That which, above everything, we valued in the whole of Abernethy's lectures, was what can hardly be expressed otherwise than by the term, tone. With an absence of all affectation, with the infusion of all sorts of different qualities: with humour, hilarity, lively manner, sometimes rather broad illustrations, at other times, calm and philosophical, with all the character of deep thought and acute penetration; indignation at what was wrong or unfeeling, and pathos in relation to irremediable calamity; still the thing which surpassed all, was the feeling, with which he inoculated the pupils, of a high and conscientious calling. He had a way which excited enthusiasm without the pupil knowing why. We are often told by lecturers of the value of knowledge for various purposes—for increasing the power and wealth of the country—for multiplying the comforts and pleasures of society—for amassing fortunes, and for obtaining what the world usually means by the term distinction. But Abernethy created a feeling distinct from and superior to all mere utilitarian purposes. He made one feel the mission of a conscientious surgeon to be a high calling, and spurned, in manner as well as matter, the more trite and hackneyed modes of inculcating these things. You had no set essay, no long speeches. The _moral_ was like a golden thread artfully interwoven in a tissue to which it gives a diffusive lustre; which, pervading it everywhere, is obtrusive nowhere. For example, the condition attached to the performance of our lowest duties (operations), were, the well-ascertained inefficacy of our best powers directed to judicious treatment; the _crowning_ test—the conviction that, placed in the same circumstances, _we would have the same operation performed on ourselves_. Much of the suggestive lies in these directions. Our sympathies toward the victims of mistake or ignorance, excited by the relation of their sufferings, were heightened by the additional mention of any good quality the patient might have possessed, or advantage of which he might have been deprived; and thus that interest secured which a bare narration of the case might have failed to awaken. A father, who, in subservience to the worldly prospects of his son, placed him in a situation to which he was unequal, and thus forgot his first duty, the health of his offspring, was the "murderer" of his child. Another victim, we have seen, was as "brave a fellow as ever stepped," &c. Humanity and Science went hand in hand. His method of _discovering_ the nature of dislocations and fractures, by attention to the relative position of parts, was admirable; and few of his pupils, who have had much experience, have failed to prove the practical excellence of them. He repudiated nothing more than the too commonly regarded test, in fractures, of "grating, or crepitus." Nothing distinguished his examination of a case more than his gentleness, unless it was the clearness with which he delivered his opinion.