mputation of the
right foot. But he never relaxed in his labours. He was now writing,
lecturing, and teaching chemistry. Rheumatism and acute inflammation of
the eye next attacked him; and were treated by cupping, blisetring, and
colchicum. Unable himself to write, he went on preparing his lectures,
which he dictated to his sister. Pain haunted him day and night,
and sleep was only forced by morphia. While in this state of general
prostration, symptoms of pulmonary disease began to show themselves. Yet
he continued to give the weekly lectures to which he stood committed
to the Edinburgh School of Arts. Not one was shirked, though their
delivery, before a large audience, was a most exhausting duty. "Well,
there's another nail put into my coffin," was the remark made on
throwing off his top-coat on returning home; and a sleepless night
almost invariably followed.

At twenty-seven, Wilson was lecturing ten, eleven, or more hours
weekly, usually with setons or open blister-wounds upon him--his "bosom
friends," he used to call them. He felt the shadow of death upon him;
and he worked as if his days were numbered. "Don't be surprised," he
wrote to a friend, "if any morning at breakfast you hear that I am
gone." But while he said so, he did not in the least degree indulge in
the feeling of sickly sentimentality. He worked on as cheerfully and
hopefully as if in the very fulness of his strength. "To none," said he,
"is life so sweet as to those who have lost all fear to die."

Sometimes he was compelled to desist from his labours by sheer debility,
occasioned by loss of blood from the lungs; but after a few weeks' rest
and change of air, he would return to his work, saying, "The water is
rising in the well again!" Though disease had fastened on his lungs, and
was spreading there, and though suffering from a distressing cough,
he went on lecturing as usual. To add to his troubles, when one day
endeavouring to recover himself from a stumble occasioned by his
lameness, he overstrained his arm, and broke the bone near the shoulder.
But he recovered from his successive accidents and illnesses in the most
extraordinary way. The reed bent, but did not break: the storm passed,
and it stood erect as before.

There was no worry, nor fever, nor fret about him; but instead,
cheerfulness, patience, and unfailing perseverance. His mind, amidst all
his sufferings, remained perfectly calm and serene. He went about his
daily work with an app