lecturing on histology at Edinburgh, giving a series of microscopical demonstrations on; minute structures, illustrating anatomy, physiology, pathology, and the diagnosis of disease, and also taking private classes on microscopical manipulation. He was the first to give this instruction systematically, and great credit is due to him for his clear recognition of the importance of the microscope in the clinical investigation of disease. At that time, says Dr. McKendrick, 'so long as an organ showed no change in its material substance when examined by the naked eye, physicians called its affections functional, and the fact of microscopal changes of structure was overlooked.'
In 1842 Bennett unsuccessfully competed for the chair of general pathology at Edinburgh. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and also of the Edinburgh College of Physicians. About this time he became physician to the Royal Dispensary, and pathologist to the Royal Infirmary. At the former he gave courses of 'polyclinical medicine' for seven years, on the model of the German polyclinic, students examining patients exhaustively under the eye of the teacher; he also gave lectures on pathology and the practice of physic, with microscopical demonstrations, and accumulated a large museum of pathological specimens. During this period Bennett was incessantly occupied in medical literature. In 1846 he was appointed editor of the 'London and Edinburgh Monthly Journal of Medical Science,' later becoming also its proprietor. It became a good property in his hands, and he sold it to Messrs. Sutherland & Knox, publishers. Some years later he again became part proprietor, and then sole proprietor; finally, Messrs. Sutherland & Knox again purchased the journal. Bennett had been fortunate enough to find all his transactions in this matter pecuniarily profitable (see Dr. McKendrick in Edinburgh Medical Journal, November 1875, p. 468).
In 1845 Bennett published a case of 'Hypertrophy of the Spleen and Liver,' which is the first recorded case of leucocythæmia, a disease in which a very large proportion of white corpuscles exists in the blood. Virchow and others subsequently did much to explain and describe this disease, and Bennett did not at first recognise its true nature. His labours, both in 1845 and subsequently, are, however, of such value as to associate his name very honourably with the investigation. In 1848 Bennett was unanimously elected professor of the Institute of Medicine at Edinburgh. He threw himself with characteristic energy into his new duties, teaching physiology and pathology in their especial bearing on medicine. Every lecture was a work of art, finished in delivery, and illustrated by excellent diagrams and by abundant specimens. He lectured chiefly from manuscript, but when he put this aside to discuss some controversial point, he became vivacious and too often condemnatory of others, and hence did not fail to stir up antagonism. His leading idea was to teach his students to observe precisely and methodically for themselves, and to employ all modern instruments of precision.
As a consulting practitioner Bennett never attained very great success. His sceptical tone of inquiry did not win confidence among patients, and his critical and sarcastic remarks on the works of others did not make him a favourite among his professional brethren. In 1855 he became a candidate for the chair of the practice of physic at Edinburgh. Dr. Laycock was successful after an exciting contest. Bennett had set his heart on this chair for many years, and the disappointment embittered his after life. He was till this period robust and indefatigably energetic, and continued so for ten years more; but about 1865 he began to suffer from an obscure bronchial and throat affection; subsequently he had attacks of diabetes, and was compelled to winter abroad for some years. In 1874 he resumed his chair at the Institute of Medicine. In August 1875 he received the LL.D. degree from Edinburgh University, and his bust by Brodie was presented to the university by old pupils.
He died at Norwich on 25 Sept. 1875, nine days after an operation for stone, performed by Mr. Cadge, from which his enfeebled strength did not enable him to recover. He was buried in the Dean Cemetery, Edinburgh, on 30 Sept. by the side of his friends Goodsir and Edward Forbes. His wife, together with a son and four daughters, survived him. The 'Lancet' says (1875, i. 534): 'He reduced the mortality of uncomplicated pneumonia to nil; he demonstrated not only the dispensableness, but the injuriousness, of the antiphlogistic treatment which had ruled the best minds of the civilised world for ages. Doubtless other physicians were working in the same direction even before Bennett. But he devised a treatment of his own which has given most brilliant results, and he adhered to it and to the pathological views on which it was based so steadily, and over so long a series of years, as to establish its truth, and so largely revolutionise the practice of medicine in acute diseases. … What praise could we give too much to the physician who taught us to treat phthisis, not antiphlogisti-
