Memoirs of John Abernethy / With a View of His Lectures, His Writings, and Character; with Additional Extracts from Original Documents, Now First Published

by George Macilwain

Of the apprentices, we shall say little more than to express our belief that many of them have lived to obtain the conviction that they would have done much better had they not been fed by hopes that were never realized. All apprentices cannot, of course, be surgeons. Again, if, in the course of a century, a solitary instance or two should occur of the success of an unapprenticed candidate, they not unnaturally feel it as an injustice in thus being deprived of that, the especial eligibility to which was a plea for the exaction of a large apprentice fee. But to the surgeons themselves, it seems to us that the system is far from realizing the benefits that its manifold evils are supposed to secure. The adage that "curses, like chickens, come home to roost," is far from inapplicable. After all, many of the hospital surgeons are little known; and the public inference with regard to men invested with such splendid opportunities of distinguishing themselves, is not very flattering. Mr. Abernethy, so far from benefiting from the "System," appears to us to have suffered from it in every way.

His talents, both natural and acquired, would have given him every thing to hope and nothing to fear from the severest competition; whilst the positive effects of the system were such as to deprive him of what was justly his due, and to embitter a retirement which in the barest justice should have been graced by every thing that could add to his peace, his honour, or his happiness, from the Institution whose character he had exalted and maintained, and whose school he had founded.

But let us look at the facts. The system which pronounces that there shall be three surgeons to attend to some 500 or 600 patients (for the purposes of science—the next thing to an impossibility), kept Abernethy twenty-eight years an assistant surgeon. During this time he was filling the hospital with students, to the amount of sums varying from £2,000 to £3,000 a year, of which, in the said twenty-eight years, he never received one farthing.

He saw, from time to time, many men, of whose capacities we know he had the highest opinion, shut out from the hospital by the mere circumstance of their not having been apprentices; and two of these were the late Professor Macartney, of Dublin, and the present distinguished Professor of Comparative Anatomy, Professor Owen. And here we must pause to record one of our numerous obligations to the perceptivity and justice of Abernethy. We have formerly observed that, at the very commencement of life, he had been accustomed to inculcate the importance of studying comparative anatomy and physiology, in order to obtain clear views of the functions of Man; but all arrangements made with this view, from the time of Mr. Hunter onwards, though varying in degree, were still inefficient. It was next to an impossibility to combine an availing pursuit of a science which involves an inquiry into the structure and functions of the whole animal kingdom, with the daily exigencies of an anxious profession.

When Mr. Owen had completed his education, his thoughts were directed to a Surgeoncy in the navy, as combining a professional appointment with the possibility of pursuing, with increased opportunities of observation, his favorite study. Fortunately for science, he went to Abernethy, who requested him to pause. He said, "You know the Hospital will not have any but apprentices. Macartney left on that account. Stay," said he, "and allow me to think the matter over." This resulted in his proposing to the Council of the College of Surgeons that there should be a permanent Professor of Comparative Anatomy, and that the appointment should be given to Mr. Owen.

This is among the many proofs of Abernethy's perception of character. Mr. Owen had dissected for lecture; and Abernethy saw, or thought he saw, a peculiar aptitude for more general and enlarged anatomical investigation. The whole world now knows how nobly the Professor has justified the hopes of his talented master. It would be out of place for us to attempt a compliment to a man so distinguished in a science, wherein the varied pursuits of a practical profession allow us to be mere amateurs; neither do we wish to forget other gentlemen who distinguish themselves in this branch of science; but we believe that most competent judges allow that the celebrated Cuvier has not left any one more fitted to appreciate his excellence, or who has more contributed to extend that science of which the Baron was so distinguished a leader, than Professor Owen.

There is one incident, however, in the Professor's labours which, for our own purposes, we must relate; because we shall have to refer to it in our humble exhortation to the public and the profession to believe in the practicability of raising Medicine and Surgery into a definite science. The incident shows what may be done by that mode of investigation which is the still delayed desideratum in medicine and surgery—namely, the most comprehensive record of facts, and the study of their minutest relations. Professor Cuvier was the first to impress, in a special manner, that those beautiful relations in the structure of animals, so many of which are even popularly familiar, extended throughout the animal; so that if any one part, however apparently subordinate, were changed, so accurate were the adaptations in Nature, that all parts underwent some corresponding modification; so that diversity of structure in parts, more or less affected the whole.

The beautiful result of all this is, that if these relations be once thoroughly mastered, then any one part necessarily suggests, in general terms, the nature of the animal to whom it belonged. Few instances, however, so remarkable as the one we are about to mention, could have been anticipated.

A seafaring man brought a piece of bone, about three or four inches in length, as he said, from New Zealand, and offered it for sale at one or two museums; amongst others, at the College of Surgeons. We shall not here detain the reader by telling all that happened. These things are often brought with intent to deceive, and with false allegations. Most of those to whom the bone was submitted, dismissed it as worthless, or manifested their incredulity. Amongst other guesses, some rather eminent persons jocosely hinted that they had seen bones very like it at the London Tavern; regarding it, in fact, as part of an old marrow-bone, to which it bore, on a superficial view, some resemblance. At length it was brought to Professor Owen, who, having looked at it carefully, thought it right to investigate it more narrowly; and after much consideration, he ventured to pronounce his opinion. This opinion, from almost anybody else, would have been perhaps only laughed at; for, in the first place, he said that the bone (big enough, as we have seen, to suggest that it had belonged to an ox) had belonged to a bird. But before people had had time to recover from their surprise or other sensation created by this announcement, they were greeted by another assertion, yet more startling—namely, that it had been a bird without wings.