No doubt his work was, as he confesses, not systematically spread over
his various subjects; and his energy was fitful, though it was energy
that struck his contemporaries, who gave the name of the "Sign of
the Head and Microscope" to the familiar silhouette of him as he sat
before a window poring over his dissections, while they swarmed out
into the quadrangle after lectures.

He achieved brilliant successes as a student. In 1843 he won the first
prize in Chemistry, with a note that his "extraordinary diligence
and success in the pursuit of this branch of science do him infinite
honour," as well as the first prize in Anatomy and Physiology. He
was only twenty when, in 1845, he went up for his M.B. at London
University, and won a gold medal in his favourite subjects of Anatomy
and Physiology, being second in that section.

Early in 1846, being still too young to qualify at the College of
Surgeons, yet confronted by the imperative necessity for earning his
own bread, he applied, at the suggestion of his fellow-student,
Lyon Playfair, for service as a naval surgeon, passed the necessary
examination, and went to Haslar. His official chief, old John
Richardson, of Arctic fame, silently kept an eye upon him, and,
failing to get him one of the coveted resident appointments, kept him,
all unaware and ill-content, at Haslar till something worthy of his
scientific abilities should turn up. Seven months passed; then
came the chance of sailing on the surveying and exploring ship
_Rattlesnake_, under Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., brother of the more
famous Dean, who was in want of an assistant-surgeon with a turn for
science.