The Author reserves the right of publishing a Translation of this

Work in France.

BODI

DLE

AN

LONDON:

Printed by Schulze and Co., 13, Poland Street.

TO THE MEMORY

OF

JOHN ABERNETHY, F.R.S.

THESE VOLUMES ARE INSCRIBED

BY

ONE OF HIS NUMEROUS

AND

GRATEFUL PUPILS,

THE AUTHOR.

PREFACE.

IN submitting to the public a Memoir of a great man, it may naturally be expected that an author should endeavour to convey to them some idea of the associations, or other circumstances, which have prompted the undertaking.

My father practised on the borders of a forest, and when he was called at night to visit a distant patient, it was the greatest treat to me, then a little boy, to be allowed to saddle my pony and accompany him. My father knew the forest nearly as well as his own garden; but still in passing bogs in impenetrable darkness, the more refined topography of a forester would

be necessary; and it was on one of these occasions that I first heard, two words, "Me-ward" and "Abernethy," the one from our forester guide, which I have never heard since, and the other which I have heard more frequently perhaps than any. The idea I then had of Abernethy was, that he was a great man who lived in London. The next distinct impression I have of him was derived from hearing my father say that a lady, who had gone up to London to have an operation performed, had been sent by him to Mr. Abernethy, because my father did not think the operation necessary or proper; that Mr. Abernethy entirely agreed with him, and that the operation was not performed; that the lady had returned home, and was getting well. I then found that my father had studied under him, and his name became a sort of household word in our family. Circumstances now occurred which occupied my mind in a different direction, and for some years I thought no more of Abernethy.

As long as Surgery meant riding across a