for getting into practice, where the continual fluctuation of society presents an open field for professional abilities, widely different from that of more stationary communities. Hence, as had been anticipated, Dr Currie's talents and gentlemanly manners brought him rapidly into practice; although on his first arrival he was an utter stranger in Liverpool, and only found access to society there, by the introductions he brought with him. His success was early confirmed by being elected one of the physicians to the Infirmary, and strengthened by his marriage in the year 1783, to Miss Lucy Wallace, the daughter of a respectable merchant of Liverpool.
Although busily engaged in the arduous duties of his profession, Dr Currie yet found time to cultivate literature. A similarity of tastes having led to an intimacy with the well known Mr Roscoe, Dr Currie and Mr Roscoe, along with Mr William Rathbone, formed a Literary Club, which deserves to be remembered as being the first of those numerous literary institutions by which Liverpool is now so creditably distinguished.
The pulmonary affection under which Dr Currie began to suffer about this time, has been ascribed to the fatigue and the night journeys to which he was exposed in his attendance on the sick bed of his friend, Dr Bell of Manchester. His first attack was so violent as completely to incapacitate him for business; and finding no mitigation of the paroxysms of the hectic fever, except in travelling, he undertook a journey to Bristol; but unfortunately the good effects which the change might otherwise have produced, were neutralized by the distressing circumstance of his arriving just in time to witness the death of his sister; the second who had, within the year, fallen a victim to the same disease under which he was himself labouring. Deriving no benefit from his residence in Bristol, he removed to Matlock, in the hope that the drier air and the hot baths of that inland town, would prove more beneficial. Disappointed in this expectation, he resolved to try the effect of his native air; and in the hope of again seeing a third sister who was sinking under the disease so fatal to n ' s family, he made a hurried journey to Scotland. As regarded his health, his expectations were wonderfully gratified; for when he reached Dumfriesshire he was so much recruited, that he was able to ride on horseback for an hour at a time; but he was too late to see his sister, who was conveyed to the grave on the very day of his arrival. Notwithstanding this distressing event, his native air and exercise on horseback, proved so beneficial, that, after remaining a few weeks at Moffat, he returned to Liverpool on horseback, varying his journey by visiting the lakes of Cumberland. In this journey he was able to ride forty miles on the day on which he reached Liverpool. A very interesting account of Dr Currie's illness and recovery will be found in the second volume of Darwin's Zoonomia.
The first work which, after his recovery, Dr Currie undertook, was a translation of his friend Dr Bell's inaugural dissertation. This he did at the request of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester, and it was published in the Society's transactions. The translation was accompanied by several valuable notes, and a short biographical sketch of the author ; in which Dr Currie appears to have given a very correct and impartial delineation of his friend's character. The elegance of the style and execution of this work gained for Dr Currie very considerable reputation as an author.
On being elected member of the Medical Society of London, he communicated an essay, (published in the Society's transactions,) on "Tetanus and Convulsive Disorders." In the year following, he presented to the Royal Society, a paper giving "An account of the remarkable effect of shipwreck on mariners, with experiments and observations on the influence of immersion in fresh and salt
