From 1815 onward Syme attended the University of Edinburgh, taking both Arts and Science lectures at first. Incidentally, in the course of his chemical pursuits, he made an original discovery of the waterproofing process, and having first dissolved indiarubber, was able to construct flexible tubes of it, and to render various substances waterproof by brushing a thin solution of it into their interstices. Not to be diverted from his medical work, Syme declined to take out a patent, but published his method. Mr. Mackintosh of Glasgow soon after patented a process, and Syme gained no advantage from his discovery. Syme’s early friendship with Liston led him to enter Barclay’s Extra-Academical classes in the winter of 1817-18. In the next winter, however, Syme followed Liston when he started on his own account, and assisted him in demonstrating from the beginning. He perseveringly continued studying, and in 1822 went to Paris to improve himself both in anatomy and operative surgery, gaining especial advantage from Lisfranc’s and from Dupuytren’s operations and instructions. While demonstrating for Liston, Syme was pursuing his medical studies at the Royal Infirmary and elsewhere, and became impressed with the unwisdom of the repeated and severe blood-letting then in vogue. In 1823, having become a qualified surgeon, and entering into practice in Edinburgh, Syme performed his first striking operation—one which he himself designated as “the greatest and bloodiest in surgery”—namely, amputation at the hip-joint. Its success was an earnest of his future triumphs. In the same year Liston retired from teaching anatomy to devote himself entirely to surgery, and Syme occupied his place. The summer of 1824 was spent in studying surgery as practised in Germany. The same year a coldness which had been growing between Liston and Syme caused the withdrawal of the latter from association with Liston, and his starting a new school in Brown Square in partnership with Dr. Mackintosh. Here Syme taught anatomy and surgery, Dr. Mackintosh medicine and midwifery, and Dr. Fletcher physiology. The class in surgery numbered as many as fifty students. But the difficulties and scandals attending the due supply of subjects for dissection gradually disgusted Syme with the anatomical part of his work, and a quarrel with Dr. Mackintosh finally led to his quitting the Brown Square school, and devoting himself entirely to surgery. This was a bold stroke, seeing that he had four or five formidable competitors in Edinburgh, including Liston, Lizars, and Fergusson (afterwards Sir William). Yet so strikingly was he justified by the event, that in 1828-9 his class increased to 250, the largest ever assembled by any teacher of pure surgery in Edinburgh. Practice had been flowing in upon him, stimulated in 1826 by an important paper on the treatment of wounds, in which he insisted on the importance of providing a free outlet for all