This eccentricity of manner lasted through life, and lost Mr. Abernethy several thousands a year perhaps.  But those who knew him were fully aware that it was characteristic of a little impatient feeling, which only required management; and the apothecaries who took patients to consult him, were in the habit of cautioning them against telling long stories of their complaints.  An old lady, who was naturally inclined to be prosy, once sent for him, and began by saying that her complaints commenced when she was three years old, and wished him to listen to the detail of them from that early period.  The professor, however, rose abruptly and left the house, telling the old lady to read his book, page so and so, and there she would find directions for old ladies to manage their health.

It must be confessed, Mr. Abernethy, although a gentleman in appearance, manner, and education, sometimes wanted that courtesy and worldly deportment which is considered so essential to the medical practitioner.  He possessed none of the “suaviter in modo,” but much of the eccentricity of a man of genius, which he undoubtedly was.  His writings must always be read by the profession to which he belonged with advantage; although, in his great work upon his hobby, his theory is perhaps pushed to a greater extent than is admissible in practice.—­His rules for dieting and general living should be read universally; for they are assuredly calculated to prolong life and secure health, although few perhaps would be disposed to comply with them rigidly.  When some one observed to Mr. Abernethy himself, that he appeared to live much like other people, and by no means to be bound by his own rules, the professor replied, that he wished to act according to his own precepts, but he had “such a devil of an appetite,” that he could not do so.

Mr. Abernethy had a great aversion to any hint being thrown out that he cured a patient of complaint.  Whenever an observation to this effect was made, he would say, “I never cured any body.”  The meaning of this is perfectly obvious.  His system was extremely wise and rational, although, as he expressed himself to ignorant persons, it was not calculated to excite confidence.  He despised all the humbug of the profession, and its arts to deceive and mislead patients and their friends, and always told the plain truth without reserve.  He knew that the term cure is inapplicable, and only fit to be used by quacks, who gain their livelihood by what they call cures, which they promise the patient to effect.  Mr. Abernethy felt that nature was only to be seconded in her efforts, by an art which is derived from scientific principles and knowledge, and that it is not the physician or surgeon who cures, but nature, whom the practitioner assists by art.  Weak-minded persons are apt to run after cures, and thus nostrums and quacks are in vogue, as if the living human system was as immutable in