Page:Transactions of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, volume 2.djvu/558

 ardour, that he made extraordinary sacrifices of personal comfort in its prosecution.”

He was so rigidly punctual in the daily exercise of the duties of his profession, that it was almost impossible to persuade him to leave home even for part of a day. Yet the wish to be better acquainted with some of the practitioners of the Metropolis, and some interest felt in the success of a medical association which was then contemplated, led him, with myself, to pay a visit, of nearly a week, to London, in the latter part of 1824; and the journey now forms an interesting fragment of my recollections of him.

The business of the projected association (the plan of which never became fully organized) caused us to pass an evening at Dr. Birkbeck's house, in the company of that eminent person, and many of his medical friends. Those who have witnessed, as it has since often been my privilege to do, the intellectual reunions at the house of that truly philosophical physician, will know that there is a charm about them which it would be vain to attempt to describe. My friend Dr. Darwall was animated and happy: and our conversation was of medicine; and of Edinburgh days; and of those medical reforms which, then almost hopeless, seem, at length, to have forced their way to general consideration.

One well-remembered day, also, we passed with Mr. Abernethy; experiencing, from that remarkable man, all the kindness which he vouchsafed to all who visited him as friends; and delighted, as we could not fail to be, by the variety, the force, the vivacity, and the elegance of his conversation. In the hurry