We have no doubt that, with a most benevolent disposition, Abernethy's manner, particularly as he advanced in years, evinced great irritability; and we believe that it was the result of two or three different causes, which, in their combined influence, got a mastery which the utmost resolution was not at all times able to control. It had formed the subject of numerous conversations between Abernethy and some of his most intimate friends, and we believe had arisen, and been unconsciously fostered by the following causes: "In early life, he had been," as he told Dr. Thomas Rees, "particularly disgusted with the manner in which he had seen patients caressed and 'humbugged' by smooth and flattering modes of proceeding, and that he had early resolved to 'avoid that at all events.'" He further observed: "I tried to learn my profession, and thinking I could teach it, I educated myself to do so; but as for private practice, of course I am _obliged_ to do that too." We can easily understand how, in a sensitive mind, an anxiety to avoid an imputation of one kind might have led to an opposite extreme; and thus an occasional negligence of ordinary courtesy have taken the place of a disgusting assentation.
A temper naturally impulsive, would find in the perplexities which sometimes beset the practice of our profession, too many occasions on which the suggestions of ruffled temper, and of fear of improper assentation, would unfortunately coincide; and thus tend to intermix and confound the observance of a praiseworthy caution, with a yielding to an insidious habit. If to this were now added that increase of irritability which a disturbed and fidgetty state of physique never fails to furnish, and from which Abernethy _greatly suffered_, the habit would soon become dominant; and thus an originally good motive, left unguarded, be supplanted by an uncontrolled impulse. We believe this to have been the short explanation of Abernethy's manner; all we know of him seems to admit of this explanation. It was a habit, and required nothing but a check from his humanity or his good sense to correct it; but then this was just that which patients were not likely to know, and could have been still less expected to elicit.