Stephen Paget

“ He had a natural and unaffected pleasure in society, and he loved music. He possessed the rare gift of ability to turn swiftly from work to play; enjoying his holidays like a schoolboy, easily moved to laughter, keen to get the maximum of happiness out of very ordinary amusements, emotional in spite of incessant self-restraint, vigorous in spite of constant overwork. ”

“ His physiological lectures at St Bartholomew's Hospital were the chief cause of the rise in the fortunes of its school, which in 1843 had gone down to a low point. In pathology his work was even more important. He fills the place in pathology that had been left empty by Hunter's death in 1793 — the time of transition from Hunter's teaching, which for all its greatness was hindered by want of the modern microscope, to the pathology and bacteriology of the present day. ”

“ Thus he was constantly occupied with the business of the school, and often passed a week, or more, without going outside the hospital gates. In 1844 he married Lydia, youngest daughter of the Rev. Henry North. In 1847 he was appointed an assistant-surgeon to the hospital, and Arris and Gale professor at the College of Surgeons. He held t his professorship for six years and each year gave six lectures in surgical pathology. (The first edition of these lectures, which were the chief scientific work of his life, was published in 1853 as Lectures on Surgical Pathology.) ”