THE EARLY YEARS
Francis Galton was born into a prosperous family of Quaker faith, on February 16, 1822, near Sparkbrook, Birmingham, Warwickshire. He was the youngest of seven children. Samuel, his father was a successful banker. His mother, Frances, was the daughter of Erasmus Darwin who was a medical practitioner, a natural philosopher and a poet. Galton was a cousin of Charles Darwin. Erasmus Darwin was a grandfather of Charles Darwin. Galton’s parents specially his mother, were keen on Galton’s taking medicine as career. Even though Francis was just a boy, his father wanting him to be acquainted with a laboratory at an early age, took him to frequent visits to a laboratory in Birmingham.

Initially, his father insisted on the idea that a personal tutor should come home to teach young Francis, given the fact that Galton had already learned to read and write at the age of two and half. He could read some French and Latin when he was five. At the age of seven he started to read Shakespeare for pleasure.

EDUCATION
He studied in several different schools. First, he was sent to a boarding school, something which he hated and would despise even later in adulthood. He was exceptionally brilliant at his studies.
He entered as apprentice to the principal house surgeon at Birmingham General Hospital at a young age of 16. At first he was set to work every morning to help in the dispensary. During his studies, he had many different experiences. He learnt the differences between infusions, decoctions, and extracts and how to make them. He gave the meanings of those words – Tea is an “infusion” made by pouring boiling water on the tea and allowing it to stand Coffee.

He made an experiment to recommend to the notice of students who may wish to taste ne plus ultra of bitterness. This was from quassia, the curious tree of South America, the chips of which are bitter. Once well-known “bitter-cup” is made of quassia wood. It quickly becomes bitter as soon as water is poured into the cup. Quassia is a valuable tonic medicine perhaps with one fault of cheapness.

ACCIDENTS
He has written in his autobiography that “The duties gradually imposed on me were to go with the surgeons on their morning rounds, always to attend in the accident room, where persons suffering from accidents were received whether in the night or day, and to help in dressing them, also to be present at all operations, and to take part at every postmortem examination, of which there were perhaps two or three weekly. The times of which I am speaking were long before those of chloroform, and many long years before that of Pasteur and Sir Joseph Lister. The stethoscope was considered generally to be newfangled; the older and naturally somewhat deaf practitioners pooh-poohed and never used it.

Broken heads from brawls were common accidents at night; then it was my part to shave the head, using the blood as lather, which makes a far better preparation for shaving than soap. The wounds were stitched together with a three-cornered “glove needle”, which cuts its way through the skin. Some riots connected with the “Charter” occurred at this time, and many people were hurt. It was curious to observe the apparent cleanness of the cuts that were made through the scalp by the blow of a policeman’s round truncheon.

It sometimes happened that a severe case was brought at night-time, which required higher surgical skill than could properly be expected in the house of surgeon, who, though professionally qualified, was young, and therefore relatively unpracticed. If the treatment of any such accident admitted of no delay, a messenger was dispatched to the house of the surgeon himself, to wake and bring him. One of these events made a great impression on me. It was that of a man, a small piece of whose skull had been depressed by something falling on his head and stunning him. He was brought in utterly unconscious, with the “stertorous” or snoring respiration characteristic of such cases. The man had to be trepanned, so the surgeon was sent for. In the meantime everything was prepared for his arrival. The trepan is a hollow steel cylinder with teeth cut out of its lower rim, used to saw a circular wad out of the sound bone nearest to the fracture. A miniature steel crowbar is used to raise the depressed fragment, and a rod to lay across the sound bone as a fulcrum for the crowbar. I seem to see it all before me as I write.’