ability with which he discharged his duties. "I rather learned from him, than taught him," says Dr. Duncan, "and, in the clinical wards, his treatment saved the lives of patients who would have slipped through my own hands." During this prolonged sojourn in Edinburgh he became one of the Presidents of the Royal Medical Society, and took an active and prominent part in its discussions. He had great facility in speaking extemporaneously; and Dr. Hodgkin says of him, that "his speeches, for their arrangement and accuracy of diction, as well as for their amount of learning, and soundness of reasoning, might have been taken down verbatim and printed as essays." On leaving Edinburgh, he went to Paris, where he took advantage, for about the space of two years, of the Classroom prelections, and Hospital practice, of the most illustrious of the French Teachers and Practitioners. He then travelled, making in particular an extensive tour in Italy, and spending in its famous cities weeks or months, as the case might be, in studying art, or making himself acquainted with the most important of its medical schools, and the most eminent of its literati.

At length he returned to London, and became Physician to the Northern Dispensary, where Dr. Roget, Dr. Tweedie, and Dr. Theophilus Thomson, were successively his colleagues. He frequented his Alma Mater, Guy's Hospital, and often took part in the meetings of various Medical Societies.

He never, however, did very much in the way of private practice, though, when his aid was called in, he scarcely ever failed to shed light on the most obscure disorders, and to throw out the most valuable suggestions for treatment.

From an early period in his intellectual development he took a special interest in biblical pursuits; and on them he expended a large proportion of the zeal and energy of his

maturer years. He entered into extensive investigations, more particularly, in reference to the Gospels, and, as the result of the labor of thirty years, he published a Harmony of the Four Gospels in Greek,* accompanied with a long and interesting Introduction, and Critical Notes, embodying the results of learned, minute, extensive, and most painstaking and laborious investigations.

His most important work, however, is his Treatise on the Physical Cause of Christ's Death. It is, in its own place, a master-piece, and must continue to be a standard. work in theology for many years to come. It could have been composed only by a man characterized by a combination of singular endowments. It required, on the one hand, a profound acquaintance with medical subjects and medical literature. It required, on the other, an equally profound acquaintance with the Bible, and with theology in general. It required, too, in addition, a profound veneration for Christ, and a devoted attachment to Christianity. these qualities-so rarely combined-met and were eminent in Dr. Stroud. He was as good as he was great. He took an interest in every Christian and philanthropic movement. He was a member of the Committee of the British and Foreign Bible Society. He toiled daily in giving gratuitous medical attendance on the poor. It is pleasing to add that, in the midst of his profound religious reverence and piety, he was ever humanely genial, and brimming over with innocent gayety and "pun." "He was never married, but was truly "a family man," says Dr. Hodgkin, amid the children of relatives, who had been bereaved of their own parents. "In a gentlemanly courtesy," says Dr. Theophilus Thomson, "he could not be surpassed, but he would never allow temptations to compliance to thwart his unswerving aim at theoretical perfection." "He was never driven by prejudice, nor beguiled by any fascination, from

* London: Samuel Bagster & Sons, Paternoster Row.

the plain course of duty; and I shall always remember him as moving calmly onward toward the haven of truth and peace." He died suddenly, in his own house, on the twenty-ninth day of June, 1858, and his remains were interred in the cemetery at Highgate, on the sixth of July.

SIR JAMES Y. SIMPSON, BART., M. D.,

ON DR. STROUD'S VIEW

OF THE PHYSICAL CAUSE OF THE DEATH OF CHRIST.

Reprinted, by permission, from Dr. Hanna's "Last Days of our Lord's Passion."

MY DEAR DR. HANNA:-Ever since reading, some ten or twelve years ago, Dr. Stroud's remarkable treatise On the Physical Cause of the Death of Christ, I have been strongly impressed with the belief that the views which he adopted* and maintained on this subject are fundamentally correct. Nor has this opinion been in any way altered by a perusal of some later observations published on the same question, both here and on the Continent.

That the immediate cause of the death of our blessed Saviour was-speaking medically-laceration or rupture of the heart, is a doctrine in regard to which there can be no absolute certainty; but, assuredly, in favor of it there is a very high amount of circumstantial probability.

Let me try to state the arguments for this view in the form of a few brief propositions:

I. His death was not the mere result of crucifixion; for, 1. The period was too short; a person in the prime of life,

* Dr. Stroud himself points out that Russell, Edwards, Rambach, and other writers, had more or less correctly anticipated him in the belief that Christ had died from rupture or breaking of the heart,

as Christ was, not dying from this mode of mortal punishment in six hours, as He did, but usually surviving till the second or third day, or even longer. 2. The attendant phenomena, at the time of actual death, were different from those of crucifixion. The crucified died, as is well known, under a lingering process of gradual exhaustion, weakness, and faintness. On the contrary, Christ cried with a loud voice, and spoke once and again—all apparently within a few minutes of His dissolution.

II. No known injury, lesion, or disease of the brain, lungs, or other vital organs could, I believe, account for such a sudden termination of His sufferings in death, except (1) arrestment of the action of the heart by fatal fainting or syncope; or (2) rupture of the walls of the heart, or larger blood-vessels issuing from it.

III. The attendant symptoms-particularly the loud cry and subsequent exclamations-show that death was not the effect of mortal fainting, or mere fatal arrestment of the action of the heart by syncope.

IV. On the other hand, these symptoms were such as have been seen in cases of rupture of the walls of the heart. Thus, in the latest book published in the English language on Diseases of the Heart, the eminent author, Dr. Walshe, Professor of Medicine in University College, London, when treating of the symptoms indicating death by rupture of the heart, observes, "The hand is suddenly carried to the front of the chest, a piercing shriek uttered," etc., etc. The rapidity of the resulting death is regulated by the size and shape of the ruptured opening. But, usually, death very speedily ensues, in consequence of the blood escaping from the interior of the heart into the cavity of the large surrounding heart-sac or pericardium; which sac has, in cases of rupture of the heart, been found, on dissection, to contain sometimes two, three, four, or more pounds, of blood accumulated within it, and sevarated into red clot and