Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 5.djvu/102

162 gratification than the pleasure of enjoying her society. "The expenses of his pursuits," says Sir Everard Home, " had been so great, that it was not for some years after his first engagement with this lady, that his affairs could be sufficiently arranged to admit of his marriage. This happy period at length arrived, and he was married to Miss Home in 1771."

"Whilst he was paying," continues Sir Everard, " his addresses to my sister, I was a boy at Westminster school. During the holidays I came home, and Mr Hunter, who was frequently there, always showed me particular kindness; he made my father an offer to bring me up to his profession, a proposal which I readily accepted. I was struck with the novelty and extent of his researches, had the highest respect and admiration for his talents, and was ambitious to tread the paths of science under so able a master."

The year after his marriage, at the request of Sir John Pringle, he read to the Royal Society a communication showing that after death the gastric juice has the power of dissolving the coats of the stomach. This paper he was persuaded to read to the society, before he had entirely completed the investigations which he further meditated; but it appears that he did not afterwards return to the subject, considering that the fact on which any further inquiries might be formed had been sufficiently demonstrated.

In the winter of 1773, he formed a plan for giving a course of lectures on the theory and principles of surgery, with the view of vindicating his own principles, which he frequently heard misquoted or ascribed to others, and of teaching them systematically. The first two winters, he read his lectures gratis to the pupils of St George's hospital, and the winter following charged the usual terms of other teachers in medicine and surgery. " For this, or for continuing them," says one of his biographers, " there could be no pecuniary motive. As he was under the necessity of hiring a room and lecturing by candle light, his emoluments must have been trifling. The lectures not being considered a part of medical education, his class was usually small; and of the few that heard him, the greater part acknowledged their difficulty in understanding him, which was often proved by their incapacity of keeping up their attention. The task itself was so formidable to him, that he was obliged to take thirty drops of laudanum before he entered the theatre at the beginning of each course. Yet he certainly felt great delight in finding himself understood, always waiting at the close of each lecture to ansAver any questions; and evincing evident satisfaction when those questions were pertinent, and he perceived that his answers were satisfactory and intelligible." In addition to this, Sir Everard Home, after stating the fact of his having recourse to laudanum the elixir vitas of the opium eater 'to take off the effects of uneasiness," adds, " he trusted nothing to memory and made me draw up a short abstract of each lecture, which he read on the following evening, as a recapitulation to connect the subjects in the minds of the students." Amidst all his avocations, both as a lecturer and practitioner, he still pursued with an unabated zeal and industry his researches into comparative anatomy. No opportunity for extending his knowledge on this interesting department of science did he permit to escape him. In the year 1773, at the request of Mr Walsh, he dissected the torpedo, and laid before the Royal Society an account of its electrical organs. A young elephant which had been presented to the queen by Sir Robert Barker, and died, afforded him an opportunity of examining the structure of that animal; after which two other elephants in the queen's menagerie likewise died, which he also carefully dissected. The year following, 1774, he published in the Philosophical Transactions an account of certain receptacles of air in birds, showing how these communicate with the lungs and are lodged in the fleshy parts, and in the bones of these animals; likewise