and excited an uncommon ardour, instead of that desponding inactivity so natural to depressed circumstances. Nor was he less delicate in the manner of supplying their wants: he often found out some polite excuse for refusing to take money for a first course, and never was at a loss for one to an after course. Sometimes (as his lectures were never written) he would request the favour of a sight of their notes, if he knew that they were taken with care, in order to refresh his memory. Sometimes he would express a wish to have their opinion of a particular part of his course, and presented them with a ticket for the purpose. By such delicate pieces of address, in which he greatly excelled, he took care to anticipate their wants. Thus he not only gave them the benefit of his own lectures, but by refusing to take money enabled them to attend such others as were necessary for completing their course of medical study. He introduced another general rule into the university dictated by the same spirit of disinterested benevolence. Before he came to Edinburgh, it was the custom of the medical professors to accept of fees for their medical attendance when wanted, even from medical students themselves, though they were perhaps attending the professor’s lectures at the time. But Dr. Cullen never would take a fee from any student of the university, though he attended them, when called on as a physician, with the same assiduity and care as if they had been persons of the first rank who paid him most liberally. This gradually led others to follow his example; and it has now become a general rule for medical professors to decline taking any fees when their assistance is necessary to a student. For this useful reform, as well as for many others, the students in the University of Edinburgh are entirely indebted to Dr. Cullen. The first lectures which Dr. Cullen delivered in Edinburgh were on chemistry; and for many years he also gave lectures on the cases that occurred in the infirmary. In the month of February, 1763, Dr. Alston died, after having begun his usual course of lectures on the materia medica. The magistrates of Edinburgh, who are the patrons of the university, appointed Dr. Cullen to that chair, requesting that he would finish the course of lectures that had been begun by his predecessor. This he agreed to do, and, though he had only a few days to prepare himself, he never once thought of reading the lectures of his predecessor, but resolved to deliver a new course, which should be entirely his own. Some idea may be formed of the popularity of Cullen, by the increase of students to a class nearly half finished: Dr. Alston had been lecturing to ten; as soon as Dr. Cullen began, a hundred new students enrolled themselves.