many misgivings has left his surgery at
Islington or Hackney, in charge of the new
apprentice; the West End ditto who drives
up to the lecture-room in his trim gig, secure
in the certainty that nobody will want him,
because "nobody's in town yet;" and the
easy dignified possessor of the prizes of medical
life, a handsome equipage, and four or five
thousands a year, the proceeds of aristocratic
practice. All these varieties of the medical
genus are drawn together by the subtle
influence of this medical day. Not all into one
party or one building, because the medical
schools of the Metropolis are about a dozen
in number; and each school has its set. But
still they do congregate, as those who are
curious about the matter may prove on any
first of October, on any year hereafter.

The introductory lectures are the great signal
for assembling; and of these there were
delivered on the first of October just past, no less
than a dozen. The discourses vary in character,
of course; partly under the influence of the
locality where delivered; partly in obedience
to the calibre of the lecturer; and partly by
the circumstances of the institution in which
they are given in. Each large London
hospital has its medical school; but the hospitals
are very differently circumstanced in other
respects. Two of them, Guy's and Bartholomew's,
are enormously rich, having revenues
told in tens of thousands a year arising from
landed and other property, and they are therefore
entirely independent of public subscriptions.
Not many years ago, Guy's Hospital, very
wealthy before, received, in one legacy left by
a Mr. Hunt, two hundred thousand pounds!
Bartholomew's enjoys the rents of houses in
important City streets yearly rising in value.
St. Thomas's Hospital has likewise extensive
property; Middlesex Hospital enjoys endowments,
particularly one of considerable
extent, for the support of a ward for the
reception and maintenance of unfortunate people
afflicted with cancer. University College has
recently been blessed by many handsome
legacies; and St. George's, and Westminster,
and the London, have incomes arising from
independent property. The rents of the last
three, however, are not to be compared with
those of the huge institutions of the Borough
and Smithfield; and they are compelled,
therefore, to rely partly upon the means of
support which their still less fortunate
compeers at Charing Cross, the Gray's Inn Road,
and King's College, have almost wholly to
rely upon–––the voluntary subscriptions of the
charitable section of the public. The first of
October in some respects varies in its aspects
at these different places. At Bartholomew's,
for instance, the audience numbers five or six
hundred, or even more; because, after the
lecture, the noble hall of that establishment
is thrown open for a soiree, in which brilliant
lights, abundant refreshments, servants, and
a full assembly of medical dons, add many of
the attractions of an evening party to those
of a friendly scientific conclave, whilst poorer
institutions can only offer the less sensual
attractions of a discourse on science, and a
friendly greeting.

The mental calibre of the various lecturers
differs amazingly. Some of them have no
higher notion for an "introductory" than a
history of medicine, dug up bodily from an
ancient edition of "Rees's Cyclopaedia." When
a teacher of this sort begins his harangue, the
older hands among his audience look suspicious
and uneasy. They know what is coming
the old threadbare story they have often slept
over before about "Hippocrates, the father of
Medicine,"–––"the errors of the early writers,"
–––"the immortal labours of Vesalius,"–––with
a grand climax about the equally immortal
John Hunter, and the blessing the students
experience in being allowed to follow in the
footsteps of that physiological genius. Another
almost equally set form for an opening
discourse, is when the lecturer thinks it "best
to open the dawning session with a rapid
glance over what has been done for science
since we last met,"–––appending a variety of
incidental remarks upon men and hospitals
at home and abroad; said remarks being
invariably laudatory both of doctors in general
and of medical institutions in particular. This
style is deservedly more popular than the
chapter from the Cyclopaedia. A third
species of discourse takes the sermonising form,
and lectures "the young gentlemen we see
assembled around us" upon the conduct
most proper to be pursued during their career
as students–––prescribes a close attention to
books and lectures, and undeviating attention
"at the bedside" in the hospital.

The class of lecturers who adopt this mode
are always favourably received if the good
advice is supported by the career of the man
who gives it, and if he speaks with sincerity
and cleverness; but is pooh-poohed, very
sincerely, if the speaker is a dummy, or his
practice is known not to be in accordance
with his precept. The most popular medical
speechification of all, however, is that–––not
very often to be heard–––of the eminently
successful man who comes from the intensely
busy life of full practice, fairly and honourably
won, to speak of the opening career of
the students whom the first of October calls
together. Allowing the occasion to carry his
thoughts back to the day when he himself
was a young seeker for medical knowledge,
such a teacher, feeling young again, lets his
feelings out; and, in the confession of his
own old thoughts, struggles and final
successes, foreshadows what may be the life
of any one of the hundreds who listen. The
first sanguine anticipations; the growing
difficulties; the disappointments; the crushing
influence of the day when he is first driven
to believe that finesse and quackery are
constantly reaping the rewards that his sense
of right suggests should be the prize of worth,
honesty, and science. The struggle with ignorance