CHAPTER EIGHTEEN A FTER completing six years at the Academy, I attended the University for mathematics, chemistry, and natural philosophy, and learned much that has been useful to me in later life, although I must confess I did not go deep into mathematics. In chemistry I was much interested. Professor Gregory, son of the great Dr. Gregory, of nauseous mixture memory, was in the Chemistry chair. The only incidents worth recording were those of the laughing-gas day, the occasion which combined amusement with instruction more than any other. It always took place on a Saturday, and drew a very crowded house, great numbers of students attending to enjoy the scene, who were not in the class of the year. The fun was much enhanced by the fact that the Professor was a man with little or no sense of humour. While we were all enjoying the wild cantrips of those who had taken the gas, he prelected on the different cases as mere scientific illustrations. The first student who drew the gas in from the inflated bladder was in a moment on the top of the five-feet desk of the front students' seat, and flying along the desks behind, whacking with the bladder at everyone near. Absolutely unconscious, he nevertheless, though running at speed up the sloping desks, never missed his footing, while he banged his fellow-students, and at last he woke up with his feet straddled across two desks, and threw the bladder from him. We roared with laughter, but not a smile passed over the professorial countenance. When quiet was restored, he solemnly informed us that as the first experiment had resulted in a display of violence, it would probably be found that the subsequent cases would show a general tendency in the same direction. And so it was, much to the satisfaction of the row-loving student. No. 2 was a powerful-looking advanced student. He applied his violence to the desk in front of the Professor, driving his fists into the hard wood until his knuckles streamed with blood, the Professor looking on him calmly from the safe distance and the height of the broad demonstrating table, and evidently well satisfied with the fulfilment of his prediction. The experiments brought out a remarkable instance of unconscious memory, a young lad under the influence of the gas showing a retention in the brain of what he could not have reproduced by conscious effort. Professor Pillans, who taught the Humanity class, was fond of introducing little speeches on the important topics of the day, regardless of their having any relation to his subject. On the death of the Duke of Wellington, he delivered an oration upon the deceased hero, and his words had impressed themselves on the lad. When he had taken his bladder-full of gas he turned round, and walking backwards and forwards as Professor Pillans had done, he with good elocution and appropriate LAUGHING GAS action repeated verbatim many sentences of the oration. The students of the Humanity class recognised at once what was happening, and shouts of laughter went up from the benches, but were stilled by the other students who wished to hear. The young reciter went on without hesitation or break while the gas influence lasted, and I remember that it was just as he uttered in loud tones "before the walls of Seringapatam" that he woke up, amid roars of laughter. Here was another case, similar to the drowning memory, in which an exciting cause drew from the brain-shelves what the owner of the brain could not have brought up by conscious intention. It was plain that what I had heard was an exact reproduction from the Professor's speech. The only other incident of gas-day was one peculiar to the Professor himself. He was a strong believer in mesmerism, and one student, after inhaling, planted his elbows on the demonstrating table in front of the Professor, and looking him straight in the face said, "Do you mean to say that you consider mesmerism to be a branch of science?" This raised such a shout from the irreverent students that the Professor's reply was lost, and the interrogator suddenly awaking—as the reporters say "the incident closed." The Natural Philosophy chair was at that time held by Professor Forbes, a refined gentlemanof the old school, from whom the attentive student |