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Title: The Gold-Headed Cane

Author: William Macmichael

Author of introduction, etc.: Sir William Osler
        Francis R. Packard

Release date: November 19, 2016 [eBook #53557]
                Most recently updated: June 13, 2020

Language: English

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THE GOLD-HEADED CANE.


[Illustration: BOTANICAL GARDENS, CHELSEA]


THE GOLD-HEADED CANE

by

WILLIAM MACMICHAEL·M·D·

With an Introduction by
Sir William Osler, B.A., M.D., F.R.S.
and a Preface by
Francis R. Packard, M.D.







[Illustration]

New York
Paul·B·Hoeber
1915

Copyright, 1915
By Paul B. Hoeber

Published April, 1915

Printed in the U. S. A.




INTRODUCTION.


It is very fitting that a new edition of the Gold Headed Cane should
appear just at this time, as a memorial of the life and labours of its
first owner, Dr. John Radcliffe. Here in Oxford, where his name is writ
large in stone, we had hoped to have ceremonies appropriate to the
200th anniversary of his death, but at present the University has other
things to think of. The Radcliffe Trustees have, however, arranged
with Dr. Nias and the Clarendon Press to issue a brief life and an
account of the Travelling Fellows, with whom his name is associated.
When and where he got the celebrated cane is unknown. To the story of
his life so well told here by Dr. Macmichael nothing need be added.
There is probably no name in our profession with which are associated
so many benefactions. The Radcliffe Infirmary, originally erected by
his Trustees out of their funds, has become one of the most important
of the county hospitals in England; but the Trustees no longer have
any financial interest in its support. The Radcliffe Observatory was
built by them and they pay the upkeep and the salary of the Radcliffe
Observer. The Radcliffe Camera or Library, one of the most beautiful
buildings in Oxford, was designed for the scientific part of the
Bodleian Library. After the laboratories were centred about the museum
it was found more convenient to have the scientific books close at
hand, and one of the old Guilds, the Draper’s Company of London, put up
a beautiful new building in which the Radcliffe Library is now housed,
all the expenses of which are paid by the Trustees. Also under Dr.
Radcliffe’s will £600 a year is paid to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. The
property is largely in land not far from Stony Stratford. In addition,
he left his Yorkshire estate to the Master and Fellows of University
College, to provide for the maintenance of the Travelling Fellows: one
is elected each year and holds the appointment, worth £200, for three
years, one of the conditions being that he spends half of the time in
studying abroad. These splendid benefactions keep alive the name of Dr.
Radcliffe in Oxford and in professional circles.

In many ways the account of Mead is the best in the volume. Of him
Johnson is reported to have said that he lived more in the sunshine of
life than any man he knew. Dr. Macmichael in this little volume has
done more for Mead’s memory than his published works. It is a pity
that he did not hand over his wonderful collections to the College
of Physicians. Now the bibliophile turns the pages of the printed
catalogue of his books, which took twenty-seven days to sell, and
mourns that the treasures of his lifetime should have been dispersed.

About the next possessor of the Cane, Anthony Askew, the memory lingers
in connection with the famous Bibliotheca Askeviana, the priceless
treasures of which were dispersed in 1775 in a twenty days’ sale.
Only one of the great libraries collected by physicians in the 18th
century remains. William Hunter had the good sense to leave his books,
coins, manuscripts and specimens to his native place, and the Hunterian
Library and Museum are among the most precious possessions of Glasgow
University.

Pitcairn is remembered to-day solely from his association with the
Cane. In the rambling section under his name, Macmichael does not tell
us much about him, and leaves us a little in doubt when he died, and
whether or not his nephew, David, was one of the possessors of the
Cane. As a practitioner he appears to have picked up the secret of
Sydenham’s success, the free use of opium, as in the book he speaks of
his _currus triumphalis opii_.

Baillie, in many ways the most distinguished possessor of the Cane,
had caught the inspiration from his uncles John and William Hunter,
and to him more than to any other man is due that close combination of
pathology with clinical medicine, still the distinguishing feature of
the English school, and of which such splendid use was made by Bright,
Addison, and Hodgkin.

Few books of its kind have been more successful, and that a new edition
should appear from the press of Mr. Hoeber is an indication of the zeal
with which the study of the history of medicine has been taken up by
the profession of the United States.

[Illustration: William Osler]

Oxford, February 26th, 1915.




PREFACE


William Macmichael, the author of the Gold-Headed Cane, was born at
Bridgenorth, in Shropshire, in 1784, and after receiving his education
at the grammar school of that town, entered as a student at Christ
Church, Oxford, where, after receiving his degree of Master of Arts
in 1807, he graduated as a Doctor of Medicine in 1816. In 1811, he
was elected to the Radcliffe Travelling Fellowship which owed its
foundation to the generosity of Dr. Radcliffe, about whom he writes
so delightfully in his chef d’œuvre. These fellowships were founded
with the purpose of giving their holders the opportunity of travel in
foreign lands, and Dr. Macmichael passed several years journeying in
Russia, Turkey, Greece and Palestine. That he was an observing and
interested traveller is manifested in a little work which he published
in London in 1819, entitled “A Journey from Moscow to Constantinople,
in the Years 1817 and 1818.” He was, for a short time, physician
to Lord Londonderry while the latter was ambassador to Vienna. He
settled in London in the practice of medicine in 1818, and was elected
a fellow of the College of Physicians of London in the same year.
At the outset of his career as a practicing physician, he had the
good fortune to secure the friendship of Sir Henry Halford, to whom
the College was indebted for the gift of the Gold-Headed Cane, which
had descended to Sir Henry from the distinguished line of bearers
about whom Macmichael centered its autobiography. Sir Henry Halford’s
influence in professional and social circles in London was immense. His
name was really Henry Vaughan. His father was a physician in Leicester,
who devoted his entire income to the education of his seven sons, all
of whom proved themselves worthy of the parental self-denial by the
eminent positions which they subsequently obtained in the professions
which they respectively adopted. Sir Henry, after graduating from
Oxford, secured an advantageous social position for himself by his
marriage to the daughter of Lord St. John of Bletsoe. He inherited a
large property on the death of Lady Denbigh, the widow of his mother’s
cousin, Sir Charles Halford, Bart., and by an act of Parliament, in
1809, changed his name from Vaughan to Halford. In the subsequent year
he was made a baronet. He attended in a professional capacity George
III, George IV and Queen Victoria, and after the death of Matthew
Baillie, he had the largest and most fashionable practice in London.

Halford was the president of the College of Physicians of London from
1820 until his death in 1844, and it was during his presidency that
the College was removed from Warwick Lane to Pall Mall East. Those who
envied his position attributed his success to his courtly manners, and
he was nicknamed “the eel-backed baronet.” The story is told that he
galloped from the death bed of George IV out to Bushy Park in order
that he might have the honor of being the first to inform William IV
of the glad event. He was present at the opening of the coffin of
Charles I, in 1813, and published an account of the proceedings on that
occasion. J. F. Clarke, in his autobiography, accuses Halford, amongst
other things, of retaining possession of part of the King’s fourth
cervical vertebra through which the axe passed, and displaying it at
his dinner table as an interesting curio.

Halford, in the words of Dr. Munk, “at the height of his success, and
when his duties at Court were the most onerous, found it necessary to
have in reserve some physician on whom he could implicitly rely, to
act as his representative and substitute when such was needed. His
choice fell on Dr. Macmichael, who, through Sir Henry’s influence,
was appointed in rapid succession Physician Extraordinary to the King
in 1829, Librarian to the King in 1830, in place of a very eminent
physician, Dr. Gooch, recently deceased; and finally, in 1831,
Physician in Ordinary to the King.”

Halford had been obliged to resign his position as physician to the
Middlesex Hospital, owing to the pressure of other duties, as early as
1800; but it was probably due to his influence that twenty-two years
later Macmichael was appointed to the same position. Macmichael was
very active in the affairs of the College of Physicians, served among
its officers on several occasions, and read a number of communications
before it. He wrote various articles on contagion and infection, none
of them possessing any great value. In spite of powerful backing and
the important positions he held, Dr. Macmichael lacked the ambition or
did not possess the aptitude to acquire a large practice.

In 1830 Macmichael published “Lives of British Physicians,” of which
another edition was published by Thomas Tegg in 1846. Macmichael
himself contributed to it the lives of Linacre, Caius, Harvey, Sir
Thomas Browne, Sydenham and Radcliffe. The biographies of twelve other
English medical worthies were contributed by Dr. Bisset Hawkins, Dr.
Parry, Dr. Southey, Dr. Munk, and Mr. Clarke. The book is a small
volume containing portraits of some of the more famous subjects. It was
dedicated to Sir Henry Halford. Although not so happy in its conception
and execution as the Gold-Headed Cane, this little work is a most
valuable contribution to English medical literature. The lives are well
written, accurate, and contain information much of which is derived
from sources inaccessible to the general reader.

In 1837, at the age of fifty-three, Dr. Macmichael suffered a stroke
of paralysis which obliged him to retire from professional life and he
died two years later at his residence in Maida Vale. Sir Thomas Watson,
the famous London Physician, was one of Dr. Macmichael’s friends who
knew him many years. In 1878 Sir Thomas Watson wrote of him as follows,
to Munk:[1] “Dr. Macmichael was fond of society, and qualified alike
to enjoy and embellish it. Having travelled long and seen many cities
and the manners of many men, he possessed a large stock of general
information, was fertile in various and amusing anecdotes, and was wont
to mix, with certain natural ease and grace, in lively and interesting
discourse, without making his own share in it unduly prominent. His
cheerfulness and equanimity of temper, and kindness of heart, endeared
him to a large circle of devoted friends, of whom a very few only, at
the time of this writing, survive to commemorate his engaging qualities
and to regret his loss.”

Under Sir Henry Halford’s presidency the College of Physicians
underwent a great awakening. It acquired, largely through his
individual efforts, a splendid new home and he also originated the
evening meetings which were henceforth held in the Hall. These were
held once a month during the first six months of the year, at nine
o’clock in the evening. Tea and coffee were provided. The meetings were
attended not only by physicians, but by many persons of prominence
in the various walks of life. The papers presented at them were,
therefore, as a general rule, adapted to a mixed audience. They were
not read by their authors, but by the Registrar of the College, except
in the instance of the President, who was permitted to read such
communications as he might wish to make himself. A great part of Sir
Henry Halford’s success in these innovations was due to the active
part taken by Macmichael in seconding his efforts in this as in every
other way by which he could show his gratitude and aid his friend and
benefactor. In nothing could he have succeeded better in awakening
renewed interest in the venerable College than by directing attention
to its past history and to the achievements of the illustrious men
who had been connected with it. It was probably this desire which
led Macmichael to utilize his erudite knowledge of the subject in the
compilation of the fascinating book to which he gave the name of “The
Gold-Headed Cane.”

The new College was opened on the 25th of June, 1825. According to its
veracious autobiography, on the previous day the Cane was deposited
in a corner closet of the new building, “with the observation that I
was no longer to be carried about.” The Gold-Headed Cane now occupies
a glass case in the Library of the College, where it may have the
consolation of feeling that it is gazed on by many visitors who have
read its history and been stimulated by it to wish a close view of the
author.

The Cane was carried successively by Radcliffe, Mead, Askew, Pitcairn
and Baillie, and bears their various arms engraved upon its head. It
was presented to Sir Henry Halford by Dr. Baillie’s widow and he in
turn placed it in the College.

Dr. Macmichael’s happy inspiration to write its autobiography was
carried into effect at the time when the enthusiasm of the Fellows at
the acquisition of their splendid new hall was at its height. The first
edition was published in 1827, and a second edition in the succeeding
year. A third edition, edited by Dr. William Munk, was published in
1884, forty-five years after Macmichael’s death.

The cane in ancient days was regarded as an essential part of the
equipment of every physician. Dr. Munk, in the third edition of the
Gold-Headed Cane, adverts to this fact and also explains the origin of
the custom. The cane usually carried by physicians had for its head a
knob of gold, silver or ivory, which was hollow, and perforated so that
it served to contain aromatic preparations which could be inhaled as a
preventive of contagion. The favorite preparation for this purpose was
the “vinegar of the four thieves,” or Marseilles Vinegar, an aromatic
vinegar which, according to the confession of four thieves (who had,
during a plague at Marseilles plundered the dead bodies) had prevented
them from contracting the disease while pursuing their nefarious
occupation.

The Gold-Headed Cane was adorned by a cross bar for a top instead of a
knob, a fact which Munk explains by the statement that Radcliffe, its
first owner, was a rule unto himself, and very possibly preferred a
handle of that kind for his cane as a distinction from that used by the
majority of physicians.

With its passage from the possession of Dr. Pitcairn into that of Dr.
Baillie, the Cane pathetically states: “I ceased to be considered any
longer as a necessary appendage of the profession, and consequently the
opportunities I enjoyed of seeing the world, or even of knowing much
about the state of physic, were very greatly abridged, and of but rare
occurrence.”

With the account of Baillie and the state of physic in his time the
Cane ceased its autobiography and regarded its honorable career as
closed. Dr. Munk, in the third edition, published in 1884, wrote a
continuation of the narrative in very good imitation of Macmichael’s
style, which brought the story down to the year 1871.

The publication of a new edition of a medical and literary classic
such as the Gold-Headed Cane requires no apologia. The three previous
editions are now all of them so difficult to obtain, the book so
eagerly sought for, and its perusal productive of so much profit and
pleasure, that the demand is obvious.

The medical profession in Great Britain and America owe the present
undertaking entirely to the unselfish zeal of the Publisher, whose love
and admiration for the merits of the Cane prompted him to undertake
a venture from which in a commercial point of view no profit can be
expected.

The present edition follows the text and illustrations contained in
the second edition, which was chosen for reprinting because it was
revised, added to and published by the author himself. The first
edition contained 179 pages. To the second edition Dr. Macmichael added
88 pages of text, which contain much of the very best of his work. The
third edition contained no illustrations, and although the continuation
of the narrative is most interesting, it is not Macmichael’s and
therefore not the Cane’s.

It is to be hoped that with the recent great stimulation of interest in
medical history which the profession in this country has shown this
little volume will achieve the same popularity as its predecessors and
add more lustre to the glory of the Cane.

FRANCIS R. PACKARD.

Philadelphia, March, 1915.




BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE WRITINGS OF WILLIAM MACMICHAEL.


    “A Journey from Moscow to Constantinople in the year 1817-18.”
    4to, London, 1819.

    “A New View of the Infection of Scarlet Fever; illustrated
    by Remarks on Other Contagious Disorders,” 8vo, vi, 100 pp.
    London, T. and G. Underwood, 1822.

    “A Brief Sketch of the Progress of Opinion upon the Subject of
    Contagion, with Some Remarks on Quarantine.” 8vo, London, 1825.

    “The Gold-Headed Cane,” 179 pp., 8vo, London, J. Murray, 1827.

    “The Gold-Headed Cane,” 267 pp., 8vo, London, J. Murray, 1828.

    “Is the Cholera Spasmodica of India a Contagious Disease?” The
    question considered in a letter to Sir Henry Halford, Bart.,
    M.D. 34 pp., 8vo, London, J. Murray, 1831. A French translation
    of this pamphlet was published in Paris in 1831.

    “Some Remarks on Dropsy; with a Narrative of the Last Illness
    of H. R. H. the Duke of York”; read at the Royal College of
    Physicians, May 25, 1835. 18 pp., 8vo, London, J. Murray, 1835.

    “The Gold-Headed Cane,” edited by William Munk, XVI, 266 pp.,
    8vo, London, Longmans, 1884.

In this edition the editor continues the narrative of the Gold-Headed
Cane down to the year 1876, in imitation of Macmichael’s style. It
lacks the quaint illustrations which ornamented the first two editions
and added so much to their charm.




                                  THE
                           GOLD-HEADED CANE.

                            [Illustration]

                           _SECOND EDITION._

                                LONDON:
                    JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE-STREET.
                             MDCCCXXVIII.

                                  TO
                     THE HONOURABLE LADY HALFORD,
                              THIS VOLUME
                             IS DEDICATED
                                 WITH
            SENTIMENTS OF THE GREATEST RESPECT AND ESTEEM,
                                  BY
                            HER LADYSHIP’S
                        MOST FAITHFUL SERVANT,
                              THE EDITOR.




NOTICE BY THE EDITOR.


_A short time before the opening of the New College of Physicians, Mrs.
Baillie presented to that learned body a Gold-Headed Cane, which had
been successively carried by Drs. Radcliffe, Mead, Askew, Pitcairn, and
her own lamented husband._

_The arms of these celebrated Physicians are engraved on the head of
the Cane, and they form the Vignettes of the five Chapters into which
this little Volume is divided._




CONTENTS


                             PAGE

    CHAP.   I.  RADCLIFFE       1

    CHAP.  II.  MEAD           51

    CHAP. III.  ASKEW         149

    CHAP.  IV.  PITCAIRN      174

    CHAP.   V.  BAILLIE       225




[Illustration]




RADCLIFFE.

CHAPTER I.


When I was deposited in a corner closet of the Library, on the 24th
of June, 1825, the day before the opening of the New College of
Physicians, with the observation that I was no longer to be carried
about, but to be kept amongst the reliques of that learned body, it
was impossible to avoid secretly lamenting the obscurity which was
henceforth to be my lot. Formerly the entrée of palaces had been open
to me; I had been freely admitted into the houses of the great and
the rich; but now I was doomed to darkness, and condemned to occupy
the corner of a library--spacious and splendid, it must be allowed,
but where I was surrounded by nothing but the musty manuscripts of
defunct doctors. The gloom, however, of my present abode was enlivened
on the following day by my overhearing the elegant oration of the
President of the College; and an occasional glance I had of scarlet
dresses recalled the decorum and propriety of the days of yore, when,
on all solemn occasions of public meeting, the Fellows appeared habited
in the doctors’ robes of their respective universities. I had passed
through so many erudite hands, and had been present at so many grave
consultations, that the language of the oration was familiar to me,
and I could easily collect, from certain allusions in the speech, that
princes of the blood, the legislators of the land, the nobles and
learned of England, formed a considerable portion of the audience. The
topics upon which the accomplished orator touched were various and
interesting; but I listened with increased attention when I heard him
speak of the donation of the Radcliffe Trustees[2], and every fibre
thrilled within me at the consciousness of the heartfelt delight with
which my first kind and generous master would have grasped me, could
he have foreseen the liberal spirit of the future guardians of his
princely fortune.

The low murmur of applause which accompanied the commemoration of the
integrity and honest simplicity of character of the last physician,
whose hand I had graced, checked as it was by the reflection, that he
was now, alas! no more, marked alike the eloquence of the orator, and
the good taste and feeling of his audience. But the speech was too soon
finished, and the guests slowly retired from the Library. I was once
more left to silence and solitude; never, perhaps, to see the light of
day, unless when my closet was occasionally unlocked, that I might be
shown as a curiosity to some idle and casual visitor. I had, however,
been closely connected with medicine for a century and a half; and
might consequently, without vanity, look upon myself as the depositary
of many important secrets, in which the dignity of the profession
was nearly concerned. I resolved, therefore, to employ my leisure in
recording the most striking scenes I had witnessed. The Doctors had
indeed resumed their robes; but it was too much to expect that they
would again carry the cane, and adopt the use of the full-bottomed
wig; though I have not the least doubt that the honour of physic,
and perhaps the welfare of mankind, would be greatly promoted by so
praiseworthy a practice.

These Memoirs are the fruit of my retirement; and should the reader
feel any disposition to authenticate my narrative by reference to the
records of the different periods it embraces, I feel no fear for the
result of his investigation: since if the written documents be correct,
they must agree with my story.

Of my early state and separate condition I have no recollection
whatever; and it may reasonably enough be supposed, that it was not
till after the acquisition of my head that I became conscious of
existence, and capable of observation. But I shall never forget the
first consultation at which I was present; where every thing being
strange to me, I was attentive to the most minute circumstances,
which then came recommended to my notice as well by the importance
and dignity of the patient, as by the novelty of the scene. As in
these conferences there is usually much matter of routine, I became
afterwards more careless; and as none of the responsibility of the
advice given rested with me, I allowed my thoughts to wander.

It was in the autumn of 1689. My master, Dr. Radcliffe, had just then
returned from a distant journey in the country, and was much fatigued,
when an urgent message reached him at his house in Bow-street, Covent
Garden. Snatching me up, he hurried into his carriage, and set off
with all speed for Kensington House. This irregular edifice, which had
recently been purchased by the crown of the second Earl of Nottingham,
had undergone several alterations, and received some additions
hastily put together for the immediate accommodation of the court.
The edifice itself was not extensive, having rather the appearance of
the neat villa of a nobleman than that of a royal mansion; and the
gardens were upon a small scale, but kept in the neatest possible
order. From the town of Kensington, the approach was by a double
row of large elm trees, leading to the north entrance of the house,
through an unenclosed field, which was at that time disfigured by
a gravel-pit. Here, however, afterwards, the skill of the famous
gardeners of the day, London and Wise, was employed; and the cut yew
and variegated holly hedges were taught to imitate the fines, angles,
bastions, scarps, and counterscarps, of a regular fortification. This
curious upper garden, known by the name of _the Siege of Troy_, was
long the admiration of every lover of that kind of trim horticultural
embellishment[3].

We were ushered through a suite of several rooms, plainly but
handsomely furnished, by Simon de Brienne; and it seemed to me that the
Doctor assumed a more lofty air, and walked with a firmer step, and
I was conscious of a gentle pressure of his hand, as he stopped and
gazed for a moment on the likeness of the Founder of the College of
Physicians, Dr. Linacre, painted by Holbein, which was hanging in one
of the rooms, amongst the royal portraits of the Henrys, and several
other of the Kings and Queens of England and Scotland.

On entering the sick chamber, which was a small cabinet in the
south-east angle of the building, called the Writing Closet, a person
of a grave and solemn aspect, apparently about forty years of age,
of a thin and weak body, brown hair, and of middle stature, was seen
sitting in an arm-chair, and breathing with great difficulty. The
naturally serious character of the King (for it was His Majesty William
the Third) was rendered more melancholy by the distressing symptoms
of an asthma, the consequence of the dregs of the small-pox, that had
fallen on his lungs. In the absence of the fit, and at other times, his
sparkling eyes, large and elevated forehead, and aquiline nose, gave a
dignity to his countenance, which, though usually grave and phlegmatic,
was said in the day of battle to be susceptible of the most animated
expression. “Doctor,” said the King, “Bentinck[4] and Zulestein[5]
have been urgent with me that I should again send for you; and though I
have great confidence in my two body-physicians here, yet I have heard
so much of your great skill, that I desire you will confer with Bidloo
and Laurence, whether some other plan might not be adopted. They have
plied me so much with aperitives to open my stomach, that I am greatly
reduced; my condition is, I think, hazardous, unless you try other
measures.”

The King seldom spoke so long at a time, his conversation being usually
remarkably dry and repulsive; and here His Majesty’s speech was
interrupted by a deep cough, and he sunk back in his chair exhausted.
“May it please Your Majesty,” said Dr. Radcliffe, “I must be plain
with you, Sir: your case is one of danger, no doubt, but if you will
adhere to my prescriptions, I will engage to do you good. The rheum is
dripping on your lungs, and will be of fatal consequence to you, unless
it be otherwise diverted.”--Upon this Dr. Bidloo, who, though expert
in the knowledge of some branches of physic, was not always happy or
quick in his conjectures, was about to reply. There was something
like an insinuation of _mala praxis_ in the last observation; and
being somewhat of an irascible temper, the Dutchman, anxious perhaps
to return to his duties of professor of anatomy and surgery at Leyden,
was indifferent about giving offence to his royal master. But the King,
in a calm and sullen manner, imposed silence, and intimated to the
physicians to withdraw and consult upon the treatment of his malady.
The consultation was short, and the result was, that some medicines
should be tried that might have the effect of promoting the flow of
saliva. This treatment fully succeeded, for the King was so completely
restored, that a few months afterwards he fought the battle of the
Boyne.

Before we left the palace, my master waited upon Her Majesty the
Queen; and as it was well known, that Mary grew weary of any body who
would not talk a great deal (while her sister the Princess Anne of
Denmark was so silent that she rarely spoke more than was necessary to
answer a question), our audience was not soon over. It was said by the
enemies of the Queen, that whatever good qualities she had to make her
popular, it was but too evident, by many instances, that she wanted
bowels; but on the present occasion the accusation was quite untrue,
for on the subject of the King’s indisposition, nothing could exceed
her anxiety, and it was impossible for the physician to answer Her
Majesty’s innumerable inquiries. What was the nature of his complaint?
the probable issue? how long a time would be required to complete
his recovery, so that, in the present critical state of affairs,
His Majesty might be enabled to return to the management of public
business, and take the field against his enemies? In fact, the Queen
asked questions which I soon found, by a very little experience, that
the conjectural nature of the art of medicine would not always allow
to be answered with precision. The person of the Queen was majestic,
and calculated to inspire respect; and her conversation (when not under
the influence of such feelings as now agitated her) indicated a fine
and cultivated understanding, for she had read much in history and
divinity. Her Majesty’s studies were, however, even now beginning to
be interrupted by a course of humours that was forming in her eyes,
and which compelled her to employ her time in another manner. But she
was ever active; and so industrious, that she wrought many hours a day
herself, with her ladies and maids of honour working about her, while
one read to them all.

Our interview with the Queen took place in a small apartment,
afterwards known by the name of the Patch-work Closet, the sides of
which were hung with tapestry, the work of her own hands; as were
also the coverings of the chairs with which the room was furnished.
As I shall not have occasion again to speak of the Queen, it may here
be mentioned that, five years afterwards, this incomparable Princess
fell a victim to the small-pox; and though my master was blamed by
his enemies, as having caused her death, either by his negligence or
unskilfulness, yet he himself always maintained that he was called
too late, and that no remedies that could then be tried had the least
chance of doing her good. On this delicate point, any evidence which
I could advance would be received with suspicion; and it remains only
to observe, that on this melancholy occasion King William exhibited
feelings which no one had previously given him credit for. A great
politician and soldier, who had been immersed in dangers and calamities
from his infancy, he was possessed of boundless ambition, which he
concealed under a cold exterior, never allowing his speech to betray
the wishes of his heart. But during the last sickness of the Queen,
His Majesty was in an agony that amazed every one about his person,
fainting often, and breaking out into most violent lamentations. When
he heard of her death, he was much affected, burst into tears, and
for some weeks after was not capable of minding business or of seeing
company.

Whilst the nation was grieving for the loss of the Queen, an event took
place in our domestic establishment, which considerably ruffled my
master’s temper, and interrupted, for a short space, the usual gaiety
of his life. Though it could not be said that our house was ever a
melancholy one (in truth, we were little at home, the Doctor living
much in society, whither I accompanied him to taverns and clubs, where
the choicest spirits were wont to assemble), yet still the home of a
bachelor is occasionally but a dull and stupid residence. The friends
of Radcliffe were therefore always urging him to look out for a wife,
and he at length listened to their advice. One who was so general a
favourite in society, and, besides, who was known to be so well to pass
in the world (for at that time he was worth, at the least, £30,000, and
daily adding to his wealth), had no great difficulty in meeting with an
object upon whom to place his affections. A young lady, the daughter of
a wealthy citizen, whose name I forbear to mention, in consideration
of the awkward disclosure which ultimately took place, soon attracted
his attention. She was an only child, not more than twenty-four years
of age, and with a tolerable share of personal charms: the parents
readily assented to the proposal, and the terms of the marriage were
soon agreed upon; the lady was to have £15,000 down, and the residue
of the citizen’s estate at his decease. The visits of my master into
the city were numerous, but he took me with him once or twice only. To
tell the truth, I felt myself, on these occasions, quite misplaced; not
that I was at all unaccustomed to female society--quite the reverse;
but then the conversations, with which I was familiar, were altogether
so different. Here were none of the ordinary questions about health,
the last night’s repose, the situation of pain, the long detail of
complaints, the vapours, the low muttering with the waiting-woman
aside; and at last, when the hurry and agitation occasioned by the
doctor’s arrival had subsided, the sagacious feeling of the pulse.
To all this I was daily habituated; but, in the new scene to which I
was now introduced, I was conscious of making an awkward appearance,
and was glad to be left at home. Matters, however, seemed to proceed
prosperously, and every thing promised a consummation of my master’s
happiness; when, one evening, he returned late to his home, obviously
much discomposed. He was no sooner alone in his chamber, than he gave
vent to his chagrin. “Good God!” said he, as he paced up and down
the room, “what a discovery! Well! hanging and marrying certainly go
by destiny; and if I had been guilty of the last, I should scarcely
have escaped the first. What would my acquaintance have said? And my
neighbour, Sir Godfrey, how would he have triumphed! He was sarcastic
enough the other day about that confounded garden-door[6]--here there
would have been no bounds to his mirth; I should have been the
laughing-stock of all who know me.

“Mrs. Mary is a very deserving gentlewoman, no doubt; but her father
must pardon me, if I think her by no means fit to be my wife, since
she is or ought to be another man’s already!” These and other similar
expressions escaped him, as he continued to walk to and fro, apparently
in the highest degree of excitement. At length he sat down to his table
and wrote a letter to Mr. S--d, declining the honour of becoming his
son-in-law, and stating his reasons in full for so sudden a change of
resolution. The effects of this disappointment were visible for some
time, but he ultimately recovered his spirits, returned to his former
aversion to matrimony, and resumed his usual habits of conviviality and
independence.

His practice increased, and there were few families of any note
that had not some time or other recourse to his skill and advice. I
began now to consider how his superiority over his rivals was to be
explained, whence arose the great confidence reposed in him by his
patients; to what, in fine, his eminent success was to be attributed.
It was clear, his erudition had nothing to do with it; but though there
was something rude in the manner in which he frequently disparaged
the practice of others, yet it could not be denied that his general
good sense and practical knowledge of the world distinguished him from
all his competitors. He was remarkable for his apt and witty replies,
and always ready in suggesting expedients; though, to be sure, some of
them were homely enough, and occasionally sufficiently ludicrous, and
such as I never witnessed with the grave and more polished doctors into
whose hands I afterwards passed. He was once sent for into the country,
to visit a gentleman ill of a quinsey. Finding that no external nor
internal application would be of service, he desired the lady of the
house to order a hasty-pudding to be made: when it was done, his own
servants were to bring it up, and while the pudding was preparing,
he gave them his private instructions. In a short time it was set on
the table, in full view of the patient. “Come, Jack and Dick,” said
Radcliffe, “eat as quickly as possible; you have had no breakfast
this morning.” Both began with their spoons, but on Jack’s dipping
once only for Dick’s twice, a quarrel arose. Spoonfuls of hot pudding
were discharged on both sides, and at last, handfuls were pelted at
each other. The patient was seized with a hearty fit of laughter, the
quinsey burst and discharged its contents, and my master soon completed
the cure.

So much for his humour; but it was the confident tone in which he
frequently predicted the issue of diseases, a quality which he
possessed in an eminent degree, and often exercised with great success,
that chiefly gave a decided advantage to Radcliffe over his rivals
in practice. I will relate one of these occasions, which was very
striking. Being sent for once, to attend the Duke of Beaufort at
Badminton, who was very ill, the Doctor, instead of complying with the
request, told the gentleman who brought the message, “There was no
manner of necessity for his presence, since the Duke his master died
such an hour the day before:” which the messenger on his return found
to be true.

By the judicious exercise of this foresight a physician acquires the
greatest reputation, and when his prognosis is the result of mature
experience, he is entitled to be bold. Besides, the fears, the doubts,
and anxiety of the friends of the sick ought to be taken into account:
they have a right to the consolation of certainty; and the doctor ought
not to be over-scrupulous of his reputation, nor entrench himself
too much in the security of an ambiguous reply. His duties demand
discretion and humanity: in circumstances of danger, he is called upon
to give to the friends of the patient timely notice of its approach; to
the sick, he should be the minister of hope and comfort, that by such
cordials he may raise the drooping spirit and smooth the bed of death.
That “the Doctor should go out at one door when the Clergyman enters
in at the other,” is a quaint conceit, more expressive of impiety than
humour; for even when the life of the patient is absolutely despaired
of, the presence of a man of a compassionate and feeling heart will
prove highly grateful and useful to the dying sufferer, as well as to
his nearest relations.

The health of King William continued tolerably good till after his
return from abroad in 1697, on the ratification of the celebrated
treaty of Ryswick, when my master was again sent for to visit his royal
patient. After rather jocosely illustrating His Majesty’s situation
by an allusion to one of Æsop’s fables, which the King (previously
to our arrival) was reading, in Sir Roger L’Estrange’s translation,
I was rather startled at the blunt manner in which Radcliffe told
his patient that he must not be buoyed up with hopes that his malady
would soon be driven away. “Your juices are all vitiated, your whole
mass of blood corrupted, and the nutriment for the most part turned to
water: but,” added the Doctor, “if Your Majesty will forbear making
long visits to the Earl of Bradford, (where, to tell the truth, the
King was wont to drink very hard,) I’ll engage to make you live three
or four years longer; but beyond that time no physic can protract Your
Majesty’s existence.” I trembled at the bold and familiar tone assumed
by my master, as well as at the positive prognosis which he ventured
to give; but his prediction was verified by the sequel. King William
died in 1702. The year before this event, Dr. Bidloo had accompanied
His Majesty to Holland, where his treatment of his royal patient
at that time, and for some months before his death, was a subject
of animadversion with the other doctors attached to the court. In
addition to many other infirmities under which the King laboured, he
was troubled with boils that formed in different parts of his body; and
for these Bidloo directed that his feet and legs should be rubbed night
and morning, with flannel covered with powder of crabs’-eyes, flour,
and cummin-seed. As to diet, the Doctor was exceedingly indulgent,
allowing His Majesty to drink cider, ale--in short, all sorts of strong
beer; and to take crude aliments before going to bed. It was in vain
that Doctors Hutton, Millington, Blakemore, and Laurence remonstrated.
On the King’s return to Hampton Court, the dropsical swelling of the
inferior extremities extended upwards, for which Bidloo prescribed
a vapour-bath, and inclosed the legs of the patient in a wooden box
constructed for that purpose. In a constitution so weak, which this
treatment was reported to have still more debilitated, an accident was
likely to prove fatal. On the 27th of February, 1702-3, while hunting,
the King fell from his horse, and broke his right clavicle near the
acromion. This occurred in the neighbourhood of Hampton Court; but the
French surgeon Ronjat was at hand, and soon reduced the fracture.
But when he wanted to bleed His Majesty, a new obstacle arose, for it
was necessary not only to have the sanction of some one of the court
physicians, but also the authority of the privy council, for the
performance of that operation.

Notwithstanding the necessity and advantage of rest, the King persisted
in his wish to return to Kensington, where he arrived between nine and
ten o’clock in the evening: here a discussion arose between Bidloo and
the Surgeon as to whether there had really been any fracture or not.
Ronjat stoutly maintained the affirmative; the Dutch Doctor as stoutly
denied it. This point was, however, at length settled, when a new
difference of opinion occurred as to the mode of applying the bandages.
Bidloo wished himself to apply them, but the Surgeon said no, “You are
here either in the character of a physician or in that of a surgeon: if
the former, you have nothing to do with bandages, if the latter, c’est
moi qui suis le premier chirurgien du Roi.”

After the death of the King, a paper war took place, and the various
arguments and statements advanced by each party were frequently
mentioned in societies where I was present; for luckily my master
had no share in these disputes. On the one hand Bidloo put forth a
pamphlet[7], published at Leyden, written in Low Dutch, in order, as
his enemies said, that few might read it in this country; the year
after, M. Ronjat entered the field in a French reply[8], published
in London by Henry Ribotteau, Bookseller in the Strand, over-against
Bedford’s Buildings.

Of the public and private character of King William, a prince so
celebrated in the history of that period, it would be presumption in me
to speak. No one can deny that by his talents as a negotiator in the
cabinet, he saved his own country from ruin, restored the liberties of
England, and preserved the independence of Europe. His great object
in accepting the crown of this country was to engage her more deeply
in the concerns of the Continent, and thus enable him to gratify his
ambition, the scope of which had always been to humble the French.
When he found, however, the year after his arrival in England, that
the spirit of party ran so high here as to thwart all his measures,
he resolved to quit the country altogether, go over to Holland, and
leave the government in the Queen’s hands. And yet it is singular that
William was naturally of so cold and reserved a disposition, that Her
Majesty knew nothing of this important determination, in which she was
so nearly concerned, till she heard it from Bishop Burnet. It was said
also, that the King, though he occasionally put on some appearance of
application, was averse from business of all sort, and that it was to
avoid company and occupation, that he betook himself to a perpetual
course of hunting. Of his own personal safety he was very regardless,
and perhaps his belief of predestination made him more adventurous
than was necessary. The most striking feature of his character was,
however, as has been mentioned before, the gravity of his deportment;
and Burnet used to relate, that on the most critical occasion of his
life, on his landing at Torbay, in 1688, the King shook him heartily by
the hand, asked him if he would not now believe in predestination; was,
for a short time only, cheerfuller than ordinary, but soon returned to
his usual gravity. I do not vouch for the truth of this story, nor for
the scrupulous accuracy of the Bishop in all which he relates, though
I have heard that he is the best and indeed the only authority to be
met with on many of the subjects he treats of. The repulsive qualities
of the King were the cause, no doubt, of the coolness that subsisted
between the different members of the royal family. I recollect there
was much talk at the time, of the affront put upon the Prince of
Denmark, who, on his accompanying the King to Ireland, was not allowed
to go in the coach with him, though it was well known that the Prince
had put himself to great expense on the occasion of that expedition.

The Princess, afterwards Our Gracious Majesty Queen Anne, was treated
even with still less courtesy; for, while she was dining one day with
the King and Queen, His Majesty ate up all the green pease, then newly
come in, without even once offering that rarity to his royal consort or
guest.

Of Prince George of Denmark I have little to say, for his physician was
Dr. Arbuthnot. His Highness was an invalid, labouring, like the King,
under an asthma; and during his illness, which was protracted, his
Queen was very attentive to him. He died six years after King William.
He had the Danish countenance, _blonde_, was of few words--spake
French but ill, seemed somewhat heavy, but had the character of a good
mathematician. He made no figure in politics, and did not understand
much of the post of High Admiral, which he filled, though he possessed
many good qualities; was brave, mild, and gentle.

[Illustration: This sketch is from an original picture by his friend
Sir Godfrey Kneller, which is placed in the Library of the College of
Physicians, in one of the closets of which I am now immured.]

But I must descend from these high matters, and speak again of my
master, and, I am sorry to say, of another disappointment which
occurred in our house. Two years after the death of Prince George,
when Radcliffe was in his sixtieth year, I was somewhat surprised, one
morning after breakfast, to observe him attired with more than ordinary
exactness. His full-bottomed wig was dressed with peculiar care; he
had put on his best suit of lilac-coloured velvet with yellow basket
buttons, and his air upon the whole was very commanding. He reminded
me strongly of his appearance some ten or fifteen years before. He had
an elevated forehead, hazel eyes, cheeks telling of the good cheer
of former days, if any thing a little too ruddy; a double chin, a
well-formed nose, and a mouth round which generally played an agreeable
smile. When he sat in his easy chair, with his right hand expanded,
and placed upon his breast, as if meditating a speech, and clearing
his voice for the purpose of giving it utterance; his left wearing his
glove, and resting on his side immediately above the hilt of his sword,
which was a very usual attitude with him, he certainly had a most
comely and well-favoured appearance.

I love to dwell upon these particulars of my old worthy master; for to
him I owe my first introduction into the world, and whatever celebrity
my memoirs may hereafter obtain. When fully equipped, he stepped into a
gay gilt chariot, drawn by fresh prancing horses, the coachman wearing
a new cockade, and our lacqueys looking with all the insolence of
plenty in their countenances. We paraded the streets, passed through
Covent Garden, and the most frequented parts of the town; but it
grieved me to observe, that our glittering equipage served only to
provoke the smiles and ridicule of the malicious. To speak out, it was
now notorious that the Doctor was in love, and that all this parade was
for the purpose of captivating the young lady of whom he was enamoured.
Suffice it to say, he was lampooned, proved unfortunate in his suit,
and was styled by the wicked wits of the day “the mourning Esculapius,”
“the languishing hopeless lover of the divine Hebe, the emblem of youth
and beauty.”

But more sober reflection and the busy duties of his profession soon
withdrew his thoughts from these amorous toys, and he continued
actively employed for a few years longer, though it was but too evident
that his health and spirits were daily declining.

About this time that celebrated warrior, Prince Eugene, so
distinguished for his campaigns in Hungary and Italy, where he had
gained such splendid victories over the Turk and the King of France,
arrived in England. The object of his visit was to try if it were
possible to engage our court to go on with the war, which met with
great obstruction. But the juncture was unfavourable to his project;
for on the very day before his arrival, his great friend and companion
in arms, the Duke of Marlborough, was turned out of all his places.
The days of intimacy between the Queen and the Duchess were at an end;
and the endearing appellations of the “poor, unfortunate, faithful
Morley,” and Mrs. Freeman, no longer marked the extraordinary terms
of friendly intercourse which had subsisted between Her Majesty and
a subject. The Prince was, however, caressed by the courtiers for
his own worth; and though his negotiations went slowly on, he was
entertained by most of the nobility, and magnificently feasted by the
city. My master invited His Highness to dinner; and a large party of
the nobility, and several topping merchants, particularly some of those
who had formerly contributed to the Silesian loan, were engaged to
meet him. The enmity of the Prince to every thing French was known,
and it had been rendered still more notorious by his admirable reply
to an insolent threat of the minister of the Grand Monarque, which
was at this time in the mouth of every one. Louvois had intimated to
the Prince, that he must not think of returning to France; to which
the warrior replied, “_Eugene entrera un jour en France, en depit de
Louvois et de Louis_.” To do honour to such a guest was the ambition of
Radcliffe; and in giving orders for dinner, “Let there be no ragouts,”
said he; “no kickshaws of France; but let us treat the Prince as a
soldier. He shall have a specimen of true English hospitality. I will
have my table covered with barons of beef, jiggets of mutton, and
legs of pork.” At the appointed hour the guests assembled, and the
Prince charmed every one by his unassuming modesty, his easy address
and behaviour. His aspect was erect and composed, his eye lively
and thoughtful, yet rather vigilant than sparkling: but his manner
was peculiarly graceful, and he descended to an easy equality with
those who conversed with him. The shape of his person and composure
of his limbs was remarkably erect and beautiful; still, with all his
condescension, and though he was affable to every one, it was evident
that he rather _suffered_ the presence of much company, instead of
taking delight in public gaze and popular applause. The entertainment
of my master went off very well; all seemed to be pleased, though some
of the courtiers indulged in a little pleasantry at the ample cheer
with which the table groaned. The princely stranger expressed himself
much satisfied, and was loud in his praise of some capital seven years
old beer, which we happened at that time to have in tap.

I forgot to mention, that, a few years before the period of which I
am now speaking, I saw, for the first time, Dr. Mead, who was then
beginning to be known as a man rising in his profession, and into
whose hands I was afterwards destined to fall. He lived then in
Austyn friers; and we found him one morning in his library, reading
Hippocrates; when the following dialogue took place between the two
physicians:

RADCLIFFE (_taking up the volume of the venerable Father of Physic_).
“What! my young friend, do you read Hippocrates in the original
language? Well, take my word for it, when I am dead you will occupy the
throne of physic in this great town.”

MEAD. “No, Sir; when you are gone, your empire, like Alexander’s, will
be divided amongst many successors.”

I felt that this courteous reply pleased my master mightily; and
although Mead was even then known to be a man of great talent, had
already written his treatise on Poisons, published several other
works of merit, and was therefore in every respect deserving of the
countenance and patronage of the eminent doctor of the day, yet I have
myself no doubt that this well-timed compliment to Radcliffe’s eminence
served to cement the intimate friendship of these two physicians.

The library of Mead was even at this time considerable. Many rooms of
his small house were filled with books; and the two doctors indulged
in a long chat. The conversation embraced many topics. Mead was very
lively and entertaining; related several anecdotes of things which
he had seen abroad; and described with great animation his joy on
finding the Tabula Isiaca[9] in a lumber room at Florence. Upon this
subject my master asked many questions, and appeared much struck
with the advantage of foreign travel to a physician. On taking his
leave, he again expressed his admiration of the literary attainments
of Mead, and said in a tone of great earnestness and sincerity--“Some
day or other, the Alma Mater where I was bred shall receive from me
substantial proofs of the true concern I feel for the welfare of the
cause of learning: for as I have grown older, every year of my life
has convinced me more and more of the value of the education of the
scholar and the gentleman, to the thoroughbred physician. But,” added
he, “perhaps your friend here (pointing me to a folio edition of Celsus
which stood on one of the shelves of the library) expresses my meaning
better than I can myself, where he says, that this discipline of the
mind, ‘_quamvis non faciat medicum, aptiorem tamen medicinæ reddit_.’”
Radcliffe, as if unwilling to trust himself with any farther quotation,
embraced Dr. Mead, and hastened to his carriage.

On the 1st of August, 1714, died Queen Anne; an event memorable in the
life of Radcliffe. The domestic physicians of Her Majesty, assisted by
Dr. Mead, had applied various remedies without success. It was reported
that the privy council, as well as the Queen, had given orders that
my master should be present at the consultation, and that he excused
himself under pretence of indisposition. The truth is, he was not in
town at that time, but down at his country-house at Carshalton in
Surrey, ill himself of the gout, which had seized his head and stomach.
Yet notwithstanding this, the enemies of Radcliffe imputed the death
of the Queen to his absence, and he was accordingly threatened with
assassination. This unpopularity, undeserved as it was, made him keep
his house, where, on the 4th of August, three days after the death of
Her Majesty, Dr. Mead and his brother the lawyer came down to dine
with him at two o’clock. In spite of the ill state of his health, the
conversation of two such good friends afforded him much pleasure and
satisfaction. After dinner, his wonted good humour returned, and,
taking me in his hand, he presented me, with the following discourse,
to Dr. Mead:--

“Though my life is, I dare say, pretty well known to you, yet I will
mention some of the leading circumstances of it, from which perhaps
you may be able to derive some instruction. Since I began the study
of medicine, I have devoted myself chiefly to a careful examination
of the most valuable modern treatises. In this particular I differ, I
know, from you, who are a profound scholar; but my books have always
been few, though I hope well chosen. When I was at the university, a
few vials, a skeleton, and an herbal, chiefly formed my library. By
following the dictates of common sense, while I practised at Oxford
after taking my bachelor of medicine’s degree, instead of stoving up my
patients who were ill of the small-pox, as was done by the Galenists
of those days, I gave them air and cooling emulsions, and thus rescued
more than a hundred from the grave. I have always endeavoured to
discountenance the attempts of quacks and intermeddlers in physic, and
by the help of Providence I have succeeded most wonderfully. My good
Dr. Mead, you must consider this conversation as quite confidential,
and if I mention any thing that has the air of boasting, you will
reflect that I unbosom myself to a friend, and what I am about to say
is for your encouragement. In 1686, I was made principal physician
to Her Royal Highness the Princess Anne of Denmark, and soon after
His late Majesty King William’s arrival in England, he was graciously
pleased to make me an offer of being sworn one of his physicians in
ordinary, with a salary of two hundred pounds per annum more than any
other. At the same time he generously ordered me five hundred guineas
out of the privy purse for the cures of M. Bentinck and M. Zulestein.
Though I begged to be permitted to refuse the post, yet the King was so
frequently ill of rheum and asthma, that, for the first eleven years
of his reign, I gained, one year with another, more than six hundred
guineas per annum by my attendance upon His Majesty. My practice
rapidly increased, and I was even credibly informed that Dr. Gibbons,
who lived in my neighbourhood, got more than one thousand pounds a year
by patients whom I really had not time to see, and who had therefore
recourse to him. As my wealth increased, you will naturally ask me
why I never married: it does not become me to speak of my good or ill
fortune in that line, especially now when I ought to call my thoughts
from all such vanities, and when the decays of nature tell me that
I have only a short time to live. That time is, I am afraid, barely
sufficient to repent me of the idle hours which I have spent in riotous
living; for I now feel, in the pain which afflicts my nerves, that I
am a martyr to excess, and am afraid that I have been an abettor and
encourager of intemperance in others. Though by an indiscreet speech
I lost the good graces of the Princess Anne, yet His Majesty King
William still continued to have confidence in my skill. As a proof of
it, I may mention that in 1695 I was sent for to Namur, to cure Lord
Albemarle. After a week’s residence in the camp abroad, His Majesty
generously gave me an order on the Treasury for £1200; and his Lordship
presented me with four hundred guineas, and this diamond ring, which I
have always worn since. As to honours, I have always refused them: a
baronetcy was offered me, but of what use would a title have been to
me, who have no descendants to inherit it? I have always lived in a
state of celibacy, and have uniformly replied to those who formerly
urged me to marry some young gentlewoman to get heirs by, that truly I
had an old one to take care of, who I intended should be my executrix,
as Oxford[10] will learn after my death. For, thanks to Providence, I
have been very successful, from the very beginning of my professional
life; and I had not been settled a year in London, when I got twenty
guineas a day by my practice: and even Dandridge, the apothecary whom
I patronised, died, as I am informed, worth more than £50,000. The
liberality of my patients enabled me to live and act in a generous
manner. My fees were good: of which you may form some notion when I
mention, that to go from Bloomsbury Square to Bow, I received five
guineas. I do not tell this to you, my good friend, out of ostentation,
but that it may serve as an encouragement to you to hear how the
practice of physic has been remunerated.”

Here Radcliffe paused, and appeared exhausted by speaking so long at a
time.

Dr. Mead--“I feel infinitely obliged to you for your kind and
confidential communication. No one in the least acquainted with
the liberality of your conduct can for a moment accuse you of an
ostentatious display of your wealth. The subject upon which you last
touched, is one that has often excited my curiosity. I should like
of all things to know, what Linacre got by his profession; how much
Caius, Harvey, Sydenham, and other worthies of medicine received yearly
for their professional labour. The honorarium or fee of a doctor,
one would suppose, must always have been in proportion to the rarity
of professional skill, though we must take into account the greater
value of money in former times. There may be notices of this kind to
be met with in different books, but the only instances that occur at
present to my memory are mentioned by that great benefactor of our
College, Baldwin Hamey. In the valuable and entertaining account left
by him of his contemporaries, he mentions, that about the year 1644,
Dr. Rob. Wright, who died at the early age of twenty-eight years, was
very successful in practice. The Latin expression (for his MS.[11] is
written most elegantly in that language), is, I believe, as follows:
‘_Wrightus vixdum trimulus doctor, mille admodum coronatos, annuo
spacio lucraretur_.’ Now, the coronatus, usually called a broad-piece,
was about twenty-two shillings in value, and the receipt of a thousand
of these by so young a physician, who had only been settled three years
in the metropolis, is an instance of very singular good fortune indeed.

“The next, is an account of a fee received by Hamey himself, and is
thus related in the MS. life of that excellent man:--

“It was in the time of the civil wars when it pleased God to visit
him with a severe fit of sickness, or peripneumonia, which confined
him a great while to his chamber, and to the more than ordinary care
of his tender spouse. During this affliction, he was disabled from
practice; but the very first time he dined in his parlour afterwards,
a certain great man in high station came to consult him on an
indisposition--(_ratione vagi sui amoris_)--and he was one of the
godly ones too of those times. After the doctor had received him in
his study, and modestly attended to his long religious preface, with
which he introduced his ignominious circumstances, and Dr. Hamey had
assured him of his fidelity, and gave him hopes of success in his
affair, the generous soldier (for such he was) drew out of his pocket a
bag of gold, and offered it all at a lump to his physician. Dr. Hamey,
surprised at so extraordinary a fee, modestly declined the acceptance
of it; upon which the great man, dipping his hand into the bag himself,
grasped up as much of his coin as his fist could hold, and generously
put it into the doctor’s coat pocket, and so took his leave. Dr. Hamey
returned into his parlour to dinner, which had waited for him all that
time, and smiling (whilst his lady was discomposed at his absenting
so long), emptied his pocket into her lap. This soon altered the
features of her countenance, who telling the money over, found it to be
thirty-six broad pieces of gold: at which she being greatly surprised,
confessed to the doctor that this was surely the most providential fee
he ever received; and declared to him that, during the height of his
severe illness, she had paid away (unknown to him) on a state levy
towards a public supply, the like sum in number and value of pieces of
gold; lest under the lowness of his spirits, it should have proved a
matter of vexation, unequal to his strength at that time to bear; which
being thus so remarkably reimbursed to him by Providence, it was the
properest juncture she could lay hold on to let him into the truth of
it. It may be said,” continued Mead, “that this was an extraordinary
case, and the fee a most exorbitant one, which the patient paid as
the price of secrecy: but the precaution was unnecessary (as it
ought always to be in a profession whose very essence is honour and
confidence); for the name of the generous soldier is never once
mentioned in the life of Hamey, though I have good reason to believe
he was no other than Ireton, the son-in-law of Cromwell.”

RADCLIFFE. “These are curious particulars, and I thank you for them.
To speak once more of my own good fortune, I found that, even seven
years ago, to say nothing of what I have acquired since, upon inquiry
into the bulk of my estate, both land and money, I was worth more than
£80,000, which I then resolved to devote, all or most of it, to the
service of the public. I hope, however, notwithstanding what I shall
leave behind me, no one can accuse me of having been sordid in my
lifetime, or in case of the private distress of my friends, not to have
instantly relieved them. I have never been such a niggard as to have
preferred mountains of gold to the conversation and charms of society.
Perhaps there was selfishness in this: for I never recollect to have
spent a more delightful evening than that in the old room at the Mitre
Tavern in Fleet Street, when my good friend Billy Nutley, who was
indeed the better half of me, had been prevailed upon to accept of a
small temporary assistance, and joined our party, the Earl of Denbigh,
Lords Colpeper and Stawel, and Mr. Blackmore. But enough of this
affair of money. To one so well skilled as yourself, I have not much
to say on the subject of practice; but recollect, I beg of you, the
treatment of small-pox. Combat the prejudices of mankind on that point.
By insisting upon this, I lately saved the life of the young Duke of
Beaufort. You have done much, by showing the advantage of employing
aperient medicines in the decline of that distemper; and I much regret
that the letter you wrote to Dr. Freind upon that matter, and which
you permitted me to inform him he might publish, has not yet seen the
light. Go on as you have begun; and I confidently hope that something
more may still be introduced into general practice by a physician of
your good sense and liberal views, to mitigate the violence of that
most formidable disease.

“But I am now drawing to a close. Last year, upon my being returned
member of parliament for the town of Buckingham, I retired from
practice, and I have recommended you to all my patients. Your own merit
and acquirements will insure you success; but perhaps your career may
be facilitated by what I have done for you. Recollect that the fame of
a physician is subject to the caprices of fortune. I know the nature of
attending crowned heads very well. But continue as you have commenced.
Nothing could be better than the method you took for the preservation
of her late gracious Majesty’s health; though the people about her
(the plagues of Egypt fall upon them!) put it out of the power of
physic to be of use to her. But I was sorry to hear the other day, that
your enemies have spread a report that, during the last days of the
Queen’s illness, you had pronounced that her Majesty could not live two
minutes, and that you seemed uneasy it did not so happen. Tell me, I
beg, the real state of the case.”

“You very well know,” said Dr. Mead, “that her Majesty had been long
corpulent; and that, in her latter years, the habit of her body became
gross and unwieldy. For the most part she had a good stomach, and ate
heartily. But by reason of her immoderate fatness, and her weakness,
occasioned by the gout, she became so inactive that she used but
little exercise. In the beginning of her Majesty’s illness, there was a
difference of opinion among the doctors as to the propriety of giving
the jesuits’ bark; but I will not enter into all the disputes which
took place on that occasion. It is enough to state, that after the
appearance of the imposthume on the left leg, and the coming on of the
doziness which seized her on Thursday the 28th July, there was no doubt
about the propriety of cupping her; and blisters were ordered, but not
applied, for what reason I know not. The next morning her Majesty was
seized with an apoplectic fit, attended with convulsions. After two
hours and a half she recovered her senses, but lost them again next
day, and died the following morning.”

RADCLIFFE. “Well, I will inquire no further. I see your own modesty
will not allow you to find fault with the injudicious practice and
fatal security of your colleagues. I cannot but applaud your good
feeling and liberality of sentiment; and wish you most heartily success
in your future professional life. Accept this cane. It has accompanied
me now for many years in my visits to the sick, and been present
at many a consultation. Receive it as a token of my friendship, and
prosper. ‘_Te nunc habet ista secundum._’”

Here a twinge of the gout interrupted the speech of my old master; and
Dr. Mead shortly after left for London, taking me with him.

Dr. Radcliffe died on the first of November, 1714, three months after
the Queen; and it was said that the dread he had of the populace, and
the want of company in the country village where he had retired, and
which he did not dare to leave, shortened his life.




[Illustration]




MEAD.

CHAPTER II.


From the possession of a physician who was kind, generous, and social
in the highest degree, but who was certainly more remarkable for
strong good sense and natural sagacity than for literary attainments,
I passed into the hands of an accomplished scholar. Dr. Mead was
allowed even by his antagonists, themselves men of great erudition,
to be _artis medicæ decus, vitæ revera nobilis_, and one who excelled
all our chief nobility in the encouragement he afforded to the fine
arts, polite learning, and the knowledge of antiquity. But though I had
changed masters, it was no small satisfaction to me to return to the
old House, for Mead not only succeeded Radcliffe in the greater part
of his business, but removed to the residence which he had formerly
occupied in Bloomsbury-square[12]. My present master, on commencing his
profession, had first settled at Stepney, had then resided in Crutched,
and afterwards in Austin Friers, for the purpose of being near St.
Thomas’ Hospital; but now the distance of his new abode obliged him to
resign the situation of physician to that charitable establishment.

About six months after the death of Radcliffe, I was present at a
consultation between Sir Hans Sloane, Dr. Cheyne, and Mead. It was
held on the case of Bishop Burnet, the prelate so celebrated for the
“History of his own Time,” and for the active part he had taken in the
great transactions of that eventful period.

He had been taken ill of a violent cold, which soon turned to a
pleurisy; and this increasing, and baffling all remedies, his worthy
friend and relation Dr. Cheyne called in the assistance of the two
other doctors. Up to this time Burnet had enjoyed uninterrupted good
health, which he attributed, not without reason, to his temperate
habits. “I will give you,” said the venerable patient to Dr. Mead
(for the Bishop was now 72 years old), “a short outline of my course
of life. In summer I have been in the habit of rising at five in the
morning, in the winter at six; and I have always officiated myself at
prayer, though my chaplains may have been present. I then took my tea
in company with my children, and read the Scriptures with them. I have
generally spent six or eight hours a day in my study. The rest of the
day has been passed by me in taking exercise, making friendly visits
or cheerful meals. But now, to use an expression of my late gracious
master King William, whom I knew well for sixteen years, I feel ‘_que
je tire vers ma fin_.’”

The Doctors listened to the melancholy presage of the Bishop, and
having put the necessary questions to him, withdrew into the adjoining
apartment, for the purpose of consultation. I was now in company with
two physicians of great eminence, though of very different characters.
On the one side of me stood Sir Hans Sloane, who had shortly before
been created a baronet by His Majesty George the First, being the
first physician upon whom an hereditary title of honour had ever been
conferred; in his person tall and well made, sprightly in conversation,
easy, polite and engaging in his manners, by birth an Irishman. On the
other was Dr. Cheyne, a Scotchman, with an immense broad back, taking
snuff incessantly out of a ponderous gold box, and thus ever and anon
displaying to view his fat knuckles: a perfect Falstaff, for he was not
only a good portly man and a corpulent[13], but was almost as witty as
the knight himself, and his humour being heightened by his northern
brogue, he was exceeding mirthful. Indeed he was the most excellent
banterer of his time, a faculty he was often called upon to exercise,
to repel the lampoons which were made by others upon his extraordinary
personal appearance. Nothing could be more striking than the contrast
of the two celebrated men before me.

Sir Hans began by observing, that the age of the Bishop might throw
a doubt over the propriety of more bleeding, but he had so often
seen the advantage of repeated venesection, that he had the greatest
faith in that mode of treatment. “In one case particularly which I
saw abroad”--but here let me interrupt the Baronet for a moment, to
make an observation, which in the many consultations at which I have
been present, has more than once occurred to me. These deliberations
are generally proposed either because the attending physician is at a
loss what further to suggest, or that he wishes naturally enough to
divide the responsibility of the management of a dangerous disease.
They are held for the most part upon ailments of a _chronic_ nature,
that is upon such disorders as afford time and opportunity to form the
judgment, and decide upon a method of practice; for it is lucky that
in urgent diseases, or those which are called _acute_, the remedies
are simple, and that where delay would be dangerous, the means of
relief are obvious. In consultations, there is of course much scope
for diversity of opinion, but in the whole range of the plausible
reasoning which the conjectural science of medicine admits of, there
is nothing so imposing as a _case_; it bears down all before it. One
of the consulting Doctors, after hearing the history of the previous
treatment, advances that he has seen a case similar to the one, now
under consideration, in which he did so and so with manifest advantage;
the argument is irresistible----

But this by way of parenthesis. “In one case particularly (said Sir
Hans Sloane) which I saw abroad, I saved a man’s life, who complained
extremely of a great pain in his shoulder, or rather inside of his
pleura answering to that part, which increased on breathing high,
sighing or coughing, for the patient was troubled with a short cough.
The man was on board a ship bound for England, and it was taken by
all for sea sickness, but I told them, they were all deceived, and
forthwith ordered him to be bled in the arm to about ten ounces, and
gave him an emulsion, and a pectoral decoction of barley, liquorish
and raisins. I immediately found him much better, and ordered him to
continue this, and to take of crab’s eyes and sal prunellæ, of each
half a drachm, and to swallow morning and evening the half on’t,
drinking afterwards a pectoral draught, and in case of relapse I
ordered him to be bled again; which was necessary to be done, for
the ship chirurgeon, contrary to my desire, gave him a vomit: the
patient, poor fellow! knowing nothing of it, till it was down. His
pains thus returned, and I bled him twice on two several days, and
with an emulsion he was cured. I have found also (added Sir Hans), in
similar cases great advantage in applying a hot bag of parched salt to
the side; but bleeding is the main remedy. I have bled a patient five
times in her foot and arm in twelve hours.” Whilst the baronet was
speaking, the countenance of Dr. Cheyne underwent various changes, and
when mention was made of the emulsion, which if I am not mistaken, was
a compound of linseed oil, sugar-candy, and decoction of barley, it
assumed a very decided expression of disgust, for he was a bon vivant
of the first order. To the further employment of venesection, he was
rather averse, and insisted much upon the advanced age of the Bishop.
“An old man’s body (observed Dr. Cheyne), is like a plant dried by the
sun, its fibres are stiff, and juices decayed, and not as in youth able
to prepare new nutriment, to repair the loss of solids and fluids. For
this decay of the humours, the cure of the _cacochymia_ is necessary;
and to renovate the solids, we find no help like warm bathing and
unctions, and you yourself (said he archly to Sir Hans) must have
remarked, in your own native country, that the Irish live long, who
anoint themselves with salt butter.” What the remedies were which were
ultimately ordered for the aged Prelate, I do not now recollect, but
his own prediction was soon after fulfilled, and he died on the 17th of
March 1715.

Of Sir Hans Sloane, I shall have occasion to speak again more than
once, and I can do it with confidence, for I had many opportunities
of studying his peculiarities, and being in his company, particularly
at the conversaziones which were held at his house in Great
Russell-street, by Bloomsbury. It was observed of him, that he was
on these occasions rather a precise gentleman, and used to go out of
temper, when his guests spilled the coffee over his carpets. But he was
very lively in discourse, nor did he lack topics, and having been much
abroad, loved to talk of his travels. When only in his twenty-eighth
year, he had accompanied the Duke of Albemarle[14], on his appointment
to the government of the Island of Jamaica, in the quality of physician
to his Excellency, being chiefly induced by his attachment to natural
history, to undertake a voyage, which was not thought at that time
of day to be altogether free from danger. As he was the first man
of learning whom the love of science alone had led from England to
that distant part of the globe, and was besides of an age when both
activity of body, and ardour of mind concur to vanquish difficulties,
his travels were eminently successful. To say nothing of the other
curiosities with which he enriched his native country, he brought home
from Jamaica, and the other islands at which he touched, no fewer
than 800 different species of plants, a number much greater than had
ever been imported into England before by any individual. His stay in
Jamaica did not exceed fifteen months, for the Governor died, and the
Doctor returned home, and settled in London. About seven years before
the scene at the Bishop’s, he had published the first volume of his
Voyage to the Islands of Madera, Barbadoes, Nieves, St. Christophers,
and Jamaica, with the natural history of the herbs, and trees,
four-footed beasts, fishes, birds, insects, reptiles, &c., illustrated
with the figures of the things described, which had not heretofore been
engraved. In large copper-plates, as big as the life.

This was his first contribution to the general stock of knowledge,
and when questioned on the subject of his voyage, he was used to say,
that independently of the gratification of a laudable curiosity, he
deemed it a sort of duty in a medical man to visit distant countries,
for that the ancient and best physicians were wont to travel to the
places whence their drugs were brought, to inform themselves concerning
them. Speaking of the part of the globe which he had visited, he never
ceased to deplore the irreparable loss of fame which this country
had suffered, in not being the first to partake in the glory of its
discovery. When Bartholomew Columbus, said Sir Hans, was sent to
England by his brother Christopher, in 1488, to persuade Henry the
Seventh to fit him out for this expedition, a sea chart of the parts
of the world then known was produced, and a proposal made to the King,
but after much delay and many untoward circumstances, both the map and
the proposal were disregarded, and the money that had at first been set
apart for the purpose, and thought sufficient for the discovery of the
New World, was ultimately expended in the purchase of a suit of fine
tapestry hangings, brought from Antwerp, and afterwards used for the
decoration of Hampton Court.

The scene I have endeavoured to describe at the Bishop’s may serve
as a specimen of a consultation of that day, and has given me an
opportunity of introducing to the reader a very distinguished person,
for such certainly must Sir Hans Sloane be allowed to have been. About
four years after the time I now speak, he was elected President of the
College of Physicians; on the death of Sir Isaac Newton, was chosen to
fill the chair of the Royal Society; and after his own decease gave
origin to the British Museum.

It is not, however, my intention to follow Mead into all the details
of his private practice, but I will point out some of the material
improvements introduced by him in his art, and the progress which the
science of physic made in his hands.--Mr. Secretary Craggs applied
to him, in 1719, to find out the most effectual method to prevent
the spreading of the plague, which had proved so fatal that year
at Marseilles. My master accordingly published a discourse on that
subject, which was so well received as to go through no less than
seven editions in a twelvemonth. The kingdom was at this time governed
by Lords Justices, during the absence of His Majesty George the
First, who was then in Hanover. An act of parliament was passed, in
consequence of the advice given by Mead; but the Opposition of the
day, chiefly with the view to thwart the Ministry, caused two of its
wisest clauses to be given up the following year. These related to
the removing of sick persons from their habitations, and the making
of lines of demarcation about infected places. Against the adoption
of these prudent precautions an outcry was raised, that persons in
office intrusted with such powers might be tempted to abuse them, and
exercise their authority in a manner grievous to the subjects of the
kingdom. Dr. Mead, on the other hand, contended, that _Salus populi
supremo lex est_; and said that, if the plague should unhappily be
brought again into England, he was sure the people themselves would cry
out for help, notwithstanding wrong notions of liberty may sometimes
overpossess their minds, and make them, under the best of governments,
impatient of restraint. A clamour like this will probably be always
renewed whenever this subject comes to be discussed by the public;
the bold and the ignorant will excite it for the purposes of gainful
notoriety, and the selfish trader from a short-sighted view of his
own immediate interest. “But suppose for a moment,” said Mead in
conversation with a friend, “that the laws of quarantine were useless,
and that the fears entertained of the contagious nature of the plague
were without foundation, how can the commerce of this country be
benefited by the abolition of these regulations here, unless the rest
of civilized Europe adopt the same measure, and agree, at a sort of
general congress, to remove all restraints from their trade with the
Levant? But,” continued he, in an earnest manner, which had all the air
of prophecy, “depend upon it, whenever the doctrine of non-contagion
is revived in England (and it will be, even a hundred years hence), it
will always excite alarm among the nations who are more prudent than
ourselves, and less eager to entertain every kind of wild and visionary
speculation. Incalculable mischief will be done by the broaching of
this pernicious doctrine[15]: the speculators who adopt such opinions
should at least keep them to themselves, or if they will continue
their experiments, let them make them _in corpore vili_, and not upon
subjects which involve the general welfare of the community.”

Two or three years after this, my master’s attention was called to
another matter of equal, or perhaps greater importance than the one
just mentioned; and I had the satisfaction of witnessing another
prodigious step made towards the improvement of physic. This was no
less than the mitigation of that loathsome disease the small-pox, a
malady more formidable, and infinitely more fatal than the plague
itself. Lady Mary Wortley Montague having returned to England in
1722, was determined to introduce the practice of inoculating for the
small-pox, which she had witnessed in the East, and having before had
the operation performed successfully upon her son at Constantinople,
desired her family surgeon to engraft her daughter also with that
disease. The process was witnessed by three physicians and the family
apothecary; but though the success was complete, the profession still
remained in suspense, and caution prevented the repetition of the
experiment. But Caroline Princess of Wales, having nearly lost the life
of one of her daughters, the Princess Anne, by small-pox, was desirous
of having her children inoculated; and obtained from His Majesty George
the First, that six condemned felons should be pardoned for the good
of the public, on condition of their submitting to be inoculated.
Five of the felons contracted the disease favourably; the sixth, who
concealed having previously had the small-pox, was not infected--but
all escaped hanging. At the suggestion of my master, the Chinese method
was practised upon a seventh criminal, who was a young girl of eighteen
years of age. He accordingly introduced into her nostrils a tent,
wetted with matter taken out of ripe pustules, which nearly approaches
to the practice of the Chinese, who take the skins of some of the
dried pustules which have fallen from the body, and put them into a
porcelain bottle, stopping the mouth of it very closely with wax.
When they have a mind to infect any one, they make up three or four of
these skins (inserting between them one grain of musk) into a tent with
cotton, which they put up the nostrils. In the case of the girl whom my
master treated as above related, she, like those who were inoculated by
incisions made in the skin, fell sick and perfectly recovered.

The attention of the medical world was naturally much engrossed by this
new method, and every one was discussing the nature of the small-pox,
of which the contagious quality was one of the most remarkable
properties. “How strange!” said Mead, “that this property, apparently
so obvious, should not have been noticed by every writer on the
subject, from the very first appearance of this dangerous malady among
us. Yet Sydenham, discerning, as he has been called, does not take the
slightest notice of it, and perhaps even at this very day, had it not
been for the introduction of this novel method of communicating it, its
infectious quality might not have been universally admitted. One would
suppose that the merest tyro in an apothecary’s shop could not have
seen half a dozen cases of the small-pox without being convinced that
one person caught it from another. An additional striking example of
what has often been observed before, that the most plain and obvious
truths lie undiscovered till accident bring them to light.”--More
than twenty years after this, Dr. Mead published a treatise on the
small-pox and measles, which contained many valuable observations on
both these diseases, and also strong recommendations of the practice of
inoculation. To this treatise, which is written in a pure Latin style,
he subjoined a translation of Rhazes’ commentary on the small-pox into
the same language, a copy of which he had obtained from Leyden, through
the assistance of his friend and fellow-student Boerhaave, with whom my
master maintained a constant correspondence.

The ingenuity of mankind is exercised upon no subjects with so much
pertinacity and acuteness as upon those connected with medicine, and
it has often been disputed whether inoculation has lessened the number
of deaths by small-pox.--One thing however is certain, that it has
contributed to the comfort and security of all prudent individuals
and families; for though it cannot admit of a doubt that many formerly
passed through a long life without the disease, yet such a situation
must have proved a constant source of uneasiness to themselves and
friends, of restraint from many desirable pursuits, and at times of
absolute seclusion from the world.

The next improvement which Dr. Mead introduced into the practice of
medicine was entirely of his own invention, and serves to show that
his mind was not only capable of the extended views of philosophy,
but was alive to the most minute circumstances that could contribute
towards the perfection of his art. For the skill of a physician, though
it assume a more exalted character when displayed in the pursuit of
general science, is equally conspicuous, and perhaps more immediately
useful, when exerted in the discovery and employment of ingenious
contrivances for the relief of suffering humanity.

My master had often considered what could be the reason that, in cases
of persons labouring under dropsy, when the water is suddenly drawn
off, the patient swoons and frequently dies on the spot. A simple
expedient occurred to him, which was this: during the operation of
tapping, to make external pressure by the hands, and afterwards to
apply a bandage to the belly. I was present when this method was first
tried in the hospital, and afterwards frequently saw it used, more
especially in the case of Dame Mary Page, wife of Sir Gregory Page,
Bart., who was afflicted with this disease, and died March 4th, 1728,
in the fifty-sixth year of her age. In sixty-seven months she was
tapped sixty-six times and had two hundred and forty gallons of water
taken away, without ever once fearing the operation[16]. This was
certainly a most valuable discovery, and shows the advantage derivable
from the exercise of good sense and sound judgment; for Mead naturally
reflected, that the removal of the pressure of the accumulated water
caused the fibres suddenly to lose the extension which they had
previously acquired; and it as naturally occurred to him, that the
tendency to faint could only be obviated by substituting an external
support to the parts.

But it is now time, after having related the benefits he conferred
upon mankind by enlarging the boundaries of medical science, to revert
to some details of a more domestic character. It has been mentioned
before, when speaking of the first experiment of inoculation made in
this country, that zeal for his profession had on one occasion brought
my master acquainted with the veriest outcasts of society, and in
contact with convicted felons: it remains for me to relate how the
calls of friendship and generous sympathy led him again within the
walls of a prison.

In politics Mead was a hearty Whig, but he reckoned amongst his
friends many whose sentiments differed widely from his own. Garth,
Arbuthnot, and Freind were among his chief associates: with the
latter particularly he had always been on terms of the most friendly
intercourse. Recently the intimacy of these two distinguished
physicians had been much increased by a controversy in which they were
embarked in support of their own enlightened views on the subject of
the cooling treatment of the small-pox, against the attacks of the
ignorant and malevolent.

About this time Dr. Freind had been elected member of parliament for
Launceston in Cornwall, and acting in his station as a senator with
that warmth and freedom which was natural to him, he distinguished
himself by some able speeches against measures which he disapproved.
He was supposed to have had a hand in Atterbury’s plot, as it was then
called, for the restoration of the Stuart family; and having been also
one of the speakers in favour of the Bishop, this drew upon him so much
resentment that (the Habeas Corpus Act being at that time suspended)
he was, on March 15, 1722-3, committed to the Tower. Here he lay a
prisoner for some months, and my master did all he could to procure
his liberation: during his confinement his practice fell chiefly into
the hands of Mead. As soon as permission could be obtained, which was
not till he had been some time in prison, we paid a visit to Freind,
and entered that building whose low and sombre walls and bastions have
frowned on many an innocent and many a guilty head.

When his room door opened, we found him in the act of finishing a
Latin letter to my master, “On certain kinds of the Small-pox;” and,
as he perceived our approach, he came forward with an expression of
great delight in his countenance. “I was writing a letter to you, with
the permission of the governor of the Tower; and you are indebted,” he
added in a low whisper, “to my companion (looking at the warder, who
was in the same chamber with his prisoner) for its brevity: for I don’t
find that his presence assists me much in composition.”--During our
interview, Freind told Mead that he passed his time not unpleasantly,
for that he had begun to write the History of Physic, from the time
of Galen to the commencement of the sixteenth century; but that at
present he felt the necessity of consulting more books than the
circumstances in which he was now placed would give him an opportunity
of perusing--“Though I ought not to repine,” said he, “while I have
this book (pointing to a Greek Testament, which was lying on the
table), the daily and diligent perusal of which solaces my confinement.
I have lately been reading the Gospel of St. Luke, and I need not point
out to a scholar like yourself, and one who has paid so much attention
to what I may call the medical history of the Bible[17], how much
nearer the language of St. Luke, who was by profession a physician,
comes to the ancient standard of classical Greek than that of the other
Evangelists. To be sure it has a mixture of the Syriac phrase, which
may be easily allowed in one who was born a Syrian; yet the reading the
Greek authors, while he studied medicine, made his language without
dispute more exact. His style is sometimes even very flowing and
florid--as when, in the Acts of the Apostles, he describes the voyage
of St. Paul; and when he has occasion to speak of distempers or the
cure of them, you must have observed that he makes use of words more
proper for the subject than the others do. It is besides remarkable
that St. Luke is more particular in reciting all the miracles of our
Saviour in relation to _healing_ than the other Evangelists are; and
that he gives us one history which is omitted by the rest, viz. that
of raising the widow’s son at Nain.”

My master left the prisoner, with an assurance that he would use all
the influence he possessed to procure his liberty: “For,” said he,
smiling, “however much your cultivated mind is enabled to amuse itself
by reading and writing, I presume you will have no sort of objection to
resign your newly-acquired office of _Medicus Regius ad Turrim_[18].”

[Illustration: From a spirited medallion of Dr. Freind, carved in
box-wood. There is a portrait of him in the hall of Christ Church,
Oxford, upon which is inscribed the following stanza from the pen of
Anthony Alsop:

    Cui suas artes, sua dona lætus
    Et Lyram, et Venæ salientis ictum
    Scire concessit, celerem et medendi
                        Delius usum.]

Very shortly afterwards, the opportunity of effecting this did actually
occur; for when Sir Robert Walpole, the minister of the day, sent
to consult Mead on account of an indisposition, he availed himself
of the occasion to plead the cause of the captive. He urged, that
though the warmth and freedom of Freind might have betrayed him into
some intemperate observations, yet no one could doubt his patriotic
feelings and loyalty; that his public services had been great, for he
had attended the Earl of Peterborough in his Spanish expedition as
an army physician; and had also accompanied in the same capacity the
Duke of Ormond into Flanders; that he deserved well of science, for
he had done much to call the attention of the world to the new and
sound principles of the Newtonian philosophy; and was besides a man of
excellent parts, a thorough scholar, and one whom all acknowledged to
be very able in his profession: and, finally, the Doctor refused to
prescribe for the Minister unless the prisoner was set at liberty. He
was almost immediately relieved from prison, and admitted to bail; his
sureties being Dr. Mead, Dr. Hulse, Dr. Levet, and Dr. Hale.

[Illustration: Mead’s house, at the corner of Powis Place, now No. 49.
There is a good garden behind the house, at the bottom of which was
a museum. After Mead’s death it was occupied by Sir Harry Grey, Lord
Grey’s uncle.]

The evening after this event, there was a numerous assembly at our
house in Great Ormond Street, attracted by the hope of meeting Freind,
and congratulating him on his liberation from the Tower. He came,
and every one was delighted to see him once more at large. Besides
the number of acquaintances and friends who were there, when it is
observed that no foreigner of any learning, taste, or even curiosity,
ever arrived in England without being introduced to my master (as it
would have been a reproach to have returned without seeing a scholar
and physician who was in correspondence with all the literati of
Europe), it may easily be imagined that on so remarkable an occasion
our _conversazione_ was a crowded one. When the party broke up, and
Freind and Arbuthnot were about to take their leave together, as they
lived in the same part of the town--the former in Albemarle Street, and
the latter in Cork Street, Burlington Gardens--Dr. Mead begged Freind
to step with him for a moment into his own private study, which was a
small room adjoining the library. There he presented him with the sum
of five thousand guineas, which he had received from Freind’s patients,
whom he had visited during his imprisonment. On returning to the great
room he wished them both good night, and jocosely said to Arbuthnot
(who happened to hold the office of Censor of the College that year),
“Now I commit our common friend here to your magisterial care and
guidance; see that he does not again get into trouble; and on the least
appearance of irregularity, report him to the President, Sir Hans
Sloane. I look to you, Arbuthnot, to preserve harmony[19] amongst us.”

These meetings, of which Dr. Mead was very fond, took place at stated
periods, and the visitors assembled in the library, a spacious room
about sixty feet long, of the richness of which an idea may be formed
by referring to the catalogue of the sale of its contents, which took
place after his death. The books, amounting to about ten thousand
volumes, were sold in twenty-eight days. The sale of the prints and
drawings occupied fourteen evenings, and the coins and medals were
disposed of in eight days. But at the time of which I speak, all these
literary treasures were collected under one roof; and the assemblage
of marble statues of Greek philosophers, Roman emperors, bronzes, gems,
intaglios, Etruscan vases, and other rare specimens of antiquity, was
most choice and valuable. Ranged along one side of the room stood
the busts of the great English poets--Shakespeare, Milton, and Pope:
they were of the size of life, of white marble, and by the hand of
Scheemakers. The corner in which I was usually placed was between a
statue of Hygeia[20] and a cabinet of iron which once belonged to Queen
Elizabeth. This cabinet was full of valuable coins, among which was a
medal of the Protector which Mead frequently exhibited as a curiosity
to his visitors: it had Oliver’s head in profile, with this legend,
“The Lord of Hosts, the word at Dunbar, Sept. 1650;” on the reverse,
the parliament sitting.

Placed in this favourite spot, I often overheard very interesting
discourse. On one occasion particularly, I recollect that the
conversation turned on the condition and rank of physicians in society.
The persons who took a leading part in the conversation were, if I
remember rightly, my master, Dr. Freind, Dr. Arbuthnot, and Mr. Ward,
the professor of rhetoric in Gresham College. The topic was suggested
by some accidental allusion to the attack which had been lately made by
Dr. Conyers Middleton on the dignity of medicine, in a dissertation[21]
written by him concerning the state of physic in old Rome. The
indignation of the physicians of that day was naturally roused, and
they were all up in arms against the author.

Dr. Mead began by asking, “What class of men have deserved better of
the public than physicians? How much, for instance, does not this
country owe to Linacre, the founder of our College? He was perhaps
the most learned man of his time, and on his travels was received by
Lorenzo de Medicis with the most marked distinction. That munificent
patron of literature granted him the privilege of attending the same
preceptors with his own sons, and Linacre improved the opportunities he
enjoyed with great diligence and success. At Florence, under Demetrius
Chalcondylas, who had fled from Constantinople when it was taken by the
Turks, he acquired a perfect knowledge of the Greek language.

“He studied eloquence at Bologna under Politian, one of the most
elegant Latinists in Europe; and while he was at Rome he devoted
himself to medicine and the study of natural philosophy, under
Hermolaus Barbarus. Linacre was the first Englishman who read Aristotle
and Galen in the original Greek. On his return to England, having taken
the degree of M.D. at Oxford, he gave lectures in physic, and taught
the Greek language in that university. His reputation soon became so
high, that King Henry VII. called him to court, and intrusted him with
the care of the health and education of his son Prince Arthur. To show
the extent of his acquirements, I may mention, that he instructed
Princess Catherine in the Italian language, and that he published a
work on mathematics, which he dedicated to his pupil Prince Arthur.
A treatise on grammar, which has universally been acknowledged to be
a work of great erudition, is from the pen of Linacre: Melancthon,
indeed, pronounces it to be inferior to none of its kind then extant.
In his own style he reminds one of the elegance of Terence, and in his
medical treatises very nearly approaches the clear and perspicuous
language of Celsus.

[Illustration: From a Portrait of Linacre by Holbein, in Kensington
Palace, a copy of which hangs over the fireplace in the Censor’s Room
of the College of Physicians.]

“Linacre was successively Physician to Henry the Seventh, Henry the
Eighth, Edward the Sixth, and to the Princess Mary. He established
lectures on physic in both Universities; and he was the founder of
our Royal College of Physicians, of which he was the first President,
holding that office during the last seven years of his life. He was
indeed,” said Mead, “a most accomplished scholar: the Latin style
of Linacre is so pure and elegant as to rank him amongst the finest
writers of his age; his friend Erasmus saying of him that he was ‘_vir
non exacti tantum, sed severi judicii_.’--Though the medical writings
of Linacre are only translations, yet we cannot but form a favourable
opinion of his professional skill, not only from the general estimation
of his contemporaries, but from the sagacity of his prognosis in the
case of his friend Lily the celebrated grammarian, as well as from the
rational simplicity of the method by which he relieved Erasmus in a
painful fit of the gravel.”

There was a pause here, and Mr. Professor Ward asked my master if it
was true that Linacre had, in the latter part of his life, changed his
profession, and entered into the priesthood.

MEAD. “Yes, it was undoubtedly true, but he still to his dying day had
his thoughts upon physic, for it was towards the close of his life that
he projected the College of Physicians, of which he remained President
till his death. It was also true that, on first applying himself to the
study of divinity, he was a most sincere searcher of the Scriptures,
studying the Bible with great avidity; and that on reading the 5th,
6th, and 7th chapters of St. Matthew, he threw the book away, and swore
that this was either not the Gospel, or we were not Christians.”

FREIND. “Your account of Linacre is quite correct, and you have
certainly not passed upon him a greater eulogium than he deserves.
If any other example were required to prove to the world how much
some of the members of our body have done to further the cause of
learning, there is one very ready to be cited in the physician to whom
we owe the compilation of the first annals of our College. Though an
Englishman, we find Dr. Caius reading lectures on Aristotle in the
university of Padua; and afterwards using the influence he possessed at
court, where he was Physician to Queen Mary, in behalf of literature:
for it was at his instance that a licence was obtained from the Queen
to advance Gonvil-hall at Cambridge, and incorporate it under the
name of Gonvil and Caius College. This College he endowed afterwards
with considerable estates for the maintenance of an additional number
of fellows and scholars. He was Fellow, Censor, and President of the
London College; and even in advanced life never absented himself from
our meetings without a dispensation. He was buried in the Chapel of
the College he had founded at Cambridge; and the simple inscription
upon his monument, while it records the date of his death, adds a
sentiment which should reconcile us to the frail and doubtful tenure of
our present existence, by the certainty and permanence of well-merited
posthumous fame:--

    ‘Fui Caius. Vivit post funera virtus. Obiit 1573, Æt. 63.’”

MEAD. “The zeal displayed by Caius in the cause of literature deserves
every commendation, but it is perhaps more to our purpose to dwell upon
the claim he has upon our grateful remembrance as the founder of the
Science of Anatomy in England. According to the fashion of his day,
he had gone abroad in pursuit of knowledge; at Padua had lived during
eight months in the same house with Vesalius, and devoted himself with
the same ardour to the studies of his celebrated companion: and let it
never be forgotten that Caius, on his return from Italy, imbued with
the spirit of inquiry and enlightened by the lamp of science lately
kindled in that country, taught Anatomy to the Surgeons in their
own Hall. Here, beyond the precincts of the College of Physicians,
reflecting great honour upon that body, adding to his own reputation
and conferring no small advantage on the Surgeons, he laid that solid
foundation for the study of Anatomy, to which may easily be traced the
glory and after discoveries of Harvey. Caius began to lecture to the
Surgeons soon after their incorporation (1540), and continued to do
so, for twenty years, even after he had been elected President of our
College and appointed Physician to the Court. The privilege which about
this time had been granted to the Surgeons of obtaining annually four
bodies of executed felons for the purpose of dissection, was doubtless
the cause why the Hall of the Surgeons was selected for the lectures
of Caius: for when in 1564 a similar permission was allowed to the
Physicians by Queen Elizabeth, anatomical prælections were held at
their own College. Dissections now began to be made frequently here,
and the year before the death of Caius, an order is registered in our
Annals that three bodies should be procured at the expense of the
College, two _sectionis experiundi causâ_, and the third to be made
‘a public anatomy of.’ But it is not only by reference to our Annals
that it appears to have been the merit of Caius to have given the first
impulse to these studies, for the fact is mentioned by contemporary
writers.--William Bulleine, M. D., in a very curious book[22],
published in 1579, enumerates among the cunning men, profitable to
the commonwealth, the learned Doctor, M. John Kaius, as the first who
taught by learned lectures and the _secrete anothomies_, the worthy
fraternity of Chirurgeons, of the most ancient and famous city of
London.”

DR. FREIND. “I have not lately, as you all know, had an opportunity of
consulting any books, but I recollect, some time ago, having obtained
permission to examine the early volumes of our Annals, and being much
struck with the importance attached to the study of anatomy by our
ancestors, and the labour and assiduity with which they appear to have
cultivated that science. If my memory does not fail me, it was in 1581,
about eight years after the death of Caius, that a Lecture on Anatomy
was regularly founded and endowed at the College. It was in that year
that the Lord Lumley and Dr. Caldwall, signified their benefactions for
that purpose, and the College to show itself worthy of the liberality
of those generous patrons, though possessing very scanty funds,
immediately voted all the money in their treasurer’s hands to enlarge
their building, render it more suitable to their meetings, and more
convenient for the delivery of these public lectures. Their poor stock,
it would seem, amounted only to £100, but it must always be kept in
mind that the funds of our body have never been replenished out of the
coffers of the state, but have been furnished solely by the occasional
donations of private individuals, or the legacies and contributions of
its own members. In the time of the Protectorate their treasury was at
its lowest ebb, and yet it is a subject of pride that even then the
ardour of its members for anatomical research was unabated, for it was
during this period that Glisson, whom your friend Boerhaave calls the
‘most accurate of anatomists,’ published his Lectures on the Structure
of the Liver, dedicating his work to the University of Cambridge,
_ornatissimoque_ Medicorum Londinensium Collegio, thus avoiding, you
observe, all allusion to the regal character of our foundation. But
what wonder, when the sour and crabbed Republicans of those days were
so cautious on this head, that in reciting the Lord’s Prayer, they
would not say--‘Thy kingdom come,’ but always ‘Thy commonwealth
come.’--To return however to the Lumleian Lectures, two years after
their endowment, the College built a spacious Anatomical Theatre in
Knight Rider Street, and here Harvey must have given his first public
demonstrations of the circulation of the blood, for he was elected
Reader[23] in Anatomy in 1615. The mention of Caius, Harvey, and
Glisson, suggests the names of the other great anatomists of that age;
and it cannot fail to strike us as a matter of wonder and admiration,
that all the important discoveries in Physiology were made in a very
short space of time. In the fifty years which elapsed from 1620 to
1670, greater strides were made in enlarging our knowledge of the
functions of the living animal body, than had ever been made before,
or will probably ever be made again. For reflect only, that in this
interval the brilliant discoveries of the circulation of the blood, of
the nature of respiration, of the curious system of vessels called
lacteals, as well as of that to which the general name of absorbents
has been given, took place. In fact the means by which we live and
breathe, by which our bodies are nourished, grow, change, and finally
decay, were for the first time pointed out and explained.

“In 1622, Aselli discovered the Lacteals.

“In 1628, Harvey published his Doctrine of the Circulation of the Blood.

“In 1647, The Thoracic Duct and Receptaculum Chyli were pointed out by
Pecquet.

“In 1651, The Lymphatics were demonstrated by Rudbeck. And

“In 1668, Mayow taught that the oxygen of the air, which had lately
been discovered, mixed with the blood in the lungs: in short, published
a Theory, in which you will find the germ of all subsequent opinions on
the nature of Respiration.

“It is curious however to reflect that, notwithstanding the gigantic
steps which Physiology was making at this time here, and in some
parts of Europe, it remained stationary in others; in Germany, for
instance, it seems to have been about this period pretty much in the
same state in which it had been left by Galen, when the structure of
apes was described as the anatomy of man. So late even as the middle
of the seventeenth century, about the very time when Lower was making,
at Oxford, the daring and original experiment of transfusion[24], or
causing the arterial blood of one animal to pass into the jugular vein
of another (which, by the by, was approved of by the Royal Society,
before whom it was made, as an expedient likely to be useful after
severe hæmorrhages), a grave dispute arose in Germany, as to the
position of the heart itself. The contest was terminated, at length, by
the Professors of Heidelberg, where the question was agitated, having
recourse to the delicate experiment of killing a pig in the presence
of the Margrave of Baden-Durlach, and clearly proving to his Highness,
who then laboured under palpitation of the heart, that it really was
situated on the left side of the thorax. The result of this important
discovery was fatal to the fortunes of his Highness’ physician; who,
though he stoutly maintained by a refinement of courtly flattery, that
the heart of his master could not have a position similar to that of a
pig, was dismissed in disgrace. But it is unnecessary to dwell longer
upon the superiority of our English anatomists, or to recapitulate the
additions made to this branch of knowledge by the former Fellows of
our College, for the Capsule[25] of Glisson, the _Tubercle_ of Lower,
and the _Circle_ of Willis, are terms incorporated with the science
itself, and, like the capes, islands, and bays, which bear the names
of our early navigators, will serve to perpetuate the fame of these
original discoverers. Of Willis, the last of these worthies whom I
mentioned, let me observe, before I finish, that, though his Anatomy
of the Brain is deservedly praised for the accuracy of research with
which it abounds, yet it contains some notions rather fanciful, since
he lodges sensation in the corpus striatum, memory and imagination in
the medullary part of the brain[26].”

The conversation now became more general: those who had listened
to the display of learning and accurate research which Dr. Freind
and my master had made, expressed their admiration at the prodigious
acquisitions made by the science of medicine, during the first half
of the seventeenth century, and each suggested some additional fact
relating to that subject. Among others there was one whose name I
cannot now recall, but who appeared to have devoted himself more
particularly to the study of the Materia Medica, who observed, that
this sudden and great increase of our knowledge of the animal economy,
and consequently of our acquaintance with the true causes of disease,
was perhaps not more remarkable than the important additions which were
made about this time to our list of remedies. It was within the same
memorable period, he said, that some of our most efficient drugs were
either first made known to the world, or first introduced into general
use. It will be sufficient to mention bark, ipecacuanha, mercury, and
antimony; to which four remedies, if we add opium, it may be questioned
whether we should not possess a tolerably complete Materia Medica.
The history and fate of medicines is a subject of great curiosity,
depending upon the most fortuitous circumstances; for instance,
according to the earliest account of the discovery of bark, its use
was accidentally learned in the following manner:--Some cinchona trees
being thrown into a pool of water in Peru, lay there till the water
became so bitter that every body refused to drink it. However, one of
the neighbouring inhabitants being seized with a violent paroxysm of
fever, and finding no other water to quench his thirst, was forced to
drink of this, by which he was perfectly cured. He afterwards related
the circumstance to others, and prevailed upon some of his friends, who
were ill of fever, to make use of the same remedy, with whom it proved
equally successful[27]. But it was not only the casual experience
of an uncivilized people which discovered this valuable remedy, but
the first prejudices against its use, which were very strong, were
counteracted by the influence of a religious sect (the Jesuits),
totally unconnected with the practice of medicine; and physicians were
ultimately taught how to use it with effect by a man who was vilified
both at home and abroad as an ignorant empiric. Sydenham, when speaking
of bark, is very contradictory, and seems to have been afraid to
employ it efficiently; and it was not till Louis the Fourteenth bought
the secret of the method of giving it, that the real virtues of this
inestimable drug were properly felt and universally acknowledged. While
Talbor, the person of whom the French King had made this purchase, was
performing at Paris, about fifty years ago, the cure of Monseigneur,
Madame de Sevigné, in one of her letters, describes, in the most
amusing manner, the anxiety of every one at court, and the rage of M.
D’Aquin, first physician to Louis:--“_C’est dommage, que Moliere soit
mort, il feroit une scene merveilleuse de D’Aquin, qui est enragé de
n’avoir pas le bon remède, et de tous les autres médecins, qui sont
accablés par les experiences, par le succès, et par les propheties
comme divines, de_ ce petit homme. _Le Roi lui fait composer son
remède devant lui_,” &c. &c. Sir R. Talbor (for he was knighted) died
the year after this triumphant exhibition of his skill, and Louis the
Fourteenth then ordered the secret to be published for the benefit of
the world. The same Monarch also first introduced ipecacuanha into
general practice, having induced Helvetius to employ it largely for
the cure of dysentery in the Hotel Dieu, about the year 1679. But
antimony has had the most inconstant fortune, for though it was known
and employed as a remedy as early as the twelfth century, yet Valentine
the Monk gave it so indiscreetly, and made experiments with such ill
success upon the unhappy brethren of his Convent, that the metal is
said to have speedily returned to the mines whence it had recently
emerged. Three hundred years afterwards it began to be talked of again;
but in 1566, by a decree of the faculty of Paris, confirmed by an arrêt
of Parliament, it was condemned as a poison, and was not allowed to be
openly prescribed as a remedy till 1650; indeed it is chiefly to Sir
Theodore Mayerne that we are indebted for the various preparations of
antimony, as well as of those of mercury[28].

DR. MEAD. “It was fortunate that our knowledge of the means of
combating disease kept pace with our more correct views of Physiology,
and of course more distinct notions of morbid changes of structure.
But to return to the subject of anatomy: when I was appointed by the
Company of Surgeons to read Anatomical Lectures in their Hall, which
I did for six or seven years, I always insisted strongly upon the
obligations their branch of the profession was under to the early
Fellows of the College of Physicians, and I hope, as information
becomes more diffused, and scientific attainments more universal, the
Surgeons themselves will not be so ungrateful as to forget or disown it.

“It would be easy to go on enumerating the medical men whose names
are allied with the history of science and classical literature in
England, but your own memories will fill up the catalogue. Our archives
contain several MSS. which, if published, would benefit the republic of
letters: I have often regretted that Hamey’s notes and criticisms upon
the works of Aristophanes have never yet been given to the world.”

[Illustration: From a portrait of Hamey in the dining-room of the
College.]

FREIND. “It was intended that they should have been so. My friend the
Bishop of Rochester recommended that they should be sent to Kuster,
that learned critic to whom we owe the late excellent edition[29]
of the Greek poet which was done in Holland; but the work was
unfortunately too far advanced in the press before the offer was made,
so that Hamey’s MS. still remains in the College Library.”

MEAD. “I have been much amused with the character drawn of Hamey by
his biographer: it is full of quaintness and antithesis; and, if I
recollect perfectly, is to the following effect. ‘He was a consummate
scholar without pedantry, a complete philosopher without any taint
of infidelity; learned without vanity, grave without moroseness,
solemn without preciseness, pleasant without levity, regular without
formality, nice without effeminacy, generous without prodigality,
and religious without hypocrisy.’--These are a few of the learned
physicians who have been the pillars and ornaments of the profession;
which, so far from having been considered formerly a degrading one,
has not only been patronized by royal and noble benefactors, but
we boast of some of the latter quality amongst our own body. The
Marquess of Dorchester not only left us his library, enriched with
the best books, but was enrolled amongst our Fellows, assisted at our
meetings, and exerted himself in every possible way to promote the
study of medicine.“--[My master here grew warm, and turning round to
Mr. Professor Ward, more particularly addressed himself to him:]--”Why
amongst the Athenians there was a law that no slave nor woman should
dare to study medicine. Have not the greatest philosophers of antiquity
devoted themselves to it? have not Pythagoras, Democritus, and
Aristotle, written expressly upon botany, anatomy, and physic? It is
well known that the inhabitants of Smyrna associated upon the coins[30]
of that city the names of their celebrated physicians with the effigies
of their gods. I am aware that amongst the Romans our art was not held
in such high esteem; but it is well known that in the time of Julius
Cæsar, when physicians came from Greece (the country whence the Romans
derived all their polite learning and knowledge of the fine arts), they
were complimented with the freedom of the Eternal City, a privilege of
which that proud people was extremely jealous.”

ARBUTHNOT. “What you have said will show the dignity of our art, and
who will doubt of its liberality who reflects for a moment on the
generous and spirited conduct of our poor friend Garth, whose death
we all deplore? To whom but a Physician was the corpse of Dryden
indebted for a suitable interment? We all recollect how he caused it
to be brought and placed in our College, proposed and encouraged a
subscription for the expense of the funeral, pronounced an oration over
the remains of the great Poet, and afterwards attended the solemnity
from Warwick Lane to Westminster Abbey, where it was conveyed on the
13th May, 1700, attended by more than a hundred coaches.

[Illustration: From a portrait of Garth by Sir Godfrey Kneller, in the
Censor’s Room of the College.]

“But Garth was indeed the best-natured of men: besides being a polite
scholar, ever attentive to the honour of the faculty, and never
stooping to prostitute the dignity of the profession through mean or
sordid views of self-interest[31].”

MEAD. “The loss of such a man we shall all long lament: besides there
is something in the death of a colleague peculiarly melancholy. His
mind has been formed by the same studies, the same motives must
have actuated his conduct, he must have been influenced by the same
hopes and fears, and run pretty nearly the same career in life with
ourselves; and at his death we are forcibly struck with the futility
of all our plans, the emptiness and littleness of all our schemes of
ambition. I know not when I have been more affected than in reading,
a few days ago, the story of the death of Dr. Fox as told by Hamey,
in his _Bustorum aliquot Reliquiæ_. He was a younger son of Fox the
martyrologist, and had been a warm friend and active patron of Hamey,
the great benefactor, and, as I may call him, second founder of our
College. In that curious MS. which contains the characters of his
contemporary physicians, statesmen, and other celebrated persons of
his day, Hamey speaks in the most pathetic terms of the death-bed
scene of his friend, and I will endeavour to recollect the precise
Latin expressions in which Fox takes leave of him. _Mi amice, vale;
crastinus dies liberabit tuum ab his angustiis. Et vale dixisse
iterum, porrectâque quam suspicabar frigidiore mauu, expressisse
mihi lacrymas, meamque illam imbelliam, averso leviter capite,
redarguisse et susurrasse. Hoccine est philosophari? et fructum
promere tot colloquiorum?_ Hamey adds, _Victus ego dolore et pudore;
me domum confero arbitratus in ista ἀμηχανία levius fore audire cœtera
quam videre_. But let us change this melancholy subject. Tell us,”
addressing Arbuthnot, “are we to expect another volume of the Memoirs
of Martinus Scriblerus; or are Pope, Swift, and yourself tired of
the project? I hope there is not an end of a scheme which was so
calculated, by ridiculing the abuse of human learning, to benefit the
cause of polite letters.”

The answer of that brilliant wit and scholar was unfavourable; and it
evidently appeared, from the dejected tone in which he spoke, that the
change in the fortunes of the illustrious triumvirate which had been
occasioned by the death of Queen Anne, had depressed his spirits, and
terminated the plan.

Most of the party had now assembled round Dr. Mead, to listen to this
hasty recital of the merits of the distinguished physicians of former
days. Of the names and persons of many of those present that evening,
I have now no recollection: but, even at this distance of time, the
figure of one who leaned on the arm of Arbuthnot is distinctly present
to my imagination. He was protuberant before and behind, and used
humorously to compare himself to a spider; and was so feeble that he
could not, as I have heard, dress or undress himself, and was always
wrapped up in fur and flannel, besides wearing a bodice of stiff
canvas. In this description every one will recognise the form of
Pope. He took no part in the conversation; but his fine, sharp, and
piercing eye, directed as it was alternately to the different speakers,
indicated that he felt no common concern in the subject. But he did
not stay long; pleading as an apology for his departure an attack
of his old enemy the headache, and the intention of returning to
Twickenham[32] that evening. As he passed by the spot in which I was
placed, I heard him say to a friend who accompanied him, and who, like
himself, had just taken leave of Dr. Mead: “I highly esteem and love
that worthy man. His unaffected humanity and benevolence have stifled
much of that envy which his eminence in his profession would otherwise
have drawn out; and, indeed, I ought to speak well of his profession,
for there is no end of my kind treatment from the faculty. They are in
general the most amiable companions and the best friends, as well as
the most learned men I know.”

The party now moved to a little distance to inspect a bust of Harvey,
which my master had lately caused to be executed by an excellent hand,
from an original picture in his possession. “This bust,” said Mead, “I
intend to present to the College, to replace in some measure the statue
of Harvey which was erected to him during his lifetime, and stood in
the hall of our former building, and which was no doubt lost in the
great fire. I have long thought it a reproach that we should not at
least possess a bust of _him_ who, to use the strong and figurative
language of the Latin inscription, gave motion to the blood, and origin
to animals, and must ever be hailed by us _Stator Perpetuus_.”

[Illustration: Now placed in the Theatre of the College.]

FREIND. “The skill of the sculptor has been successfully employed here.
The mild features of the old man are well expressed, and exhibit with
fidelity his candid and gentle nature. I see him now, in my mind’s
eye, after the surrender of Oxford to the Parliament, and the loss
of his wardenship of Merton College, in his retirement at Richmond.
The visit paid him there by his intimate friend Dr. George Ent, is
related in so lively and pleasing a manner, that one is almost present
at the interview. It was in the year 1651, when Harvey was in his
seventy-first year. ‘I found him,’ says Ent, ‘in his seclusion, not far
from town, with a sprightly and cheerful countenance, investigating,
like Democritus, the nature of things. Asking if all was well with him,
‘How can that be?’ replied Harvey, ‘when the state is so agitated with
storms, and I myself am yet in the open sea? And, indeed,’ added he,
‘were not my mind solaced by my studies, and the recollection of the
observations I have formerly made, there is nothing which should make
me desirous of a longer continuance. But thus employed, this obscure
life, and vacation from public cares, which disquiets other minds, is
the medicine of mine.’ Who does not admire,” continued Freind, “the
modest altercation that arose between the great discoverer of the
circulation of the blood, and Dr. Ent, about the publication of those
most valuable papers containing his Exercitations on the Generation of
Animals? One may imagine him replying to the importunity of his friend,
that though, at his advanced age, it was of little consequence what the
world thought of his writings, yet he could never forget, after the
publication, at Frankfort, in 1628, of his doctrine of the circulation
of the blood, that such was the general prejudice against him as an
innovator, that his practice as a physician considerably declined. To
be sure, he might look upon himself as recompensed in some degree for
the ingratitude of the public by the regard and favour of his royal
master Charles I. whose attachment to the arts and sciences formed
a conspicuous part of his character. For the King, with some of the
noblest persons about the Court, condescended to be spectators and
witnesses of his experiments; and, indeed, His Majesty took so much
interest in his anatomical researches, that, with respect to these
very inquiries about the nature of generation, he had received much
assistance from the opportunities afforded him of dissecting a vast
number of animals, which were killed in the King’s favourite diversion
of stag-hunting.

“Dr. Ent at last succeeded in obtaining the papers; and concludes the
account of their interview by saying, ‘I went from him like another
Jason in possession of the golden fleece; and when I came home, and
perused the pieces singly, I was amazed that so vast a treasure should
have been so long hidden.’”

MR. PROFESSOR WARD. “You mention the destruction of a former building;
pray, where did the College meet prior to the erection of the present
edifice in Warwick Lane? Was it not somewhere in the neighbourhood of
St. Paul’s?”

DR. MEAD. “I am glad you have asked me that question, for the
vicissitudes in the fortunes of our body will gradually be forgotten,
and it would be very desirable before they are entirely blotted out
from our memory, or misrepresented by traditional inaccuracy, that
some more public record should be given of them, than that which is
contained in our archives. Though as a narrative of events, which has
now been continued uninterruptedly for about two centuries[33], it
would be difficult to find another of fidelity and interest equal to
that furnished by the Annals of the College.

[Sidenote: 1518.] “Its very first meetings immediately after its
establishment were held in the house of Linacre, called the stone
house, Knight-Rider Street, which still belongs to the College.

[Illustration: The stone house, No. 5, Knight-Rider Street. The
armorial ensigns of the College are placed between the two centre
windows of the first floor. Their proper blazon is as follows:--

Sable, a hand proper, vested argent, issuant out of clouds in chief of
the second, rayonée, Or, feeling the pulse of an arm in fesse, proper,
issuant from the sinister side of the shield, vested argent; in base a
pomegranate between five demi-fleurs-de-lis bordering the edge of the
escutcheon, Or.

These arms were obtained in 1546. Johanne Barker, Gartero Armorum
Rege.]

“The front of that building was appropriated to a Library, of the
condition or extent of which it may be difficult to form any tolerable
guess after the lapse of so many years. It would of course contain
copies of Linacre’s[34] own works, and there are records of an early
date [Sidenote: 1603.] of donations and bequests made to it of books,
globes, mathematical instruments, and minerals.

“Rather more than forty years had elapsed from the death of Linacre,
before permission having been obtained from Queen Elizabeth, [Sidenote:
1564.] dissections began to be performed within the walls of the
College, and, if I am not mistaken, Dr. Lopus was the first Physician
appointed to give a public demonstration.

[Sidenote: 1583.] “As soon as the Lumleian Lectures were founded, a
spacious Anatomical Theatre was built, adjoining the house of Linacre,
and here [Sidenote: 1615.] Harvey gave his first Course of Lectures.

“But about the time of the accession of Charles the First,
notwithstanding the condition of its treasury, the College removed
to another spot, and were enabled by the contributions of its own
Members, assisted by the liberality of two distinguished individuals,
to take a house of the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul’s, at the bottom
of Amen Corner. The lease of these premises was afterwards, from
time to time renewed, a botanical garden adjoining was planted, and
[Sidenote: 1641.] an Anatomical Theatre built, which last was rendered
not only commodious, but even ornamental, by the bequest of one of our
Fellows[35].

“The part of the house not actually required for the College meetings,
was let to one of its members, upon certain conditions, one of which
was that he should maintain the garden handsomely; and, small as it
was, the rent paid by this occupant was the only permanent revenue at
that time accruing to the College; for the fees of admission were of
course uncertain.

“In the calamities and troubles of the civil wars, it was impossible
for the College not to be involved, and [Sidenote: 1643.] when the
Parliament, by an ordinance of the two Houses, imposed the heaviest and
most unusual taxes, seizing, wherever they had power, upon the revenues
of the King’s party, they were reduced to the greatest distress. On the
City of London alone, besides an imposition of the five and twentieth
part of every man’s substance, a weekly assessment was levied of
£10,000, of which the portion allotted to the College was £5 per week.
In consequence of these exactions they became much embarrassed, were
for a time unable to pay the rent due to St. Paul’s, and to add to
their distress, when it seemed to be the intention of many leaders in
Parliament to admit of no established religion, their premises were
condemned, as part of the property of the church, to be sold by public
auction. To prevent their falling into the hands of any illiberal
proprietor, [Sidenote: 1649.] Dr. Hamey became the purchaser of the
house and garden, which two years afterwards he gave in perpetuity to
his colleagues. This he did most opportunely, since the design then
entertained by the great Harvey of building a Museum in the College
Garden might otherwise have been frustrated. This generous project was
announced at one of the meetings, in the following modest manner:--

“‘If (said the President[36]) I can procure one that will build us a
library and a repository for simples and rarities, such an one as shall
be suitable and honourable to the College, will you assent to have it
done or no, and give me leave, and such others as I shall desire, to
be the designers and overlookers of the work, both for conveniency and
ornament?’

“The College, as might be expected, assented most willingly to
so liberal a proposal, and voted a statue, bearing the following
inscription on its pedestal, to be placed in their Hall, in honour of
Harvey, who was the person alluded to in the speech of the President:--

                           GULIELMO HARVEIO
                    VIRO MONUMENTIS SUIS IMMORTALI
              HOC INSUPER COLLEGIUM MEDICORUM LONDINENSE
                                POSUIT
                       QUI ENIM SANGUINIS MOTUM
                                 UT ET
                  ANIMALIBUS ORTUM DEDIT MERUIT ESSE
                           STATOR PERPETUUS

The building was now begun, and finished the following year, and when
the Fellows had all met [Sidenote: 1653.] on the 2d of February, the
doors of the Museum being thrown open, the munificent old man, for he
was now nearly eighty years old, in the most benevolent manner, and
wishing all prosperity to the Republic of Medicine, presented at once
the Mansion and all its valuable contents to the College[37]. He then
laid down the office of Professor of Anatomy and Surgery, which he had
hitherto held; when Glisson was appointed to succeed him. The garden,
of an irregular form, extended as far as the Old Bailey to the west,
and towards the south reached to the Church of St. Martin, Ludgate, and
the Museum of Harvey must have stood very near to the spot upon which
Stationers Hall has since been built. It consisted of an elegantly
furnished convocation room, and a library filled with choice books
and surgical instruments. Every patron of learning hastened to enrich
this edifice; the Marquis of Dorchester gave £100, [Sidenote: 1655.]
for the purchase of books; the famous Selden[38] left by will some
curious oriental MSS. relating to physic, and Elias Ashmole, with other
benefactors, presented us with various scarce and valuable volumes. In
the Museum of Harvey were deposited the curiosities of the College, and
here also were affixed honorary tablets to the memory of those who had
deserved well of the community. The generous Hamey was not forgotten,
and his kind intervention [Sidenote: 1658.] in support of the declining
fortunes of the College was thus recorded in marble.

                           ό δε καιρος οξυς.

        BALDUINO HAMÆO Med. Doctori, Balduini (in Moscorum aulâ
       Juvenili ætate Archiatri) filio, Socio suo, ac ante annos
      aliquot opportunuo imprimis Benefactori, hoc Marmor (illius
                animo oblatâ statuâ acceptius) Dedicat.

                        Societas An. MDCLVIII.

“The Museum of Harvey, besides medical books, contained Treatises on
Geometry, Geography, Astronomy, Music, Optics, Natural History, and
Travels, and was under the following regulations:--It was to be open
on Fridays, from two till five o’clock in the summer, but only till
four in the winter season; also during all meetings of the College and
whenever else the CUSTOS being at leisure should choose to be present;
but no books were allowed to be taken out. The old library room was
henceforth appropriated to the Lectures, and [Sidenote: 1654.] the
first public meeting of the College (_in novo Triclinio_) was held in
March. Here also, as in a sort of state apartment, it was the custom to
receive distinguished and illustrious visitors: for it was not uncommon
in those days for the highest personages in the kingdom to attend our
Lectures. When Charles the Second condescended to be present at the
anatomical prælections of Dr. Ent, at the conclusion of the Lecture,
the royal party retiring from the Theatre, was received in the Museum
of Harvey, and on this occasion [Sidenote: 1635.] His Majesty was
graciously pleased to confer the honour of knighthood upon the lecturer.

“This event took place the year before the fire of London, which,
while it destroyed almost the whole of the City, consumed our College,
and the greatest part of our Library[39].”

The mention of this memorable event occasioned a pause in the
conversation, and one of our guests, not of the profession, but who,
like all persons of an inquisitive turn of mind, was fond of medical
subjects, begged to ask Dr. Mead a question connected with that great
catastrophe. This is a kind of curiosity that has often struck me as
something very amusing; to be sure there can be no considerations
more interesting to all mankind than those which relate to the various
conditions of health and disease; but it is astonishing to see the
avidity with which people of cultivated understandings listen to the
details of professional lore (provided they be not couched in terms
too technical), and how much more easily they are satisfied with
explanations, and convinced by specious arguments, than the _verè
adepti_ themselves.

“I beg your pardon,” said this gentleman to my master, “for
interrupting your history of the College, but the mention of the great
fire of London unavoidably suggests somehow or other the idea of the
plague, from the visitations of which we have been free ever since the
occurrence of that dreadful conflagration. How do you connect, Doctor,
the fire of London with the disappearance of the plague; in short,
what effect has the one had upon the other? The subject of the plague
occupied your pen some three years ago, and I should like to hear your
opinion upon this matter.”

DR. MEAD. [Sidenote: 1666.] “The fire began, as you know, upon the 2nd
of September, and consumed about one-fifth of the town of London,
burning an extent of about two miles in length, and one in breadth. But
it was the wealthiest and the best part of the town that was destroyed;
and it is even said, that had it not been for the opposition of some
tenacious and avaricious men, aldermen particularly, who would not
permit their houses to be blown up, in order to make a wide gap, the
conflagration might have been stopped almost at its first breaking
out. But this was thought too great a sacrifice, and the devouring
element continued its ravages uncontrolled. A strong east wind drove
the flames impetuously forward; the sky was like the top of a burning
oven, and the light of the fire was seen for forty miles round about
for many nights. The stones of St. Paul’s are represented as flying
like granados, and the very pavements of the streets glowing with fiery
redness; it was not till noon on the third day, nor till the fire had
threatened to cross over towards the residence of the Court itself at
Whitehall, that it was stopped, coming no farther westward than the
Temple, nor towards the north than the entrance of Smithfield. Thus,
you see, it spared the Borough, Wapping, Smithfield, and some other of
the quarters and suburbs of the city, inhabited by the poorest classes,
and consequently the abode of filth and wretchedness. The notion
therefore advanced by some that the improvements in the rebuilding of
the metropolis have been the cause of the disappearance of the plague
is evidently unfounded. Besides, I may mention to you, that Bristol,
the only town in England, except London, which had formerly much
foreign trade, though it has been purified by no fire, has nevertheless
remained equally free from that disease. On the other hand, dysentery
and intermittents, two diseases which we all look upon as arising from
filth and moisture, increased after the fire. Take my word for it, it
is quarantine alone, and not any increased cleanliness on the part of
the inhabitants, that has kept out the plague.”--Dr. Mead then returned
to his history of the College, and mentioned that after the fire, on
application being made to the Judges who were appointed to settle
the differences which unavoidably arose out of that great national
calamity, [Sidenote: 1668.] a new lease was obtained from the Dean and
Chapter of St. Paul’s--the College undertaking to rebuild the premises.
This scheme however was never carried into effect; the lease was
resigned, and on the ground where once stood our College, three fair
houses were erected, which are now the seats of the Residentiaries of
St. Paul’s. In this interval the meetings of the Fellows were generally
held at the house of the President; when shortly after a piece of
ground having been purchased in Warwick Lane, our present College was
begun to be built, in four years was completed, and [Sidenote: 1674.]
was opened, as it would appear, without any particular ceremony, on
the 25th of February, under the presidency of Sir George Ent, the
physician, of whose visit to the immortal Harvey, Dr. Freind gave us a
short time ago so interesting an account.

[Illustration: Old College, Warwick Lane.]

“In concluding this sketch of the various fortunes of our body, I beg
only to remind you, that according to the custom of the early ages in
England, Physicians united the clerical character with the medical, and
being thus learned in Physic and Divinity, were not unfrequently called
in to administer the comforts of both professions. But if, in more
modern times, the alliance of the two faculties has ceased to exist
in the _persons_ of their professors, it is still amusing to observe
the continuance of the affinity of _locality_, if I may so term it,
for you cannot cross from the house of Linacre, to the spot where our
present College stands, and thence to the site of our second building,
without being struck with the sanctity of the ground. On your right you
leave the magnificent structure of St. Paul’s, and traversing Creed
Lane, Ave Maria Lane, Paternoster Row, you finally reach Amen Corner.
All these places are within a stone’s throw of one another; whether
the spirit of innovation, and the change of fashion, may at any future
period overcome the _genius loci_, remains to be proved. I have often
heard it observed, that though it is convenient to some of us, who
live towards the east, yet upon the whole, it is a pity the College
was built so near Newgate Prison, and in so obscure a hole; a fault in
placing most of our public buildings and churches in the City, which
is to be attributed to the avarice of some few men, and to His Majesty
Charles the Second not over-ruling it when it was in his power, after
the dreadful conflagration.”

The library of Dr. Mead never witnessed a more brilliant assembly than
this; at least the conversation which I have endeavoured to relate made
a great impression upon me.

[Illustration: Interior of Mead’s Library; from an engraving in the
British Museum.]

I do not mean, as was said before, to dwell upon the details of the
private practice of Dr. Mead; for, to tell the truth, I have long
been (to use one of our new-fangled French words) rather _blasé_ on
the topic of medical cases. How, indeed, can it be otherwise with me,
who have seen five generations of physicians; and must, therefore,
have infinitely more experience than any doctor who ever existed? One
hundred and thirty years have elapsed since I first became connected
with physic; for I am almost coeval with the College in Warwick Lane,
having made my first appearance fifteen years only after the completion
of that building; and can only be said to have completely retired from
the bustle of practice within the last two or three years. With the
usual appearance of the symptoms of diseases, the ordinary remedies
prescribed, and the common topics of consolation and advice, I soon
became, even from the very commencement of my career, very familiar;
it was therefore only by some very extraordinary case indeed, or by
attending some very remarkable patient, that I felt much interested. Of
the latter description was the illness of that great and good man Sir
Isaac Newton. In 1726, early in the month of March, Mr. Conduitt called
upon my master, and carried him, together with Mr. Cheselden[40], to
Kensington, where Sir Isaac had shortly before taken a house for the
benefit of his health.

It was my lot often to be in company with the eminent surgeon whose
name I have now mentioned; for the public seemed universally to have
adopted the sentiment of the popular poet of the day:

    “I’ll try what Mead and Cheselden advise.”

                                        POPE.

Consequently, in most complicated cases of importance, requiring the
united skill and attendance of a physician and surgeon, these two
celebrated practitioners were called in to consultation.

On our first interview, it was pronounced that the illness of Sir
Isaac arose from stone in the bladder, and no hopes were given of
his recovery; and yet, to look upon the great philosopher, though
now in his eighty-fifth year, he had the bloom and colour of a young
man, had never worn spectacles, nor lost more than one tooth during
his whole life. Besides being blessed with a very happy and vigorous
constitution, he had been very temperate in his diet, though we did not
learn that he had ever observed any regimen. He was of middle stature,
and at this time plump in his person; had a very lively and piercing
eye, a comely and gracious aspect, and a fine head of hair, as white
as silver, without any baldness, and when his peruke was off, he had
truly a most venerable appearance. On inquiry we found, that for some
years before his present illness, he had suffered so much from the same
disorder, that he had put down his chariot, and had gone out always in
a chair; had left off dining abroad, or with much company at home.
He ate little flesh; lived chiefly upon broth, vegetables, and fruit,
of which latter he always partook very heartily. Notwithstanding his
present infirmities had been gradually increasing upon him, nothing
could induce him to absent himself entirely from town, and he had
continued to go occasionally to the Mint, although his nephew had
for the last year transacted the business there for him. It appeared
that on the last day of the preceding month he had gone to town, in
order to be present at a meeting of the Royal Society: on the next
day Mr. Conduitt told us that he had seen him, and thought he had
not observed him in better health for many years; that Sir Isaac was
sensible of it himself, for that he had told him, smiling, that he had
slept the Sunday before, from eleven at night to eight in the morning,
without waking; but that the great fatigue he had endured in going to
the Society, in making and receiving visits, had brought on his old
complaint violently upon him. He had returned to Kensington on the
Saturday following. This was the statement we received; and we found
him suffering great pain. But though the drops of sweat ran down from
his face with anguish, he never complained, or cried out, or showed the
least signs of peevishness or impatience. On the contrary, during the
short intervals between these violent fits of torture, he smiled, and
talked with my master with his usual cheerfulness. On Wednesday, the
fifteenth of March, he seemed a little better; and some faint hopes
were entertained of his recovery. On Saturday, the eighteenth, he read
the newspapers, and held a pretty long discourse with Dr. Mead, and had
all his senses perfect; but at six o’clock on that evening he became
insensible, and remained so during the whole of Sunday; and died on
Monday, the twentieth, between one and two o’clock in the morning.

To find a successor worthy of filling the chair of science, which Sir
Isaac Newton had occupied for twenty-four years, was impossible; nor
is it at any time an easy matter to select one able to perform all the
duties of that distinguished station, and to fulfil the expectations
and satisfy the claims of the public. Even to draw the _beau ideal_ of
such a one would be difficult. Perhaps he should be a man of literary
and scientific attainments, and who, though not a labourer in the field
of science himself, is so well acquainted with the history and progress
of natural knowledge, as to be capable of judging of the value and
importance of the contributions of others. Possessed of discrimination
and tact in the selection of a council, which would be candid enough to
aid him in the difficult task of appreciating the merit of others, he
should himself be a man of fortune and character sufficient to be above
the temptation of making his high office subservient to the purposes
of private advancement, or the gratification of selfish ambition. To
these solid advantages, he should certainly add such an acquaintance
with at least one foreign language, as to be able in a becoming manner
to do the honours of science to the distinguished strangers who, in
their visits to this country, are likely to be recommended to his care.
To find an individual uniting in his own person all these qualities
is difficult, perhaps impossible; but it may be said, without fear of
contradiction, that the study of medicine is likely to have bestowed a
greater number of these attainments, than the discipline to which the
mind is subject in the pursuit of any other profession. Among the very
founders of the Royal Society, we find the names of many distinguished
Physicians, as Ent, Glisson, Merret, Willis, Croone, Needham, Whistler;
but the honour was reserved for Sir Hans Sloane to be the first Medical
President. He had been chosen its Secretary, in 1693, when he revived
the publication of the Transactions, which had been for some years
suspended: the first act of his Presidency was to make a present of 100
guineas to the Society, and of a bust of their founder, Charles II. He
continued in that office fourteen years, and did not resign the chair
till the age of eighty: how fit he was to preside over the interests of
science must appear from what has already been said of him: and if I
might be allowed to anticipate some fifty years, and allude to another
Physician who was raised to the same dignity, there will be no reason
to blush for the reputation of physic.

[Illustration: Statue of Sir Hans Sloane, by Rysbrach, in the
Apothecaries’ Garden, Chelsea.]

Sir John Pringle was elected President of the Royal Society in 1772;
in which office he continued only six years; but if the volumes of
Transactions, published during that time, be examined, they will be
found to contain many memorable papers: among others, Dr. Maskelyne’s
experiments at Schehallien, with Dr. Hutton’s deductions from them--The
experiments of Sir G. Shuckburgh Evelyn and of General Roy to
establish correct formulas for measuring heights by the barometer--The
report of the Committee to determine the proper method of graduating
thermometers--Experiments to ascertain the freezing point of mercury.
Pringle was the first President who made a set speech on the delivery
of the Copley Medals, and his discourses, which were made on rather
celebrated occasions, embrace many topics of interest, and show his
acquaintance with the history of philosophy. They were six in number,
the four first of which were,

To Priestley, for his Paper on different kinds of Air.

To Walsh, for his Experiments on Electricity.

To Maskelyne, for his Observations on Gravitation.

To Captain Cook, for his Paper on the Prevention of Scurvy amongst his
Crew, during his voyage round the world.

But I beg pardon for this digression, and must return to my master.
On the accession of George the Second, Dr. Mead was made one of the
royal physicians, and was for many years engaged in the constant
hurry of an extensive and successful practice. By his singular
humanity and goodness of heart he conquered even envy itself; and it
was acknowledged by all who knew him, that few princes have shown
themselves equally generous and liberal in promoting science, and
encouraging learned men. He threw open his gallery in the morning for
the benefit of students in painting and sculpture; and was in the
habit of even lending the best of his pictures to artists to copy. If
any literary work was going on, he contributed all in his power to
its perfection. For instance, he accommodated the learned Dr. Zachary
Grey with the loan of his original picture of Butler, the author of
Hudibras, (by Mr. Soest, a famous Dutch painter), for the use of
the engraver. He constantly kept in his pay a number of artists and
scholars, and scarcely a curious undertaking appeared during the
period of his success, that did not find a patron in Mead.

Knowing that Mr. Carte (who was accused of high treason, and for whose
apprehension a thousand pounds had been offered) had fled to Paris,
resided there under the borrowed name of Phillips, and was employed in
collecting materials for an English translation of Thuanus, my master
perceived that his plan might be enlarged; and satisfying Mr. Carte for
the pains he had already taken (_pretio haud exiguo_, as our librarian
Mr. Hocker used to say), he employed Mr. Buckley to complete the work.
In the first French edition, passages offensive to the nobility of that
nation had been omitted; but these were now restored, and a splendid
and complete edition printed at Mead’s expense.

He was also one of the first subscribers to the Foundling Hospital;
that noble institution, which will for ever endear the name of Captain
Coram to this country. Guy, the wealthy citizen, was also persuaded by
my master to lay out his immense fortune in building that hospital in
the Borough which bears his name.

With respect to science, no discovery was made in which he did not
take a lively interest. In the year 1746, the experiments tending to
illustrate the nature and properties of electricity were made by Mr.
afterwards Sir William Watson; and he was present on a remarkable
occasion, to witness the effects of the Leyden phial, then newly
invented. It was in the house of the ingenious philosopher whose name
has just been mentioned, in Aldersgate Street; and here, amongst a
large concourse of people, I saw the Duke of Cumberland, recently
returned from Scotland, take the shock with the point of the sword with
which he had fought the battle of Culloden.

Two or three years after this I witnessed the famous experiments made
on the Thames and at Shooter’s-hill, in the presence of the President
and several of the Fellows of the Royal Society; in one of which the
electrical circuit was made to extend four miles, and the result of
the experiment was, that the velocity of electricity seemed to be
instantaneous.

The hospitality of Mead was unbounded; and consequently his
housekeeping expenses were very great: for, not content with the
reception of his own friends and acquaintances, he kept also a very
handsome second table, to which persons of inferior quality were
invited. The consequence of this was, that notwithstanding the
considerable gains derived from his profession (for several years he
made between £5000 and £6000, and during one year he received £7000),
he did not die so rich as might have been expected. The total amount
left at his death, including the receipts of the sale of his library,
pictures, statues, &c. (which were between £15,000 and £16,000) was
about £50,000: but this sum was materially diminished by the payment of
his debts.

With respect to his manner of living, when not engaged at home, he
generally spent his evenings at Batson’s Coffee-House; and in the
forenoons, apothecaries used to come to him, at Tom’s, near Covent
Garden, with written or verbal reports of cases, for which he
prescribed without seeing the patient, and took half-guinea fees.

The last work he published, which was in 1751, was entitled Medical
Precepts and Cautions; in which, with great candour and simplicity, he
enumerated all the discoveries that long practice and experience had
opened to him concerning diseases and their cures; and concluded with
many salutary directions for preserving the body and mind perfect and
entire to a good old age. This he attained himself; and preserved till
within three years of his death his intellectual powers in a state
of perfection. Then he became very corpulent, and his faculties were
visibly impaired. But his kindness of heart never deserted him. I shall
never forget a piece of insolence on the part of one of his servants,
who doubtless presumed on his master’s known good nature and forgiving
disposition. Dr. Watson was sitting with Mead in his library, when the
latter wishing to read something, looked about for his spectacles, for
his eyesight had become very bad; and not readily finding them, asked
his servant for them: upon which the man gave them to him with great
rudeness, saying at the time, “You are always losing your things.” How
I longed to have knocked the fellow down for his brutality!

Dr. Mead died on the 16th of February, 1754, in his eighty-first year,
and was buried in the Temple Church.

After his death, it was said of him, that of all physicians who had
ever flourished, he gained the most, spent the most, and enjoyed the
highest fame during his lifetime, not only in his own but in foreign
countries.




[Illustration]




ASKEW.

CHAPTER III.


Dr. Askew had been in his youth a great traveller; at least he was so
considered in those days, for he had been absent from England three
years, and had, during that time, visited Hungary, and resided at
Athens and Constantinople. To the latter place he had accompanied
Sir James Porter, then ambassador to the Porte. In consequence of
these peregrinations, he was regarded on his return to his native
country as no ordinary person, but one who had enjoyed most unusual
advantages, and very rare opportunities of acquiring knowledge. This
will perhaps hardly be credited at the present moment, when it is
scarcely possible to turn the corner of a street without meeting an
Englishman recently arrived, either from the borders of the Dead Sea,
the cataracts of the Nile, or the ruins of Palmyra. Interviews with the
Beys and Pashas of the empire of Mahomet have now-a-days succeeded to
the usual presentations at the courts of the Continent; and the camel,
the firman, and the Tartar, have been substituted for the ordinary
facilities of the poste, the passports, and couriers of the beaten
roads of civilized Europe. Nor is this spirit of enterprise confined
to the gentlemen of England, but pervades alike the softer sex. One
lady of rank and great talent has taken up her permanent abode at the
convent of Mar Elias, on Mount Lebanon; another has accompanied her
husband and family of young children, nurse-maids and all, across the
dreary desert, from Cairo to Jerusalem; while a third, of still more
adventurous spirit, has climbed, by the help of a ladder of ropes, to
the summit of Pompey’s pillar. A few years only have elapsed since an
English lady of fashion was confined at Athens, gave to her infant son
the name of Atticus, and, when sufficiently recovered, resumed with her
husband her journey through the enchanting scenery of Greece; the child
occupying one side of a pair of panniers, while a favourite dog reposed
on the other. But these prodigies were reserved for modern days.

One of the immediate results of the travels of Dr. Askew was the
excellent opportunity it afforded him of gratifying the favourite
pursuit for which he was early distinguished, of collecting books,
manuscripts, and inscriptions. At Paris, on his way home from his
eastern expedition, he laid the foundation of his library, which became
afterwards so celebrated: for, in the love of books, he resembled Dr.
Mead, for whom he entertained a sort of filial veneration, and to
whom he had, when a very young man, and while studying physic at the
university of Leyden, dedicated his specimen of an edition of Æschylus.
At the sale of my late master’s library, he had been one of the most
distinguished of the _emptores literarii_, and, even during his
lifetime, had purchased all his Greek manuscripts, for which he paid
the sum of five hundred pounds.

[Illustration: Now in the Censor’s Room of the College.]

Not content with possessing himself as much as possible of his books,
statues, and other curiosities, he did all he could to preserve the
lineaments, and perpetuate the memory of the person of his deceased
friend. For this purpose he procured Roubiliac to make a bust of him,
which he presented to the College of Physicians.

No one could be better acquainted with the real features of Dr. Mead
than myself; and I pronounce this bust of him to be so like, that,
whenever it is before me, it suggests the strongest idea of the
original; and, indeed, when the marble came home, Dr. Askew was so
highly pleased with its execution, that though he had previously agreed
with the sculptor for £50, he offered him £100 as the reward of his
successful talent; when, to his astonishment, the sordid Frenchman
exclaimed it was not enough, and actually sent in a bill for £108.
2_s._! The demand, even to the odd shillings, was paid, and Dr. Askew
enclosed the receipt to Hogarth, to produce at the next meeting of
artists.

My present master never practised any where but in London:
but his father, Dr. Adam Askew, was a celebrated physician at
Newcastle-upon-Tyne, where he enjoyed a great provincial reputation,
and lived to a good old age. With reference to him, a conversation
which occurred at a literary party in the metropolis excited a laugh
at the time, and was to the following effect: Some one of the company
having remarked that my master, Dr. Askew, looked very ill--but indeed,
from his advanced age (whereas he was not then fifty) he could not
be expected to last a long time--“Possibly not,” replied a gentleman
with a smile, “but I dined with his father about a fortnight since at
Newcastle, and he appeared to be in perfect health.”

From the Library of Dr. Mead, in Ormond Street, I had removed but a
short distance, and could scarcely be said to be sensible of any change
in the scholastic air of my present abode.

Our house in Queen Square was crammed full of books. We could dispense
with no more. Our passages were full; even our very garrets overflowed;
and the wags of the day used to say, that the half of the square itself
would have done so, before the book appetite of Dr. Askew would have
been satiated.

We saw a great deal of company, attracted as well by the abundant
luxuries with which my master’s table was furnished, as by the
classical conversations and learned accounts of curiosities which
he had brought with him from his very interesting travels in
Greece.--Among the literary people who were most frequently there,
I may mention Archbishop Markham, Sir William Jones, Dr. Farmer,
Demosthenes Taylor, and Dr. Parr. By these distinguished persons Dr.
Askew was considered as a scholar of refined taste, sound knowledge,
and indefatigable research into every thing connected with Grecian
and Roman learning. Indeed, from his youth upwards, he had been
distinguished for his love of letters, and had received the early
part of his education under Richard Dawes the critic. His father,
on presenting him to the schoolmaster, marked those parts of his
back which Dawes, who was celebrated for his unsparing use of the
birch, might scourge at his pleasure, excepting only his head from
this discipline; and my master was wont to relate with some humour,
the terror with which he surveyed for the first time this redoubted
pedagogue. As a collector of books Dr. Askew was the first who brought
bibliomania into fashion; and no one exhibited his various treasures
better than himself. The eager delight with which he produced his rare
editions, his large-paper copies, his _glistering gems_ and _covetable
tomes_, would have raised him high in the estimation of the Roxburgh
Club. Some, indeed, were of such great rarity, that he would not suffer
them to be touched, but would show them to his visitors through the
glass cases of the cabinets of his Library, or, standing on a ladder,
would himself read aloud different portions of these inestimable
volumes[41]. As specimens of his wealth in this line, I may enumerate--

His Platonis Opera, apud Aldum, 2 vol. fol. 1513, Edit Prin. on
spotless vellum; the ink of which was of the finest lustre, and the
whole typographical arrangement a master-piece of printing.

His Boccacio, la Teseide, Ferar. 1475, Prima Edizione, which was then
considered an unique copy, and was sold after his death for £85. What
it would have fetched under the sceptre of Mr. Evans cannot even be
conjectured!

His Ciceronis Opera omnia, Oliveti, 9 vol. quarto, 1740; charta maxima.

These were amongst many others which I cannot now specify, but which
were then regarded as rare, magnificent, giants, imperial, atlas,
elephant, princes of editions!!

As no one had enjoyed greater opportunities, possessed more sufficient
means to gratify his taste, or had an acuter discrimination, the
_Bibliotheca Askeviana_ was well known to all, both at home and abroad,
who were in the least eminent for bibliographical research. And as he
had expressed a wish that his books might be unreservedly submitted to
sale after his decease, the public became ultimately benefited by his
pursuits, and many a collection was afterwards enriched by an _Exemplar
Askevianum_. The sale (apud S. Baker et G. Leigh, in vico dicto York
Street, Covent Garden, Februar. 1775) occupied twenty days.

[Illustration: This model is about 12 inches high, is of unbaked
potters’ clay, and is now in the possession of Sir Lucas Pepys, Bart.,
whose lady is the daughter of Dr. Askew.]

But the library of my present master was not, as I have said before,
the only attraction which our house afforded: to many of his guests,
the recital of his adventures during his travels abroad was a constant
source of amusement; and we saw most foreigners who came to London.
Dr. Askew had been in the East, and so vague and magnificent was the
opinion formed at that time of an oriental traveller, that I verily
believe he was supposed to have been able to speak all the languages of
that quarter of the globe. It was from some such notion as this that
they brought to him a Chinese, by name Chequa, who (however imperfect
their oral communication might be) seemed so grateful for the attention
and kindness he had received, that he requested before his departure
from England to be permitted to make a model of the Doctor in his
robes; which being readily granted, we sat to the stranger: and this is
the specimen of his ingenuity, rendered with Chinese fidelity.

From what has been said of the pursuits of Dr. Askew, it may be
inferred that much of his time was employed in his library, and
dedicated to the conversation of literary men; but he was not entirely
inattentive to professional engagements, and I took of course no small
interest in watching the progress of medicine, and becoming acquainted
with the rising and eminent physicians of the day. Amongst others,
there was one who had settled in London two years before Dr. Askew, and
who rapidly got into great business, which he followed with unremitting
attention above thirty years, for he lived many years after the death
of the former. Previous to his coming to town, Dr. Heberden had been
established at Cambridge, where he gave Lectures on the Materia Medica
for about ten years: among his pupils were students who afterwards
greatly distinguished themselves, as Sir George Baker, Dr. Gisborne,
and Dr. Glynn; the latter of whom was a character long known and
valued in Cambridge, both for his virtues and his eccentricities.
Of his method of lecturing, a specimen is preserved in his Essay on
Mithridatium and Theriaca, published in 1745, three years before he
quitted the university. Treating of this famous medicine, which had
recently been expunged from our public dispensatory, Dr. Heberden
proves, that the only poisons known to the ancients were hemlock,
monk’s-hood, and those of venomous beasts; and that to these few they
knew of no antidotes. That the farrago called after the celebrated King
of Pontus, which, in the time of Celsus, consisted of thirty-eight
simples, had changed its composition every hundred years, and that
therefore what had been for so many ages called Mithridatium, was quite
different from the true medicine found in the cabinet of that Prince.
This, he states, was a very trivial one, composed of twenty leaves of
rue, one grain of salt, two nuts, and two dried figs; and he infers
that, even supposing Mithridates had ever used the compound (which is
doubtful), his not being able to despatch himself was less owing to the
strength of his antidote than to the weakness of his poison. The first
accounts of subtle poisons that might be concealed under the stone of a
seal or ring, as well as the stories of poisons by vapours arising from
perfumed gloves and letters, he pronounces to be evidently the idle
inventions of ignorance and superstition.

The learning and good sense which characterize the whole of this
little Essay, will enable the reader to form a judgment of the manner
in which he conveyed instruction to his class, and of the loss which
the university must have suffered by his removal; but he would
probably have settled in London earlier than he actually did, had the
encouragement held out to him, to come to the metropolis, not been most
unfairly kept from his knowledge. The circumstances attending this want
of good faith will be best explained by the following letter from Sir
Edward Hulse to Dr. Heberden, then residing at Cambridge, and Dr. H.’s
reply:--

                                         “_Baldwyn, July 14, 1748._

    “DEAR SIR,

    “I shall be very glad to embrace any opportunity of showing
    you how sincerely I wish your welfare; and I assure you,
    when I desired ---- to dispose you to come to London, I did
    unfeignedly mean to serve you, knowing you to be capable of
    answering any recommendation your friends could give you.
    ---- then sent me word, you had no inclination to leave the
    University. What shall I say to you now? Even what I said to
    ----, who at the persuasion of his friends was afterwards
    inclined to come himself, and try his fortune here, viz. That
    when I left London I had, as far as I could, recommended Dr.
    Shaw to my business: so it stands now, except that Dr. Shaw has
    too much business, more than he can possibly do, upon which
    account I have endeavoured to assist Dr. Taylor, who came from
    Newark. He is greatly supported by some noble families, and
    has already wonderfully succeeded. I have set before you the
    difficulties that I lie under, of recommending any body at
    present. I don’t intend to flatter you, when I say, I make no
    doubt you will be able to support yourself by your own merit;
    and as far as shall be consistent with honour, jointly with
    my power, which is now very little, you may depend upon the
    friendship of,

                 “Sir,

                      “Your most affectionate

                                   “humble servant,

                                                  “E. HULSE.

    “P.S.--Since the writing of this, I am certainly informed that
    Dr. Shaw is gone over to Hanover with the Duchess of Newcastle.
    I believe you never will have a fairer opportunity of settling
    in this town than the present.”

DR. HEBERDEN’s _answer_.

                                                “_August 30, 1748._

    “I take the opportunity of returning my thanks by Mr. H.,
    for your most obliging letter. No one can be ignorant that
    your assistance and recommendation must be of the highest
    advantage to any person who was beginning the practice of
    physic in London; and I am persuaded they would at any time
    have determined me to fix there, though I had otherwise no such
    intention. But I never was rightly informed that I had such a
    valuable opportunity in my power. By what accident or mistake
    it happened, I do not know, but the person you mention never
    acquainted me with it at all, nor indeed any one else with
    authority from you. I had only heard accidentally, that you
    had expressed yourself with great civility, on a supposition
    of my removing to London. There was no reason, when I first
    heard such reports, to imagine that they amounted to any thing
    more than your good wishes. As soon as I could believe there
    was the least probability of your intending to assist me with
    your interest, I immediately took the liberty of writing to
    you. I must reckon it among my greatest misfortunes, that this
    application came too late: though I shall always think myself
    under the same obligations to you, as if I had enjoyed the
    benefit of your kind intentions. My best acknowledgments are
    due for the assurances of your disposition to assist me still,
    where your other engagements have not put it out of your power;
    and it is with the highest satisfaction that I find myself
    possessed of a place in your friendship. I propose seeing
    London some time in October, in order to consult with some
    friends about the advisableness of my settling there, when I
    hope to have the pleasure of paying my respects to you.”

He settled in London the following Christmas. The name of the person
alluded to in Sir Edward Hulse’s letter does not appear, for it
was effectually erased from the original letter, though it shows
something indicative of a superior mind to be told, that Dr. Heberden
afterwards lived on terms of friendship with the author of so base a
transaction. Not long after he came to reside in town, he met Dr. Mead
in consultation at the Duke of Leeds’, and observed his faculties to be
so impaired, that he then determined within himself, that if he ever
lived to the same age of seventy-eight, he would give up practice. And
this resolution he strictly adhered to, saying that people’s friends
were not forward to tell them of their decay, and that he would rather
retire from business several years too soon, than follow it one hour
too long.

“Plutarch,” said he, “has told us that the life of a vestal virgin was
divided into three portions; in the first of which she learned the
duties of her profession, in the second she practised them, and in the
third she taught them to others.” This, he maintained, was no bad model
for the life of a physician; and when he had passed through the two
first of these periods, he addressed himself diligently to the work of
teaching others. The motto prefixed to his commentaries was expressive
of this his favourite maxim--

    Γέρων και κάμνειν οὐκέτι δυναμενος, τοῦτο το Βιβλιον ἔγραψα

But while in the enjoyment of health, he lived much with scholars
and men of science, among whom may be reckoned Gray, Bryant, Wray,
Cavendish, Hurd, Kennicott, Lowth, Jenyns, Tyrwhitt, Jortin, and
most of the distinguished men of his time. Of the amusements of this
literary coterie, take this as an example. Mr. Stuart, best known by
the name of Athenian Stuart, having presented Dr. Heberden with a
tea-chest made of olive wood from Athens, Mr. Tyrwhitt, who soon after
dined with him, inspired by so classical a subject, sent him the next
day the following copy of verses.

    In Attic fields, by famed Ilissus’ flood,
    The sacred tree of Pallas once I stood.
    Now torn from thence, with graceful emblems drest,
    For Mira’s tea I form a polish’d chest.
    Athens, farewell! no longer I repine
    For my Socratic shade and patroness divine.

Sir William Jones[42] afterwards rendered the same into Greek, and
Jacob Bryant, Esq. author of the Ancient Mythology, into Latin. The
chest speaks its own native language the best, but should it imitate my
example, and, inspired by the flattering notice of such distinguished
men, begin to talk again, and procure, as an amanuensis, the elegant
scholar in whose possession it now is, let it speak whatever tongue it
may, I am afraid my memoirs would soon be consigned to neglect.

Dr. Heberden was always exceedingly liberal and charitable, therefore
as soon as he found he could support himself in London, he voluntarily
relinquished a fellowship which he held in St. John’s College for the
benefit of some poorer scholar to whom it might be of use. He was
forward in encouraging all objects of science and literature, and
promoting all useful institutions. There was scarcely a public charity
to which he did not subscribe, or any work of merit to which he did not
give his support. He recommended to the College of Physicians the first
design of their Medical Transactions; was the author of several papers
in them, also of some in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal
Society, as well as of Commentaries on the History and Cure of Diseases.

[Illustration: Dr. Heberden, from a portrait of him in the Dining Room
of the College.]

He was much esteemed by his Majesty King George the Third; and upon the
Queen’s first coming to England, in 1761, had been named as Physician
to her Majesty, an honour which he thought fit to decline. The real
reason of which was, that he was apprehensive it might interfere with
those connexions of life that he had now formed. In 1796 he met with
an accident which disabled him for the last few years of his life;
till then he had always been in the habit of walking, if he could,
some part of every day. It deserves to be mentioned, that when he
was fast approaching to the age of ninety, he observed, that though
his occupations and pleasures were certainly changed from what they
had used to be, yet he knew not if he had ever passed a year more
comfortably than the last.

He lived to his ninety-first year (for I am anticipating, by many
years, my own history), and there can hardly be a more striking
memorial of the perfect condition of his mind to the very last, than
that within forty-eight hours of his decease he repeated a sentence
from an ancient Roman author, signifying, that “Death is kinder to none
than those to whom it comes uninvoked.”

His address was pleasing and unaffected, his observations cautious and
profound, and he had a happy manner of getting able men to exhibit
their several talents, which he directed and moderated with singular
attention and good humour.

But, though rendered eminent by his skill as a physician, he conferred
a more valuable and permanent lustre on his profession by the worth
and excellence of his private character. From his early youth Dr.
William Heberden had entertained a deep sense of religion, a consummate
love of virtue, an ardent thirst after knowledge, and an earnest
desire to promote the welfare and happiness of all mankind. By these
qualities, accompanied with great sweetness of manners, he acquired the
love and esteem of all good men, in a degree which perhaps very few
have experienced; and after passing an active life with the uniform
testimony of a good conscience, he became a distinguished example of
its influence, in the cheerfulness and serenity of his latest age.
In proof of these assertions I will mention an anecdote of him which,
though now perhaps almost forgotten, somehow or other transpired at
the time, and was duly appreciated by his contemporaries. After the
death of Dr. Conyers Middleton, (whom I have had occasion to speak of
before, as the author of the attack on the dignity of physic, which
was so warmly and triumphantly repelled by Dr. Mead), his widow called
upon Dr. Heberden with a MS. treatise of her late husband, about the
publication of which she was desirous of consulting him. The religion
of Dr. Middleton had always been justly suspected, and it was quite
certain that his philosophy had never taught him candour. Dr. Heberden
having perused the MS., which was on the inefficacy of prayer, told the
lady that though the work might be deemed worthy of the learning of
her departed husband, its tendency was by no means creditable to his
principles, and would be injurious to his memory; but as the matter
pressed, he would ascertain what a publisher might be disposed to give
for the copyright. This he accordingly did; and having found that £150
might be procured, he himself paid the widow £200, and consigned the
MS. to the flames.




[Illustration]




PITCAIRN.

CHAPTER IV.


[Illustration: William Pitcairn, M.D. F.R.S. From a portrait, anno
1777, by Sir J. Reynolds.]

When the Radcliffe Library was opened at Oxford, which was done April
13th, 1749, with great solemnity, the degree of Doctor of Medicine was
conferred by diploma upon Dr. William Pitcairn; and the College of
Physicians hastened to adopt him, in the following year, into their
corporate body. He was descended from the family of Dr. Archibald
Pitcairn, celebrated as the founder of the mechanical sect of medicine,
who, having followed the fortunes of the exiled James, was, for a
short time, Professor of the Practice of Physic at the University of
Leyden. Boerhaave and Mead had been fellow pupils of this distinguished
man, and Dr. Wm. Pitcairn, into whose hands I now was delivered, had
studied under Boerhaave; afterwards he had travelled with the Duke of
Hamilton (to whose family he was related), though not in a medical
capacity. His brother, a Major in the army, had been killed at the
battle of Bunker’s Hill, and as there was not in the world a more
excellent or benevolent character than my present master, he adopted
his orphan children, and always acted towards them with the affection
and solicitude of a parent. He was a man of very agreeable manners, and
his society was much sought after.--Among the many occasions on which
I attended him to the houses of his professional brethren, I remember
once particularly, when in company with his nephew, then a very young
man (afterwards Dr. David Pitcairn), we called upon Dr. Richard Warren.
We were received with the greatest kindness and alacrity, the Doctor
showing my master that respectful attention which, without checking
the familiar tone of friendly intercourse, is due and agreeable to
superiors in age. During the lively and entertaining conversation
which ensued, Dr. Pitcairn, in introducing his nephew, expressed
himself in these words:--“Dr. Warren, my nephew, whom I present to
you, received his early education at Glasgow, but afterwards I took
him home, and kept him here in London, under my own eye for a short
time, endeavouring to give him some of my peculiar views of practice.
He is now just returned from Edinburgh, where he has been under the
tuition of my countryman, Dr. Cullen, whose clinical clerk he has
been for a twelvemonth. Surely you will think him a youth of promise
in his profession when I inform you, that in the case of the son of
that great master of physic, which the father thought desperate, he
took a hint from what he had learned in London, and advised a larger
dose of laudanum than is usually made use of, which restored the
child of his preceptor and friend. My _currus triumphalis opii_, as
some of my brethren have been pleased to call my practice, has thus
travelled northwards to my own country, and I rejoice that it has
reached the door of so amiable a man and excellent practitioner as
Dr. Cullen.” So strong a recommendation was not without its effect,
and the expressions of friendship with which Dr. Warren received the
young student of physic were afterwards amply fulfilled by the real
assistance and countenance which he gave him in the commencement of
his professional career. On our return from Sackville Street, where Dr.
Warren lived, to our own residence, in Warwick Court, Warwick Lane,
when I had been carefully replaced in the carriage--“David,” said my
master to his nephew, “the Physician whose house we have left is a
remarkable man, and well worthy your observation. He has risen rapidly
to the top of his profession, and his abilities justify his success.
You must have remarked the liveliness, distinctness, and accuracy
of his mind, and the felicity of expression with which he explains
himself, exhibiting at once a clearness of comprehension and a depth
of knowledge that are very rarely to be met with. He has certainly had
some considerable advantages in the beginning of his professional life,
was early admitted into the best society, and is the intimate friend of
the minister, Lord North, who is confessedly the most agreeable man of
our day. You see how kindly he has received you; and as I hope, nay,
fully expect, that you will become intimately acquainted with him, I
think you will like to know all about him. His father was the Rev. Dr.
Richard Warren, Archdeacon of Suffolk and Rector of Cavendish, in the
same county; a divine of considerable eminence, and one of those who
entered into the controversy upon the Sacrament against Bishop Hoadley.
He was also editor of the Greek Commentary of Hierocles upon the golden
verses of Pythagoras. My friend, the Doctor, was the third son, and
was born at Cavendish, in December, 1731: he received the rudiments of
his education at the public school at Bury St. Edmunds, in Suffolk;
from whence in the year 1748, immediately upon his father’s death, he
removed to Jesus College, Cambridge. At this time he had little but his
industry and natural talents to support him, aided by the reputation
of being the son of a clergyman of ability. How far this served him,
however, in the beginning of life may be doubted, for the low church
party prevailed at that time in the University with such violence,
as not to dispose the persons then in authority to look with an eye
of kindness upon the son of an antagonist of Hoadley. In due time he
took the degree of A. B., and his name appears fourth in the list of
wranglers of that year. I am not much acquainted with the forms of
these English Universities, as I have never resided at either of them;
but I have been given to understand, that if fair justice had been done
my friend, he ought to have been placed even higher; it is certain,
however, that he obtained the prize granted to the middle Bachelors of
Arts for Latin prose composition, and the following year got the prize
for the senior Bachelors. Being already elected Fellow of his College,
the choice of a profession presented itself to his mind. To pursue
the steps of his father, who had been like himself a Fellow of Jesus
College, was perhaps the most obvious; but he had two elder brothers
already in the church, which indeed might be considered his family
profession, as his ancestors had followed it from the time of Queen
Elizabeth. His own inclination, as I have often heard him say, would
have led him to the law, but the _res angusta domi_ was an invincible
obstacle, and accident at length threw him upon the study of physic.

[Illustration: Dr. Richard Warren, from a portrait of him in the Dining
Room of the College.]

“Whether fortunately for himself, great as has been his early
success, and promising as his future prospects undoubtedly are, may
be questioned; for abilities like his would have led him to the head
of any other profession. At this critical moment the son of Dr. Peter
Shaw was entered at Jesus College, and placed under his tuition. The
name of this Physician must be known to you from his works, by his
editions of Bacon and Boyle, and from the fact of his having been one
of the Physicians of George the Second, and the usual medical attendant
upon that Monarch in his journeys to Hanover. The casual acquaintance
which my friend thus formed determined his lot in life; for Dr. Shaw,
who was a very amiable and high spirited man, and possessed of various
knowledge, was naturally pleased with similar qualities in a young man;
took an interest in his welfare, and in recommending him to pursue
the study of medicine, predicted that he would rank with the first
Physicians of his country. This connexion was some years afterwards
strengthened by a marriage with Dr. Shaw’s daughter; and much of the
early difficulty of medical life was consequently overcome by an
immediate introduction to the prominent Physicians of that day, and
to some of the upper circles in life, in which Dr. Shaw moved. Sir
Edward Wilmot, at that time a Physician to the Court, and much employed
among the nobility, was the attendant on the Princess Amelia, the
daughter of George the Second. Being advanced in life and looking to
retirement, he was led to propose Dr. Warren as an assistant to attend
to the more minute and arduous duties required by a royal patient,
who was besides subject to sudden seizures that created alarm. At the
commencement of his practice, Dr. Warren, during three summers, went
to Tunbridge Wells, and on two of these occasions Her Royal Highness
visited that watering-place under his care. On the retirement of Sir
Edward Wilmot, he continued Physician to the Princess, and one of the
rewards bestowed upon him was the appointment of Physician to the
King, which was procured for him by her influence, on the resignation
of his father-in-law, Dr. Shaw, who had been continued in that office
on the accession of George the Third. He was for a short time one of
the Physicians to the Middlesex Hospital, then in its infancy; and
afterwards, for several years, belonged to St. George’s Hospital.

“His progress has been more rapid than that of any other physician of
our time, and when you meet him in practice, which I hope you may often
do hereafter, you will discover in him a marked superiority over other
men.”

My master here paused for an instant, and taking me up from the
position in which I had been lying, raised me to the level of his eyes,
and looking attentively at my head, exclaimed, “This cane, which my
worthy friend, Dr. Askew, left to me about two years ago, once belonged
to Radcliffe, and might well have descended to Dr. Warren, for no one
more resembles that penetrating physician, and most extraordinary man,
in the accuracy of his prognosis, and the almost intuitive sagacity
with which he sees at a glance the true nature of a complaint. But I
recommend you to read his Harveian Oration, which I heard him deliver
seven years ago, where, notwithstanding the difficulty of introducing
any thing like novelty into the annual commemoration of the Benefactors
of the College, you will find that he has contrived to treat the
subject with the sprightliness, the force and brevity, the precision
of thought, and smartness of expression, that are peculiarly his own.
The characters are drawn without effort, the narration flows easily
and naturally, containing touches of tenderness and pathos when he
alludes to the death of his early friends, Wollaston and Hadley, and
rising even to eloquence when he comes to speak of his relative, Dr.
Shaw. But here,” continued he, as we entered the narrowest part of
Warwick Lane, “is the College of Physicians, where I heard the speech
delivered; we will alight, and send the carriage home. As I am now the
President, I will show you the interior of the building, point out and
explain to you some of its contents.” We stopped at some large iron
gates, and passed under the curiously constructed dome, built in an
oval form over the entrance, the plan of which was furnished by Sir
Christopher Wren. On the opposite side of the court, he pointed out,
over the door, in a niche, the statue of Charles II., voted in 1680,
with the following inscription, expressive of the various fortunes of
that monarch.

                      Utriusque Fortunæ Exemplar
                      Ingens Adversis Rebus Deum
                      Probavit Prosperis Seipsum
                       Collegii Hujusce Stator.

On entering the Hall, we turned to the right, and saw the Library,
consisting of two rooms communicating with each other, with galleries
running round them. “The College,” said my master, “was built and
used for public meetings, in the year 1674, but this Library was not
finished till eight or ten years after[43]. Unfortunately we have lost
our able Librarian, George Edwards, who died two years ago, at the
age of eighty. But here,” said Dr. Pitcairn, “is his work on Birds,
which he began about seven years after he was chosen Library Keeper,
to which office he was elected in 1733, through the influence of Sir
Hans Sloane, who continued through life his great patron. Edwards was
an extraordinary man; when young he had been intended for trade, but
having an opportunity to travel, he much improved himself; and when,
on his return from abroad, he was lucky enough to obtain the leisure
which his office here afforded him, he devoted himself to the study
of natural history, and became by great assiduity a distinguished
ornithologist. During thirty-six years he was Librarian to the College,
and in that period was chosen Fellow of the Royal and Antiquarian
Societies, and by the first of these learned bodies was rewarded with
the Copley medal; of which he was deservedly so proud, as to have
caused it to be engraved in the title-page of the first volume of his
work. Were he in my place, he would exhibit to you the treasures of our
Library, which, though imperfect as a collection of medical books (for
it consists chiefly of donations), is rich in rare classics, curious
manuscripts, and in very scarce and valuable Treatises on Civil Law.”

On returning to the Hall, we ascended a broad staircase, the sides of
which were hung with pictures, and on the first landing-place stopped,
to read the long inscription to the memory of Harvey. “This,” said my
master, “was voted by the College, in 1659, the year after the death
of this illustrious man. You see it is on copper, which proves that it
is a copy of the original epitaph, for that was on marble[44]. During
his lifetime a statue, ornamented with a cap and gown, on the pedestal
of which was another inscription, had been erected in the Hall of the
College, in Amen Corner; but this honorary tablet which we are now
looking at was placed in the Museum which bore his own name.” And this
difference of position is alluded to in the inscription itself, for
after enumerating the virtues, the discoveries, and more especially the
various claims Harvey has to the eternal gratitude of the College, it
concludes--

                       Ne mireris igitur Lector
                 Si quem Marmoreum _illic_ stare vides
                     _Hic_ totam implevit Tabulam.
                        Abi et merere alteram.

We now reached the great room, or Cænaculum, wainscoted by Hamey with
Spanish oak, at the expense of some hundred pounds, in the most elegant
manner, with pilasters and carved capitals; and here the President
explained to his nephew the pictures with which this and the adjoining
Censor’s Room were adorned. He particularly called his attention to the
portraits of Sir Theodore Mayerne, of Sydenham, of Harvey, and of the
deeply learned Physician and antiquary, Sir Thomas Browne, the author
of the Religio Medici. While gazing on that of Sir Edmund King--“To be
a court Physician now-a-days,” said my master, “does not involve quite
so much responsibility as formerly, for the Doctor whose likeness is
before us incurred considerable hazard, by saving for a time the life
of His Majesty Charles the Second. When the King was first seized with
his last illness, it was in his bedchamber, where he was surprised by
an apoplectic fit, so that, if by God’s providence Dr. King had not
been accidentally present to let him blood (having his lancet in his
pocket), His Majesty had certainly died that moment; which might have
been of direful consequence, there being nobody else present with
the King, save this Doctor and one more. It was considered a mark of
extraordinary dexterity, resolution, and presence of mind in the Doctor
to let him blood in the very paroxysm, without staying the coming
of other physicians, which regularly should have been done, and for
want of which it was at first thought that he would require a regular
pardon. The Privy Council, however, approved of what he had done, and
ordered him £1000--which, by the by, was never paid him.”

We next passed to the portrait of Vesalius, on board, by Calker. “This
famous anatomist,” continued the President, “was some time Physician
to the Emperor Charles the Fifth, but being disgusted with the manners
of a court, he made a voyage to the Holy Land; on his return thence to
fill the chair of Professor of Medicine at Padua, to which he had been
invited on the death of Fallopius, he was shipwrecked in 1564, in the
Isle of Zante, where he perished of hunger.”

Opposite the full length portrait of Sir Hans Sloane my master paused,
and told his nephew, that “Sir Hans, in the decline of his life, had
left London, and retired to his manor-house[45] at Chelsea, where he
resided about fourteen years before he died. Our Librarian, Edwards, of
whom we were talking a few minutes ago, was used to visit him every
week to divert him for an hour or two with the common news of the
town, and with any particulars that might have happened amongst his
acquaintances of the Royal Society, or other ingenious gentlemen, and
seldom missed drinking coffee with him on a Saturday. The old baronet
was so infirm, as to be wholly confined to his house, except sometimes,
though rarely, taking a little air in his garden in a wheeled chair;
and this confinement made him very desirous to see any of his old
acquaintance to amuse him. Knowing that the Librarian did not abound
in the gifts of fortune, he was strictly careful, Edwards used to say,
that he should be at no expense in his journeys from London to Chelsea;
and Sir Hans would calculate what the cost of coach hire, waterage, or
any other little charge attending on his journeys backward and forward
would amount to, and, observing as much delicacy as possible, would
oblige him annually to accept of it. In this quiet and inoffensive life
did he continue exercising the most charitable disposition towards
decayed branches of families of eminent men, famous for their learned
works, till January, 1753, when he died, with great firmness of mind,
and resignation to the will of God. Thirty years before this event,
he had presented to the Apothecaries’ Company his botanical garden at
Chelsea, upon the following conditions, viz. the payment of £5 per
annum, and the yearly offering of fifty plants to the Royal Society,
till the number amounted to 2000. If it were attempted to convert it to
any other use, it was to devolve to the Royal Society, and ultimately
to the College of Physicians; but the intentions of the original donor
have been most faithfully and liberally fulfilled by the Apothecaries,
who expend a very large sum annually, with no other view than the
promotion of botanical knowledge, more especially in the cultivation
of curious and rare plants. In 1748, they erected a statue[46] to Sir
Hans, in front of the green-house, with this inscription--

                   HANSIO SLOANE BARONETTO ARCHIATRO
                    INSIGNISSIMO BOTANICES FAUTORI
                     HOC HONORIS CAUSA MONIMENTUM
                     INQUE PERPETUAM EJUS MEMORIAM
                             SACRUM VOLUIT
                 SOCIETAS PHARMACOPÆIORUM LONDINENSIS
                                1733.”

The merit and virtues of Sir Hans had particularly caught the attention
of young Pitcairn, and his character continued to form the subject of
conversation as the senior returned with his nephew to his own house.

“The immediate result of his death,” observed the uncle, “was the
foundation of the British Museum; for this great patron of science,
being well aware how much it is benefited by the aggregation of various
objects, and anxious that his fine collection should be preserved
entire, directed by his will, that after his decease the whole of
his Museum of natural and artificial curiosities, which had cost him
£50,000, should be offered to Parliament for the moderate sum of
£20,000, to be paid to his family.

“The contents of his collection were very various, and consisted of his
library, books of drawings, MSS., &c. 50,000 volumes.

    Medals and coins,              23,000
    Cameos, intaglios, seals, &c.   1,500,

besides antique idols, anatomical preparations, amphibia, insects,
minerals, volumes of dried plants, mathematical instruments, &c. the
particulars of which were entered in a catalogue that was comprised in
thirty-eight volumes folio, and eight volumes quarto.

“The offer directed in the will of Sir Hans Sloane was immediately
made to Parliament, and accepted without hesitation; and before the
expiration of the year of his death an Act was passed, ordering the
payment of the stipulated sum to his executors, and vesting the
property of the Museum in trustees for the use of the public. To
this scientific repository was soon afterwards added whatever the
Legislature could command; the Cottonian Library was obtained, and
the Harleian collection of MS. was purchased; and in order to defray
the expenses of these different acquisitions, and to provide a proper
mansion for their reception, Parliament raised the sum of £100,000 by
way of Lottery. The trustees then bought of the representatives of
the Montague family the house which had been built by the first Duke
of Montague; a stately and ample palace, which had been originally
ornamented by the fresco paintings of the famous Verrio, representing
the Funeral Pile of Dido, the Labours of Hercules, the Fight with the
Centaurs, and other designs, excellent on the walls and roof of the
great room. The gardens and appurtenances occupied together about seven
acres. The first mansion was destroyed by a fire, which broke out in
the night of January 22d, 1685, and burnt with so great violence that
the whole house was consumed by five o’clock; but it was immediately
rebuilt, and ornamented by artists sent from France for that purpose.

“The British Museum was opened to the public in 1759.”

I had often been to the College of Physicians, but never till this
occasion been carried thither in the hands of a President, and my
present master appeared to me to dwell with great satisfaction upon
every part of the structure, and every thing connected with its
history, which was probably not felt the less from the reflection
that the distinction of the Fellowship had been conferred upon him
without his having passed through the ordinary routine of an English
academical education. For several years Dr. William Pitcairn was the
leading Practitioner in the city, and thus afforded me an opportunity
of observing more closely the manners of the wealthy inhabitants
of that quarter, and contrasting them with the habits of the more
polite and courtly end of the town, to which I had previously been
chiefly accustomed. In 1784 he resigned the office of President, being
succeeded by Sir George Baker; and in seven years afterwards died, when
I was bequeathed to his nephew, Dr. David Pitcairn: this promising
young man had realized the expectations formed of him in early life,
and before he took his Doctor’s degree at Cambridge, had been elected
Physician to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. The commencement of his
private medical practice may be dated about the year 1780, and he was
placed at the head of his profession in London by the death of Dr.
Warren.

I have spoken before of this eminent Physician, but his professional
career was so brilliant, and attracted my notice in so remarkable a
degree, that I must bestow an additional observation on his character.
If posterity should ask what works Dr. Warren has left behind him
worthy of the great reputation he enjoyed during his lifetime, it
must be answered that such was his constant occupation in practice
among all classes of people, from the highest to the lowest, that he
had no leisure for writing, with the exception of a very few papers
published in the College Transactions. But the unanimous respect in
which he was held by all his medical brethren, which no man ever
obtains without deserving it, fully justifies the popular estimate of
his character. To a sound judgment and deep observation of men and
things, he added various literary and scientific attainments, which
were most advantageously displayed by a talent for conversation that
was at once elegant, easy, and natural. Of all men in the world, he
had the greatest flexibility of temper, instantaneously accommodating
himself to the tone of feeling of the young, the old, the gay, and the
sorrowful. But he was himself of a very cheerful disposition, and his
manners being peculiarly pleasing to others, he possessed over the
minds of his patients the most absolute control; and it was said, with
truth, that no one ever had recourse to his advice as a Physician, who
did not remain desirous of gaining his friendship and enjoying his
society as a companion. In interrogating the patient he was apt and
adroit; in the resources of his art, quick and inexhaustible; and when
the malady was beyond the reach of his skill, the minds of the sick
were consoled by his conversation, and their cares, anxieties, and
fears soothed by his presence. And it may be mentioned among the minor
qualities which distinguished Dr. Warren, that no one more readily
gained the confidence or satisfied the scruples of the subordinate
attendants upon the sick, by the dexterous employment of the various
arguments of encouragement, reproof, and friendly advice. The height
he had rapidly attained in his profession he maintained with unabated
spirits till his death, which took place in 1797, at the age of
sixty-five, at his house in Dover Street.

Dr. David Pitcairn resided many years in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and was
early admitted a Fellow of the Royal and Antiquarian Societies. To
these meetings it was my lot often to be taken, and gradually to become
acquainted not only with the members, but, in the course of the various
conversations which I overheard, to pick up a good deal of information
connected with the former history and establishment of these learned
bodies. I will endeavour to describe one of the most remarkable
evenings passed at a meeting of the first of these Societies.

When I was in the service of Dr. Mead, the Royal Society met in one
of the Professors’ Rooms in Gresham College; and many of the Members
used to dine at Pontac’s, in Abchurch Lane. The house was kept by a
Frenchman, who had been cook to M. Pontac, president of the parliament
of Bourdeaux; and who, from respect to the memory of his master, hung
up his effigies as the outward sign of his place of entertainment. Soon
after their first incorporation by charter, these convivial meetings
themselves were made subservient to the purposes of science, and were
intended, as well as their more formal stated assemblies, to further
the progress of knowledge. For it is related that on April 2d, 1682,
at a supper where several of the Society were present, every thing
was dressed, both fish and flesh, in Monsieur Papin’s digestors (then
newly invented), and the philosophers ate pike and other fish bones,
all without impediment; nay, the hardest bones of beef and mutton made
as soft as cheese, and pigeons stewed in their own juice, without
any addition of water. From this scientific entertainment one of the
guests sent home a glass of jelly to his wife, to the reproach of
all that the ladies ever made of their best hartshorn. But this was
in the infancy of their establishment, when the zeal of the original
founders of the Society was in its full energy. They had in fact only
existed as a corporate body about twenty years, for it was in 1662
that Charles the Second granted them a charter, at a period which
was certainly peculiarly favourable to the progress of science in
Britain. The sudden restoration of the King had healed the divisions
of party, and the effervescence of turbulent minds was directed to the
advancement of knowledge, instead of political speculation. The germ of
the Royal Society may indeed be traced a few years further back than
the period now mentioned, since, so early as 1645, several ingenious
men, residing in London, agreed to meet once a week to discourse upon
subjects connected with Mathematics and Natural Philosophy. They
assembled sometimes in Cheapside, at others in Gresham College, but
chiefly in the lodgings of Dr. Goddard, in Wood Street. This last
place was preferred, because the Doctor kept in his house an operator
for grinding glasses for telescopes. The revolutionary troubles
suspended for a time these meetings, but after the restoration they
were revived in the apartments of Mr. Rooke, in Gresham College; a set
of regulations was drawn up, and a weekly contribution of one shilling
was collected from each of the members, in order to defray the expenses
of their experimental investigations.

The chief objects of their association were to publish periodically
all the discoveries which came to their knowledge, and to perform
experiments. For the first of these purposes their Secretary was
appointed Editor of their Transactions, the first Number of which
appeared in 1665, by Mr. Henry Oldenburg[47]. They were not for some
time continued regularly, owing to their limited sale, and to the
small profit which accrued to the Editor. For the second purpose a
person was appointed, with a salary, to contrive suitable experiments,
and to have every thing ready for their exhibition: besides which
they hired a man, whom they called their English _itinerant_, and who
regularly gave an account of his autumnal peregrination about England,
bringing dried fowls, fish, plants, animals, &c.

Such was the simplicity of this early establishment, when every step
was a discovery, and every judicious experiment led the fortunate
philosopher to eminence. In that infant period of science apparatus
had been procured with difficulty, and the greatest philosophers
were obliged to labour with their own hands to frame the instruments
which they were to use. Hence it was found expedient to keep in the
rooms of the Society a collection of all such machines as were likely
to be useful in the progress of experimental knowledge. It was soon
discovered that little progress could be made by an individual, and
all felt the necessity of mutual co-operation. Money was, therefore,
furnished for the purchase of convenient apparatus, curators and
operators were employed, by whom many capital experiments were made
under the eyes of the Society, and exhibited to the distinguished
strangers who were invited to be present. Nor was this latter an
uncommon occurrence. Immediately after they had obtained their charter,
when Charles the Second intimated his intention of being present at
one of their meetings, Sir Christopher Wren, who had been consulted
upon the matter, suggested that His Majesty should be entertained with
some experiments upon the barometer, which, besides being amusing, were
useful and easy of exhibition.

The King was an experimenter himself, and had an elaboratory at
Whitehall, though, whether he believed the philosopher’s elixir
attainable, or had ever seen _projection_, does not appear. But having
bought the receipt of the famous _arcanum Goddardianum_ for the sum
of £1500, His Majesty was wont to witness the distillation as it was
going on. The drops were procured from raw silk, one pound of which
yielded an incredible quantity of volatile salt, and in proportion the
finest spirit that ever was tasted. The salt (a coarse kind of spirit
of hartshorn) being refined with any well scented chemical oil, made
the King’s salt, as it was used to be called. The experiments were
shown to the King three years before the fire of London, which drove
the Society from Gresham College; when they were invited by Mr. Howard
to sit at Arundel House, in the Strand; who also bestowed upon them
the noble library that had been collected by his ancestors. After the
fire the Society returned to Gresham College, which when they finally
left, they purchased a house in Crane Court, Fleet Street, where their
meetings continued to be held, till the government, a short time ago,
allotted them apartments in Somerset House. Since that period, _the
Club_, which consists of the more select of the Society, have for many
years dined at the neighbouring tavern, the Crown and Anchor; where,
at half past five o’clock on each Thursday previous to the sitting of
the Society, you are sure of meeting with very indifferent cheer, but
excellent company. On the 7th April, 1791, I accompanied Dr. Pitcairn
to the tavern, and met there Prince Poniatowsky, who had been invited
as a guest. Sir Joseph Banks was in the chair. His Highness appeared
about fifty, had a good face, was of middling stature, was dressed in
black, had the order of Malta in his buttonhole, and wore his hair in
a round curl.--When the dinner was over, after the usual toast, “the
King,” Sir Joseph proposed the health of the King of Poland, which was
drunk by the company. Soon after, the Prince took an opportunity of the
President’s getting up for a moment or two from table, to propose Sir
Joseph’s health.--From the tavern we adjourned to the apartments of the
Royal Society in Somerset House, where the distinguished stranger, who
had been balloted for on the preceding Thursday, was admitted a Fellow,
as a sovereign prince, by the title of Duke de Lowitz. The President
addressed him as Prince Primate of Poland; and he was styled in the
minutes, “His Highness Prince Michael Poniatowsky, Prince Primate of
Poland, Archbishop of Gnesna, and sovereign of the principality of
Lowitz.”

When the meeting broke up, my master accompanied a very intelligent
friend and Physician in his carriage home, and the discourse naturally
turned to the subject of the eminent foreigner whom they had that
evening seen. “You know,” said Dr. Samuel Foart Simmons, “that the
Prince is the brother of the present King of Poland, and since his
arrival in England I have seen a great deal of him, as he has done
me the honour of inviting me frequently to his table. The motive of
his visit to England at this moment is, to absent himself during the
present session of the Diet, that he may avoid all interference in the
question now agitated, relative to the succession. My introduction to
him was through Dr. Szaster, a Polish Physician, whom the Prince had
met at Paris, and who is much esteemed by him, and who was recommended
to me by some of my friends. My first visit to His Highness, at his
house, No. 11, Soho Square, which had been taken ready furnished for
him, was in company with Dr. Grieve, who from his residence in Russia
and Poland, and his consequent acquaintance with the languages and
customs of those parts of Europe, has rendered himself very agreeable
and highly useful. As a Polish dinner given in London was quite a
novelty to myself, and perhaps may be so to you, I will describe it
minutely. I was invited for four o’clock, and our party consisted of
six: before we sat down to table a glass of Dantzick liqueur was handed
round on a waiter, with which, as a foreign custom, we readily complied.

“On taking our seats, the Prince placed himself at the head, and I
took a chair on his right hand, while His Highness’s Physician sat
at the bottom and carved. Two dishes of oysters were first placed on
the table, and a servant then handed round a plate of lemons, cut
into halves. I was going to drink a glass of wine with Dr. Grieve,
for decanters of wine stood on the table near us; but the Prince
pleasantly observed, that he hoped as Physicians we would excuse him
if he reminded us of an old Polish opinion, that beer and not wine
should be drunk immediately after oysters. When the oysters were taken
away, a tureen of soup, called by the Poles _bosch_, made of milk and
beet-root, and having an acid smell, was placed at top, bouilli at
bottom, and a dish of boiled tongue, sliced and mixed with vegetables,
in the middle. The Physician cut slices of the bouilli into the dish,
which a servant carried round to the company: the same ceremony
was also observed with respect to the other dish. Then slices of
buttered French roll, covered with a chocolate-coloured powder, which
I understood to be grated hare, were handed about.--After the second
course, which consisted of fritters, roast turkey, and some made dish
in the middle, the dessert was put upon the table, and the servants
withdrew. The Prince was in excellent humour, extremely communicative,
and the conversation became interesting.

“He had dined a few days before with the Archbishop of Canterbury, who
had told him an anecdote which had pleased him so much, that he had
communicated it in a letter he had just written, and which was going by
the next post to Poland. Before he sealed his letter, His Highness read
that part of it to us. It related to a dramatic writer whose play had
been a good deal applauded, and who was informed that on a particular
night a great philosopher and mathematician was to be present at its
performance. ‘This,’ said the author, ‘is the man for me: I shall long
to hear what he says of my play. The opinion of such a judge will be
really worth having.’ The mathematician took his seat in the centre of
the pit; and when the performance was over, the author was anxious to
have his opinion of the piece. ‘I find,’ said the philosopher, ‘that
such an actress has pronounced 3284 words, that such an actor has
pronounced 2864,’ &c.; and this was the only reply that the mortified
dramatist could obtain.

“The Prince continued his amusing anecdotes, and related to us that one
of his brothers had engaged a Frenchman as a pastry-cook, in which art
he greatly excelled, but who was so drunken a fellow that a sentinel
was always placed at the door to prevent his getting strong liquors
before he had finished his work. At length, however, his frequent
intoxication became intolerable, and it was necessary to discard him.
He went to Dantzick, where he found a vessel bound to Petersburgh,
in which he embarked; and, on his arrival in that city, accidentally
heard of a nobleman near Moscow, who was in want of a preceptor for his
son. The _pâtissier_ offered his services, was accepted, and travelled
in an elegant coach to his destination. Of Italian, which he was to
teach, he knew not a word; but being a native of Provence, he spoke the
dialect of that part of France. This he taught his pupil, and was for
some time in great credit. But the nobleman having at length a visitor
who spoke Italian, the impostor was detected, and he was ignominiously
driven out of the family. For some months he rambled about Tartary, and
lived on the hospitality of different hordes; but after an absence of
more than two years, finding his way back into Poland, he threw himself
at the feet of his old master, and was taken again into his service,
upon promising better behaviour in future.

“We now adjourned to another room, and drank our coffee, after which
frankincense was burned before the Prince, who expressed a wish that
we should not be in a hurry to depart. In the course of the evening it
appeared that he did not think very favourably of the English writing
travellers; particularly “ces gouverneurs,” as he called them, who
eagerly catch up every thing they hear in conversation, for the sake
of printing it. The English minister at Warsaw had observed to him,
that he found himself oftentimes situated awkwardly enough with his
raw young countrymen; but that this was nothing when compared with the
trouble he had when they came accompanied with a travelling pedant as
their tutor.

“Speaking of his brother, His Highness told us that he could speak
English before his arrival in this country, which was in 1754; and
added that George the Second, upon being informed that the King of
Poland had remained a certain number of months at Paris, previous to
his coming to England, asked why His Majesty had stayed there so long.
‘To learn English,’ was the reply.

“The conversation having turned on Russia, the Prince spoke of a
certain courtier there, who, when Biron was disgraced, said, ‘Ay, that
fellow was the cause of my losing two of my teeth.’ ‘How so?’ said
somebody. ‘Why, because a dentist came here whom he patronised; and in
order to pay my court to Biron, I sent for that man to draw two of my
teeth.’ We next talked of Potemkin, who is said to have seduced five
or six of his nieces, one after the other, and then to have married
them off, except the youngest, who is now his mistress. He has the
reputation of having always kept up his influence with the empress,
notwithstanding her favours have been bestowed on so many others
since his time, and of having always contrived to get his successors
discarded whenever he found them acquiring too much power. Before we
left, the Prince desired his secretary to bring out his orders: viz.
his Order of the White Eagle, and that of Malta, both in brilliants,
the latter of which was most admirably set.”

Here the Doctor left off speaking, and we reached home.

Prince Poniatowsky remained in England till June 13th, when he set
out on his return to Warsaw. On his way through Holland he received
intelligence of the revolution in Poland. The journey he had undertaken
had originated in the circumstances which had paved the way for this
event. At the opening of the Diet, he had pronounced a discourse
which had directed the eyes of his countrymen to their real political
situation, and this had gained him many enemies. He was now going
back to share in the shortlived general joy. For this sudden and
ill-concerted attempt to withdraw the kingdom of Poland from under the
influence of Russia ultimately involved the exhausted republic in an
unprosperous war, and was shortly afterwards followed by the loss of
the fine and fertile provinces of the Lesser Poland and Lithuania[48].

The success of Dr. Pitcairn in practice was great, and though one or
two other Physicians might possibly derive more pecuniary emolument
than himself, certainly no one was so frequently requested by his
brethren to afford his aid in cases of difficulty. He was perfectly
candid in his opinions, and very frank in acknowledging the extent of
his confidence in the efficacy of medicine. To a young friend, who
had very recently graduated, and who had accompanied him from London
to visit a lady, ill of a consumption, in the country, and who, on
their return, was expressing his surprise at the apparent inertness
of the prescription, which had been left behind, (which was nothing
more than infusion of roses, with a little additional mineral acid),
he made this reply, “The last thing a physician learns, in the course
of his experience, is to know when to do nothing, but quietly to wait,
and allow nature and time to have fair play, in checking the progress
of disease, and gradually restoring the strength and health of the
patient.”

The extensive practice of my master necessarily brought me in contact
with every physician of any eminence, of whom the most prominent was
unquestionably that profound and elegant scholar, Sir George Baker,
the soundness of whose judgment was acknowledged by all. To him the
whole medical world looked up with respect, and in the treatment of
any disease in the least degree unusual, if it was desired to know
all that had ever been said or written on the subject, from the most
remote antiquity, down to the case in question, a consultation was
proposed with Sir George Baker. From _his_ erudition every thing
was expected. He was particularly kind to the rising members of his
profession, whom he encouraged and informed with great condescension
and apparent interest. He was a native of Devonshire, was educated
at Eton, and, afterwards, at King’s College, Cambridge. The accuracy
and extent of his classical learning particularly engaged the respect
and admiration of the members of those institutions; and to the
inhabitants of Devonshire he rendered a signal service, by pointing out
the source of that species of colic and subsequent palsy, which had
long been the bane of that county. It was reported at the time of the
publication of his “Essay concerning the Cause of the Endemial Colic
of Devonshire,” that the farmers were much annoyed at his discovery;
but every prejudice was at length overcome by the force of truth; and
the use of lead in the construction of their cider vessels, which he
clearly demonstrated to be the cause of that malady, has since been
discontinued[49].

Sir George Baker commenced his professional career at Stamford, in
Lincolnshire, to which place he had been invited by a large circle of
friends whom he had known in early life; but this was a situation too
limited for the exertion of his talents, and he soon removed to London.
In the metropolis it was not long before he arrived at very extensive
practice and reputation, and he was appointed Physician to Their
Majesties. His character, his learning, and his authority rendered
him for several years a distinguished President of the College of
Physicians. As an author, he must be estimated rather by the value than
the extent of his works; for his Thesis de affectibus Animi, published
as an exercise at Cambridge in 1755, his Harveian Oration, and his
two treatises, de Catarrho Epidemico and de Dysenteria Londinensi,
are models of the purest and chastest classical style. With studious
habits, and unassuming manners, he combined great playfulness of
imagination, as will appear from the two following specimens of Latin
pleasantry.

Epigram on two brothers who applied to Sir George Baker for advice
nearly at the same time:

    Hos inter fratres quantum disconvenit! alter
      Corpus ali prohibet, se nimis alter alit;
    Hinc ambo ægrotant; sed non est causa timoris;
      Nam penes est ipsos certa utriusque salus.
    Cautus uterque suam mutet, me judice, vitam;
      Huic cibus, ast illi sit medicina fames.

Which may be thus rendered in English:

    Behold two brothers, how unlike their state!
    One’s too indulgent, one too temperate;
    Hence both are sick; but let not this alarm them,
    The cure is in themselves, and will not harm them.
    Let me prescribe, with caution, to each brother,
    Food for the one, and fasting for the other.

On Mrs. Vanbutchel, who was preserved as a Mummy at the request of her
husband, he wrote the following inscription. Under the superintendence
of Dr. Hunter, Mr. Cruikshank injected into the arteries spirits of
turpentine, coloured by vermilion. She died at the age of forty, and
her body, thus prepared, was kept by her husband in his own house
during his lifetime; at his death, his son presented it to the College
of Surgeons, where it is now to be seen in a mahogany case.

    In reliquias Mariæ Vanbutchel, novo miraculo conservatas, et a
    marito suo superstite, cultu quotidiano adoratas:--

        Hic, expers tumuli, jacet
        Uxor Joannis Vanbutchel,
        Integra omnino et incorrupta,
        Viri sui amantissimi
        Desiderium simul et deliciæ;
        Hanc gravi morbo vitiatam
        Consumtamque tandem longâ morte
        In hunc, quem cernis, nitorem,
        In hanc speciem et colorem viventis
        Ab indecorâ putredine vindicavit
        Invitâ et repugnante naturâ
        Vir egregius, Gulielmus Hunterus,
        Artificii priùs intentati
        Inventor idem, et perfector.
            O fortunatum maritum
                Cui datur
        Uxorem multùm amatam
        Retinere unà in unis ædibus,
        Affari, tangere, complecti,
        Propter dormire, si lubet,
        Non fatis modò superstitem
        Sed (quod pluris æstimandum
        Nam, non est vivere, sed placere, vita)
            Etiam suaviorem
                Venustiorem
                Habitiorem
        Solidam magis, et magis succi plenam
        Quam cum ipsa in vivis fuerit!
        O! fortunatum hominem et invidendum
        Cui peculiare hoc, et proprium contingit
        Apud se habere fæminam
        Non variam, non mutabilem
            Et egregiè taciturnam!

This epitaph was first given imperfectly to the public in Franklin’s
translation of Lucian, and, certainly, without the consent of the
author.

[Illustration: Dr. David Pitcairn.]

To return to Dr. David Pitcairn: his manner was simple, gentle, and
dignified; from his kindness of heart, he was frequently led to give
more attention to his patients than could well be demanded from a
physician; and as this evidently sprung from no interested motive, he
often acquired considerable influence with those whom he had attended
during sickness. No medical man, indeed, of his eminence in London
perhaps ever exercised his profession to such a degree gratuitously.
Besides, few persons ever gained so extensive an acquaintance with the
various orders of society. He associated much with gentlemen of the
law, had a taste for the fine arts, and his employment as a physician
in the largest hospital in the kingdom, made known to him a very great
number of persons of every rank and description in life. His person
was tall and erect; his countenance during youth was a model of manly
beauty, and even in advanced life he was accounted remarkably handsome.
But the prosperous views that all these combined advantages might
reasonably open to him were not of long endurance.

Ill health obliged him to give up his profession and quit his native
country. He embarked for Lisbon in the summer of 1798, where a stay
of eighteen months in the mild climate of Portugal, during which
period there was no recurrence of the spitting of blood with which
he had been affected, emboldened him to return to England, and for a
few years more resume the practice of his profession. But his health
continued delicate and precarious, and in the spring of the year 1809
he fell a victim to a disease that had hitherto escaped the observation
of medical men. Pitcairn, though he had acquired great practical
knowledge, and had made many original observations upon the history
and treatment of diseases, never published any thing himself; but the
peculiar and melancholy privilege was reserved for him, to enlighten
his profession in the very act of dying. On the 13th of April, he
complained of a soreness in his throat; which, however, he thought so
lightly of, that he continued his professional visits during that and
the two following days. In the night of the 15th his throat became
worse, in consequence of which he was copiously bled, at his own
desire, and had a large blister applied over his throat. On the evening
of the 16th Dr. Baillie called upon him accidentally, not having been
apprized of his illness; and, indeed, even then, observed no symptom
that indicated danger. But the disease advanced in the course of that
night, and a number of leeches were applied to the throat early in the
morning. At eleven o’clock in the forenoon, Dr. Baillie again saw
him. His countenance was now sunk, his pulse feeble and unequal, his
breathing laborious, and his voice nearly gone. In this lamentable
state, he wrote upon a piece of paper, that he conceived his windpipe
to be the principal seat of his complaint, and that this was the
croup. The tonsils were punctured, some blood obtained, and a little
relief appeared to have been derived from the operation. Between four
and five o’clock in the afternoon his situation seemed considerably
improved; but soon afterwards a slight drowsiness came on. At eight,
the patient’s breathing became suddenly more difficult, and in a few
minutes he was dead. This was the first case of this peculiar affection
of the throat that has been distinctly recognised and described. It was
an inflammation of the larynx, or upper part of the windpipe, of so
insidious a nature as hitherto to have passed unnoticed.

Although approaching to the well-known complaint called croup, it
differs in some respects, particularly by the presence of the following
symptoms:--Painful deglutition, partial swelling of the fauces, and
a perpetually increasing difficulty of breathing. The mouth of the
larynx, or aperture by which air is admitted into the lungs, is so
much narrowed, that the vital functions are actually extinguished by
the stricture. And yet the apparent inflammation in the throat is so
inconsiderable, that upon a superficial observation, it would hardly be
noticed; but in its progress the voice is changed, becomes altogether
suppressed, and the disease terminates in suffocation.




[Illustration]




BAILLIE.

CHAPTER V.


The mother of Dr. Baillie was the sister of John Hunter, the celebrated
anatomist and physiologist. From the university of Glasgow, he went, in
1780, to Balliol College, Oxford, where he graduated, and settled early
in London, under the immediate superintendence of his other maternal
uncle, Dr. William Hunter. Following the example of his distinguished
relations, he became himself a teacher of anatomy in 1785; and he
continued to lecture for nearly twenty years. In delivering his
lectures, he expressed himself with great clearness, and conveyed his
information to his pupils in the most simple and intelligible language.
For this talent he was greatly indebted to the assiduous instruction
of his uncle, who spared no pains in cultivating in his young pupil a
habit of ready and exact explanation; and was accustomed to teach him
in this manner: “Matthew, do you know any thing of to-day’s lecture?”
demanded Dr. Hunter of his nephew. “Yes, sir, I hope I do.” “Well,
then, demonstrate to me.” “I will go and fetch the preparation, sir.”
“Oh! no, Matthew, if you know the subject really, you will know it
whether the preparation be absent or present.” Dr. Hunter then stood
with his back to the fire, and his nephew demonstrated. Thus was the
young student encouraged by approbation and assistance, or immediately
convicted of loose and inaccurate information.

His work on morbid anatomy, published in 1793, was dedicated by him
to his friend Dr. David Pitcairn, as a testimony of high esteem for
his character, and of gratitude for many kind offices. The splendid
engravings which were afterwards published as illustrations of this
work, were alike creditable to his own taste and liberality, and to the
state of the arts in this country.

When I passed from the hands of Pitcairn into the possession of Dr.
Baillie, I ceased to be considered any longer as a necessary appendage
of the profession, and consequently the opportunities I enjoyed of
seeing the world, or even of knowing much about the state of physic,
were very greatly abridged, and but of rare occurrence.

Once only was I introduced into a large party. It was on a Sunday
evening, when I was taken to one of the scientific meetings, held
at the house of Sir Joseph Banks in Soho Square. How different from
the gay conversaziones in Ormond Street, in the spacious library of
Dr. Mead, filled with splendid books, and ornamented with antiques
of the most costly description! On entering the house of Sir Joseph,
I was ushered up a sort of back staircase, and introduced into two
gloomy apartments, in the farther corner of the first of which sat the
President of the Royal Society, wearing the red riband of the Order of
the Bath, in a gouty chair. Here I was passed from one to the other,
and considered rather as a curious relic, than regarded, as I was wont
to be, as the support and ornament of the faculty. My only consolation
arose, as I was handed about, from the observation, which it was
impossible not to make, that among the philosophers present there was a
great proportion of medical men, who examined me, as may be supposed,
with more than ordinary interest. Among others, I did not escape the
keen and scrutinizing eye of a physician who then held the office of
Secretary to the Royal Society, who early relinquished the practice of
his profession for other pursuits, but whose name is identified with
the history of modern chemistry, and will live as long as science shall
be cultivated.

From what has been stated of the condition to which I was now reduced,
it will be inferred, that it was chiefly from the position which I
occupied in the corner of the room in which Dr. Baillie received his
patients at home, that I became at all acquainted with what was going
on in medicine.

My present was the very reverse, in almost every particular, of my
early master, Dr. Radcliffe. In person, Dr. Baillie was considerably
below the middle size, with a countenance rather plain than
prepossessing, a Scotch dialect, and blunt manners. Than his first
address nothing could be less imposing; and yet, before he had been in
company with you for five minutes, he would have convinced you that
he was one of the most sensible, clear-headed physicians you had ever
listened to.

From his habit of public lecturing, he had acquired two great
advantages; First, a minute and accurate knowledge of the structure
of the human body; and, Second, the most perfect distinctness and
excellent arrangement, in what may be called the art of _statement_.
For this latter quality he was very remarkable; and even when he was
compelled to relinquish lecturing (by which he had acquired it), in
consequence of the growing extent of his practice, it continued to be
of daily advantage to him. In examining a patient, for the purpose of
learning the symptoms of the complaint, the questions he put were so
few as to give an impression of haste and carelessness; in conversing
on the case with the physician whom he met in consultation, he was
very short and clear; and it was not until the relations or friends
of the patient were admitted, and he proceeded to communicate to them
the result of the consultation, that he appeared to full advantage. He
then gave a short practical lecture, not merely on the symptoms of the
patient, but on the disease generally, in which all that was known on
the subject was brought to bear on the individual case, and in doing
this, his utterance was so deliberate, that it was easy to follow him.
His explanations were so concise, that they always excited attention,
and never tired; and the simplicity of the language in which they were
conveyed, where all technical terms were studiously avoided, rendered
them perfectly intelligible.

It was a maxim with him, that the most successful treatment of patients
depended upon the exertion of sagacity or good common sense, guided
by a competent professional knowledge, and not by following strictly
the rules of practice laid down in books, even by men of the greatest
talents and experience. “It is very seldom,” was he used to say, “that
diseases are found pure and unmixed, as they are commonly described by
authors; and there is almost an endless variety of constitutions. The
treatment must be adapted to this mixture and variety, in order to be
as successful as circumstances will permit; and this allows of a very
wide field for the exercise of good common sense on the part of the
physician.”

In his view of the case of a patient, he selected the leading features
of the subject, and neglecting all minor details, he systematically
abstained from touching upon any thing ingenious, subtle, or
far-fetched. Hence, in the treatment of disease, he was not fertile in
expedients, but aimed at the fulfilment of a few leading indications,
by the employment of the simplest means; if these failed, he was often
at a loss what to do next, and had not the talent, for which some are
distinguished, of varying his prescription every day, so as to retain
the confidence and keep alive the expectation of the patient. But this
peculiarity of mind, which was perhaps a defect in the _practice_ of
his profession, was a great advantage to him in his discourse, and
rendered him unrivalled as a lecturer. After writing a prescription,
he read it over with great care and consideration, for fear of having
committed a mistake.

During his latter years, when he had retired from all but consultation
practice, and had ample time to attend to each individual case, he was
very deliberate, tolerant, and willing to listen to whatever was said
to him by the patient; but when in the hurry of great business, when
his day’s work, as he was used to say, amounted to seventeen hours,
he was sometimes rather irritable, and betrayed a want of temper in
hearing the tiresome details of an unimportant story. After listening,
with torture, to a prosing account from a lady, who ailed so little
that she was going to the opera that evening, he had happily escaped
from the room, when he was urgently requested to step up stairs again;
it was to ask him whether, on her return from the opera, she might eat
some oysters: “Yes, Ma’am,” said Baillie, “shells and all.”

As I was not present on this occasion, this story, though often
related, may possibly not be true; and, indeed, I cannot suppose that
so experienced a practitioner would have treated with so much levity
the important mystery of cookery. To judge of the true skill and
merit of a Physician requires a competent knowledge of the science of
medicine itself; but to gain the good opinion of the patient or his
friends, there is, perhaps, no method so ready as to show expertness in
the regulation of the diet of the sick. Discretion and judgment will
of course be required; the rules should not be unnecessarily severe or
rigid, otherwise they will not be followed; but the prudent Physician
will prescribe such laws as though not the best, are yet the best that
will be obeyed. In many cases, however, it is not enough to say “you
must avoid meat, fermented liquors, or pastry.” All this is infinitely
too vague, too general, and unsatisfactory; you must be precise and
peremptory about trifles. In a long illness the mind of the patient
is enfeebled, the invention of his attendants has been exhausted, and
they all like to be saved the trouble and effort of thought; the Doctor
therefore must think for them, and direct the diet of the sick as he
would his draught. Besides indicating an anxious solicitude for the
comfort of the invalid, it shows a nice discrimination of the virtues
and qualities of the ordinary articles of food, not possessed by less
sagacious persons.

It is in the judicious management of this branch of our art that French
Physicians particularly excel. _Par exemple_:

“_Le déjeûner consistera en thé froid, ou eau froide sucrée, ou non
sucrée avec du lait, et du pain à volonté. Le diner permet une ou deux
portions de viande fraiche, tendre, du pain rassis et des légumes
farineux._

“_Le vin sera mis avec l’eau pour boisson, et on en boira un seul verre
pur (de Xeres) sur la fin du dîner._

“_Les pâtisseries, la graisse, les légumes venteux, les fruits, sont
defendus._

“_Une soupe au bouillon ou de l’eau avec du lait, ou du thé et du pain
serviront de souper._”

A letter of directions like these, though followed by the prescription
of nothing more energetic than _une légère infusion de feuilles
d’oranger, et deux demi lavemens_, will go farther to impress upon the
mind of his patient a high opinion of the skill of the Doctor, than
the simple and efficient practice of the most judicious and honest
Physician of the English school.

If this be true in ordinary cases of sickness, it is more especially
so with the hypochondriac, or with those whose appetites are jaded by
a long course of indulgence. To them an expert Physician will say, “I
advise you to take some calves’-feet jelly made with hock; or could
you not fancy the claw of a boiled lobster, with a little butter and
Cayenne pepper?”

But I have few adventures to relate; my state of retirement kept me
in an almost total ignorance of what was passing in the great world.
It may therefore be a fit opportunity for me to pause a little, and
review, for a moment, the progress of medicine for the last hundred and
fifty years.

[Illustration: This bust of Sydenham is in the Censor’s Room.]

Sydenham died the very year I became connected with the profession;
him, therefore, I never saw, but with his name and merits I soon
became abundantly familiar. He has been usually styled the English
Hippocrates, and with reason, for there is a great resemblance between
their characters. Although they were both theorists, and, on many
occasions, apparently founded their practice upon their theories, yet
they were still more attentive to the observation of facts, and seldom
permitted their speculative views to interfere with their treatment
of their patients. In opposition to the Physicians of his time,
Sydenham directed his first attention to the careful observation of
the phenomena of disease, and chiefly employed hypothesis as the mere
vehicle by which he conveyed his ideas. His merit has been justly
appreciated by posterity, both in his own country and among foreigners;
and his works continue to this day to be a standard authority, and are
as much esteemed after the lapse of a century and a half, as they were
immediately after their publication. But his skill in physic was not
his highest excellence, his whole character was amiable, his chief view
being the benefit of mankind, and the chief motive of his actions the
will of God. He was benevolent, candid, and communicative, sincere and
religious; qualities which it were happy if they would copy from him,
who emulate his knowledge and imitate his methods.

Sydenham died at his house in Pall Mall, on the 29th December, 1689,
and was buried in the aisle near the south door of the church of
St. James, in Westminster. But the epitaph that indicated the spot
being nearly obliterated, the College of Physicians resolved at their
general quarterly meeting, (comitia majora ordinaria) held December 22,
1809, to erect a mural monument as near as possible to the place of
interment, within that church, to the memory of this illustrious man,
with the following inscription:

                     Prope hunc Locum sepultus est
                           THOMAS SYDENHAM,
                     Medicus in omne Ævum nobilis.
                        Natus erat A. D. 1624,
                            Vixit Annos 65.
                 Deletis veteris Sepulchri Vestigiis,
                       Ne Rei Memoria interiret,
                   Hoc Marmor poni jussit Collegium
               Regale Medicorum Londinense, A. D. 1810.
                            Optime Merito!

Amongst the direct practical improvements for which Society is indebted
to Sydenham, is the employment of the cooling treatment in small-pox.

“I see no reason,” said he, “why the patient should be kept stifled
in bed, but rather that he may rise and sit up a few hours every
day, provided the injuries arising from the extremes of heat and
cold be prevented, both with respect to the place wherein he lies,
and his manner of clothing.” But the prejudices and authority of his
contemporaries opposed the immediate introduction of this natural
method; though so convinced was its judicious and discerning author
of its propriety, that he foretold, with confidence, its ultimate
universal employment--_obtinebit demum me vitâ functo_.

The prediction has been completely fulfilled; for what Sydenham
recommended, the popularity and more extensive practice of Radcliffe
soon introduced into general use, and the treatment has been
amply sanctioned by experience. For, strange as it may appear,
notwithstanding the estimation in which the works of this great
ornament of physic have been always held, he made no powerful
impression himself upon the general state of medicine, nor diverted
in any material degree the current of public opinion from its former
channel. The mathematical physicians, who succeeded him, invented new
theories, more captivating than any which had hitherto appeared, and
the full effect of the example of Sydenham was for some time lost in
the seductive influence of visionary speculation.

What Mead effected in the improvement of medicine, by contributing so
materially as he did to promote the practice of inoculation, has been
already mentioned.

The mechanical systems which, for some years afterwards, prevailed,
were powerfully assailed by the metaphysical theory of Stahl,
revolution succeeded to revolution, old systems yielded to new
doctrines, till the inductive philosophy gradually extended itself
to the study of the animal economy. From among the various authors
of these rival systems, it is impossible not to select the name
of Boerhaave, superior perhaps in learning and information, and
possessing more judgment than any of them. He has been compared to
Galen, being endowed with the same extensive range of knowledge on
all topics directly or indirectly connected with medicine, the same
dexterity in availing himself of the information of his predecessors
or contemporaries, and the same felicity in moulding these separate
materials into one consistent and harmonious whole. By his great
assiduity, his acquaintance with chemistry and botany, in short with
every department connected with medicine, he raised the University of
Leyden, his native town, to the rank of the first medical school in
Europe. The next name, at which in this hasty and imperfect sketch,
one would pause, would probably be that of Haller, whose correct
description of the laws of the muscular and nervous systems gave a new
impulse to the progress of pathology.

Cullen, who occupied the medical chair in the University of Edinburgh
for a long series of years, was a man of a shrewd and penetrating
genius, and for some time his doctrines, which were proposed with an
air of candour, and even with a spirit of philosophical scepticism,
received almost the universal assent of his contemporaries. In thus
approaching modern times, we cannot fail to be struck with the great
change that has taken place in the general character of the systems
of physic, which has been effected by the gradual substitution of
observation and experiment for learning and scholastic disputation. No
one will deny that the result of this change has been the improvement
of the practice of our art; hence the rate of mortality has decreased
nearly one-third, within the last forty years, referable to the more
temperate habits which prevail almost uniformly through all orders
of society, to the entire disappearance or mitigated severity of many
fatal diseases, and, above all, to the substitution of _Vaccination_
for the small-pox.

It was in the year 1798 that Jenner published his “Inquiry into the
Causes and Effects of the Variolæ Vaccinæ,” and announced to the world
the important fact, that the cow-pox protects the human constitution
from the infection of small-pox.

By this discovery the beauty of the human race has been greatly
improved, and the vestiges of the small-pox have been almost driven
away; for to see in our churches, our theatres, or in any other large
assemblage of people, a young person bearing the marks of that disease
is now of very rare occurrence. And if this be true in England, where
every free-born Englishman values himself chiefly on the unquestioned
liberty of doing what is foolish and wrong, without the dread of the
least control, it is still more so in other countries of Europe. With
us, crowds of the poor go unvaccinated, permitted not only to imbibe
the small-pox themselves, but to be at large, scattering the poison on
those whom they chance to meet. Whereas abroad, in most of the other
parts of Europe, vaccination has been ordered by government; no one who
has not undergone either cow-pox or small-pox being allowed either to
be confirmed, put to school, apprenticed, or married.

Before the introduction of inoculation, small-pox killed one out of
four of those whom it attacked; _that_ method changed it into a disease
by which one only out of several hundreds perished. Vaccination, by
the excitement of a very trifling disorder, imparted a charmed life,
over which the small-pox generally seemed to have no influence; for
its protecting power must be qualified. It is foolish to deny that
the pretensions of this great discovery were, in the enthusiasm
of the moment, somewhat overrated; but, after more than twenty
years’ experience, this consoling truth seems finally to be firmly
established, that the number of those who take the small-pox after
vaccination, and pass through a safe and harmless disease, is not
greater than the number of those who used to die under inoculation,
namely, one in three hundred.

But I must return from this short digression, to speak of the benefits
conferred by Dr. Baillie on his profession, and particularly of his
donation to the College, of which he was so distinguished an ornament.

In 1819 he presented to that body his entire collection of anatomical
preparations, by far the greater number of which had been made by
his own hands, and from which he had chiefly selected the splendid
engravings that illustrated his work on Anatomy.

He lived only four years after this donation, when his health gradually
gave way, and though a hope was entertained, that the failure of
his strength might be ascribed to the fatigue of business, and that
retirement would afford him relief, he sensibly and rapidly sunk, and
died before he had completed his sixty-third year.

His bust is placed in the College of Physicians, and the President, on
the 22d December, 1823, having announced the bequests contained in his
will, consisting, amongst others, of his library, read the following
observations on the medical character of his departed friend and
colleague.

[Illustration: In the Censor’s Room.]

“The same principles which guided Dr. Baillie in his private and
domestic life, governed his public and professional behaviour. He was
kind, generous, and sincere. His purse and his personal services were
always at the command of those who could prefer a proper claim to them;
and every branch of the profession met with equal attention. Nay, such
was his condescension, that he often incurred great inconvenience to
himself, by his punctual observance of appointments with the humblest
practitioners.

“In consultation, he was candid and liberal in the highest degree; and
so industriously gave credit to the previous treatment of the patient
(if he could approve of it), that the physician who called him in,
never failed to find himself in the same possession of the good opinion
of the family as he was before the circumstances of the case had made a
consultation necessary.

“His manner of explaining the disease, and the remedies recommended,
was peculiar to himself, and singularly happy. It was a short
compressed lecture, in which the objects in view, and the means by
which they were to be obtained, were developed with great clearness of
conception, and in such simple unadorned language as was intelligible
to his patient, and satisfactory to his colleague.

“Before his time, it was not usual for a physician to do much more than
prescribe remedies for the malady, and to encourage the patient by such
arguments of consolation as might present themselves to humane and
cultivated minds. But as the assumed gravity and outward signs of the
profession were now considered obsolete customs, and were, by general
consent, laid aside by the physicians, and as a more curious anxiety
began to be observed on the part of the patient to learn every thing
connected with his complaint, arising naturally from the improved state
of general knowledge, a different conduct became necessary in the sick
room. The innovation required by the spirit of modern times never could
have been adopted by any one more fitted by nature and inclination to
carry it into effect than by Dr. Baillie.

“The attention which he had paid to morbid anatomy (that alteration of
structure, which parts have undergone by disease), enabled him to make
a nice discrimination in symptoms, and to distinguish between disorders
which resemble each other. It gave him a confidence also in propounding
his opinions, which our conjectural art does not readily admit; and the
reputation, which he enjoyed universally for openness and sincerity,
made his _dicta_ be received with a ready and unresisting faith.

“He appeared to lay a great stress upon the information which he
might derive from the external examination of his patient, and to be
much influenced in the formation of his opinion of the nature of the
complaint by this practice. He had originally adopted this habit from
the peculiar turn of his early studies; and assuredly such a method,
not indiscriminately but judiciously employed, as he employed it, is
a valuable auxiliary to the other ordinary means used by a physician
of obtaining the knowledge of a disease submitted to him. But it is
equally true that, notwithstanding its air of mechanical precision,
such examination is not to be depended upon beyond a certain point.
Great disordered action may prevail in a part without having yet
produced such disorganization as may be sensibly felt: and to doubt
of the existence of a disease because it is not discoverable by the
touch, is not only unphilosophical, but must surely, in many instances,
lead to unfounded and erroneous conclusions. One of the inevitable
consequences of such a system is frequent disappointment in foretelling
the issue of the malady, that most important of all points to the
reputation of a physician; and though such a mode of investigation
might prove eminently successful in the skilful hands of Dr. Baillie,
it must be allowed to be an example of dangerous tendency to those
who have not had his means of acquiring knowledge, nor enjoyed the
advantages of his great experience, nor have learned, by the previous
steps of education and good discipline, to reason and judge correctly.
The quickness with which a physician of keen perception and great
practice makes up his mind on the nature of a disease, and the plan
of treatment to be employed, differs as widely as possible from the
inconsiderate haste which marks the decisions of the rash and the
uninformed.

“Dr. Baillie acquired business early by the credit of his book on
Morbid Anatomy. From the date of its first publication in 1793, its
materials must have been furnished principally by a careful inspection
of the diseased preparations collected in the museum of his uncle,
Dr. Hunter. But it opened a new and most productive field of curious
knowledge and interesting research in physic; and when he came to add,
in the subsequent editions which were required, an account of the
symptoms which accompany the progressive alteration made in the natural
structure of parts by some diseases during the life of the patient,
from his own observation and experience, he rendered his work highly
valuable, and universally popular. Impressed as he was with the great
importance and value of such morbid preparations in assisting the
physician to discriminate obscure internal diseases, his generosity
prompted him, after the example of the immortal Harvey, to give, in his
lifetime, his own collection to the College of Physicians. He has thus
laid the foundation of a treasury of knowledge, for which posterity
will owe him a debt of gratitude to the latest period.

“He published from time to time several medical papers in the
Transactions of the College, and in other periodical works; all written
in a plain and simple style, and useful as containing the observations
of a physician of such extensive experience.

“But justice cannot be done to Dr. Baillie’s medical character, unless
that important feature in it which appeared in every part of his
conduct and demeanour, his religious principle, be distinctly stated
and recognised. His ample converse with one of the most wonderful works
of the Creator--the formation of man, inspired in him an admiration of
the Supreme Being which nothing could exceed. He had, indeed, ‘looked
through Nature up to Nature’s God;’ and the promises of the gospel, on
the conditions explained by our Redeemer, were his humble but confident
hope in life, and his consolation in death.

“If one precept appeared to be more practically approved by him than
another, it was that which directs us to do unto others as we would
have them do unto us; and this was felt and acknowledged daily by all
his professional brethren in their intercourse with him.

“On the whole, we may say of him, what Tacitus does of Agricola--_Bonum
virum facile crederes; magnum libenter_.”

[Illustration: Portico of the College of Physicians, Pall-Mall East.]

The sentiments of the College itself towards Dr. Baillie may be
collected from the following tribute to his memory, which was ordered
to be inserted in their Annals on the 30th September, 1823.

    “That our posterity may know the extent of its obligation to
    the benefactor whose death we all deplore, be it recorded, that
    Dr. Baillie gave the whole of his most valuable collection
    of anatomical preparations to the College, and six hundred
    pounds for the preservation of the same; and this, too, after
    the example of the illustrious Harvey, in his lifetime. His
    contemporaries need not an enumeration of his many virtues to
    account for their respectful attachment to him whilst he lived,
    or to justify the profound grief which they feel at his death.
    But to the rising generation of physicians, it may be useful to
    hold up for an example his remarkable simplicity of heart, his
    strict and clear integrity, his generosity, and that religious
    principle by which his conduct seemed always to be governed,
    as well calculated to secure to them the respect and good-will
    of their colleagues and the profession at large, and the high
    estimation and confidence of the public.”

But I have done. It has already been explained how I came to occupy my
present position; and having once passed under the splendid portico of
the New College, I am afraid there is no chance of my ever emerging
from the dark recess I occupy in its library.

The publication of the First Edition of my history has at least
procured for me one of the advantages I ventured to anticipate: for
having become to a certain degree an object of curiosity, my seclusion
has occasionally been broken in upon by a temporary exhibition to
a visitor. Upon the whole, however, my leisure has been so little
interrupted, that I have had abundant time to recollect more fully the
various scenes, which I have witnessed; and it is to be hoped, that
these additional memoirs will be given to the world by the Registrar of
the College with the same scrupulous regard to truth that formed the
sole merit of my first imperfect narrative.

THE END




FOOTNOTES


[1] Roll call of the Royal College of Physicians, article on Macmichael.

[2] £2000 towards the building of the New College of Physicians.

[3] All this has now disappeared; the ground being enclosed about forty
years ago, and converted into pasture land.

[4] Earl of Portland.

[5] Earl of Rockford.

[6] The story, to which allusion seems here to be made, is thus related
in the life of Radcliffe:

“It will not be much out of the way, to insert a diverting passage
between Sir Godfrey Kneller, the King’s chief painter, and the
doctor, since it happened near this time; and though not altogether
so advantageous to the doctor’s memory as the generality of his
sarcastical replies, yet will be of use to bring in a very happy
turn of wit from him that speaks in rejoindre to it. The doctor’s
dwelling-house, as has been said before, was in Bow-street, Covent
Garden, whereunto belonged a very convenient garden, that was
contiguous to another, on the back of it, appertaining to Sir Godfrey,
which was extremely curious and inviting, from the many exotic plants,
and the variety of flowers and greens, which it abounded with. Now, as
one wall divided both inclosures, and the doctor had some reason, from
his intimacy with the knight, to think he would not give a denial to
any reasonable request, so he took the freedom when he was one day in
company with the latter, after extolling his fine parterres and choice
collection of herbs, flowers, &c. to desire the liberty of having a
door made, for a free intercourse with both gardens, but in such a
manner as should not be inconvenient to either family.

“Sir Godfrey, who was and is a gentleman of extraordinary courtesy and
humanity, very readily gave his consent; but the doctor’s servants,
instead of being strict observers of the terms of agreement, made such
a havock amongst his hortulanary curiosities, that Sir Godfrey was out
of all patience, and found himself obliged, in a very becoming manner,
to advertise their master of it, with his desires to him, to admonish
them for the forbearance of such insolencies; yet notwithstanding this
complaint, the grievance continued unredressed; so that the person
aggrieved found himself under the necessity of letting him that ought
to make things easy know, by one of his servants, that he should
be obliged to brick up the door, in case of his complaints proving
ineffectual. To this the doctor, who was very often in a cholerick
temper, and from the success of his practice imagined every one under
an obligation of bearing with him, returned answer, ‘That Sir Godfrey
might do even what he pleased with the door, so that he did not paint
it:’ alluding to his employment, in which none was a more exquisite
master. Hereupon a footman, after some hesitation in the delivery of
his message, and several commands from his master, to give it him word
for word, told him as above. ‘Did my very good friend, Dr. Radcliffe,
say so?’ cried Sir Godfrey: ‘go you back to him, and, after presenting
my service to him, tell him that I can take anything from him but
physic.’”--(THE EDITOR.)

[7] Verhaal der Laatste Ziekte en het overlijden, van Willem de Derde,
&c. &c., in Leide, 1702.

[8] Lettre de M. Ronjat, Premier Chirurgien de feu Sa Majesté
Britannique Guillaume III.; écrite de Londres à un Medecin de ses Amis
en Hollande.

[9] The Tabula or Mensa Isiaca is one of the most considerable
monuments of antiquity. It was discovered at Rome, in the year 1525.
There are represented upon it various figures in bas relief, mixed with
some hieroglyphics, which are supposed to relate to the feasts of Isis.
Many speculations have been advanced on the history and date of this
curious relic of ancient times.

[10] By his will he left his Yorkshire estate to the Master and
Fellows of University College for ever, in trust for the foundation
of two travelling fellowships, the overplus to be paid to them, for
the purpose of buying perpetual advowsons for the members of the said
College.

£5,000 for the enlargement of the building of University College, where
he himself had been educated.

£40,000 for the building of a library at Oxford.

£500 yearly for ever, towards mending the diet of St. Bartholomew’s
Hospital.

After the payment of these bequests, and some legacies to various
individuals mentioned in the will, he gave to his executors, in trust,
all his estates in Buckinghamshire, Yorkshire, Northamptonshire, and
Surrey, to be applied to such charitable purposes as they in their
discretion should think best; but no part thereof to their own use or
benefit.

The Radcliffe Library, which is perhaps the most beautiful building in
Oxford, was finished in 1749, when it was opened in a public ceremony:
it has been appropriated, by a late resolution of the Trustees, to the
reception of books in medicine and natural history. But that classical
city has to boast of two other edifices which bear the name of the
same munificent benefactor, and in their building the Trustees have
been equally attentive to the interests of science and humanity. The
Observatory and Public Infirmary were both erected out of the funds of
Dr. Radcliffe, by the Trustees of his will. The first of these edifices
consists of a dwelling-house for the Observer, and is amply supplied
with astronomical instruments: it is one of the buildings first asked
for by foreigners who visit the University, and is remarkable for
its beautiful staircase. The Radcliffe Infirmary was opened for the
reception of patients, 1770.

From time to time, according to their means and as opportunities
present themselves, the faithful and enlightened guardians of these
funds have ever been found ready (in the exercise of the discretionary
power with which they are entrusted) to contribute to every charitable
and useful purpose.

[11] Bustorum aliquot Reliquiæ. There is a copy of this curious MS. now
in the College Library: it was purchased at the sale of Lord Verney’s
books, and presented to the College of Physicians by Dr. Munro, June
25, 1783.

[12] Afterwards inhabited by Sir John Rushout.

[13] At this time he weighed more than thirty stone, though he
afterwards, by changing his habits, and living on milk and vegetables,
reduced himself to less than half that weight.

[14] During his stay in Jamaica, a vast treasure which had been sunk
in a Spanish galleon, about forty-five years before, somewhere near
Hispaniola, or the Bahama Islands, was brought into the Downs. It
had been weighed up by some gentlemen, who were at the charge of
divers, &c. to the enriching them beyond all expectation. The Duke
of Albemarle, as Governor of Jamaica, received for his share, about
£90,000. A medal was struck on the occasion.

[15] This anticipation was actually realized not two years ago; for the
mere agitation of the Plague question in the House of Commons excited
the greatest alarm among the maritime nations of Europe, and for
several months vessels sailing from England were put into quarantine at
the different ports in the Mediterranean.

[16] I have heard that all these particulars are carefully recorded on
the monument of this dropsical lady, in Bunhill Fields.

[17] This subject had long occupied the thoughts of Dr. Mead, although
his treatise styled “Medica Sacra, sive de Morbis insignioribus qui in
Bibliis memorantur, Commentarius,” did not appear till 1749.

[18] This appointment was held by Dr. Gideon Harvey, from the year 1719
till 1754.

[19] Arbuthnot was a dilettante in the art of music, and occasionally
composed sacred pieces. One anthem by him, “As pants the hart,” is in
the collection of the Chapel Royal.

[20] At Mead’s sale this statue, three feet and a half high, was bought
by Dr. Anthony Askew, for £50. On the same occasion, a magnificent
statue of Antinous, of white marble and of the size of nature,
was purchased by the Marquess of Rockingham, for £241. 10_s._ The
celebrated bronze head of Homer was sold for £136. 10_s._ to Lord
Exeter.

[21] De Medicorum apud Veteres Romanos Degentium Conditione. Cantab.
1726.

[22] A little dialogue between Soarenes and Chirurgi.--The name of
Caius was spelt in many ways--Gauius, Gavius, Kaius. Anglicè--Kaye,
Keye, Cay.

[23] The term Reader (Prælector) seems to have gone into disuse, except
perhaps at Oxford, where the “Reader in Anatomy” teaches that Science,
in Christ Church, in a small but elegant Theatre, which gives the
ill-omened name of _Skeleton Corner_ to a thickly peopled, but very
inconvenient angle of that distinguished College.

[24] In 1665, Richard Lower made this experiment at Oxford; by means
of long tubes, the blood of the vertebral artery of one dog was made
to pass into the jugular vein of another, and it appeared proved,
that there was no reason to fear any mischief, and that the character
or nature of one animal was not likely to be changed by injecting
into its veins the blood of another. An experiment similar to this,
which preceded it a few years, and which, like it, was founded on
the doctrine of the circulation of the blood, viz. the injecting of
various fluids impregnated with remedies into the veins of animals, was
originally suggested by Sir Christopher Wren, the celebrated architect.
He was one of the early Fellows of the Royal Society, and being a
man of the most universal accomplishments, was fond of the study of
medicine, and occasionally employed his talents in the service of
anatomical science; in proof of which, it may be mentioned that he gave
the original drawings for the plates which illustrate Willis’ Anatomy
of the Brain.

[25] The general reader may require to be told, that these are terms
applied to particular parts of the liver, the heart, and the brain:
though the anatomist may be surprised, that in the enumeration are not
included many other names derived from the discoverers of particular
minute structures: more especially that no notice was taken of the
claim which Willis has to the honour of having first proposed the
classification of the cerebral nerves, now most usually adopted, and
given denominations to several of them, which they will most probably
always retain.

[26] What is this to the modern quackery of craniology, in which every
faculty and feeling has a distinct organ, in which it is generated,
which however it deprives of the merit, small as it is, of originality?

[27] It is amusing to contrast this first rude natural infusion, with
the present neat and condensed form of exhibiting the bark: for now a
grain or two of the sulphate of quinine is the ordinary dose of the
remedy.

[28] The black wash now so generally used by Surgeons is a prescription
of Sir Theodore Mayerne’s, by the use of which he performed a great
cure upon Sir Kenelm Digby. His formula is this:--

    ℞. Aquæ calcis ℥vj.
       Mellis rosati ℨii.
       Mercurii dulcis ℨi. M.

[29] Called Editio Optima.

[30] Some envious antiquary has lately insinuated that the coins from
which Mead drew this inference were struck in honour of magistrates and
not of medical men.

[31] Will no one erect a monument to Garth? He and his wife are buried
under the communion-table in the chancel of Harrow church, with nothing
but the following rude inscription to mark the spot:--

“In this Vault Lies ye Body of ye Lady Garth, Late Wife of Sir Samuel
Garth, Kt. Who Dyed ye 14th of May, In ye year 1717.

Sir Samuel Garth, Obijt jan^e: the 18th, 1718.”

[32] This elegant villa had been recently purchased by the poet, with
part of the money he had received for his translation of the Iliad; an
enormous sum in those days, between five and six thousand pounds: but
what was that in comparison with the hundred and twenty thousand pounds
which the great popular author of the present time has received for the
various works with which he has delighted and instructed the world?

[33] Now more than 300 years.

[34] In the British Museum there are two copies of Linacre’s
translation of the fourteen books of Galen’s Methodus Medendi. They are
in the finest possible condition, and are the presentation copies of
Henry the Eighth and Cardinal Wolsey. The title of the King’s copy is
illuminated with the royal arms; that of Wolsey’s is decorated with the
Cardinal’s hat. On the binding of his Majesty’s are the royal arms and
motto impressed; the dedication to the Cardinal is in manuscript: they
are both on spotless vellum.

[35] Dr. Alexander Read gave, by will, £100 to ornament the Anatomical
Theatre.

[36] Dr. Prujean.

[37] In March, 1823, the late Earl of Winchilsea presented to the
College some anatomical preparations which belonged to his ancestor
Dr. Harvey; for the niece of Harvey was married to the Lord Chancellor
Nottingham, of whom the late Earl was the direct descendant, and
possessed his property. At Burleigh on the Hill, where these curious
preparations had been carefully kept, is a fine picture of the
illustrious physician. Lord Winchilsea, in presenting them to the
College of Physicians, expressed a hope that these specimens of the
scientific researches of Harvey might be deemed worthy of their
acceptance, and thought that they could nowhere be so well placed as in
the hands of that learned body, of which he had been so distinguished
a member. The preparations themselves consist of six tables or boards,
upon which are spread the different nerves and blood-vessels, carefully
dissected out of the body: in one of them the semi-lunar valves of the
aorta are distinctly to be seen. When Harvey delivered his Lumleian
Lectures, he may frequently have exhibited these preparations, and
by their help explained some points of his new doctrine of the
circulation of the blood. They were most probably made by Harvey
himself; and he might have learned the art in Italy, for he studied
at Padua in 1602. A few years afterwards, on his return to England,
he was appointed anatomical and surgical lecturer to the College of
Physicians, and in 1616, read a course of lectures there, of which
the original manuscripts are preserved in the British Museum. In the
College of Surgeons are some preparations similar to these of Harvey,
which originally belonged to the Museum of the Royal Society, kept at
Gresham College. They were the generous gift of John Evelyn, Esquire,
who bought them at Padua, where he saw them, with great industry and
exactness (according to the best method then used) taken out of the
body of a man, and very curiously spread upon four large tables. They
were the work of Fabritius Bartoletus, then Veslingius’s assistant
there, and afterwards physician to the King of Poland. Vide Catalogue
or Description of the natural and artificial Rarities belonging to the
Royal Society, etc. By Nehemiah Grew, 1681.

Since the time of Harvey, the method of preserving different parts of
the body has undergone many changes, and much improvement; and the
history of the art would be a subject of curious investigation.

In the Philosophical Transactions for May 7, 1666, Mr. Boyle mentions a
method he had invented of preserving or embalming the embryo of a chick
in a glass filled with spirit of wine, to which he sometimes added a
little sal armoniack, as he observed it never coagulated the spirit of
wine.

Ruysch, the professor at Amsterdam, if not the discoverer of the
use of injections, for the display of vascular and other structure,
contributed, together with the suggestions of De Graaf and Swammerdam,
by his own ingenuity and industry, to introduce that important practice
among anatomists. His museum became ultimately the most magnificent
that any private individual had ever, at that time, accumulated, and
was the resort of visitors of every description. Generals, ambassadors,
princes, and even kings, were happy in the opportunity of visiting
it. It was purchased in 1717, by the Czar Peter the Great, for thirty
thousand florins, and sent to Petersburg.

Dr. Frank Nicholls, who married a daughter of Mead’s, was the inventor
of corroded anatomical preparations. He was at one time professor of
anatomy at Oxford, and author of a treatise _De Animâ Medicâ_.

[38] Selden, styled by Grotius, the “glory of the English nation,” died
about this time, and is thus noticed by Hamey in his _Bustorum aliquot
Reliquiæ_.

“Johannes Seldenus J. C. Qui res a memoriâ remotissimas revocare
mortalibus in memoriam semper studuit; Ipsus omnium oblivisci morte
coactus est.”--1 Dec. 1654.

This may serve as a specimen of the epigrammatic style of this curious
work, which is generally characterized by great good nature, though
occasionally the author indulges in a vein of sarcasm; as, for example,
when speaking of one of his contemporaries, he describes him as--

    “Syphar hominis; nec facie minus quam arte Hippocraticus.”

[39] One hundred and twelve folio books were saved from the flames.
About ten years before this calamity, the College of Physicians had
been enriched by the will of Sir Theodore Mayerne, who left his Library
to them. This prosperous physician, who enjoyed the singular honour of
having been physician to four kings, viz. Henry IV. of France, James I.
Charles I. and Charles II. of England, died very rich. It is said he
left behind him £10,000 more than Radcliffe. He was a man of singular
address, and distinguished for his knowledge of chemistry and natural
philosophy. The famous enamel painter Petitot, when in England, was
introduced by Mayerne to Charles I. and was indebted also to him for
many valuable hints as to the principal colours to be used for enamel,
and the best means of vitrifying them.

[40] This eminent surgeon and anatomist was chosen Fellow of the Royal
Society at the early age of twenty-three years; and soon justified
their choice by a variety of curious and useful communications. He was
chief surgeon of St. Thomas’s Hospital; was also consulting surgeon
of St. George’s Hospital and the Westminster Infirmary, and had the
honour of being appointed principal surgeon to Queen Caroline, by whom
he was highly esteemed. He was much distinguished for his skill as
a lithotomist, and added also greatly to his reputation by couching
a lad of nearly fourteen years of age, who was either born blind,
or had lost his sight so early as to have no recollection of ever
having seen. The observations made by the patient, after obtaining
the blessing of sight, are singularly curious, and have been much
reasoned upon by several writers on vision. Surgery is much indebted
to Cheselden for the simplicity which he introduced into it. In his
own practice he was guided by consummate skill, was perfectly master
of his hand, fruitful in resources, prepared for all events, operating
with remarkable dexterity and coolness. He was, in the strict sense of
the term, a great surgeon; and, being a man of singular candour and
humanity, and fond of the polite arts, was honoured by the friendship
and acquaintance of men of genius and taste.

[41] His Micyllus de Re Metricâ was one which he prized highly.

[42] Translated by Sir William Jones.

    Παλλαδος ην ποτε δενδρον, επ ’Ειλισσοιο ῥεεθροις
    Καρπφ αγαλλομενον καιλιπαρῃ ψεκαδι.
    Τεμνε μ’α’ρ ὁ γλυπτης και αποξεσε, νυνδε θεανους
    Δαιδαλεη λαρναξ Ινδικα φυλλα φερω.
    Χαιρ’, ω Κεκροπος αια’ τι μοι μελει; ουκ επιθυμω
    Σωκρατιχης τ’οχθης, γλαυκοφιλου τε θεας.

By Jacob Bryant, Esq.

    Hospes ego in terras nuper delata Britannas,
    Arbor eram Ægiferæ maxima cura Deæ.
    Exul ab Ilisso Thamesina ad littora sistor,
    Hei mihi! dulce solum, patria terra, vale!
    Non tamen in fines cupio remeare priores;
    Omnia, quæ amisi, reddidit una domus.
    Hîc Musæ atque artes, hîc dignus Socrate sermo,
    Et, pro Pallade, me Pallade nata fovet.

[43] Evelyn relates that he dined with Dr. Whistler in the house which
stands on the right hand as you cross the court, in 1683, and met on
that occasion Sir Thomas Millington, the President. He represents them
both as learned men, and speaks of Dr. Whistler, who was then Censor,
as the most facetious man in nature, and says, that he was himself then
consulted about the building of this Library.

[44] Marmor incisum epitaphium, in suo apud nos Musæo.--Hamey’s MS.

[45] Sloane Street and Hans Place are names still retained: the estate
now belongs to Lord Cadogan. Charles, Baron Oakley, brother of the
first Earl Cadogan, married Elizabeth, daughter and co-heiress of Sir
Hans Sloane.

[46] It is by Rysbrach, and cost £280.

[47] It is related of this gentleman that he corresponded with seventy
different persons, and yet that he was very punctual; for he never read
a letter without having pen, ink, and paper ready to write the answer,
by which means he prevented his letters from accumulating, and himself
from being fatigued, by having many answers to write at the same time.

[48] The fate of Poland is well known. The destiny of the family
bearing the name of Poniatowsky has been equally disastrous. At the
battle of Leipsic, wounded, and while covering the retreat of the
French army, in attempting to leap the narrow stream which flows past
that city, Prince Joseph Poniatowsky fell, and was drowned. A simple
monument is erected to him in a garden, on the bank of the river where
he perished, with this inscription upon it:

                                  Hic
                           In Undis Elystri
                         JOSEPHUS PONIATOWSKY
                               Princeps
                 Summus Exercitûs Polonorum Præfectus,
            Imperii Gallici Mareschallus, Tribus Vulneribus
             Letiferis acceptis, Ultimus ex Acie discedens
             Dum receptum magni Gallorum Exercitus tuetur,
               Vitâ Gloriæ et Patriæ sacratâ functus est
                      Die 19 Octobris, An. 1813,
                        Anno Ætatis Impleto 52.

                    Popularis Populari, Duci Miles,
               Hoc Monumentum, Lachyrmis suis irrigatum,
                                Posuit
                         ALEXANDER ROZNIECKI.

[49] The benefit conferred upon his countrymen by this discovery was
thus spoken of in an Harveian oration, delivered 1809:--Quòd si unum
civem qui servasset, coronâ quondam civili esset donandus; quid ille
meruit, qui totam provinciam in salutem vindicavit?




INDEX.


  A

  Amen Corner, The College of Physicians in, 117

  Anatomy, 87

  Anne, Queen, 27-48;
    her illness, 48;
    and death, 35;
    Radcliffe blamed by the public, 36

  Antimony, its use and disuse in medicine, 99

  Arcanum Goddardianum, 203

  Aristophanes, Hamey’s notes and criticisms on, 101

  Ascites, tapping in, 70

  Aselli, 92

  Askew, Dr., 149;
    a great traveller, 150;
    a great book collector, 151;
    makes bibliomania fashionable, 155


  B

  Baillie, Dr. Matthew, 225;
    his appearance and manner, 229;
    treatise on morbid anatomy, 226;
    his practice, 230

  Baker, Sir George, his profound attainments, 115;
    his Latin pleasantries, 217, 218

  Banks, Sir Joseph, P.R.S., 227

  Baronet, the first medical, 54

  Bibliotheca Askeviana, 157

  Bidloo, Dr., 8-22

  Boerhaave, 240

  British Museum, 193

  Burnet, Bishop, his last illness, 52;
    attended by Sir Hans Sloane, Cheyne, and Mead, 52


  C

  Caius, Dr., 86

  Caldwall, Dr., and Lord Lumley found lectures at the College of
      Physicians, 89

  Cane, The Gold-Headed, its origin, 4, 184;
    its description, xix;
    in seclusion, 253

  Charles I, Halford’s connection with, xiii

  Charles II, at the Royal Society, 203;
    an experimenter, 204;
    bled by Sir Edmund King, 189

  Cheyne, Dr., his enormous weight, 54;
    attends his relation, Bishop Burnet, in his last illness, 55

  Cheselden, the surgeon, 134 (note)

  Cinchona bark, 97

  College of Physicians, opening of the, 2;
    sites of, in Knight Rider Street, 114;
    in Amen Corner, 117;
    in Warwick Lane, 131;
    under presidency of Sir Henry Halford, xvi

  Consultations, medical, 56

  Cullen, Dr., 177

  Cumberland, the Duke of, takes the electric shock at the point of
      the sword with which he fought the battle of Culloden, 145


  D

  Diet, importance of, 233

  Dorchester, the Marquis of, a Fellow of the College of Physicians, 103


  E

  Edwards, George, the naturalist, his book on birds, 186;
    his visits to Sir Hans Sloane at Chelsea, 190

  Ent, Sir George, his interview with Harvey, 111;
    obtains the MS., “Exercitationes de Generatione Animalium,” 112;
    is Knighted by Charles II. in the College of Physicians, 125

  Esculapius, the mourning, 30

  Eugene, the Prince, 30


  F

  Fees, medical, 38

  Fire of London, 127

  Fox, Dr., his death-bed and farewell to Hamey, 106

  Freind, Dr., committed to the Tower, 72;
    visited there by Mead, 73;
    liberated through Mead’s intervention, 75;
    at Mead’s house, 78


  G

  Garth, Sir Samuel, 104

  George, Prince of Denmark, 27

  Glisson, Dr., 90

  Goddard, Dr., 201

  Greaves, Sir Edward, the first medical baronet, 54


  H

  Halford, Sir Henry, his life and career, xii-xiv

  Haller, 241

  Hamey, Dr. Baldwin, 101;
    liberality to the College of Physicians, inscription to, 124

  Harvey, William, the discoverer of the circulation of the blood, 92;
    Sir George Ent’s interview with him, 111;
    “Generation of Animals,” 112;
    his “Museum” at the College in Amen Corner, 118;
    his preparations of vessels and nerves on tablets of wood, 121;
    record of his death, 124;
    bust, by Scheemaker, 109;
    inscription, 187

  Heberden, Dr., the elder, 160, 165;
    his literary tastes and associates, 167;
    his liberality, 168;
    his address and high principles, 171

  Hulse, Sir Edward, 162

  Hunter, Dr. William, viii, 225


  I

  Inoculation of small-pox, 65

  Isiaca, the Tabula or Mensa, 34


  J

  Jenner, announces vaccination discovery, 242


  K

  Kensington Palace in 1689, 6

  King, Sir Edmund, 189

  Kneller, Sir Godfrey, 15 (_note_)

  Knight Rider Street, College of Physicians in, 114


  L

  Library of College of Physicians, 185

  Linacre, the first President of the College, 81;
    his portrait, 7

  Lower, Dr., on transfusion of blood, 93

  Luke, St., the Evangelist, a physician, his Greek more classical than
      that of the other evangelists, 74

  Lumley, Lord, and Dr. Caldwall, found lectures at the College of
      Physicians, 89

  Lymphatics, their discovery, 92


  M

  Macmichael, William, life of, xi, xii;
    appointed Physician to the King, xiv;
    works of, xv;
    death of, xvi

  Mary, Queen of William III., 9

  Materia Medica, additions to, 96

  Mayow, Dr., his theory of respiration, 92

  Mead, Dr., an accomplished and liberal scholar, vii, 32;
    on plague and quarantine, 62;
    inoculation of small-pox, 65;
    tapping in dropsy, 70;
    his politics, 71;
    his library and collections, 79;
    his liberality to scholars, 143;
    great hospitality, 145;
    his professional income, 146;
    “Monita et Praecepta Medica,” 147;
    bust of, by Roubiliac, 152

  Middleton, Dr. Conyers, 81

  Mithridatium, 160

  Munk, Dr., on Sir Henry Halford, xiv;
    on physicians’ canes, xix

  Museum of Harvey, opening of, 120


  N

  Newton, Sir Isaac, last illness of, 134

  Nias, Dr., v

  Nicholls, Dr. Frank, 123 (_note_)


  P

  Page, Dame Mary, extraordinary case of, 70

  Pecquet, discovery of the thoracic duct, 92

  Philosophical Transactions, 201

  Pitcairn, Dr. Archibald, founder of mechanical sect of medicine, 174

     ”      Dr. David, 174-218;
    illness and death of, 222

     ”      Dr. William, 174;
    the leading physician in the city, 195

  Plague, the contagiousness of, 62, 127

  Polish dinner, a, 206

  Poniatowsky, Prince, 204

  Pringle, Sir John, President of the Royal Society, 140;
    his addresses on delivery of the Copley medal, 142


  Q

  Quarantine, Dr. Mead on, 63

  Quinin, discovery of, 97


  R

  Radcliffe, Dr., his medical skill, 17;
    his coarseness and plainness, 8, 18;
    his prognosis, 19;
    in love, 30;
    his matrimonial intentions marred, 14;
    blamed for death of Queen Anne, 36;
    his history, 37;
    his fees and income, 39;
    his bequests, 40 (_note_), vi;
    his death, 50

  Radcliffe Infirmary, v

  Ronjat, Mons., le premier chirurgien du Roi, 23, 24

  Roubiliac, his bust of Mead, and extortionate demand, 153

  Royal Society, its early history, 140, 199;
    the qualifications for President of, 139;
    Philosophical Transactions, 201


  S

  Selden, John, 123

  Shaw, Dr. Peter, 183

  Sloane, Sir Hans, 54, _et seq._;
    in the West Indies, 59;
    President of the College of Physicians and the Royal Society, 62, 140;
    in his retirement at Chelsea, 191;
    his botanical gardens at Chelsea, 192;
    the British Museum, 193

  Small-pox, 242;
    inoculation of, 65;
    Dr. Mead’s advocacy of, 67

  Stahl, metaphysical theory of, 240

  Sydenham, 235;
    his merits, 237;
    on quinin, 98


  T

  Talbor, Sir Richard, on quinin in fever, 98, 99

  Tabula, Isiaca, 34


  V

  Vaccination, discovery by Jenner, 242

  Vanbutchel, Mrs., the mummy of, 218

  Vaughan, Henry, _see_ Sir Henry Halford, xii, _et seq._


  W

  Warren, Dr. Richard, 175;
    his Harveian oration, 184;
    his character and eminent qualifications as a physician, 196

  Warwick Lane, the College of Physicians in, 131, 185

  Watson, Sir Thomas, on Dr. Macmichael, xvi

    ”     Sir William, his experiments in electricity, 145

  William III., 8, 12, 21;
    character of, 24

  Willis, Dr. Thomas, his merits as an anatomist, 95

  Wilmot, Sir Edward, 182





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