Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 9.djvu/245

Rh months of each year, to give instructions daily in the dissecting-room from nine in the morning till four in the afternoon; and as some time was necessary for rest after such fatiguing labours, he generally commenced his private studies late in the evening, and continued them till long after midnight, declaring that he always found himself fittest for work when other people were going to their beds. He also attended, on the evenings of the six months of winter, the meetings of the scientific societies in Edinburgh connected with his profession, where the discussions were of such an interesting character as to attract the intellectual of every class, either as members or auditors. At this time, also, he gave the fruits of some of his more diligent investigations in the form of essays read before these societies, which were published in 1835. Two of these were on certain curious structures observed in connection with the veins; a third was on the organization of certain glands in the whale, and some peculiarities in the internal arrangement of the blood-vessels of man during the period of juvenility. But amidst all this heroism of labour and research, we must confess that with Dr. Reid one important subject had been, and still continued to be omitted. On one occasion, a discussion among some of his medical friends who had met in his apartment was carried on, in which a religious question was involved, and Scripture was appealed to as conclusive evidence. But on searching his well-stored library for a Bible to quote chapter and verse, none could at first be found; and it was only after careful rummaging, that at length this most momentous of all volumes was found thrust behind the other books, and covered with dust. He was at present labouring for distinction, and had no time to study it; by and by, when the prize was won, he would again read his Bible, as he had done when he was a boy. It is well that this indifference, lately so common among intellectual men, is now regarded not only as profane, but even unliterary, and in bad taste. It was well, also, for Reid, that that "more convenient season," which so many have expected in vain, was vouchsafed to him at last.

In consequence of the high reputation which Dr. Reid had acquired as the anatomical demonstrator of Old Surgeons' Hall during three years' attendance, he was unanimously called, by his brethren of Edinburgh, to occupy a more honourable and important office. It was that of lecturer on physiology in the Extra-Academical Medical School, now left vacant by the death of Dr. Fletcher, author of the "Rudiments of Physiology." Into this new sphere he removed with considerable reluctance, for he was diffident of his powers as a lecturer, which were still untried. His perseverance, however, not only overcame his timidity, but enabled him to become as distinguished in the oratorical as he had formerly been in the conversational form of instruction. He now also had more leisure for self-improvement, as his course for the year commenced in November, and terminated with the close of April. In 1838 he was appointed pathologist to the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, where his duties consisted in collecting the weekly statistics of the institution, and conducting the post-mortem examinations of the patients who had died in the hospital; and in the following year, he was also appointed superintendent of the infirmary. In this last capacity, we are told in the a Monthly Journal of Medical Science," "he carried into his inquiries concerning morbid anatomy and pathology, the same accuracy in observing facts, and the same cautious spirit in drawing inferences from them, that characterized his anatomical and physiological researches. He at once saw the necessity of making his position serviceable to the advancement