*CARPENTER, WILLIAM BENJAMIN, M.D., one of the most distinguished physiologists arid writers on the science of physiology of the present day. He is the son of the late Dr. Lant Carpenter noticed above. On leaving school he commenced a course of study preparatory to entering upon the career of a civil engineer. His tastes however led him ultimately to enter the medical profession, and ho joined the medical classes of University College about 1833, where as a student he was distinguished for his accurate knowledge, and especially for the elegance of his written compositions. He passed his examination at the Royal College of Surgeons and Apothecaries Society in 1835. He subsequently pursued his studies in the University of Edinburgh, where his capacity for original thought and dealing with the most profound physiological discussions became apparent. One of his earliest papers on the subject of physiology was published in the 'Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal' (No. 132), with the title the Voluntary and Instinctive Actions of Living Beings.' In this paper may be dis covered the germs of those views which he has since so fully developed in his various works on physiology. He graduated at Edin burgh in the year 1839, but not until he had published the three following papers:-1. 'On the Unity of Function iu Organised Beings' (' Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal '); 2. On the Differeuces of the Laws regulating Vital and Physical Phenomena' (Ibid.); 3. ' Dis sertation on the Physiological Inferences to be deduced from the Structure of the Nervous System in the Invertebrate Class of Ani mals.' This last paper was published in Edinburgh in 1838, and translated in Muller's 'Archiv: for 1840. In these papers he laid the foundations of those principles which he afterwards developed more fully in an independent work entitled 'Principles of General and Comparative Physiology, intended as an Introduction to the study of Human Physiology, and as a guide to the philosophical pursuit of Natural History,' 8vo, London, 1839. This work was one of the first in our language to give a general view of the science of life, and to point out the relation of physical laws to vital phenomena. That
there should be errors in detail could only be expected. It was a most remarkable production for so young a man, and at once fixed on him the attention of physiologists as one of the most promising culti vators of their science. A second edition appeared in 1841.
He now settled in Bristol with the view of practising his profession, and was appointed lecturer on medical jurisprudence in the medical school of that city. The practice of his profession however was leas in accordance with his tastes than the study of the literature of the science by which alone it can be advanced. With an almost unri valled facility of acquiring and communicating knowledge, it is not to be wondered at that he found it more agreeable to supply the neces sities of a family by writing books on science than by submitting to the drudgery demanded of those who would succeed in medical practice. In 1843 and subsequent years he wrote the Popular Cyclopxdia of Science,' embracing the subjects of mechanics, vege table physiology and botany, animal physiology, and zoology. These works were professedly only .compilations, but they cootaiu many of the author's original views, and are written in an agreeable style.
Soon after the publication of these volumes, Dr. Carpenter employed himself in the production of a volume on the ' Principles of Human Physiology,' which was published in London in 1846. This work, which perhaps at first hardly did justice to the author's reputation, reached a fourth edition iu 1853; of this edition, it may be truly said to be altogether the best work on the subject extant. If the author has not repeated the experiments of other observers, he has the great merit of appreciating correctly the labours of others ; and in those departments of physiology which are beyond the region of experi ment, and demand the more subtle analysis of a logical mind, such as the functions of the nervous system, the science of physiology has no more accomplished exponent.