Page:Transactions of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, volume 2.djvu/546

 of, medical hooks and works of general literature, which he found time to peruse in the evening. His reading, at this period, was very extensive. Large libraries were open to his eager curiosity, and he read on without regard to his health, laying, thus early, the foundation of inveterate dyspepsia, by which his frame became, at length, so much affected, as never quite to recover a state of perfect health. Should these pages be perused by some one who, like him at the time I speak of, is depriving himself of needful exercise and rest, with the exalted hope of mental distinction, let him think of the example held forth in this memoir, (for what student ever was moved by the precept itself,) and learn, that to sacrifice some time to repose, and some to relaxation, is really to gain time; and that to hope to get the start of mankind, by neglecting the suggestions of worn and irritated nerves, is a deceitful hope, which, with alluring sounds, has drawn aside a thousand aspiring spirits to destruction.

After a winter thus passed, Dr. Darwall returned, for a time, to Birmingham, and I can gather from his note-books, that he returned an enthusiastic and devoted student. The activity of his mind seems to have been exercised on a variety of subjects. His knowledge was increased, and his industry was not diminished. His notes of cases are continued. Several observations seem, about this time, to have been made by him on the diseases of work-people; and it is probable that, before he returned to Edinburgh, in the autumn of 1819, he had collected most of the materials for a paper on that subject, which