doctors engaged in practice, who, in addition to their private duties
and their work at the hospital, each undertook to lecture upon a
special scientific subject. Huxley came specially under the influence
of Mr. Wharton Jones, who had begun to teach physiology at the
hospital a year before. Mr. Jones throughout his life was engaged in
professional work, his specialty being ophthalmic surgery, but he was
a devoted student of anatomy and physiology, and made several
classical contributions to scientific knowledge, his best-known
discoveries relating to blood corpuscles and to the nature of the
mammalian egg-cell. But perhaps his greatest claim to fame is that it
was he who first imbued Huxley with a love for anatomical science and
with a knowledge of the methods of investigation. At the end of his
first session, in 1843, Huxley received the first prize in the senior
physiology class, while his brother got a "good conduct" prize. Of
Wharton Jones Huxley writes:

"The extent and precision of his knowledge impressed me greatly,
and the severe exactness of his method of lecturing was quite to
my taste. I do not know that I have ever felt so much respect for
anybody as a teacher before or since. I worked hard to obtain his
approbation, and he was extremely kind and helpful to the
youngster who, I am afraid, took up more of his time than he had
any right to do. It was he who suggested the publication of my
first scientific paper--a very little one--in the _Medical
Gazette_ of 1845, and most kindly corrected the literary faults
which abounded in it short as it was. For at that time, and for
many years afterwards, I detested the trouble of writing and
would take no pains over it."

This little paper, although Huxley deprecates it, was remarkable as