when he rudely exclaimed, “I don’t want to see your knee, ma’am! allow me,” and pressed his fist with force against her stomach. She of course cried out, and he of course attributed her disorder to her stomach. Nevertheless she recovered without medicine, by strictly local treatment of the knee, under Dr. Pettigrew. In all Abernethy’s writings there was manifested a lack of good arrangement which contrasts strikingly with his excellence as a lecturer: but in the latter capacity his audience was always before him, and he could see and test the suitability of his matter. Education had not furnished him with real literary training, and his aptness of expression and his wit do not appear to striking advantage in his written works. Abernethy was married on the 9th January 1800 to Miss Anne Threlfall, whom he had met at a house to which he had been professionally called in. His courtship was brief; his proposals were made by letter; he characteristically deprecated too much “dangling,” gave the lady a fortnight to consider her reply; and was successful. Not for one day did he interrupt his hospital lectures. In 1815, after twenty-eight years’ tenure of the office of assistant-surgeon, Abernethy became full surgeon on the retirement of his old master, Sir Charles Blicke. He made the appointment the occasion for publishing a pamphlet on the evils attending the prolonged tenure of office by old surgeons. He himself had lectured for twenty-eight years, and been largely influential in filling the hospital with students, from whose hospital fees he received nothing whatever. About the time of his succession to the surgeoncy he took a house at Enfield, to which he resorted on Saturdays, gladly quitting his own house in Bedford Row for a quiet country ride. In the summer he would retire to Enfield on most evenings. This tended very much to the benefit of his fidgety nervous system. From early life his heart had been particularly irritable, causing him frequent suffering. A wound which he accidentally gave himself in dissecting at one time caused him such a severe illness that it was three years before he had recovered from its effects, which appeared in very varied forms. It must be acknowledged, too, that he was not as moderate in eating as he exhorted his patients to be. He frequently was attacked by inflammatory sore-throat, terminating in abscess.