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32a BRITISH PHYSICIANS. intimacy which continued during the remainder of Gooch's Ufe. On his return to London he became a licen- tiate of the Royal College of Physicians, and before the close of the year 1811 he had fairly entered the lists as a candidate for practice in the city. He had chosen the line of accoucheur as that in which his medical friends could most easily assist him. It may be allowable to name those persons to whom he was chiefly indebted for his early introduction into practice; and, first, Mr. George Young, then an eminent surgeon in the city, a gentleman to whom Gooch ever ex- pressed himself under the greatest obhgations, and whom he was accustomed to describe as a most accomplished practitioner, a delightful companion, and an indefatigable friend ; — Dr. Babington, to whom Gooch afterwards dedicated his work upon the diseases peculiar to women, and whom he there characterizes most justly ; and Sir William Knighton, then in full practice at the west-end of the town, to whom, more than to any other indi- vidual, he owed his early success in life. In 1812 Dr. Gooch was elected physician to the Westminster Lying-in Hospital ; an appoint- ment which afforded liim great opportunities of acquiring a practical knowledge of the difficulties of midwifery. Ordinary cases are in such hospitals attended by the regular nurses and the pupils, but when a difficulty occurs, the physician is sum- moned — in proportion to the size of the establish- ment these important cases are more or less fre- quent, and what the private practitioner may meet with but a few times in the course of his life, to