It was about this time, we think, that he began to have more enlarged ideas of the nature and objects of surgical science; a state of mind calculated to enable him to thoroughly understand and appreciate Mr. Hunter, and to deduce from the principles which he was shadowing forth, those relations and consequences which we shall endeavour popularly to explain; principles which, though originally directed to the treatment of so-called surgical maladies, were found equally to affect the practice of medicine. [Footnote 11: "How happens it, Mæcenas, that no one is content with his condition, whether reason gave it him, or chance threw it in his way?"] [Footnote 12: The assistant-surgeons at that period having no _in_-patients under their care, except in the absence, or by permission, of their chiefs.] [Footnote 13: A public journalist was inclined to give this anecdote to another person. We then stated that we had it on the authority of a gentleman who was present. Such power of memory, though _rare_, is not _singular_; other examples have fallen within our own observation.] CHAPTER IV. "There is not a more pleasing exercise of the mind than gratitude. Were there no positive command which enjoined it, nor any recompense laid up for it hereafter, a generous mind would indulge in it, for the natural gratification which accompanies it."—ADDISON. Sir William Blizard was an eminent surgeon and an enthusiastic student of the profession, as studied in his day. He had a certain bluntness of manner, which was not unkind neither. He was very straightforward, which Abernethy liked; and he had nothing of a mercenary disposition, which Abernethy held in abhorrence. He was a kind of man very likely to excite in one of Abernethy's tone of mind many agreeable impressions. He early perceived the talents, and was probably the first to encourage the industry, of his distinguished pupil. Enthusiastic himself, he had the power of communicating a similar feeling to many of his pupils; and he appears to have contributed one of those impulses to Abernethy which are from time to time necessary to sustain the pursuit of an arduous profession. Some men seem to like anatomy for its own sake; examinations of structure merely, by dissection, or the microscope, have a kind of intrinsic charm for them. This was not the case with Abernethy. _Mere_ anatomy had few charms for him. He regarded it in its true light, as a means to an end; as the basis on which he could alone found, not only the more common or handicraft duties of surgery, but also those higher views which aim at developing the uses and relations of the various organs; and in this way to ascertain what the processes of nature are in the preservation of health and the _conduct of disease_; in short, a knowledge of what he called physio-pathology.