The life of John Birchenall : including autobiography, extracts from diary, sketches, aphorisms, etc. / by the rev. A.J. French ; with a portrait, and introduction by J.H. Rigg.

  • French, Alfred J.
Date:
[1881?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The life of John Birchenall : including autobiography, extracts from diary, sketches, aphorisms, etc. / by the rev. A.J. French ; with a portrait, and introduction by J.H. Rigg. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by University of Bristol Library. The original may be consulted at University of Bristol Library.

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    On the approach of the winter session (1821-22) of the medical and surgical classes, I left home for London to connect myself with the hospitals of the Borough. It was on Saturday evening that I arrived in the metropolis. My first care on the following day was to visit the family of Dr. Warren at Chelsea. It was a new thing to me to have to walk by three or four miles of continuous buildings; indeed, the general features of the city were novel and characteristic, but its dissipation, and what appeared to me the almost universal desecration of the Sabbath, affected me deeply. Dr. Warren was not at home, but Mrs. Warren received me with much kindness, and I walked with her to the chapel, Sloane St. Terrace, and heard a very encouraging sermon by good Mr. Taylor, then of the Mission House, from ' My grace is sufficient for thee.' I entered upon my hospital avocations with many misgivings, for I was surrounded by several hundreds of young men of every shade of character. I was almost alone, having no companion in the kingdom and patience of Jesus; but I was kept from the evil, for the Lord stood by me and strengthened me. My Sabbaths were spent most happily in the families of Dr. Bunting and Dr. Warren alternately ; or, by special invitation, at the house of my leader, Mr. Higgs, of the Borough, a respectable and highly estimable man. It was at his class that I formed an acquaintance with Dr. E. Clarke, who made the ascent of Mont Blanc in the summer of 1825, in company with Captain Markham Sherwin. He was a young man of brilliant parts, and accomplished, in a literary and scientific point of view, beyond his years. The only other intimate friendship I contracted among the medical pupils was with a nephew of the late Mr. Michael Thomas Sadler, of Leeds [who represented Newark in Parliament from 1829 to 1832]. The interval between the two winter sessions I spent at home. I would have contented myself with c