Abernethy resigned his professorship at the College of Surgeons in 1817, and was gratified by a resolution sent to him, thanking him for the distinguished energy and perspicuity which had characterised his lectures. This resignation, however, was not sufficient relief to his overstrained system, which was now often tormented with rheumatism. He took insufficient care of himself, would walk down from Bedford Row to the hospital in knee-breeches and silk stockings when it was raining, without a thought of protecting himself from a drenching. With very cold feet he would stand opposite one of the flue openings in the museum, and this with other imprudences gradually sapped his strength. At the age of sixty, according to the plan he had suggested and strongly advocated, he resigned his appointment as surgeon, but the governors would not accept it. He was persuaded to remain in office some time longer, but finally resigned on July 24, 1827. The succeeding winter was the last in which he lectured, and in 1829 he gave up his examinership at the College of Surgeons. He had now become very lame, thin and old-looking. His eye retained its expressiveness, but showed evidences of the continual pain he suffered. He died on the 20th April 1831, quite worn out, but conscious to the last: he was buried in the parish church of Enfield. Thus early, like John Hunter, died one of his pupils, who, in the words of the Duke of Sussex at the anniversary meeting of the Royal Society in 1831, appears the most completely to have caught the bold and philosophical spirit of his great master. FOOTNOTES: [17] Life of Sir Astley Cooper, i. 334-448. [18] Memoirs of John Abernethy. CHAPTER VIII. _SIR CHARLES BELL AND THE FUNCTIONS OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM._ It will have been gathered that scientific medicine and surgery were as yet scarcely in a condition to begin. After the discovery of the circulation of the blood physiological research seemed to halt, waiting on anatomy. It now took an immense and decided leap forward.