Sir Charles Blicke had a large and lucrative practice. He had the character of taking care to be well remunerated for his services. He amassed a considerable fortune; but we incline to think that the ideas of the profession which Abernethy derived from his experience of his apprenticeship were not very favourable. The astute, business-like mode of carrying on the profession, which seems to have characterized Sir Charles Blicke's practice, could have had few charms for Abernethy. Mere money-making had never at any time much attraction for him, and, at that period of his life, probably none at all; whilst the measured pretensions of surgery to anything like a science could hardly have been, at times, otherwise than repulsive.
The tone in which he usually spoke of Sir Charles's practice did not convey a very favourable idea of the impression which it had left on him. In relating a case, he would say: "Sir Charles was at his house in the country, where he was always on the look out for patients." On another occasion, speaking of patients becoming faint under peculiar circumstances, he observed: "When I was an apprentice, my master used to say: 'Oh, Sir! you are faint; pray drink some of this water.' And what do you think was the effect of his putting cold water into a man's stomach under these circumstances? Why, of course, that it was often rejected in his face."
Sir Charles's manipulatory and operative proceedings seem, however, to have represented a tolerably adroit adoption of the prevailing modes of practice; while his medical surgery consisted chiefly of the empirical employment of such remedies as he had found most frequently successful, or, at all events, somehow or other associated with a successful issue; with the usual absence of any investigation of the cause of either success or failure. By a mind like Abernethy's, this sort of routine would be very soon acquired, and, in a short time, estimated at its real value. Still, while a clear head is all that is necessary to the reception of what may be positive and truthful, it requires a vivid perception and a cultivated understanding to detect error. Many things, however, would creep out in Abernethy's lectures, showing that, young as he was, even during his apprenticeship, he was not only a real student, but he had begun to think for himself.