Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 12.djvu/33

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able ability and force of character, which were displayed under the trying circumstances of an early widowhood with narrow means. Soon after his father's death, Conolly, then in his sixth year, was sent to live with his mother's friends at Hedon, where there was a grammar school. He has left among his posthumous papers a somewhat bitter description of the quiet little village and the dull school where everything seemed to slumber except the cane. In after years he wondered at the folly of pedagogues who try to feed the infant mind with the philosophic and elaborately elegant compositions of Horace. After seven years spent at Hedon he rejoined his mother at Hull, where his schooling was completed. Mrs. Conolly had married again, her second husband being a French émigré. From him Conolly acquired a good knowledge of the French language. In after life his acquaintance with the literature of France was extensive, and its study formed the favourite amusement of his leisure. At the age of eighteen he became an ensign in the Cambridgeshire militia, and travelled through various parts of Scotland and Ireland with his regiment. To the last he retained a pleasing recollection of his experiences as a soldier. A year after Waterloo Conolly relinquished soldiering and married, when but twenty-two, the daughter of Sir John Collins, a naval captain. His brother, Dr. William Conolly, was at that time practising in Tours. John spent the first year of his married life near his brother, in a cottage beautifully situated on the banks of the Loire, called ‘La Grenadière,’ afterwards the home of Béranger, who has celebrated it in a song, ‘Les Oiseaux de la Grenadière.’ The exhaustion of his scanty fortune and the birth of a child turned Conolly's attention to the need of working. He returned home in 1817, and entered upon the study of medicine in the university of Edinburgh. He threw himself into the pursuit of medical knowledge with characteristic ardour. He was a keen debater in the medical society of the university, and obtained the coveted honour of being one of its vice-presidents. ‘There are few,’ he says, writing in 1834, ‘who, looking back on those studious, temperate, happy years, can say that time has brought them anything more valuable.’ He graduated as doctor in 1821, when his inaugural thesis was a dissertation ‘de Statu Mentis in Insaniâ et Melancholiâ.’ Having paid a short visit to Paris to complete his studies, he began to practise medicine in Lewes, whence he removed in a few months to Chichester. Dr. (afterwards Sir John) Forbes was then in practice in Chichester, and the young men formed a strong and lasting friendship; but the district did not afford sufficient employment for both, and in a year's time Conolly moved again to Stratford-on-Avon. Here he remained about five years, and appears to have achieved as great a measure of success as his capacities for the general practice of his profession permitted. He did a good deal of miscellaneous literary work. Associated with his friend, Dr. Darwall, he assisted Dr. James Copland [q.v.] in editing ‘The London Medical Repository.’ ‘We endeavoured,’ he says, ‘especially to call attention to the numerous valuable medical books then appearing in France and Germany, and also to the still more neglected older medical writers of the profession.’ Copland and Darwall wished Conolly to join them in preparing a dictionary of medicine. Conolly doubted the accomplishment of so laborious a task by three men. It was subsequently undertaken by Copland alone. While at Stratford Conolly took a prominent part in the affairs of the town, was alderman and twice mayor of the borough. He interested himself in every movement for the public good, was enthusiastic for ‘sanitation,’ and took much trouble, both by writing and personally, to instruct his neighbours in physiological matters usually neglected. He was more popular than reformers generally are, and till very recently many old people about Stratford recollected him with affection. His professional income, however, did not exceed 400l. per annum. In 1827 he moved to London, and in the following year was appointed professor of the practice of medicine in University College. While he held that chair he published his work on the ‘Indications of Insanity.’ At the same time he unavailingly endeavoured to induce the London University authorities to introduce clinical instruction in insanity into their curriculum. About this period he was an active member of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, for which he wrote several papers. In spite of the friendship of Lord Brougham, Lord John Russell, and many other very influential men, Conolly failed in practice as a London physician, nor does it appear that his professorial duties were performed with any distinguished ability. In 1830 he left London and went to Warwick. Here he again held the post of inspecting physician to the asylums in Warwickshire, which he had occupied while at Stratford. He continued to write a good deal. He assisted his friend Forbes in editing the ‘British and Foreign Medical Review’ and the ‘Cyclopædia of Practical Medicine,’ to which he contributed several articles. One of these on hysteria is judiciously written, and shows considerable reading. It has been absurdly