In 1852 Hinton’s marriage with Miss Haddon took place, one of singularly deep affection. He was now in practice for himself, finding general practice not very profitable, especially as he would not condescend to use arts to obtain success. He continued his study of aural surgery, and assisted Mr. Toynbee largely in the classification of his museum, already alluded to.
In 1856 Hinton published his earliest papers on physiology and ethics in the Christian Spectator. In 1858 he contributed an essay to the Medico-Chirurgical Review on “Physical Morphology,” suggesting that organic growth takes place in the direction of least resistance—a conception utilised by Mr. Herbert Spencer in his “First Principles.” In 1859 “Man and his Dwelling-place” was published and favourably received. Its success encouraged him to lay aside practice, reduce his expenses to a minimum, and take to writing as a profession. He settled in a little house at Tottenham, where his sitting-room was of such dimensions that he used to say he could open the door with one hand, poke the fire with the other, and had nature given him a third, open the window with it, without rising from his seat.
At first success attended the venture. Thackeray accepted for the Cornhill Magazine the series of “Physiological Riddles,” with the remark “Whatever else this fellow can do, he can write!” These were afterwards published, with others, under the title “Life in Nature.” “Thoughts on Health” were also contributed to the Cornhill. But his mind continued in such activity of growth, ever full, ever changing, that he had not time to write his thoughts in form for publication, and he was forced back into practice, which he had not quite renounced, continuing to see a few aural patients twice a week at his father’s house. In 1863 he was appointed aural surgeon to Guy’s Hospital, and took a house in George Street, Hanover Square, for the purpose of aural practice. With heroic and costly resolution, knowing he could not adequately do his work as an aural surgeon and devote himself to philosophy, he locked his manuscripts away from his sight.
Henceforward he rapidly succeeded in practice. In 1866 he took the place vacated by the death of his valued friend Toynbee, removing to his house in Savile Row. When in full practice, and not allowing himself to write, his chief life was in conversation. A few lines may be here quoted from Miss Hopkins’ Life of Hinton. “It is difficult to give any adequate idea of the charms of Mr. Hinton’s conversation to a mind at all in harmony with his own. His most marked peculiarity was the intensely emotional character of his intellect. Nature to him was no cold abstraction, no cunningly contrived machine made up of matter and force, but a mighty spiritual presence, a living being, tenderly and passionately beloved. The laws of nature were to him the habits of a dear and intimate friend.... But keen as was his delight in purely intellectual operations, he valued everything chiefly, if not only, in its relation to the moral.... How often, from some comparatively remote region of thought, or of art, would he flash down a light upon some practical matter, showing perhaps a neglected duty in its vital relations, or revealing an order in what looked like moral waste and confusion. Owing to this strong recognition of the spiritual unity of all life, never was there a man in whom the barrier between the religious and the secular was more completely effaced.”
In 1869 his success in aural surgery was so assured, that an eminent surgeon suggested to Mr. Hinton that he might justifiably resume his philosophy as an evening recreation. So after six years’ abstinence he resumed his writing. But his thoughts, allowed once more to spring into full activity, were certain to master him. “Wherever he was, at a friend’s house, in the street, at church, at a concert, he jotted down his notes on scraps of paper, backs of envelopes, bills, and programmes, writing them out in full in the evening.” Finally, these thoughts were printed for his own private use, and from them a great portion of his posthumous works is derived.
At last he had made money enough by practice to retire. His parting gift to his profession was contained in “The Questions of Aural Surgery,” a work of standard value; and his “Atlas of Diseases of the Membrana Tympani.” In March 1874 he retired, but with a constitution deeply injured by overwork and excess of feeling and thought. His father had died the year before; his mother died in 1874. He continued incessantly working, writing, thinking, studying mankind in the streets and alleys of London, or in the colliers’ cottages in South Wales, and came to suffer much from sleeplessness. When he set sail in the autumn of 1875 for the Azores, where Mrs. Hinton had preceded him, he was already seriously ill. At last he was seized with inflammation of the brain, and died on December 16, 1875, a martyr to his intense passion for the good of mankind. Of his intellectual, ethical, and religious views this is not the place to speak at large; his books must be left to explain themselves to kindred spirits.
FOOTNOTES:
[23] Reprinted by the Association for the Advancement of Medicine by Research, 1882.
[CHAPTER XXVII.]
SIR R. CHRISTISON, SWAINE TAYLOR, AND POISON DETECTION.
Although the detection of crimes of poisoning is but one of the departments of service which the medical profession is able to render to the law, yet it is one which has very largely attracted public attention, owing to the many awful aspects of death by poisoning, and the helplessness which mankind has always felt in regard to these crimes. Latterly the skill displayed in the detection of the existence of poisons after the death of the victims has set at rest many of the doubts as to the certainty of judgment in regard to poisoning, and the discovery of antidotes to many poisons has supplied a means of remedy in numerous cases before it is too late. It is obvious that these results could only begin to be realised when chemistry had made considerable progress; and consequently it was not till 1813 that a young doctor, the celebrated Orfila, published in Paris the first part of a treatise on Poisons, which was subsequently merged in his “Legal Medicine,” 1821-3. The names most conspicuous in founding this new department of investigation in Great Britain are those which stand at the head of this chapter.