“His principle in practice was, never to suffer any who consulted him to quit him without giving them satisfaction on the nature and proper treatment of their case.”
Finally, he says, what is a fitting close to this narrative of his career, “My own success depended upon my zeal and industry; but for this I take no credit, as it was given to me from above.”
Another pupil of John Hunter, a man of very different mould, in several respects more akin to the master than Sir Astley, now claims our attention. Unlike many of the great men whose achievements we have recorded, John Abernethy was born in London, in the parish of St. Stephen’s, Coleman Street, on the 3d of April 1764. He was the second son of John Abernethy, merchant, descended from an Irish-Scotch family which had furnished more than one noted man to the Protestant dissenting ministry in Ireland. While very young he was sent to the Wolverhampton Grammar School under Dr. Robertson. Here he was reputed studious and clever, but was evidently passionate as well as humorous. The severe discipline common at that time does not seem to have worked very well with Abernethy, for he came out of it more excitable and impatient than he had been previously. School days were over at fourteen, however, and at fifteen the youth was apprenticed to Mr., afterwards Sir Charles, Blicke, his father’s neighbour in Mildred’s Court, one of the surgeons to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. His own desire was to enter the legal profession, in which his fine memory would have rendered him important service; but his father did not agree with this choice, and the medical profession was selected. His master was an empiric; but Abernethy early determined to get to the bottom of things as far as possible, and engaged in investigations on his own account. The bent of his mind towards treatment by diet is shown by the following statement. “When I was a boy,” he said, “I half ruined myself in buying oranges and other things, to ascertain the effects of different kinds of diet in this disease” (of the kidney).
Abernethy’s interest in anatomy and surgery was first effectively stimulated by Sir William Blizard, who lectured at the London Hospital, and he warmly acknowledged this in his introductory lecture at the College of Surgeons in 1814, when he succeeded Sir William as professor. He was soon selected to dissect for Sir William’s lectures; he derived much benefit from Pott’s surgical lectures at St. Bartholomew’s, and from Dr. Marshall’s lectures in Holborn; but was most powerfully influenced by John Hunter, who noted him among his most intelligent pupils. The opportunity of becoming an assistant-surgeon, being reserved to apprentices of the surgeons to St. Bartholomew’s, came early to Abernethy, for his master’s promotion to the surgeoncy led to his election as assistant-surgeon in July 15, 1787, when only twenty-three years old, by a majority of fifty-three to twenty-nine votes. But he was under the necessity, owing to his senior’s remaining so long in office, of continuing as assistant-surgeon for the long period of twenty-eight years.
The young surgeon soon began to put his original powers in evidence by starting as a lecturer. Mr. Pott had for years given a course of lectures on surgery, but no other lectures had been delivered, and the medical school of St. Bartholomew’s must be regarded as owing its establishment to Abernethy. To be the life and soul of a new school is enough for any man in his maturest years; it was more than enough for Abernethy, beginning at twenty-three, when everything was new, and precedents were few, and when his own faculties and studies still lacked much. To this we must largely attribute the worn-out look which began to settle upon his face from the age of fifty. He was not content in his lecturing with any dry and orderly narration, but combined with his descriptive account the purposes of a structure, the diseases and accidents to which it is liable, and illustrations from comparative anatomy. He for a long time included in his courses at once anatomy, physiology, pathology, and surgery; at the same time he kept up his attendance on John Hunter’s lectures, and diligently studied in the wards of the hospital. His industry at this period was such that he rose at four, and sometimes went into the country that he might read with less interruption. It may seem strange, in connection with the well-known brusqueness of his manner, to read that he had an unconquerable shyness in his early years of lecturing, which often made him retire from the theatre to regain his composure before being able to commence his lecture. But this shyness is often a concomitant of real talent and originality before it has found means to display itself effectively; and brusqueness is in not a few instances the cloak of timidity. When his dramatic instincts had led him into his true path, he soon gained in ease, and his classes increased so rapidly that in 1790 the governors of St. Bartholomew’s resolved to build him a theatre, which was opened in October 1791.
Abernethy’s style in lecturing is described by those who heard him as unique both in communicating his ideas and in interesting his pupils. When his style had fully developed, it was spoken of as “Abernethy at Home.” His mode of entering the lecture-room, says Pettigrew, was often irresistibly droll; his hands buried deep in his breeches-pockets, his body bent slouchingly forward, blowing or whistling, his eyes twinkling beneath their arches, and his lower jaw thrown considerably beneath the upper. Then he would cast himself into a chair, swing one of his legs over an arm of it, and commence his lecture in the most outré manner. The abruptness, however, never failed to command silence, and rivet attention.
“‘The count was wounded in the arm—the bullet had sunk deep into the flesh—it was, however, extracted—and he is now in a fair way of recovery.’ That will do very well for a novel, but it won’t do for us, gentlemen: for ‘Sir Ralph Abercromby received a ball in the thick part of his thigh, and it buried itself deep, deep: and it got among important parts, and it couldn’t be felt; but the surgeons, nothing daunted, groped, and groped, and groped,—and Sir Ralph died.’” Thus he would introduce an admirable discourse on gunshot wounds, reprobating in the strongest language the perilous and painful practice of making prolonged searches for bullets in important organs. He always illustrated his subject by telling anecdotes, frequently of a side-splitting character, and so compelled his pupils to remember his doctrines.
His mental abstraction was not unfrequently manifested strikingly in the lecture-theatre. On one occasion it is related of him that at an introductory lecture at St. Bartholomew’s, when he had been received, as usual, with great applause, he appeared utterly indifferent to it, but quietly casting his eyes over the assemblage, burst forth in a tone of deep feeling, “God help you all! what is to become of you!”
His dramatic power was much employed in imitating his patients’ peculiarities, with a mixture of the serious and the humorous which was most effective. Many of his stories were most apt in their bearing on some important fact or principle. One of these we may be allowed to quote from Macilwain.[18]