18
life of unexampled professional activity. Mr. Pennington died, in the month of March last, in his 85th year.
From the earliest period of the world, the science of medicine has been esteemed among the noblest occupations of the mind. Amidst the varied pursuits of educated man, it would be difficult to find one more calculated to inspire the mind with intellectual ardour, or to kindle the energies of thought, and speculation.
The study of physiology, as it unfolds the machinery of life, whether applied to the revelation of the structure of the body, by investigating the microscopic details of the material framework which it habits, or to the attempt to fathom and explore the mysterious immaterial agent of life itself—the study of the scarcely less interesting phenomena which characterise the defects in its machinery, whether local or general—the study of psychology, applied to the mind in its healthy condition, while exercising a never-ceasing control over the physical actions of the body, or that of the phenomena of mental disease, demanding the highest order of intellect for their exposition and treatment—the ingenious discoveries of innumerable agents obtained from the vegetable, animal, and mineral kingdoms—the application of the resources of mechanical philosophy—the profound researches of the chemist, whose operations are so closely interwoven with the study of almost every branch of medical science—the necessary cultivation of a peculiar refinement of the external senses, of sight, of hearing, and of touch, that may well deserve the title of erudite. In fact we can hardly point to one department of philosophy, whether of mind or matter,
