Amidst death-like stillness, Abernethy quietly concluded: “I hope you will never forget the course of the axillary artery.” It has been, we believe, a somewhat general impression, that Abernethy as a lecturer indulged in tricks or extraordinary gesticulations. But this is by no means correct. There was a method in every item of his procedure, and all he aimed at was to impress upon the students’ minds in the most forcible and abiding way the ideas he wished to convey. He gained, it is said, the appearance of perfect ease without the slightest presumption; and had no offensive tricks. Macilwain, who was his pupil at his best period, says: “The expression of his countenance was in the highest degree clear, penetrative, and intellectual; and his long but not neglected powdered hair, which covered both ears, gave altogether a philosophic calmness to his whole expression that was peculiarly pleasing. Then came a sort of little smile, which mantled over the whole face, and lighted it up with something which we cannot define, but which seemed a compound of mirth, archness, and benevolence.... There was a sort of running metaphor in his language, which, aided by a certain quaintness of manner, made common things go very amusingly. Muscles which pursued the same course to a certain point, were said to travel sociably together, and then to _part company_. Blood-vessels and nerves had certain habits in their mode of distribution, contrasted in this way; arteries were said to _creep_ along the sides of or between muscles: nerves, on the contrary, were represented as penetrating their substance _without ceremony_.... He was particularly happy in a kind of cosiness or friendliness of manner which seemed to identify him with his audience; as if we were all about to investigate something interesting _together_, and not as if we were going to be ‘lectured’ at at all. He spoke as if addressing each individual, and his discourse, like a happy portrait, always seemed to be looking you in the face.”