3£6 BRITISH PHYSICIANS. ill, his stomach became so irritable as to reject all aliment, and for several days he vomited inces- santly. Every care and attention was shown him, and as soon as it was safe for him to travel, Lord Wellesley sent one of his own servants with him to London. Gooch always expressed himself grateful for the kindness he experienced on this occasion, and highly gratified with the conversa- tion of one of the most accomplished scholars and statesmen of the age. From this period he dated the commencement of that formidable disorder of the stomach — ^to which he was subject at intervals through the remainder of his life. In a few weeks after his return from Eamsgate he regained strength enough to resume his professional duties. Success is very wholesome to the body, if not to the mind, and in a man of Gooch's temperament, to both ; his life was doubt- less prolonged by the stimulus of increasing repu- tation. In 1818 he writes thus cheerfully, — " My children (he had now three) are healthy, and more dehghtful to me than I had anticipated before I was a father. In my profession I am striding on with a rapidity which I had no right to expect at my age and standing ; the progress I have made, and from the state of competition the prospects I have before me, are such, that by fifty years of age, and very likely before, I must be able to re- tire with a competence. This is the happiest time of my life ; my home is dehghtful to me—my station satisfactory, whether I regard what is doing for me or what I am doing for others — my pecuniary cares gone — my prospects bright, and I may add, as certain as any thing can be, that is if I live and preserve my health ; but there's the rub—'
