these were intolerably dull, with the exception of those on
chemistry by Hope; but to my mind there are no advantages and
many disadvantages in lectures compared with reading. Dr.
Duncan's lectures on Materia Medica at 8 o'clock on a winter's
morning are something fearful to remember. Dr.-- made his
lectures on human anatomy as dull as he was himself, and the
subject disgusted me. It has proved one of the greatest evils in
my life that I was not urged to practise dissection, for I should
soon have got over my disgust; and the practice would have been
invaluable for all my future work. This has been an irremediable
evil, as well as my incapacity to draw. I also attended
regularly the clinical wards in the hospital. Some of the cases
distressed me a good deal, and I still have vivid pictures before
me of some of them; but I was not so foolish as to allow this to
lessen my attendance. I cannot understand why this part of my
medical course did not interest me in a greater degree; for
during the summer before coming to Edinburgh I began attending
some of the poor people, chiefly children and women in
Shrewsbury: I wrote down as full an account as I could of the
case with all the symptoms, and read them aloud to my father, who
suggested further inquiries and advised me what medicines to
give, which I made up myself. At one time I had at least a dozen
patients, and I felt a keen interest in the work. My father, who
was by far the best judge of character whom I ever knew, declared
that I should make a successful physician,--meaning by this one
who would get many patients. He maintained that the chief
element of success was exciting confidence; but what he saw in me
which convinced him that I should create confidence I know not.
I also attended on two occasions the operating theatre in the
hospital at Edinburgh, and saw two very bad operations, one on a