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Charles Aston Key, a name identified with the highest class of scientific surgery in this country, occupies a prominent position in the large obituary I am painfully compelled to place before you.
A biographical sketch having been published by one whose intimate knowledge of Mr. Key must have rendered him so competent to the task, it will be unnecessary for me to enlarge on the details of his early life, or of his deservedly eminent career as a leading surgeon of the metropolis.
Mr. Key was appointed one of the chief surgeons of Guy’s Hospital in the year 1824, which office he continued to hold till his death, in 1849, a period of twenty-five years. Possessed of a mind, of which a refined common sense was, perhaps, the most striking feature, that most practical and most valuable of all its individual qualities, he added, in a very high degree, that peculiar talent for observation, which has ever marked the eminent surgeon.
His knowledge was his own. Without undervaluing the services of written surgical authorities, he studied disease where alone it could be thoroughly learnt, viz., at the bedside. To the advantages arising from a field of observation, as ample as this large city could furnish, he added a deep interest in the cultivation of professional knowledge, great industry, and a most justifiable ambition of professional distinction.
On such conditions Mr. Key could scarcely fail in reaching the eminence which was the object of his aspiration. He possessed a remarkably cool judgment. He was not content with a general inquiry into the history of any case that interested him, but he pursued his investigation into every
