WHAT THERE IS IN THE ROOF OF THE COLLEGE OF SURGEONS.

Perhaps no one of the London Squares is more full of interesting associations, and certainly no one of them is more fresh and pleasant to look upon, than Lincoln’s Inn Fields. In the centre of its green Lord William Russell was beheaded; upon the old wall that used to run along its eastern side Ben Jonson, it is said, worked as a bricklayer; amongst its north range of buildings stands the thin sandwich of a house that holds the manifold artistic gems of the Soane Museum; its west side was the scene of some of Lord George Gordon’s riotings; whilst on its south side stands the noble-looking Grecian fronted building dedicated to the purposes of the English College of Surgeons.

This building has many uses, and many points challenging general admiration and approval, the chief of them being its possession of the museum made by John Hunter; afterwards purchased, and now supported, by the nation; and open freely, not only to medical men of all countries, but to the public at large. The visitor who passes under its handsome portico, up the steps and enters its heavy mahogany and plate-glass doors, finds himself in a large hall. On his right is a staid-looking, black-robed porter, who requires him to enter his name in the visitor’s book—a preliminary which members equally with strangers have to go through. On his left are the doors leading to the secretary’s office, where students may, from time to time, be seen going in to register their attendance upon the prescribed lectures, and, later in their career, passing through the same portals big with the desperate announcement that they are ready to submit to the examinations that must be passed before they can get a diploma. Facing the entrance door is a second enclosed hall, with a roof supported by fluted columns, and on the left of this a broad stately architectural stone staircase leading to the library and the council-chamber—the scene of those dreadful ordeals, the examinations, where Hospital Surgeons sit surrounded by crimson and gold, and marble busts, and noble pictures, to operate upon sweating and stuttering and hesitating students who, two by two, are seated in large chairs to be passed or plucked.

The library is a noble, large room, of excellent proportions, occupying the whole length of the building in front, having tall plate-glass embayed windows, each with its table and chair; and in each of which the passersby in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, may generally see a live surgeon framed and glazed, busily occupied with his books, or still more busily helping to keep up the tide of gossip for which the place is celebrated. For some twenty feet from the floor on all sides, the walls are lined with books, telling in various languages about all kinds of maladies and all sorts of plans for cure. Above this, and just under the handsomely panelled roof, hang portraits of old surgeons, each famous in his time, and now enjoying a sort of quiet renown amongst their successors in the art and science of chirurgery. All we have seen thus far, betokens the quiet repose of wealth, dignity, and learned leisure and ease. No bustle, no noise, no trace of urgent labour is heard or seen. Such of the officers of the place as may be encountered, have a look of somnolent if not sleek sufficiency, and seem to claim a share of the consideration which all are ready to concede, as due to the character of the spot. Returning to the hall, another door, facing that of the secretary, leads to the great attraction and pride of the place—the Hunterian Museum—a collection of skeletons and glittering rows of bottles full of evidences how “fearfully and wonderfully” all living creatures are made. On all sides we see the bony relics of defunct men and animals—giants, dwarfs, both human and quadruped, challenging attention. The huge megatherium, the bones of poor Chuny, the elephant shot in Exeter ’Change, the skeleton of O’Brien the Irish giant, who walked about the world eight feet high, and near him all that remains of the form of the Sicilian dwarf, who when alive was not taller than O’Brien’s knee. On the walls tier after tier of bottles are ranged, till the eye following them up towards the top of the building, fatigued by their innumerable abundance, and the variety of their contents, again seeks the ground and its tables, there to encounter an almost equal crowd of curious things collected from the earth, the air, and the sea, to show how infinite the varieties in which Nature indulges, and how almost more than infinite the curious ways in which life varies the tenement it inhabits. But with this multiplicity of things we see no confusion, or trace of carelessness or poverty. All is neatness, order, and repose. Not a particle of dirt offends the eye; not a film of dust dims the brilliancy of the regiments of bottles drawn up in long files upon the shelves, to salute the visitor. The place is a very drawing-room of science, all polished and set forth in trim order for the reception of the public. It is the best room in the house kept for the display of the results of the labours of the physiologist,—a spot devoted to the revelations of anatomy, without the horrifying accompaniments of the dissecting-room.

Thus far we have passed through what are in truth the public portions of the College of Surgeons, just glancing at its museum, unequalled as a physiological collection by any other in the world. In their surprise at the curious things it contains, there are many, no doubt, who wonder also where the things all came from; and what patient men have gone on since John Hunter’s time, adding to his museum where it was deficient and keeping all its parts in their present admirable state. 465Such a question, if put to the officials, would most likely obtain a very vague and misty reply; but a glance behind the scenes at the College will afford an ample and curious explanation, and show how one section of the Searchers for Facts, silently and unheeded, work on in their self-chosen, quiet, scientific path—undisturbed by the noises and the bustle, the excitements and the strife of the modern Babylon, that heaves and throbs around them.

Leave the handsome rooms, with their clear light, and polish, and air of neatness, and come with us up the side stair that leads to the unshown recesses, where, high up in the roof, the workers in anatomy carry on their strange duties. As we open the side door that leads towards these secret chambers, we should go from daylight to darkness, were it not for the gas that is kept burning there. Up the stairs we go, and as we ascend, the way becomes lighter and lighter as we rise, but the stone steps soon change for wooden ones, and at length bring us from the silent stairs to a silent and gloomy-looking passage, having three doors opening into it, and some contrivances overhead for letting in a little light, and letting out certain odours that here abound,—greatly to the discomfort of the novice who first inhales them. We are now in the roof of the building, and on getting a glimpse through a window, we may see the housetops are below us, the only companions of our elevation being a number of neighbouring church-spires.

The feeling of the spot is one of almost complete isolation from the world below, and a neighbourhood to something startling if not almost terrible. Like Fatima in Bluebeard’s Tower, impelled by an overbearing curiosity, we turn the lock of the centre door, and enter the chamber. A strange sight is presented. The room is large, with the sloping roof-beams above, and a stained and uncovered floor below. The walls all round are crowded with shelves, covered with bottles of various sizes full of the queerest-looking of all queer things. Many are of a bright vermilion colour; others yellow; others brown; others black; whilst others again display the opaque whiteness of bloodless death. Three tables are in the room, but these are as crowded as the walls. Cases of instruments, microscopes, tall jars, cans, a large glass globe full of water-newts, hydras, and mosses; small cases of drawers filled with microscopic objects, and a thousand other odds and ends. Here is a long coil of snake’s eggs, just brought from a country stable-yard; there some ears of diseased wheat, sent by a noble landlord who studies farming; beside them lies part of a leaf of the gigantic water-lily, the Victoria Regia, and near that a portion of a vegetable marrow is macerating in a saucer to separate some peculiar vessels for exhibition under the microscope. There are two windows to the room, besides some ventilators in the roof; and before one of these, where the light is best, are ranged microscopes complete and ready for use, and round about them all sorts of scraps of glass and glaziers’ diamonds, and watch-glasses, and forceps, and scissors, and bottles of marine-glue, and of gold-size,—these being the means and appliances of the microscopic observer. Before the second window is a sink, in which stand jars of frogs and newts, and other small creatures. A lathe, a desk, and writing utensils, the model of a whale cast ashore in the Thames, an old stiff-backed wooden chair, once the seat of the Master of the Worshipful Company of Surgeons, a few cases of stuffed birds and animals, and some tall glass-stoppered bottles that went twice round the world with Captain Cook and Dr. Solander, make up the catalogue of the chief contents of an apartment, which, at first glance, has the look of an auctioneer’s room filled with the sold-off stock of a broken down anatomical teacher. A closer inspection, however, shows that though there is so great a crowd of objects, there is little or no confusion, and the real meaning of the place, its intention, and labours, reveal themselves.

We are in a storeroom of the strange productions of all corners of the earth, from the air above and from the waters below. Every particle in every bottle that looks perhaps to the uninitiated eye only a mass of bad fish preserved in worse pickle, has its value. A thin slice of it taken out and placed under the microscope, illustrates some law of the animal economy, or displays, perhaps, some long undiscovered fact, or shows to the surprise of the gazer, a series of lines beautifully arranged, or perhaps curiously mingled, and rich in their figured combinations as the frozen moisture of a window-frame on a winter’s morning. To this room as to a general centre come contributions from all corners of the earth; the donors being chiefly medical men employed on expeditions, or in the public service, though other medicos, who go to seek fortune in strange lands, often remember their alma mater, and pack up a bottle of curious things “to send to the College.” Doctors on shipboard, doctors with armies, doctors in Arctic ships, or on Niger expeditions; in the far regions of Hindûstan, and in the fogs and storms of Labrador, think now and then of their “dissecting days,” and of the noble collection in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, which every true student feels bound to honour, and to help to make complete. Many, when going forth into distant countries, are supplied from this place with bottles specially adapted to receive objects in request, and receive also a volume of instructions, how the specimens may be best preserved. “When a quadruped is too large to be secured whole, cut off the portion of the head containing the teeth,” says one direction. “If no more can be done,” says another, “preserve the heart and great blood-vessels.” “Of a full-grown whale,” says a third of these notes, “send home the eyes with the surrounding skin, their muscles and fat in an entire mass.” “When many specimens of a 466rare and curious bird are procured, the heads of a few should be taken off and preserved in spirit.” “When alligators and crocodiles are too large to be preserved whole, secure some part. The bones of such things are especially desirable. Secure also the eggs in different stages.” “Snakes may be preserved whole, or in part, especially the heads, for the examination of their teeth and fangs.” “Eyes of fishes are proper objects of preservation.” Such are a few of the hints sent forth to their medical disciples by the College, and the fruits of the system are a bountiful supply. Never a week passes but something rare or curious makes its appearance in Lincoln’s Inn Fields; sometimes from one quarter, sometimes from another, but there is always something coming, either by messenger or parcel-cart. Apart from these foreign sources, there are other contributaries to the general stock. Country doctors and hospital surgeons, from time to time, send in their quota; the Zoological Society likewise contribute all their dead animals. When the elephant died at the Regent’s Park Gardens, a College student and an assistant were busily occupied for days dissecting the huge animal. When the rhinoceros expired at the same place, a portion of its viscera was hailed as a prize; and when the whale was cast, not long ago, upon the shores of the Thames, the watermen who claimed it as their booty, steamed off to the College to find a customer for portions of the unwieldy monster; nor were they disappointed. Beyond all these, there still remains another searcher out of materials for the scalpel and the microscope. He is a character in his way. By trade, half cattle-slaughterer half-oysterman, he is by choice a sort of dilettante anatomist. One day he is killing oxen and sheep in Clare Market, and the next is scouring the same market for morbid specimens “for Mr. Quickett, at the College.” He knows an unhealthy sheep by its looks, and watches its post mortem with the eye of a savant. Many a choice specimen has he caught up in his time from amongst the offal and garbage of that fustiest of markets in the fustiest of neighbourhoods. Indeed, through him, all that is unusual in ox, calf, sheep, fish, or fowl, found within the confines of Clare Market, finds its way to the “work shop” of the College to be investigated by scalpel and microscope. When a butcher is known to have any diseased sheep, our collector hovers about his slaughter-house, and that which is bad food for the public, often affords him and his patron a prize. He is a sort of jackal for the anatomists—a kind of cadger in the service of science—a veritable snatcher-up of ill-conditioned trifles.

Returning to the room in the College roof, where the general cornucopia of strange things is emptied, we find its presiding genius in Mr. Quekett, a quiet enthusiast in his way, who goes on from month to month and year to year, watching, working, and chronicling such facts as can be made out. When a novelty comes in, it is examined, described, investigated by the microscope; and, if worthy, is sketched on stone for printing. It is then catalogued, and placed in spirit for preservation—minute portions, perhaps, being mounted on glass as objects for the microscope. Thus disposed of, it becomes a “store preparation.” From this store the lectures at the College are illustrated by examples; and from it also are the bright bottles in the Hunterian Museum kept complete. From time to time something very rare comes to hand, and then there is quite an excitement in the place. It is turned about, examined, and discussed, with as much zest as a lady would display when first opening a present of jewels, or first criticising a new ball-dress. If the new acquisition be an animal but recently dead, a drop of its blood is sought and placed under the microscope to see the diameter of its globules; if it has a coat of fur, perhaps one of the hairs are next submitted to the same test; and then a fine section of its bone passes a similar ordeal. Its brain is investigated, weighed, and placed in spirit for preservation. Its general characteristics are then gone over, and a description of them written down. If worthy of a place in the Museum, this description goes to make a paragraph in the catalogues of the Collection—fine quarto volumes, of which there are many now complete, containing more exact anatomical and physiological descriptions of objects, than perhaps any other work extant.

The last contribution to the series of Catalogues was made in the room we have been examining. Its production was the constant labour of two years; and the volume contains exact particulars of many facts never before noticed. Amongst other things, for instance, made out with certainty in this place by Mr. Quekett, after months of patient investigation, was the elementary differences in the character of bone. To the common eye and common idea, all bone is simply bone; and for common purposes the word indicates closely enough what the speaker would describe. Not so to the naturalist and the physiologist; and so scalpel and microscope went to work: the sea, the land, and the air, lent each their creatures peculiar to itself, and the labour of the search was at length rewarded by a discovery that each great class of living things has an elementary difference in the bones upon which its structure is built up. Hence, when a particle of bony matter is now placed under the microscope, come whence it may—from a geological strata, or from the depths of the sea, or from within the cere-cloth of a mummy—the observer, guided by Mr. Quekett’s observations, knows whether it belonged in life to bird, beast, or fish.

Glancing round this anatomical workshop, we find, amongst other things, some preparations showing the nature of pearls. Examine them, and we find that there are dark and 467dingy pearls, just as there are handsome and ugly men; the dark pearl being found on the dark shell of the fish, the white brilliant one upon the smooth inside shell. Going further in the search, we find that the smooth glittering lining upon which the fish moves, is known as the nacre, and that it is produced by a portion of the animal called the mantle: and for explanation sake we may add, that gourmands practically know the mantle as the beard of the oyster. When living in its glossy house, should any foreign substance find its way through the shell to disturb the smoothness so essential to its ease, the fish coats the offending substance with nacre, and a pearl is thus formed. The pearl is, in fact, a little globe of the smooth glossy substance yielded by the oyster’s beard; yielded ordinarily to smooth the narrow home to which his nature binds him, but yielded in round drops—real pearly tears—if he is hurt. When a beauty glides proudly among a throng of admirers, her hair clustering with pearls, she little thinks that her ornaments are products of pain and diseased action, endured by the most unpoetical of shell-fish.

Leaving the centre-room of the three in the College roof, let us just glance at the other two apartments. Upon entering one we see the walls lined with boxes, something like those in a milliner’s shop, but, instead of holding laces and ribands, we find them labelled “Wolf,” “Racoon,” “Penguin,” “Lion,” “Albatross,” and so on with names of birds, and beasts, and fishes. On lifting a lid, we find the boxes filled with the bones of the different creatures named; not a complete skeleton of any one, perhaps, but portions of half-a-dozen. In this room, the two students attached to the College carry on dissections, under the directions of the superior authorities. What they do is entered in a book kept posted up, and this affords another source for reference as to anatomical facts. When they have laboured here for three years, they have the option of a commission as Assistant Surgeon in the Army, Navy, or East India Company’s service, as a reward for their College work.

If the atmosphere of the two apartments we have investigated was bad, that of the third room was infinitely worse, though windows and ventilators are constantly open. In this place large preparations are kept, and all the specimens are here put into the bottles required for exhibition in the Museum. This third room, like the first, has a curiously characteristic look. It would make a fine original for a picture of an alchemist’s study. On one side is a large structure of brickwork with pipes and taps, conveying the idea of a furnace and still, or of an oven. Alongside it is a bath and a table, and the purpose of the whole is for injecting large animals. This is a very difficult operation, the object being to drive a kind of hot liquid sealing-wax into every artery of the body, even the most minute. All things brought here, and capable of it, are injected somewhat after this fashion before they pass under the scalpel. Besides this oven-looking structure there are pans, and tubs, and casks; one containing a small dromedary, another being “a cask of camel.” A painter’s easel stands there ready for use, and on the floor are some bones of a megatherium; the tables are covered with bottles and jars, and the walls are similarly decorated. Strings of bladders hang about, and under foot we see thin sheets of lead coated with tin-foil; these latter being used for tying down the preparation bottles so that they may for years remain air-tight; a tedious and somewhat difficult operation. In this place every year they use scores, sometimes hundreds of gallons of alcohol; one fact which helps to show that museums on a large scale are expensive establishments.

Here, as elsewhere, however, in our establishments, whatever may be expended on materials, the men who do the work of science are but indifferently paid. But lucre is not their sole reward. No mere money payment could compensate (for instance) a man for spending a lifetime in this College of Surgeons’ roof. Forget the object in view; ignore the charm that science has for its votaries; and this place becomes a literal inferno, filled with pestilential fumes, and surrounded by horrible sights. But they who fix the salaries know how much the pursuit of science is a labour of love; and so they pay the man of science badly, not here alone, but in all the scientific branches of the public service. But the science-worker though he may feel the injustice, yet moves on his way rejoicing, pleased with his unceasing search into the secret workings of nature, and exhilarated from time to time by some discovery, or by the confirmation of some cherished notion. And though the glittering prizes of life be bestowed on strivers in far different walks, the student of nature holds on his cheerful and philosophic way, rewarded by the glimpses he gets of the power that made and sustains all terrestrial things, and rewarded, moreover, by the holy contact with that infinite wisdom seen at work in the construction, the adaptation, and the continuance of the marvellous and illimitably varied works it is the business of his life to investigate.