246 BRITISH PHYSICIANS. he conceived to have enjoyed little leisure for the cultivation of any literary or scientific pursuit, not immediately connected with his profession ; and Baillie, it must be allowed, was wholly and en- tirely a physician. A few years only before his death, during a visit which the late Professor Gre- gory of Edinburgh made to London, these two eminent countrymen, equally distinguished in their respective departments, conversed together on several occasions ; and the judgment they jocosely passed upon each other was expressed in the following manner : — " Bailhe," said the accomplished and classical professor, " knows nothing but physic," " Gregory," exclaimed the skilful and experienced London practitioner,
- ' seems to me to know every thing but physic."*
In 1823, after much bodily suffering, but with an unshaken mind, his career was terminated, too soon for himself, for his friends, and for the public. He left some Brief Observations on Diseases, for private posthumous publication. They are very interesting to those who love to read the experience of an eminent man rather than to grasp at specious promises of novelty, and to confirm what they have learned rather than to wander in search of doubt. We cannot present the reader with a more just appreciation of this excellent man than is con- tained in the observations which his distinguished contemporary, Sir Henry Halford, delivered at the
- Dr. Gregory, who for many years ably filled the chair of the,
theory and practice of medicine in the University of Edinburgh, was, however, highly distinguished as a physician, as well as in the world of letters.
