SENSE OF PAIN
Galton in his ‘Early Medical Experiences’ wrote about the ‘Sense of Pain’ as under :

“I was surprised to notice few signs of pain and distress in the wards, even among the mortally stricken. I met with no instances of terror at approaching death, whereas the ordinary interest of life seemed powerful up to the close consciousness”. Galton further said, “it must be terrible to sensitive and stricken fellow-patient with all his senses still on the alert, when the death-hour of someone else in the ward arrives, and the curtains are drawn around the dying man’s bed to hide the scene, and again when his remains are removed to the post-mortem room.” However, he thought that all those things were more hideous to the imagination than in reality.

One piteous death-bed scene impressed him a lot. A girl was fast dying of typhus. He had been instructed to apply a mustar plaster. When he went to her, she was in her full sense and said in a faint but nicely mannered way “Please leave me in peace. I know I am dying and am not suffering.” He had no courage to distressher further.

He put himself into his duties with zeal, and loved neat bandaging and neat plastering. In Galton words, “I was fairly good even at tooth-drawing. I set broken limbs, at first under strict supervision, but was latterly allowed freedom…” Later, after a brief vacation, he was sent to the Medical Department of King’s College for a year.

During his studies at King's College, he stayed Newstreet, Spring Gardens, at the residence of Professor Richard Partridge who housed four more pupils like Galton himself. He spent a happy time at the professor's home, where the drawing room was provided to them for their studies along with a skeleton which they would study in their free time in the evenings. The days would of course be spent attending classes at King's College, but it seemed that position of a student at King's was very less instructive than that of an indoor pupil at the Birmingham Hospital, where the responsibility given to the students was great and there were no chances of a light punishment. 

RESCUE
During his time at King's College, there was one very disturbing and near fatal incident that occurred. Once he was traveling on a steamboat, which was crammed with people. He had gone to see the Oxford and Cambridge boat race and was returning with steam and the tide. The arches of Old Battersea Bridge were narrow. It required efficient and competent steering on an occasion like this for getting through safely. On the steamboat, Galton was yawning greatly. He was standing behind the right-hand paddle-box. Suddenly, it crashed against one of the piers and split open just in front of him, giving a momentary view of the still revolving paddles.

He went into shock. He was conscious of two taps on the back of his head, and then water swirled over him. In a few seconds his wits had gathered themselves together, and he found himself submerged under a mass of wood, which later proved to be the outer sheathing of the paddle-box. It was a disturbing scene. The boats were put off from the shore. Amazingly, in this moment of peril, the man who went to him started bargaining on a price for his rescue, and even more amazingly, he declined such extortion outright! Sympathy was shown to him and the captain took special interest in him, fearing that he might have to pay certain damages. The only thing which pained Galton after this astounding escapade was the loss of his valuable watch.
After King's College, he took admission to Trinity College at Cambridge and undertook studies with a view to taking out a degree in medicine. However, his intellectual energies became increasingly focused on mathematics.

As a result, his intellectual skills were reflected on mathematics. Unfortunately he could not complete his mathematical studies due to ill health in the year 1843, an event which was soon compounded by the stress of having to care for his father through the course of what was to be a fatal illness.