In October 1824 Owen matriculated at the University of Edinburgh. There, in addition to the courses that were obligatory, he attended the ‘outside’ lectures in comparative anatomy delivered by Dr John Barclay. From these he derived the greatest benefit, and used in after-years to speak of Barclay with affectionate regard, as ‘my revered preceptor.’ It is noteworthy that, while at Edinburgh, Owen and one of his friends founded a students’ society, which at his suggestion was called, by a sort of prophetic instinct, the Hunterian Society. Barclay must have decided very quickly that he had to do with no common pupil, for at the end of April 1825, when Owen had been barely six months in Edinburgh, he advised him to move to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, London, and study under Dr. Abernethy, then near the close of his brilliant but eccentric career. Armed with a letter of introduction from Barclay, Owen set out for London, where he had ‘literally not one single friend.’ No wonder that he felt ‘an indescribable sense of desolation’ as he walked up Holborn, and that ‘the number of strange faces that kept passing by increased that feeling.’ What happened next is very characteristic of the strange mixture of roughness and kindness which was natural to his new patron. ‘Abernethy had just finished lecturing, and was evidently in anything but the best of tempers, being surrounded by a small crowd of students waiting about to ask him questions. Owen was just screwing up his courage to attack this formidable personage and state his business, when Abernethy suddenly turned upon him and said: “And what do you want?” After presenting the letter Abernethy glanced at it for a moment, stuffed it into his pocket, and vouchsafed the gracious reply of “Oh!” As this did not seem to point to anything very definite, Owen was turning to go, when Abernethy called after him: “Here; come to breakfast to-morrow morning at eight,” and presenting him with his card, added, “That’s my address.” What were the terms in which Dr Barclay had spoken of him Owen never knew, but he thought they must have been favourable, for when he presented himself next morning at Abernethy’s residence, and was anticipating anything but an agreeable _tête-à-tête_ with the great doctor, he found him, to his surprise, considerably smoothed down and quite pleasant in his manner. The result of the meeting was that Abernethy offered him the post of prosector for his lectures’ (i. 30). A year later (August 18, 1826) Owen obtained the membership of the College of Surgeons, and set up as a medical practitioner in Carey Street, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, where he gradually obtained a small practice among lawyers.