life on account of the disorder which finally proved fatal, he had for many years had the most extensive practice as a physician of any in London. The mental character to which he owed this distinction is interesting as a subject of psychological study, and valuable as an example and encouragement to those who desire to lead a similar life of usefulness. His intellectual powers were not of that order to which it is usual to apply the term "genius:" no original discovery, no striking innovation marked his career. Nor was he a man of very sparkling talent: there was nothing that could be called "brilliancy" in his thought, his writing, or his mode of action. What he possessed in an eminent degree was, wisdom, judgment-that peculiar balance of faculties which enables a man to think soundly and to be a safe adviser and guardian. The circumstances of his life had helped to give this form to his character. He had received his public education at Westminster and Cambridge, where the studies are such as to cultivate in an equal degree the imaginative and scientific faculties. The postponement of his entrance on special professional studies till he was three-and-twenty years of age, enabled him to bring to these studies, when he did engage in them, a fully-formed mind, and so to escape the danger often arising from crude prejudices acquired in early studentship. His election, at the age of thirty, as Physician to St. George's Hospital, kept him afterwards closely to the duties of practical life, from which he was never distracted by special scientific inquiries; and accordingly his lectures on the practice of medicine and the lectures on cholera, which at the request of his colleagues he gave in 1833, with the addresses which he delivered as President of the Medical and Chirurgical Society in 1846 and 1847, constitute the bulk of what he has published to the world. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1828, and through life was a conspicuous illustration of the intimate connexion between sound science and practical usefulness.

SIR ALEXANDER CRICHTON, second son of Mr. Alexander Crichton of Woodhouselee and Newington in Mid Lothian, was born in Edinburgh on the 2nd of December, 1763. He received his elementary education in his native town, and afterwards matriculated in its University. He was placed at an early age with Mr. Alexander Wood, a surgeon of eminence in Edinburgh. At the expiration

of his apprenticeship, in 1784, Mr. Crichton came to London to prosecute his studies, more especially anatomy, and the following spring he went to Leyden, in company with Mr. Robert Jackson, who became afterwards so favourably known by his writings on subjects connected with military surgery. Though Mr. Crichton had been brought up with the view of prosecuting surgery as his profession, he thought it advisable to submit himself to the necessary examinations before the Professors of Leyden for the degree of M.D., which he obtained in July 1785.

After passing a short time in Holland, he proceeded to Paris to perfect himself in the French language, and to avail himself of the facilities afforded in that city for advancement in every department of medical knowledge.

Leaving Paris in the summer of 1786, Dr. Crichton studied successively at Stuttgardt, Vienna, and Halle, residing, during his stay at the last-named University, in the house of Professor Meckel, the second celebrated anatomist of that name. He then passed some time in Berlin and in Göttingen, where he remained till September 1788. Returning from Germany, where he had spent three years in the acquisition of medical and scientific knowledge, Dr. Crichton established himself in London as a surgeon, and became a member of the Corporation of Surgeons in May 1789. But not liking the operative part of the surgical profession, he withdrew from that body on May 1, 1791, and became a licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians on the 25th of June, 1791; shortly after which he was appointed Physician to a large Dispensary in Featherstone Buildings, Holborn. There, in conjunction with Dr. Bradley, he formed a "Clinical Institution," upon a plan similar to that followed at the University of Göttingen, and delivered Lectures upon the most remarkable and instructive cases which presented themselves. About 1796 Dr. Crichton was elected Physician to the Westminster Hospital, and during his connexion with that institution he was in the practice of delivering three courses of lectures; viz. on Chemistry, on Materia Medica, and on the Practice of Physic. In 1798 he published his work on Mental Derangement, which gained him reputation at home and abroad; and having now attained a high professional position, he was appointed Physician to the Duke of Cambridge. In 1803 Dr. Crichton was invited to become physician

in ordinary to His Imperial Majesty Alexander I. of Russia. Having accepted this appointment, he was kindly received in St. Petersburgh, and soon gained the full confidence and esteem of the Emperor and the several members of the imperial family. In the course of a few years he was also appointed to the head of the Civil Medical Department, in which capacity he was much consulted by the Empress Dowager, in the construction and regulation of many institutions which owe their origin to her active charity and watchful superintendence.

Dr. Crichton's exertions to mitigate the horrors of an epidemic which was devastating the south-east provinces of Russia in 1809 were acknowledged by the Emperor, who conferred on him the title of Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St. Vladimir, Third Class. In 1814 His Imperial Majesty bestowed on him that of the Second Class for his long and faithful services, and as "Médecin en chef pour la partie Civile." Having obtained leave of absence on account of the state of his health, he returned to this country in the spring of 1819. The following year, however, he was recalled to attend the Grand Duchess Alexandra (the present Dowager Empress), whom he accompanied, on her convalescence, to the court of Berlin, where he stayed a short time, and then returned to his family. On the 27th of December, 1820, His Majesty Frederick William III. created him Knight Grand Cross of the Red Eagle, Second Class. In 1821 Dr. Crichton was knighted by His Majesty George IV., and obtained the royal permission to wear his foreign orders. The late Emperor Nicholas I. also marked his sense of the services of Sir Alexander Crichton by bestowing upon him the additional title of Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St. Anne, in August 1830.

Dr. Crichton married, in 1800, Frances, daughter of Mr. Edward Dodwell, of West Moulsey. He was one of the oldest members of the Linnean and Royal Societies, having been elected a member of the first in 1793, and of the latter in 1800. He was member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences of St. Petersburgh, and of the Imperial Society of Naturalists of Moscow, and Corresponding Member of the Royal Society of Sciences of Göttingen, of the Royal Institute of Medicine at Paris, and of many other societies. His writings were the following :

A Translation of Dr. J. F. Blumenbach's Essay on Generation. 1792.

An Inquiry into the Nature and Origin of Mental Derangement, &c. London, 1798.

An Account of some Experiments made with the Vapour of Boiling Tar in the Cure of Pulmonary Consumption. 1817.

On the Treatment and Cure of Pulmonary Consumption, and the Effects of Boiling Tar on that Disease. 1823.

Commentaries on some Doctrines of a dangerous tendency in Medicine, and on the general principles of Safe Practice. 1842.

GEORGE JAMES GUTHRIE was born in London on the 1st of May, 1785, and died on the 71st anniversary of his birthday. He was descended from an old and respectable Forfarshire family, one of whom, his great-grandfather, married an Irish lady, and settled in her country. His father, a manufacturer of plaister and other surgical materials, raised himself from poverty to considerable wealth; but, late in life, was again impoverished, and left his son at an early age to seek and work his own way in the world. He was educated in boyhood by an emigrant French gentleman, M. Noel; and, when thirteen years old, he was apprenticed to the medical profession, at the instance of Mr. Rush, one of the Army Medical Board. For a time he received his chief instruction from Dr. Hooper, one of the most active pathologists of the day. In June 1800 Mr. Rush appointed him an hospital-assistant at York Hospital (a military hospital which then stood on part of the site of Eaton Square); and in the following winter he assisted Mr. Carpue in teaching anatomy. In the beginning of 1801 he was to have been removed from his appointment, with all the other hospital-assistants who had not been examined at the College of Surgeons; and it gave proof of the success with which he had already studied, and promise of the spirit which marked his after-life, that he immediately offered himself for the examination. He passed, and obtained his diploma at the College in February 1801; and in the next month, though not yet sixteen, was appointed assistant-surgeon to the 29th Regiment, with which, from 1802 to 1807, he served in North America.

In 1808, Mr. Guthrie having risen to the surgeoncy of his regiment, accompanied it to Spain; and from that time to the end of the Peninsular war (with the exception of a period of severe illness in 1810), was engaged in the most active service. He had a chief share in the charge of the wounded at the battles of Roliça and Vimiera ;

at the taking of Oporto; at Talavera and Albuera; at the sieges of Olivença and Badajos; at Ciudad Rodrigo, Salamanca, and Toulouse. In these fields of action he justly earned the highest reputation among the British military surgeons of his time; and all his writings prove that they were to him fields not only of action but of study.

In September 1814, Mr. Guthrie was placed on half-pay, and commenced private practice in London. After the battle of Waterloo, he spent a few weeks at the military hospitals at Brussels and Antwerp, studying chiefly those points of practice on which his Peninsular experience had left him uncertain. Returned to London, he commenced lecturing on surgery in 1816, and was appointed surgeon to the Westminster Ophthalmic Hospital, the establishment of which was chiefly due to his exertions. In 1826 he was elected assistant-surgeon, and in 1827 full surgeon to the Westminster Hospital. In the last-named year, also, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. In the College of Surgeons, he became a Member of the Council in 1824, President in 1833, 1842, and 1854, and during five years was Professor of Anatomy and Surgery. [Nearly all the foregoing statements are derived from an evidently authentic biography of Mr. Guthrie in the Lancet' of June 15, 1850.]

It would be very difficult to form a catalogue of Mr. Guthrie's publications, for he was always active in publishing his knowledge and opinions on all the questions which he had had opportunities of studying. His chief works are,-" On Gun-shot Wounds of the Extremities requiring Amputation" (1815); "Lectures on the Operative Surgery of the Eye" (1823); "On the Diseases and Injuries of Arteries" (1830); "On the Anatomy and Surgery of Hernia" (1833); "On the Anatomy and Diseases of the Urinary and Sexual Organs" (1836); "On Injuries of the Head, affecting the Brain" (1842); "On Wounds and Injuries of the Abdomen and the Pelvis " (1847); "Commentaries on the Surgery of the War in Portugal, Spain, France, and the Netherlands," of which the last edition was published in 1855, and comprised additional observations on the Surgery of the Crimean war.

Enterprise, activity, and self-reliance were the chief characteristics of Mr. Guthrie's mind. His intellect was acute and clear; his