In 1821 Graves returned to Dublin, and at once took a leading position. Dr. Stokes, for a short time his pupil, and his lifelong friend, says of him at this time: “Nature had been bountiful to him: he was tall in stature, of dark complexion, and with noble and expressive features. In conversation he possessed a power rarely met with; for while he had the faculty of displaying an accurate and singularly varied knowledge without a shade of egotism, he was able to correct error without an approach to offence. He had at once a warm and a sensitive heart, and ever showed lasting and therefore genuine gratitude for the smallest kindness. Loving truth for its own sake, he held in unconcealed abhorrence all attempts to sully or distort it; and he never withheld or withdrew his friendship from any, even those below him in education and social rank, if he found in them the qualities which he loved, and which he never omitted to honour.” “It is to be observed that as his mind was open and unsuspicious, he occasionally fell into the error of thinking aloud without considering the nature of his audience, and of letting his wit play more freely, and his sarcasm, when defending the right, cut more deeply than caution might dictate.” During the year 1821 Graves was elected physician to the Meath Hospital, and also became one of the founders of the Park Street School of Medicine. At this time clinical investigation and clinical teaching could scarcely be said to exist, and the pathological studies of other schools were rather held in contempt. The methods in vogue in Edinburgh had not impressed Graves favourably. Students were not then regularly called upon to investigate cases for themselves, nor trained in so doing: they might obtain their degree without having ever practised diagnosis or co-operated in curing disease even to the extent of writing a prescription. “Often have I regretted,” said Graves in his introductory lecture at the Meath Hospital in 1821, “that, under the present system, experience is only to be acquired at a considerable expense of human life. There is, indeed, no concealing the truth—the melancholy truth, that numbers of lives are annually lost in consequence of maltreatment. The victims selected for this sacrifice at the shrine of experience, generally belong to the poorer classes of society, and their immolation is never long delayed when a successful candidate for a dispensary commences the discharge of his duty. The rich, however, do not always escape; nor is the possession of wealth in every instance a safeguard against the blunders of inexperience.” After commenting on the evil effects of ignorant dogmatism in those of riper years, Dr. Graves went on to expound the plan of Continental clinical instruction. He then alluded to the coarse, harsh, and even vulgar expressions made use of towards hospital patients by Irish medical men of the day, insisting on the necessity of reform in this respect.