.

If one of the professors of his medical school chances to be addicted to
making anti-Martin experiments on animals, or the study of comparative
anatomy, the pursuits offer an endless fund of amusement to the jocose
student. He administers poison to the toxicological guinea-pigs; hunts the
rabbit kept for galvanism about the school; lets loose in the theatre, by
accident, the sparrows preserved to show the rapidly fatal action of
_choke-damp_ upon life; turns the bladders, which have been provided to
tie over bottles, into footballs; and makes daily contributions to the
plate of pebbles taken from the stomach of the ostrich, and preserved in
the museum to show the mode in which these birds assist digestion, until
he quadruples the quantity, and has the quiet satisfaction of seeing
exhibited at lecture, as the identical objects, the heap of small stones
which he has collected from time to time in the garden of the school, or
from any excavation for pipes or paving which he may have passed in his
route from his lodgings.

The second or middle course of the three winter sessions which the medical
student is compelled to go through, is the one in which he most enjoys
himself, and indulges in those little outbreaks of eccentric mirth which
eminently qualify him for his future professional career. During the first
course he studies from novelty--during the last from compulsion; but the
middle one passes in unlimited sprees and perpetual half-and-half. The
only grand project he now undertakes is "going up for his Latin," provided
he had not courage to do so upon first coming to London. For some weeks
before this period he is never seen without an interlined edition of
Celsus and Gregory; not that he debars himself from joviality during the
time of his preparation, but he judiciously combines study with
amusement--never stirring without his translation in his pocket, and even,
if he goes to the theatre, beguiling the time between the pieces by
learning the literal order of a new paragraph. Every school possesses
circulating copies of these works: they have been originally purchased in
some wild moment of industrious extravagance by a new man; and when he
passed, he sold them for five shillings to another, who, in turn, disposed
of them to a third, until they had run nearly all through the school. The
student grinds away at these until he knows them almost by heart, albeit
his translation is not the most elegant. He reads--"_S