After practising for four years at Plymouth, he was appointed in 1866 curator of the museum at St. Thomas's Hospital, then situated in the Surrey Gardens. In 1871, shortly after the removal of the hospital to the Albert Embankment, he was appointed lecturer on comparative anatomy in the medical school, and in 1881 he became lecturer on physiology jointly with Dr. John Harley. He was also professor of biology and physiology at the Bedford College for Women from 1882 to 1886.[2]