the land, to their wonder addresses them as " My 
 Lords and G-entlemen, and Woodcocks cocking up 
 your tails ; " and then, condemned as a lunatic, is 
 taken to a place of confinement ; put under the care 
 of an ignorant, bloated-looking old man, dubbed a 
 doctor ; is shown to the people at a shilling a head, 
 as if he were a curiosity of the place ; is actually 
 whipped by a keeper, whose son, the bearer of his 
 father's clothes, I have myself seen, and from him 
 heard the details. The victim, as artists have 
 shown, becomes an entirely altered man in physique 
 and expression, but, recovering, for a brief period 
 tastes his glory again and then fades away. 
 
 In other examples the differences between faith, 
 failure, and sin has been manifested in the same 
 person, and over and over again the difference 
 
432 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 between sin and faithfulness, or, to speak more 
 plainly, between sin and righteousness, has been 
 seen in the most characteristic personal manner, 
 and yet it is not until our own times that we have 
 known the sane and insane so marked and managed 
 that the sane should take an intelligent view of 
 the insane, and should, being fortunately the more 
 numerous, be allowed power, tempered by intelli- 
 gence and humanity. 
 
 It looks as if the marvellous change that has 
 taken place in the treatment of mental perturba- 
 tions is the most extraordinary the world has ever 
 witnessed; it is a change far more astonishing 
 than anything physical we have observed, and I was 
 once commissioned to find out how the change 
 commenced. The duty was rather a difficult one, 
 but fortunately, in an insane asylum at Lincoln, I 
 was able to trace the basis of it, the details of which 
 I supplied with great care in the old Medical 
 Times and Gazette, and may again set forth in a 
 narrative form. It is sufficient here to point out 
 as a revolution that the humane treatment of 
 insanity has been one of the great features of the 
 reign in which we all have had the good fortune 
 to live. In the change Love has cast out Eear. 
 
 Social Changes : Lady Doctors. 
 
 References have been made to the revolutions 
 that have occurred in regard to various modes of 
 treatment of disease, but some social ones have been 
 
REVOLUTIONS IN PHYSIC. 433 
 
 developed that deserve notice. I refer first to the 
 admission of the female sex to the dnties of physic. 
 The time was when the apparent impossibilities of 
 this change stared ns in the face, but now lady 
 doctors numerously exist and promise to continue 
 unless the fashion wears itself out. It was always 
 selfish of men to try to stop it, and the very 
 effort to kill it encouraged the growth, as I once 
 had proof. Even women's discouragement itself 
 favoured the growth. There has never been the 
 faintest moral reason why women should not become 
 doctors, or mathematicians, or chemists, or anything 
 professional they might find themselves fitted for 
 and that could be appropriated by industry, «but if 
 the race is to continue there are natural physiological 
 reasons that must ever stand in their way. Wives 
 and mothers cannot by any device or industry rival 
 men. No provision has been made for such a 
 contest ; on the contrary, Nature seems to declare 
 that what she intended the female to be as a part 
 of the race was a good mother, as the first business. 
 Nature is so determinate in all long runs of her own 
 designing, that an imperfect generation might spring 
 out of the choicest female doctors, unless we could 
 succeed in changing the sympathetic nervous build, 
 and establish an organisation in which the brain 
 and its parts should reign supreme. Meantime it 
 is surely very bad practice, to say nothing of manners, 
 for men to interfere in this matter by act or word. 
 
 28 
 
434 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 The Art of Pharmacy. 
 
 The changes that have taken place in the work 
 of medical men generally have, as a matter of 
 course, influenced in a remarkable way the art of 
 Pharmacy — have, in fact, instituted a new order 
 of society. I recall when the chemist and druggist 
 was recognised as nothing more than the dispensing 
 half of him — physician or surgeon — who was con- 
 sidered the consultant. It is true that the general 
 practitioner who met the consultant in practice 
 usually took charge of the prescription and dispensed 
 it at his own surgery, but in time the prescription 
 began to be sent to some leading chemist, and this 
 especially in large towns. Originally the prescrip- 
 tion bore no other names but those of the consultants, 
 the physician signing his initials, the surgeon his 
 name in full. Richard Bright would sign simply 
 " R. B. ; " Brodie would sign beneath that 
 " Benjamin C. Brodie," the general practitioner 
 leaving his own name out altogether. The custom 
 underwent revolution ; the general practitioner began 
 to sign as well as the rest, and did so in the form 
 of initials, like the physician, and at this moment 
 does so, generally, while not infrequently the 
 consulting surgeon follows the same course. It has 
 also become not uncommon for the chemist and 
 druggist to dispense medicines systematically for 
 a general practitioner. I do not think it is a good 
 plan that the physician or surgeon should merely 
 
REVOLUTIONS IN PHYSIC. 435 
 
 prescribe. Galen held that every man who treated 
 disease should supply his own remedies, and I have 
 no doubt he was right. The prescription is a danger. 
 It passes from one hand to another, and, as I have 
 known, is sold; in its dog-Latin it is read by the 
 afflicted and understood by them, so that they 
 know what they are taking as well as the doctor 
 himself knows. The sick can thus compare one 
 man's remedy with another's, to the confusion of 
 everybody. A sick gentleman came to London ; con- 
 sulted five physicians as well as myself ; went home 
 laden with our prescriptions, and got the local 
 druggist to select and prepare that which he con- 
 sidered the most suitable. The whole affair becomes 
 ridiculous, injures physic, and undermines that 
 confidence and faith which every patient ought to 
 feel in his medical practitioner, be he physician, 
 surgeon, or general attendant. 
 
 The revolution in the dispensary business is quite 
 remarkable. The druggist was once a remnant of 
 the old apothecary of the Romeo and Juliet type, 
 and it was hard to distinguish between the apothecary 
 and the druggist. The druggist inoculated, bled, 
 cupped, drew teeth, and kept an open shop. Some- 
 times, indeed, he did something more; he kept 
 stores or groceries, and was quite as au fait with 
 raisins and currants as he was with blue pill 
 and rhubarb. Now all is changed, and the chemist 
 and druggist is a kind of semi-qualified man 
 who seems to live by dispensing drugs for the 
 
436 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 sick under the care of some member of the medical 
 fraternity. 
 
 The actual change that came over the life of 
 the chemists and druggists was initiated by Jacob 
 Bell, one of their own body, a popular pharmaceutist 
 of Oxford Street, London. Bell has been dead 
 a long time, but I knew him personally very 
 well. He was a Quaker ; a very marked and 
 ambitious man ; an admiring friend of the late Sir 
 Edwin Landseer ; industrious, rich, and active. He 
 was like a spark — always brilliant. For his own 
 fraternity he had, I am sure, the best feeling and 
 intentions, and founded the Pharmaceutical Society, 
 a very distinct and able organisation, having its 
 own Council, its President, its other officers, and 
 its Journal. It has had for its support influential 
 men of the world, and does not fail to tempt the 
 doctors themselves. 
 
 I have followed the history of this Society 
 through the whole of its course; have witnessed 
 its advance in science, and have suggested its 
 closer connection with Medicine in a form which 
 Medicine does not like to recognise, but which is 
 as sure to come as day follows night. 
 
 The most striking mode by which the pharma- 
 ceutist becomes a new feature in physic is his bold 
 advance on a presumed scientific principle. As 
 physic has advanced, the administration of medicines 
 and so-called cures has receded. In the first 
 number of the Journal of Public Health — 1855 — 
 
REVOLUTIONS IN PHYSIC. 437 
 
 I ventured to predict such a revolution in the 
 following terms : — 
 
 " The tendency of medicine, which, a century ago, 
 was directed towards the division of diseases into 
 many hundred forms, and the formation of the most 
 elaborate and complex nosologies, is being in this 
 day reversed; and the whole meaning of modern 
 medical inquiry is to prove that disease is a unity, 
 with a variety of phenomena, and that the causes 
 of disease are reducible to a few elementary forms. 
 This philosophical yearning after fixed principles as 
 to the nature of disease is influencing the whole 
 system of medicine. If the elements of diseased 
 action are few and simple, the principles of preven- 
 tion or cure are, it is thought, few and simple also. 
 The materia medica is thus undergoing a thorough 
 revision and curtailment. The viper no longer 
 yields its body to the formation of a ' specific ' medi- 
 cinal broth ; the philosophic oil of bricks has become a 
 droll myth, despite its magnificent name and former 
 great reputation ; a smell of the blooming dog-rose is 
 now held to be as remedial a proceeding as the deepest 
 draught of an infusion of its lifeless leaves, and 
 these, and a thousand other remedia admirabilia 
 which we might mention, are gone or are going 
 into the catalogue of the things that have been. 
 Meanwhile a new Pharmacopoeia comes in sight, 
 which all can read. Its principles are preventive, 
 its objects wide, and its elements — some seven only, 
 and the world's general property — are no more 
 
438 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 than Pure air, Proper nourishment, A regulated 
 temperature, Bodily exercise, Cleanliness, Mental 
 education, Good morals. Thus, in some of the most 
 important sections of the community, there is, as 
 hefore said, a general improvement and simplifica- 
 tion of knowledge on those great and vital questions, 
 upon the correct solution of which so much of the 
 world's happiness and progress rests." 
 
 This prediction has proved true to the letter, is 
 certain of fulfilment, and strangely influences and 
 modifies the position of the dispensing chemist. He 
 advances as a scientific man, but he does not advance 
 merely as a dispenser of drugs. On the contrary, 
 he recedes, and tells you plainly that, were he to 
 depend on the putting up of drugs from the prescrip- 
 tions of the medical fraternity, he would simply 
 starve, which he does not do. He cannot himself 
 legitimately prescribe even for the most trivial 
 ailment in the ordinary way, so he will do it in 
 the extraordinary. He will invent, advertise, and 
 sell his own articles by becoming the proprietor of 
 his own formulae. Every day he deluges the break- 
 fast-table with notices of his new foods or physic 
 or hygienic contrivance, and if he can invent a new 
 name for an old thing so much the better. One 
 morning lately a most intelligent and busy member 
 of the fraternity called upon me to show me a 
 portmanteau full of his preparations. I told him 
 honestly all about them, and he admitted every 
 criticism, only responding by asking, "What 
 
REVOLUTIONS IN PHYSIC. 439 
 
 am I to do ? Starve I cannot. To beg I am 
 ashamed." 
 
 Thermometric Headings. 
 
 Quite a revolution of a striking kind has taken 
 place in regard to the estimate of the temperature 
 of the body. In the middle of this century we 
 were accustomed to take into our consideration the 
 temperatures of the bodies of our patients, and we 
 used to feel the body in various parts to distinguish 
 the differences of warmth ; also we had become 
 acquainted with the uses of the thermometer for 
 many chemical and scientific experiments, and the 
 late Dr. John Davy had unquestionably used it 
 for taking the temperatures of different animals. 
 As a rule, however, we had not systematically 
 employed it in the determination of disease, and I 
 quite well remember the application of a small 
 curved thermometer that could be inserted under 
 the tongue in order that, in fever especially, we 
 might know at what temperature the body was 
 working. Gradually our learning in the matter of 
 temperature increased, and, as it increased, no 
 instrument told us better the facts we wanted to 
 know. We fixed the standard of normal tempera- 
 ture ; we gave the standards of fevers ; we learned 
 the point at which life was threatened, the point at 
 which it was stopped, the degree in which it some- 
 times rose at the time of death, and estimated the 
 safety or the danger of the patient by the readings 
 
440 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 we were enabled to take. We then saw the 
 development of the thermometer called the clinical 
 thermometer, in which the mercury not only 
 varied . according to the state of the body, but 
 registered accurately for our information. And now 
 we have arrived at such perfection in thermometrical 
 readings that no sick-bed is considered complete 
 unless it be furnished with a thermometer, and no 
 person is considered a good nurse unless she can 
 supply the doctor with the facts of temperature, 
 which are just as important as those of any other 
 kind. 
 
 In the art of taking the temperature of the body 
 in disease I have been one of the learners ; have 
 followed the improvements step by step as they have 
 been brought before me, and have found the study 
 not simply advantageous, but so extremely instructive 
 that in walking round the sick -wards under my care 
 I have felt that the thermometric reading was almost 
 of itself sufficient to tell me what course a patient 
 was taking, and whether the disease were increasing, 
 fluctuating, or declining. Indeed, I recall nothing 
 that is so decisively an advance in the practice of 
 medicine as the use of the thermometer. Even the 
 people are often guided in their judgments as to the 
 state of the sick by what they hear from the phy- 
 sician in regard to the thermometer, it is so decisive, 
 and so simple. 
 
 To me the thermometer has, at the same time, 
 not been merely an instrument for observing the 
 
REVOLUTIONS IN PHYSIC. 441 
 
 symptoms of the sick under treatment. I have 
 used it largely in physiological research, and par- 
 ticularly in determining whether parts of the body, 
 during health, carry on their work at different 
 temperatures. It seemed important to inquire into 
 this subject of the warmth of different organs, 
 and I made the curious observation that the 
 nervous centres are ordinarily under the tempera- 
 ture of the more vascular organs. Eor example, I 
 noted that in warm-blooded animals the temperature 
 of the brain is under that of the liver by no less 
 than two degrees Fahrenheit, as if a modification 
 of temperature in particular organs were necessary 
 for the continued maintenance of perfect life. 
 
 Special Practice. 
 
 I remember that in the early days of medical life 
 there was no decided appearance of specialisation, 
 as there is now. A few persons did seem to be 
 peculiarly advanced in the details of certain in- 
 quiries as in stethoscopy, in the use of instruments 
 for crushing stone in the bladder, or in operations on 
 the eye-ball. There were also the grand divisions of 
 medicine, surgery, and obstetrics, which constituted 
 a kind of speciality principle, but there were no 
 minute specialities as there are in this day, and a 
 remark which I remember to have once heard as 
 from Sir Benjamin Brodie, when advising a young 
 friend we both knew, "A specialist is half a quack," 
 
442 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 caused no wonder and gave no offence. Gradually, 
 however, the practice enlarged until the patient, a 
 man or a woman, looked upon himself, or herself, as 
 made up like a watch, each part requiring its own 
 doctor, and selected the man according to circum- 
 stance, as the old Egyptians are supposed to have 
 done in their day. 
 
 There are two sides in relation to specialism. The 
 body is made up of many organs and mechanisms ; 
 it is possible for one man to study an organ 
 specially, and it is certainly true that one man may 
 be better gifted than another man to perform a 
 special operation. On the other side, specialism, 
 too far permitted, is liable to endless confusion, 
 charlatanism, and neglect, for, with care, all men 
 may become just representatives of every depart- 
 ment of our art, and unless skill is as widespread 
 as disease, and the means are at hand for rendering 
 aid, some must inevitably suffer who might be 
 spared suffering. I have no doubt that, practically, 
 all medical men can learn alike, that one man will 
 be held as good as another, and that the idea of 
 specialism will stand no higher than Brodie prized it. 
 In the transition state, now manifested, the attempt 
 that is most desirable and most worthy is to have 
 men trained to exactitude in every step of their way, 
 and to let medicine altogether be the one speciality, 
 with an educated public as the patient, whatever 
 the disease to be contended with may be, and how- 
 ever developed. The late Sir Thomas Watson, one 
 
REVOLUTIONS IN PHYSIC. 443 
 
 of the wisest and fairest physicians I ever knew, 
 told me there was nothing more apparent to him 
 than his own incompetency, except the number of 
 occasions in which he was asked to see and rectify, 
 if he could, the manifest errors of some specialistic 
 devices. 
 
 Social Co-operations. 
 
 Thirty-two years ago it seemed to me desirable 
 that we medical men should be bound together for 
 assistance, so that in sickness we should be provided 
 for by securing the aid of a medical club. At the 
 meeting of the British Medical Association at 
 Cambridge in 1864, I, therefore, started a Medical 
 Provident Society, and a large number of medical 
 men joined it. They agreed to pay a certain sum 
 each year, and, when they met with disease or 
 accident, to take relief from its funds. The late 
 Dr. Alexander Henry was elected Secretary ; I was 
 elected President, and a considerable body of older 
 and richer men contributed donations, so that we 
 started on a sound basis. The late Mr. Tidd Pratt, 
 of the Priendly Societies' Office, was much interested 
 in our favour and gave us the most seasonable in- 
 struction. We did not, however, succeed as we 
 expected. Members paid and kept the funds up to 
 the mark, but it did not seem that any member was 
 willing to apply for help when he was ill, because he 
 did not wish the facts of his illness and distress to be 
 made known. Years went on before we had one 
 
444 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 application. A member had broken a limb, but when 
 he found what the general feeling was he refused to 
 accept the relief that was due to him. Pratt said he 
 had never known anything so curious, and he advised 
 me to divide the money on a plan he drew up, or 
 suggested, and return it all to donors or subscribers, 
 with interest to donors. We held a final and most 
 friendly meeting, and did as he advised in due 
 form. 
 
 After the dissolution of the Provident Society I 
 was asked to be President of a Medical Protection 
 Society, accepted the post, and held it for some few 
 years. The duty was not always congenial, but I 
 thought the intention of the members good, and 
 therefore agreed, as their wish was very freely ex- 
 pressed, to act for them. We ceased at last, as if not 
 wanted, and imperceptibly appeared to be absorbed 
 into other organisations, so that I was relieved of 
 my duties without any trouble or formality of 
 resignation. 
 
 I do not think I was precisely constituted for 
 enforcing protection against what was assumed to 
 be wrong. He always seemed to me the best 
 practitioner who treated the sick man in the same 
 way as he treated himself ; I acted upon this ideal 
 from my earliest days, and taught it from the 
 moment in which I commenced to be a teacher, 
 while I always disliked any form of charlatanism 
 as much as others did. To continue the two 
 attempts, one of tolerating and the other of limiting 
 
REVOLUTIONS IN PHYSIC. 445 
 
 for the sake of medical protection, was at times 
 typical, but the results were not so satisfactory as 
 I could have wished. It seemed to me better for 
 all of us to improve in knowledge, and to lead the 
 world — which has no real wish to be deceived — 
 to follow our standard over safe, rather than over 
 slippery, ground. I think so still, and feel no 
 regret at having been relieved of a task which, 
 at the best, I could but have technically accom- 
 plished, which was not universally acceptable or 
 unitedly supported. 
 
 Minor Revolutions. 
 
 There have occurred many other revolutions in 
 physic which, though minor, are not without 
 their significance. In the old days it was the 
 invariable custom for the physician to follow the 
 general practitioner into the sick-room and to leave 
 it first. The physician was in this manner always 
 in communion with the patient in sight of the 
 general practitioner, which was a good system and 
 prevented what Watson called " jockeying." The 
 rule is often broken now, or at all events, is not 
 so scrupulously kept as it was, or held to be of the 
 same importance. 
 
 In early days physicians used to ride in the 
 chariot, very commonly in the chariot with the 
 hammercloth — originally a cover of the box-seat 
 that held the tools by which the carriage could be 
 repaired if, on a bad road, it was damaged. The 
 
446 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 hammercloth on the big chariot has faded away 
 altogether — I have seen it in the square in which 
 I reside, but there have been none this last fifteen 
 years or more, and the last hammercloth chariot 
 I saw, of medical type, stood for some years in 
 a carriage store in Oxford Street; it first cost 
 three hundred guineas, but fell to fifty that it 
 might be sold in a revised form. I actually have 
 seen outriders to the physician's chariot, but they 
 ceased before the hammercloth was abolished. 
 People now want the doctor simply to reach the 
 patient as quickly as possible ; they are content 
 with a landau or brougham at their doors, and 
 they do not even despise a cab if it bring the 
 doctor. 
 
 The door of the old doctor bore his name alone, 
 so that it was more or less conspicuous, and the 
 inhabitant of the house was recognisable by the 
 number. In this day you see three or four names 
 on one door, and you cannot tell to whom the house 
 belongs, because there may be several consulting- 
 rooms under one roof. 
 
 The old physician and practitioner wore a special 
 and recognisable dress : his coat was cut as a 
 barrister's is now ; he often had knee-breeches and 
 Hessian boots ; he displayed a white necktie and 
 flowing shirtfront with frills; he wore ruffles, and 
 occasionally carried a cane with a perforated box 
 at the top which held camphor or some other 
 smelling substance. He wrote a large hand on 
 
REVOLUTIONS IN PHYSIC. 447 
 
 prepared paper, and, taking him all in all, was a 
 distinctive gentleman whom every one knew as a 
 doctor. All this has departed, and the doctor now 
 is clothed like other men. 
 
 The old doctor was great at giving dinners; he 
 would often have twenty or thirty practitioners at 
 his table, which was laid at considerable cost and 
 decorated with handsome design. Copland told me 
 that he sometimes gave five and twenty dinners a 
 year, every one of them showing a good party and 
 costing a great deal of money. Richard Bright, I 
 understood, was also fond of dinners, and, to be 
 short, the entertainment was a kind of institution that 
 could never be ignored. Presidents of colleges and 
 societies, as well as consultants, encouraged dinners, 
 and he who omitted the ceremony was deemed not 
 worth his salt. The practice is entirely changed 
 in these degenerate days, and the dinner is rather 
 the exception than the rule, a revolution that is all 
 to the advantage of the practitioner and the benefit 
 of the patient. There is, moreover, an improvement 
 in the consultation itself : the wine-glasses, decanters, 
 and wine, common to the consulting-room in a 
 patient's house, have, as already stated, mainly 
 disappeared. 
 
 Apart from revolutions in physic alone I must 
 not exclude those which strongly affect it. The 
 volunteer movement, started originally by a doctor 
 of physic, who still lives, has taught us the value 
 
448 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 of regular out-door exercise on the one hand, and 
 the dangers arising from over-work and excessive 
 exercise on the other. The ambulance movement, 
 which has been evolved from the volunteer system, 
 has led medical men into a new line of experience, 
 which they have voluntarily and freely communi- 
 cated to laymen and laywomen generally, to the 
 great advantage of all who are subjected to physical 
 injuries and require professional attention quickly. 
 Lastly, the demands of nursing have been studied 
 with scrupulous insight. Women have been trained 
 to duties which once belonged to the male nurse, 
 and which have never been so faithfully carried out 
 as at the present day. This indicates in the most 
 practical manner what a nurse can contribute to the 
 art of healing under the guidance of the Esculapian 
 brotherhood. 
 
CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 ZYMOSIS AND THE GERM THEORY. 
 
 SsHE marked change that of late years has 
 agitated us most is that in relation to 
 germs and the development of a science 
 called by its advocates " bacteriology." It is a 
 theory only, or, more correctly speaking, an hypo- 
 thesis, and, as I have shown from the first, rests 
 mainly on analogy, a dangerous support. The 
 animalcular hypothesis, to which Phillips alludes 
 in his book A Million of Facts, was current until 
 1835, and I have heard Dr. Dwight quoted as its 
 inventor ; but the germ theory is of later date and 
 character, and is popular at the present time. 
 
 The germ theory assumes that we live in an 
 atmosphere of invisible bodies called germs, as if 
 in an element we could inhale. Germs, it is 
 imagined, sometimes produce in the body bacteria 
 in numerous varieties, traceable by the microscope 
 as causes of disease ; that we can shut germs out 
 from the living body ; can kill them ; but that while 
 they are living in the air, disease due to their presence 
 will never be annihilated. The theory is simple, 
 
 449 29 
 
450 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 and, by the labours of the late M. Pasteur in 
 Prance, fashionable, and the application of it by the 
 distinguished Sir Joseph Lister in this country, in 
 regard to the treatment of wounds, has attained 
 immense popularity. 
 
 On my own part I have never been able to 
 accept the theory propounded, for I have never seen 
 a germ, and could never determine how a germ 
 could grow into a micro-organism. Bacteria I have 
 seen to any extent, but it always appeared to me 
 that it was easier to suppose they were from the 
 animal tissues themselves, undergoing some modifica- 
 tions of disease, than from germs which could never 
 be demonstrated. I knew that the parts of fresh 
 wounds, brought neatly together, would heal, as they 
 do when the injured carpenter surrounds a cut with 
 glue spread over a shaving of wood. I saw that 
 tendons divided under the skin, that is to say, 
 excluded from air, healed without suppuration, and 
 I remembered and published old Belloste's singular 
 argument on the treatment of wounds by exclusion 
 of the air. Eurther, I could never fail to accept 
 that that which we recognise as antiseptic seems 
 to encourage good healing, or, at all events, prevents 
 suppuration, and very early I employed iodine; 
 I also made styptic colloid, in which preparation 
 benzoin, used by the old friars in their balsam, 
 was mixed with tannin and collodion with good 
 effect, the collodion itself having apparently the 
 property of cutting off the air from a surface over 
 
 
ZYMOSIS AND THE GERM THEORY. 451 
 
 which it might be spread. This was strong 
 evidence, and gave credit to antiseptics like carbolic 
 acid. I invented another antiseptic, in which benzoic 
 acid was dissolved in chloroform and made to cover 
 wounded surfaces ; it was called benzoated chloro- 
 form, and acted uncommonly well for disinfecting 
 towels and other linen. It was also efficient when 
 sprayed over the hands during attendance on in- 
 fectious cases, and I have found it very superior 
 to the weak solution of chloride of zinc, discovered 
 as a disinfectant and deodoriser by the late Sir 
 William Burnett, a solution, the late Mr. Campbell 
 de Morgan, surgeon to the Middlesex Hospital, told 
 me he had successfully used in the dressing of 
 wounded surfaces, but had found it, undoubtedly, 
 rather irritating as an application, the irritation, to 
 some extent, counterbalancing its antiseptic virtues. 
 
 On the other side, I was obliged to learn that, in 
 truth, antiseptic agents were not wanted at all, and 
 that absolute cleanliness was alone sufficient as a 
 remedy, and marched side by side with advancing 
 sanitation, which is the mode of cure that stands 
 before all others. In an address at Leamington in 
 1877, published in Nature, I entered into this subject 
 largely, dealing with the nervous origin of animal 
 products and zymosis instead of the bacteriological. 
 I looked on the fact that the force of production of 
 disease is equal to the force of secretion, and that 
 animal poisons are limited by the number of secretions 
 
452 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 which the body eliminates. This seemed to me more 
 logical than the idea that we live in a world of 
 living germs, and that we take in from that world 
 varied forms of disease. I thought, in fact, that 
 if we ourselves are not entities derived from germs, 
 probably diseases are not, although some of the 
 ancients thought diseases were entities. 
 
 Ophthalmoscope and Laryngoscope. 
 
 Up to this point, respecting the revolutions that 
 have occurred in my time, I have omitted to 
 mention two which affect medicine generally, that 
 is to say, both in its medical and surgical character. 
 I refer to the introduction of instruments for re- 
 search, for investigations on the eye, and on the 
 larynx. The instruments are called the ophthal- 
 moscope and the laryngoscope, both of which it has 
 been my privilege to see brought into practice. The 
 ophthalmoscope was the invention of a considerable 
 number of observers, and it is difficult to name any 
 particular originator. I was struck by the labours 
 of a young surgeon named Avery, a Charing Cross 
 man, and by those of Wordsworth, an ophthalmic 
 surgeon, who was very early in the field, and who 
 used my own eyes for his observations. In regard 
 to the laryngoscope I was more fortunate. Avery 
 showed a tube ten inches long, through which, by 
 reflection, he could see an object. I knew Benjamin 
 Guy Babington, already referred to, who made some 
 
ZYMOSIS AND THE GERM THEORY. 453 
 
 primary efforts to examine the larynx, as did another 
 gentleman, Professor Garcia, whom I also knew. 
 Finally I met with Professor Schermak, who came 
 to England with a practically perfected laryngoscope, 
 and who did me the honour to lay all his improve- 
 ments before me. By the laryngoscope, as well as 
 by the ophthalmoscope, there has been effected a 
 complete revolution in positive science, for which 
 we cannot be too grateful. They assist to signalise 
 the Victorian era. 
 
CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 RECASTS AND FORECASTS. 
 
 >N glancing over the proofs of this book, 
 nothing strikes me more forcibly than 
 recollections of omitted incidents. In 
 writing so busy a life as mine from the medical side, 
 the side that first interests me, it has been necessary 
 to omit outside narratives which medical men, more 
 than most men, can supply. The subjects related 
 in this chapter, therefore, are recasts of incidents 
 that have accidentally been omitted. 
 
 " The Asclepiad" 
 
 Some years ago, in order that nothing might 
 escape from me which seemed of moment, I started 
 the publication of a book in parts and called it 
 The Asclepiad. The first volume was published in 
 1865, and consisted of several essays of an experi- 
 mental and practical kind, including one on 
 " Cardiac Apnoea, or Breathlessness, with Open- 
 Air Surfaces ; " on " Urea and its Physiological 
 Influences," and on "Scarlet Eever." The work was 
 discontinued for a season and was then re-started 
 
 454 
 
RECASTS AND FORECASTS. 455 
 
 in quarterly parts, of which forty-four have been 
 published in eleven volumes, containing reference to 
 a considerable number of subjects, to which I must 
 refer as if they constituted portions of the present 
 work. I shall now only retrace, in abstract, papers, 
 many of which — but not all — will be found in those 
 volumes. 
 
 Researches on Foods. 
 
 It has never been my fate to be what is called a 
 vegetarian, but my sympathies have been with vege- 
 tarianism, and I have for quite thirty years tried to 
 lead it into a new path by endeavouring to make the 
 vegetable world the source of foods that are animal 
 in taste and quality. If I have been slow to produce 
 foods for the market, I am certain as to ultimate 
 success, so that in coming days we shall no longer 
 be savages, going out to kill animals lower than our- 
 selves that we may live on their mutilated bodies. 
 
 In experiment it has been a pleasant surprise to 
 find how near we can get towards animal food 
 derived from the vegetable world by operations 
 carried out in the laboratory. I have approached so 
 near to the manufacture of milk that one or two 
 improvements will enable men to produce the most 
 vitalising of animal fluids at their pleasure, quite 
 as freely as they now produce beer, and so cheaply 
 that any quantity could be obtained in all places 
 as a food fitted for purposes of all eras and free 
 from any possibility of creating disease. Solid foods, 
 
456 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 by the treatment of vegetables in the experiment- 
 room, are also sufficiently advanced to make it a 
 question how they shall be moulded, in the form of 
 joints, or of shapes which have no appearance of a 
 part of an animal body. 
 
 It has been urged on me that what I have done 
 is not going far enough on logical grounds, if we 
 move any step at all, and that we might, as it 
 were, eat the very earth itself irrespective of life 
 altogether, and rest on the primary substances, the 
 actual elementary principles, for our bodily con- 
 struction, into which life would enter as air would, 
 and out of which shape and form would be 
 manifested. I would not dispute this argument, 
 and the change may come, if civilisation and the 
 earth go on long enough ; at the moment, however, 
 it is a correct and sufficient attempt for us to 
 transmute vegetable substance into animal substance 
 for our own sustenance, and in this attempt alone 
 the work of ages lies concealed. I have tried to give 
 the effort a start and it seems to be making its way, 
 while, at the same time, I have endeavoured to 
 ameliorate the strictly animal method and bring it 
 nearer to the world of civilising tendencies and 
 aspirations. 
 
 There are many reasons why the transmutation 
 of vegetable, into what is practically animal, food 
 should proceed. In the first place, it is not a 
 difficult advance. Nothing more is required for it 
 than industry and courage. The possible absolute 
 
RECASTS AND FORECASTS. 457 
 
 necessity of the change also lies before us. Daily 
 requirement of food is absolute, while supplies of 
 direct animal kind are dependent on the most 
 capricious conditions. In a large population like 
 that of London we may be limited, even in times 
 of wealth and peace, to three weeks' supplies. In 
 an isolated, coast-bound country like England we 
 might be cut off suddenly from food, if we should 
 depend on animals that die. Again, in promoting 
 the exclusive animal system we cultivate cruelty, 
 disease, uncleanness, and the growth of a population 
 we cannot expect fully to defend our laws by their 
 testimony. The risk is altogether as bad as it can 
 be, and is not met even when the fish or the mammal 
 monsters of the sea are taken into consideration. 
 Throughout the land we want scientific factories 
 of foods, not slaughterhouses — manufacture, not 
 slaughter. The temple of life is too sacred for the 
 mutilation of even inferior animals, for our own 
 support, and, veritably, "all flesh is grass." 
 
 Model Abattoirs and Slaughter Heforms. 
 
 Meanwhile, as humane science awaits development, 
 and while the customs and tastes of mankind are 
 being newly educated, while old tastes and customs 
 still linger, I have been fully alive to the endeavour 
 of introducing improvements of every possible kind 
 into the ancient practice. I have persuaded all I 
 could reach to depend, as far as possible, on the 
 
458 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 vegetarian system. I have commended it to those 
 who have trusted it and have not trusted it, and, 
 never ceasing to teach transmutation, have done 
 all I could for amelioration by founding the Model 
 Abattoir Society — of which I have long been Presi- 
 dent — and by trying to introduce a perfectly lethal 
 and painless mode of killing all kinds of animals.* 
 It is fair to say that to this movement there has 
 been much more encouragement given than might 
 have been expected. A great many towns have 
 erected model abattoirs, and ingenious methods have 
 been introduced for making the sacrifice of animals 
 both rapid and merciful. 
 
 Tobacco. 
 
 In a preceding chapter great labour was spent in 
 pointing out the method that has been followed in 
 fighting the battle against alcohol, but nothing yet 
 has been said about the contest that has taken place 
 with tobacco. This is not because the contest has 
 been considered unworthy of notice, but because it 
 is of less pressing moment. I have not a line to 
 write in favour of tobacco, and for a long series of 
 years — twenty-five at least — I have scrupulously 
 avoided smoking because of its bad effects on health 
 and vitality. Smoking is not simply a dirty habit, 
 but one that injures the body. It is not in character 
 with the work of the animal machine. It stupefies 
 
 * In this work I was ever assisted by the unwearying efforts of 
 the late Mr. H. F. Lester, the Honorary Secretary. 
 
RECASTS AND FORECASTS. 459 
 
 the mental organs ; deranges the blood ; impairs the 
 circulation ; weakens the digestion, and stunts the 
 growth. It also produces local mischief and is most 
 distinctly provocative of some fatal forms of disease. 
 No child ought ever to be inducted into its use, and 
 in a sanitary world conducted on sound principles 
 indulgence in tobacco would be unknown. 
 
 Rest and Luxury. 
 
 A saying of mine has become popular, namely, 
 that there has been assigned by nature to members 
 of the human family a term of life reaching to one 
 hundred and five years. The idea is fair, and the 
 experience of years has most closely demonstrated 
 to us its correctness, so that the writer of Genesis 
 is much nearer the truth than the after-writer, 
 signalised as David, who gave three score years and 
 ten as the natural duration, and who only can be 
 accepted as witnessing a more luxurious, and, 
 therefore, more treacherous, time. I have seen and 
 conversed with at least four persons who, without 
 doubt, had passed a hundred years, and one, not the 
 worst of the number from a physical point of view, 
 was no less than a hundred and seven. I do not 
 presume, however, that all bodies are susceptible 
 of such length of days. There are some so active 
 and busy that they practically live a hundred years 
 in two-thirds of that time, and are old by work rather 
 than by years. There are some, too, who kill them- 
 
460 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 selves by rest, and large numbers who do so by 
 luxury, while all are exposed to the dangers of 
 death in the shape of accidents and diseases, and to 
 risks incident to hereditary type or construction of 
 form and build. We must consequently admit a 
 shorter mean average than the maximum natural 
 term, and, while we do our utmost to attain the 
 full age, must be content to accept the average in 
 our own individual persons, knowing the worst and 
 striving for the best. 
 
 [Pulmonary Diseases. 
 
 Some years ago, in writing about the epidemic 
 catarrh called influenza, I threw out the idea that 
 the symptoms of congestion seen in the lungs, and 
 so often fatal, arose from paresis of the pulmonary 
 vessels, owing to the fact that their nervous supply 
 from the sympathetic system was deranged or cut 
 off, so that the heart could inject them with blood. 
 It was urged against this view that there was no 
 sufficient proof that the vessels of the lungs were 
 supplied with sympathetic controlling branches. I 
 was astonished at this statement, but, conscious of 
 the possibilities of my own error, commenced to 
 inquire, and to my surprise found that the criticism 
 was correct. On thinking over the lungs as 
 mechanisms for conveying blood over a surface 
 exposed to the air, I could not fail to see that it 
 would have been a very bad arrangement to have 
 
RECASTS AND FORECASTS. 461 
 
 had the blood-vessels of the lungs under the in- 
 fluence of the sympathetic, because it would have 
 placed those vessels under impulses derived from 
 nervous impressions of the mind. The lungs, under 
 such circumstances, would have blushed like the 
 cheek, or paled like it, whenever a mental change 
 took place, and sudden death from congestion on 
 the one hand and syncope on the other would have 
 been of constant occurrence. Wisely then, the 
 blood-current flowing through the lungs was obliged 
 to make its course passively, uninfluenced by any 
 direct internal emotion, and only influenced by such 
 variations, as heat and cold, that could affect it 
 directly from the air which the bronchial tubes 
 inhaled or gave forth. This would be the correct 
 mechanism which we, as animal engineers, would 
 follow if we were constructing an apparatus that 
 would cause blood to absorb oxygen from the air 
 or give off carbonic acid. 
 
 Clarification and Resolution. 
 
 The earlier surgeons deserved great merit for 
 the success with which they removed substances 
 that had become opaque, like the crystalline lens. 
 William Cheselden earned immense credit for the 
 course he took in regard to cataract, but the 
 time has come when the surgeons should begin to 
 think of something beyond mere removal, that is 
 to say, they should begin to study the process of 
 clarification of substances that have become opaque. 
 
462 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 In a paper I wrote on the synthesis of cataract, I 
 showed that the crystalline lens could be rendered 
 opaque by raising the specific gravity of the blood 
 with any substance that possessed a crystalline 
 character. Dr. Weir Mitchell, in the most original 
 observation, had shown that excess of sugar in 
 the blood would most distinctly produce diabetic 
 opacity. I moved from sugar to other crystalline 
 substances, and produced cataract of an equally 
 definite kind, by soluble salts like chloride of 
 ammonium, and similar bodies. I saw that if these 
 were removed from the body affected by them, the 
 lenses were cleared as easily as they were rendered 
 opaque. Sir David Brewster had supposed that in 
 cataract the transparent lens was made opaque by 
 aberration of its fibres ; others compared the opaque 
 lens to a scratched glass. I saw Sir David on this 
 point, and showed him my own experiments, which 
 indicated that the lens could be infiltrated and 
 rendered as opaque as glass is when it is covered with 
 a solution of a saline substance like Epsom salts. 
 He quite agreed with me in this, and at the time I 
 maintained the policy of the treatment that should 
 extend into clarification. I made some attempts in 
 that direction, and Mr. Brudenell Carter supplied 
 me with lenses he had removed in order that I 
 might try to clarify them. 
 
 The field is open still, and a means will certainly 
 be found by which the lens can be clarified, as by 
 the continued use of distilled water as drink, and, 
 
RECASTS AND FORECASTS. 463 
 
 perhaps, by means of a local current, such as an 
 electric current, by the aid of which I have made 
 artificial lenses that were quite transparent. 
 
 In all probability this question of clarification 
 extends beyond the crystalline lens. It may lead 
 to the resolution of hardened parts like ligaments, 
 membranes of joints, and lining of arterial vessels. 
 
 The Heart as a Pendulum. 
 
 The healthy heart seems to act as a pendulum. It 
 gets blood direct from the viscera of the abdomen 
 as they derive it by the digestion of food, and its 
 animation is direct from the visceral chain of 
 ganglia and nerves. It is liable to variability, 
 to slow action, over-exertion, under-action, and to 
 hesitation or intermittency, according to the state 
 of its primary. It may stop altogether if it fails 
 to get, or gets too much, of either matter or force ; 
 but in health it regulates. 
 
 Further Researches on Blood. 
 
 At intervals all through my experimental career 
 studies relating to the blood have been pursued, 
 many of which have been related, for the blood is 
 a fluid that stands first in the investigation of living 
 phenomena. Moses is credited with saying that 
 " the blood is the life," and men of science, whether 
 they sympathise with him or not on the other 
 subjects he discusses and the laws he lays down, 
 
464 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 may accept that saying as substantially true. The 
 blood is the life ; in what way it is so remains to 
 be determined, and is the question ever recurring to 
 me, how — as an animal engineer — I could, in con- 
 struction, make it perform work. In these studies 
 my researches have been specially directed to what 
 I have called the pyrophorous blood, and to blood 
 as an excitant of electricity. By these methods 
 extremely curious results have been obtained. I 
 have found oxidised blood, as it is oxidised in 
 respiration, a very fine oxidiser of metallic bodies 
 like zinc, mercury, and phosphorus ; have „ obtained 
 currents by these means, and have got formations 
 so closely resembling living ones that a complete 
 new road has been made visible to me, just as poor 
 Mayow saw when he began to investigate the 
 phenomena of what he called " nitro -aerial spirit," 
 but some trifling want of perspicacity has, so far, 
 blinded me to some great truth which has yet to 
 be solved in regard to blood as an excitant. 
 
 I have also sought, and sought again and again, 
 for the means of dissolving blood when it has 
 coagulated or formed itself into a clot, convinced 
 that if that art were accomplished a marvellous step 
 would at once be made in the discovery of the 
 mystery of life and in discoveries relating to disease 
 — indeed, at this very moment my experiment table 
 is charged with specimens of solid blood subjected 
 to processes under which the clot might undergo 
 solution. 
 
RECASTS AND FORECASTS. 465 
 
 Causes of Death from Chloroform. 
 
 The number of fatal accidents from chloroform 
 has recently been very great, and I have been applied 
 to many times by members of the profession, and 
 of the pnblic also, to say whether death under 
 chloroform occurs from failure of the heart or 
 injury to the respiration. In answer to this question 
 I would recall the fact I have often stated, 
 namely, that chloroform and its chloride allies are 
 injurious or dangerous in consequence of the chlorine 
 they carry with them and of its excitant effects on 
 muscular fibre. Presuming, therefore, that the 
 heart, which is a muscle, is unduly feeble, chloro- 
 form, however carefully administered, may produce 
 excitation, and, causing an extreme spasm, may kill 
 by that excitant action, when death will be correctly 
 stated as from the heart, that is to say, by syncope. 
 But the larynx' also contains its muscles which 
 are exceedingly sensitive, and when the vapour of 
 chloroform is allowed to diffuse through them they 
 are sure to pass into a state of spasm more or less 
 distinctive, in consequence of the presence of the 
 vapour, and then death may take place owing to 
 the contraction which they produce. Death in that 
 instance is due to contraction of the larynx and 
 ensues by what is called asphyxia. 
 
 Thus there are clearly two modes of death from 
 chloroform : one by the centre of the circulation — 
 the heart; the other by the respiration through 
 
 30 
 
466 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 the larynx. Considering that we give chloroform 
 in these days very freely so as to produce a quick 
 anaesthesia, death hy the larynx is prohahly far 
 the more common occurrence of the two; is not 
 infrequently quite instantaneous, and naturally 
 betrays no affection of the heart, if that be looked 
 for before the administration. I should lay it down 
 as a principle that that mode of administration 
 which is very slow and is felt not at all in the 
 breathing is by far the best, although it may not 
 be so practical as an urgent administrator may 
 consider requisite. 
 
 In the administrations of chloroform to the lower 
 animals until death was produced, I invariably 
 found, immediately after death, a difference in 
 regard to the circulation in the pulmonary circuit. 
 When the death has been very sudden the lungs 
 may be discovered actually destitute of all blood, 
 and of milk-white appearance, as if the heart had 
 thrown a current suddenly over them and had left 
 them blanched or in a state of what may be very 
 properly designated as pulmonary emptiness, or 
 apnoea. 
 
 Further Research in Reanimation. 
 
 If I had my life to live over again I would spare 
 no labour in repeating the researches on reani- 
 mation, but from what I have learned I should 
 recommence at the central seat of power, the organic 
 circulation. I have noticed two things : one, that 
 
RECASTS AND FORECASTS. 467 
 
 in setting into motion an ordinary engine we do 
 nothing by merely moving the visible apparatus like 
 the hands or wheels except to make a show of action : 
 two, we have to start from the mainspring if we are to 
 do any real service ; for in the animal body I have 
 observed that so long as there is ever so little supply 
 from the centre into the other parts, there is con- 
 tinuance of the evidences of animation. Hitherto 
 we have been too confined to the notion that if we 
 could excite a movement or set of movements that 
 looked like those of respiration or circulation we 
 need not wait for the central action. In the future 
 we must wait for the central movement, and hope 
 that the rest, or secondary movements, will follow, 
 however extraordinary it may seem. This is what 
 happened in the examples, already given in 
 Chapter XVI., of hibernation, and although the 
 secondary movements may be useful when judi- 
 ciously made they are not alone of use. If we could 
 feed all the nervous centres with animating spirit, 
 we should, without doubt, get manifestations of 
 vital action, but that must be sustained as well as 
 merely manifested, that is to say, the battery must 
 be fed and fed ; a process that only can be kept up 
 by steady feeding of the central system, and of the 
 secondary systems from it as their primary. 
 
 Apparent Seats of Disease. 
 
 It is a common and natural error to attach too 
 much importance to diseases of a particular kind, 
 
468 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 Thus we often consider the kidney as the origin of 
 the disease diabetes, when it may not he the seat of 
 origin. The disease named diabetes is one in which 
 sugar is largely made in the great central system 
 in the abdomen, the system of organic life, with its 
 sympathetic nervous supply directly or indirectly 
 at fault. The sugar circulates through the body; 
 sets up a number of abnormal phenomena, which are 
 symptomatic, and meanwhile the kidney goes on 
 very actively eliminating the sugar in performance 
 of its regular diuretic duty. We then get developed 
 the leading sign by which we derive the distinctive 
 name of the disease diabetes, and we try, by varia- 
 tion of foods, to control the disease. The kidney 
 may undergo change of structure from its over- 
 action, but it is not necessarily deranged in the first 
 instance, and is not actually the fons et origo of the 
 complaint. The same explanation might be given of 
 other diseases. 
 
 Transparency of the Body. 
 
 In 1868 it was a labour of mine to make parts 
 of the living body transparent. I endeavoured to 
 invent a tube through which sun-rays could be trans- 
 mitted and pierce through parts that were hidden. 
 I brought the matter before the British Association 
 at Norwich in the year named, and exhibited some 
 curious experiments bearing on the point, making 
 sunlight rays go through the skin and softer 
 structures, but not with the same readiness through 
 
RECASTS AND FORECASTS. 469 
 
 bones. Thus, I could make the bones visible and 
 could render some so transparent that I could read 
 large words through them. Afterwards I used this 
 plan for diagnosing and destroying tumours in soft 
 transparent parts. 
 
 These experiments lay dormant until the present 
 year, when they became revived by the labours of 
 Hontgen, who has used the light emanating from a 
 Crookes' tube to illuminate all structures except 
 bones, and to make bones, in shadow, perfectly visible 
 by photography. It is a great advance, and it shows 
 clearly that I was shortsighted, however difficult the 
 feat might be to confirm my observations on the 
 mere light-rays so as to give them the power of 
 penetrating and illuminating animal tissues, as 
 described in the paper submitted and published in 
 the Transactions of the British Association twenty- 
 eight years ago. 
 
 Vulcanisation of Elastic Tissues. 
 
 While I was busy in the vulcanisation experiments 
 it came to be tried whether the elastic tissues of 
 animal bodies could be vulcanised so that such tissues 
 might resemble the hardened structure made out 
 of elastic rubber by the dentist, and on which he 
 fixes artificial teeth. I, therefore, vulcanised the 
 elastic substance found in a large artery, like 
 the aorta of an ox, and I certainly obtained some 
 singular results. I got plates that closely resembled, 
 
470 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 and possibly were the same as, vulcanite, and the 
 hardness of vessels which is derived from age is to 
 a considerable extent made demonstrable if length 
 of time be allowed to replace intensity of action. 
 
 Electric Carbon. 
 
 I am of opinion that carbon is the conductor of 
 electricity all over the body, and that, according 
 to the electricity, the carbon combines with other 
 elements in proportion to their capacity for blending 
 with it. Thus, oxygen will combine with it in the 
 proportion of one to one or two to one ; chlorine, 
 in the proportion of one to three with hydrogen as 
 an addition, or one to four. And so with all bodies 
 that conduct an electric current. But the subject 
 is too enticing for the writer of a book like this to 
 be led away by. 
 
 Crystallisation. 
 
 In watching the way in which solid forms are 
 produced the subject of crystallisation has been 
 always evoked. The straight lines look as if they 
 were dependent on the attraction of the earth, and 
 were fixed by it. The quietude of organic forms is 
 strangely related to crystalline development, and the 
 crystallisation of nervous structure is singularly 
 demonstrated both in sleep and in death, the first, 
 indeed, seeming altogether to depend on it. It 
 has often been my intention to delineate a book as 
 
RECASTS AND FORECASTS. 471 
 
 illustrative of the crystallisable forms of nervous 
 matter. It would contain a most useful series of 
 plates, and would be as beautiful as was Mrs. 
 Grlaisher's work on Snow Crystals, but the labour 
 was too serious, and the subject too entrancing 
 for me to write upon. Nervous matter speedily 
 crystallises at points at the termination of nerves 
 and on terminal surfaces. These observations afford 
 a splendid field for further research. 
 
 Two Modes of Observation of Natural Phenomena. 
 
 There are two modes in which natural phenomena 
 may be proven : one by observing what nature 
 herself may be doing, and which we have not 
 previously seen, although the work is every moment 
 in progress, and the other by tracing out the 
 directions in which she seems to carry out her 
 designs. The first of these will lead to accidental 
 discovery of great phenomena ; the second to sys- 
 tematic or philosophic discovery, which may be the 
 work of many men, and may be linked with them 
 all when it is complete. 
 
 The Colour of Animals and Races. 
 
 I have worked very hard at the colouring of 
 animals. The colour of the skin entirely depends 
 on the power of the skin to absorb or reflect sun- 
 rays. A white man reflects, a black man absorbs, 
 
472 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 rays, and this constitutes the difference. We can 
 change the blood with some salts, like nitrate of 
 silver, and so make the body black, and there is 
 no reason why we should not find out a substance 
 that would make the black body white. We can 
 apply solutions like peroxide of hydrogen, which 
 rejects partially and leaves a surface of a golden 
 tint. I once changed the colour of black beetles 
 by immersing them when dead in a solution of 
 peroxide of hydrogen, and got golden, instead of 
 black, beetles. 
 
 But the most curious observation was on a child 
 suffering from cyanosis, in whom the hands were 
 quite dark. By keeping one of them immersed in 
 peroxide solution it became, visibly, of white colour. 
 Ordinary black skin would do the same, and there 
 is no reason why one colour should not distinguish 
 all races of men. Two men, to my knowledge, 
 were equal in competition and resembled each other 
 equally except in colour ; but the white man 
 ultimately won, because he had to labour amongst 
 white people, a result to be expected. 
 
 Nervous System as a Director of Tower. 
 
 The brain as it fills the skull is composed of two 
 centres, one large, the cerebrum, the other smaller, 
 the cerebellum, and each of these is of two hemi- 
 spheres. The whole, having a dual function, is 
 apparently constituted of one organ. This, as the 
 
RECASTS AND FORECASTS. 473 
 
 late Dr. Wigan was the first to show, makes a 
 distinct duality of the mind, as I have expounded 
 in the Asclepiad, Vol. IX. for 1892 pp. 349-70. 
 
 The subject of the directing power of the different 
 parts included in the cavity of the skull is one that 
 I have tried with much care to unravel. I have 
 tried it on the experimental side, and I have tried 
 it by observing the changes of movement that may 
 occur in the body of an animal when parts of the 
 brain are subject to disease or shock, and the results 
 have been fairly uniform. I have never ablated 
 sections of the brain or destroyed them mechani- 
 cally, but I have devised means by which sections 
 could be temporarily suspended in function by 
 extreme local cold, and have recorded what occurred 
 while the suspension was maintained, and what 
 happened before, during, and after it. 
 
 It was obvious that the effect of suppression of 
 the hinder parts of the brain, and especially the cere- 
 bellum, was to destroy forward movement, so that a 
 backward somersault was made, while the effect of 
 suppression of the fore parts, particularly of the cor- 
 pora striata, was to weaken backward movements of 
 the body, and allow the propelling cerebellum to send 
 the body forward at all risks. Thus, when persons are 
 awed by looking down a steep precipice, the effects of 
 the checking power of the front centres being reduced, 
 the impulse is for the body to cast itself down the 
 precipice. I have recorded the case of a man con- 
 sidered to be out of his mind, whose peculiarity 
 
474 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 was a determination to rush forward whatever might 
 be the obstacle in his way, and after his death it 
 was found that he suffered from diseased condition 
 of the corpora striata. I have further pointed out 
 that birds shot fall forward precipitately if a shot 
 has passed through the corpora striata, but fall 
 backward if the shot shall have passed through 
 the back parts, such as the cerebellum. 
 
 It came out, in fact, that there are in the brain 
 controlling or balancing centres by which the 
 direction of the body is correctly sustained or 
 incorrectly intensified. The manifestation of the 
 condition of the brain is extremely important in the 
 study of disease, just as important, in fact, as para- 
 lysis, or convulsion of a limb, as indicating the place 
 of injury of a nerve, a centre, or of the spinal cord. 
 
 Water Pressure on Brain. 
 
 In a previous chapter I have described the con- 
 dition produced by injecting water into the cerebro- 
 spinal fluid and the provision that is made for its 
 removal into the circulation. It looks, thereupon, 
 to me that there may be in the body increase or 
 decrease of spinal fluid itself, and that this being 
 increased or diminished pressure may modify the 
 tension of the nervous substance both in health and 
 disease and set up natural or unnatural phenomena 
 such as sleep or coma. 
 
RECASTS AND FORECASTS. 475 
 
 Brain Storage. 
 
 I have spoken of the heart as a piece of mechanism, 
 and I look upon nervous matter as a storer of the 
 force hy which the hody is moved. I have reduced 
 nervous matter to the state of pulp; filled glass 
 vessels with it, and fed it with positive electrical 
 supply from the prime conductor of a machine. 
 In this way I have succeeded so well in storing the 
 brain that the conductor, immersed in the brain 
 pulp, which receives the shocks from the electrical 
 machine through a knob, derived electricity so dis- 
 tinctly that other bodies brought near to it and 
 suspended by a silken thread would revolve around 
 it. 
 
 Changes of Mind. 
 
 The minds of human beings change in the most 
 extraordinary manner in the course of years, as if 
 the mould in which they were cast had undergone 
 modification and held new life, so that the saying 
 " Ye must be born again " admits of a new and strict 
 scientific interpretation. We notice the fact very 
 much in our own careers, and the world around us 
 never fails to notice it. When I was young I was 
 active in all kinds of work, but in none more than 
 in organisation of surroundings. I never remember 
 feeling a shade of envy, while I detested malice, 
 hatred, and all uncharitableness, but I attached my- 
 self to those principles which I, rightly or wrongly, 
 
476 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 thought were just, and advocated them without 
 hesitation or fear. In time the tone of mind and 
 action were modified, the accidental environments 
 seeming to change in their whole nature, so much as 
 to alter hoth taste and action. I cultivated more 
 and more an old and firmer love for general and 
 omnivorous reading hoth of books and of nature. 
 I clinched in my own mind the early determination 
 that in my profession I would do nothing to anyone 
 that I would not willingly have done to myself; 
 I taught the same doctrine to all students and 
 colleagues, and have ever been happy in carrying it 
 out, although it has not always been obviously 
 advantageous. I retired largely from circles in 
 which I once liked to move, and from pursuits I 
 once delighted in following, making the laboratory, 
 library, and consulting-room more than ever my 
 home centres — practically a hermit life, in which the 
 reading of a book, the writing of a song or story, 
 the performance of an experiment, the preparation 
 of an Asclepiad, or the attendance on a sick 
 and helpless person, seemed the chief obligations 
 and satisfactions. Grown men, no doubt, undergo 
 changes in their nature, by which the kaleidoscope 
 of their lives is varied, and it is good that this 
 should be the case, because it causes variety, and 
 really peoples the earth with different classes of 
 population. 
 
RECASTS AND FORECASTS. 477 
 
 Second Childhood. 
 
 It is often made a matter of contempt that in the 
 life of man there should he a stage of what has heen 
 written of as 
 
 " Second childishness and mere oblivion." 
 
 I never could see it in that light. To me every one 
 of the seven stages of life is the production hy 
 nature of a distinct instrument — at last an in- 
 strument that is out of tune, practically dying to 
 all the vihrations surrounding it; laying up no 
 vibrations — storage of force — for itself, hut, pleased 
 hy passing events just for the moment, soon forgetting 
 all ahout them. These are most merciful facts. 
 Their occurrence may mean imbecility of the instru- 
 ment, hut it is actually a hlessed occurrence to the 
 instrument itself ; it keeps it in the world, and it 
 draws the veil over the act of death, so that death 
 comes as if nature had her foot on the cradle and 
 was rocking the body into the final sleep. 
 
 An old man I knew tied a string, before he died, 
 to a burning stick of wood ; revolved it, and, like 
 a child, was pleased with the rings of fire that the 
 motion of his arm produced. He could not have 
 been better occupied, granting always that he was- 
 taken care of by his friends until he ultimately 
 ceased to play his part. 
 
 What could have been a fitter termination ? The 
 young could not be better engaged than in learning 
 
478 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 and preparing themselves for some such second 
 childishness, so that death should be as painless and 
 unknown as birth. Good and pure homes for second 
 childhood and decay should become national institu- 
 tions, tributary offerings to all mankind. 
 
 Sensations and Disease. 
 
 What it is I know not, but I am certain that 
 feelings are not always governed by circumstances. 
 I have known a man as merry as a lark when his 
 surroundings have been specially unpropitious, and 
 I have known a man as sad as a dirge when all 
 around him seemed bright and fair. This must be 
 due to some simple variation in the animal instru- 
 ment which we have not yet mastered, the mystery 
 of which has yet to be interrogated, and which seems 
 to depend on food or air rather than on any other 
 provocative cause. 
 
 Psychical Causes of Disease. 
 
 I have known fear act as a cause of disease, and 
 am sure that this origin of disease deserves to be 
 much more carefully studied than it has hitherto 
 been. Habit is another singular psychical condition. 
 It often leads to a permanent perversion, and checks 
 that variety which makes the whole organism find 
 scope for action and live throughout to the end. 
 Travel does good very often merely by breaking 
 habit. Imitation is another psychical cause of 
 
RECASTS AND FORECASTS. 479 
 
 disease, a fact that is wonderfully shown in suicide, 
 and is exhibited constantly in supposed deeds of 
 valour or adventure where a man does a thing 
 simply because another man has done some danger- 
 ous, though perhaps quite foolish, act. 
 
 Proximities. 
 
 It has always seemed to me in the course of a 
 medical life that there is much more influence in 
 proximities than is usually supposed. A stone only 
 clashes with the earth when it comes into proximity 
 with it, and it is just the same in living things. It 
 is only by proximity that the passions of love 
 or hate are manifested, and thousands of children 
 owe their existence to proximity alone. Grief is 
 greatly intensified by proximity, and I have seen 
 a woman stricken with the saddest affliction on 
 the death of a child she loved, who would have 
 taken the event with positive complacency if it had 
 occurred at some far distant spot. It is the same 
 in regard to time as to place. If a person should 
 read a review of his or her book, recently written, 
 he or she may be delighted or outraged ; but if the 
 book has been written many years ago the same 
 author or authoress, though he or she may never 
 have seen the article before, may have no feeling 
 about it whatever. 
 
 A man I knew was maddened up to the borders 
 of suicide by a review, and the ill-grained person 
 
480 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 who wrote the review would have been a gladdened 
 and more conceited fool than ever if the madness 
 he had called forth had gone its entire length ; but 
 the writer escaped suicide, and ten years later looked 
 upon the attack in its true light, as mere rubbish, 
 and actually proffered ten guineas to aid the needs 
 of the perpetrator of the criticism. 
 
 In the treatment and management of diseased 
 people proximity becomes an astonishing element. 
 The proximity of either doctor or nurse may change 
 the whole aspect of a case. One of my artistic 
 friends, speaking of a very ugly physician, begged, 
 in sober earnestness, " If I am ill do not bring that 
 man to me, good as he may be, for he offends my 
 artistic soul and his proximity is always a curse 
 to me." This was plain speaking, but I have not 
 a shadow of a doubt that the man who spoke felt 
 strongly what he said. 
 
 Hallucination as a Reality. 
 
 I once attended an old gentleman who began to 
 figure as a spiritualist, and who said he held com- 
 munion with a mutual past friend — the late Mr. 
 Robert Chambers — with his own wife, with Dr. 
 Arthur Leared, whom I also knew, and with others. 
 I am sure he was not deceiving either himself or 
 his friends. His nervous system being gradually 
 modified from the failure of some parts of it, he 
 was practically living on what remained, and, by 
 
RECASTS AND FORECASTS. 481 
 
 necessity, changed the natural into the supernatural, 
 an error we often fall into and from which the most 
 singular beliefs and manifestations assume temporary 
 reality. Visions, perhaps, are of this character, and 
 some persons are built with singularly constructed 
 mental forms, which dominate. When I was a boy 
 I often traversed distances without knowing them 
 and without noticing objects that occupied surround- 
 ing space, my mind being entirely bent on some one 
 object, as the making of a kite, or the building of a 
 machine by which we could fly or travel. I have, 
 also, in professional life, during sleep, had visions of, 
 and seeming communications with, those in whom 
 I was at the moment specially interested. There 
 was always some perversion of the actual, as if the 
 apparent and the real were admixed, but there was 
 enough to constitute a vision, if I had liked to 
 accept some parts of it as reliable. 
 
 Medical Destiny. 
 
 No medical man can reasonably be a materialist, 
 for he is charged with the animating spirit that is 
 eternal. But it is his particular duty to deal with 
 the mutable instrument through which the im- 
 mutable manifests itself as an animal ; to keep it 
 attuned to its surroundings ; to adapt it to what 
 it is formed to receive, and to create an universal 
 harmony. He may even consider pain as un- 
 necessary to a high civilisation, disease as an 
 
 31 
 
482 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 accident, and death as the one visible sign of 
 life, that is to say, of the universal life by which 
 the animal body is animated and which never 
 fades away. 
 
 The Spirit or Anima. 
 
 It is unnecessary to add that the search into 
 the nature of the spirit or animating principle 
 that exists in the universe, and enters the body, 
 moving it according to its build and construction, 
 has ever been under consideration. To the mind 
 it is analogous to the forces with which we are 
 acquainted. We have compared it with electricity, 
 and in a course of lectures I delivered in 1869, 
 using in experiment a coil of enormous size, many 
 facts were derived which were of the most striking 
 character. Its electricity brought active living 
 instruments into rigidity and quietude. It traversed 
 them in lines, or rejected transmission. It spoke in 
 thunder ; it whispered ; it had a silent voice ; it was 
 everywhere diffused, so as to give no indication of 
 itself ; it gathered particles together in an instant, 
 or separated them ; it hid itself ; it displayed itself. 
 
 I made a box covered with plate-glass ; put into it 
 different substances derived from an animal instru- 
 ment in its dead or quiescent form ; showered down 
 upon the same the wonderful electrical spirit ; made 
 the substances move like things endowed, for the 
 
RECASTS AND FORECASTS. 483 
 
 moment, with life, attracting or even repelling 
 each other, bnt falling in obedience to attraction 
 when the animating spirit was withdrawn. In 
 many respects this subtle spirit of the universe 
 seems to animate, but whether it is the working 
 power of another supreme and mightier power has 
 to be revealed. We say that God is light, and that 
 He is clothed with light as with a garment, so 
 that light may be a superior power to electricity 
 and may itself be a power of something still 
 superior. Caloric stands before us in a similar way, 
 but all has to be revealed, it may be by our own 
 labours, or it may be by wiser beings who shall visit 
 us from other centres of the universe, retaining 
 still their instrumental form and animate quality. 
 
 Body and Spirit. 
 
 In the end the message which science seems to 
 give is that the natural body, mutable, mortal, and 
 built out of the materials of the earth, remains 
 under the care and dominion of man for civilisation 
 and improvement, while the spiritual part, which we 
 have not as yet been allowed to see, remains under 
 the care and dominion of Him who is so inconceivably 
 greater, grander, and wiser than we are — the Creator 
 and Giver of Life. 
 
 Vitality and Mortality. 
 
 There can be no doubt that the prophecy, " Death 
 will be swallowed up in victory," will come true, 
 
484 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 This may be by some discovered art or science by 
 which men will treat animal bodies, but it may be 
 also by the correct knowledge which all persons will 
 attain of the nature of death, the continuance of 
 life, and the progressive removal of the natural 
 body no longer fitted for holding the spiritual. Then 
 death will have no sting, the grave no victory. 
 
 Spiritual Departure. 
 
 Persons become so attached to their own and 
 other animal bodies as animated forms of instru- 
 ments it becomes painful to them to think of their 
 eternal parts sailing into the infinite, leaving the 
 perishable and transmutable instrument in the earth 
 to be destroyed by dissolution into the elements, to 
 be re-formed, and in another shape to live again. 
 But as the conception is gained and held, it is really, 
 if it be not perverted, rather pleasant than other- 
 wise. It promises a boundless universe, an ever- 
 lasting existence, a solution of what now seems 
 inscrutable. 
 
 Physiology of Sin. 
 
 The Biblical statement that we are born in sin 
 and shaped in iniquity is as true and beautiful a 
 sentence as was ever written. There is a most 
 perfect physiology in it. As we are constructed 
 so we are, and we show what we are, sinful or 
 righteous, shapen in purity or shapen in iniquity. 
 
RECASTS AND FORECASTS. 485 
 
 In one of my conversations with the late Cardinal 
 Manning this topic was considered in regard to 
 alcoholism. I told the Cardinal that there was a 
 phase of alcoholic disease in which telling untruths 
 became a symptom, however good the person affected 
 might originally have been. He fully assented, 
 and I was led to say that falsehood was not an 
 inexplainable vice, because alcohol deranged the 
 construction of the organism and that this was 
 typical of the origin of vices. He was deeply 
 interested, and when I related that I contemplated 
 a work on the subject, to be called The Physiology 
 of Sin, he seemed moved in my direction of 
 thought. I regret I have not completed my design. 
 The late Dr. Phillpotts, Bishop of Exeter, must 
 have been moved in a similar way. He wished to 
 create in the Church an order of Medical Deacons, 
 men who by their medical training could become 
 accomplished priests and instructors of mankind. 
 He much desired me to set the example. The late 
 Frederic Barton, B.A., a Positivist and translator 
 of Comte's Catechism, who lived with me for three 
 years before I was married, taught the same lesson, 
 namely, that ministers ought to be medically 
 educated. Dr. Congreve, originally a clergyman, 
 afterwards a leader of the English Positivists, prac- 
 tically emphasised this view by passing the examina- 
 tion as a member of the College of Physicians. 
 
486 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 The Morituri. 
 
 In our civilisation there always exists in our 
 midst a population to which I have given the name 
 of the " morituri," persons ready to die. In the age 
 of the Csesars they were specially recognised amongst 
 the gladiators. There are nunibers of them now, 
 and although they are not truly gladiators they are 
 on every side. They show themselves all round 
 as morituri, on the Eench, in the pulpit, in the 
 consulting-room, addressing a multitude on some 
 political trouble, and even in the perfect rest of 
 sleep. They fall more commonly when they are 
 about to undergo some slight risk, as in having to 
 bear the shock of an operation under chloroform. 
 They are a fixed number in the community, so that 
 I have been able to calculate that there is one of 
 them in about every three thousand. 
 
 Physical Attraction. 
 
 In every line of experiment I have had to follow 
 it has appeared to me that the primary motor power 
 has always been, and is, attraction — attraction of 
 particles for particles, of the world for all particles. 
 This at first appears to be strange, since it suggests 
 that whatever draws a thine steadily and firmly to 
 itself must mean rest, and in regard to life entire 
 quiescence, veritable death. The thought of rest 
 is dispelled so soon as we see the effects that arise 
 
RECASTS AND FORECASTS. 487 
 
 from the acts of a bell-ringer, and if we can only 
 imagine the centre of the round earth always pulling 
 towards itself, we can see the source of motion 
 from all parts, whenever and wherever upon the 
 attraction a temporary opposing force is set up on 
 and against the attraction. 
 
 The needle in the galvanometer is set by the 
 attraction in a given direction, and is held there 
 permanently so long as there is no opposition, but 
 if I set free a • counter-force the needle moves in 
 obedience to it, although the central and primary 
 force maintains its undying energy. In the same 
 manner attraction is a force of life. I only walk 
 or move by virtue of a power generated in me that 
 is temporarily in opposition to the permanent and 
 primary. I am weak ; I fall. I am buried when 
 the permanent primary — attraction — is not overcome 
 by the secondary and temporary faculty which I call 
 my strength, because there is not distributed in my 
 own organism the equivalent, at least, of that power 
 with which the needle is endowed when the galvano- 
 meter is in play. 
 
 Lethal Chamber. 
 
 Since the origin of the Lethal Chamber, which I 
 had the good fortune to present to the world in name 
 as well as in fact, it has surprised me to see how 
 many persons have demanded its use, not only for the 
 lower animals, but for themselves, or for purposes 
 
488 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 connected with condemned criminals, who, it is 
 ignorantly supposed, ought to be made examples by 
 capital punishment. I have never been able to 
 respond favourably to these enthusiasts. 
 
 In instances where life cannot be saved and 
 where pain cannot be quenched the chamber 
 is both merciful and legitimate, but I see no 
 further use for it in so far as the human being is 
 concerned, and the idea of letting it to the public 
 executioner for his insane quackery is one of the 
 most repugnant employments of it that could be 
 proposed, stripping it in fact of its mercy, defiling 
 it, and turning it into a mere centre of barbarous 
 and pretended utility. 
 
 Life on the Floor of the Sea. 
 
 Why the earth is left with so much sea in 
 comparison with land is a very curious question, 
 and what constitutes the bottom or floor of the 
 sea is equally singular. We may know all some 
 day ; we shall certainly eventually put limits to 
 the oceans if nothing else of a natural kind arises 
 to produce the same effect, for the old Apocalyptic 
 vision, " There shall be no more sea," always sounds 
 a true prediction ; but whether that prediction 
 will be fulfilled by a natural means over which 
 we have no control, whether we shall build up 
 the sea from substances on the land, or whether 
 we shall learn how to live under the sea and 
 
RECASTS AND FORECASTS. 48& 
 
 shall explore its foundations, are great engineering- 
 questions that have to be solved. The last idea, 
 that of existing below the sea, appears to be the 
 most remote, and yet in a physiological point of 
 view it is nearest to truth, for we really could live 
 under the sea. 
 
 A few years ago a frenchman named St. Simon 
 Sicard, exhibiting at the old Panopticon in Leicester 
 Square, did succeed in living for a time under water. 
 But a more curious thing took place later. In 
 November 1879 I was fetched by one of the 
 directors of the old Royal Polytechnic to see a 
 man walking about under the water of the great 
 tank in which the diving-bell used to descend. I 
 found the gentleman, who was named to me as 
 Mr. Pleuss, walking about quite coolly many feet 
 under the surface of the water, and I discovered 
 that in his waterproof suiting he was supplied with 
 oxygen gas compressed in the helmet he wore ; 
 that he had a means of breathing from that source ; 
 that he could fix the products of his respiration 
 and continue the process for an hour at least. I 
 made numerous observations on Mr. Pleuss by 
 immersing him in other substances than water, such 
 as carbonic acid and coal gas, but he was proof to 
 them in the same way, and he could carry a lighted 
 lantern, which lived just as he did, to illumine his 
 path and show him his way. I published in the 
 Asclepiad all the facts about Mr. Pleuss, who 
 actually could live under the sea, and I have no 
 
490 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 doubt that, by an extension and advance upon his 
 method, hosts of men — better equipped — could 
 explore as they wished and keep on the floors of 
 the illuminated seas as distinctly as on the land. 
 We should then say, rightly enough, " There shall 
 be no more sea," and St. John would rank as a very 
 distinctive physical prophet. Fleuss, who has the 
 courage of a lion and the insight of the accomplished 
 natural experimentalist, still lives. I once saw him 
 on the floor of a huge tank of water at the Royal 
 Agricultural Hall walking about, getting up and 
 lying down, as unconcernedly as if he had been in 
 the air, and I once saw him, in a tank of carbonic 
 acid, try in vain to light lucif er matches by the usual 
 mode of friction. Nature very often carries out the 
 same process in the fish, but in a different way ; 
 she puts the oxygen into the water and constructs 
 a gill, or breathing surface, to absorb the oxygen, 
 at the same time arranging the instrument in many 
 ways to meet the new conditions ; and we might 
 succeed in making an engine work in water in 
 some similar way, but it would cost much money, 
 time, and labour. 
 
 Ideal of an Older Earth. 
 
 I have entertained a conviction that the surface 
 of the world on which we now live and enact our 
 parts is not the first surface that has been, but 
 that there was once a larger surface equivalent 
 
RECASTS AND FORECASTS. 491 
 
 to what there would he if the moon were incor- 
 porated so as to form one planet comhined with the 
 earth. If that were ever the case everything on 
 the earth was individually larger than it now is; 
 living things existed that were larger than they 
 now are, and many of the marvellous legends re- 
 garding them which we retain and prize were not 
 mere inventions but remnants of records of past 
 developments. Once I ventured to express this 
 ideal in the ears of a well-known geologist and 
 professor of geology, who listened with deep interest 
 and was inclined to think I was correct, hut said 
 that the certain existence of strata and of fossils 
 stood in the way. His remarks about fossils led me 
 to experiment, and in the old Medical Times, and 
 later in the Asclepiad, Vol. IX., pp. 411-29, I related 
 how I made mixtures of earthy substances, buried 
 in them dead animals and plants, and subjected 
 these little masses, in a vulcaniser, to a heat of three 
 hundred to four hundred degrees of water-gas, 
 afterwards drying the masses down until they could 
 be broken in pieces. Then — as I have told — I found 
 the remains fossilised, so that it was explained that 
 fossils of the most commanding size could, in a 
 mighty convulsion of the planet, be made to exist, 
 not as evidences of the work of long ages, but of a 
 few years, or even of hours. 
 
 I was struck with the sight of flints buried in 
 chalk, and heard it said that they were proofs of 
 living things that once accumulated or had built 
 
492 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 up the stone. I made a solution of silicate of lime, 
 put it in a glass vessel, and allowed carbonic acid 
 to bubble through the fluid, upon which chalk was 
 found, and in it were deposits of silicic acid ; they 
 dried into little hard bodies like flints, some of 
 which I have still in preservation. Flints, therefore, 
 and chalk might easily have been constructed by 
 the mere ebullition of carbonic acid through a 
 silicate sea, and in a few hours, as compared with 
 millions of centuries as is generally assumed by 
 the learned. The learned, of course, may be right 
 in their surmise, but they are open to correction. 
 
 The Journey Round the Sun. 
 
 I noticed in the first lines of these chapters the 
 journey made round the sun. There is no other 
 such journey that we know of. We all take it, and 
 I humbly submit that medical men ought to know 
 that journey better than any. We ought to under- 
 stand as far as we can what are the regions we go 
 through ; how we are aifected on the way, and how 
 we ought to protect ourselves, if we are able, or at 
 any rate prepare ourselves for vicissitudes. Pre- 
 paration of this kind, which requires common-sense 
 observation, though it may ever be imperfect, may be 
 far more perfect than we expect, and may illuminate 
 the paths of ages yet to come. 
 
CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 VITAL PHOSPHORESCENCE. 
 
 JHE writing of the last chapters of a book 
 I have often found to be a more anxious 
 task > than any other; it is so now, but I 
 think it best to devote them to what has been 
 an all-absorbing study of my life. It has all through 
 seemed to me a duty to accept the new theory which 
 Liebig introduced, namely, that the leading point 
 to remember in regard to the body is the oxidation 
 of carbon, and to hold the idea of that as a producer 
 of animal heat and of the great vital functions. 
 Receiving this, however, I could never forget another 
 element, phosphorus, and another process, phosphor- 
 escence. When Erobisher, over one hundred and 
 sixty years ago, at an expense of some £10, first 
 showed phosphorus to the Fellows of the Royal 
 Society and described some of its properties, he 
 could scarcely, I think, have been aware of the 
 enormous fact he was elucidating. He had obtained 
 the element from living structures like bones, and 
 on questions of vitality it has continued to hold a 
 promising place, and the phenomenon called phos- 
 
 493 
 
494 CHAPTERS OF LIFE. 
 
 phorescence of animal matter has more than once 
 been dwelt upon. 
 
 I cannot stay to enter upon the many labours of 
 preceding observers, but it is necessary to indicate 
 in a few passages what has most engaged my own 
 attention. 
 
 Luminosity of the Brain and of Nervous Matter. 
 
 I have tried the effects of phosphorus in giving 
 the luminosity of its oxidation to brain-pulp in the 
 dead form, and these experiments, still incomplete, 
 have been most instructive and curious. 
 
 Brain-pulp was put into a solution of phosphorus, 
 and the pulp was permitted to receive oxygen from 
 the air at blood-heat, the air passing through and 
 agitating it with steady motion. In other words, 
 phosphorised brain was allowed to breathe, and its 
 immediate luminosity was obvious. 
 
 We sometimes see phosphorescence in living tissues, 
 and the late Dr. Stokes of Dublin had a patient who 
 exhibited luminosity in parts of the body, so that 
 they would even light up printed matter. I have 
 seen the same phenomenon exhibited in a still more 
 curious manner. The brain of a deeply anaesthetised 
 animal was once seen by me to be very faintly 
 luminous in the dark for some seconds, suggesting 
 that the nervous structure fed with blood carrying 
 oxygen created an animal fire. I have also seen 
 phosphorescent lines of light on a nervous surface, as 
 on my own retina. 
 
VITAL PHOSPHORESCENCE. 495 
 
 In living nervous matter, centric or diffused, it 
 may be that a kind of phosphorescence is in progress 
 as a source of vibratory motion causing the forma- 
 tion of acids that have to escape from the nervous 
 structures into the blood, and even leading to the 
 evolution of warmth and sensibility. In fact, the 
 old view that warmth of the body is diffused by 
 nervous distribution may, after all, be the correct 
 view, and it is quite possible that since the era 
 of Liebig we have been fundamentally misled in 
 respect to animal heat. I would rather not be 
 dogmatic on this subject, but am certain that the 
 whole of it wants to be re-studied, and that 
 phosphorus as an element of the body calls for a 
 new and great investigation, for we have neglected 
 phosphorus as a vital element in the most serious 
 degree. 
 
CHAPTER, XXVIII. 
 
 A LAST WORD. 
 
 TJT I must close somewhere, and it is at 
 this point. 
 
 I have set myself to record a medical life 
 from the medical side of my own life, not 
 in any sense as a model picture, but in the earnest 
 hope of the day when men of physic shall find in 
 the study of the natural body the grandest work the 
 human intellect can command. 
 
 Printed by Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury. 
 
H Classifteb Catalogue 
 
 OF WORKS IN 
 
 GENERAL LITERATURE 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO. 
 
 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON, E.C. 
 
 )i and 93 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK, and 32 HORNBY ROAD, BOMBAY. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 BADMINTON LIBRARY (THE)- - 
 
 BIOGRAPHY, PERSONAL ME- 
 MOIRS, &c. 
 
 CHILDREN'S BOOKS 
 
 CLASSICAL LITERATURE TRANS- 
 LATIONS, ETC. .... 
 
 COOKERY, DOMESTIC MANAGE- 
 MENT, &c. 
 
 EVOLUTION, ANTHROPOLOGY, 
 
 2 8 
 
 J 7 
 
 FICTION, HUMOUR, &c. - - - 21 
 FUR AND FEATHER SERIES - 12 
 
 HISTORY, POLITICS, POLITY, 
 
 POLITICAL MEMOIRS, &c. - - 3 
 LANGUAGE, HISTORY AND 
 
 SCIENCE OF - - - - - 16 
 LONGMANS' SERIES OF BOOKS 
 
 FOR GIRLS 26 
 
 MANUALS OF CATHOLIC PHIL- 
 OSOPHY 16 
 
 MENTAL, MORAL, AND POLITICAL 
 
 PHILOSOPHY 14 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS AND CRITICAL 
 
 WORKS 29 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS THEOLOGICAL 
 
 WORKS 31 
 
 POETRY AND THE DRAMA - - 18 
 POLITICAL ECONOMY AND ECO- 
 NOMICS 16 
 
 POPULAR SCIENCE - - - - 24 
 
 SILVER LIBRARY (THE) - - 27 
 
 SPORT AND PASTIME ... 10 
 TRAVEL AND ADVENTURE, THE 
 
 COLONIES, &c. - . - - - 8 
 
 VETERINARY MEDICINE, &c. - 9 
 
 WORKS OF REFERENCE- - - 25 
 
 INDEX OF AUTHORS AND EDITORS. 
 
 Abbott (Evelyn) 
 
 (T. K.) - 
 
 (E. A.) - 
 
 Acland (A. H. D.) 
 Acton (Eliza) - 
 Acworth (H. A.) 
 Adeane (J. H.) . 
 /Eschylus 
 Ainger (A. C.) - 
 Albemarle (Earl of) 
 Alden (W. L.) - 
 Allen (Grant) - 
 Allingham (W.) 
 Anstey (F.) 
 Aristophanes - 
 Aristotle - 
 Armstrong (G. I 
 
 Savage) 
 
 (E. J.) 
 
 Arnold (Sir Edwin) 
 
 (Dr. T.) - 
 
 Ashley (W. J.) - 
 Astor (J.J.) - - 
 A telicr du Lys (A uthot 
 
 of)- - - - 
 
 Babington (W. D.) - 
 
 Page 
 
 3, 18 
 
 14. 15 
 
 14 
 
 3 
 
 28 
 
 18 
 
 7 
 
 18 
 
 24 
 
 18, 29 
 
 21 
 
 18 
 
 14, 18 
 
 *9 
 
 7, 19. 29 
 
 8,19 
 
 3 
 
 16 
 
 Bacon - - -7, 
 Baden-Powell (B. H.) 
 Bagehot (W.) - 7, 16, 
 Bagwell (R.) - 
 Bain (Alexander) 
 Baker (James) - 
 
 (Sir S. W.) 
 
 Balfour (A. J.) - 11, 
 
 Ball (J. T.) 
 Baring-Gould (Rev. 
 
 S.) . - - - 27, 
 Barnett (Rev. S. A. & 
 
 Mrs.) - 
 Baynes (T. S.) - 
 Beaconsfield (Earl of) 
 Beaufort (Duke of) - 10, 
 Becker (Prof.) - 
 Beesly (A. H.) - 
 Bell (Mrs. Hugh) - 
 Bent (J. Theodore) - 
 Besant (Sir Walter)- 
 Bickerdyke (J.) - ri, 
 
 Bicknell (A. C.) 
 Bird (R.) - 
 Black (Clementina) . 
 Blackwell (Elizabeth) 
 Boase (Rev. C. W.) - 
 
 Boedder (B.) - 
 Bolland (W. E.) 
 Bosanquet (B.) 
 Boyd (Rev.A. K. H.)7 
 Brassey (Lady) 
 
 (Lord) 3, 8, 
 
 Bray (C. and Mrs.) - 
 Bright (J. F.) - - 
 Broadfoot (Major W 
 Brogger (W. C.) 
 Brown (J. Moray) - 
 Browning (H. Ellen) 
 Buck (H. A.) - 
 Buckle (H. T.) - 
 Bull (T.) - 
 Burke (U. R.) - 
 Burrows (Montagu) 
 Butler (E. A.) - 
 (Samuel) - 
 
 Cameron of Lochiel 
 Cannan (E.) 
 
 (F. Laura) 
 
 Carmichael (J.) 
 Chesney (Sir G.) 
 Chisholm (G. G.) - 
 
 Page 
 
 16 
 
 14 
 
 14 
 
 29,31 
 
 8,9 
 
 12, 16 
 
 14 
 
 3 
 
 .) 10 
 
 Cholmondelev-Pennell 
 
 (H.) - - - 
 Christie (Nimmo) - 
 Cicero ... 
 Clarke (Rev. R. F.) - 
 Clodd (Edward) 
 Clutterbuck (W. J.)- 
 Cochrane (A.) - 
 Comyn (L. N.) 
 Conington (John) - 
 Conybeare (Rev. W. J.) 
 
 & Howson (Dean) 
 Coventry (A.) - 
 Cox (Harding) 
 Crake (Rev. A. D.) - 
 Creiehton (Bishop) - 
 Cuningham (G. C.) - 
 Curzon (Hon. G. N.) 
 Cutts (Rev. E. L.) - 
 
 Page 
 
 27 
 
 Davidson (W. L.) ■ 
 Davies (J. F.) - 
 De la Saussaye (C.) ■ 
 Deland (Mrs.) - 
 Dent (C. T.) - 
 Deploige - 
 De Salis (Mrs.) 
 
 14, 16 
 
 17 
 28, 29 
 
INDEX OF AUTHORS AND EDITORS— continued. 
 
 Page 
 
 De Tocqueville (A.) - 3 
 
 Devas (C. S.) - - 16 
 
 Dickinson (G. L.) - 4 
 
 Dougall (L.) - - 21 
 
 Dowell (S.) - - 16 
 
 Doyle (A. Conan) - 21 
 
 Dreyfus (Irma) - 30 
 
 Du Bois (W. E. B.),- 4 
 
 Dufferin (Marquis of) 12 
 
 Dunbar (Mary F.) - 20 
 
 Ebrington (Viscount) 12 
 
 Egbert (J. C.) - - 18 
 
 Ellis (J. H.) - - 13 
 
 Ewald(H.) - - 4 
 
 Falkener (E.) 13 
 
 Farnell (G. S.) - - 18 
 Farrar (Dean) - - 16, 21 
 
 Fitzwygram (Sir F.) 10 
 
 Florian - - - ig 
 
 Follett (M. P.) - - 4 
 
 Ford (H.) 13 
 
 Fowler (Edith H.) - 21 
 
 Francis (Francis) - ■ 13 
 
 Freeman (Edward A.) 4 
 
 Frothingham (A. L.) 30 
 Froude (James A.) 4, 7, 9, 21 
 
 Furneaux (W.) - 24 
 
 17 
 
 4 
 
 26 
 
 II, 12 
 
 13 
 22 
 
 8 
 19 
 13. 21 
 16 
 14 
 
 7 
 14 
 
 4 
 26 
 14 
 
 19 
 
 Galton (W. F.) 
 Gardiner (Samuel R.) 
 Gerard (D.) 
 Gibbons (J. S.) 
 Gibson (Hon. H.) - 
 Gill (H.J.) - - 
 Gleig (Rev. G. R.) - 
 Goethe - 
 Graham (P. A.) 
 
 (G. F.) - - 
 
 Grant (Sir A.) - 
 Graves (R. P.) - 
 Green (T. Hill) 
 Greville (C. C. F.) - 
 Grey (Maria) 
 Grose (T. H.) - 
 Grove (F. C.) - 
 
 (Mrs. Lilly) 
 
 Gurney (Rev. A.) 
 Gwilt (J.) - 
 
 Haggard (H. Rider) 21 
 
 Hake (O.) - - - 12 
 
 Halliwell-Phillipps(J.) 8 
 
 Hamlin (A. D. F.) - 30 
 
 Harding (S. B.) - 4 
 
 Hart (Albert B.) - 4 
 
 Harte (Bret) - - 22 
 
 Hartwig (G.) - - 24 
 
 Hassall (A.) - - 6 
 Haweis (Rev. H. R.) 7, 30 
 
 Hayward (Jane M.) - 24 
 
 Hearn (W. E.) - - 4 
 Heathcote(J. M. and 
 
 C. G.) - - 12 
 Helmholtz (Hermann 
 
 von) - - - 24 
 
 Henry (W.) - - 12 
 
 Herbert (Col. Kenney) 12 
 
 Hewins (W. A. S.) - 17 
 
 Hillier (G. Lacy) - 10 
 Hodgson (ShadworthH.) 14 
 
 Holroyd (Maria J.) - 7 
 
 Hope (Anthony) - 22 
 
 Hornung (E. W.) - 22 
 
 Houston (D. F.) - 4 
 
 Howell (G.) - - 16 
 
 Howitt(W.) - - 9 
 
 Hudson (W. H.) - 24 
 
 Hueffer (F. M.) - 7 
 
 Hume (David) - - 14 
 
 Hunt (Rev. W.) - 4 
 
 Hutchinson (Horace G.) n 
 
 Ingelow (Jean) 
 
 19, 26 
 
 Page 
 
 Jefferies (Richard) - 30 
 
 Jones (H. Bence) - 25 
 
 Johnson (J. & J. H.) 30 
 
 Jordan (W. L.) - 16 
 
 fowett (Dr. B.) - 17 
 
 Joyce (P. W.) - - 4 
 
 Justinian - - - 14 
 
 Kalisch (M. M.) - 32 
 Kant (I.) - - - 14, 15 
 Kaye (Sir J. W.) - 5 
 
 Kerr (Rev. J.) - - 12 
 Killick (Rev. A. H.) - 15 
 Kitchin (Dr. G. W.) 4 
 
 Knight (E. F.) - 5,9,12 
 Kostlin (J.) 7 
 
 Ladd (G. T.) - - 15 
 Lang (Andrew) 5, 10, 11, 13, 
 14, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 26, 30 
 Lascelles (Hon. G.) - 10, n 
 Laurie (S. S.) - - 5 
 
 Leaf (Walter) - - 31 
 Lear (H. L. Sidney) - 29 
 Lecky (W. E. H.) - 5, 19 
 Lees (J. A.) - - 9 
 
 Lester (L. V.) - 7 
 
 Lewes (G. H.) - - 15 
 Lindley(J.) - - 25 
 Lindsay (Lady) - 19 
 
 Lodge (H. C.) - - 4 
 
 Loftie (Rev. W. J.) - 4 
 
 Longman (C. J.) 10, 13, 30 
 
 (F. W.) - - 13 
 
 (G. H.) - -11,12 
 
 Lowell (A. L.) - - 5 
 
 Lubbock (Sir John) - 17 
 Lucan - - - 18 
 Lyall (Edna) - - 22 
 Lyttelton (Hon. R. H.) 10 
 Lytton (Earl of) - 19 
 
 MacArthur (Miss E. A.) 17 
 Macaulay (Lord) 5, 6, 20 
 MacColl (Canon) - 6 
 
 Macdonald (George) 20, 32 
 Macfarren (Sir G. A.) 30 
 Magruder (Julia) - 22 
 Mackail (J. W.) - 18 
 Mackinnon (J.) - 6 
 
 Macleod (H. D.) - 16 
 Macpherson (Rev. H. A.)i2 
 Maher (M.) - - 16 
 Malleson (Col. G.B.) 5 
 
 Mandello (J.) - - 17 
 Marbot (Baron de) - 7 
 
 Marquand (A.) - - 30 
 Marshman (J. C.) - 7 
 
 Martineau (Dr. James) 32 
 Maskelyne (J. N.) - 13 
 Matthews (Brander) 22 
 Maunder (S.) - - 25 
 Max Miiller (F.) 
 
 15, 16, 30, 32 
 May (Sir T. Erskine) 6 
 
 Meade (L. T.) - - 26 
 Melville (G. J. Whyte) 22 
 Merivale (Dean) - 6 
 
 Merriman (H. S.) - 22 
 Mill (James) - - 15 
 
 (John Stuart) - 15, 16 
 
 Milner (G.) - - 30 
 Miss Molly (Author of) 26 
 Molesworth (Mrs.) - 26 
 Montague (F. C.) - 6 
 
 Moore (T.) - - 25 
 
 (Rev. Edward) - 14 
 
 Morris (W.) - 20, 22, 31 
 
 (Mowbray) - n 
 
 Mosso (A.) - - 15 
 Mulhall (M. G.) - 17 
 Munk (W.) - - 7 
 
 Murray (R. F.) - 20 
 
 
 Page 
 
 Nansen (F.) 
 
 7 
 
 Nesbit (E.) 
 
 20 
 
 Newman (Cardinal) - 
 
 22 
 
 O'Brien (W.) - 
 
 6 
 
 Ogle(W.)- 
 
 18 
 
 Oliphant (Mrs.) 
 
 22 
 
 Oliver (W. D.) 
 
 9 
 
 Onslow (Earl of) 
 
 12 
 
 Orchard (T. N.) 
 
 3i 
 
 Osbourne (L) - 
 
 23 
 
 Palmer (A. H.) - 8 
 
 Park (W.) - - 13 
 
 Parr (Mrs. Louisa) - 26 
 Payne-Gallwey (Sir 
 
 R.) - - -11,13 
 
 Peary (Mrs. Josephine) 9 
 
 Peek (H.) - - - n 
 
 Pembroke (Earl of) - 12 
 
 Perring (Sir P.) - 19 
 
 Phillips (M.) - - 32 
 Phillipps-Wolley(C) 10,22 
 
 Piatt (S. & J. J.) - 20 
 Pleydell-Bouverie (E. O.) 12 
 
 Pole (W.) - - - 13 
 
 Pollock (W. H.) - n 
 Poole (W. H. and 
 
 Mrs.) - - - 29 
 
 Poore (G. V.) - - 31 
 
 Potter (J.) - - 16 
 
 Prevost (C.) - - 11 
 
 Pritchett (R. T.) - 12 
 
 Proctor (R. A.) - 13, 24, 31 
 
 Quill (A. W.) - - 18 
 
 Quillinan (Mrs.) - 9 
 
 Quintana (A.) - - 22 
 
 Raine (Rev. James) - 4 
 
 Ransome (Cyril) - 3 
 
 Rhoades (J.) - - 18, 20 
 
 Rhoscomyl (O.) - 23 
 
 Rich (A.) - - - 18 
 
 Richardson (Sir B. W.) 31 
 
 (C.) - - - 12 
 
 Richman (I. B.) - 6 
 
 Rickaby (John) - 16 
 
 ■ (Joseph) - - 16 
 
 Ridley (Annie E.) - 7 
 
 (E.) - - . - 18 
 
 Riley (J. W.) - - 20 
 Roget .(Peter M.) -16,25 
 
 Rokeby (C.) - - 23 
 
 Rolfsen (N.) ' - - 7 
 Romanes (G. J.) 
 
 8, 15, 17, 20, 32 
 
 (Mrs.) - - 8 
 
 Ronalds (A.) - - 13 
 
 Roosevelt (T.) - - 4 
 
 Rossetti (M. F.) - 31 
 
 Russell (Bertrand) - 17 
 
 Saintsbury (G.) - 12 
 
 Sandars (T. C.) - 14 
 
 Seebohm (F.) - - 6, 8 
 
 Selous (F. C.) - - 10 
 
 Selss (A. M.) - - 19 
 
 Sewell (Elizabeth M.) 23 
 
 Shakespeare - - 20 
 
 Shand (A. I.) - - 12 
 
 Sharpe (R. R.) - 6 
 
 Shearman (M.) - 10 
 
 Sheppard (Rev. Edgar) 6 
 
 Sinclair (A.) - - 12 
 
 Smith (R. Bosworth) 6 
 
 (W. P. Haskett) 9 
 
 Soderini (Count E.)- 17 
 
 Solovyoff (V. S.) - 31 
 
 Sophocles - - 18 
 
 Soulsby (Lucy H.) - 26 
 
 Page 
 
 7, 14 
 24 
 
 9 
 6 
 
 8 
 
 31 
 
 23, 26 
 
 15 
 
 15 
 
 Spedding (J.) - 
 Stanley (Bishop) 
 Steel (A. G.) - 
 
 (J.H.) - - 
 
 Stephen (Sir James) 
 
 (Leslie) 
 
 Stephens (H. Morse) 
 
 (W. W.) - 
 
 Stevens (R. W.) 
 Stevenson (R. L.) - 
 Stock (St. George) - 
 
 'Stonehenge' - - 10 
 
 Storr (F.) - - - 14 
 Stuart-Wortley(A.J.) 11,12 
 
 Stubbs (J. W.)- - 6 
 
 Sturdy (E. T.) - - 30 
 
 Sturgis (J.) - - 20 
 Suffolk & Berkshire 
 
 (Earl of) - - 11 
 
 Sullivan (Sir E.) - 12 
 Sully (James) - 
 Supernatural Religion 
 
 (Author of ) - 32 
 
 Sutherland (A. and G.) 6 
 
 Suttner (B. von) - 23 
 
 Swinburne (A. J.) - 15 
 
 Symes (J. E.) - - 17 
 
 Tacitus - - - 18 
 
 Tavlor (Meadows) - 17 
 
 Te'bbutt (C. G.) - 12 
 
 Thompson (N. G.) - 13 
 
 Thornhill (W. J.) - 18 
 
 Todd (A.) 6 
 
 Toynbee (A.) - - 17 
 
 Trevelvan (Sir G. O.) 7 
 
 (C. P.) - - 17 
 
 Trollope (Anthony) - 23 
 
 Tyndall (J.) - - 9 
 
 Tyrrell (R. Y.) - - 18 
 
 Upton (F. K. and 
 
 Bertha) - - 26 
 
 Verney (Frances P. 
 
 and Margaret M.) S 
 
 Vincent (J. E.) - - 17 
 
 Virgil - - - 18 
 
 Vivekananda (Swami) 32 
 
 Wakeman (H. O.) - 6 
 
 Walford (Mrs.) - 23 
 
 Walker (Jane H.) - 29 
 
 Walpole (Spencer) - 6 
 
 Walrond (Col. H.) - 10 
 
 Walsingham (Lord) - 11 
 
 Walter (J.) - - 8 
 Watson (A. E. T.) - 11, 12 
 
 Waylen (H. S. H. 
 Webb (Mr. and Mrs. 
 Sidney) 
 
 (T. E.) - - 
 
 Weber (A.) 
 Weir (Capt. R.) 
 West (B. B.) - 
 Weyman (Stanley) 
 
 3P 
 
 17 
 19 
 15 
 
 11 
 
 23.31 
 
 23 
 
 Whately(Archbishop) 14, 15 
 
 (E. Jane) - - 16. 
 
 Whishaw (F. J.) - 9, 23 
 
 Whitelaw (R.) - - 18 
 
 Wilcocks (J. C.) - 13 
 
 Willich (C. M.) - 25. 
 
 Witham (T. M.) - 12 
 
 Wolff (H. W.) - - 6 
 
 Wood (Rev. J. G.) - 25 
 
 Woodgate (W. B.) - 10 
 
 Wood-Martin (W. G.) 6 
 
 Wordsworth (Elizabeth) 26 
 
 Wylie (J. H.) - - 6 
 
 Youatt (W.) - - 10 
 
 Zeller (E.) - - 15. 
 
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