I do not find so active a spirit of investigation in the English professors as in the French. In Paris this spirit pervaded young and old, and gave a wonderful fascination to the study of medicine, which even I, standing only on the threshold, strongly felt. There are innumerable medical societies there, and some of the members are always on the eve of most important discoveries; a brilliant theory is almost proved, and creates intense interest; some new plan of treatment is always exciting attention in the hospitals, and its discussion is widely spread by the immense crowds of students freely admitted. The noble provision of free lectures, supported by the French Government, increases this tendency; the distinguished men who fill the chairs in these institutions have all the leisure and opportunity necessary for original investigation, and a receptive audience always ready to reflect the enthusiasm of the teacher. I have often listened to some of these eloquent men in the College of France, their natural eloquence increased by the novelty or brilliant suggestions of the subject, till I shared fully in the enthusiasm of the assembly; and then, in the excited feeling of the moment, I would enter with some friend into the beautiful adjacent garden of the Luxembourg, and, sitting down at the foot of some noble statue, we would prolong the interest by discussion; while the brilliant atmosphere, the trees, the wind and the water, the fine old palace and the varied groups of people moving amongst the flowers, contributed to the charm of the moment, producing some of the intensest pleasurable sensations I have ever enjoyed. I cannot wonder that students throng to Paris, instead of to the immense smoke-hidden London; here there is no excitement, all moves steadily onward, constantly but without enthusiasm. No theory sets the world on fire till it is well established, and the German observers are much more studied than the French. Everything is stamped
