Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 23.djvu/58



In 1824 he became professor of anatomy at the College of Surgeons, in which office he delivered four annual courses of twelve lectures on comparative anatomy. According to Owen, these were the first survey of the animal kingdom given with sufficient illustrations in lectures in this country, the German text-book of Carus being the acknowledged basis. In 1825 he was elected into the Royal Society (he wrote no original memoirs except an unimportant piece in 'Med.- Chir. Trans.' xii. 46). In the same year he became professor of anatomy to the Royal Academy, then located at Somerset House, where he gave six lectures a year (with extra instruction) on anatomy in its relation to the fine arts; two of his lectures (on 'Beauty' and on 'Expression') were published in the 'Athenæum,' 16 and 23 Dec. 1843. He retired from this office in 1852. From 1818 he had shared the lectureship first on anatomy and then on surgery at St. Thomas's with Sir Astley Cooper, who retired in 1825, and wished to assign his share of the lectures to his two nephews, Bransby Cooper and Aston Key. Green, who had paid Cooper 1,000l. for his own half share, acquiesced, but the hospital authorities did not, whereupon Sir Astley started lectures in connection with Guy's Hospital, which had up to that time sent its pupils to the medical school of St. Thomas's. The claims made by the Cooper family to one half of the museum led to a quarrel. Green's part in it was a bulky pamphlet ('Letter to Sir Astley Cooper on the Establishment of an Anatomical and Surgical School at Guy's Hospital,' London, 1825), which stated the legal case acutely, while it kept the way open for future friendly relations between him and Messrs. B. Cooper and Key. On the establishment of King's College in 1830, Green accepted the chair of surgery. He had high repute as an operator, especially in lithotomy, for which he always used Cline's gorget. He published, chiefly in the 'Lancet,' a large number of lectures, clinical comments, and cases. In 1832 he gave the opening address (published) of the winter session, taking as his subject the functions or duties of the professions of divinity, law, and medicine according to Coleridge.

Green had now for fifteen years been a disciple of the Highgate philosopher; even when his time was most occupied with a large private practice and his hospital duties (from 1824 onwards), he spent with Coleridge much time in private talk. In his 'Poetical Works,' Coleridge inserted two indifferent pieces of verse by Green (Pickering's ed. of 1847, vol. ii.), 'being anxious to associate the name of a most dear and honoured friend with my own.' It was arranged between them that Green was to be his literary executor, and he was so named in Coleridge's will. He was to dispose of manuscripts and books for the benefit of the family; but as many of the books (with annotations) would be necessary for the carrying out of another part of Green's executory duties, namely the publication of a system of Coleridgean philosophy, Green was enjoined, in so many words, to purchase the books himself, which he did. They are now widely dispersed, about a fourth of them being in the British Museum, a large number in the possession of Coleridge's descendants, and many others in private hands, both here and in the United States [see under ]. On being accused in 1854 by C. M. Ingleby in 'Notes and Queries' (1st ser. ix. 497) of withholding from publication important treatises which Coleridge had left more or less ready for the press, Green wrote (ib. 1st ser. ix. 543) to explain what it was that he held in trust from Coleridge. In the same year that Coleridge died (1834), Green's father also died and left him a large fortune. Accepting Coleridge's legacy of his ideas as 'an obligation to devote, so far as necessary, the whole remaining strength and earnestness of his life to the one task of systematising, developing, and establishing the doctrines of the Coleridgean philosophy', Green in 1836 threw up his private practice in Lincoln's Inn Fields, and lived for the rest of his life at The Mount, Hadley, near Barnet. He resigned also in 1837 his chair at King's College, but retained for seventeen years longer (until 1852) the surgeoncy to St. Thomas's Hospital, and a share of the lectures on surgery for part of that time. In 1835 the council of the College of Surgeons had chosen him for life into their body; he was elected a member of the court of examiners in 1846 (also a life appointment), and twice filled the office of president of the college (1849-50 and 1858-9). In the college councils he advocated reforms on a 'paternal' basis; the amended constitution of 1843, providing for a new class of fellows and the election of the council by the fellows, was in accord with his views published in a pamphlet in 1841 ('The Touchstone of Medical Reform'). He had already published two pamphlets on medical education and reform: 'Distinction without Separation: a Letter on the Present State of the Profession,' 1831, and 'Suggestions respecting Medical Reform,' 1834. As Hunterian orator at the college in 1841 he gave before a distinguished audience an address, eloquent, but difficult to