The _Lancet_ said of him, “It is true praise of Sir Benjamin Brodie to say, that he was more distinguished as a physician-surgeon than as an operating-surgeon. His vocation was more to heal limbs than to remove them. His imagination had never been dazzled by the brilliancy of the knife, to any great operative display. He was, however, always a most steady and successful operator: lightness of hand, caution without timidity, never-failing coolness, and fertility of resources, were his distinguishing characteristics. He made no secret of his opinion, that the operative part of surgery was not its highest part. Diagnosis had always been his great strength, and his opinion was, therefore, always deeply valued by the profession and the public. We believe his heart was with hospital, rather than private practice, but in almost all cases men are more fond of their early occupations than of those which come afterwards. As a teacher, he was always distinguished for the value of the matter he had to communicate. Those who heard him in the early part of his career say that he was then energetic rather than polished; that he appeared to struggle with the weight and mass of facts he had stored up in his mind. But, in later years, his delivery was fluent and perfect. No man in his profession could deliver himself more readily or more elegantly than Sir Benjamin Brodie.” Dr. Babington, President of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society, thus characterised Brodie:—“As a practical surgeon Sir Benjamin Brodie attained a success far beyond that of most of his contemporaries, and this he seems to have owed, not to personal appearance or manner, not to eccentricity, not to an unusual degree of courtesy on the one hand, or of bluntness or brusquery on the other, but to the legitimate influence of a high order of intellect, thoroughly devoted to the practical application of the stores of surgical knowledge acquired by his assiduity and experience—to the sound, well-considered, and decided opinions which his patients were sure to obtain from him, and to the confidence which his high religious principles and his strict morality inspired.... For myself, I can only say that I never knew a more single-minded and upright character, one more free from affectation or presumption, who expected less deference or deserved more, or who more completely impressed me with a belief that the main object of his efforts, that which was always uppermost on his mind, was, wholly irrespective of self, to benefit those by whom he was consulted.”