Changing employment

In October 1834 I left Mr Cummins and entered as a student at the Westminster Hospital, under Surgeon Guthrie, who had a good reputation - he was present at Waterloo - and had written a book on gunshot wounds - on one occaion I was him operate on a boy for cleft palate - ether or chloroform were not known in those days - so he failed from the boys restlessness - I also attended lectures on medicine and jurisprudence by Dr Ryan - on botany by Dr Epps, the uncle of the present homeopathicocoa (?) Epps and surgery and anatomy by Mr MacDermot, a skilful anatomist. I have anatomical plates, from drawings from the dead body, taken in the dissecting room, while I was there more than fifty years ago - in those days medical students had the reputation of being a wild set and Albert Smith wrote a book called the adventures of Mr Ledbury describing all sorts of scenes real and imaginary in their lives - that educated young men love to show their dislike of restraint is proved by the disorderly scenes that take place in the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge - Edinburgh - Last year similar disorder took place in Melbourne, and the Governor Sir H. Lock declared it was the first and last time he would allow himself to preside at such scenes.

The medical students with whom I associated felt their responsibilities to their fathers and themselves - some from want of energy, retired from the contest - others were rejected for incompetency - but the majority pursuing a steady course, gained the object of their ambition, and passed some into the Army and Navy, others into country practice.