In the same year he was appointed assistant physician to University College Hospital, to which he continued attached throughout life.

In 1865 he became professor of the principles and practice of medicine at University College, and in 1878 he was appointed physician-in-ordinary to the queen's household.

He delivered the Lumleian lecture at the College of Physicians in 1867, the Harveian oration in 1884, and was elected president in 1893, on the death of Sir Andrew Clark.

He was married, first, at St Pancras Old Church, London, on 28 August 1852 to Margaretta Susannah Ainslie (1831-1880) and, secondly, to Frances (Plunkett) Reynolds widow of C. J. C. Crespign, but left no children.

His writings on nervous diseases were useful contributions to a department of medicine in which much work remained undone, but in the flood of modern observations they have been submerged.

He will chiefly be remembered among physicians as the editor of the System of Medicine, in five volumes, published from 1866 to 1879, a collection of essays on diseases, written by the most competent men who could be induced to write—compositions of varying merit, but generally of high value.