In 1836 Dr. Watson was appointed to the chair of the Principles and Practice of Medicine at King’s College, and in the ensuing winter delivered the first draught of those lectures on which his fame rests. They soon became well known, and they were printed weekly in the _Medical Gazette_ in 1840-2. Finally they were published in two volumes by Parker in 1844, and became acknowledged as medical classics. Mr. Parker showed a righteous liberality when their great sale had brought in a large sum, in granting the author two-thirds of the profits instead of one-half, as had been agreed, and handing him twelve hundred pounds as a first payment. Watson had already, in 1840, resigned his chair at King’s College rather than leave his old post at Middlesex Hospital, but in 1843 he was compelled by the increase of private practice to resign even this. Henceforward, especially after the retirement of Dr. Chambers in 1848, he was at the head of London practice for many years. He was not, however, appointed one of the Queen’s Physicians-Extraordinary till 1859; in 1861 he was called in to attend the Prince-Consort in his fatal illness, and in 1866 he was created a baronet, receiving in 1870 the further appointment of Physician-in-Ordinary to the Queen. The College of Physicians elected him President in 1862, an office he held for five years. From 1858 to 1860 he represented the College on the General Medical Council. In 1857-8 he was President of the Pathological Society, and he was in 1868 the first President of the Clinical Society. In 1859 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. Two quotations from Watson’s Introductory Lecture to his course will serve to indicate some of the qualities which have given his book such popularity. Referring to the study of anatomy and physiology, he says; “Do not think that I am wandering from my proper subject when I bid you to remember how profoundly interesting, how almost awful, is the study in itself and for its own sake, revealing, as it surely does, the inimitable workmanship of a Hand that is Divine. Do not lose or disregard that grand and astonishing lesson. Do not listen to those who may tell you not to look for the evidence of purpose in this field of study, that the visible mechanism of that intricate but marvellously perfect and harmonious work, the animal body—the numberless examples of means suited to ends, of fitness for a use, of even prospective arrangements to meet future needs, of direct provisions for happiness and enjoyment—that all these have no force at all, in true philosophy, as evidences of design. For my own part, I declare that I can no more avoid perceiving, with my mental vision, the evidential marks of purpose in the structure of the body, than I can help seeing with my open eyes, in broad daylight, the objects that stand before my face.”