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OF HUMAN AFFAIRS.

323

impression of their minds on the age in which they lived, or on the science or other pursuit which they had chosen-original minds who have striven to enlarge the boundaries of our knowledge. Such men usually have the ample gifts of nature, with which they are endowed, somewhat conterbalanced by the difficulty experienced in the successful application of them.

Abernethy had not been altogether exempt from such difficulties. With a sensitive organization, he had had to make his own way; he experienced the difficulties which attend the advocacy of opinions and principles which were opposed, or at all events, different from those generally entertained. He had had to encounter that misconstruction, misrepresentation, ridicule, even malice, save the mark! which is too frequently provoked by any attempts to tell people that there is something more correct than the notions which they have been accustomed to value. Still, when we compare Abernethy's course with that of many, we had almost said most, benefactors to science, he might be said to have been a fortunate man.

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If a man has power and a "place to stand on," and Abernethy had both, truth will tell at last.

A retired spot, in an obscure street near St. Bartholomew's, had been by his almost unaided talents expanded into a theatre within the walls of the Hospital. This was becoming again crowded; and although it formed a satisfactory arena for the development and illustration of his principles, the increasing audiences were significant of the coming necessity of a still larger building, and which in fact, was a few years afterwards constructed. He had, in fact, arrived, as we imagine, at a point which was comparatively smooth water, and which we are inclined to regard as the zenith of his career.

In the opening of his beautiful lectures at the College, Abernethy, in one of his warm and earnest endeavours to animate his audience, to regard the love and the search for truth as the only impulse which could urge on and sustain industry in the "Science" of our profession, had observed that, "unfortunately, a man

might attain to a considerable share of public "reputation without being a real student of

HIGH ESTIMATION OF ABERNETHY. 325

"his profession."

There have been, indeed,

too many examples of that, as also of those who, after years of labour, have failed to attain a scanty living.

Abernethy had been a real and laborious student in science, and he was now reaping an abundant and well-deserved fruition. Few surgeons have arrived at a position so calculated to satisfy the most exacting ambition; although the full extent and bearing or his principles were by no means universally understood, yet the general importance of them was so, and in some measure appreciated. In a greater or less degree, they were answering the tests afforded by the bed-side in all parts of the world.

Ample, therefore, as the harvest he was reaping in a large practice, he was enjoying a still higher fruition in the kind of estimation in which he was held. He had a high reputation with the public, one still higher amongst men of science. His crowded waiting-room was a satisfactory evidence of the one, and the manner in which his name was received here,

326 SCIENTIFIC CHARACTER OF HIS SCHOOL.

on the continent, or in America, a gratifying testimony of the other. He was regarded much more in the light of a man of enlarged mind, as a medical philosopher, than merely as a distinguished surgeon.

From the very small beginnings left by Mr. Pott, he had raised the school of St. Bartholomew's to an eminence never before attained by any school in this country. I think I may say that, in its peculiar character, it was, at that time (1816), unrivalled.

Sir Astley Cooper was in great force and in high repute at this time; and combining as he did the schools of two large hospitals, had, I believe, even a larger class. Both schools, no doubt, endeavoured to combine what is not, perhaps, very intelligibly conveyed by the terms practical and scientific; but the universal impression assigned the latter as the distinguishing excellence of Mr. Abernethy, whilst the former was held to express more happily the characteristic of his eminent contemporary.

Whatever school, however, a London student might have selected as his Alma Mater, it was

ATTENDED BY PUPILS OF OTHER SCHOOLS. 327

very common for those whose purse, time, or plans permitted it, to attend one or more courses of Abernethy's lectures; and it was pleasing to recognise the graceful concession to Mr. Abernethy's peculiar excellence, afforded by the attendance of some of Sir Astley's pupils, and his since distinguished relatives, at the lectures of Abernethy.

As I have said, his practice was extensive, and of the most lucrative kind-that is, it consisted largely of consultations at home. Still, he had patients to visit, and as he was very remarkable for punctuality in all his appointments, was therefore not unfrequently obliged to leave home before he had seen the whole of those who had applied to him. The extent of his practice was the more remarkable as, however exaggerated it might be, still there was a very general impression that his manners were unkind and repulsive. His pupils were enthusiastically fond of him, and it was difficult to know which was the dominant feelingtheir admiration of his talents or their personal regard.

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