A little later his intense intellectual labours, combined with the deep sense he now and ever after entertained of the wrongs to which women were subjected, brought him into a state of mind in which he resolved to run away to sea. His intention being discovered, his father consulted a doctor about him, who wisely advised that he should enter the medical profession, as being more fitted to give scope for his mental powers. He was consequently entered at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital at the age of twenty. He was able to perform his entire course of medical study with very great rapidity, and before taking his diploma went on a voyage to China and back as surgeon of a passenger ship. On his return in 1847 be became a member of the College of Surgeons, and settled for a time as a surgeon’s assistant at Newport in Essex. He did not remain here long, but in the autumn of 1847 took the position of surgeon to a shipload of freed slaves who were to be shipped by voluntary agreement from Sierra Leone to Jamaica. He remained for more than a year after this in Jamaica, taking the practice of a medical man in ill-health, and looking after the progress of his late charges. In 1849-50 he travelled homewards by way of New Orleans, where he gained further insight into the slavery question. In 1850 he entered into partnership with a Mr. Fisher, a surgeon in general practice in Bartholomew Close; and became engaged to Miss Margaret Haddon, after an attachment of ten years. In August 1850 we find the first note of his success in aural surgery; he cured his mother’s deafness by a syringing properly performed. Some other cases of success followed this, and were very cheering. Soon after this he was introduced to Mr. Toynbee, and spent much time with him both at St. Mary’s Hospital and privately. Yet he did not find anything in practice large enough to satisfy his aspirations. “Too many things crowd upon me; none _commands_ me,” he writes March 1851. “The thing which shall fill my heart must be not for myself but for others. To be contented I must toil not for comfort, nor money, nor for fame, nor for love, but for truth and righteousness.” In 1852 Hinton’s marriage with Miss Haddon took place, one of singularly deep affection. He was now in practice for himself, finding general practice not very profitable, especially as he would not condescend to use arts to obtain success. He continued his study of aural surgery, and assisted Mr. Toynbee largely in the classification of his museum, already alluded to.