Memoirs of John Abernethy, F R S

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Such opportunities were not lost on Abernethy. He soon became possessed of what was known in the ordinary business of anatomy and surgery. His diligence, too, had afforded him an opportunity of testing those powers of communicating what he knew, to which I have just alluded. As an apprentice of a surgeon...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Such opportunities were not lost on Abernethy. He soon became possessed of what was known in the ordinary business of anatomy and surgery. His diligence, too, had afforded him an opportunity of testing those powers of communicating what he knew, to which I have just alluded. As an apprentice of a surgeon of Bartholomew's, his views were directed in that hospital; and it was not long before the resignation of Mr. Pott, and the appointment of Sir Charles Blicke, who was assistant surgeon, to succeed him, opened to Aber- nethy an arena in which he might further mature that capacity for teaching his profession, which had been, as we learn from his own testimony, an early object of his ambition, and for which he had already begun to educate himself at the London Hospital. CHAPTER V. Terra salutiferas herhas eademque nocentes Nutrit, et urticae proxima seepe rosa est.?Ovid. A Large London hospital (if we may be excused the Hibernianisrn, as Mr. Abernethy used to call it) is a Jarge microcosm. There is little in human nature of which an observant eye may not here find types or realities. Hopes and fears, joys and sorrows, solace and suffering, are here strangely intermingled. General benevolence with special exceptions. There is no human good without its shadow of evil; even the benevolent must take care. Impatient sensibility is much nearer a heartless indifference than people generally imagine. The rose Charity must take care of the nettle Temper. The man who is chary or chafedin yielding that sympathy which philosophy and feeling require, must beware lest he degenerate into a brute. One of the brightest points in Abernethy's character was that, however he might sometimes forget the courtesy due to his private patients, he was never unkind to those whom charity had confid...