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XI. 
 
PHYSIC AND  PHYSICIANS:
A MEDICAL SKETCH BOOK,
EXHIBITING
THE PUBLIC AND PRIVATE LIFE OF THE
  MOST CELEBRATED MEDICAL MEN
        OF FORMER DAYS;
MEMOIRS OF EMINENT LIVING LONDON PHYSICIANS
          AND SURGEONS.
      IN TWO PARTS.


   iLJTO9=£
  PHILADELPHIA:
G.  B.  Z I E B E R & CO.
         1815. 
Vn/Z.
 10 
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER IV.
              CELEBRATED MEDICAL POETS.

Dr.  Erasmus Darwin—Young Keats—Dr. Mark Akenside—
  Dr.  Walcot—Dr. J.  Armstrong—Sir  Richard  Blackmore—
  Haller..........9
                   CHAPTER V.

   ILLUSTRATIONS AND SKETCHES OF MEDICAL QUACKERY.

An apt illustration—.Madame de Sevigne's definition of quack-
  ery—The love of the mysterious—A decoction of flint stones
  — Attested cures—Opinion of Sterne—Mr. Pott—Faith in the
  physician—The vulnary powder—Anecdotes of the famous 
                     CONTENTS,

mountebank Dr. Bossy—Ignorance and impudence of bone-
setters—Mrs. Mapp—Homoeopathy—The  Parisian quack—
Mantaccini—Count Cagliostro—The college prosecution of
Brodum—Suggestions lor tne prevention of quackery     5o
                   CHAPTER VI.

HOW TO GET A PRACTICE ; OR, THE ART OF RISING IN PHYSIC.

Must  commence with a new theory—Radcliffe's advice to
  Mead—Never appear ignorant—Old women's puzzling ques-
  tions—Effect of fees—Tricks of the trade—The magic of a
  name—Importance of belonging to a religious sect—A talka-
  tive wife sometimes a blessing—Mystery and medicine—At-
  tention to patients—Value of a carriage—The opera physi-
  cian—The necessity of being called out of church, and of
  speaking at medical societies—Mead's advice to a brother
  doctor.........85
                   CHAPTER VII.

CHRONICLES OF WARWICK HALL; OR, MEDICAL AND SURGICAL
             LUMINARIES OF THE OLDEN TIME.

History of the old College of Physicians—Sir J. Culler—Sir
  Charles Scarborough—Dr. Sermon—Dr. Thomas  Willis—
  Sir. W. Petty—Dr. Gideon Harvey—Dr. Mead—An account
  of his Rise in Physic—Queen Caroline—Mead's Converza-
  tiones—Dr.Cadogan—Dr. J. Bainbridge—Dr. J. Fothergill— 
CONTENTS.
Dr. Baitie—Dr. M. Baillie—Dr. Sydenham—Sir Hans Sloane
—Dr W. Hunter—Dr. Hawes—Dr. Glover—Dr. G. Fordyce
—Dr. Cheyne—Dr. W. Harvey—Dr. Friend—Dr. Arbuthnot
—Dr. Jenner—Dr. Gregory—Dr. Lettsom—Dr.  Mounsey—
Sir R. Croft—Dr.  Mackintosh—Sir  D. Barry—Cheselden—
Mr. P. Pott—Mr. Hey—Mr. Heaviside   -   -    -    9'.l
                 CHAPTER VIII.

             MAD DOCTORS, AND MAD HOUSES.

Importance of the subject—Instruction  to Medical Witnesses
  —Curious cases of Insanity, showing the cunning of Luna-
  tics — Remarkable mental delusions — A visit to a Mad
House
196 
 
PART  II.
PHYSIC   AND  PHYSICIANS.
                    CHAPTER I.

              CELEBRATED MEDICAL POETS.

 Dr. Erasmus Darwin—Young Keats—Dr. Mark  Akenside—
   Dr. Walcot—Dr. J.  Armstrong—Sir  Richard Blackmore-
   Haller.

   Notwithstanding  the  discredit into which the poetry
of Doctor Erasmus Darwin has fallen, it had  once so
great a vogue that the learned  poet deserves to figure
among the illustrious innovators of the English Parnassus.
—Darwin, whose poems Coleridge compares to "a palace
of snow," sparkling, but frigid and  ephemeral, was ob-
viously the model of Delille, who literally copied  some of
his episodes.
  The talent of Darwin  was rather  that of a  painter or
sculptor,  than the  talent of a poet.   Accordingly,  the
greater part of his  comparisons  are taken from  antique
bas reliefs, cameos, &c.  He revives,  with grace  and
energy, the inanimate form of the mythological divinity,
without stopping to employ whatever the pagan allegory
might contain of dramatic or impassioned materials.
                         2 
10
PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
  Darwin had made himself known among his friends by
little private collections of poetry, before the publication
of his great work : " With the wisdom of Ulysses," says
Miss Seward, "he  has bound himself  to the  mast of
science, in order to avoid being seduced by those deceitful
syrens, the muses."
  The  doctor, after  having perfected himself at Edin-
burgh in medicine, went to practise it at Lichfield, where
the good  fortune of his first case introduced  him to
public notice.  His marriage with Miss Howard, daughter
of a respectable tradesman, was also of advantage to him.
His house  became the rendezvous of a very agreeable
society, of which, the famous James Watt, and  Thomas
Day, author of "Sandford and Merton," composed a part.
Miss  Seward relates,  in  her  life of Darwin,  several
amusing anecdotes of the latter (Thomas Day), who was
a very  original philosopher, and known for his absence of
mind.   Darwin  was one day conversing with  a brother
botanist, concerning the plant Kalmia, then just imported
into our green-houses  and gardens.  A lady who was
present, concluding he  had seen it, which in fact he had
not, asked the doctor what was the colour of the plant.
He replied, " Madam, the Kalmia has precisely the colour
of a seraph's wing."  So fancifully did he express  his
want of consciousness respecting the  appearance  of a
flower whose name and rareness were all he knew of the
matter.
   Dr.  Darwin had  on  one occasion a large company at
tea.  His servants  announced a strange lady and gentle-
man.  The female was a conspicuous figure, ruddy, cor-
pulent, and  tall.  She  held  by the arm  a little, meek-
looking, pale, effeminate man, who, from his close  ad-
herence to the side of the lady, seemed to consider him-
self as under her protection.
   » Dr. Darwin," said the lady, »I  seek you  not as a
physician, but as a belle esprit.  I make this husband of
mine,"—and she looked down with a side glance at the 
MEDICAL POETS.                 11
animal,—" treat me  every summer with a tour through
one of the  British counties, to explore whatever it  con-
tains  worthy  the attention of  ingenious  people.   On
arriving at the several inns in our route, I always search
out the man of the  vicinity most distinguished for his
genius and taste, and introduce myself,  that he  may
direct, as the objects  of our examination, whatever is
curious in  nature, art, or science.  Lichfield will be our
head-quarters during several days. Come, doctor, whither
must  we go, what must we investigate to-morrow, and
the next day, and the next ?—here are my tablets and
pencil."
  " You arrive, madam," observed Dr. Darwin, gravely,
" at a fortunate juncture; to-morrow you will have an
opportunity of surveying an annual exhibition perfectly
worthy your attention.  To-morrow, madam, you will go
Tutbury bull-running!"
  The satiric laugh with which he stammered out the
last word, more keenly pointed this sly, yet broad rebuke
to the vanity and arrogance of her  speech.   Her large
features swelled,  and her eyes Mashed with anger.  " I
was recommended to a man of genius, and  I find him
insolent and ill-bred."  Then, gathering up her meek and
alarmed husband, whom she had loosed when she first
spoke, under the  shadow of her broad arm and shoulder,
she strutted out of the room.
  An accidental  circumstance brought Dr. Darwin into
notice and  practice, at  Lichfield.  A few weeks after his
arrival at this place, in the latter end of the year, 1756,
the late Mr.  Inge, of Thorpe, in  Staffordshire, a young
gentleman of fortune, family, and consequence, lay sick
of a dangerous fever.   The justly celebrated  Dr. Wilks,
of Willenbal, who had many years possessed, in  wide
extent, the business  and  confidence of  the  Lichfield
neighbourhood, attended Mr. Inge, and had unsuccess-
fully combated his disease.  At length he pronounced it
hopeless ; that speedy  death must ensue;  and took his 
12
PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
 leave. It was then that the fond mother, wild with terror
 for the life of an only son, as drowning wretches catch at
 twigs, sent to  Lichfield for the young and yet inexpe-
 rienced  physician.   By  a reverse and  entirely novel
 course of treatment, Dr. Darwin gave his  dying patient
 back to  existence, to health, and  prosperity.   The far-
 spreading report of this judiciously daring and fortunate
 exertion, brought Dr. Darwin into immediate and exten-
 sive employment, and soon eclipsed the hopes  of an in-
 genious rival, who resigned  the contest;  nor, afterwards,
 did  any  other competitor bring his certainly ineffectual
 lamp into that sphere  in which  so bright a  luminary
 shone.
   Dr. Darwin married the widow of Colonel Pole.  Early
 in her widowhood she  was rallied in a large  company
 upon Darwin's passion  for her, and was asked what she
 would do with her captive  philosopher?   "He  is very
 fond of churches, I believe, and if  he would go there for
 my sake, I shall scarcely  follow him.  He is too old for
 me."—" Nay, madam, what are fifteen years on the right
 side!"  She  replied, with  an arch smile, " I have had so
 much of that right side !"
  After the doctor's marriage to this lady, he removed to
 Derby.   When Dr. Darwin found his health  declining,
 he took almost daily excursions into the country ;  and, in
 allusion to that perpetual travelling, a gentleman  once
 humorously  directed  a letter,  " Dr. Darwin upon  the
 road."
  When  Dr.  Darwin  wrote to Franklin, complimenting
 him on having united philosophy  to modern science, he
 directed his letter merely thus—" Dr. Franklin, America;"
 and said, he felt inclined to make  a still more flattering
 superscription—" Dr.  Franklin, the world."  His letter
reached the sage, who first disarmed the lightning of its
 fatal power, for the answer to it arrived, and was shown
in the Darwinian circles;  in which had been questioned
the likelihood of Dr. Franklin ever receiving a letter of 
MEDICAL POETS.                 13
such general superscription, as the whole western empire.
Its  safe arrival was amongst the triumphs  of genius,
combined  with exertion—" they  make the world their
country."
  Dr. Darwin's great poem, was  his " Botanic Garden."
It was commenced in the year 1779.   The first  part con-
tains  the  " Economy of  Vegetation;"  the second, the
" Loves of the Plants;" each enriched by  a  number of
philosophical notes.  The  doctor  was engaged ten years
in writing this poem.
  Dr.  Darwin's  poetic excellence consists in delighting
the eye, the taste, and  the fancy, by the strength, dis-
tinctness,  elegance, and perfect originality of his pictures;
and in delighting the ear by the rich cadence of his num-
bers ; but the passions are generally asleep, and  seldom
are the nerves thrilled by his imagery,  impressive and
beauteous as it is, or by  the landscapes, with all their
vividness.
  The following extracts will convey to the reader some
idea of Darwin's poetic excellence.  The exordium to the
Goddess of Botany commences thus :

"She comes!—the Goddess!—through the whispering air.
Bright as  the morn descends her blushing car ;
Each circling wheel, a wreath of flowers entwines,
And gemm'd with flowers the silky harness shines;
  The golden bits with flowery studs are deck'd,
And knots of flowers the crimson reins connect.
And now, on earth the silver axle rings,
And the shell sinks upon its slender springs ;
Light from her airy seat the goddess bounds,
And steps celestial press the pansied grounds."

  The goddess thus addresses the nymphs of  fire :—

" Nymphs of primeval fire, your vestal train
Hung with gold tresses o'er the vast inane,
                          2* 
14
PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
 Pierc'd with your silver shafts the throne of night,
 And charm'd young nature's opening eyes with light,
 When love divine, with brooding wings unfurl'd,
 Call'd from the rude abyss the living world."
   The  effects of electricity  in  paralytic cases are thus
 exquisitely expressed.

 " Palsy's cold hands the fierce concussion own,
 And life clings trembling  on her tottering throne."

   Darwin  compares  Dr.  Franklin, with his preserving
 rods, to the celebrated Florentine gem, "Cupid snatching
 the lightning from Jupiter," which the  poet considers as
 a noble allegory, representing divine justice, disarmed by
 divine love.  The poetic scene from the  Gem,  is one of
 the sweetest little dramas  of this poem.

 " Thus, when on wanton wing, intrepid  love
 Snatch'd the rais'd lightning from the arm of Jove,
 Quick o'er his knee the trifle bolt he bent,
 The cluster'd darts, and forky arrows rent ;
 Snapp'd with illumin'd hands, each flaming shaft,
 His tingling fingers shook, and stamp'd, and laugh'd,
 Bright o'er the floor the scattered fragments blazed,
 And gods retreating, trembling, as they  gazed :
 Th' immortal sire, indulgent to his child,
 Bow'd his ambrosial locks, and heaven relenting smil'd."

  The following lines are  pretty  and picturesque :—

 " The rush-thatch'd cottage, on the purple moor,
 Where ruddy children frolic round the door,
 The moss-grown antlers of the aged oak,
 The shaggy locks that fringe the colt unbroke,
 The bearded goat with nimble eyes that glare
Through the long tissue of his hoary hair,
As with quick foot he climbs some ruin'd wall,
And crops the ivy which prevents its fall, 
MEDICAL POETS.                 15
 With rural charms the tranquil mind delight,
 And form a picture to the admiring sight."
                                  Temple of Nature.

   The following description of the eagle, is a gem :—

 " So when with bristling plumes the bird of Jove,
 Vindictive leaves the argent fields above,
 Borne on broad wings, the guilty world he awes,
 And grasps the lightning in his shining claws."
                                   Botanic Garden.

   In the early period of  Dr. Darwin's career, he formed
 an intimate  friendship with Mr.  Edgeworth, who  was
 noted for his mechanical genius.  He  thus describes  his
 visit to the doctor's house:—" When I arrived at Lich-
 field, I inquired whether  the do'ctor was at home.  I  was
 shown into a room, where I found Mrs. Darwin.  I  told
 her my name.  She said the doctor expected me, and  that
 he intended to be at home  before night.  There were
 books and  prints in the  room, of which I took occasion
 to speak.   Mrs. Darwin  asked  me to drink tea,  and I
 perceived  that I  owed to my literature  the  pleasure of
 passing  the evening with this most agreeable  woman.
 We walked, and conversed upon various literary subjects.
 Mrs  Darwin seeming surprised  that the doctor had not
 come home, I offered to take my leave, but  she  told me
 that I had been expected some days, and that a bed  had
 been prepared for  me. When supper was nearly finished,
 a loud rapping at the door announced the doctor.  There
 was a bustle in the hall, which made Mrs. Darwin get up
 and go to the door.  Upon her exclaiming that they were
 bringing  a dead man into the house, I went to the hall.
 I saw some persons directed by one, whom  I guessed to
be Dr  Darwin, conveying a man who  appeared  to be
motionless.  ' He is not  dead,' said the doctor,  ' he is
only  dead drutik.  I  found  him nearly suffocated in a 
16             PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
ditch.  I had him lifted  into my carriage, and brought
hither, that we might take  care of him for the night.'
Candles came, and what was the  surprise of the doctor
and Mrs. Darwin, to  find that the person whom he had
saved was Mrs. Darwin's brother ! who, for the first time
in his life, as I was assured, had been  intoxicated in this
manner, and who would, undoubtedly, have perished, had
it not been for Dr. Darwin's humanity."  Dr. Darwin
has been charged, we think unjustly, of empiricism.  He
had a notion that consumption might  be cured by trans-
fusing into a person,  so affected, blood  from the veins of
a person  in health.  On one  occasion,  when attending a
lady who was labouring under delirium,  she  expressed
an earnest wish to take her infant into her arms, and her
attendants  were fearful lest  she should do some violence
to the object of her affection, but he desired them to
commit  it to her without apprehension.   They did so,
and  the  result was an  immediate  abatement  of her
disorder.
   An instance  of Darwin's  eccentricity is thus related.
During  his early residence at Lichfield,  Mr. Sneyd, then
of Bishton, and a few  more gentlemen  of Staffordshire,
prevailed upon the poet to join them in  an excursion by
water, from Bishton  to Nottingham, and on to Newark.
They had  provided  themselves with  a  good  supply of
cold provisions and wine. It was midsummer, the day
ardent and sultry.  The noontide meal had been made,
and the glass gone duly round.  It was one of those few
instances, in which  the  medical votary of the Naiads
transgressed his general and strict sobriety.  If not abso-
lutely intoxicated, his  spirits were in a  high  degree of
vinous exhilaration.  On the boat approaching Notting-
ham, within the distance of a few fields,  he surprised his
companions by slipping,  without  any  previous notice,
from the boat into the middle of the river, and swimming
to the shore.  They saw him get upon the bank, and
walk over the meadows towards the tows. They called 
MEDICAL POETS.                 17
to him in vain;  he did not once turn his head.  Anxious
lest he should take a dangerous cold by remaining in his
wet clothes, and uncertain whether or not he intended to
desert his party, they rowed instantly to the  town, and
went in search of the river-god.  In passing through the
market-place, they saw him  standing upon a tub, encir-
cled by a crowd of people, and resisting the entreaties of
an apothecary of the place, one of his old companions,
who was  importuning him to go to his house, and accept
of other vestments, until  his own  could  be dried.  The
party, on  passing through the crowd, were surprised to
hear him speaking without any degree of his usual stam.
mering—
   " Have I not told you," said the doctor, " that I had
drank a considerable quantity of wine before I committed
myself to the river ?  You know  my general sobriety,
and, as a  professional man, you ought to know that  the
unusual existence of internal stimulus would, in its effects
on the  system,  counteract the external  cold and mois-
ture."  Then perceiving  his companions near him, he
nodded, smiled, waved  his hand, and thus, without hesi-
tation, addressed the  populace:—
  " Ye men of Nottingham, listen to me.  You are inge-
nious and industrious mechanics.  By  your industry,
life's  comforts are procured  for yourselves and families.
If you lose your  health, the  power of being industrious
will  forsake  you.  That  you know; but you may  not
know that to breathe fresh air constantly, is not less ne-
cessary to preserve health than sobriety  itself.  Air  be-
comes unwholesome  in a  few hours, if the windows be
shut.  Open those of your sleeping-rooms, whenever you
quit them to  go  to your workshops.  Keep the windows
of your workshops open whenever the weather  is not in-
supportably cold.   I  have  no  interest in giving you this
advice.  Remember what I, your countryman  and phy-
sician, tell you.   If you would  not bring infection  and
disease upon  yourselves, and to your wives and children 
18              PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
change the air you breathe; change it many times a day,
by  opening your  windows."  So saying, Dr.  Darwin
stepped from the tub,, and returning with his party to the
boat, they pursued their voyage.
  It is well known that Dr. Darwin had a considerable
impediment in his speech.  This, however, did not pre-
vent many flashes of keen sarcastic wit.  An apothecary,
whose knowledge of his profession was, we trust, superior
to his politeness, while receiving the doctor's instructions
relative  to a patient, observed, what a pity it was that  a
man of his great  abilities  should stammer  so much.
" Not so much to be regretted as you suppose, sir," sput-
tered the doctor, " for it gives  a man time to think before
he speaks."
  Dr. Darwin has been called a poetical man of science,
a title that will readily be granted to him when we enu-
merate a few  of his plans, by which, like the philosopher
Rasselas, he was to  control the winds and manage the
seasons.
  By one plan it was proposed to increase the quantity
of electricity in the  atmosphere, by way of altering the
climate;  and  that there should be a  Board of Weather
established, to determine  when rain and  sunshine were
wanted, and  to regulate  the  quantity accordingly.  To
aid in this desirable object  it was further proposed, to
tow the  icelands to  the  tropics;  and it was most inge-
niously devised, that chimneys should be  made in the
earth, by which the heat of volcanoes should be turned to
account.
  Darwin's Zoonomia was characterized  as  a work of
abundant conjecture, and little fact.  It was  calculated
for the speculative man—not  for the practical man.  The
pathology was discussed  and  dismissed by the judicious
part of the profession.   It produced no  change—John
Brown had taken  possession of the best  part of the
ground before, and the extravagant hypotheses advanced 
MEDICAL POETS.                 19
in his Botanic Garden contributed  to injure the success
of his medical system.
  The following  is Miss  Seward's account of Dr. Dar-
win's death:—
  " Sunday, the 18th of April, 1802, deprived Derby and
its vicinity, and the encircling counties, of Dr. Darwin,—
the lettered world of his genius.   During a few preced-
ing years, he had  been  subject to sudden and alarming
disorders of the chest, in  which he always applied  the
lancet  instantly and freely;  he had frequently risen in
the night and bled himself.  It was  said  that  he  sus-
pected Angina  Pectoris to be the cause of  those sudden
paroxysms, and  that it would  produce sudden death.
The conversation which he held with Mrs. Darwin, and
her friend, the  night before he died, gave colour to  the
report  In the preceding year he had a very dangerous
illness.  It originated from  a severe cold,  caught by
obeying the summons of a patient  in Derby, after he had
himself taken strong  medicine.   His  skill, his courage,
his exertion, struggled vehemently  with his disease.   Re-
peated and daring use of the lancet at length subdued it;
but, in all likelihood weakened his system.  He never
looked so well after as before his  seizure;  increased de-
bility of step, and a  certain wanness  of countenance,
awakened those fears  for him, which great numbers felt
who calculated upon  his assistance when the  hour of
pain and danger might come.  It  was said, that, during
his illness, he reproved the sensibility and  tears of Mrs.
Darwin, and bid her remember that she  was the wife of
a philosopher.
  " The public papers and magazines recorded, with to-
lerable accuracy, the nature of his  final seizure;  the con-
versation he held in the garden of  his new residence, the
Priory, with Mrs. Darwin and her female friend;  the idea
which he communicated to them, that he was not likely
to live to see the effects  of those  improvements  he  had
planned.   Mrs. Darwin  affectionately  combating  that 
20              PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
 idea by observing, that he looked remarkably well that
 evening; his reply—' that he generally found himself in
 his  best health a few days preceding  his attacks'—the
 spirits and strength with which he arose the next morning
 at six to write  letters—the large draught of cold butter-
 milk which, according to his usual custom, he had  swal-
 lowed—excited no suspicions in the mind of his friends.
   On the last morning of Dr. Darwin's life he had written
 one  page of a very sprightly letter to Mr.  Edgeworth, de-
 scribing the  Priory, and his proposed  alterations there,
 when the fatal signal was given.  He rang the bell, and
 ordered his servant to send Mrs. Darwin to him.   She
 came immediately, with his daughter, Miss Emma Dar-
 win. They saw him  shivering and pale.  He  desired
 them to  send  directly to Derby for his surgeon,  Mr.
 Headly.   They did so; but all was  over before he could
 arrive.
  " It was reported at  Lichfield, that, perceiving  himself
 growing rapidly  worse,  he said to  Mrs. Darwin, "My
 dear, you must bleed me instantly."   " Alas!  I dare not,
 lest—"   " Emma, will  you ?   There is no  time to be
 lost."  " Yes, my dear father, if you will direct me."   At
 that  moment he sunk into the chair and expired.
  " The body was opened, but  it was said the surgeons
 found no traces of peculiar disease; that the state of the
 viscera indicated a much more protracted existence; yet
 thus, in one hour, was extinguished that  vital light which,
 in the preceding hour, had shone in flattering brightness,
 promising duration: such is often the " cunning flattery
 of nature:" that light, which through half a century, had
 diffused its radiance and its warmth so widely; that light
 in which penury had been cheered, in which science had
expanded, to whose orb poetry had brought all her images,
before whose influence  disease had continually retreated
and death so often turned aside his levelled dart!"
  " Young Keats," although he never graduated in medi-
cine, studied the art of healing,  and was intended for the 
MEDICAL POETS.                 21
 profession; therefore we claim him as our own, and place
 his name in our list of medical poets.
   Mr. John Keats was of humble origin.   He was born
 October 29, 1796,  at a livery stable kept by his grand.
 father, in Moorfields.  He received his classical education
 at Mr. Clark's  school at Enfield, and was bound appren-
 tice to Mr. Hammond, a surgeon, in Church Lane, Ed-
 monton.
   On leaving Mr. Hammond, he entered his name at St
 Thomas's Hospital, where he pursued his medical studies.
 He was a youth of great promise.  He became early in
 life acquainted with Leigh  Hunt, who was struck with
 admiration at the specimens of premature genius laid be-
 fore him.  Hunt showed some of Keats's poetry to God-
 win, Hazlitt, and Basil Montague, who were very much
 struck with its beauty.  The following lines, written by
 Keats on  his first looking into Chapman's Homer, were
 much admired:—

   " Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,
    And  many goodly states and  kingdoms seen;
    Round many Western Islands I have been,
    Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold :
    Oft of one  wide expanse had I been told,
    That deep-crown'd Homer, ruled as his demesne;
    Yet did I never breathe  its pure serene,
    Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold.
    Then I felt like some watcher  of the skies,
    When a new planet swims into his ken,
    Or like stout Cortez, when with eagle eyes
    He star'd at the Pacific—and  all his men
    Look'd at each other  with a wild surmise,
    Silent upon a peak in Darien."

  In 1818 Mr. Keats published his poetic romance en-
titled " Endymion," which his friend Hunt says, " was a
wilderness of sweets: but it was truly a wilderness; a
                         3 
22
PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
domain  of young,  luxuriant, uncompromising poetry,
where  the ' weeds  of glorious  feature,' hampered  the
pretty legs accustomed to the lawns  and trodden walks,
in vogue for the last hundred years; lawns, as Johnson
says, 'shaven by the scythe, and  levelled with the roller;'
walks, which, being public property, have been re-con-
secrated,  like Kensington Gardens,  by the  beadles of
authority, instead of the Pans and Sylvans."*
  The following beautiful  passage on a sculptured vase,
representing  a  procession with  music; upon which the
author says, with an intensity of sentiment, at once origi-
nal in idea, and going home, like an old thought, to the
heart:—

 " Heard melodies are sweet,  but those unheard
  Are sweeter ; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
  Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,
  Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
  Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou can'st not leave
  Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare :
  Bold lover, never, never can'st thou kiss,
  Though winning near the goal—yet, do not grieve i
  She cannot fade, though  thou hast not thy bliss;
  For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair."

  In  1820, Keats  published his last  and  best  work
" Lamia,  Isabella, and other poems."
  Mr. Kcats's poetical fancy  was of a nature to make its
way into  notice under any circumstances, and would un-
questionably have  done so;  but the political  and other
opinions  to which  his  attention had been directed, the
public connexions to  which he  was introduced, and' the
generous  enthusiasm,  natural  to great  talents,  which
would not allow him  to conceal  either, soon brought on
him a host of critics.   This preyed much upon his mind,
* Life of Lord Byron. 
MEDICAL POETS.                 23
and, being naturally of a weak constitution, his death was
thereby accelerated.
  Mr.  Leigh Hunt states, " that Keats had felt that  his
disease was mortal  for two or three years before he died.
He had a constitutional tendency to consumption; a close
attendance to the death-bed of a beloved brother, when he
ought to have  been nursing himself in bed, gave him  a
blow which he  felt for months.  All this  trouble  was
secretly  aggravated by a  very tender circumstance, and
which  nominally subjected one of the warmest hearts and
imaginations that ever existed to all the pangs that doubt,
succeeded by delight, and delight, succeeded by hopeless.
ness, in this world, could inflict.  Seeing him once  change
countenance, in  a manner more  alarming than usual, as
he stood silently eyeing the country out at the window, I
pressed him to let me  know how he felt, in order that he
might  enable me to do what I could for him; upon which
he  said,  'that his feelings were almost more than he
could bear, and that he feared for his senses.'  I proposed
that we should take a coach and ride about the country
together, to vary, if possible, the immediate impression,
which  was sometimes all that was formidable, and would
come to nothing.   He acquiesced, and was restored to
himself.   It was, nevertheless, on the same day, sitting on
the bench in Well Walk, at Hampstead, nearest the heath,
that he told  me, with unaccustomed tears in his eyes, that
' his heart was breaking.'  A  doubt, however, was upon
him at the time, which he afterwards had reason to know
was groundless; and during  his  residence at the last
house he occupied before he went abroad, he was at times
more than tranquil.  At length he was persuaded by his
friends to try the milder climate  of Italy; and he thought
it better  for  others, as for himself, that he should go.  He
visited Rome  with his intimate and affectionate friend
Mr. Severn; and at this place, on the 27th of December,
1820, he died in the arms of his  friend." 
24              THYS1C AND PHYSICIANS.

   " Hushed is the lyre—the hand that swept
    The low and pensive wires,
    Robb'd of its cunning, from the task retires.
    Yes—it is still—the lyre is still,
    The spirit which its slumbers broke
    Hath passed away, and that weak hand that woke
    Its forest melodies, hath lost its skill."*

  Mr. Keats's death has been said to have been accelerated
by  a  severe criticism on his poems,  which appeared in
the " Quarterly Review."  To this circumstance Byron
evidently alluded, in the  following lines:—

             « Who killed John Keats ?
           I, says the Quarterly,
           So savage and tartarly,
              'Twas one of my feats.

             " Who shot the arrow ?
           The poet-priest Milman,
           (So ready to kill man)
             Or Southey, or Barrow!"

  Again in reference to the same notion he says,

      " Oh, that the soul,  that very fiery  particle
       Should let itself be snuffed out by an article."

  He suffered so much  in his lingering illness, that he
used  to watch the countenance of the  physician for the
favourable or  fatal sentence, and express his regret when
he found it delayed.  Yet no impatience escaped him. He
was manly and  gentle to  the  last, and grateful for all
services.  A  little before he  died, he said  he  "felt the
daises growing  over him."  But he  made a  still more
touching remark, respecting  his epitaph.   " If any," he
* Kirke White. 
MEDICAL POETS.
25
said, " were put over him, he wished it to consist only of
these  words:—' Here lies one whose  name was writ in
water!' "  So little did he think of the  more than promise
he had given; of the fine and lasting things he had added
to the stock of poetry.  The physicians expressed their
astonishment that he  had held out so  long, the lungs
turning out, on inspection, to have been almost obliterated.
   " Mr. Keats," says his  friend, Mr.  L. Hunt, » will be
known hereafter  in English literature, emphatically, as
the young poet;  and his volumes will be  the sure com-
panions, in field and  grove, of all those who know what a
luxury it  is to hasten with a  favourite volume against
one's  heart, out of the strife of common-places, into  the
haven of solitude  and imagination."*
   Mark Akenside was the son of a butcher, and was born
at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, on the 9th of November, 1721.
He is said to have been, in after life, very much ashamed
of the comparative lowness of his birth;  and it is also re-
ported that he could never regard a lameness, which  im.
peded his walking with facility, otherwise than as an  un-
pleasant memento of a  cut on the  foot, which he received
from the  fall of one of his father's cleavers, when about
seven years  of age.  Akenside was always much attached
to the place of his birth,  as it  will be perceived by the
following beautiful lines, commemorative of the pleasure
he was accustomed to receive, in early life, from wander-
ing among the scenes of his  native river:

                 " O, ye dales
    Of Tyne, and ye most ancient woodlands! where
    Oft, as the  giant flood obliquely strides,
* The fate of Keats reminds us of what Shelley says,

                      " Most men
  Are cradled into poetry by wrong;
  They learn in suffering what they teach in song."
                        3* 
26
PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
    And his banks open, and his lawns extend,
    Stops short the pleased traveller to view,
    Presiding o'er the scene, some rustic tow'r,
    Founded by Norman or by Saxon hands."

  Akenside indulged his natural taste for poetry at an
early age; for when he was only sixteen he was a con-
tributor to the Gentleman's Magazine, in which he pub-
lished a poem, after the manner of Spenser, entitled " The
Virtuoso."  At the age of eighteen he was sent to Edin-
burgh, with  a view of taking orders  as a  dissenting
minister; but he abandoned this idea, and commenced the
study of medicine.  He made great progress in his medi-
cal studies, and became a member of the medical society,
where he had an opportunity of exercising his oratorical
powers.  After leaving Edinburgh he went to Leyden,
where he became acquainted with Mr. Dyson, who proved,
through Akenside's  chequered life, his best and constant
friend.
  At the university of Leyden, Akenside graduated in
physic.  His  thesis was on the growth of the foetus.  It
was during his stay  at Leyden that Akenside commenced
his great poem, on the " Pleasures  of the Imagination,"
which  he  offered to Dodsley, when he came to London,
for .£120.  Before it was  purchased, Dodsley showed the
MS. to Pope,  who, on perceiving its merit, told him " to
make no niggardly offer, since  this was no every-day
writer."  Dodsley immediately closed with the poet, and
Richardson was employed to print it.
  Mr. Meyrick, a surgeon and  apothecary, was an inti-
mate friend of the  poet.   He says he frequently called
upon him, and recommended Akenside  as a physician.
" We were not much like each other; for he was stiff and
set, and I all life and  spirits.   He often frowned upon
me in a sick  room.   He  could not bear to see any one
smile in the presence of an invalid; and, I think, he lost
a good deal of business by the solemn sententiousness of 
MEDICAL POETS.                 27
 his air and manner.  I wanted to cheer patients up."  Mr.
 Meyrick was aldo a friend of Armstrong, of whom he says,
 a He ruined himself by that foolish  performance  of his,
 the ' Economy of Love.'  How in the name of heaven
 could he expect that any woman would let him enter her
 house again after that ?  The man was a fool!  He who
 undertakes to be a physician  must be chastity itself."*
   Akenside  and Armstrong  published their principal
 poems in the same year.  They appealed to the consent
 of mankind in opposite directions.  For if the poem, the
 "Pleasures of the Imagination," be rich in materials, and
 brilliant in imagery and  versification, the  " Art of Pre-
 serving Health"  is as remarkable for its  simplicity  of
 style, and a total  rejection of ornament.  Their success,
 as poets, retarded them as physicians.  They associated
 occasionally;  but  their  characters never  assimilated.
 Akenside  was solemn in manner,  but engaging  and
 polite; except when unwarrantably put upon, and then he
 became irritable, though never  overbearing.   Armstrong
 relapsed into  a morbid sensibility; the languid listless.
 ness of which is said to have damped the  vigour of his
 intellectual efforts to a  great degree.
  Akenside's poem was published anonymously; but, on
 account of its being attributed to a man of the name  of
 Rolt, he was induced te put his name to the title-page.
  Smollett entertained  a great personal enmity to  Aken-
side,  who  he  has   ridiculed in  " Peregrine  Pickle."
Akenside  intended  to  establish himself in practice  at
Northampton, and went there for that purpose, but he
found that there was no opening for him in that town.
He returned to London, when his friend Mr. Dyson bought
him a house at North End, Hampstead; and with a view
of introducing the Doctor to the more opulent inhabitants,
he frequented with him the long room, and all the clubs
and assemblies.
* Life of Akenside, p. 30. 
 28             PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.

   Hampstead was not suited to a man like Akenside. The
 inhabitants were respectable and rich; but many of them
 not only respectable and rich, but purse-proud and super-
 cilious.  They  required to be sought;  their wives and
 daughters expected to be escorted and flattered; and their
 sons to be treated with  an air of obligation.   It  is no
 difficult task for an elegant man to flatter beautiful women
 and celebrated  men ; but, to be subservient to those who
 are already vain and supercilious, and who assume in pro.
 portion as they are flattered and yielded to, is not only
 beyond the practice, but even beyond the honest patience,
 of a man enriched by nature, and embellished by educa-
 tion.*
  After residing two years and  a half at Hampstead,
 Akenside  returned to London, and took up his abode in
 Bloomsbury Square, where he continued to live during the
 remainder of his life.  He  was then  about seven-and-
 twenty years of age.
  " In  London," says one of his biographers, " Akenside
 was well known as a poet; but he had still to make him.
 self known as a physician; and he would have been ex-
pdsed to many annoyances had  it not  been  for the
pecuniary assistance which  his* kind friend Mr. Dyson
rendered him."
  * Dr. Sewcll, author of a tragedy entitled " Sir Walter
Raleigh," died at Hampstead, in 1726.  His fate is thus
alluded to by Campbell the poet:—" He was a physician
at Hampstead, with very little  practice, and chiefly sub-
sisted oh the  invitations of the  neighbouring gentlemen,
to whom his amiable character made him acceptable:
but, at his death, not a friend or relative came to commit
his remains to the dust.  He was buried in the meanest
manner, under  a hollow tree, that was once part  of the
boundary of the churchyard of Hampstead.  No memorial
was placed over his remains."—Specimens of the  Poets,
v. 5, 1. 
MEDICAL POETS.                 29
   At this time Akenside was admitted, by mandamus, to
a doctor's degree at Cambridge;  and he became a Fellow
of the Royal Society and College of Physicians.
   Akenside, shortly after his establishment, became  ac-
quainted with Dr. Hardinge, who was physician extraor-
dinary to the king.   His nephew, Mr. Nichols, says, " he
(Dr. H.) was a man of singular habits and whims, but of
infinite humour and wit.  He was an admirable scholar;
and if he had been uniformly attentive to the duties of
his profession, would have  acquired the first rank  in  it.
In medical sagacity and learning he had few  if any
equals.   His conversation was coveted by the most  ac-
complished wits and scholars of his age.  He was a man
of  perfect honour,  and a  more benevolent spirit  never
breathed.  His passion for coursing was one of his most
prominent characteristics; but, like all the rest, he  made
it  the source of infinite amusement to his friends.  He
was a comic tyrant over them all; and I shall never for-
get an  evening of civil war,  and  another of peace,  be-
tween these two physicians.
   " Dr. Akenside was his  guest;  and at supper, by a
whimsical accident, they fell into a dispute upon the sub.
ject of bilious colic.  They were both of them absurdly
eager.  Dr. Hardinge had a contempt for every physician
but himself; and he held the poet very cheap in that line.
He laughed at him, and said the rudest things to him.
The other, who never  took  a  jest in good part, flamed
into invective;  and Mrs. Hardinge,  as clever in  a dif-
ferent way as either, could with difficulty keep  the  peace
with either of them.  Dr. Akenside ordered his chariot,
and swore that he would never come into the house again.
The other, who  was the  kindest-hearted of  men, next
morning, and in a manner quite his own, made a perfect
reconcilement, which terminated  in a pacific supper the
following night; when, by a powerful stroke of humour,
the host convulsed the sides of his guest with laughter,
and they were in delightful unison together the whole  of 
30
THYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
the evening.  " Do you kn—kn—know, doctor," said he,
(for he stammered), " that I have bo—bought a curious
pamphlet, this m—morning upon a st—stall, and I'll give
you the t—title of it; an ac—count of a  curious dispute
between  D—Dr. Y.,  and D—Dr. Z., concerning b—b—
bilious c—colic, which brought on a d—duel between two
ph—physicians, which t—terminated in  the d—death of
both."
  Shortly after  this, Akenside wrote an ode to his hu-
morous opponent.
  Mr. Dyson allowed Akenside jC300 a year, which was
sufficient  to  provide  him with every  necessary of life.
How  affectionately the poet speaks of his kind patron, in
his beautiful invocation to the " Pleasures of the Imagi-
nation !"

  ------" O, my faithful friend,
  O early chosen, ever found the same,
  And trusted and beloved, once more, the verse
  Long destined, always obvious to thine ear,
  Attend indulgent;  so in latest years,
  When time thine hand with honours shall have cloth'd,
  Sacred to every virtue, may thy mind,
  Amid the calm review of seasons past,
  Fair offices of friendship, or kind peace,
  Or  public zeal—may then thy mind, well pleased,
  Recall those happy studies of our prime."

  When the  situation of physician to the Charter-House
became vacant, Akenside started  for it, but did not  suc-
ceed in obtaining the appointment.
  In  July, 1755, Akenside read the  "Gulstonian Lec-
tures," before the College  of Physicians.  In these dis-
courses he advanced opinions relative to the lymphatic
vessels,of animals, in decisive opposition to  those of Boer-
haave.  These opinions may be gathered from the follow-
ing abstract:  "That the lymphatics in  general  have 
MEDICAL POETS.                  31
their origin among the little cavities of the cellular sub-
stance of the muscles, among the mucous folliculi of the
tendons, or the  membranous  receptacles and ducts of the
larger glands:—that their extremities or roots imbibe from
these cavities the moisture, exhaled there, from the ulti-
mate arterial  tubes, just as  the lacteals, which are the
lymphatics of the mesentery, do on the concave surface of
the intestines;  and that  the  minute  imbibing vessels, by
gradually opening  into  one  another, form, at length, a
lymphatic trunk, furnished with valves to prevent the  re-
turn of its fluid, and tending uniformly from the extremi-
ties, and from  the viscera, to reconvey to the  blood that
lymph, with which they  are  kept in  perpetual moisture;
a circumstance indispensable to life and motion; while,
at  the  same time, the  continual re-absorption of that
moisture, by the lymphatics, is no less necessary to pre-
serve the blood  properly fluid, and to prevent the putrefac-
tion which would inevitably follow, if this animal vapour
were suffered to stagnate in the  cavities where it is dis-
charged."
  Shortly after these opinions were made known, Dr. A.
Monro  claimed them, as his  own, in a pamphlet which
he  published;  but  Akenside firmly  maintained  that he
was the original discoverer of these peculiar views.
  In the year 1759, Akenside's character seems to  have
acquired some  stability.  He  was  appointed assistant
physician to St. Thomas's Hospital, and two months after,
principal physician; and in the same year, assistant phy-
sician to Christ's Hospital.
  Sir John Hawkins relates, in his life of Dr. Johnson,
that a person named Saxby, who  held  a situation in the
custom-house,  and  who  was of  that  despicable order,
who have the privilege of saying just  what they please,
was in the constant habit of venting his sarcasms against
the medical profession.  "  One evening,"  says Sir  John,
" after having laboured hard  to prove that the profession
of physic was  all imposture, he turned  suddenly  upon 
32              PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
Akenside, and observed, ' Doctor, after all you have said,
my opinion of  the  profession is this:  the  ancients en-
deavoured to make it a science, and  failed; and the
moderns,  to  make  it  a trade, and succeeded.'   The
company laughed at the satire, and Akenside joined in it
with good humour."
  Sir John Hawkins relates another  anecdote, relative to
a low-minded man,  named Ballow.  This person was a
lawyer, of great  learning, but of no practice; full of spleen:
of vulgar manners;  and having some connexion with the
government, he  thought, as many persons standing in the
same relative situation would have the ignorance to be-
lieve, that he was  entitled to hate Akenside for those
liberal  sentiments which he seldom thought it necessary
either to qualify or disguise.  A dispute, one evening, was
the consequence; and Ballow, having made use of some
expressions, little conforming with  the  manners  of a
gentleman, Akenside degraded himself so far as to de-
mand an apology, forgetting that beautiful  and sublime
sentence,

    " Affronts are innocent when men are worthless."

  Ballow was courageous enough to insult, but not suffi-
ciently so to pay the penalty.  He, therefore, screened
himself from punishment, by keeping out of the  way.
Akenside's anger soon subsided; and then  some mutual
friends adjusted the  difference.
  Few men ever lived who had a greater inward detesta-
tion of tyranny  than Akenside.  This feeling is indicated
in all his poems; and he had an  equal contempt  for hy-
pocrisy.  Considering, with Shaftesbury,* that the Deity
was the sovereign source of all beauty, he was indignant
when the name of our Saviour was used  irreverently.
» People would assert," he was accustomed to say, » that
* Characteristics. 
MEDICAL POETS.                  33
I imitated Newton, or I should never allude to the Deity,
or hear him  alluded to by others, but I should make an
inclination of my body."  And one day, being in company
with Mr. Meyrick's father, at a coffee-house, in the neigh-
bourhood of Charing Cross, having listened, for some time,
with impatience, to the oratory of a Mr. Warnefield, who
was making some severe  remarks, not only on  "War-
burton's Divine Legation  of Moses,"  but on the Bible
itself, he at length interrupted him:  " I  tell you what,
sir," said he, " Warburton is no  friend  of mine;—but I
detest hearing a man of learning abused.  As to the Bible,
believe it or not, just as you please; but let it contain as
many absurdities, untruths,  and unsound doctrines, as
you say it does, there is one passage, at least, that I am
sure you, with all the ingenuity and eloquence you possess,
have not the power to surpass: it is where  the  prophet
Bays, 'The children of  men are much wiser than the
children of light.'"
   In  1768, Akenside published three essays in the  "Medi-
cal Transactions."  1. On Cancers.  2. On the use of
Ipecacuanha in Asthmas.  3. On the best mode of treat-
ing white swellings of the joints.
   In the forty-ninth year of his age he was seized with a
putrid sore throat, which terminated in  his death on the
23d of June, 1770.
   Of Akenside's character, as a poet, let our readers listen
to what a kindred genius says of him.   Speaking of the
" Pleasures of the Imagination," Campbell observes,  " In
the purely ethical and didactic parts of his subject, he dis-
plays a  high zeal of classical feeling, and a graceful de-
velopement of the philosophy of taste.  Though his meta-
physics may not be always invulnerable, his general ideas
of moral truth are lofty and prepossessing.  He is pe-
culiarly eloquent in those passages in which he describes
the final causes of our emotions of taste: he is  equally
Bkilful in delineating the  processes of memory and associ-
ation ; and he gives an animated view of Genius  collect.
                          4 
34
PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
ing her stores for works of excellence.   We seem to pass,
in his poem, through  a gallery of pictured abstractions,
rather than of pictured things.   He reminds us of odours
which we enjoy, artificially extracted from the flower, in-
stead of inhaling them from its natural  blossom."
  Akenside's pastorals are superior to any other in  the
language; and his poem, descriptive of a farmer's life, is,
perhaps, second only to Virgil's Georgics.

 " Fret not thyself, thou glittering child of pride,
     That a poor villager inspires my strain;
  With thee let pageantry  and power abide,
     The gentle muses haunt the sylvan reign;
  Where through wild groves at eve the lonely swain
     Enraptur'd roams, to gaze on nature's charms,
  They hate the sensual and scorn the  vain;
     The parasite their influence never  warms ;
  Nor him, whose sordid soul the love of gold alarms."

  Mr. Bucke takes a more favourable view of Akenside
than Mr. Pettigrew does, in his life of his friend, Dr. Lett-
som.  Lettsom was a pupil  at St. Thomas's Hospital when
the poet was the physician of that institution, and having
been an ardent admirer of Akenside's great  poem, the
" Pleasures of the Imagination," he allowed his own fancy
to picture some ideal object to his mind, and when he ap-
proached the real  flesh and blood of the poet, Pettigrew
observes, " Great was his  disappointment."  Dr.  Aken-
side, according to  Lettsom's biographer, was the most
supercilious and  unfeeling physician  he (Lettsom)  had
ever known.  If the poor affrighted patients did not return
a direct answer to  his queries, he would  often instantly
discharge them from the hospital.  He evinced a particu-
lar disgust to females, and generally treated them with
harshness.  It  was stated  that this  moroseness was  oc-
casioned by disappointment in  love;  but hapless must
have been that female who was placed under his tyranny. 
MEDICAL POETS.                 35
Lettsom was inexpressibly shocked at an instance of Dr.
Akenside's inhumanity, exercised  towards  a patient in
Abraham's ward, to whom he had ordered bark in boluses;
who, in consequence of not being  able to swallow them,
so irritated  the poet, that he ordered  the  sister of the
ward to discharge him from the hospital; adding," he shall
not die under my care."  As the sister was removing him,
in obedience to the doctor, the  patient expired.
  One leg of Dr. Akenside's was  considerably shorter
than the other, which was in some  measure remedied by
the aid of a false heel.  He had a pale, strumous counte-
nance, but was always very neat and elegant in his dress.
He wore a white wig, and carried a long sword.   On one
occasion his anger was  excited to a very high pitch, by
the answer  which Mr. Baker, the surgeon, gave to a
question the doctor put to him, respecting one of his sons,
who was  subject  to  epilepsy, which had somewhat im-
paired his understanding. "  To what study do  you pro-
pose to place him ?"  said Akenside to Baker. " I find,"
replied the surgeon, " I cannot make a surgeon of him, so
I have sent  him to Edinburgh to study for a physician's
degree."   Akenside  turned round from Baker with im-«
petuosity, and  would  not speak to him for a considerable
time afterwards.*
  Doctor John Armstrong,  known  as the author of
" The Art of Preserving Health," was born in Scotland,
in the year 1709.  He was educated for the medical pro-
fession, and  distinguished himself at the University of
Edinburgh, both in  the study of physic and literature.
He  never obtained any eminence as a physician.  He
wrote a humorous attack upon the empirics, entitled, " An
Essay for abridging the Study of Physic, &c. &c," which
gained him credit as  a wit, but was  one of the causes, it
it said, of his being but little noticed as a physician.  He
  * Pettigrew's Life and Correspondence of Dr. Lettsom.
Vol. i. p. 22. 
36              PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
also damaged his medical reputation by his  poem, the
" Economy of Love," which was full of licentiousness.
  Dr. Armstrong, though a man of morbid sensibility of
mind,  possessed  an elevated  understanding,  and great
goodness of heart, and  was much beloved and respected
by his intimate friends, among whom were Dr. Grainger,
Sir John Pringle, and the poet Thomson.  It is said that
he assisted the author of the " Seasons," in the composition
of his "Castle of Indolence;" the fine stanzas, descriptive
of the diseases  to which the votaries of indolence finally
become martyrs, having been written by Armstrong.  The
tenth stanza in  that poem is said to have contained a de-
scription of his  character, which is so graphically drawn,
that it should not be omitted.

  With him was sometimes joined, in silken walk,
     (Profoundly silent—for they never spoke,)
  One shyer still, who quite detested talk;
     Oft stung by spleen, at once away he broke,
  To grove of pine, and broad  o'ershadowing oak,
     There inly thrilled, he wandered all alone,
  And on himself his pensive fury woke;
     He never uttered word, save when first shone
  The glittering star of eve—" Thank heaven the day is
       done!"

  A large portion of his time was spent at Slaughter's
Coffee-house, in St Martin's Lane, where he usually took
his  meals, and  where messages to him were  ordinarily
directed to be addressed.   He died in 1799, leaving, to
the surprise of all his friends, about JC3000."
  His  poem on the  " Art of Health" is full of charming
descriptions and beautiful imagery.   It will be a  lasting
monument of his medical skill and pcetical genius.   Dr.
Wharton observed " There is a classical correctness and
closeness of style in this poem, that are truly admirable; 
MEDICAL POETS.                  37
 and the  subject is raised  and  adorned by  numberless
 poetical images."
   In Dr. Armstrong's last work, entitled  " Medica  Es-
 says," he alludes to his having failed to establish himself
 in practice as a physician.  As this work is not easily
 accessible, we extract the passage to which we refer.  " I
 do not send out these little essays by way of a quack's
 bill—upon honour  I do not: for I have not the least incli-
 nation to extend my practice beyond the circle of a few
 friends and  acquaintances; amongst whom I commonly
 find sufficient  employment  to secure me from the melan-
 choly languor of idleness, and  the remorse  that in some
 minds must naturally haunt a life of dissipation. Though
 I could neither tell a heap of lies in my own praise wher-
 ever  I  went;  nor  intrigue with nurses; nor associate,
 much less assimilate, with the various  kinds  of pert, in-
 sipid,  lively,  stupid, well-bred,  impertinent,  good-hu-
 moured, malicious, obliging, deceitful, drivelling gossips;
 nor enter into juntos with  people I did  not like; it  will
 appear  a mighty boast to  any one but moderately ac-
 quainted with  this  town to say, that I  might  have  done
 great things in physic.  Most certainly I could.  But my
 ambition, a great many years ago, received a  fatal check
 from a ticklish state of spirits, that made me  afraid of a
 business,  in  which  1  found myself exposed to much
 anxiety, and a  crowd of teasing, uncomfortable, mortify-
 ing circumstances; to be encountered at all hours, and in
 every kind of weather.  But for that distempered  excess
 of sensibility, I might have  been as much reverenced as
 any quack, notwithstanding I was so imprudent as to pub-
 lish a  system  of what every  body allows to be sound
 physic; only, indeed—it was in verse.  However, it is
 well that some  particular people never reckoned  me the
 worse physician for all that; and as it became  the fashion
 to praise one's self,  though  I do not say  that none of my
patients die, I have  some reason  to believe, that  in  pro-
 portion to numbers, whether for  skill or good luck, not
                         4* 
38
TIlYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
many "physicians  have been  more  successful  in the
management of dangerous  and  difficult  cases;  most
probably, indeed, from good luck ; and yet I have never
been remarkable for it in any thing else.  In the mean
time I have heard that my character, as a physician, has
been ungenerously nibbled at by people of my own pro-
fession ; which I understand has had  its  intended effect
upon some gentry, who it seems are two shallow in a
knowledge of human nature, of mankind, and even of the
world, to have observed that people of the same business
are sometimes not very fond of each other;  and that to be
an object of detraction, in such cases, is no sign of inferior
abilities.   However, to comfort and support myself under
the dark hints of such illiberal enemies, it is natural for
me to recollect, that there are still some gentlemen of the
faculty, who have candour and generosity enough among
themselves to give me all reasonable credit, even as a
physician.   But  the lies of malice are more listened to,
and circulate much  faster, than the fair reports of good-
nature.
  " So much for my history as a physician.   As an author
too, my fate  has  been somewhat  particular.  My having
written a poem upon a subject, reckoned of no inconsider-
able consequence to the health of mankind was, as some
say, sufficient alone, in this  age and meridian,  to have
ruined me as a  physician.  At the same time, from the
treachery of one bookseller after another, it is true enough
what one of my friends guessed not long ago—that though
my works, as he called them, had sold greatly, I do not
believe they have altogether brought me near so much as
has often  been  made by one play that deserved  to have
been damned."
  Doctor Walcot, the far-famed "Peter  Pindar," was
the son of a  medical practitioner.  His father practised as
a surgeon-apothecary in a small town near  Kingsbridge,
in  Devonshire.   Walcot  was  apprenticed to  a  Mr.
Stephens, of Fowey, who had married his sister.   During 
MEDICAL POETS.                 39
his apprenticeship, his  flute  and his muse were of more
consequence to him than the pestle and mortar; and his
love  of amusement and society made him  indifferent, if
not careless, to the duties of his profession—whilst his
quickness and his  talent gave him a knowledge  of it,
which labour and application might have struggled  for in
vain.
  "As  my uncle,"  he  says, "was always  averse to my
shining, I  used to  steal away  to an  old  ruined tower,
situated on a rock close by the sea, where many an early
and  late hour was devoted to the muses."
  When Sir William Trelawny went out as governor of
Jamaica, Mr. Walcot  accompanied him  as his medical
attendant.  Previously to his leaving  his country he ob-
tained from a Scotch university his degree  of M.D.  He
was  afterwards persuaded to enter the church, in conse-
quence  of his patron having a living in his gift.  His
talent for satire soon made Jamaica too hot for  him, and
induced the governor to regret the responsibility he had
taken upon himself  He frequently related  a story of his
own surprise at preaching to a congregation which con-
sisted of a cow, a jackass, an old soldier, and two negroes.
" I wondered," said the doctor, " how so many came to
hear me, but I looked  out and  saw it rained."   During
his residence in the West Indies he had a very narrow
escape.  He was  seized with the dreadful malady of the
country, and had given up  all hopes of recovery as his
attendants had done.  His nurse was asleep  on her couch.
and he was lying in that torpid state  which is generally
considered  a  fatal symptom, when he was roused  from
his lethargy by two negroes, who, sans ceremonie, began to
place him in a straight position.  The doctor inquired, as
well as he could do, what they wanted, and how  they
dare to disturb him ?  The  fellows begged pardon, and
with an unmeaning grin, replied,  " Only to measure you
for your coffin, massa."  The doctor was so enraged, that   «
passion literally gave a turn to his disorder.  When he 
40
PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
    recovered he  determined, to use his own words, " to play
    the devil a trick ;  and if he despatched any more of his
    emissaries for him, not to be found in the same place."
    He consequently  returned to England with  Lady  Tre-
    lawny.  After meeting with many  disappointments  in
    love, he settled at Truro Green. In this opulent neighbour-
    hood, the practice of his profession would, in a few years,
    have secured  him an  ample fortune, but for  his  mis-
    chievous  talents,  which made persons,  however highly
    they thought of his abilities, reject him from their houses.
    His muse was never at rest whilst his neighbours could be
    annoyed.  One of the objects of his ridicule was a young
    man of considerable fortune, and a son  of one of the
    magistrates; he possessed some  eccentricities, which the
    doctor did not fail to make the most of.  We quote a few
    lines from the satire alluded to:—

           " Zounds! twonld disgrace my very pen,
            To place thee on a rank with men—
            A creature that's by all confessed
            An ourang-outang at the best.
            Observe his dress—was such e'er  seen ?
            A swine that wallows is more clean:
            Six days at least he's worn his shirt:
            His stockings are bedaubed with dirt:
            A rusty hat serves to contain
            A skull quite destitute of brain.
            Yet some will say—the lad has merit,
            And though he's dirty wants not spirit:
            I know he does his best endeavour
           To make folks think him mighty clever."

     One of the members for  Truro at that time was a  Mr.
   Rosewarne, a  worthy man, benevolent to  the poor,  but
   rather pompous in his manner and style of  living.  Wal-
»  cot  satirized the weak parts  of his character : and some
   say  that he was the cause of his death. 
MEDICAL POETS.                 41
  Mr. Rosewarne was at the head of the corporation, and
the son of a man who had kept a little public house in the
neighbourhood.
  Dr. Walcot called him King  Rosewarne, and was con-
tinually writing satires respecting him.  This led  to a
quarrel with the corporation: and at one  of their meet-
ings he thought proper to lampoon them all.  The follow-
ing lines formed part of the satire, and were  levelled at
Mr. Rosewarne:—

     " Up rose  King Rosewarne in a huff,
       Big as bull beef, as Ajax bluff—
      Sneezes to clear his idea-pot,
      And coughs the cobwebs from his throat."
      *       *       *        *       *

  A very respectable surgeon of Truro was at that time
mayor; and the lines Peter applied to him were attended
with rather more serious consequences.

       " A bull-faced fellow with the itch,
         Came  to my house to cure a stitch :"
             &c., &c., &c.

He  was prosecuted for these verses, and had to pay £200
for libel.   This  circumstance induced him to leave Truro,
and bend his steps towards the metropolis.
  Dr. Walcot was the means of bringing the celebrated
painter, Opie, into notice.  He was walking one day
through a little  village, called Perram, when the rain com-
pelled him to seek shelter in a cottage, whese walls were
covered with portraits of an old woman, and  the  doctor
immediately recognised the original in the features of his
hostess.   He felt a curiosity to know who the artist was,
for even in these rough  sketches there was enough talent
displayed  to interest him. The good  woman informed
him it was her  son, who  was  always smearing the walls 
42
PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
with a smoked stick ; but she assured his honour she in-
tended to have the place whitewashed and cleaned before
Christmas.  He  expressed  a desire to see the boy; and
desired her to send him the next morning to his  house.
John  Opie, who had never  before entered any mansion
superior to a  fisherman's hut, was struck with astonish-
ment  at the fine  paintings with which the doctor's house
was decorated'; and his attention was so entirely occupied
by them that he seemed to have no curiosity to know why
he had been sent for.  Dr. Walcot, however, gave him
some  materials  for drawing, with instructions for their
use.   He watched and directed his  improvement, which
was rapid, and the future F.R.A. soon began to caricature
the faces  of the principal  inhabitants of Truro,  at five
shillings per head.
  After this  probation, he  attempted a large painting;
and his first  essay was a  portrait of his patron,  in  the
character  of a druid.  It  was a  very striking likeness,
and was  exhibited in a gallery at Truro.  Walcot was
very proud of it, and was in the habit of taking children
to view it, that he might judge more faithfully of the cor-
rectness of the  likeness.   In this instance he once more
carried the laugh against himself; for one of the youthful
cognoscenti,  in  answer to  a question of the doctor re-
specting the  likeness of the portrait, and who it was, re-
plied, " Why, a  bear in a blanket, to be  sure."
   When he arrived in London, Walcot soon  made him-
self notorious, in consequence of his  attack upon eminent
persons.  The king having discovered  upon  his plate  a
certain disgusting  insect, led to the composition  of our
author's "Lousiad,"  in which he ridiculed  that event
with  inimitable  drollery.   It is said  that there was some
intention  of prosecuting him for this effusion, but the fear
of further satire prevented  government  from resorting to
actual proceedings.
   " The story of the insect," says Walcot, " is a fact:  it
was  un pou veritable;  but whether of the  garden or 
MEDICAL POETS.
43
body species was never ascertained.  I had this from the
cooks themselves, with whom  I  dined  several times at
Buckingham House and Windsor, immediately after the
event took place."  It was agitated in the privy council,
whether Walcot ought to be prosecuted for his poem; but
—" are  you sure of a verdict ?" said the Lord Chancellor,
Thurlow, " if not, we shall look like a parcel of fools."
  Like  most men of genius, he fully appreciated his own
talents,  and was extremely tenacious of his consequence.
Being invited by a late  Irish earl to dine with him, in
Stratford  Place, when presented to the  countess, she re-
ceived him with a slight  bow of acknowledgment, and at
dinner  seemed completely to overlook him.   The doctor
did not  like it, neither did the earl.  During the dinner
the countess remarked that she had never known but one
Irish gentleman, and that  was her brother, Cavendish
Bradshaw, who had established his claim to the distinc-
tion, by carrying off  the deluded Lady Westmeath  from
the protection of an affectionate  husband, and a family
of twelve children.  Some person present inquired if she
recollected that Lord  M------1 N------s was an Irish-
man ?   " Yes, but  who ever mistook him for  a gentle-
man ?"  " His lordship, madam," said the doctor, " I pre-
sume, loses his claim  to the title, because he has never
been able to make your ladyship a gentlewoman.'"
  Walcot was inveterate  against the countess; he ob-
served to a friend the  next day, " that the  man who was
married to  such  a woman, was d----d before he  was
dead. And if she could peep into a certain place, all the
devils would take fright, and leave her the sole possession
of it!"
  His writings were  very productive.  Those who  con-
demned  his satire purchased his  works to laugh at his
wit.   An  old  acquaintance once  remarked, when  the
doctor offered him his hand, that he hardly knew how to
take it, he felt so  angry with him for abusing the' king.
" Pooh! pooh!"  said Peter,  " I bear no  ill-will to his 
44
PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
majesty—God bless him! I believe him to be a very good
man, but I must write upon characters that the world are
interested in reading about.   I  would abuse you, but I
should get nothing by it."
  Walcot always  declared that the  booksellers had been
cheating him publicly for years, and that at last he got
the best side of them by stratagem.  He had offered to
sell the copyright of all his works for a life-annuity. The
negotiation took place in the month of November, and the
doctor always appointed the evening for the time of meet-
ing the  booksellers.  He had  an  habitual cough, and
walking out  in the evening fog increased it.  When he
arrived  at his place  of destination he could never speak
until  he had taken a full glass of brandy, and  then re-
marked, " that it made little  difference what the annuity
was, as it would soon be all over with him."  They were
of the same opinion.  The  bargain was made, "and,"
continued Peter,  " after I mixed water with my brandy,
the spring came on, and I lost my cough."  This always
pleased him to  the end  of his very lengthened  life; and
after  he had signed the very last receipt, he observed, "he
was sure they had wished him at the devil long ago, and
he should have done the same had he been in their place."
   It  has been  said  that he  was actually  pensioned by
government to purchase his silence; but it does not appear
that any sum was ever paid to him.  As to the imputed pen-
tion,  he himself says, "the fact is this;—application was
made to me  by the friends of the government, that if I
would employ my pen in their  favour, they would remu-
nerate  me with a pension.   My reply was in  a jocular
strain ' that as  for varnishing knaves, I never could con-
sent  to it; I had no whitewash for devils; but if they
would give me £300 or  £400 per  annum to be mute, I
might accede.  This I said without the most distant idea
of the proposal  being accepted; however, they did accept
i t; a half-year  elapsed when  it  was intimated to me that
something was expected from  me in favour of the ad- 
MEDICAL POETS.                  45
ministration.  My reply was, that they had infamously
violated their agreement; and that sooner than write for a
set of men I despised, it should be void from that moment;
and I pronounced it  void:' adding, with some acrimony,
' that rascality might think itself happy in passing with.
out notice.'"
   Dr. Walcot neither possessed ability, nor attained  to
eminence as a physician: it was his  own observation,
" that he disliked the practice of it as an art, and confessed
himself entirely ignorant  whether the patient was cured
by the vis medicatrix natural, or the administration of a
pill."  He considered the joints as blocks, the nerves  as
ropes, and the whole system as a ship full rigged: in fine
weather all was lax, loose, and agreeable ; in wet, every
thing being tight and uncomfortable, disease was  super.
induced.
   One day, when dining with a celebrated bookseller, the
host left  the room, when some  one proposed his health;
" No," said Dr. Walcot, rising, and  at  the same time
brandishing a bottle of red port in  his hand ; " No; let  us
drink a bumper to our own: for this is author's Wood!"
   The following is, wc  suppose, a similar version of the
same story.  Having called upon a bookseller in Pater-
noster Row, to inquire after his own works, he was asked
to take a glass of  wine.   Dr. Walcot consented to accept
of a little negus, as an innocent morning beverage; when
instantly was presented to him a cocoa-nut goblet, with
the face of a man carved  on  it.  " Eh!  eh!" says the
doctor, " what have  we here ?"   " A man's skull," re-
plied  the  bookseller;   " a poet's, for  what  I know."
" Nothing  more  likely," rejoined the  facetious doctor,
"for it is universally known that all booksellers  drink
their wine from our skulls !"
  The celebrated vocalist, Mrs. Billington, was one of iiis
most intimate friends.   He was  invited one day to take
tea with  her.  Peter  was  punctual; the tea was served ;
and to the astonishment  of the  doctor, the sugar was
5 
46
PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
brought on  table in a brown paper bag.  "What the
devil is all this, Mother Billington ?"  " Every thing is at
the pawnbroker's," was the reply,  " and the silver sugar-
dish is sent to get the tea!"
  The last eight years of his life he passed in very com-
fortable circumstances in Montgomery's Gardens, Somers
Town, and never went out more  than twice during that
time.  Finding his eyes entirely fail him, at the age of
eighty-two  he  submitted to  the  operation  of couching,
which was performed by Sir William Adams, vainly hop-
ing that  medical skill  could repair  or restore worn-out
nature.  He began to think he was wrong when he had
suffered the veil to be drawn from one eye.  " A  rush-
light," he said, "was better than no candle."
  When the famous Polish  general, Kosciusco, arrived
in London from his confinement in Russia, weak, and full
of wounds, he sent a polite note to the doctor, apologizing
for his inability  to wait upon  him, and requesting the
favour of his company in Leicester Square.  The doctor,
in consequence, paid him a visit.  After the ceremony of
meeting, the general began thus :—" You will excuse the
liberty I  have taken in  desiring your acquaintance and
friendship,  as  it  was from  your works  only I derived
pleasure  amidst  the  gloom  of  imprisonment.  Indeed,
your muse enlivened my solitude, and induced a wish  to
sec the poet that had softened my exile, and made me  at
times forget my misfortunes."
   Dr. Walcot  died on the 14th of February, 1819.
   Sir Richard Blackmore was  physician to King Wil-
liam  III. and Queen Anne.  He is  represented to have
been originally  a  schoolmaster.    This   circumstance,
although not dishonourable to him, was often urged as a
kind of reproach.  In a satirical poem, published after
Blackmore had graduated in  physic at Padua, allusion is
made to his former occupation :—
  " By nature form'd, by want a pedant made,
   Blackmore at first set up the whipping trade; 
MEDICAL POETS.
47
  Next quack commenced; then fierce with pride he swore,
  That toothache, gout, and corns, should be no more.
  In vain his drugs, as well as birch he tried;
  His boys grew  blockheads, and his patients died."
  Sir Richard Blackmore was the author of a variety of
pieces, both in prose and  verse: although,  perhaps, the
generality of his  productions are but little read, yet they
seem to have had many admirers in his own time ; for the
third edition of his Prince  Arthur, an heroic poem in ten
books,  was published in folio, in 1696.  The following
year he  also  published a  poem of  the  same  name, in
twelve books.  Blackmore appears to have been naturally
of a very serious turn, and,  therefore, took great offence at
the licentious and immoral  tendency of many of the pro-
ductions  of his contemporary authors.   To pass a censure
upon these was the design of his poem, entitled "A Satire
upon Wit," which was first published in the year 1700.
But this piece was attacked and ridiculed  by many dif-
ferent  writers,  and there seemed to  be  a  kind of con.
federacy  of the wits against him.
  Blackmore lived in Cheapside, and he was termed by
his enemies the Cheapside  Knight, the City Bard.   Dry-
den took  every opportunity of ridiculing the physician.
He  said  he  wrote to the  rumbling  of his  own  chariot
wheels.  Pope also  levelled his  wit against Blackmore:
the following lines are in \he " Dunciad :"

   " But far o'er all, sonorous Blackmore's strain,
    Walls, steeples, skies, bray back to him again.
    In Tot'nham Fields, the brethren, with amaze,
    Prick all their ears up, and  forget to  graze,
    'Long Chanc'ry Lane retentive rolls the sound,
    And courts to courts return  it round and round ;
    Thames wafts it thence to Rufus1 roaring hall,
    And Hungerford re-echoes bawl for bawl;
    All hail him  victor in both gifts of song,
    Who sings so loudly, and who sings so long !" 
48
PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
  Notwithstanding these attempts to injure him, Black-
more flourished as a physician, had a respectable share of
practice, and was highly esteemed by some of the most
learned men of his age.
  Mr.  Addison pronounces Blackmore's  poem on  the
Creation, as " one of the most useful and noble produc-
tions in our English  verse.  The reader cannot but be
pleased to find the  depths of philosophy, enlivened with
all the  charms of poetry, and  to see so great strength of
reason, amidst so beautiful a redundancy of the imagina-
tion."
  In a letter to his friend Mr. William  Molyneux, Locke
says, " Sir Richard Blackmore is an extraordinary person.
In  his  poems  there are some  exquisite touches.   The
most profound speculation of Mr/. Newton's philosophy
is thus  curiously touched upon in King Arthur, book ix.
p. 243  :—

    "' The constellations shine at his command,
       He formed their radiant orbs, and with his hand
       He weighed and put them off'with such a force,
       As might preserve an everlasting course.' "

  " I doubt not," continues Locke, " but Sir Richard, in
these   lines, had a  regard  to the proportionment of the
projective  motion  of the vis fentripetu that keeps the
planets in their continued courses."  Sir Richard .Black-
more was the author of more original poems, of a  con-
siderable length, besides a variety of other works, than
can well be conceived could have been composed by one
man, during the longest period of human life.   He was a
chaste writer; he struggled in  the cause of virtue, even
in  those times when vice had  the  countenance of the
great, and when an almost universal degeneracy prevailed.
He was not afraid to appear the advocate of virtue, in
opposition  to  the highest  authority;  and  no lustre of
abilities in his opponents could  deter him from stripping 
MEDICAL POETS.                 49
    vice of those gaudy colours, with which poets of the first
    eminence had clothed her.  Sir Richard had very exalted
    notions of morality.  Upon being asked  what he  con-
    sidered was  necessary  to insure to a medical man suc-
    cess, he answered " that he  must,  first, have a thorough
    knowledge of the profession; and, secondly,  be a good
    Christian."   It used to be a  favourite observation of his,
    " that no immoral man really succeeded  in  any depart-
tt,  ment or business of life : he may appear to be doing well,
    but it is not the case."
      Sir Richard died on  the  8th  of October, 1729, at an
    advanced age; manifesting in his last illness the  same
    fervent piety which had distinguished him through life.
      Among the medical poets we must not forget to men-
    tion  the  celebrated Albert Haller, whose  " Poem on
    the Alps," has placed his name high among the votaries
    of the  German muse.   Haller was  considered the first
    who gave sublimity, richness, and harmony to the poetical
    language of Germany ; and  twenty-two editions of his
    poems  in the  original,  with the translations into  other
    languages, sufficiently  attest the general  applause  with
    which they were received.
      Young. Haller in very early infancy manifested  a re-
    markable genius  and activity of mind.  Born of a family
    which had always  been distinguished for piety, he was
    accustomed, when only fojir years old, to make short ex-
    hortations to the" domestics on texts of Scripture, at the
    usual family prayers.  When nine years old he had com-
    posed, for his own  use, a Chaldaic grammar, a Hebrew
    and Greak lexicon, and also an historical  dictionary, con-
    taining more than  two thousand articles extracted from
    those of Morcri and Bayle.
      At an early age Haller was placed under the tuition of
    a preceptor, whose behaviour to  his  pupil was stern and
    severe.   This rigorous  and pedantic education might
    have nipped  Haller's genius in the bud,  and would have
    given another child a disgust to study, but it only in-
                               5* 
 50              PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.

 spired Haller with a desire of avenging himself.   At the
 age of ten he wrote a  satire against his preceptor, who
 had been selected for  his office on account of his suffer-
 ings in  the  cause  of religion.  He remained with this
 tutor until he was thirteen years of age, when his father
 died.  The family was  left in narrow circumstances, the
 tutor was  dismissed, and  young  Haller  was sent to a
 boarding-school.  One of his comrades,  whose father was
 a physician at Bienne, invited Haller to accompany him   «
 home  for the holidays. Here he was  surrounded with
 books of anatomy, and acquired from them that physiolo-
 gical taste, which gave  the master-direction to his future
 pursuits.   It was not,  however,  without some  struggle
 that the love of verse yielded that  ascendency; and on
 one occasion, upon  an alarm of fire  being given, the
 young stranger was seen hurrying out of the house with
 a load of manuscript poetry, as the  most precious thing
 he had to save. The pieces in this collection were mostly
 of the same  description as  the satire on his preceptor;
 and it is recorded to his honour that about a year after-
 wards, when his judgment  became more matured, he felt
 so sensibly how unamiablc it was in  a boy to exercise his
 ingenuity in exposing the faults and follies of men, that
 he voluntarily committed to the flames the whole of that
 collection which he had shortly before been so anxious to
 preserve from the fiery element.
  On entering on  the  study  of  medicine,  Haller  re-
 nounced wine for ever, that he might be certain to avoid
 the abuse of it; and  in order to  guard more infallibly
 against seduction, he thought himself obliged  to observe
 a rigorous severity in his manners.  He began his studies
at Leyden,  where he found  an anatomical theatre, well
supplied with subjects, cabinets of natural history, a very
extensive library, and every thing that  could encourage
and invite to study.
  There he found himself in company with the illustrious
 Boerhaave, Albinus, and Ruysch, and took his degree, the 
MEDICAL POETS.
51
 thesis  for which was on  the salivary duct, in which he
 displayed the knowledge he had acquired in anatomy,
 and proclaimed himself an observer capable of enriching
 that science with many important inventions.
   In 1727 he visited England, and was introduced to
 Sir Hans Sloane, who was at that time forming his col-
 lection of natural curiosities; and  had the pleasure of
 becoming acquainted with  Plumtree,  Cheselden, and
 Douglas, men distinguished throughout Europe for their
 professional and scientific  abilities.  From England he
 went to France, where he was  in danger of prosecution
 for obtaining dead bodies.  He then went to Basle, and
 commenced the  study of  botany, stimulated by the ex-
 ample of the celebrated Bauhine and Stahalin.  It was at
 this place that he laid the plan of his celebrated  work,
 " Enumeratio Methodica Stirpium Helvetia: Indigenarum^
   In 1730 he returned to  his own country.  He now be-
 came a poet  a second time.  His poems contained de-
 scriptions of nature, not such as the poets have  so fre-
 quently and  uniformly painted—such as were  formerly
 described by  Homer, and imitated  by his  successors—
 but nature in the dress in which  he had himself observed
 her, when  climbing  up the  rocks, and  traversing the
 eternal  ice of the Alps, he had  endeavoured to  discover
 her secret operations; poems in whicii he investigated
 the depths of the most abstract and  difficult questions in
 mathematics and morals ;  epistles in which he paints the
 sweets of friendship and pastoral  life; the pleasure attend-
 ing on simplicity of manners; the soft and tranquil charms
 of virtue, and the nappincss  ensuing  from the  sacrifices
 which the more strong and  austere virtues demand of us.
 Such are the poems of Haller. The literary world heard
 with surprise, that the author of these  delightful and
 amiable poems was a physician, who passed his  life in
 the midst of  dissections,   employed searching  out the
 most secret sources of organization and  life.   But the
charms  of poetry were not sufficiently alluring to detach 
52              PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
Haller from the more severe and useful studies.  He only
cultivated the muses in his  solitary walks, in those hours
of the night when sleep forsook him, and during those re-
treats from study which his  state of health sometimes
forced him to make. At such seasons, his active disposi-
tion impelled him to subject those  grand, pleasing, and
affecting ideas, which  arose  in his mind, to the laws of
metre, and the trammels of rhyme. His immense labours
in anatomy, the  attentive  observations which different
diseases require, the necessary and subsequent reflections,
together  with  consultation on a  great variety of cases,
employed a large share of his time.
  In  1736 he made botanical excursions, ascended the
mountains of Jura and the Alps, and descended to the
marshes of Switzerland.  The studies of mineralogy and
zoology were equally subject to his comprehension.  The
republic of Berne established for him an amphitheatre,
where he taught anatomy.
  Soon afterwards  he was  invited by George II. to pro-
mote  the university of Gottingen;  and there was esta-
blished for him an anatomical, botanical, and surgical
professorship.   This  he  accepted,  accompanied by, a
young wife, whose  personal qualities had captivated his
heart who had borne him children, and who,  by the
sweetness of manners  with which she had adopted his
taste and pursuits, formed the happiness of his life.  But
this undertaking proved fatal to his dear Mariamne,  who
died in  consequence of an accident which befell her on
the journey.
  The regency of Hanover gave him every proof of their
esteem for his talents; and it was then that he established
that fameof Gottingen, so justly to this day celebrated all
over the world.  He was so truly original in physiology,
that he might be fairly said to have been the parent of it.
To this end he investigated the study on  exact anatomy
of man and other animals.  Nor was it until thirty years
of hard  labour, that Haller thought himself justified in 
MEDICAL POETS.                 53
 publishing his discoveries, which produced  an era  in
 anatomy and physiology.
   A review of new publications was undertaken by him,
 in the whole circle of medical science, in natural history,
 physics, chemistry, metallurgy, and ceconomics.  He un-
 dertook the review of the different articles, besides his-
 tories, voyages, and descriptions of climates and  soils.
 By the influence he had  with  the  princes of the empire,
 he formed the undertaking of Mylius to travel  through
 America.
   Haller  furnished the supplement of the  Encyclopaedia
 with  articles  on the subject of anatomy,  medicine, and
 physiology. He was offered by George II. the chancellor-
 ship of the university of Gottingen, which  he refused, as
 the sovereign council of Berne were desirous of retaining
 him,  and settled  a  pension  on him.  Afterwards  Lord
 Marshal  Keith, in the  name  of  the  King of Prussia,
 offered him the chancellorship of the university of Halle,
 vacant by the death of the celebrated Wolf.  The  King
 of Sweden sent him the order of the Polar Star :—in fact
 all the sovereigns and  learned societies vied with each
 other in evincing their regard for the great physiologist.
   Haller's health had been declining for  some time; and
 when  he  perceived the  approach of death, he  confided
 firmly in that  God whom  he  had  faithfully served, and
 prepared himself to render to him an  account of  a life
 which had been spent in the study of nature, and in doing
 good to his fellow-creatures.
  Haller desired his  friend and physician, M. Rosselet,
 not to conceal from  him  his  true  situation;  and this
gentleman ventured to tell him, that the autumn of  1777
 would probably be the  period  of his existence.  Haller
exhibited no signs  of fear at the information, continued
his usual modes of life, and in his last moments employed
himself in marking the decay of his organs.  He felt his
pulse  from time to time:  " My friend," said he to  M.
Rosselet, with  great tranquillity,  " the artery no longer 
54
PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
beats," placing his finger on the pulse; and  immediately
expired.  This melancholy event took place  at the age of
69, on the 12th of December, 1777.
  Few learned men have been born with so  active a dis-
position, and  few have lost so little time as Haller.   His
life was spent in his library, surrounded by his pupils, by
his friends, by his  fellow-citizens, his children, and  his
wife, whom he had inspired with a taste for  the sciences,
and who all were employed, under his inspection, either
in making  extracts from books, or obtaining plants and
animals.   Such was his activity, that once when  he had
broken his right arm, the surgeon, when visiting him  the
next morning, was surprised  to  find him writing, with
sufficient facility, with his left hand.  In fact, the whole
of his life was, in the strictest sense, one continued sacri-
fice of his pleasure and health to his love of science.
  Haller's  library  consisted of 13,512 volumes, on ana-
tomy, surgery, practice of  physic, botany,  and  natural
history; and  about 150  manuscripts, mostly  written in
his own hand.  These were offered to a London book-
seller, a number of whom agreed to unite in treating for
them ;  but before they had  taken any farther measures,
the whole were purchased by the Emperor of Germany. 
MEDICAL POETS.                  55
                    CHAPTER V.

   ILLUSTRATIONS AND SKETCHES OF MEDICAL QUACKERY.

An apt illustration—Madame de Sevigne's definition of quack-
  ery—The love of tho mysterious—A decoction of flint stones
  —Attested cures—Opinion of Sterne—Mr. Pott—Faith in the
  physician.—The vulnary powder—Anecdotes of the famous
  mountebank Dr. Bossy—Ignorance and impudence of  bone-
  setters—Mrs.  Mapp—Homoeopathy—The Parisian quack—
  Mantaccini—Count Cagliostro—The college prosecution  of
t Brodum—Suggestions for the prevention of quackery.

  " If physic be a trade," it is observed (the speculation
is put hypothetically),  " it is  the trade of all others, the
most exactly cut out for a rogue."  There is  the absence
of all  restraint; and the  only security for the doctor's
ability and fair dealing,  is often  what is wafted to the
public  in the gossip-tale of some retainer in his interest.
  A transaction which  a person had with  his  watch-
maker affords  an apt  illustration of the principles  of
charlatanism.  His watch having stopped, he took it to a
mechanic, in order to ascertain the nature of the defect,
and  to have  it rectified.  The watchmaker armed his
eyes with a  microscope,  and,  after exhausting his  cus-
tomer's patience, for a considerable  time being, as he
thought, very sapiently occupied in examining the  ma-
chinery to  discover the disorder, observed that he could
do no  good to the watch without  taking it all to pieces.
It was carried  to another, who, a good deal  to the  sur- 
56              PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.

prise of the owner, discovered, and honestly told him, that
he had only forgotten to wind it up!
  It is almost miraculous what a little learning can effect
in setting off the attractions of that art (quackery), which
Madame  de Sevigne so comprehensively defines in one
sentence, as an affair of "pompeux galamatias, speaeux
babil, des  mots pour des raisons, et  des promesses pour
des efrcts
  The late Dr. Parr, of Exeter, defined the word, quack,
to be applicable  to every practitioner, who, by pompous
pretences, mean insinuations, and indirect  promises, en-
deavours to obtain that confidence, to which neither edu-
cation, merit, nor experience entitle him.
   There has always existed, in the  human mind, an in-
nate love of the mysterious; and mankind have, ever since
the creation of the world, delighted in deception, thinking
with  the poet, that,

    " Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise."

   A  visit to a quack produces a pleasurable  excitement.
 There is something piquant in the disdain for prudence
 with which we deliver ourselves  up to that  illegitimate
 sportsman of human lives, who kills us without a qualifi-
 cation.  There is a delicious titillation in a large demand
 upon our credulity; we like to expect miracles in our
 own  proper person, and we go to the illiterate  practitioner
 of medicine, for the same reasons which induced our poor
 ancestors to go to wizards.
   How true it is that—

     " First man creates, and then he fears the elf;
      Thus others cheat him not, but he himself;
       He loathes the substance, and he loves the show;
       You'll ne'er convince a fool, himself is so;
       He hates realities, and hugs the cheat,
       And still the only pleasure's the deceit." 
MEDICAL POETS.
57
   Walpole says that acute and sensible people are often
 the  most easily deceived by quacks.  A deceit, of which
 it may be said—" It is impossible for any one to dare it,"
 always succeeds.
   If the imposture required ingenuity to detect it, there
 might be some hope  for mankind; but it actually lies
 concealed in its very obviousness.  At the same  time  it
 must be owned, that, in some cases, no little degree  of
 firmness is required to resist  the importunity with which
 a  nostrum is recommended.  " I  seriously  declare," says
 Sir A. B. Faulkner,* " that I was myself pressed with no
 little earnestness, by a person not otherwise above par in
 credulity, trying to persuade  me of the  infallible  powers
 —of what ?—Ye shades of Hippocrates and yEsculapius
 —what?—actually and  seriously,  a decoction of flint
 stones !!!  The prescription was grave and methodical.
 The flints were  to be boiled, and the supernatant liquor
 poured off for use.   The lady who advised this precious
 physic, would do so on  the  best authority; and not of
 one, but  of many persons  of her acquaintance,  upon
 whose  word she could place the most implicit reliance."
   The charm is in the mystery, in all these cases.  " Mi.
 nus  credunt qua: ad suam salutem pertinent, si  intelli.
gunt," says Pliny.  Credulity is indigenous  in no particu-
lar climate. " In Chili," says Zimmerman, "the physicians
 blow around the  beds of their patients, to drive away dis-
eases ;  and,  as  the  people  in that  country believe that
 physic consists wholly in their wind, their  doctors would
take it very ill of any person who should attempt to make
the method  of cure more  difficult."  They think  they
 know enough when they know how to blow; which, trans-
 lated into common language, means " raising the  wind."
   Lord Bacon  says,  "  That  the  impostor frequently
triumphs at the  bed-side of the sick, when true merit is
* Visit to Paris.
       6 
58              PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
affronted and dishonoured; the people have always con-
sidered a quack, or  an old woman, as the  rivals of true
physicians.  Hence it is  that every physician, who has
not greatness of soul enough not to forget himself, feels
no difficulty in saying with Solomon,  ' If it is with me as
with the madman, why should I wish to appear wiser than
fee is?'"

         " The world is generally averse
           To all the truths it sees and hears;
           But swallows nonsense and a lie,
           With greediness and gluttony."
                                         Butler.

   The distinguished  features  of empiricism  are  large
promises, stout lies, and affected sanctity.
   Addison tells us of a  Parisian quack, who had  a  boy
walking before him, publishing, with a shrill voice, " My
father cures all sorts of distempers."  To which  the
quack doctor added,  in  a grave  manner,  " The child
speaks truly."
   The pretended  piety of quacks is very effective.  All
their bills and books attest a variety of cures, done  partly
by their medicine, and  partly by the blessing of God.
This is very emphatical and effective, when cant is mis-
taken for true  religion.   A story is  told  of  a  man who,
although he was never ill  in his life, was cured of every
disease incident to human nature, and swore  to it also.
 In fact, his life was  a  life of continued swearing  and
 disease.
   The  late Lord  Gardestone, himself a valetudinarian,
 took the  pains to inquire for  those persons who  had
 actually attested marvellous cures, and found  more than
 two-thirds of the number died very shortly after they had
 been cured.
   Horace Walpole gives us several amusing instances of
 distinguished victims to quackery.  " Sir Robert,"  says 
MEDICAL POETS.                 59
he, " was killed by a lithontriptic medicine; Lord Boling-
broke by a man who pretended to cure him of a cancer
in the face ;  and Winnington died soon after by the igno-
rance of a quack, who physicked and  bled him  td*death
in a few days, for a slight rheumatism."
  The sentimental Yorick, in speaking of murder, makes
the following  observations:—" There is  another species
of this  crime, which is seldom taken notice of, and yet
can be reduced to no other class—and that is, where the
life of our neighbour is shortened, and often taken away,
as directly as by a weapon, by the empirical sale of nos-
trums  and quack medicines—which ignorance and ava-
rice  blend.  The loud  tongue of  ignorance  impudently
promises much,—and the ear of the sick is open.  And,
as many of these pretenders deal in edge-tools, too many,
I fear, perish with the misapplication of them.   So great
are the difficulties of tracing out the hidden causes of the
evils to which this  frame  of ours  is subject,—that the
most candid of the profession have ever  allowed and la-
mented how unavoidable they are in  the dark.  So that
the best medicines,  administered with the wisest heads,
shall often do the mischief they are intended to prevent.
These  are misfortunes to whicii  we are subject in this
state of darkness;—but, when men without skill,—with-
out education,—without knowledge,  cither of  the dis-
temper, or even of what they sell—make merchandise of
the miserable—and, from a dishonest principle, trifle with
the pains of the unfortunate, too often with their lives—
and from the  mere  motive of a dishonest gain,—every
such instance  of a person  bereft  of life  by the  hand of
ignorance, can be considered in no other light than  a
brancli of the same root.  It is murder in the true sense ;
—which,  though  not cognizable  by  the laws,—by the
laws of right, to every man's own  mind  and conscience,
must appear equally  black and detestable."
  "Within a very short period," says a retailer of medical
gossip,  " flourished, in the Isle of Wight,  a man who was 
60
PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
formerly mate of a ship.  This fellow began his career at
Lymington; and, happily for the inhabitants  of Cowes,
continued it there : I say, happily, for the credulous came
to him in droves, and  all the lodgings in the town were
occupied.   He was a blessing to the owners of boats and
packets, and  the  public houses there.  This  wonderful
man pretended to cure the sick, the lame, the halt, and
the blind.   The  applications   were  so many,  that he
formed  a committee;  by whom the patients were  to be
introduced twelve per diem.  It must be confessed that
his mode of healing the lame and the palsied  was inge-
nious.   He broke their  crutches and  hung  them up in
his hall of audience, as trophies  of his skill!  Some of the
patients were cured by being frightened.  At length  the
bubble burst; people were obliged to buy new  crutches :
others  dying, had no necessity for such purchase; and
the rest had their excursion for nothing."
  People  apply  to quacks, for two reasons;  firstly, be-
cause health  is  offered to them  at  a cheap  rate; and
secondly, like drowning men, when honest practitioners
give no hope, they catch at every twig.   Thus, the love
of life on the one hand, and the  love of gain on the other,
create a tolerable  good correspondence between the quack
and the public.
  " The desire of health and ease," says the  illustrious
Mr.  Pott, " like that  of money, seems to put all under-
standings on a level.   The avaricious are duped by every
bubble,  the lame  and  unhealthy by every quack.  Each
party resigns his  understanding, swallows greedily, and,
for  a time, believes implicitly,  the most groundless, ill-
founded, and delusory promises; and nothing but loss or
disappointment ever produces conviction."
  That quacks  sometimes succeed,  when  the regular
medical men  fail, we have no  hesitation in  admitting.
An honest practitioner will not hold out to a patient, sink-
ing under the influence of a mortal malady, delusive hopes
of recovery; but the unprincipled charlatan says, " I  can 
MEDICAL POETS.
61
cure you—you shall be cured—your disease is not mortal,
put faith in me, and I will put your ailments to flight."
   Unless the patient has faith in  his physician, but little
good can be effected.  This is often the secret of success.
An indigestion, which has defied  a Dr. Paris, or a Dr. W.
Philip,  has  vanished before  a  homoeopathic  dose,  ad-
ministered by a Quin whose  maxim, of taking as little
physic as  possible, is so agreeable to  the generality of
tastes.  It is recorded, that a patient who had  been pro-
nounced incurable by the  faculty, as a dernier resort, sur-
rendered  himself  into the hands of  a quack,  whose
promises were large and gratifying.   The  invalid was
told that he must not, however, expect any change to take
place in his malady, until the expiration of six  months.   A
friend who saw the daily fee, and daily deceit, kindly ex-
postulated  with the sick man.  "For  God's sake!" he
exclaimed, " destroy not the hopes which that man holds
out to me ; upon them I live, without them I die."  Thus,

     " From stratagem to stratagem we run,
       And he knows most, who latest is undone."

   It is a singular thing in history, that neither thought
nor study, nor apprenticeship, nor preparation of any sort,
is  necessary to accomplish the perfect quack.  He springs
out at  once from  obscurity and  ignorance; completely
consummate.  Like Pallas,>\jflien she jumped all  armed
from the brains of Jove, so is the  quack. He is cased all
over in native brass, from  top to toe—armed in scale, like
the serpent, and like  him, he  is not wanting  in  fangs.
Other pursuits require patience,  time,  reading, and long
practice, before  the profession is allowed  to act.  The
lawyer studies five years,  the surgeon, the physician,  the
apothecary, the painter, and the  sculptor, as many:  the
shoemaker, the carpenter, the  joiner, each has his long
period  of  probation.  But the  quack has none I  He is
utterly ignorant of simples.  The natures of the com-
                          6* 
62              PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.

monest herbs are unknown to him.  He is ignorant of the
alphabet of medicine.   Yet he thrives.  He runs laughing
through (and at) the world.

            " Ridet, iEternumque ridebit"

  A celebrated quack  was once  visited  by an  old ac-
quaintance,  from  the country.  (They had been parish
boys together, had tossed  dumps into a hole together, and
had cheated each other at marbles.)  " Pm glad to see
thee'st got on so vinely  Zam," said the rustic;  " but how
isH, man ?   Thee know'st thee never had no more brains
nor a pumpkin"   He  was proceeding in this agreeable
manner when  the quack took him to the  window, and
bade him count the passers  by.  After  the lapse of a
minute or  two, he inquired how  many had passed: the
tiller of land answered,  "notnfy—or  mayhap, a hundred."
" And how many wise men do you suppose were amongst
this hundred ?" said the other. " Mayhap, one," was the
reply.  " Well," returned the quack,  " all the rest are
mine.,'>
  The story is, perhaps, somewhat musty, but it is a good
story nevertheless, and  comprehends a moral.   When we
disclaim against the iniquity  of quacks,  we should at the
same time laugh to death the folly of those who seek them.
They  are  the  cause of quackery.  They are as  much
answerable for the spreading of the vice, as  the mother is,
who feeds her favourite fool with  stolen sweets, and wails
over his  misdeeds at the gallows.  If the gaping block-
head, and vapouring coxcomb, did not loiter and swagger
about the  streets  of London, with pockets crying to be
picked, the picker would turn his hand to an useful trade.
He would never require either the pump or the  tread-mill.
The followers of quacks are the cause of quackery.  They
are the cause of all the atrocious  homicides that have
ever been committed.   One simpleton bears testimony to
Mr. Quackall's virtues; another to his manners ; a third 
MEDICAL POETS.                  63
attests his wonderful cures.  Nothing was ever so sudden,
so certain, or  so  marvellous!   His ' vonderful vonders,'
as Mathews justly called them, are the theme of the tea-
table, and the gossip of the nursery.
  The witnesses are not to be withstood.  One blows his
penny-trumpet, another winds his horn, a third cackles,
a fourth brays, and the end is—what ?  Why, that another
victim is added to the list, and the fame of the brute-deity
extended!  The proselytes of an idiot of this sort are its
basest flatterers;  but  it must  be owned, they  are  also
efficient friends.   They  stick at  nothing for  his sake.
Having themselves taken his merits upon trust, they in-
sist upon propagating them after the same  fashion.  They
assure  their friends  that " The  universal antimorbous
drops," have cured twenty thousand people  in one year,
all of them given  over by regular physicians.   They are
sceptics  of the faculty;  but idolaters of any  empiric.
They would faint  with shame, were they  forced to walk
from  Temple-Bar to  Tyburn, with fools' caps  on their
heads; yet they swallow the most monstrous absurdities,
without fear or shame.  They arc the  jest of their com-
panions, and the contempt of all the world  besides;  but
for  the sake of some brazen apostle, they submit  and
humble themselves to the  dust.   " Ay, tread on me !  spit
on me ! despise me!" are the  words of the illustrious
Mawworm ; " I likes it!"  and so say they.  " They likes
it."'   Nevertheless, such likings or dislikings, is not the
only things to be heeded.  It is no answer to the mother-
less- child (who asks, " Where is my mother ?") to say " wc
delivered her over  to old Martin Van Butchell!  We con-
sidered  that he, having painted his pony, was fully quali-
fied to doctor her;  but, poor woman !—she  died somehow,
under his infallible method."*
  An empiric says, to a person with a complaint in  the
  * See an  excellent article in  Fraser's Magazine  on
Empiricism. 
64              PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
organ of hearing, "Sir, you must apply blisters; I know
from experience they will remove affections of the ears.''
If a second consults him, the same remedy is proposed ;
the same to the third, a fourth, and—for in fact he pos-
sesses but one remedy for all the varieties  of the disease
of this  organ, though arising  from the  most opposite
causes;  in one, perhaps from some mechanical obstruc-
tion, as  from  hardened wax, and  plugging up of the
meatus; in another, from an  inflammation of the mem-
brane lining the  ears; and in a fourth, from some affec-
tion of the portio mollis, or branch of the auditory nerve,
that is spread over the windings of the cochlea.
  " The great evil of quackery and secret remedies," says
Sir G. Blane, " is the false confidence which  is inspired
to the exclusion of other and better remedies."*
  A person labouring under an affection of the heart or
lungs, is induced by some puffing advertisement to try the
wonderful efficacy of a particular pill.  He does  so, and
finds himself no better : " Persevere," says Mr.  Morison,
" you cannot expect any good to result until the ' Univer-
sal' has had a  fair trial."  The patient  acts upon the
quack's  advice, and  swallows the pills by thirties and fif-
ties at  a time, until he finds himself advancing, as the
Irishman said, backwards; and it is not until the disease
has obtained a firm grasp of his  constitution,  that he dis-
covers he has been trifling with his very existence.? Ap-
plication is then made to the physician and surgeon ;* and
a degree of astonishment is expressed when the patient is
told that his disease is  of a serious, perhaps, fatal cha-
racter.  Who has he to blame  but himself?  He placed
his life in the  hands of  a  man  ignorant of the first ele-
ments of medicine, and  swallows his nostrums, and then
wonders at the result!
  A knowledge  of  medicine is supposed  by those who
patronise quacks, to come by  intuition.   The  boy who
* Medical Logic. 
                    MEDICAL POETS.                  65

carries his master's medicine to the patients, no sooner is
emancipated from the shop, than he commences business
on his own  account, thinking, like the parish clerk, who
announced his intention to go  into orders, that " it is the
duty of every one to rise to the  top in his profession."'
  The vulnary powder, and tincture of the Sulphur of
Venus are said to have performed wonders, one of which
Dr. Colebatch  relates of a Mr. Pool, "who  was  run
through  the body with a  sword, and lost four  quarts of
blood.  The medicine being applied, the bleeding stopped;
on the following day, he was 'gnawing ill-boiled mutton,'
and drank a quart of ale :  and in the course of five days
he returned to duty in the camp.  A Mr. Cherry, also,
sergeant  of grenadiers, at  the  attack  of the  Castle of
Namur, was wounded in twenty-six  places, twenty-three
with  bullets, and  three large cuts on  the head  with a
sword.  He lay forty eight-hours, stripped naked upon the
beach, without a bit of bread,  or a drop of drink,  or any
thing done to his wounds; yet  this man  was cured by the
vulnary powder  and tincture  alone, and never had any
fever."*
  Formerly the  mountebank  doctor was as  constant  a
visiter of  every market-place as the pedler with his pack.
Almost all old customs, however, have ceased in our time,
and these  itinerants are now rarely seen. The travelling
doctor, with his zany, I believe,  is now no where to be seen
in Great Britain; and the mountebank himself is become
  * Mr.  Matthews, the comedian, in his " Humours of
a Country Fair," has hardly exaggerated, in describing a
quack thus, sending acknowledgments  from those  cured
by his specific:  " Sir, I was cut in two in a saw-pit, and
cured by one bottle."  " Sir, by the bursting of a powder
mill, I was blown into ten thousand anatomies.  The first
bottle of your incomparable collected all the parts together
—the second restored life  and animation—before a third
was finished, I was in my usual state of health." 
66
PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
almost an  obsolete character.  Dr. Bossy was  the  last
who exhibited in the metropolis, and his public  services
ceased about fifty years ago.
  Every Thursday his  stage was  erected opposite the
north-west colonnade of Covent Garden. The platform was
about six feet from the ground, was covered, open in front,
and was ascended  by a  broad step-ladder.  On one  side
was a table, with  a medicine chest, and  surgical appa.
ratus, displayed on a table with drawers.  In the centre
of the stage was an arm chair, in which the patient  was
seated: and before the  doctor commenced operations he
advanced, taking off his gold-laced cocked-hat, and, bow-
ing right and left, began addressing the populace which
crowded before  his booth.
  The  following  dialogue between  Dr.  Bossy and  a
patient, we  give verbatim,  as it will afford the reader a
characteristic specimen  of one of the customs of the last
age :  it should  be premised  that the  doctor was a hu-
mourist.
  An aged woman was  helped up the  ladder, and seated
in the chair; she  had been  deaf nearly  blind, and  was
also lame ;  indeed, she might have been said to have been
visited  with Mrs.  Thrale's three warnings, and death
would have walked in at her door, only Dr. Bossy blocked
up the passage.
  The doctor asked questions with  an  audible voice, and
the patient responded—he usually repeating the response,
in his Anglo-German dialect.
  Doctor. Dis poora voman vot is—how old vosh you 1
  Old woman. I be almost eighty, sir; seventy-nine last
lady-day, old style.
  Doctor. Ah, tat is an  incurable disease.
  Patient. O dear, O dear ! say not so—incurable !  why,
you have restored my sight—I can hear again—and I can
walk  without my crutches.
   Doctor (smiling). No, no, good vomans, old  age is vot
is incurable; but, by the blessing of Gote, I vill cure you 
MEDICAL POETS.                 67
 of vot is ilshc.   Dis poora voman vos lame, and deaf, and
 almost blind.  How many hosipetals have you been in ?
   Patient. Three,  sir;  St. Thomas's. St Bartholomew's,
 and St. George's.
   Doctor. Vot, and you found no reliefs ? vot, none—not
 at alls?
   Patient. No, none at all, sir.
   Doctor.  And  how many professioners have attended
 you?
   Patient. Some twenty or thirty, sir.
   Doctor.  O  mine  Gote!  Three  sick hosipetals, and
 dirty [thirty] doctors !  I  should vonder vot you have not
 enough to kill you twenty times. Dis  poora vomans has
 become  mine patient.  Doctor  Bossy gain all  patients
 bronounced ingurables; pote  wid de plessing of  Brovi-
 dence, I shall make short work  of it,  and set you upon
 your legs again.  Goode peoples, dis  poora vomans vos
 teaf as a toor nails (holding up his watch to her ear, and
 striking the repeater).  Can you hear dat pell ?
   Patient. Yes, sir.
   Doctor. O  den  be thankful to Gote.  Can you valk
 round this chair ? (offering his arm.)
   Patient.  Yes, sir.
   Doctor. Sit down, again, good vomans.  Can you see ?
   Patient.  Pretty so so, doctor.
   Doctor. Vot can you see, good vomans ?
   Patient.  I can sec the baker there (pointing to a mut
 ton-pie man, with his  board on his head).
   Doctor. And vot else can you, good vomans ?
   Old woman. The poll-parrot there (pointing to Richard-
 son's Hotel).   "Lying old bitch," screamed Richardson's
 poll-parrot   All  the crowd shouted  with laughter.  Dr.
 Bossy waited until the laugh had subsided, and  looking
across the way, significantly shook his head at the parrot,
and  gravely exclaimed, laying his hand on his bosom,
" 'Tis no lie, you silly pird, 'tis all true  as is de gospel."
  Those who  knew Covent Garden half a century ago, 
68
PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
cannot have forgotten the famed Dr. Bossy.  And there
are those, too, yet living  in Covent Garden parish, who
also recollect Richardson's gray parrot, second  in fame
only to Colonel O'Kelly's bird, which  excelled all others
upon record.
  This Covent  Garden  mock-bird had picked up many
familiar phrases, so liberally doled out at  each other by
the wrangling basketwomen,  which  were often, as  on
this occasion, so aptly coincidental, that  the good folks
who attended the  market believed pretty poll to be en-
dowed with reason.
  The elder Edwin, of comic memory, who resided over
the northeast piazza, used  to relate  many  curious stories
of this parrot.  Among others, that one day, the nail on
which her cage was hung in front of the house having
suddenly  given way, the  cage fell upon the pavement
from a considerable height.  Several  persons ran to the
spot, expecting  to  find their old favourite dead, and their
fears were confirmed, as the bird lay motionless ; when sud-
denly rising, she exclaimed,  " Broke my head, by----!"
Every one believed it to be so, when suddenly she climbed
up with her beak  and claw, and  burst into a loud fit of
laughter.
   Every village, town, and hamlet in  the country has its
bone-setter.   Country surgeons are supposed to be igno-
rant of the art of setting fractures  and reducing disloca-
tions.  Why it  should  be so, it is difficult to say.   A
person meets with an accident, and applies to his surgeon
for advice under the notion  that some  "little  bone" is
broken, or out of its proper situation.  The surgeon, after
examining the nature of the  injury,  declares that it is
only a Simple contusion or sprain, and recommends some
external application to  the part   The patient  does  not
find immediate relief, and being unable to walk, or  use
the injured  part, he  applies  to the "bone-setter," who,
after  well scrutinizing the disabled limb,  declares that a 
MEDICAL POETS.
69
little bone is broken, and expresses his astonishment that
the patient did not apply to him before.
   Wo were once called in to attend a man in the country,
who had been thrown from his horse and had injured his
ankle.  Upon examination it was discovered that no bone
had been displaced or fractured, it was simply a severe
bruise.   There  being considerable inflammation, leeches
were applied,  in conjunction with fomentations.  The
patient in a few days was considerably relieved, but still
unable to put his foot to the  ground.  This inability con-
tinuing a few days longer, the patient and his friends got
alarmed, and the foolish man was persuaded to send for
the " bone-setter."  We called to see the patient one after-
noon, when to our surprise, we found our rival busily en-
gaged in strapping the patient's leg. The patient cried,
" Doctor, there was a bone broken in the ankle which you
did not detect."  " There was no such thing," we replied.
" Yes," said the bone-setter, " there was, and I have now
put  it all right."   We  said, with considerable indigna-
tion, " It is a falsehood; and we defy you to describe the
position, or even to tell  the name of the bone which you
declare to be broken." The bone-setter evidently appeared
confused, but suddenly resuming his non chalance, re-
plied : " Oh, that is a pretty question—that is my busi-
ness—I  am  not compelled to instruct you in the  secrets
of my profession.   If I  tell  you, you will be as wise as
myself."  The patient and his friends appeared perfectly
satisfied with the quack's ready reply.  Whatever may
be the nature of the injury,  the  bone-setter is  sure to de-
clare that a  bone  is dislocated or fractured, and how are
the poor dupes  who apply for such  advice to detect his
ignorance ?
  Bone-setting is  regarded  by the country people  as to-
tally unconnected with surgical  science, and as an affair
on a level  with farriery; as easily acquired, and, like
a heritage,  capable of being transmitted  from fatlicr to
son.
                            7 
70              PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
  All of us remember to  have heard of the celebrated
Mrs.  Mapp, the  bone-setter  of Epsom.   She was the
daughter of a man named Wallis, a quack at Hindon, in
Wiltshire, and sister to the celebrated " Polly Peachum,"
who married the Duke of Bolton.  Upon some family
quarrel, Sally Wallis  left  her professional parent,  and
wandered up and down the country in a miserable condi-
tion, calling herself " Crazy Sally," and pursuing in her
perambulations a course which fairly justified the title.
  Arriving at last at Epsom, she succeeded in humbug.
ging the worthy bumpkins of that place, so decidedly,
that a subscription was set on foot to keep her among
them; but her fame extending to the metropolis, the
dupes of London, a numerous class then as well as now,
thought it no trouble to go ten miles  to see the conjuror,
till  at length, she was pleased to bless the afflicted London
with her presence, and once a week drove to the Grecian
Coffee-House in a coach and six with out-riders !  It was
in one of these journeys, passing through Kent Street in
the  Borough, that being taken for  a certain woman of
quality from the Electorate in Germany, a  great mob fol-
lowed, and bestowed  on her many bitter  reproaches, till
madam, perceiving some  mistake, looked out of the win-
dow, and accosted them in this gentle manner: " D----
your bloods, don't you know me ?   I  am Mrs. Mapp, the
bone-setter.'" upon which  announcement  the crowd rent
the  air with loud huzzas.
  That she was  likely to express herself in these terms,
seems very natural from her origin and history; but that
she should be on visiting-terms with decent people, and
associate with persons of quality, is indeed extraordinary.
Mr. Pott, who wrote with the pen of a master, has no-
ticed this in no very gracious terms: " We all remember,"
says he,  " that even  the absurdities and impracticability
of her own promises and engagements, were by no means
equal to the expectations and credulity of those who ran
after her; that is, of all ranks and degrees  of people, from 
MEDICAL POETS.
71
the lowest labourer or mechanic, up to those of the  most
exalted rank and station; several of whom not only did
not hesitate to believe implicitly the most extravagant as-
sertions of an ignorant, illiberal, drunken, female savage;
but even solicited her company—at least, seemed to enjoy
her society."
   Mrs. Mapp succeeded  those great quacks, Taylor and
Ward, as related by the Grubb Street laureate of the day,
who sung:—

   " In physic as well as in fashion we find,
    The newest has always the run of mankind.
    Forgot is the bustle, 'bout Taylor and Ward ;
    Now Mapp's all the cry, and her fame's on record.
    So what signifies learning or going to school,
    When a woman can do without reason or rule."

   Every age has its  peculiar delusion.  It was Voltaire
who said, alluding to the election for members of parlia-
ment,  " that Englishmen went mad every seven years."
Had he lived in the present day, and witnessed the infa-
tuation exhibited for every startling  medical humbug, he
would  have  felt disposed to think that a certain portion of
the nation had  annual fits of mental derangement.  No
sooner does one species of quackery bud  into existence,
flourish,  and retire  to the tomb of all the Capulets, than
another starts into life and activity, exciting the admira-
tion of all the  old  women and  weak-minded men, ever
ready to  swallow the  most  incredulous and preposterous
stories as if they were delighted in being imposed upon.
   The most striking delusion or monomania of the pre-
sent day, is  that of the homeeopathists—the infinitesimal
doctors who believe in the virtues of the millionth, bil-
lionth,  and  trillionth part  of a grain of magnesia  and
rhubarb,  and predict the most wonderful  cures to result
from the  exhibition of these unapprcciable doses of medi-
cine. 
72
PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
  Doctor Quin, we understand, is amassing considerable
wealth by his homoeopathic practice;  and yet, when ill
himself,  he  places no  faith in his own doctrine, but
sends for his allopathic friend, Mr. Liston.  This is one
of the grossest delusions ever  practised on the credulity
of the public, and which men of honour and principle
ought to  shrink from, as one would do  from the  sting of
an adder.
  The principle upon  which  the system is founded is,
to a certain extent, true, and we quarrel  not  with it;
but we do  with its general application.  How easy  it
is for an unprincipled man, professing  to  practice the
homoeopathic doctrine,  to deceive his patients, and to
cure them on allopathic principles, leading them all the
time to believe that he is doing the reverse. Who can
tell that  the powders which these quacks give, contain
such  minute doses of medicine?  We have  only  their
word for it, and are they to be trusted ?  An allopathic
physician,  when  requested  to prescribe for a patient,
writes a  prescription which any chemist understands and
can  prepare.  He  cannot deceive  us;  but how different
is the conduct of those who  profess to  practice this new-
fangled dogma. It  is founded in imposition.   Its very
essence is deceit, and as such  every  honest man ought to
repudiate it.
  We have said more, however, on  this  subject than we
intended. The bubble will soon burst, and then the public
will wonder how they could  be so easily deceived.

 " The homoeopathic system, sir, just suits me to a tittle,
   It proves of physic, any how, you cannot take too little;
   If it be good in all complaints to take a dose so small,
   It surely must be better still to take  no dose at all."

  This is sound logic  and wc recommend our homoeo-
pathic readers to lose no time in acting upon it.
   Some  time since a soi  disant quack  doctor sold  water 
MEDICAL POETS.                 73
 of the pool of Bethesda, which was to cure all-complaints,
 if taken at the time  when  the  angel visited tl^e parent
 Bpring, on whicii occasion the doctor's bottled water ma-
 nifested, he  said, its  sympathy with the fount, by being
 thrown into a state of perturbation.  Hundreds of fools
 were induced to purchase theIsethesda-water, and watch-
 ed for the commotion  and the consequence, with the re-
 sult to be  expected.   At last one, less  patient than the
 rest, went to the quack, and  complained that though he
 had kept his eye  constantly on  the  water for a  whole
 year, he had never yet discovered any thing like the signs
 of an angel in his bottle.
   "That's  extremely  strange,"  exclaimed the  doctor,
 " what sized bottle did you  buy, sir ?"
   Patient. A half-guinea one, doctor."
   Doctor. Oh, that accounts for it.  The half-guinea bot-
 tles  contain so small a quantity of the invaluable Bethesda-
 water, that the  agitation is  scarcely perceptible;  but if
 you buy a five-guinea bottle, and watch it well,  you will
 in due time,  see the commotion quite plainly, sympathiz-
 ing  with that of the pool when visited by the angel.
   The  patient bought the  five-guinea bottle as advised,
 and  kept a sharp look-out for the  angel  until the day of
 his death.
   One  of the most impudent quacks ever  known, was
 Monsieur  Villars, of  Paris,  who lived  about  1728.
 When a funeral passed, he would  shrug  up his shoulders
 in pity, saying, " If the deceased had taken  his  medicine,
 he would not  be  where he is."  At length  his nostrum
 got into fame, and the quack  amassed wealth.   His pre-
 scription with his  medicine  (which was nothing more
 than the water of the  Seine, and a little  nitre), or rather
 his observation, was  generally  this:—" It  is your own
 fault if you be not perfectly cured; you have  been  in-
temperate,  and incontinent;  renounce these vices, and
with the aid of my medicine,  you will live to a good old
age."  The Abbe Pous extolled this quack, and  gave him
                           7* 
74
PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
the preference  to  Mareschal de  Villars.   " The latter
(said he) kills men; the former prolongs their existence."
  Sir William Read, a quack doctor, died in 1715.  He
was  knighted  by Queen Anne, on  which  occasion the
following lines were wi-ittan on him by Mr. Gevonnett:—

  " The Queen, like Heaven, shines equally on all,
  Her favours now without distinction fall;
  Great Read, and slender Hannes, both knighted, show
  That none their honours shall to merit owe;
  That Popish doctrine is exploded quite,
  Or Ralph had been no duke, and Read no knight;
  That none may virtue or their learning  plead,
  This has no grace, and that can hardly  read."

  A quack, who lived in the time of Louis XL, told the
king, that a lady whom his majesty delighted to honour,
would die in  eight days,  which  having happened, the
king caused the quack to be  brought before him,  and
commanded his servants not to  fail to throw him out of
the window, when  he gave a specified signal.  As soon
as the king saw him, he observed, " You pretend  to un-
derstand  astrology as  well  as medicine, and to know so
exactly the fate of others, tell me, this moment, what will
be yours, and how long you have to live ?" " Sire," an-
swered he, without exhibiting any symptoms of fear, " I
shall  die  just  three days  before  your majesty."  The
ready answer of the quack saved his life.
  The Duke de Rohan being  taken ill in Switzerland,
sent for  one of the most famous physicians, who called
himself Monsieur Thiband. "  Your face, Sir," said the
duke  to  him,  " is  not quite unknown to  me, I  think.
Pray where  have I seen you before ?" " At Paris, per-
haps, my lord duke, when I had the honour to be  farrier
to your grace's stables.  I have now  a great reputation
as a physician.   I treat the Swiss  as I  used to do your
horses, and I find, in general, I succeed as well.  I must 
MEDICAL POETS.
75
request  your grace not to make me known, for if so, I
shall be ruined."
  In the memoirs of Mrs. Thomas, known in the literary
world by the poetical  name of Corinna, is the following
story, which  shows such a degree  of extravagant credu-
lity, as almost to surpass belief, were it not  that we are
assured that Sir Richard Steel was  a sufferer by the same
imposition, and that even the philosophic Boyle allowed
himself to be deceived. The  mother  of Mrs. Thomas
became acquainted with a person  who was  denominated
a conjuror, and capable of raising  the devil.  Mrs. Tho-
mas discerning in this man  a genius  which might be
turned to better purposes than deceiving the country peo-
ple, desired him not to hide his talent, but to push himself
on in the world by the abilities of which he seemed pos-
sessed.  " Madam,"  said  he,  " I  am  now  to fiddle to
asses; but I am finishing a great work, which will make
those asses fiddle  to  me."  She then  asked what that
work might be ? He replied, " his  life was at stake if it
were  known, but he found her a lady of such  uncommon
candour and good sense, that he should make no difficulty
in committing his life and hope to her keeping."
  All women are naturally desirous of being trusted with
secrets.  This was Mrs. Thomas's failing.  The doctor
found it out, and made her pay dear for her curiosity.
" I have been," continued he, " many years in search  of
the philosopher's stone, and long master  of the smarag-
dine  table  of Hermes  Trismegistus; the green and red
dragons of Raymond  Lully have  also  been obedient  to
me, and the illustrious sages themselves deign to visit
me ; yet it is but since I had the honour to be known  to
you, that I have been  so fortunate as to obtain the grand
secret of projection.   I transmuted some lead I pulled off
the window last night, into this bit of gold."
  Pleased  with the sight of this, and  having a natural
propensity to the  study, the  lady snatched  it out of the
philosopher's hand, and asked why he had not more ? 
76
PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
 He replied, "it was  all the lead he could find."  She
 then commanded her daughter to bring a parcel of lead
 which lay in the closet, and giving it to the alchymist,
 desired him to transmute it into gold on the morrow.  He
 undertook  it,  and the next day  brought her  an ingot
 weighing three ounces, which, with the utmost solemnity,
 he avowed was  the same  lead  that she  had given him,
 and now transmuted into gold.
   She began now to engage him in  serious discourse;
 and, finding by  his replies, that he  wanted  money to
 make more powders, she inquired how much would make
 a  stock  that  would maintain  itself?  He  replied, fifty
 pounds after nine months would  produce  a million.  She
 then begged the ingot  of him, which he protested had
 been transmuted from lead, and, flushed with the hope of
 success,  hurried  to town  to know  whether it  was real
 gold,  which proved to  be  pure  beyond the standard.
 The lady,  now fully convinced  of the empiric's declara-
 tion, took fifty pounds out of the  hands of her banker,
 and intrusted him with it.  The only difficulty was, how
 to carry on the work without suspicion, it being strictly
 prohibited  at that time.  It was, therefore, resolved to
 take a little house a few miles  from London, where  the
 alchymist was to erect a laboratory as a professed che-
 mist, and to deal in such medicines as were most vendible,
 and by the  sale of which the expense of the  house was
 to be defrayed  during  the operation.  The widow passed
 as the house-keeper, and  the doctor  and his  assistant
 boarded with her; to which she added  this precaution,
 that the laboratory, with the two lodging-rooms over  it,
 in which  the doctor and  his assistant lay, was a different
 wing of the building from that where she  and her daugh-
 ter and maid servant resided, as  she knew that some time
 must necessarily elapse before  any profit could be  ex-
 pected.  The doctor, in the mean time, acted the part  of
tutor to the widow's daughter, in arithmetic, Latin, and 
MEDICAL POETS.
77
mathematics, to which studies she discovered the strong.
est propensity.
   All things being properly disposed for the grand opera-
tion, the vitriol furnace was set to work, which requiring
the most  intense heat for several  days, set fire  to the
house;  the stairs were consumed in an instant, and as it
surprised them all in their first sleep, it was a providen-
tial circumstance that no life  was lost.  This unlucky
accident was £300 loss  to Mrs. Thomas;  yet still the
grand project was  in a  fair way of succeeding  in the
other wing of the building.  But one  misfortune is often
succeeded by another.  The next Sunday evening, while
she was reading'to her little family, a sudden violent re-
port, like a discharge of  cannon, was heard; the house,
being made of timber, rocked like  a cradle, and  the fa-
mily were all thrown from their chairs  on the  ground.
They looked with amazement on each other, not guessing
the cause, when the alchymist commenced stamping and
tearing his hair, and raving like a  madman, crying out,
" Undone, undone,  lost and  undone for  < ver!"  He  ran
directly to  the laboratory, when unlocking the doors, he
found  the furnace  split, and the precious material scat-
tered like  sand among the ashes.  Mrs. Thomas's  eyes
were now sufficiently opened  to discover the imposture,
and with a serene countenance, told the empiric that ac-
cidents would  happen, but that means  might be fallen
upon to repair  this disappointment.  The doctor observ-
ing her so serene, imagined she would grant him more
money to complete his scheme; but she soon disappointed
his expectations, by ordering  him to be gone.  Whether
deluded by a real  hope of finding out the philosopher's
stone, or from an innate  principle  of villany, cannot be
determined, but he did not yet cease his pursuit, and still
indulged his  golden delusion.  He now found means to
work  upon the credulity of an old miser, who, upon  the
strength of  his pretensions, gave  him  his  daughter in
marriage, and embarked all his treasure in the same chi- 
78
PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
merical adventure.   In  a word, the miser's stock was
lost, and the empiric, himself, and his daughter, reduced
to want  This unhappy affair  broke the miser's heart,
who did not survive many weeks the  loss of his cash;
the  doctor put a miserable end to his own life by drinking
poison, and left his  wife, with two young children, in a
state of beggary.
  Mantaccini, the famous  charlatan  of Paris, was a
young man of good family, and having  in  a few years
squandered a large estate, and reduced himself to beggary,
he felt that he must exercise his ingenuity or starve.  In
this state of mind he cast  his eyes round  the various
devices  which save from indigence, and are most favoured
by  fortune.  He soon perceived  that charlatanism was
that on  which this blind benefactress lavished her favours
with most pleasure, and in the  greatest abundance.  An
adroit and loquacious domestic was  the  only remaining
article of  all his former  grandeur; he ^dressed him up in
a'gold-laced livery, mounted a splendid chariot, and started
on the tour under the name, style, and title of " the cele-
brated Dr. Mantaccini,  who cures  all  diseases with a
single touch, or a simple look."
  Not finding that he obtained as much practice as  his
daring genius anticipated, he determined to resort to still
higher flights.   He left Paris,  and  modestly announced
himself at Lyons as the  " celebrated  Dr. Mantaccini, who
revives the dead at will." To  remove all doubt, he  de-
clared that in fifteen days he  would go to the  common
churchyard, and restore to life its  inhabitants, though
buried tor ten years.  This declaration excited a general
rumour and murmur against the  doctor, who, not in the
lest disconcerted, applied to the  magistrate, and requested
that he  might be put under a guard  to prevent his escape,
until he should perform his undertaking.   The proposition
inspired the greatest confidence, and the  whole city came
to consult the clever empiric, and purchase his bait711 e de
vie. His  consultations  were most numerous, and he  re- 
medical poets.                  79
 ceived large sums of money.   At length the famous day
 approached, and the doctor's valet fearing for his shoul-
 ders, began to manifest signs of uneasiness.   " You know
 nothing of mankind," said the quack to his servant, " be
 quiet"   Scarcely  had he spoken  these words,  when the
 following letter was presented to him from a rich citizen:
 —"Sir, the great  operation which you are  going to per-
 form, has broken my rest.   I have a wife buried for some
 time, who was a fury, and I am unhappy enough already
 without her resurrection.   In the name of heaven do not
 make the experiment  I will give you fifty louis to keep
 your secret to yourself."  In an instant after two dashing
 beaux arrived, who, with the most earnest supplications,
 entreated him not to raise their  old  father, formerly the
 greatest miser in  the city, as, in such an event, they
 would be reduced to the most deplorable indigence. They
 offered him a fee of sixty louis, but the doctor shook his
 head in doubtful compliance.   Scarcely had they retired,
 when a  young widow, on  the eve of matrimony, threw
 herself at the feet of the quack, and, with  sobs and sighs,
 implored his mercy.   In short, from morn till night, the
 doctor received letters, visits,  presents, fees, to an excess,
 which absolutely overwhelmed him.   The minds of the
 citizens were differently and violently agitated,  some by
 fear, and others by curiosity, so that the chief magistrate
 of the city waited upon the doctor, and said, " Sir, I have
 not the least  doubt from my experience of your  rare
 talents, that you will be able to accomplish the resurrec-
 tion in our churchyard the day after to-morrow, according
 to your promise ; but I pray you to observe  that our city
 is in the utmost up-roar and confusion; and to  consider
 the dreadful revolution the success  of your experiment
 must produce in ever family; I entreat you, therefore, not
to attempt it, but to go away, and thus restore tranquillity
to the city.  In justice, however, to your rare and divine
talents, I shall give you an attestation, in due form, under
our seal, that you can revive the dead, and that it was our 
80
physic and physicians.
own fault we  were not eye-witnesses  of your power."
This certificate was duly signed and delivered, and Dr.
Mantaccini  left  Lyons  for  other  cities to work new
miracles.  In a short  time  he returned to Paris, loaded
with gold, where he laughed at the popular credulity.
  Among our notices  of distinguished  quacks, we  must
not omit to mention the celebrated Count Cagliostro and
his lady.   They pretended to a knowledge of a practice,
whereby everlasting youth might be obtained.  The roses
were to flourish  in unabated beauty upon the cheek of
age, without the aid of cosmetics.
  This couple first made their debut at  St. Petersburgh;
the Countess, who was  not  more than  twenty, used to
speak without the least  affection of her eldest son, who
had been for a long time a captain in the Dutch guards.
This phenomenon, of grinding old  people young,  in so
visible and charming a manner, could not fail to astonish
the ladies, who are generally so expert in diminishing,
instead of adding to their years.  They  flocked to consult
her; she advised them to  use the Count's  nostrum.
Treasures followed in : true, the  ladies  did not  grow
young again, but their lovers assured them they did : and
Cagliostro was almost deified.
   So well did this worthy couple play this game, that a
great Russian prince became sensible to  the charms of the
Countess. The empress heard of it: she summoned the
syren to her presence.   The Countess lied so well, and so
audaciously, that it passed for currency, and her absence
was bought by a present of  20,000 roubles!  A Russian
mother, whose child was dying, gave 5000 louis d'ors to
recover it: the Count engaged to do so, if he were allowed
to take it home for eight days;  the child was returned
healthy and  well, but it did  not happen  to be the same;
he had bought one, after having  burnt the original  child
that would die, to make an experiment of regeneration:
all this he confessed.   The money was required back, but
the usual answer, " No money returned," was the result. 
MEDICAL P0ET3.                  81
They then favoured Warsaw with a visit, and adroitly
enlisted on their side the priests and the  poor.  At this
city, and at Paris, these impostors realized large sums of
money.  Morality and decency  forbid us from entering
into a  minute detail of the abominations which they had
recourse to, in order to effect their nefarious purposes.
  Dr. Simon Forman, a celebrated physician and astrolo-
ger, lived in Lambeth.  This  man was implicated in the
murder of Sir Thomas Overbury, but he died in  1611,
before  the trial.   Forman was notorious  long  before  his
connection with Lady Essex, and excited a vast deal of
jealousy on the part of the regular medical practitioners
of London, by giving unlicensed  advice to  the sick, as
well as by casting nativities ; but he was at length able
to procure a degree from Cambridge.  The following lines
refer to him:

 " Dr.  Forman, in art a poor man,
    You calculate nativities;
  And by your almanack out of date, tell a fool his fate
    By celestial privities.

 " Though to your great expense, you did commence
    In the famous University;
  Yet, by such a hap, an ass may wear a velvet cap,
    And there's the true diversity."

  No subject calls more loudly for the interference of the
legislature than that of quackery.  Yet,  the question has
so many  ridiculous sides,  that  the  public, while they
laugh,  allow  imposition  of the  most palpable kind  to
flourish and succeed.  It is indeed characteristic of this
nation, that the grossest public injuries affecting the state,
or the public health, are overlooked, while they afford
materials for joke and merriment.  When we see one  of
H. B.'s inimitable sketches, representing the prime mi-
nister's neck under the  foot of the " member for all Ire-
                         8 
82
rilYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
land," or  the leader of the House of Commons, or the
Chancellor of the  Exchequer  dancing d-la-Rice, a long
score of indignation is paid off; their obnoxious measures
are for the moment forgotten; we are sensible only to
present impressions, and feel  grateful for  the ludicrous
association of face and dress.   In like manner, when in
gazing into a print shop we see the representation of a
patient who has been dosed, usque ad nauseum, with the
" vegetable pills," sprouting out in luxuriant vegetation, as
the effect of the medicine taken, to look, " grave, exceeds
all power of face;" and the misery, wretchedness, pain, and
death, which  we know to have resulted from  the use of
the nostrum, is forgotten, in the itaidst of the ridiculous
ideas which the print excites in our mind.
  Steel has an essay on this subject full of wisdom ; but
his sense of the ludicrous, both in the pretensions of the
quack, and the gullibility of the patient, was too strong to
let him write gravely ;  and he has left us a monument of
his exquisite  humour, where many perhaps will think  it
misplaced. He despaired, however, of curing the evil.
  It has been suggested that  all quacks  should be sub-
jected to  a government prosecution;  but  we doubt the
policy of the recommendation.
  The only instance of the College of Physicians having
condescended to notice the practice  of a proprietor of a
patent medicine, with which we are acquainted, occurred
about thirty years  ago.  Dr.  Brodum was summoned to
attend a meeting of the censors of the college, to explain
his mode  of  practice.   The doctor was punctual to the
appointed  time, and being acquainted  only with  the
Hebrew and  English  languages, the president conde-
scended to address him in the latter.   The doctor replied,
that he did not attend  patients at their own homes, that
he prescribed only his  own medicine,  for which he  had
obtained his Majesty's royal patent, and that, in difficult
cages, he always recommended Sir Lucas Pepys, or some
other able member of the college.  The president observed 
MEDICAL POETS.                  83
that he did  not wish to interfere with his nostrum, but
that they required him to drop the title of Doctor, and put
Mister Brodum instead of Doctor  on his  door, and to de-
sist from taking fees.  The Doctor replied, that all his
fees came in letters from patients residing far beyond the
limits of their jurisdiction: but if they thought he was
encroaching on their privileges by having his letters of
consultation addressed to his house in London, he would
request his patients to  direct to him  at  a place  beyond
their jurisdiction.  As to his styling  himself Doctor, he
ventured to say that he  had a right to do so, having a di-
ploma from the Mareschal College of Aberdeen.  " I sup-
pose," observed a  censor, " a purchased  diploma."  " I
don't know," replied the doctor, " what  you mean by a
purchased diploma; I suppose all physicians, who possess
a diploma, paid for it  I should not have had a  diploma
had I not been considered worthy of it; and, as to my
nervous  cordial, Dr. Warren, and other learned metnbers
of your college, have done  me the honour to take it, and
recommend it!"  To the  question, " How long  did you
reside at Aberdeen ?"  the  Doctor replied, " I have never
been  there."   He obtained his  diploma  on  a certificate
signed by Dr. Saunders, who  was then one of the ruling
members of the College of Physicians!  The quack doctor
refused to remove his brass plate  from his door,  and the
college declined  to carry their threat to remove it, into
execution.  The  Mareschal College,  on  being apprized
of the imposition, came  to the resolution of prosecuting
Dr. Saunders for a fraud; and, had not his friends exerted
themselves, it would have been put in force.
  In  the " Medical Gazette" for  March, 1839, the able
editor has entered very fully into this  important  subject,
and has offered some suggestions whicii it would  be  well
for the public and the profession to take into serious  con-
sideration.
  Having considered the question  in all its ramifications,
the writer considers that,  to diminish  quackery three
things arc especially required :— 
84
PHYSIC and physicians.
  " 1st. The improvement of our art.  This will lessen
the number of those who take nostrums from despair.   It
is  by advancing the art which he practices, that every
one must strive  to show that  his long and expensive edu-
cation has bestowed  upon  him a  privilege, which the
legislature need not guard by penalties—the privilege  of
discernment.
  "2d.  The diffusion of knowledge on medical points,
with particular reference to  the danger of many drugs,
and the absurdity of using  any at random, by drawing
them from the wheel of chance at a patent medicine shop.
This will diminish the number  of those who fall into the
clutches of the charlatan from ignorance and caprice.
  " 3d.  It is necessary to make good advice accessible to
every one.  Clubs or societies for the insurance of health,
must be formed on  easy terms ; and this will  withdraw
thousands who now fall a sacrifice through poverty."
  With the above observations we  fully concur; and if
the "profession  could be persuaded to  take  the proffered
advice, and act up to it with spirit, the infamous hydra-
headed  monster would receive a mortal  blow, and both
the public and  the faculty would be  greatly benefited by
the result. 
HOW TO GET A PRACTICE.
8.1
                   CHAPTER VI.

HOW TO GET A PRACTICE ;  OR, THE ART OF RISING IN PHYSIC.

Must  commence with a new theory—Radcliffe's  advice  to
  Mead—Never appear ignorant—Old women's puzzling ques-
  tions—Effect of fees—Tricks of the trade—The magic of a
  name—Importance of helonging to a religious sect—A talka-
  tive wife sometimes a blessing—Mystery and medicine—At-
  tention to  patients—Value of a carriage—The opera physi-
  cian—The necessity of being called out of church,  and  of
  speaking at medical societies—Mead's advice to a  brother
  doctor.

  WrE can  picture to ourselves the eagerness with which
medical aspirants will  read  this  chapter.   They have
probably had practical experience of what "early struggles"
are;  they feel no  pleasure  in  dwelling upon the misfor-
tunes of others: the  great  desideratum with them is  to
know how to advance themselves in their profession; and
their successful establishment in it is the we plus ultra of
their ambition.  In  their estimation the discovery of the
philosopher's stone, or the quadrature of the circle, sinks
into utter insignificance  when  placed in comparison with
the art of rising in physic.           N
  It  has  been recommended to a young physician who
wishes to get  into practice, to start with a new theory.
Attempting to prove that  the blood does  not circulate
would ensure a great degree of notice, and  prove  highly
beneficial to him.  Were he to endeavour  to prove the
unwholcsomeness  of some favourite  and common  article
of diet—the more  startling and extraordinary the opinion
the better—he would  obtain an enviable degree of noto-
                          8* 
86
PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
riety. He must be singular and eccentric in his manners;
—it is a matter of indifference whether  he  be brutal, or
polished and courtier-like.
   " There are two ways, my  boy," said  Radcliffe to
Mead, when the latter was commencing practice, " for a
physician to treat his  patients—either to bully or cajole
them.   I  have taken the former course, and  have done
well, as you see;  you may, perhaps, take the latter, and,
perhaps, do equally as well."   Skill in pursuits not very
consonant to  medical ones, now and then  has a  great
effect in  procuring  practice; it has  occasionally been
found to  have been of great use to affect  fox-hunting,
boxing, &.c.  Singularity fills the general run of mankind
with wonder, and from wonder to admiration the transi-
tion is obvious.
   A physician should never affect ignorance of the cause
of a complaint; he  should place it in the  pancreas, or
pineal gland, if he has no other local habitation ready at
the moment.  He must also be always ready with an  an-
swer to every question that a lady puts to him;  the chance
is, that  she will be  satisfied with it; he must not care
whether there be, or be not, a possible solution of it  A
lady once asked her apothecary from  what  substance
castor-oil was  made; he  (more au-fait with  the slang of
the ring than with the science of botany, a hat or beaver
being by the fancy termed a castor), unembarrassed, said
that it was made from the beaver !  The lady was  satis-
fied, and, no doubt, considered her medical adviser a quick
and sensible gentleman.   A  patient  was one  day very
rinxious to know how long she should be ill: " Madam,"
replied the physician, " that depends upon the duration of
the disease."  " I am much  obliged  to  you, doctor,  for
your information," was the patient's wise  answer.   Never
readily acquiesce  in any thing your patient or the nurse
should say. Old women  are  extremely  fond  of putting
puzzling questions to the doctor; and, if he be not able
or willing to explain the modus operandi of the medicines 
HOW TO GET A PRACTICE.
87
 he may be exhibiting, or the nature of the ailment under
 which his patient  may be labouring, ten to one but that
 the nurse attempts  a solution of the  mystery.   " My doc-
 tor," we recollect  hearing an elderly lady observe, " al-
 ways assents to whatever I say:  I  think he  must be a
 great fool."  A physician should  never omit  to take his
 fee, unless  he makes a practice of refusing  the fees of
 clergymen:  it is  astonishing how the aurum solidum
 quickens  his faculties.  It is  the  laudable  practice of
 many physicians of the present day to refuse fees when
 attending  medical men.  A  celebrated Bath physician
 upon not finding himself better for his own prescriptions,
 said laughingly to a friend one day: " Come, I think I
 will give myself  a  fee; I am sure  I sjpall do better then."
 The doctor  put his hand with great solemnity into his
 pocket, and passed over a guinea to the other: this had
 the desired  effect.  The same physician, on receiving
 the last fee he took in this world, a few days before his
 death, said, holding it up with streaming eyes to a friend
 who  was  near  him, " Ultimus Romanorum, my good
 friend."
   A physician of Montpellier  was  in the habit of employ.
 ing a very ingenious artifice to bring himself into notice
 with the public.  When he came to a town where he was
 not known, he pretended to have  lost his favourite dog,
 and ordered the public  crier to offer, with beat of drum,
 a  reward of twenty-five louis to whoever should find it.
 The crier took care to mention all the titles  and acade-
 mic honours of the peripatetic physician,  as well as  his
 place of residence.  He  soon became the talk of  the
 town : " Do you know,"  says  one,  " that a famous physi-
 cian has come  here—a very clever fellow, of high acade-
 mic honours; he must be rich, for he offers  twenty-five
 louis for finding his dog!"  The dog was  not found, but
patients were.
   A poor  physician,  with  plenty  of knowledge and no
 practice, imparted  his troubles to  one of his friends. 
88              PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
" Listen to my advice," says the other, " and follow  it.
The Cafe de la Regencc is in fashion;  I  play at  chess
there every day at two o'clock, when the crowd is thickest;
come  there, too; do not recognise me; say nothing, but
seem in a reverie; take your coffee, and always give the
waiter the money wrapped up in rose-coloured paper, and
leave the rest to me."
  The physician followed his advice—he was in daily at-
tendance at the Cafe, when it was most crowded—sipped
his coffee in  quietness, and paid as his friend directed
him to do.  His oddity was soon remarked. The question
was frequently asked, who is that grave gentleman  ?—he
always  appears absorbed in his own cogitations.  His
kind friend  said t# the customers of the coffee-house:
" Gentlemen, do not think ill of this man, because  he
seems an oddity; he is a profound practitioner.  I have
known him these  fifteen years, and  I could tell you of
some  wonderful cures  that he  has  performed; but  he
thinks of nothing but his books, and never speaks except
to his patients, which  has prevented me from becoming
intimate with him; but if ever  I am obliged to keep my
bed, he is the doctor for me."   The friend followed this
course, varying the style of his panegyric from time to
time,  until all his  auditors entertained a high opinion of
the doctor's skill; and  by this means he soon obtained an
extensive practice.*
   Once having obtained a " name," the medical practi-
tioner, unless very deficient in a  knowledge of his profes-
sion, may set the whole world at defiance.   The very cir-
cumstance of his  being engaged  in extensive practice,

   * Coleridge tells a story of a  lady who had a husband
not over-burdened with brains, but with sense enough to
hold his tongue when  in company.  His taciturnity was
noticed, and on the subject being mentioned to the wife,
she mysteriously observed: "Dear sir, he is always  think.
 ing of Locke and Newton." 
HOW TO GET A PRACTICE.
89
will render him more  qualified to discharge the duties
which devolve upon him—

     " Give ev'n a dunce the employment he desires,
      And he soon finds the talent it requires;
      A business, with an income at its heels,
      Furnishes always oil for its own wheels."
                                           COWPER.

  A general practitioner has brought himself into notice
and practice, by always riding  a  pure white horse.  In
justice, however, we must observe, that he  is not the son
of Esculapius, whom a certain  personage, not to be named
to ears polite, recognised on visiting this world—

" An apothecary, on a white horse, rode by on his avoca-
      tions,
  Oh, oh, said the devil,  there's my old friend Death in the
      Revelations." *

  It has always been found, says  an anonymous writer,
of great  use to  a physician to belong to some particular
sect in religion.   He is sure to obtain the patronage  of
those who  belong to it.   The  " thee" and  " thou" of Dr.
Fothergill, of London, was supposed  to be worth £2,000
a year to him at Ieast.t
  * Porson.
  t A Quaker apothecary meeting  Dr.  Fothergill,  thus
accosted him : " Friend Fothergill, I intend dining  with
thee to-day."  " I shall be  glad  to  see  thee," answered
the doctor; " but pray, friend, hast thou not some joke ?"
" No joke, indeed," rejoined the apothecary, " but a  very
serious matter. Thou hast attended friend Ephraim these
three  days, and ordered him no  medicine.  I  cannot at
this rate live  in my own house, and must  live in thine."
The doctor took the hint, and  prescribed handsomely for
the benefit of his friend  Ephraim, and his friend Leech
the apothecary! 
90
PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
  Dr. Mead was the  son  of a dissenting minister;  and
whenever he was called out of his father's church, which
was often the case, the preacher would stop in the middle
of his discourse,  and say, " Dear brethren, let me offer up
a prayer for the safe recovery of the poor patient to whom
my son  is gone to administer relief."  It is not said how-
much this  circumstance tended to the celebrity of  this
once eminent physician, but we have little doubt that it
brought him many a patient.
  It  is  a very fortunate circumstance for a physician to
have a wife with powers of speech equal to that said to
have been  possessed  by  Alexander the  Great.  If she
calls at a house to make  a visit of ceremony or friend-
ship, she must enlarge on her  husband's numerous en-
gagements, and  superior abilities.   This  species of ma-
noeuvring is  frequently successful  in  large  watering-
places, where invalids resort for change of air and scene.
In these places young physicians sometimes affect to be
precipitated into redundant  practice, and languishing
under its fatigues, make  themselves appear in conspi-
cuous assemblages, as  martyrs to  messengers  in breath-
less haste—

   " To hurryings to and fro, and signals in distress."
  I have known, says the editor of the " Medical Ethics,"
one of these physicians, who, on returning to an evening
party from  which he had been summoned,  called surround-
ing attention to the golden  trophies of his  exertions, by
holding up to view two sovereigns between  his  finger
and  thumb.  This  ridiculous trick he has several times
played,  until he has led some to imagine that these iden-
tical coins, like the guineas  given  to the  Vicar of Wake-
field's daughter, were always  to  be shown,  but never
changed.
  Although mystery  is the essence of quackery, it will
be necessary  to have recourse to it in order to ingratiate
yourself in  public estimation.   Secrecy  is  commonly 
HOW TO GET A PRACTICE.
91
 mixed up in medical affairs.   It is said that a great city
 practitioner, half a century ago, had  little closets like  a
 pawnbroker's shop, to indulge this feeling of fanciful pa-
 tients, that  they  might not be seen  by their  fellow-suf-
 ferer.--.  The Compte de Virey carried  this mys'cry so
 far, as to  make the slightest indisposition a state-secret.
 He one day called a surgeon to dress  a wound in his leg;
 and when a similar one broke out on the other, he 6ent
 for a different surgeon, that the disordered state of the
 limbs  might not be known; a circumstance which was
 the cause of his death.  To a person, who inquired for
 him after his death, his secretary said : " He is dead, but
 he does not icish it to be known."
   Be careful not to pronounce an opinion  on any case,
 until you have gone through the usual routine of feeling
 the pulse, looking at the  tongue, &,c.   An eminent court-
 physician, visiting a noble lady  from whose  family he
 had received many shining marks of liberality and con-
 fidence, the following scene took  place :—" Pray, doctor,
 do you think I might now  venture on a slice of chicken,
 and a single glass of Madeira, as I feel very faint and
 low."  " Most certainly, please your ladyship;  I perceive
 nothing in the state of your pulse, or the appearance of
 your tongue, to forbid so reasonable an indulgence." Her
 ladyship  instantly rang  the  bell, and with  more than
 usual peremptoriness of manner,  desired the servant to
 order  Sir----'s carriage;  then turning to the doctor, she
 addressed him nearly as  follows:—" Sir, there  is your
 fee, and, depend upon it, it is the  last you shall receive
 from me,  or from any of  my connexions with whom  I
 possess any influence.  I asked you a question, a serious
question, sir, to me, considering the very abstemious re-
gimen to  which  I  have so  long  submitted under your
direction; and I  think it full time to withdraw my con-
fidence  from a  physician  who delivers a professional
opinion without   any foundation;  for, sir,  you must be
perfectly aware that you neither felt  my pulse, nor exa-
mined my tongue." 
92
TllYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
   In  your instructions to your patients, be particular  in
giving minute directions concerning diet  This has great
effect on the minds of old women, especially if their mala-
dies are, in a great measure, imaginary.  Give a list of
what is to be eaten at breakfast, dinner, and supper ; and
you may  depend upon being often made the subject  of
conversation, and you will be considered  a very " clever
doctor."   A physician, in large practice, brought himself
into notice, by alwflys recommending the left  leg of a
boiled fowl; and upon  our attempting to persuade the in-
valid  that the left leg possessed no  peculiar virtue, she
was quite indignant, and exclaimed, that  " so sensible a
physician must know better than you!"  If you can make
yourself talked about y°u need have little to fear.  You
must  not  be over-scrupulous or fastidious in having re-
course to this professional charlatanism.  If you depend
solely upon  your  medical knowledge, judgment, and ex-
perience, how fearful will be the opposition with which
you will have to  struggle!   Where one man of sterling
ability succeeds in practice, ten of the  most shallow pre-
tensions obtain the confidence and smiles of the discern-
ing public.  Alas! how frail and fragile are all our hopes
and aspirations!
  A physician who is  able  to drive his carriage,  is
considered  extremely  clever  in his  profession, and  is
patronized accordingly. A peer labouring under a severe
fit of  the gout, had a surgeon  warmly recommended  to
him by some friends, as possessing a specific for his com-
plaint. In compliance with this recommendation, he sent
for him.  On the medical man being announced, his
lordship demanded of his servant, " Does this famous
doctor come on foot, or in his carriage ?"  " On foot," was
the reply.   " Send the scoundrel about his business. Did
he possess the secret which he pretends to have, he would
ride in his coach and six, and I should  have been happy
to have entreated him to deliver me  from this terrible
disease." 
                HOW TO GET A PRACTICE.              93

   It is a great point gained if you can visit the opera
frequently ; and be sure to instruct the messengers, when
the performance is over, to vociferate loudly for your car-
riage.   This is an effectual way of making you known,
as a London physician and a man of fashion.   Be regular
in your attendance at church; and instruct your servant
to call  you out occasionally during the service.  When you
first start in practice, it will be of service if you  can per-
suade  your carriage friends to call often at your house.
Always contrive to have a coach standing at your door on
Sunday, as it is sure to attract the notice of the people as
they return home from church, and will lead the  public to
believe that you are a practising physician.

           " For sure the pleasure is as great
             Of being cheated, as to cheat."

   It is important to belong to, and speak at, the principal
medical  societies;  particularly if  the proceedings  are
reported in the daily or weekly journals.
   The following advice to a young London physician, on
the art of getting into practice, was written by the cele-
brated Dr. Mead :—
   " That which gives me great hopes of you (Dr, Timothy
Vanbustle, M.D.) is your resolution  to go on, and to push
into practice at all hazards.  Monsieur De Rochf observes,
that there is nothing impossible if we have but the  reso-
lution  to take the right way to it.  Besides,  you know
audaces fortuna juvat; and, therefore, above  all things,
let me  as a friend advise you to take care of studying or
endeavouring to know  much in this way, since that will
render you timorous and cautious, and consequently keep
you back in  your practice ; besides that, the  more  you
search the less you will be satisfied ; and  when arrived at
the top of all, you may with  Solon conclude, that all your
wisdom (comparatively with real knowledge) is in know-
ing nothing.   Whereas, if you only skim the surface, you
                         9 
94              PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
will go boldly on, and fancy your knowledge ten times
more than  what it really is.  Thus  then the  great and
principal thing you ought to be qualified with,  is the for-
mula prescribendi; for form  is now the main chance,
whether  in law  or physic; and without that,  there is
nothing to be done; this  is the business, the Alpha and
Omega, the all in all; some will succeed, and some won't;
'tis hit or miss, luck's all; you  are  paid, go which way
you will. And now you are just arrived in town, without
having had the benefit of establishing an  acquaintance at
Oxford or Cambridge, among the nobility, clergy, &c, and
an absolute stranger here, without the assistance of dis-
senting teachers, relations,  old women, nurses, children,
or apothecaries; the first thing I advise  you to do, is to
make all the noise and bustle you can, to make the whole
town ring of you, if possible; so that every one in it may
know that there is  such  a being, and here in town, too,
such a physician.  It signifies little which way it be done,
so that it be done, and that your name be known and heard
of, for  that is  half in half, since no one sends to consult
him they have not heard of, that being a crime sufficient
not to have been talked of;  whereas, if accustomed to
your name, you are a fit  person  to be called to the sick.
Thus the famous R-------f,* 'tis said, on his first arrival,
had half the porters in town employed to  call for him, at
all the coffee-houses and public  places, so that his name
might be known.  A very famous  oculist  has likewise
freely told  me that he must starve, did he not frequently
put himself in the public prints: but this is not so fashion-
able with  physicians, ready to their company,  or that
which they think their company understands the best, or
are otherwise  so complaisant, as to talk to their friends of
their interest; for I would suppose you  have  insinuated
yourself into  their friendship.   Besides  that, the very
* Radcliffe, we suppose. 
               HOW TO GET A PRACTICE.              95

seeing you now and then, might put them in mind of that
which they might otherwise forget.   The old  and the
simple, the riotous, the  whimsical, and the fearful, are
your most proper company, and who will provide you with
most business ; there being far less to be got by the wise
and sober, who are much more rarely ailing.  But then
you will, perhaps, tell  me, that such like physicians will
be the most proper to please and keep company with such,
since similis, simili gaudet.   If so,then I can only say,
that  those probably will stand the fairest for business;
and  if you are  so wise or unwise, as  not to ply,  bend,
truckle to their humours, I doubt you will be in danger
of having less business: or, otherwise, if you would still
continue, and be esteemed very wise, sober, and grave,
you  should  then learn  most  obsequiously to fawn and
sooth man, woman, and child, since few else will thrive
well, unless blessed with wit, in which case, they may be
allowed a little  more liberty.   To make  yourself known,
the  making friends for some public  lectureship is  not
amiss, which serves for a feather in your cap, by which
you  become  known,  and so  taken notice of as a fine
fellow;  and then you  have an opportunity of haranguing
your auditory,  which, though it should be mobbish or
trifling, you gain your point.   As to what you read or
say, it matters  not much; if from the more musty and
ancient authors the better; if from the more modern, the
more fashionable it will  be : and thus consequently you
will either be esteemed a very learned, or at least a very
ingenious man.   If you can be introduced to an hospital,
your business is done for life, be your success what it
will.  If your  wife should  happen to  mind business in
her  way, it will certainly also increase yours, for  many
good reasons, as increasing your friends and acquain-
tances.  It will not be amiss  to set up an equipage, to pur-
chase a mountain of books, and add any thing by which
you will acquire the  reputation of being a learned and
ingenious gentleman.  Let  your religious and  political 
96              PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
opinions swim with the tide, especially when fashionable.
Let not your fingers be sacrilegiously defiled;  but be very
gentle in taking fees of the clergy, &c.—People are gene-
rally employed in proportion to the  manner they live in,
especially if once a little known; for  the employing of
many artificers and tradesmen, &c,  you may not only
become more known, but they  also support and employ
you.  Thus, if you get much, you must spend  much; and
if you spend much, you will readily get much, particu-
larly if spent in a proper way, and  once  a little known.
Don Quevedo is of opinion, that the  best way  to run into
business is to run into debt, because your  creditors will
employ you to get paid :—as to putting this experiment in
practice, I shall  rather  choose to leave  it to your own
natural genius to direct you therein, than much to per-
suade you thereto, since  there may be danger, should it
not succeed.
  " To these hints I must observe  to you, that dancing
and dressing well, are not such slight accomplishments
to introduce a young physician  into practice, as you may
imagine, because it makes him acceptable to the  ladies
and  beau monde: his fashionable  gesture, and  gentle
manner of feeling a pulse agreeably, is half the business;
nay, that, and very little else may, in  time, for ought I
know,  go a great way towards an hospital, or other public
employ.  In fine, I shall now leave you; may you live and
brush on, so you may  take the other ways to it.
  " I could mention you  some,  who got into business  in
physic, by writing poetry, some by divinity, others by
politics, &c.  But should  you have an itching to make
your name known by writing a book on physic,  yet  so
customary, I would advise you  to choose the  subject by
which  you think you will get most money, or  that which
will bring you the most general business, as fevers, small.
pox, &c.  For in those, some must always live, some die,
'tis a  hard  matter to tell when  right, or when wrong;
write which way you will, 'tis disputable ; but, certain it 
                HOW TO GET A PRACTICE.             97

is, that the  world in  general  readily conclude that you
certainly understand that which you write about.   The
method of writing, if in your frontispiece you address not
your book to some great man,  is to club with  some other
physicians;  and thus by way of letters, to commend each
other's good practice, and to support and make each other
famous. But above all things, take particular  care, let the
subject be what it will, that the word3 be well chosen, so
as to make an elegant and florid speech ;  since you have
ten to one that mind the language more than the ideas, as
Mr. Pope says :—

    ' Others for language all their care express,
      And value books, as women  men for dress;
      Their praise is still—' the style is excellent;'
      The sense they humbly take upon content'

  " And next, then, I would  advise you,  whatever the
subject be  you write  upon  (if uncommon the better),
rather  to write, so as that  no man can make any thing
of it, so as neither to make downright sense, or  nonsense
thereof, than otherwise; because thus none of the profes-
sion can well  lay hold of you  for any particular part;  or,
if they should, there is room for you to defend it, being as
easy to be understood one way as t'other.  This  is that
method I commend, which Mr. Locke observes to be pos-
sible enough,  for one to write a tolerable discourse of
well-chosen  and well-joined words, which, nevertheless
on the  whole,  makes not up any real sense, or intelligible
meaning.   Thus I will  suppose a man to write of sleep;
now if I wrote in this manner, it is ten to one but that it
will make all  who read it  fall asleep, and, consequently,
what can be better said on this subject.
  " The last thing I advise you to do, is to get acquainted
and cheerfully to keep company with old  women, mid-
wives,  nurses, and apothecaries, since  these will still  be
entertaining you in the way of your business, and as the
                           9*   , 
98             PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
old ladies, &c, are most  subject to ailings,  so  they will
still be acquainting you with the same; and consequently,
you are to make the most of it, and never to neglect or
make slight of the least complaint; and thus  you will
gain the reputation  of being both careful  and skilful;
whereas otherwise your care and  skill may  be suspected
as well as your affectation."
  Thus Dr. Mead concludes  his  advice  to his brother
physician.  We do not quote it as an example for imita-
tion, but as a curious record of the state of the profession
in his day.  We feel assured that no  man of a properly
constituted mind would have recourse to such illegitimate
means of advancing himself in the world.  He would
rather adopt the  following sentiment of Pope :—
   » But if the purchase cost so dear a price,
    As soothing folly or exalting vice ;
    Then teach me, Heaven! to scorn the guilty bays,
    Drive from my breast that wretched lust of praise;
    Unblemish'd let me live, or die unknown,
    Oh, grant an honest fame, or grant me none." 
CHRONICLES OF WARWICK HALL.          99
                    CHAPTER V.

CHRONICLES OF WARWICK HALL J  OR, MEDICAL AND SURGICAL
            LUMINARIES OF THE OLDEN TIME.

History of the  old College  of  Physicians—Sir J. Cutler—Sir
  Charles Scarborough—Dr. Sermon—Dr.  Thomas Willis—
  Sir. W. Petty—Dr. Gideon Harvey—Dr. Mead —An account
  of his Rise in Physic—Queen Caroline—Mead's Converza-
  tiones—Dr. Cadogan—Dr. J. Bainbridge—Dr. J. Fothergill—
  Dr. Battie—Dr. M  Baillie—Dr. Sydenham—Sir Hans Sloane
  —Dr W. Hunter—Dr. Hawes—Dr. Glover—Dr.G. Fordyce
  —Dr. Cheyne—Dr. W. Harvey—Dr. Friend—Dr. Arbuthnot
  —Dr. Jenner—Dr. Gregory—Dr.  Lettsom—Dr. Monnsey—
  Sir  R. Croft—Dr. Mackintosh—Sir D. Barry—Chesselden—
  Mr. P.  Pott—Mr. Hey—Mr. Hcaviside.

  What a myriad of pleasing and melancholy associa-
tions crowd upon our mind, as we gaze at the old College
of Physicians, in  Warwick Lane !
  The contiguity of this College to the Old Baily, and
the impression excited in the mind  by a view of the  en-
trance porch, are  thus  humorously alluded  to by  Sir
Samuel Garth, in the opening canto of his " Dispensary:"—

   " Not  far from that most celebrated place,
    Where angry Justice shows her awful face,
    Where little  villains must submit to  fate,
    That great ones may enjoy the world in state,—
    There stands a dome, majestic to the sight,
    And sumptuous arches bear  its awful height;
    A golden globe, placed high with artful skill,
    Seems to  the distant sight  a  gilded pill." 
100             PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
  We have previously stated that  the College of Physi-
cians was founded by Linacre, in the year 1518.  Prior
to that event, the state of medical science was very low
in England.  It was only remarkable for ingenious hypo-
theses, unsupported by the  evidence of facts, and for a
credulous faith in astrological influence, equally visionary.
The sweating  sickness  raged in  London  with great
violence  previous to the  year 1518.  The infected died
within three hours after the appearance of the disease, and
no effectual remedy was discovered.  The administration
of justice was suspended during its continuance, and the
court removed from place to place  with  precipitation and
fear.
  Half the people  in some  parts of the  country  were
swept  away,  and the principal trade carried on was in
coffins and shrouds; but even that, in the progress of the
plague,  was  generally  abandoned.   In  London,  vast
sepulchral pits  were prepared every morning, into which
the victims were thrown promiscuously. The only sounds
in the  city during the day, where the doleful monotony of
unceasing knells, and the  lamentations of  the  tainted,
deserted  by their friends, crying from the windows to the
passengers to pray for them.  The doors of almost every
house was marked with a  red cross, the  sign  that the
destroying angel had been there; and  all night as the
loaded wheels of the death-wagons  rolled along, a  con-
tinual  cry was  heard of" Bring out your dead."   To dis-
cover a remedy, or some mode of averting the recurrence
of this terrible  calamity, the king, at the suggestion  of
Dr. Linacre, was induced to establish the College of Phy-
sicians :  among others mentioned  in the  charter, as the
advisers  of this beneficial ipstitution, Cardinal Wolsey's
name is  particularly mentioned.*
  Previously to the reign of Henry the Eighth, there were
but few restraints on the practice of Physic and Surgery;
* Vide Gait's Life of Cardinal Wolsey. 
             CHRONICLES OF WARWICK HALL.         101

and the most illiterate and ignorant pretended to profes-
sional knowledge, and exercised the  art of killing with
impunity.  At length, in 1511, an Act of Parliament was
passed to restrict, " within the City of London, or within
seven miles of the same," the practice of either faculty
to those who should  be  " examined, approved of,  and
admitted," by the Bishop of London, or the Dean of St.
Paul's, assisted by four doctors of Physic, and " other per-
sons expert in surgery.*
  The good  effects of this act were soon apparent;  and
in order to extend and  perpetuate its beneficial results,
the King, on the 23d of September, 1518,  instituted the
College of Physicians, by his letters patent,  granted to
several  persons  therein  named, who were  incorporated
into one body, with  power to form " a perpetual Com-
monalty, or Fellowship, of the Faculty of Physic."
  About four years afterwards, the privileges conferred by
the charter were confirmed and extended by Parliament;
and the President, and three Elects, (of whom  eight were
to be appointed  annually,) were empowered to examine
all Physicians within the several dioceses of England, ex-
cept graduates of the two Universities.—The low state of
anatomy in Queen  Elizabeth's reign, may be estimated
   * In the preamble to  this act, we have  the curious in-
formation, that " the science  and cunning of physic and
surgery" was  daily exercised by " a  great  multitude of
ignorant  persons,  of whom  the greater part have no
manner of insight in the same, nor in any other kind of
learning (some, also, can read no letters on  the book) so
far forth, that common artificers, as smiths, weavers, and
women, boldly,  and accustomably took upon  them great
cures, and things of great difficulty, in which they partly
used sorceries  and witchcraft, and partly applied such
medicines unto the diseased as are very noisome,  and
nothing-meet therefore;  to the high displeasure of God,
&.C., and destruction of many  of the  King's liege people." 
102
PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
from the fact of that Princess having, in 1565, granted to
the College the privilege " to take yearly, for ever, one,
two, three, or four human bodies, to dissect and anatomize,
having been condemned and dead."—Additional charters,
both confirmatory and  extensional, have been granted by
different sovereigns; and the Society now consists  of a
President,  Electors, Fellows, Honorary Fellows, Candi-
dates, and Licentiates.
  The first Edifice, wherein the College  meetings were
held,  was  given  to the  Society by the  far-famed Dr.
Linacre, who had been physician to Henry VII. and his
sons Prince Arthur and Henry VIII.  It had  been his
own habitation, and stood  in  Knight-Rider Street; he
died in  1524.  In  the following century, the  members
removed to Amen  Corner, Paternoster Row, where  they
had bought some leasehold premises.  Here the learned
Dr. Harvey (discoverer  of the  circulation of the blood)
erected a Convocation-room, and a Museum in the  gar-
den ;  and on the Society placing  his  bust in their Hall,
with a  suitable inscription  recording  his  discoveries, he
gave  the whole  to the  College, in  the year 1652,  at a
splendid entertainment,  to which he had invited all the
members.  He also, in  1656, instituted an  anniversary
feast, and  at the  first  banquet, assigned his paternal
estate, (which was  of  the then  yearly  value of .£56) to
the Society; partly to defray the expenses  of the feast,
and partly  to establish  an annual Latin oration.
  After  the destruction  of  the  College building, in the
conflagration of 1666, the Society purchased  an  extensive
plot of ground in Wancick  Lane, on whicii the present
edifice was erected between the years 1671 and 1689;
from  the designs and  under the superintendence of Sir
Christopher Wren.*
  * The  following singular particulars relating to  this
pile, and  to  the placing of the  statue of Sir John Cutler
(whom Pope's caustic Satires have " damned to everlast- 
             CHRONICLES OF WARWICK HALL.          103

  The ground-plan  of this  building  is  irregular  and
peculiar: the buildings surround a quadrangular  court,
but there is a considerable difference in the measurements
 ing fame;" though probably to the poet's own disgrace, if
 the subject were thoroughly investigated,) in front of the
 College Theatre, within the inclosed court, are  given by
 Pennant, from the information of Dr. Warren :—
   " It also appears, by the annals of the Society, that in
 the year 1671,  a considerable sum  of money  had been
 subscribed by  the Fellows for the  erection of a  new
 College.  It  also  appears, that Sir John Cutler, a near
 relation of Dr.  Whistler,  the  President, was desirous of
 becoming a benefactor.  A  committee was appointed to
 wait  upon Sir  John, and thank him for his kind inten-
 tions  : he accepted their thanks,  renewed his promise, and
 specified that part of the  building of which  he  intended
 to bear the expense.   In the year 1680, statues in honour
 of the King and  Sir John were voted by the members;
 and nine  years afterwards, the College being then com-
 pleted, it was resolved to borrow money of Sir John to
 discharge  the College debt, but the sum is not specified.
 It appears, however, that in  1699,  Sir John's  executors
 made a demand on the College of £7000, which sum was
 supposed to include  the money  actually lent, the money
 pretended to be given, but set down as a debt in Sir John's
 books, and the interest on both.   Lord Radnor, however,
 and Mr. Boulter, Sir John Cutler's  executors, were  pre-
 vailed on to accept £2000 from  the College, and actually
 remitted the  other £5000 :  so  that Sir John's  promise,
 which he never performed, obtained  him the statue, and
 the liberality of his executors has kept it in its place ever
 since  ; but the College have wisely obliterated the inscrip-
tion, which in the warmth of its gratitude, it had placed
beneath the figure :—' Omnis Cutleri cedat labor Amphi-
iheatro: "—Vide Pennant's  " London," p. 310,  4th edit.
1805. 
104
PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
of  the  north  and south sides,  although the fronts  are
nearly uniform.   This variation arose from the confined
situation  and limited  extent of the  area on which  the
college  was erected.   The entrance  in  Warwick Lane,
though  of bold proportions  and  lofty elevation, cannot be
seen from any point favourable  to its architectural  cha-
racter.—An octangular porch, forty feet in diameter, and
of considerable height, with a few adjoining apartments,
form the  eastern front of this fabric.  The lofty arch of
entrance, which has ponderous  iron gates, is flanked by
two Ionic three-quarter columns on each side, the capitals
of which  are  enriched by  festoons,  and  sustain a pedi-
ment and attic of the Corinthian order.   The porch is
surmounted by a  cupola, or dome (crowned by a gilt ball)
which includes the  theatre, where chirurgical operations
were formerly performed, and  lectures and  orations de-
livered.
  On the inner  side, three  open arches lead into  the
quadrangular  court: the buildings are of brick, having
stone dressings and enrichments.  The  principal front,
which faces the  entrance,  consists of two stories, Ionic
below, and Corinthian above, with  their respective  en-
tablatures supported  by  pilasters, and  crowned by an
angular pediment  Over the doorway is the following
inscription:—" Utriusque fortuna exemplar ingens  ad.
versus rebus Deum probavit prosperis seipsum Collegii
hujusce  stator;"  and in a rusticated  niche above, formed
in the centre of the  second story, is a  statue of King
Charles  II.  The statue of Sir Jolin Cutler stands on the
opposite side of the court, within a niche in front of the
theatre,  in the upper  story of  the porch.  The hall  or
court-room, is of considerable length, and well lighted on
both sides by large  semicircular headed windows.  The
ceiling  is slightly coved, and   much  embellished  with
stuccoed ornaments.  An open  yard, or area, extends on
the west side, the entire length of the building, and is
skirted by the stone walls of Newgate. 
              CHRONICLES OF WARWICK HALL.         10 J

   After the removal of the Society to their splendid new
 College, in Pall-Mali East, on  the 25th June, 1825, these
 premises were for some  time occupied  by the seZ/-named
 " Equitable Loan Company."  The venerable Hall is now
 desecrated by being turned into a butcher's market.*
   In bringing before the notice of our readers sketches of
 some  of the  principal  physicians  of  eminence whose
 genius immortalized the  College, we would premise that
 it is not our  intention to enter into a minute detail of
 their professional career—such a course would be incon-
 sistent with the design of this work.  Of many celebrated
 physicians little has been recorded.  We have, however,
 endeavoured to supply, to a certain extent, the deficiency
 in medical biography of which we complain, imperfect as
 we feel our readers will think it to be.
   The chief advantage  of biography is, that it  affords
 both examples for imitation, and beacons for warning. In
 tracing the lives of some of our most eminent physicians,
 the youthful student will see that it was to their industry,
 their zeal, their learning, their perseverance, that they
 owed their success, as much—if not in truth  more—than
 to their natural  endowments.  We do not say that  for
 these great men nature had done  nothing, but we do say
 that nature did nothing for them in comparison with what
 they did for themselves.  And

          " If past experience may attain,
           To something like prophetic strain,"

 We  may reasonably predicate of all who place  before
 their eyes, as  models for imitation, those eminent indi-
viduals Who have  excelled  in that branch of science to
 whicii they propose to  devote themselves, that a similar
 success, and a similar reputation will crown their efforts
 and  reward their  exertions.  It is then  chiefly for the
* Vide Mr. E. W. Brayley's " Londiniana," vol. iv.
                       10 
106
PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
purpose of encouraging the student about to enter upon
the toilsome and perilous paths of medical practice, that
these pages have been written; but we trust also that they
will not be found destitute of interest or value in the eyes
of the  non-professional public.  The moral they convey
is  of  universal  application—the truths they  teach of
universal importance; and we  are well assured that this
moral and these truths can be in no better way conveyed
or enforced,  than in portraying the early struggles and
ultimate triumph of great men, in whatever pursuits they
may be occupied.

   " Whose lives more than preceptive wisdom taught,
    The great in action, and the pure in thought."

   Dr.  Scarborough,  or Sir Charles Scarborough, was
first physician to Charles II., James II., and William III.
Mr. Oughted informs us that his memory was so tenacious,
that he could recite in order all the propositions of Euclid,
Archimedes, and  other  ancient mathematicians.   He
assisted Harvey in his book " De Generatione Animalium,"
and succeeded him as a lecturer of anatomy and surgery.
He was a man of amiable manners, and of great plea-
santry in conversation.   Seeing the Duchess of  Ports-
mouth eating to excess, he said to her with his usual
frankness, " Madam, I will deal with you  as  a physician
should do;  you must eat  less,  use more  exercise, take
physic, or be sick."
   William Sermon was an eminent physician of Bristol.
He was said to have possessed a palliative remedy for the
dropsy, by which the Duke of Albemarle was greatly
relieved:  but he not long after relapsed into this dis-
temper, which at length proved fatal to him.  Dr. Sermon,
who was naturally vain, grew vainer than ever upon his
success, and seemed to think nothing beyond the reach of
his skill; as if a man that cured the Great Monck of the
dropsy, could do every thing in the power of physic. 
CHRONICLES OF WARWICK HALL.
107
   " Let Zoilists laugh at what is past and done,
    Brave Sermon's acts shall live in face o' the sun,
    Great Monck, restorer of his country's peace,
    Declares from him his dropsy soon shall cease."

  Dr. Thomas Willis  was an eminent physician, who
flourished in the year 1685.  He was a great scholar, and
wrote the Latin language with great purity.  His works
were much celebrated at home and abroad, and his prac-
tice was  in proportion to his fame.   He was regular in
his devotions, his  studies, and  visiting his patients; and
his custom  was to dedicate  his Sunday fees to the relief
of the  poor.   Willis and  Lower first recommended the
waters of Astrop, which  were  afterwards decried by the
celebrated  Dr. Radcliffe; the  reason for  which was, the
circumstance of the people of the village insisting upon
the doctor keeping an illegitimate child, which was laid to
him by an infamous woman of that place: upon this, the
doctor declared " that he would put a toad into their well,"
and accordingly cried down the waters, which  soon lost
their reputation.
  Sir William Petty  was professor of anatomy in Ox-
ford, and fellow of the College of Physicians, in the reign
of Charles  II.  He gave early proofs of that comprehen-
sive and  inquisitive genius, for which  he was afterwards
so eminent; and which  seems to have been designed by
nature for every branch  of science  to  which he applied
himself.  At  the  age of fifteen, he was master of all the
learned  languages, mathematics, geometry,  navigation,
&c.  He made his way in the world under great disad-
vantages, in point of circumstances,  having  acquired a
very moderate fortune  with as much difficulty, as he
afterwards rose to  wealth and  eminence.  During a visit
to France,  he  told Mr.  Aubrey that  he had  lived for a
week on  three pennyworth of walnuts.  But he at length,
to use his own  expression, " hewed out his  fortune him- 
108
PHYSIC and physicians.
self."  He  was an  able  mathematician, was  skilful in
drawing, and understood the practical parts of»mechanics,
and was an exact surveyor.  He died in 1685-7.
  About the same period, flourished Dr. Gideon Harvey.
There  was, perhaps, never any  thing  more remarkable
than the fortune of this man.   About the latter end of
King William's reign, there was a great  debate  who
should succeed the deceased physician  to  the Tower.
The  contending parties were so equally matched in their
interests and pretensions, that it  was extremely difficult
to determine which  should have the  preference.   The
matter was at length brought to  a compromise; and Dr.
Gideon Harvey was promoted to that office ; for the same
reason that Sixtus  V. was advanced to the pontificate;
because he was in appearance, sickly and infirm ; and his
death was expected in a few months.   He, however, sur-
vived not only  his rivals, but all his contemporary physi-
cians ; and died after he  had enjoyed his sinecure above
fifty  years.
  In the  year 1696  lived the celebrated  Dr.  Mead, the
origin  of  whose success, as a physician, we have re-
corded in  our  sketch  of his illustrious contemporary,
Radcliffe.   According to another authority, Mead's rise
in life was  owing to his  being called in to a  celebrated
Duchess, distinguished for her intemperate propensities.
The  Doctor had sacrificed rather  more freely to the jolly
god than was consistent with a healthy  exercise of his
faculties, and, as he was  feeling  his patient's  pulse, his
foot  slipped, when  he ejaculated—" Drunk !—yes, quite
drunk !" alluding to himself.  The Duchess, imagining
he had found  out her complaint, which she  was most
anxious to conceal, told Mead, if  he kept her secret, she
would recommend him.   He did  so, and the  Doctor rose
to fame and opulence.
   Notwithstanding  the violence displayed by  Dr. Mead,
in his controversy with  Woodward, whom  it is repre- 
            CHRONICLES OF WARWICK HALL.         109

scnted  he challenged, and compelled to beg  pardon,* he
was, in  his general conduct, mild and forbearing.  On
one occasion, a servant, whom he asked to look for his
spectacles, told him petulantly, but without exciting any
observation in  reply,  that " he  was  always losing his
things."  His  anger  was, however, occasionally roused.
He once said to a divine, who, instead of attending to his
prescriptions, had been following  the directions laid down
by Dr. Cheyne—" Sir, I  have never yet, in the whole
course of my practice, taken or demanded a fee of a cler-
gyman ; but, since you have pleased, contrary to what I
have met with in any  other gentleman of your profession,
to prescribe to me, rather than  follow my prescriptions,
when you  had committed the care of your recovery to
my skill and trust, you  must not take it amiss, nor will,
I hope, think it unfair, if I demand ten guineas of you."
The clergyman paid  the  money, six  guineas of which
Mead subsequently returned.
  * A different version is, however, given of this alterca-
tion.  It is said that Mead and Woodward met, and both
drew, and that Mead, not loving cold iron, retreated ;
when Woodward, making a false step, fell  down.  His
antagonist then ran in, and, standing over him, demanded
if he would submit  and ask his life.   " If you threatened
me with  your physic, I might beg my life," said Wood-
ward, " but I certainly shall  not ask it for fear of your
sword."  Among the prints which adorn Ward's " Lives
of the Gresham Professors," is a gateway, entering from
Broad-street, marked 25.   Within are figures of two per-
sons, the one  standing, and  the  other  kneeling.  These
represent Dr. Woodward, the Professor of Physic, and
Mead; and allude to the transaction referred to above :—

    " Physicians, if they're wise, should never think,
      Of any arms  but such as pen and ink."
                                           Garth.
                       10* 
110
PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
  Another anecdote is recorded of this celebrated physi-
cian, but we  have some doubts whether  Dr. Mead was
the " happy man" referred to.  We give it, however, as
we find  it narrated.  Mead lived on terms  of intimacy
with a clergyman in his neighbourhood. The former was
attacked with a fit of the gout, when Mead attended him,
of course, gratuitously, and cured him. Some time after
this, Mead called upon  the clergyman  to ask him to per-
form the matrimonial service, and the call was cheerfully
obeyed.   After the performance of the nuptial ceremony,
the clergyman, unobserved, made his escape, and Mead's
brother  followed  him to his  house, and  offered him a
handsome  fee.  The divine,  it is said, retired for a few
minutes to his study, and  returned the fee to the bearer,
with the following impromptu :—

 " To the Doctor the Parson's a  sort of a brother,
   And  a good turn from one deserves one from the other;
   So take back your guineas, dear doctor, again ;
   Nor  give—what you so well can remedy—pain.
   Permit me to wish you all joy and  delight,
   On th' occasion that brought us together to-night;
   May health, wealth, and fame, attend you thro' life,
   And  every day add to the bliss of your wife.'"

   Mead dabbled  considerably in the  stocks.  One day,
prior to his visiting his patients, he received intelligence
that the stocks had suddenly fallen.   At  this moment he
was sent  for, in a great hurry, to visit a lady who was
represented to be very ill.   Having considerable property
in the funds, the news made so strong an impression upon
his mind, that, whilst he was feeling the patient's pulse,
he exclaimed, " Mercy upon  me, how they fall! lower !
lower!  lower!"   The  lady, in  alarm, flew to  the bell,
crying out, "  I am dying !   Dr. Mead says, my pulse gets
lower, and lower; so that it is impossible I should live !"
» You arc dreaming, madam," replied the physician, rous- 
            CHRONICLES OF WARWICK HALL.         Ill

ing himself from his reverie; " your pulse is very good,
and nothing ails you:  it was the stocks I was talking
of."
  Dr. Wharton, in his life of the Duke of Marlborough,
says, in his last illness Dr. Mead was consulted.  When
the physician had  given his instructions and written his
prescription, he left the chamber; the Duchess, not liking
the advice he had given,  followed him to the door, and
would, had she  not been prevented, have torn off his  pe-
riwig.
  Dr. Friend's  practice was principally confined to  the
members of the high church or tory  party;  Mead was
patronized  by the  Whigs.  When Dr. Friend was con-
fined, during the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act,
under a suspicion of being  concerned in a plot  for  the
restoration of the Stuarts, Mead was incessant in his en-
deavours to obtain his liberation.  At length, being called
to attend Sir Robert Walpole,  he absolutely refused to
prescribe for him unless Friend was released, and  he suc-
ceeded in effecting his object
  A large party assembled at Mead's  in the  evening, to
congratulate Friend ; and, upon his retiring with Arbuth-
not Mead took Friend  into his closet,  and there put into
his hands a bag containing all  the fees he had received
from Friend's patients during his confinement, amounting
to no less than  5,000 guineas.
  Friend once  received  a  fee of 300 guineas for a journey
from London to lngestrcc, in Staffordshire, to  attend  Mr.
Pulteny, who lay there dangerously ill, but recovered be-
fore Friend arrived.
  During almost  half  a century Dr.  Mead  was at the
head of his profession;  which brought him in, one year,
upwards of 7.000Z., and between 5,000*.  and 6,000/. for
several years.   The clergy, and, in  general, all  men of
learning, were  welcome to his advice;  and his doors were
open every morning to  the most indigent, whom  he fre-
quently assisted with money; so that, notwithstanding his 
112
PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
great genius, he did  not die rich.  He was a most gene-
rous patron of learning and learned men, in all sciences,
and in every country ;  by the peculiar munificence of his
disposition, making  the private  gains of his profession
answer the end of a princely fortune, and valuing them
only as they enabled him to become more extensively use-
ful, and  thereby to satisfy  the  greatness  of his mind,
which will transmit his name  to posterity with  a lustre
not inferior to that which attends the most distinguished
characters of antiquity.
  No foreigner of any learning, taste, or even  curiosity,
ever came to  England without being  introduced to Dr.
Mead; and he was continually consulted in difficult cases
by eminent continental  physicians.  His  large and  spa-
cious house, in Great Ormond-street, became a repository
of all that was curious in nature or in  art, to which his
extensive  correspondence with  the learned in all  parts of
Europe, not a  little contributed.  The King  of Naples
sent to request a copy of all  his works.  The  King of
France did him the same honour.  Dr.  Mead's  library
consisted  of  10,000 volumes.   His pictures,  after  his
death, sold for 3,4171. lis.
  A gentleman, who was troubled with a constant affec-
tion of his eyes, waited on Dr. Mead for advice.  The
doctor desired him to leave off  drinking wine.  In a few
weeks the patient felt the good  effects of the prescription,
and waited on  the doctor to thank  him  for his  advice.
He was not a little surprised to find  him in  a tavern, dis-
cussing a  bottle of wine with a friend.   " Well,"  said the
patient, "  I see  you doctors do  not follow your own pre-
scriptions."   To which Mead replied, " if you  love your
eyes better than wine, don't  drink it; but, as I  love wine
better than my eyes, I  do drink it"
  Mead, calling one day on a  gentleman who had been
severely afflicted with  the gout, fonnd,  to  his surprise,
the disease gone, and the patient rejoicing on his recovery
over a bottle of wine.  " Come  along, doctor," exclaimed 
             CHRONICLES OF WARWICK HALL.         113

 the patient "you are just  in time to taste this bottle of
 Madeira;  it is the first of a pipe that has just been
 broached."  "Ah!" replied Mead, "these pipes of Ma-
 deira will never do; they are the cause of all your suffer-
 ing."   " Well, then,"  rejoined the gay incurable,  " fill
 your glass, for now we  have found  out the cause, the
 sooner wc get rid of it the  better."
   Walpole says, that Lady Sandon's influence over Queen
 Caroline arose  from her being possessed of the secret of
 her  Majesty's  being  afflicted with  hernia umbilicus.
 This, from  motives of delicacy, she  had communicated
 to the mistress of the robes, Lady Sandon: she was even
 so imprudent as to  conceal  her disease from the medical
 men, who treated her for  gout of the stomach.   When
 the danger became  imminent, concealment  was  impos-
 sible.
   Dr. Sands suggested that a cure might be effected by
 the uijection of warm water.  Dr. Mead entered a most
 positive  protest  against the  experiment   Sir Edward
 Hulse was the only court physician who approved of the
 operation.  At the time when the operation was performed,
 every wish to keep her Majesty's malady a secret must
 have  been abandoned: for  the courtiers, both male and
 female,  were  assembled in the  anti-chamber, waiting
 anxiously the event
  The intestine was burst in the operation, and Dr. Sands
 and Sir Edward Hulse saw tha^ the Queen must inevitably
 die of mortification within a few hours.  The only ques-
 tion which then remained  for  the two physicians to con-
 sider was, how  they might  get out of the palace before
 the unfortunate  issue was known.  They determined to
 say that the  operation had succeeded.  As soon as the
 two physicians came out of the  Queen's chamber,  and
 announced their success, the old Duke of Newcastle, who
 was among those who waited in the anti-chamber, ran up
 to Dr. Sands, and hugged  him, exclaiming,  " You dear
creature, the nation can never sufficiently reward you for 
114             PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
having saved the life of the most valuable woman in the
world !"  The doctor struggled to get away, apprehensive
that some of the  ladies,  who had gone  into the Queen
after the physicians had left her, might come out and dis-
close the truth.*
  Mead  rendered himself celebrated for  his  conversa-
ziones, to which he invited the great wits and  literati of
the day.  The following allusion  to these  interesting
meetings occurs in a popular  work of the present day:—
  " Pray doctor,"  said the Counsellor---------, " what
a pity it is, methinks, we have so few of these  conversa.
ziones now-a-days—they  are so rational, so  delightful.  I
remember, when a boy, how much I wished to be a man,
that I might be  permitted to join the societies of this
caste.  There were  I  know not how many in the neigh-
bourhood of my poor father, in Ormond Street.  First, I
recollect Sir Hans Sloane's, in Bloomsbury Square—ha!
—ha !—ha !—the precise old gentleman ; he used to be
so  out of temper when  they spilled  the  coffee on his
carpets;  and that reminds me of Handel, whom  I  can
well recollect.  He was  there  one evening (as I heard
him relate)  and inadvertently  laid his muffin  on one of
the old Knight's books.  «To be sure it  was a gareless
trick,' said the great composer, »but it tid  no monsdrous
mischief; pode it put the old poag-vorm treadfully out of
sorts.  I offered my best  apologies,' said he, ' but the old
miser would not have done with it'—»It  is really a want
of feeling to do these things,' said Sir Hans.  ' If it had
been  a  biscuit, it would not have mattered ; but muffin
and butter—only  think, Mr. Martin Folkes !*"
  " ' Ah,—that is the rub."   (said Handel,) ' it is the
pudder ! now, mine worthy friend, Sir Hans Sloane, you
have  a  nodable excuse—you may save  your doast and
pudder, and lay  it to dat unfeeling gormandizing Ger-
  * Nichol's "Recollections of Geo. III.," vol. i. p. 369,
and Cox's "Life of Walpole." 
            CHRONICLES OF WARWICK HALL.         115

man; and den I knows it will add something to your life,
by sparing your burse ."
  " I have been told every one enjoyed this blunt humour
of Handel's; for Sir Hans, although a very good man in
most respects, was parsimonious to a great fault.  Indeed,
it was said, on Sir Hans  discontinuing these meetings,
which had for a long time  drawn a select number of dis-
tinguished men together on a winter's night, that it was
principally to save his tea and bread and butter.
  " Not so with Dr. Mead.   What  a princely mind had
that noble creature !  I can remember his benignant look
when once I was taken to him by my father—it was one
forenoon—to see his fine collection of paintings.  I could
not be more than eight or  nine  years old, yet I well re-
member a formal beau of the old school being there, who
was talking very pompously about the pictures.  This
was Master Aaron  Hill.   Yes, I  remember him  the
rather, because, little urchin as I was, I observed to my
father, when we left the Doctor's, on his asking me, with
fond condescension, how I  liked what I had seen—' Sir,
I think  Mr. Aaron Hill was very rude to talk as he did
about Dr. Mead's picture;  and if I had been the Doctor,
I would have caned him.' Sirs, my father laughed at my
manikin expression all the way home.  And that, too, re-
minds me of my poor father's humour for some years
after; for when my eldest brothers used to have any
little dispute with me, the worthy old gentleman used to
say, ' Take care, masters,  or you may come in  for  a
cane-ing,'
  "This picture  relating   to Aaron Hill was a clever
whole-length—I say  clever, though I could  be no judge
then, because I have lately seen it in the Foundling Hos-
pital—was painted by my old friend  Allan Ramsey.  It
is so like—ah, what a wonderful art!—that I could have
spoken to it, it carried me so completely  back to my
infancy.
  "Aaron, I remember, among other faults declared— 
116
PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
which to be sure is  no small one—it was not like the
Doctor, which I thought very odd, being no connoiseur,"
added the counsellor, smiling;  " for I thought it so strong
a resemblance, that I fancied  it was  almost  alive, and
wondered how such a work could be done.  He further
said to my father,  ' Sir, no man can  paint now, except
Mr. Reynolds—and he is not fit to hold a candle to Van-
dyke.'
  " All this, boy as  I  was, I thought very strange and
very foolish; or perhaps," said the candid relator, with
becoming self-knowledge, " I now think so—for the story
of that visit was so often told at my father's table, that I
may give to myself the merit of reflections made by my
elders.  One thing, however, I  may safely say, which is,
that Master Aaron appeared to  me a rude and a pedantic
coxcomb.
  "That Dr. Mead was a gieat soul indeed!" said  my
friend the Cantab.  " How much more society is indebted
to such a being than the far greater part of mankind is
aware of!  Here was  a man who raised a fortune by his
rare talent; who, amidst the arduous labours of his pro-
fessional duties, yet found  leisure to cultivate his love for
the arts and sciences ; who spared  no expense in collect
ing works of taste, but moreover, who, with a munificence
and benevolence that must endear his memory to all good
men, did  not this out of ostentation—no!  but  from  the
generous desire to promote  the  study of polite arts at his
own expense ;—urged  to this act by that dignified feeling
which could not bear  to behold genius disregarded, or to
think that the children of taste  were the only orphans, in
an age of civilization, who were left to battle alone with
adversity.  That  great and good man, Sirs, when he had
formed  his collection, which was certainly in those daj-s
no mean one, threw open his gallery for the benefit of the
students in painting  and  sculpture, and his house on  a
morning was truly an academy of science.
  " Sirs, I have it on indubitable authority, that he would 
CHRONICLES OF WARWICK HALL.         117
 lend any, even the most costly of his pictures, to any re-
 spectable artist for an exemplar ; and let us suppose what
 a valuable patron such a man must have been, in such an
 age of apathy to these matters as the reign of the second
 George."
   " In the autumn of 1738," says Dr. Cuming to Lettsom,
 " I frequently visited  Dr. Mead.  One morning, while at
 breakfast he told me  that he had  been applied  to by Sir
 William (then Dr. Brown), who had come to reside in the
 metropolis, to recommend  a  physician of character  to
 supply his place at Lynn.   Dr. Mead obligingly told me,
 that, if agreeable, he would  recommend me  for this pur-
 pose.   This offer I thankfully accepted of. When I next
 waited  on the  doctor, he acquainted  me that he had, ac-
 cording  to his  promise mentioned me to Dr. Brown, but
 that he, on  inquiring who and what I was, objected to
 me, saying,  he should accept of no person as his suc-
 cessor,  who  was not a graduate of Oxford and  Cam-
 bridge."  Dr. Mead, piqued  at  this reply, as considering
 such a circumstance to  be  of very little importance, an-
 swered  with  some warmth, " Sir,  you annexed no such
 condition on your first application to me.  For the sake of
 my own character, you might have been persuaded that I
 would  have  recommended no  gentleman to you, but one
 with whom I was acquainted, who had had a liberal edu-
 cation, and whose manners and abilities I was well  in-
 formed of by persons of credit who had introduced him
 to me.   Do you, Sir, yourself look  out for a successor  to
 your own taste ; I shall concern myself no further in this
 business."   It  was  principally to  Dr. Mead that the
 several  counties of England, and  our  Colonies abroad,
applied for the choice of their physicians, as he never re-
 commended  any but such whose capacity he was well
assured of.   He  never failed to assist them with his ad-
vice and information when they had recourse to him in
difficult cases, and required nothing of them in return,
                          11 
118             PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
but an account of their  several discoveries and  observa-
tions, of which they enjoyed the whole honour.*
  It has been  justly said of this distinguished physician,
that " of all physicians who had ever flourished,  he gain-
ed the most, spent the most, and enjoyed the highest fa-
vour during his  lifetime, not only in  his own, but in fo-
reign countries."t
  In  1660 flourished Doctor Cadogan, who was  distin-
guished as much for  his fondness for  shooting, as  for his
medical skill.  The following lines refer to this  physi-
cian :—

 " Doctor, all game you either ought to shun,
  Or sport no longer with the unsteady gun,
  But like physicians of undoubted skill,
  Gladly attempt what never fails to kill,
  Not lead's uncertain dross, but physic's deadly pill."

  This physician, who was at one time in indifferent cir-
cumstances, married a rich old  lady, over  whose  wealth
he  had an entire  control.  Like  most mercantile mar-
riages, it was  not of the happiest kind.  The lady had a
suspicion  on  her  mind, that the  doctor would one day
poison her with  his physic in order to get  her out of his
way, and  feeling ill, on one occasion, she exclaimed that
she was  poisoned.  " Poisoned!"  said the doctor  to a
number of his  wife's  friends who were present " how
can  that   possibly  be ?  Whom do you  accuse  of  the
  * Pettigrew, vol. i. p. 103, dated March 6, 1785.
  t The following lines were  addressed to the author of
an epitaph on Dr. Mead:—

 » Mead's not dead then, you say, only sleeping a little;
  Why, egad! Sir, you've hit it off there to a tittle;
  Yet, friend, his awakening 1 very much doubt,
  Pluto knows who he's got, and will ne'er let him out" 
             CHRONICLES OF WARWICK HALL.        119

crime?"  "You,"  replied  the  indignant wife.   "Gentle-
men," said the doctor, with  considerable  non-chalance,
" it is perfectly false.  You are quite welcome to open
her at once, and you will then discover the calumny."
  In the 18th century lived  Dr. John  Bainbridge, an
eminent  physician and astronomer.  Judging  from  the
accounts published of him, he must have ranked high as
a scholar and medical  philosopher.   His description of
the comet in 1618, made him  acquainted with Sir Henry
Savile, who, without  any  application  or recommendation
in favour of Dr. Bainbridge, appointed him his first pro-
fessor of astronomy  at Oxford, in the year 1619.  He
was a most voluminous writer on astronomical subjects.
An odd  story is  related  of him by Dr. Walter Pope, in
his Life  of Seth  Ward, Bishop of Salisbury.   Speaking
of the doctor  he says, " This is the same Dr. Bainbridge
who was afterwards Savilian  Professor of Astronomy at
Oxford, a learned and  good mathematician.  Yet there
goes a story of him, which was in many scholars' mouths,
when I was  first admitted there, that he  put  upon the
school-gate, as the custom is, an affiche or written paper,
giving notice  at what time, and  upon what subject, the
professor will read, which  ended in these words—Lec-
tures de polls et axis, under which  was written, by an
unknown hand, as follows:—

           u Doctor Bainbridge
             Came from  Cambridge,
             To  read de polis et axis:
             Let him go back again,
             Like a dunce as he came,
             And learn a new syntaxis."

  Dr. Bainbridge died the 3d of November, 1643, aged
sixty-two.
  Doctor John Fothergill was the son of parents who
professed the  principles of Quakerism.  They are sup- 
120
PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
posed to have been  in  the  middle rank  of life, and to
have gone through the world with no other distinction in
society, than that which belonged  to the  humble claims
of honest industry.
  To those who  remember the sobriety and decorum of
Fothergill's deportment, it will  appear  incredible that at
any  period of his life he should have acted  in such a
manner as to give offence to decency and  propriety ; and
were not the fact of public notoriety, and  within the me-
mory of many now living, it would hardly deserve credit,
or meet with any belief.   But however extraordinary it
may appear, it is confidently asserted, that  while  he re-
sided at Edinburgh he walked  the length of High Street
naked  to the  waist, and, in a fit of inspiration, denounced
God's vengeance on the inhabitants.  The motive for an
action  so indecent and eccentric, sets all conjecture at
defiance.
  Dr.  Fothergill commenced  the  practice of his  profes.
sion in 1740, in  a house situated  in  White-heart Court,
Lombard Street, where  he  continued  the  greater part of
his life, and acquired and established both his fame and
fortune.
  Dr.  Fothergill was as distinguished for his charity, as
for his medical skill.  A physician of eminence, who had
long been on a friendly footing with  him, being under
difficulties, and having a wife and several children to
support, mentioned his  distress to him, when, to his great
satisfaction,  Dr. Fothergill presented him with a  draft
upon his banker for £1000.  Since his death it appears
from his  memoranda, that for  the last twenty-five years
his fees averaged £6700 per annum.  Fothergill enter-
tained high notions respecting the dignity of the  profes-
sion he followed. Nothing (says Dr. Lettsom) hurt his
feelings more, than an  estimate of the  medical profession,
 formed upon lucrative  advantages.  He was ever averse
 to speak of his pecuniary emoluments.  " My only wish,"
 he declared, " was to do what little business might fall to 
             CHRONICLES OF WARWICK HALL.          121

my share, as well as possible, and to banish  all thoughts
of practising physic as a  money-getting trade, with the
same solicitude as I would the suggestions of vice or in-
temperance."  In  a letter  written  several years after-
wards, when he was in the receipt of a large professional
income, he writes, " I  endeavour to follow my business,
because it is my duty, rather than  my interest; the last
is inseparable  from a just discharge of duty; but I have
ever wished to look at the profits  in the  last place, and
this wish has attended me ever since my beginning."
Again he says, " I wished most fervently, and I endeav-
our after it still, to do the business that occurred, with all
the diligence I could, as a present duty, and endeavoured
to repress  any rising  idea  of its  consequences—such  a
circumscribed unaspiring temper  of mind, doing every
thing with diligence, humility, and as in the sight of the
God of healing, frees  the mind from much unavailing
distress and consequential disappointment."
   We have already stated  that charity was a predomi-
nant feature in Dr. Fothergill's character.  It is stated
that during the summer he retired to  Lea Hall, in  Che-
shire,  He devoted one day in every week to attendance
at Middle wich, the nearest market-town, and gave his
gratuitous  advice  to the  poor.  He assisted the clergy,
not merely with his advice, but, on numerous occasions,
with his purse.  On one  occasion  he was reproved by a
friend  for his refusal of a fee from a person who had at-
tained a  high rank in the church.   " I had rather (replied
the doctor) return  the fee of a gentleman whose rank I
am  not perfectly acquainted with, than run the risk of
taking it from a man who ought, perhaps, to be the ob-
ject of my bounty."  When he paid his  last visit to pa-
tients in decayed circumstances, it was not unusual with
him, under  the appearance of feeling the  pulse, to slip
into their hand a sum of money, or a bank-note.  In one
instance this mode of donation  is said to  have  conveyed
£150.  To the modest or proud poverty which shuns the
                         11* 
122             PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
 light of observation, he was the delicate and zealous visi-
 ter :  in order to preclude  the necessity of acknowledg.
 ment, which  is often painful  to such minds, he would
 endeavour to invent some  motive for his  bounty, and
 hence afford to the  receiver the pretensions of a claim,
 while the liberal donor appeared  to be only discharging
 a debt.
   Lord Clive had been living for some  time at Bath,
 under a regimen for reducing  the enormous quantity of
 opium which he had gradually brought  his constitution
 to bear ; and when this object was in a great  degree ef-
 fected, the  physicians  absolutely forbad  his taking the
 waters, and advised his  return to London.  On his arrival
 there, Dr. Fothergill, whom he  immediately consulted,
 blamed him very much for the course he had  adopted,
 and advised his immediate return to Bath, strongly re.
 commending the waters of that place as the only means
 of  relief.   Thus buffeted about  by his  different physi-
 cians, and concluding from  their conduct towards him
 that his case would not  admit of any remedy, he resolved
 to obviate the lingering approaches of death by the fatal
 application of his own hand.
  A few years before the death of this celebrated physi-
 cian, a Cumberland  gentleman, much addicted to the
 bottle, and possessed of  few Christian virtues, coming to
 town, applied to the doctor for advice.   Being introduced,
 Fothergill, who had some  knowledge  of  his person,
 which, however, he chose to conceal, inquired  what was
 his ailment; to which the patient  replied, he was very
 well in health, eat well, drank well, and  slept well, but
 wished to  know how  he might be guarded against sudden
snaps.  The venerable physician, feeling a supreme con-
tempt for  so dissolute and  abandoned  a character,  gave
him a prescription  for his complaint in the following de-
served reproof: " Do justice, love mercy, walk humbly
with thy God, and do not snap the bottle too often."
  Of Dr.  Fothergill, Dr. Cuming  observes:  " He pos- 
CHRONICLES OF WARWICK HALL.         123
 sessed  a greater  purity of  manners, more  self-govern-
 ment, and a more absolute command of his passions than
 any man I ever knew, who was  constantly engaged in
 business, and  a continued intercourse  with the  world.
 After saying thus much, I may be allowed to remark,
 that there was in his manner a perpendicularity,  a cer-
 tain formality, and solemnity, which  checked, in some
 measure, the approach of strangers.  He generally wore,
 indeed, on  his countenance  a smile—it was a smile of
 benignity and  philanthropy, and to his patients it  was a
 hope-inspiring smile.

    " Seldom he laugh'd, and laugh'd in such a sort,
     As if he mock'd himself, and  scorn'd his spirit
     That could be mov'd to laugh at any thing."

   " But all this I  attribute to his  having  been initiated
 from  his birth, and educated in the most rigid maxims of
 the religious society to  which he belonged, of the  pro-
 priety of which he was  thoroughly convinced, and most
 strictly tenacious.   Had  he been a member of any other
 religious  sect,  this formality  in his  manner would not
 have  appeared, the benevolence of his  heart  would have
 unfurled his features, relaxed them into a careless  cordi-
 ality of aspect, and softened the rigour of austere virtues.
 No man, I believe, that mixed with the world ever passed
 through life with fewer relaxations  from  duty, for the
 enjoyment of what is usually denominated pleasure.  I
 could  have wished him  to have been less tenacious of
 some  discriminating peculiarities, which in  my opinion
 arc indifferent; but he possessed a great degree of self-
 diffidence."
  At  the commencement  of the  American war,  .Mr.
Grenville, then  in power, wishing to know  how the qua-
ker colonists stood affected, sent  a  messenger to Dr. Fo-
thcrgill, intimating that he was indisposed, and  desiring
to sec him  in  the evening.  The  doctor came, and his 
124             PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
patient immediately drew from him the information he
wanted on the popular topic  of American  affairs.  The
conversation lasted  through a large portion of the even-
ing,  and it was concluded by Mr.  Grenville saying, he
found himself so much better for  the doctor's visit, that
he would not trouble him to  prescribe.  In parting, Mr.
Grenville  slipped five  guineas into the doctor's hand,
which Fothergill surveying, said  with a dry, arch tone,
" At this rate, friend, I will spare  thee an hour whenever
you please to send for me !"
  " I remember," says Dr. Lettsom,* " when at Lea Hall,
with Dr. Fothergill, one Sunday when the  barber disap-
pointed him, and his attendance at meeting seemed likely
to be prevented, and the doctor in the fidgets, I observed
to him : ' That his  servant Emanuel, could shave him.'
The doctor, with the fire and  quickness which sometimes
overcame him, hastily replied : ' If thou mean to preserve
authority in thy house, never  suffer a servant to take thee
by the nose.'   I  was  silent,  and  the barber's opportune
arrival restored placidity and  good humour."
  The fortune whicii  Fothergill left was computed  at
£80,000.  During the prevalence of the influenza, in the
year 1775-6, he is said to have attended sixty patients  a
day, and his profits  were then estimated at £8000 a year.
  In the eighteenth century lived the celebrated  Doctor
Battie.   He was educated at Eton ; and in 1722, he was
sent to King's College, Cambridge, where he obtained the
Craven scholarship.   The following is an  account of the
doctor's mode of living, before he obtained this honour,
from the pen of one  of his competitors, Dr.  Morell: "We
jogged on in  statu  quo, till we came to the upper end of
the school; when Dr. Bland introduced a new method of
declaiming (and I think  a very good one): instead of a
theme, I was to make a motion, as in the Athenian coun-
cil, Exulet Themistocles, and Battie  was to defend  himself
* Pettigrew's Life of Dr. L. vol. i. 121. 
             CHRONICLES OF WARWICK HALL.         125

as Themistocles.  We were strictly charged to have no
assistance in the composition; and  as  there was  some-
thing in mine, with regard to the argumentative part, far
above my reach, Battie every where proclaimed that it
was not mine;  and even Dr. Bland suspected me, till I
gave him an account of the  plagiarism, from  a weekly
paper, in one of the letters signed  Cato, against affecting
popularity, for which Dr. Bland blamed me."
  A pretty  picture Dr. Morell gives of Battie's college
life.  He says, " We went  to King's College  about the
same time ;  and during our scholarship, Battie's mother
kjndly recommended us to the chandler, at 4s. Gd.per dozen.
But, as the candles proved very dear even  at that price,
we  resented it; and  one evening getting into Battie's
room before  canonical hour, we locked  him out, lighted
and  stuck up all the candles we could find in his  box,
round the room; and, while I thumped on the spinnet
the rest danced round me in their shirts.   Upon Battie's
coming, and finding what we were at, he fell to stammer-
ing and swearing till the old vice provost, Dr.  Willymot,
called out from above,  " Who is that  swearing, like a
common soldier ?"  " It is I," quoth Battie.  " Visit me,"
said the vice-provost, which, indeed, we  were all obliged
to do the next morning with a distich, according to  cus-
torn.  Mine  naturally turned upon, " So fiddled Orpheus,
and so danced the brutes ;" which having explained to the
vice-provost, he punished me and  Sleech with a few lines
of the Iliad of Homer, and Battie with the whole  third
book of Milton,  to  get, as we  say, by heart.  Dr. Battie
belonged to  Taylors'  Inn, and he told me of a stranger
calling him a Taylor  in  London.  In his edition of Iso-
cratcs I wrote the following verses.

     "Nay,  hold ! friend Battie, quit the press,
         Nor further urge the  failure ;
      Your author asks no better dress
         From such a bungling taylor. 
126             PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.

     " Full happily the man mistook,
        Unknowing of thy fame,
      Who, ere you had botch'd, or patch'd a book,
        Miscalled you by this name.

     " But if this name still gives offence,
        And ' quack' you'd rather  hear,
      As  nothing shows a man of sense
        Like knowing his own sphere;

     " Confine yourself to license given,
        Nor dare beyond your trade ;
      Though you are free to kill the living,
        Yet prythee spare the dead."

  Dr. Battie originally intended to  study law, but being
disappointed in some  pecuniary assistance which he ex-
pected to receive from his relations, he turned his atten-
tion to physic.
  Dr. Battie commenced  practice at Cambridge, but sub-
sequently  removed  to Uxbridge,  and  then to  London,
where the emoluments of his practice produced him
£1000 per annum.
  In the year 1738, he married the daughter of the under-
master of  Eton School, Barnham Goode, the same person
who  was  humoured  with  the following  extraordinary
couplet by Pope:—

   "So, sneering Goode, half malice and half whim,
    A friend in glee, ridiculously grim."

  In a dispute  which the College of Physicians had with
Dr. Schomberg, about the year 1750, Dr. Battie,  who was
at that time one of the censors, took a very active part
against that gentleman; and inconsequence of it  was thus
severely characterized in a poem called " The Battiad."

   " First  Battus came, deep read in worldly art,
    Whose tongue ne'er knew the secrets of his  heart; 
             CHRONICLES OF WARWICK HALL.         127

    In mischief mighty, though but mean of size,
    And, like the tempter, ever in disguise.
    See him, with aspect grave, and gentle tread,
    By slow degrees approach the sickly bed:
    Then at his club, behold him alter'd soon,
    The solemn doctor turns  a low buffoon:
    And he, who lately  in a learned freak,
    Poach'd every Lexicon, and published Greek,
    Still madly emulous.of vulgar praise,
    From Punch's forehead wrings the dirty bays."

  By successfully mimicking  this  character, however, he
is said to have once saved a young patient's life.   He was
sent for to a gentleman between  the age of  fifteen and
sixteen, who was  in  extreme  misery from a swelling in
his  throat; when Dr. Battie  understood  what the com-
plaint was, he opened  the  curtain, turned his  wig and
acted Punch with so  much humour and success, that the
lad  was thrown into convulsive fits of laughter, which
caused the tumour to break, and a complete cure was the
consequence.
  When Dr. Battie resided in the country, he affected to
be his own day labourer, and to dress like one; nay, so
very meanly was  he  attired, that one day going to visit a
patient, the servant would not let him into the house; a
scuffle ensued,  and the doctor pushed himself into the
saloon by main force.
  One of Dr. Battie's whims was building.  At Marlow
he erected a house, forgetting  to make a  stair-case; and
at high flood, the offices below where  constantly under
water.   This house he lived in to his death.  He insisted
that the barges  should  be drawn  up the  river by horses
instead of men.   This, though a useful scheme, disobliged
both poor and rich at the time, and a number of barge-
men had very nearly tossed him over the  bridge into the
water.   He escaped  by  acting Punch.  From that time,   • 
128
PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
for fear of future insults he always carried pocket pistols
about with him.*
   In  1757,  he  was appointed physician to St.  Luke's
Hospital, and he published a quarto treatise on madness;
in which having thrown out some censures on the medi-
cal practice formerly used in Bethlem Hospital, he was
replied to, and  severely animadverted on, by  Dr.  J.
Monro, whose father had been lightly spoken of in the trea-
tise.  Monro having humorously enough taken Horace's
" O major, tandem parcas Insane, minori," for the motto
of his " Remarks on Battie's Treatise," the men of mirth
gave him the name of Major Battie  instead of doctor.
   In 1776, he was seized with a paralytic  stroke, which
carried him off, June 13th, in the same year, in his 75th
year.   The night he expired, conversing with his servant,
a lad who attended on him as a nurse, he said to him,
"young man, you  have heard, no  doubt, how great are
the terrors of death.  This night will probably afford you
some experiment; but may you learn, and may you profit
by the example, that a conscientious endeavour to perform
his duty through life, will  ever close a Christian's eyes
with comfort and tranquillity."  He soon departed without
a struggle or a groan.  He  was buried  by his own direc-
tion, at Kingston, in  Surrey, " as near  as possible to his
wife, without any monument or memorial whatever."
   Doctor Mathew Baillie commenced his  professional
career under most favourable auspices.   He was desirous
of going into the church; but the eminence of his uncle,
Dr. W. Hunter, induced him to study medicine.  He was
the son of an able professor of divinity.  He married
Sophia, the second daughter  of the celebrated Dr. Den-
man.   Mr. Baillie's  sister  was married to the late Sir
Richard Croft,  a man whose name is endeared in the
recollections of many, as well for his manly and upright

   * See  Francis  Carter's "Letter,"  v. iv. Nichol's
Eighteenth Century," p. 607. 
CHRONICLES Of WARWICK HALL.         129
 heart,  as  for  his  professional  celebrity.  Miss Joanna
 Baillie, who has attained 60 high a rank in literature, was
 Dr. Baillie's sister.
   Under the tuition of his maternal uncle, Dr. W. Hunter,
 his progress was  very rapid.   As  a specimen of the
 course adopted by his preceptor, in order to instil into
 Baillie's mind a knowledge of his profession, we give the
 following: " Mathew, 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 matter,
 if you know the subject really,  you will know it whether
 the preparation be absent  or present."  After this short
 dialogue, Dr. Hunter would stand with  his  back to the
 fire, while young Baillie demonstrated the  subject of the
 lecture which had just been delivered;  and then  the
 student was encouraged by approbation and assistance;
 or immediately upon the spot, convicted of having carried
 away with him nothing but the  loose and inaccurate in-
 formation.
   Of Dr. Baillie's generosity and liberality, his biographer
 has recorded  the following instances: "A  young  lady
 who was suffering from a pulmonary complaint asked his
 advice, and he recommended her to spend the winter
 months in a milder part of the  country.   He found  that
 her circumstances would not admit of her trying  this last
 resource to gain her  health; and to enable her to do so,
 he instantly gave her  an adequate sum of money.
  The following instance came under the observation of
 Mr. Wardrop, and is thus recorded  by him : " A lady,
 whose rank in life was far above  her pecuniary resources,
 had an illness, when Dr. B.'s attendance  became impor-
 tant, and during which he regularly took  his fee, until it
 was no longer necessary ; he then left in a bag the whole
amount of what he  had received, offering to the  lady an
apology, that he knew that  had he once refused  to  take
                          12 
130
PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
his  fee  during  his  attendance, she would not have per-
mitted him to continue it."
  During the  time he was spending the great part of
each week at  Windsor, in  attendance  on the Princess
Amelia, who was then on her death-bed, so that the time
he had  to  spend in London was more  than completely
occupied,  a lady who had  the dropsy, though aware of
her hopeless condition, expressed a wish, that if she could
but see  Dr. Baillie, she should die  contented.  " I com-
municated to him," says Mr. Wardrop, " her  wish, and he
immediately acquiesced.  He interrogated her about  her
means, which I  knew to be very slender; he in conse-
sequence objected to take any fee, and continued punctu-
ally to visit her as long as she lived."
  In 1810, Dr. B. was commanded by the late king to at.
tend, in conjunction with Sir. H. Halford, Sir D. Dundas,
and  Dr. Pope,  on  his youngest daughter, the Princess
Amelia.   Though he w|s very sensible of the honour of
receiving such a command, yet he felt that it was adding
greatly to the embarrassment occasioned by his very ex-
tensive  practice ; but whatever might have  been the in-
convenience of this attendance to himself, the condescen-
sion and kindness  of his late  Majesty very soon recon-
ciled him to his  visits at Windsor.  Among  other memo-
randa of Dr. Baillie, was found the following anecdote:
"One day when I waited on the  king, with the other
medical  attendants, in order to give an account of the
Princess Amelia, his Majesty said to me, ' Dr. Baillie, I
have a favour  to ask  of you, which I hope  you will not
refuse me, it is that you will become my physician extra-
ordinary.'  I bowed, and made the  best acknowledgment
in words that I could.  His Majesty added, ' I thought
you would not  refuse me, and therefore, I have given
directions that  your  appointment  should be  made out.'
A few days after," continues Dr. Baillie, " when we again
waited on the king, he said to the other  medical men in
my presence, ' I have made Dr. Baillie my physician  ex- 
             CHRONICLES OF WARWICK HALL.         131

traordinary against his will, but  not against his heart.'"
On one occasion the king was advised to go to Bath, and
Dr.  B.  recommended  him  to consult  there a  medical
gentleman whom he named; the king  immediately con-
jectured  the  country  from  whence he came, and  after
listening to all Dr. Baillie had to  say to him, his  Majesty
jocosely  observed,  " I suppose, Dr.  Baillie, he is not a
Scotchman."
   During Baillie's latter years, when he had retired from
all but consultation practice, and had  ample time to at-
tend  to  each individual case, he  was very  deliberate,
tolerant, and willing  to  listen to whatever was said to
him by  the  patient;  but,  at an earlier  period, in the
hurry of great business,  when his day's work, as he used
to say, amounted to sixteen hours,  he was  sometimes
rather irritable, and betrayed a want  of temper  in  hear-
ing the tiresome details of an unimportant story.  After
listening, with torture, to a  pressing 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."
   A few years  ago, before  Dr. Baillie's death, during  a
visit which the late  Professor Gregory,  of Edinburgh,
made  to London, these eminent  physicians, equally dis-
tinguished in their separate departments, conversed to-
gether  on several  occasions; and the judgment  they
jocosely passed  upon  each other, was expressed in the
following manner :  " Baillie," said the accomplished and
classical professor, " knows nothing but physic."  " Gre-
gory,"  exclaimed  the experienced and skilful  London
practitioner,  " seems  to  me to  know every thing  but
physic."
   Baillie was rejected at the College.   Ho  called the next
day on Dr. Barrowby, who  was  one of the censors, and 
132
PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
insisted upon his fighting him.  Barrowby, who was a
little puny man, declined it.  " I am only third censor,"
said he, " in point of age—you must first call out your
own countryman, Sir Hans Sloane, our president, and
when you have fought him, and two senior censors, then
I shall be ready to meet you."
  Many medical duels have been prevented by the diffi-
culty of arranging the  " methodus  pugnandi."  In the
instance of Dr. Brocklesby, the  number of paces  could
not be agreed upon; and in  the affair between Akenside
and Ballow, one had  determined never to fight in the
morning, and the other that  he would never fight in the
afternoon.
  John Wilkes, who did not stand upon  ceremony in
these little affairs, when asked by  Lord Talbot, " How
many times they were to fire?"  replied "just as often as
your lordship pleases; I have brought a bag of bullets
and a flask of gunpowder with me."
  Notwithstanding  Dr. Baillie's general amiability of
character, the multiplicity of his  professional concerns
would often betray  him  into an irritability  of  temper.
He  frequently came home, after a  day of great  fatigue,
and held up his hands to his family circle, eager to wel-
come him  home, saying,  " Don't  speak to me;"  and
then, presently, after a glass of wine, and when the tran-
sitory cloud had cleared away from his brow, with  a
smile of affection, he would look round him, and exclaim:
" You may speak to me  now."
  Dr. Sydenham  still keeps his well-earned and  long.
acknowledged fame amidst the modern wildness of theory
and singularity of  practice.  " Opinionum commenta
delet dies," says Tully very beautifully; " nature judicia
conjirmat."
  Sydenham had a troop of horse when King Charles  I.
had made a garrison-town  of Oxford, and studied medi-
cine by accidentally falling into the  company of Dr.
Coxe, an eminent physician, who  finding him to be  a 
CHRONICLES OF WARWICK HALL.         133
man of great parts, recommended to him his own profes-
sion, and gave him directions for his method of pursuing
his studies in that art.  These he pursued with such suc-
cess, that in a few years afterwards he became the chief
physician of the metropolis.
  Sir Richard Blackmore says of him, " that he  built all
his maxims and rules of practice upon  repeated observa-
tions  on the nature and properties of disease,  and on
the power of remedies; and that he compiled so good a
history of distempers, and so prevalent a method  of cure,
that he has  advanced the  healing art  more than Dr.
Wallis, with all  his curious speculations and  fanciful
hypotheses."
  In  the dedication of one of his Treatises  to his friend
Dr. Mapletoft, Sydenham  says, "that  the  medical art
could not be learned so well and so surely as by use and
experience; and that he who would pay the nicest and
most  accurate attention to the symptoms of distempers,
would succeed best in finding out the  true means  of
cure."  He says, afterwards, " that it was no small sanc-
tion to his method, that it was approved of by Mr. Locke,"
of whom he  adds,  " whether I consider his genius,  or
the acuteness and accuracy of his judgment, and his an-
cient  (that is, the  best) morals, I hardly think that I can
find  one superior,  certainly very few that arc equal  to
him."
  Sydenham  had such confidence  in  exercise on horse-
back, that in one of his  medical works he says,  " that if
any man was possessed of a  remedy that would do equal
service to the human constitution  with  riding gently on
horseback twice a  day, he would be in possession of the
philosopher's  stone."
  The very extraordinary ^ase mentioned by this great
physician, of the cure of a  most inveterate diarrhoea, in
a learned prelate,  by slow  journeys on  horseback, was
that of Seth Ward, the Bishop of Sarum, a great mathe-
matician,  and one  of  the  first members of the Royal
                         12* 
134             THYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
Society.  It is mentioned  in the  life of the Bishop, by
Dr. Walter Pope.
  Sydenham died of the gout; and in the latter part  of
his life is described as visited with that dreadful disorder,
and sitting near an open window,  on the ground-floor of
his house, in St. James's Square,  respiring the cool breeze
on a summer's evening, and reflecting with a serene coun.
tenance, and great complacency, on the  alleviation to hu-
man misery that his skill in  his art enabled  him to give.
Whilst this divine man was enjoying one of these  deli-
cious reveries, a thief took away from the table, near to
which he was  sitting, a silver tankard filled with his fa-
vourite beverage, small beer, in which  a sprig of rose-
mary had been immersed, and ran  off with it.  Sydenham
was too lame to ring the bell, and too feeble in his voice
to give the alarm.
  This great physician has been accused of discouraging
students in medicine from  reading works connected with
their  own  complicated  art.  Sir Richard Blackmore ob-
serves, that a  man of good sense, vivacity, and spirit,
may arrive  to the  highest  rank  as a physician, without
the assistance  of great erudition and knowledge of books;
and he tells us that this was the  case with Dr. Sydenham,
who became an eminent and an able physician, though
he never designed  to take up the profession until the  civil
wars were  concluded; and then, being  a disbanded offi-
cer, he entered upon it for a maintenance, without any
learning properly  preparatory for  the undertaking of it:
and to show what contempt he had for the writings  in
physic, when one day he asked him what books he should
read to qualify him for practice, Sydenham replied, " read
Don Quixote, it is a very good  book, I  read it still;"  so
low an opinion had  this celebrated man of the learning
collected  out of the authors, his predecessors.  And the
late celebrated physician Dr. Radcliffe, whose judgment
was universally relied upon as almost infallible in his pro-
fession, used to say, that when  he died, he  would leave 
             CHRONICLES OF WARWICK HALL.         135

behind him the whole mystery of physic in  half a sheet
of paper.   " It is true," says Blackmore, " that both these
doctors carried the matter much too far by vilifying learn-
ing, of which they were no masters, and perhaps for that
reason."
  Sir Hans Sloane, who  was very well acquainted with
Sydendam, says, he never knew a man of brighter natural
parts than that  physician, and he believes what is here
said about Don Quixote, to be merely a joke; and that
Tully was Dr. Sydenham's favourite  author, he having  a
fine bust of him  in his study.
  Sir Hans Sloane, the  celebrated physician and natu-
ralist, was born at Killcleugh, in the  South of Ireland, in
1660.  He succeeded Sir Isaac Newton as  president of
the  Royal Society, was the  founder  of the  British Mu-
seum, and President of the College of Physicians.
  He settled in London, in the year 1684, and was in
high vogue as a  practitioner in Radcliffe's time, with
whom  he was acquainted,  though they were  never on
good terms.  He  continued in great  practice till  the
year 1746, when  he retired, and died fourteen  years
afterwards.
  On his arrival in London, Sloane  waited  upon Syden-
ham, with a letter  of recommendation from  a friend, set-
ting forth his qualifications in flaming terms—" he was a
ripe scholar—a good botanist—a skilful anatomist, &c."
  After Sydenham had perused this eulogy, and had eyed
the  tyro  very attentively, he said: " All this is migiity
fine ; but it wont do!  anatomy—botany—nonsense !  Sir,
I have an old woman in Covent Garden who understands
botany better; as for  anatomy my butcher can dissect  a
joint full  as well;—no, young man, all this  is stuff; you
must go to the bedside, it is there you can  alone learn
disease."
  Such was the first interview which the future President
of the Royal Society, and the successor of the great Sir
Isaac Newton, had with the father of English medicine,
as Sydenham has been termed. 
136
PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
  Sydenham was subsequently very kind to Sloane, and
frequently took him in his chariot to Acton and  back
again before dinner—Sydenham's favourite  ride.  It was
in one of these excursions that Sloane hinted his intention
of going to Jamaica.  Sydenham remained  silent  until
the  carriage stopped as usual at the Green Park, through
which Sydenham  and Sloane walked, when the doctor
said:  " You must not go—you  had better drown your-
self in Roxmond's pond, as you go along."
  Sloane however went, and brought home a great variety
of new plants.   He was considered the greatest naturalist
of his day, and his friendship and society were courted
by all the literati of Europe.  So passionately fond was
he of botany, that he could not sleep comfortably without
having in his bed-room some scarce and beautiful  plant
to examine before  he  retired to  rest, and when he arose
in the morning.
  Sir Hans Sloane was the first English physician who
was raised to the baronetage.  He was a great favourite
of Queen  Anne's,  whom  he bled in  her last  illness.
Queen Caroline  also thought highly of  him,  and fre-
quently consulted him.  His great scientific attainments
did not act as a bar to his professional advancement. His
practice was very extensive.
  Sir Hans Sloane  bequeathed his immense library and
cabinet of curiosities to the public, on condition of parlia-
ment  granting  to his family the sum of £20,000.  The
library consisted of more  than  fifty-thousand  volumes;
three  hundred and forty-seven of which, were illustrated
with  cuts, finely engraven and  coloured  from nature;
three  thousand five hundred and sixty-six manuscripts;
and an infinite number of  rare and curious books.  The
act for the purpose of purchasing Sir H. Sloane's library
and museum, was passed in 1753.  The  sum of £300,000
was raised  by a lottery, which enabled  parliament to
effect their object.  Besides the  £20,000  paid for Sir
Hans' collection, the Harleian  manuscripts  were pur- 
CHRONICLES OF WARWICK HALL.         137
chased for £10,000, and  a similar sum was given for
Montague House, to which the library, manuscripts, and
curiosities were removed.  Thus originated the British
Museum, now the resort of the most distinguished literary
men and geniuses of the age: Sir Hans also gave to the
Company of Apothecaries, the entire freehold of the bota-
nical garden  at Chelsea.
  Although Sir Hans Sloane expended  a  prodigious sum
of money  in collecting  rareties, he is said to have been of
a penurious  disposition.   At the age of ninety he com-
plained bitterly to Dr. Mortimer, then secretary to the
Royal Society, that all his friends had deserted him; upon
which  the doctor observed, that Chelsea was far removed
from the residence of his friends.  On one occasion, when
Dr. Mortimer  had been  detained for  several  hours in
showing Sir Hans's famous collection to some distin-
guished foreigners, Sloane  invited him to stop to dinner,
and when it appeared,  it consisted of a boiled egg, and a
half-starved fowl.  Upon Dr. Mortimer remonstrating with
Sir Han3, he put the old baronet quite out of humour—
" Keep a table !" he exclaimed, " invite people to dinner!
what! would you have me ruin myself?  Public credit
totters already; and if there should be a national bank-
ruptcy, or a sponge to wipe out the national  debt, you
may yet sec me in the work-house."
   Dr.   Woodward  was  expelled  the  council of the
Royal  Society,  for an insult offered to Sir Hans, then Dr.
Sloane the secretary.  Sir Hans was reading a paper of
his own  composition, and Woodward  said  something
greatly insulting about it.  Sir Isaac Newton was in the
chair  when  the  vote  for  expulsion was agitated.  Dr.
Sloane complained that  he had often affronted him by
making grimaces at  him; and  upon  that occasion Dr.
Arbuthnot got up to ask what  degree of  distortion of the
muscles of a man's face it was that constituted a grimace ?
Woodward, however, was expelled ; and some body having
pleaded in his favour that he was a good  natural philoso- 
138
PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
pher, Sir Isaac Newton remarked, that in order to belong
to that society, a man ought to be a good moral philoso-
pher, as well as a natural one.
  Woodward was an eccentric, turbulent, and vain man.
Bromfield's father, who was a commissioner of the stamp
office, used often to meet Woodward at Rando's coffee-
house.  Woodward was one  day  wondering  how  the
great lived so long as they did, considering their luxurious
mode of living—"to day," says he for instance, "I dined
with the archbishop of Canterbury, and  the venison was
so rich, that  I  feel myself much  disordered by it."  A
wag who overheard the  conversation, and  who had seen
the doctor that day at dinner  at a chop-house, cried out,
« you and I, doctor, ate off the same haunch; only a very
thin partition parted us."
  Dr. W. Woodville flourished in the  year 1791.  He
wrote a celebrated work on botany, and was physician to
the small-pox hospital. He was engaged  in a controversy
with Dr. Jenner respecting the efficacy of the vaccine
virus.  The characteristics of  his genius were judgment,
caution, and prudence.  He has been accused of intern-
perate habits; but this has been most positively denied.
  Medical men are said to  meet  their end with com-
posure.  When  Dr. Woodville was supposed to be dan-
gerously ill, his friends called  upon him and endeavoured
to excite his hopes of recovery : " I am not so silly,"
said the doctor, " as to mind what they say; I know my
own case too well,  and  that I  am  dying: a younger per-
son  with a better stamina,  might think it hard to die, but
why should I regret to leave such a diseased worn-out
 carcass as mine ?"  The carpenter with whom he lodged,
had not been always on the best terms  with Woodville.
The physician said he should wish to  let  the man see that
 he died in peace  with him ; and as he  had  never much
 occasion to employ him, desired he might be sent for to
 measure him for his coffin. This was accordingly done;
 the  carpenter carne, and took  the  measure of the doctor, 
              CHRONICLES OF WARWICK HALL.         139

 who begged him not to be more  than two days about it,
 " for," said he, " I shall not live beyond that time;"  and
 he did actually die just before the end  of the next day.
 He got between  one or two thousand pounds  by his
 " Medical Botany," and with the money bought a small
 estate, which he left to his natural daughter, being all the
 property he possessed.
   Dr. William Hunter was one of the most distinguished
 scientific physicians  of  his day.   He was  originally
 destined for the church, but  having formed the friendship
 of the illustrious Dr. Cullen, he resolved to embrace the
 profession of physic.  A conversation took  place  one
 evening after Dr. Cullen had finished his arduous labours
 of the day, relating  to the respective  positions  of the
 members of the medical and clerical profession, Hunter
 taking one side, and Dr. Cullen  the other.   The question
 was,  which produced the   greater  amount  of mental
 pleasure.  During the conversation,  a message came for
 Cullen to attend immediately a patient represented to be
 dangerously ill.   " Come  with me,  Hunter,"  said  the
 doctor, " and I will introduce you to the sick chamber."
 Conjointly they visited the sick man's habitation.  Cullen
 found  his patient labouring under a serious attack of gas-
 tritis,  attended with  excruciating agony. The friends of
 the invalid were in the greatest apprehension that if relief
 was not instantly administered, death would ensue. Cullen
 directly ordered copious general and  local bleeding, with
 medicines which he thought necessary.   The patient was
 bled, and Cullen and Hunter waited  anxiously to witness
 the result.  A mitigation of the urgent symptoms was the
 effect of the remedies had recourse to, and expressions of
 deep and lasting gratitude were showered down upon the
 physician's head.  This appeared to make a due impres-
 sion on Hunter's  mind, and he exclaimed to Cullen, as
they were going home, " Yours is indeed a noble science,
and I will devote  my existence in attempting to enlarge
its  boundaries."   Thus commenced this great man's 
140             PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.

career.  In  after  life  he  distinguished  himself as an
anatomist, physiologist, a lecturer, and an  accoucheur.
The splendid museum attached  to  the  University  of
Glasgow, is a lasting monument to his fame.  He was a
fellow  of the Royal Society, President of the  Medical
Society, and Accoucheur to the Middlesex Hospital, and
British Lying-in Hospital.   He had the honour of attend-
ing the Queen in her accouchement, and he was of course
appointed Physician Extraordinary to her Majesty.  He
contributed  several valuable  additions to medical lite-
rature, particularly in reference to  the branch of science
which he practised.   A short period before  he  died,  he
rose from his bed to deliver an introductory lecture on the
Operations of Surgery, in opposition to  the earnest re-
monstrances of his friends.  The lecture was accordingly
delivered, but it was  his last.  Towards the conclusion,
his strength was so much exhausted that he fainted away,
and was finally replaced in his chamber, which he had
been so eager to quit.   Turning to his friend Combe, in
his  latter  moments,  he  observed,  " If  I had  strength
enough to hold  a pen,  I would write  how  easy and
pleasant a thing it is to die."   His death took place on
the 30th of March, 1783.
   We  must  not omit, in our enumeration  of Medical
Philanthropists, the name  of Hawes, the founder of that
excellent institution, the Humane Society.
   Dr.  Hawes was born  at  Islington, and  received his
classical education at  St.  Paul's school.   In 1773 he be-
came very popular, owing to his  incessant zeal in calling
the  attention of the public to the resuscitation of persons
apparently dead, principally by drowning.  In this  land-
able attempt he encountered much opposition and ridicule.
The practicability of resuscitation was denied.  He ascer-
tained, however, its feasibility.  He advertised rewards to
person who should, within a certain  time after any acci-
dent, between Westminster and  London  Bridges, rescue
apparently drowned persons from the  water, and  bring 
             CHRONICLES OF WARWICK HALL.         141

them ashore to places appointed for their reception, where
means might be used for their recovery, on their giving
immediate  notice to him.  The public mind  being  thus
awakened to the subject, greater exertions were made by
individuals than had ever been before known;  and many
lives were saved by himself and other medical men.  Mr.
Hawes,  at his  own expense, paid the rewards in  these
cases for twelve months,  which  amounted  to a  con-
siderable sum.  His excellent friend, Dr. Cogan, who had
long turned  his attention  to this subject, remonstrated
with him on  the injury which his private fortune would
sustain from  a perseverance in  these expenses, and he at
last consented to share  them with the public.   Dr. Cogan
and  he  agreed  to join their  strength,  and each of them
bringing  forward fifteen friends  to a meeting at the
Chapter  Coffee-house, in 1774, the Humane Society was
instantly formed.
  The late Dr. Glover, of convivial memory, though
regularly bred  to physic and  surgery, was  for a  short
period  in his early life an actor on the Dublin stage,
during which time he conceived the  idea that many per-
sons, in a state of suspended animation, might, by proper
and timely treatment, be restored to society.  The doctor
was so confident of his  opinion being well-founded, that
he laid  a wager  with  a brother  comedian, that the first
malefactor who  was executed  he would restore to life.
The bet was accepted, and a few days  after the doctor
had  an  opportunity of proving that he was right,  on
the apparently dead body of a man who was hanged for
a robbery.  He was, however, rather unfortunate in the
choice  of his subject;  for the  following day  the fellow
having discovered the  doctor's lodgings,  and being in-
troduced into the apartment where he was  sitting, the
resuscitated criminal, accosting the  preserver  of his life
by the  familiar appellation of " Father" said, that  as he
had restored him to existence, it was his duty to support
him as his son,  and this he should expect him to do.  The
                          13 
142            PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
singularity of the application so amazed the doctor, that
it was  some time  before he recovered his powers suffi-
ciently to enable him  to expel him vi et armis from the
room.  Nothing daunted by his reception, he visited  the
theatre that evening, and harangued the audience from
the gallery, whilst the doctor was  acting.  Wherever the
poor doctor went,  his resuscitated friend  followed him,
demanding a settlement for life.   At last Dr. Glover was
compelled, in order to get rid of his hopeful heir, to offer
to  advance him a sum  of money if he  would leave  the
kingdom.   This was accordingly agreed to.
  Dr. George Fordyce wTas one of the most eminent and
successful lecturers of his day.  He was the friend and
companion of Dr. Cullen, whom he turned " his learned
and revered master."  He  was  much censured for his
intemperate habits.  He frequently has been  known to
have been up all night, and  to  have lectured to his class
for three hours the next morning, without having  un-
dressed himself.  He had a most retentive memory.
  He read  but little, but what he did read he remembered.
His appearance was  by no means prepossessing.  His
countenance was dull and heavy, and not at all indicative
of his mind.
  This celebrated lecturer dined every day for more than
twenty years at Dolly's chop-house.  His  researches in
comparative anatomy had led him to conclude, that man,
tlirough custom, eats oftener  than nature requires,  one
meal a day being sufficient for that noble animal the lion.
At four o'clock, his accustomed hour of dining, the doctor
regularly took the seat at the table always reserved for
him, on which  was placed a silver tankard full of strong
ale, a  bottle of port wine,  and a measure  containing a
quarter of a pint of  brandy.   The moment the waiter
announced him, the cook put a pound and a half of rump
steak on the gridiron,  and on the table some delicate
trifle,  as a bonne bouche, to serve until the steak was
ready. This, was sometimes half a boiled chicken, some- 
CHRONICLES OF WARWICK HALL.         143
limes a plate of fish : when he had eaten this, he took one
glass of brandy, and then proceeded to devour his steak.
When he had finished his meal, he took the remainder of
his brandy, having during his dinner drank the  tankard
of ale, and afterwards a bottle of port!  He thus daily
spent an hour and a half of his time, and then returned
to his house in Essex Street, to give his six o'clock lecture
on chemistry.   He  made no other meal until his return,
at four o'clock next day, to Dolly's.
   When Fordycc was near  his latter end, he desired his
youngest daughter, who was sitting  by his  bedside, to
take  up  a book  and read to him ; she read for about
twenty minutes,  when the doctor said, " stop, go out of
the room, I am going to die."  She put down the book,
and  left  the chamber to call an attendant, who imme-
diately went into the bed-room, and found Fordyce had
breathed his last.
   Dr. George Cheyne, the author of the celebrated work,
entitled "The English Malady," graduated at Edinburgh.
He was originally intended for the Church, but abandoned
the study of theology for medicine, after having heard
Dr. Pitcairn's lectures.   In  his autobiography  he says:
" when coming up to London, I all of a sudden,  changed
my whole  manner of living.  I found the bottle  com-
panions,  the younger gentry, and  free livers, to be the
most easy of access, or most quickly susceptible of friend-
ship and acquaintance;  nothing being necessary for that
purpose but to cat lustily,  and to  swallow down much
liquor."  The  doctor, found,  however, that  his health
became seriously affected, and he accordingly resolved to
change his mode  of living.   He adopted a milk and
vegetable diet,  and recovered his strength, activity, and
cheerfulness.
   He died at Bath, in  1743, where he had  been for  a
long  period, in  rather  extensive practice.  Among his
patients,  was the celebrated Beau Nash;  who on being
asked one day, by Cheyne, if he had followed his last pre- 
144             PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.

scription,  replied in the negative; adding, " If I had,
doctor, I should certainly  have broken my neck, for I
threw it out of a two pair of stairs' window."
  A lady, whose fondness for generous living, had given
her a flushed  face  and carbuncled nose, consulted  Dr.
Cheyne.  Upon  surveying  herself in  the glass she ex-
claimed, " Where in the name of wonder, doctor, did I get
such a nose as this ?" " Out of  the decanter, Madam, out
of the decanter," replied the doctor.
  A patient, accompanied by Beau Nash visited  Dr.
Cheyne, for the  purpose  of ascertaining the cause of a
slight abdominal swelling, under which he was labouring.
On examining  the patient, the doctor pronounced  the
swelling to  be occasioned by a collection of water, and
that it would be necessary to be tapped.  " It cannot be
water," said the patient " it may be wine."   " No, no,
my good  fellow," said Nash, " if it had  been wine, you
would long before this have tapped it yourself."
  Dr. Cheyne always enforced the doctrines he taught by
his personal example.  This  conduct  created him a host
of enemies, who attacked, but never defeated, their  in-
trepid antagonist; and the  following ieu cTesprit, though
often related, proves the assertion.

            DR.  WINTER TO  DR. CHEYNE, BATH.
       " Tell me whence, fat-headed Scot,
           Thy system thou  didst learn ?
         From Hippocrates thou hadst it not,
           Nor  Celsus, nor Pitcairn.

       "What,  though we  own that milk  is good,*
           And say the same of grass,
         The one—for babes  is proper food,
           The  other for an ass.
  * Dr. Cheyne wrote a treatise, in which he recommends
to invalids a milk diet. 
             CHRONICLES OF WARWICK HALL.         145

        " Doctorj a new prescription try—
           A friend's advice forgive;
         Eat grass—reduce your head—or die,
           Your patients then may live."


                 DR. CHEYNE's REPLY.

        " My system, doctor, 's all my own,
           No tutor  I pretend ;
         My blunders hurt myself alone,
           But yours—your dearest friend.

        " Were you once more to straw confined,
           How happy it might be—
         You would, perhaps, regain your mind,
           Or from your wit get free.

        " I can't your new prescription try,
           But easily forgive;
         'Tis nat'ral you should bid me die,
           That you yourself may live."

   Dr. Cheyne and  Tadlow were exceedingly corpulent
men, but the  last was much  the larger.  Cheyne coming
into a coffee-house  one morning, and observing Tadlow
alone and pensive, asked him what occasioned his melan-
choly. " Cheyne," said he, " I have a very serious thought
come athwart me;  I am considering  how the people will
be able to get you and  ine  to the grave when we die."
" Why," said Cheyne,  " six or  eight strong fellows may
take me there at once ; but it is certain that you must be
carried there  twice."
  In Dr. Chcyne's " English Malady,"  we find the ex-
traordinary case of  Colonel Townshend related, which
being singular we shall  insert in the  doctor's own words.
"Colonel Townshend, a  gentleman of excellent natural
parts, and of  great honour  and integrity, had  for many
                        13* 
146
PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
years  been afflicted  with a nephritic complaint which
made his life miserable.  During one of his attacks of
illness he sent for Dr. Baynard  and myself: we waited
upon him with Mr. Skrine, his apothecary.  We found his
senses clear and mind calm:  his nurse and several ser-
vants were about him.  He  had made  his will and settled
his affairs.  He told us he had sent for us to give some
account of an odd sensation he had for some time observed
and felt within himself; which was, that composing him-
self he could die  or  expire whenever  he pleased, by an
effort of the will, and,  by another  effort could come to life
again, which it seems he had  sometimes  tried before he
had sent for  us : we  heard  this  with  surprise, but as it
was to be accounted  for on no  common principles, we
could hardly  believe the facts he  related to us, much less
give any account of it, unless he should please to make the
experiment before us, which we were unwilling he should
do, lest, in his weak condition, he might carry it too far.
He continued to talk very distinctly and  sensibly for above a
quarter of an hour, about this surprising sensation, and in-
sisted so much on our seeing the trial made, that we were
at last forced to comply.   We all three felt his pulse first,
it was  distinct, although small and steady; and his heart
had its usual  beating.  He composed himself on his back,
and lay in a still posture for some time: while I held his
right hand, Dr. Baynard laid  his hand on his heart, and
Mr. Skrine held a clean looking-glass to his mouth.  I
found his pulse sink gradually, until at last I could not
feel any, by the most exact and nice touch;  Dr. Baynard
could not feel the  least motion  in his heart  n°i Mr.
Skrine perceive the least soil of breath  on the bright mir-
ror he held to  his mouth : then each of us  by turns ex-
amined his arm, heart, and  breath, but could  not by the
nicest scrutiny discover the least symptom of life in him.
We reasoned  a long time about  his odd  appearance as
well as we could, and  all of us judging  it inexplicable and
unaccountable, and finding he still continued in that con- 
             CHRONICLES OF WARWICK HALL.         147

dition, we began to conclude that he had indeed carried
the experiment too far, and at last were satisfied he was
actually dead, and were just ready to leave him.  This
continued for half an hour.  As we were leaving, we ob-
served some  motion about the body; and, upon exami-
nation, we found his pulse and the motion of the heart
gradually returning: he  began to  breathe gently and to
speak  softly, and  after some conversation with him we
left him.  He afterwards sent  for his attorney, added  a
codicil to his will, settled legacies on his servants, re-
ceived the sacrament, and  calmly and composedly ex-
pired, about five or six o'clock that evening."
   Dr. William Harvey  conferred upon the science of
medicine, by his discovery of the circulation of the blood,
the same service which the immortal Newton rendered to
optics  and astronomy, by his theories of light and gravita-
tion.
   Harvey was educated at a grammar school in Canter-
bury, and subsequently he entered Cambridge University.
In 1602 he took his degree of M. D. at Padua, when he
was only twenty-four years of age.   Harvey was engaged
twenty-six years  in prosecuting  his  inquiries into  the
circulation of the blood, and in bringing his great work to
maturity.  When his discovery was made known, he was
Treated by his adversaries with contempt and reproach.
To an intimate friend he confessed, that after his book of
the circulation came out, he fell considerably in his prac-
tice, and it was believed by the vulgar that he was crack-
brained: all his contemporary physicians were against
his opinions, and envied him the  fame he was likely to
acquire by his discovery.  That reputation, he did, how-
ever, ultimately enjoy: about twenty-five years after  the
publication of his  system, it was received in all the Uni-
versities  of the  world:  and  Hobbcs  has  observed, that
" Harvey was  the  only man,  perhaps, who ever lived to
see his own doctrines established in his lifetime."
  The original MSS. of Harvey's lectures are preserved 
148             PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
in the British Museum; and some very curious prepara-
tions, which either he himself made at Padua, or procured
from that celebrated school of medicine, and whieh most
probably he exhibited to his class, during his course of
lectures on the circulation, are now in the College of
Physicians; they consist of six tables  or  boards, upon
which  are  spread the  different  nerves  or  blood-vessels,
carefully dissected out of the body: in  one of them  the
semilunar valves  of the aorta  are distinctly to be seen.
Now these  valves, placed at the  origin of  the arteries,
must, together with the valves of the veins, have furnished
Harvey with the most striking and conclusive arguments
in support of his novel doctrines.
  During Harvey's stay at Oxford he became acquainted
with a young physician, Dr. Charles Scarborough, who
was afterwards knighted by Charles II.  Harvey delighted
much in the conversation of Scarborough, who was, how-
ever, in those troublesome times, much disposed to neglect
his  medical studies for the more brilliant  profession of
arms.  To check this military ardour,  Harvey took  the
young doctor, and accommodated  him with  a lodging in
his own apartment, saying, " Prithee, leave off thy gun-
ning, and stay here;  I will bring thee into practice."
  " When I was at Padua in 1787," says Dr. Moseley " I
looked for the arms of the great Harvey, among a multi-
tude which adorn the  public hall of the  University;  but
his were not there.  There were several of  the English,
of his standing.   It was the custom at  Padua, for every
person who had taken a doctor's  degree  to have his arms
and name hung up in the University, when he went away.
  " After  such a  lapse of time,  it was not  likely that I
should obtain any anecdotes concerning him at Padua;
but  I did not omit to inquire.   Among other things, on
which  I could obtain no additional information, was the
tradition of the extraordinary preservation of his life, in
the commencement of his journey to Padua ; in whicii
there appeared an interposition  of something more than
human intelligence. 
             CHRONICLES OF WARWICK HALL.         143

  "When Harvey arrived  at Dover, with several  other
young men, in order to embark for the continent, in their
way to Italy, they went with their passports to Sir Henry
Brooke, then  commanding  at  Dover Castle.   When
H.irvey presented his passport, Sir Henry told  him he
should not go; but must remain his prisoner.  Harvey
desired  to  know  the  reason, and  to be informed what
offence he had committed.  The Governor replied it was
his pleasure; and gave  him no further satisfaction.  In
the  evening, which was  beautifully clear, the packet
sailed with Harvey's companions on board.  In the night
there arose a terrible storm, in which the vessel was lost,
and all on board perished.
   " The next day the  melancholy news was  brought to
Dover.  The Governor then explained himself to Harvey,
whom he knew only by sight  He told him that, on the
night before his arrival, he  had a perfect vision of him in
a  dream, coming to Dover  to cross over to Calais; and
that he  had a warning to stop him.   Great and glorious,
indeed, was the  use  which  Harvey made of a life so
miraculously protected!
   Harvey was a great martyr to the gout, and  his method
of treating himself was as  follows:—"  He would sit with
his  legs bare,  even if it  were  frosty, on the leads of
Cochaine House, where he lived for some time with his
brother Eliab, or put them into a pail  of water until he
was almost dead with cold;  and then he would betake
Irim6elf to his stove.  He was  troubled with insomnolency,
to cure which he would rise in the night, and walk about
his  chamber in his shirt until he began to shiver, and
then he would return to his bed."
   Harvey died worth .£20,000.
   Dr. John  Friend, the author of the "History of Medi-
cine," which was written during  his confinement in the
Tower, was born in 1675.   After his  liberation he was
appointed physician to the  Prince of Wales ; on whose
accession to the throne he became physician to the Queen 
150            PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
  Friend, who  was generally what is  termed mellow
after dinner, was once sent for in this state, to a family
of consequence; but the family not choosing to trust to
his prescription, sent for Dr. Mead, who came, and, after
looking at what Friend had written, took the opportunity
of paying  him  a very high compliment.  "'Pon  my
word," said Mead, " if Dr. Friend wrote this  when he
was drunk, he  prescribes  better than I  can do when
sober."
  It should be  recollected that intemperance was the
common vice of the age;  and physicians not being ex-
empted from the  frailties  of  the flesh, occasionally in-
dulged in " potations pottle deep."
  Dr. Beauford, a Jacobite physician, was much addicted
to this vice.  He was a man,  however,  of great  emi-
nence, and  intimate  with Lord Barrymore, who was
thought to favour the  Pretender, in  1745, and  Beauford
was taken up and examined by the privy-council.  He
was asked if he knew  Lord Barrymore ?  " Yes."—" You
are often with  him ?" " Very often dine with him."—
" And what do you talk about ?" " Eating and drinking;
nothing but eating and drinking." And this was all they
could get out of him :  so he was dismissed.'
  The same Dr. Beauford, used to dine every week, on a
particular day, at a tavern  in Finch Lane.   Apothecaries
used to come and consult him, but no one  was ever aL
lowed to  drink  out of his  bottle.  Many whimsical an-
ecdotes are recorded of this physician, who was desirous
of passing himself off for a wit.—« Why do you not ad-
mire my  daughter ?" said a lady  to the  doctor, " Be-
cause," said he, " I am no judge of painting."  " But,
surely," rejoined the lady, not the least disconcerted by
this rude  reflection, " you never  saw an angel that was
not painted!"
  The following anecdote of the illness of  Bishop New-
ton, whom Dr. Friend  attended, may prove interesting:—
  He says, in his autobiography, that he was seized with 
             CHRONICLES OF WARWICK HALL.         151

a violent pleuritic fever—his illness cost him seven hun-
dred and fifty guineas for  physicians, and his cure was
at last effected by small beer.   Dr. Hope, Dr. Swynsen,
and other physicians from Stafford,  Lichfield, and Derby,
were called in, and had two hundred and fifty guineas of
the money.   Dr.  Friend  came  down  post from London,
with Mrs. Pulteney, and received three hundred guineas
for his journey.   Dr. Broxholme came from Oxford, and
received  two  hundred guineas.   When these physicians,
who were his particular  friends, arrived, they found  the
case quite desperate, and gave him  entirely over.  They
said every thing  had been done  that could be done.
They prescribed  some few medicines,  but  without  the
least effect.   He was still alive, and was heard to mutter,
in a low voice,  " Small  beer, Small  beer!" They said,
give him small beer, or any thing.  Accordingly a great
silver cup was brought, which  contained  two quarts of
small beer.   They ordered  an orange  to be squeezed into
k, and gave it to him.  He drank the  whole at a draught,
and  called for  another.  Another  was  given  him, and,
soon after drinking  that, he fell into a most profound
sleep, and  a  most profuse  sweat for nearly twenty-two
hours.   In him the  saying was verified, " If he sleep he
shall do  well."  From that time  he  recovered marvel.
lously, insomuch that, in a  few days, the physicians took
their leave, saying that, " Now he  had  no  want of any
thing but a horse for his doctor, and an  ass for his apo-
thecary."
  Friend died in  the year 1728.   The following lines
are from  the pen of Samuel Wesley :—

 " When Radcliffe fell, afflicted Physic cried,
  ' How vain  my powers!'  and languished at his side.
  When Friend expired, deep struck, her hair she tore,
  And, speecliless, fainted, and reviv'd no more.
  Her flowing grief no further could extend;
  She mourns with Radcliffe, but she dies with Friend." 
152
PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
  Dr. John Arbuthnot was Queen Anne's favourite phy-
sician, the friend of Swift and Pope.  It is said that he
possessed  all the wit of the Dean,  without any of his
virulence and indehcaey; and a considerable portion of
the genius of Pope, without  his  querulous discontent.
When a young man he attempted to settle as a physician,
at Dorchester, a town  remarkable for its healthy situa-
tion, a circumstance  unpropitious to the profitable prac-
tice of physic.  On quitting it, a friend  met  him riding
post to London.  " Where are you going, Arbuthnot ?"
asked his friend.  " To leave your confounded place, for
a man can neither live nor die there," replied Arbuthnot.
  Arbuthnot affords a striking instance how little misfor-
tune can derange or exhaust the internal resources of a
good man; for, " I am as well," said  he, in a letter writ-
ten a few weeks before he died, " as a man can  be, who
is gasping for  breath, and  has a  house  full of men and
women unprovided for."   Every branch  of his family,
however, passed through  life  with competence  and ho-
nour.
  The great have always been flattered, but never was
adulation carried farther  than on the  part of Dr. Arbuth-
not to Queen  Anne.   The Queen, having asked him
what the time was, he replied, bowing with much grace,
" Whatever it may please your Majesty."
  Arbuthnot was distinguished as a wit, and as a suc-
cessful dramatic writer.  During his  time, Gulliver's
Travels made their  appearance, and he relates several
amusing instances of  the effect which this celebrated
piece of satire had on the public mind.
  Dr. Arbuthnot says, that Lord  Scarborough (who was
no inventor of stories) told him, that he happened to be
in company  with a master of a ship, who said, that " he
was very well acquainted with  Mr. Gulliver: but that the
printer had made a mistake, for it was  at Wapping, and
not at Rotherhithe, that the Captain lived."
  In another place, Dr.  Arbuthnot says: " I lent Gulli- 
              CHRONICLES OF WARWICK HALL.         153

 vcr's Travels to an old gentleman to read;  who, putting
 on his  spectacles, went  very deliberately to  his  map to
 look for " Lilliput."
   Mr. Fortescue (afterwards Master of the  Rolls,) when
 a lawyer  on the Western  Circuit, wrote a letter to Mr.
 Pope, in the year 1727, stating that " One Lemuel Gulli-
 ver had a cause there, and lost it on the ill-reputation he
 had acquired  of being  a  most  notorious liar:"  and an
 Irish judge told some  person of Swift's acquaintance,
 very gravely, that he looked upon the whole of Gulliver's
 Travels, (whatever other  persons might think of them,) to
 be one  continued heap of improbable lies.
   We  should be  guilty of a great dereliction  of duty
 were we to omit to  give a sketch of the life of Dr. Ed-
 ward  Jenner, the immortal  discoverer of vaccination.
 The name  of this physician  certainly  deserves  a place
 among the great and illustrious benefactors of the human
 race.  The history of Jenner, it is observed, exhibits the
 life-long efforts of a man of philosophical character and
 constant habits of observation, catching a glimpse, early
 in his professional life, of a truth of the highest patholo-
 gical importance, connected with a discovery of amazing
 benefit  to mankind; we  see him keeping this object in
 view, clearing away the obstacles between  him  and it,
 regarding  the question on  every side, and submitting it
 with equal industry, candour, and simplicity of mind, to
 the inspection  of every  eye; and labouring incessantly
 for its establishment when  fully convinced of its real and
 incalculable value, despite of cold disregard and vehe-
 ment opposition, misrepresentation, calumny, and  ridi-
 cule; but  sometimes with the  cheering  sympathy of
 noble minds and the approving judgment of some of the
 first men of his time.
  The first intimation received by Jenner of the  possible
existence of a  disease communicated by contact with the
cow, and  capable of protecting   the affected individual
                          14 
154            THYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
from the occurrence of small-pox, was given to him when
he was an apprentice with a surgeon at Sodbury.
  He was pursuing  his  professional  education in  the
house of his master, when a young woman came to seek
advice;  the  subject of small-pox  was mentioned in  her
presence; she immediately observed,  «I cannot take that
disease, for I have had cow-pox."   This incident rivetted
the attention  of Jenner, and  made an impression  on  his
mind  which was never effaced.
  Sir Isaac Newton, unfolded his  doctrine of light and
colours before he was twenty;  Bacon wrote his " Tem-
poris  Partus Maximus"  before he  attained that age;
Montesquieu  had sketched  his  " Spirit of Laws," at an
equally early period  of life; and Jenner, when  he was
still younger, contemplated  the possibility of removing
from among the list of human diseases one  of the most
mortal that ever  scourged our race.
  As  far back as the  year  1775, Dr. Jenner had begun
to investigate the nature of the cow-pox.  His attention
to this singular disease  was first  excited, in addition to
the circumstance just related, by observing, that among
those  whom in the country he was frequently called upon
to inoculate, many resisted every effort to give them  the
small-pox.  These patients  he found had  undergone a
disorder contracted by milking cows affected with a pe-
culiar eruption on their teats.  On inquiry, it appeared
that this disease  had been known among the dairies from
time immemorial, and that a vague opinion  prevailed of
its being a preventive of the small-pox.  This opinion,
however, was comparatively  new, for all the old farmers
declared they had no such idea in early days, which was
easily accounted for, as the common people were rarely
inoculated for the small-pox, till the practice became  ex-
tended by the improved method of the Suttons; so that
the people in  the dairies were seldom put to the test of
the preventive powers of the  cow-pox.
  In  the course of his investigations, Dr. Jenner found 
             CHRONICLES OF WARWICK HALL.         155

that some of those who seemed  to have  undergone the
cow-pox, on inoculation with variolous matter, felt its in-
fluence just the same as if no disease  had been commu-
nicated from the cow.  On making inquiries on the  sub-
ject among  the medical  practitioners  in  his neighbour-
hood, they all agreed that the cow-pox was not to be re-
lied upon as a preventive of the small-pox. This for a
while damped, but did  not extinguish  his ardour;  for, as
he proceeded, he had the satisfaction of learning that the
cow was  subject to some varieties of spontaneous erup-
tions upon her teats; that they were all capable of com-
municating sores to the hands of the  milkers; and  that
whatever sore was derived from the animal obtained the
general  name of the  cow-pox.  Thus a  great obstacle
was surmounted, and in consequence a distinction  was
discovered between the true and  the spurious cow-pox.
   But the first impediment to this inquiry had not  been
long  removed before  another,  of greater magnitude,
started up.  There were not wanting  instances to prove,
that when the true cow-pox broke out among the cattle,
a person who  had milked the infected animal, and had
thereby apparently gone through the disease in common
with others, was yet liable to receive the small-pox. This
gave a painful check to  the fond and aspiring hopes of
Jenner;  till, reflecting that the  operations of nature are
generally uniform, and that it was not probable the hu-
man  constitution, after undergoing the cow-pox, should
in some  instances be  perfectly shielded from the small-
pox, and in others remain unprotected, he determined to
renew his laborious investigation of the subject.  The
result was fortunate: for he now discerned that the virus
of the cow-pox was liable to undergo progressive changes,
from the same causes precisely as that of small-pox; and
that when applied to the  human skin in  a degenerated
state, it  would produce the ulcerative  effects in as great
a degree as when it was not decomposed, and even some-
times greater; but that when its specific  properties  were 
156             PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.

lost, it was incapable of producing that change upon the
human frame which is requisite to render it unsusceptible
of the variolous contagion : so that it became evident a
person might  milk a cow  one day, and having caught
the disease, be for ever secure; while on another person,
milking the same cow the next day, the virus might act
in such a way as to produce sores, and yet leave the con-
stitution unchanged, and therefore unprotected.
  During this investigation of the casual cow-pox, as re-
ceived by  contact  with  the animal, our inquirer was
struck with the idea that it might be practicable to pro-
pagate the disease by inoculation, after the manner of the
small-pox, first from the cow, and finally from one human
being to another.   He waited anxiously some time for an
opportunity of putting this theory to the test.  At length
the period of trial arrived; and on the 14th of May, 1796,
the first experiment was made upon a lad of the name of
Phipps, in whose  arm a little vaccine virus was inserted,
taken from the hand of a young woman, of the name of
Sarah Nelmes, who had  been accidentally infected  by a
cow.  Notwithstanding the resemblance which the pus-
tule, thus excited in the boy's  arm, bore to variolous ino-
culation, yet as the indisposition  attending it was barely
perceptible, the operator could scarcely persuade himself
that his patient was secure from  the small-pox.   How-
ever, on the same boy being inoculated on the 1st of July
following with small-pox matter, it proved  that he was
perfectly safe.  This  case  inspired confidence;  and, as
soon as a supply of proper virus could be obtained from
the cow, arrangements  were made for a series of inocula-
tions.   A number of children were inoculated in succes-
sion, one from the other; and after several  months had
elapsed, they were exposed to the  infection of the small-
pox, some  by inoculation,  others  by variolous effluvia,
and some in both ways; but they all resisted it.  The
result of these trials gradually led  to a wider field of ex.
periment; and when at length it was satisfactorily proved 
             CHRONICLES OF WARWICK HALL.         157

that the inoculated cow-pox afforded as complete a secu-
rity against the small-pox as the variolous inoculation,
the author of the discovery made it known to the public,
without either disguise or ostentation.  This treatise, en-
titled  " An  Inquiry  into the Causes  and Effects of the
Varioke Vaccinae, a disease  discovered  in some of the
Western Counties of England,  particularly  Gloucester-
shire, and known by the name of the Cow-pox," appeared
in 1798, in a small quarto of seventy-five pages.
   It was not  until the year 1780, that Dr. Jenner  com-
municated to his friend, Edward Gardner, his hopes and
fears respecting the great object of his pursuit  He was
riding with this gentleman, on the road between Glouces-
ter and Bristol, near Newport, when the conversation
alluded to took  place.  Jenner  went over  the  natural
history of cow-pox; stated his opinion as to the origin of
this affection from the heel of the horse; specified  the
different sorts  of disease which attacked  the  milkers
when  they  handled  infected cows;  dwelt upon that va-
riety  which  afforded protection against the small-pox;
and with deep and  anxious emotion, mentioned his hope
of being able to propagate that variety from one human
being to another, till  he had disseminated the practice all
over the globe, to the total extinction of small-pox.   The
conversation  was concluded by Jenner in words to  the
following effect: " Gardiner, I  have intrusted a most  im-
portant matter to you, which  I firmly believe will prove
of essential benefit to the human race.   I know you, and
should not wish what I have stated, to be brought into
conversation ; for should any thing untoward turn up in
 my  experiments, I should be made, particularly by my
 medical brethren, the subject  of ridicule—for I am the
 mark they all shoot at."
   Dr. Jenner, in promulgating  his great discovery, had
 many difficulties to encounter, and prejudices to remove.
 He was not, however, easily discouraged.  In spite of all
 opposition, which at one time assumed a formidable cha-
                          14* 
158             PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
racter, he  clearly established  the truth of his principles,
and induced the profession and the public to pay him that
homage which he was so justly entitled  to expect.   So
highly did the*legislature  think of the value of Jenner's
discovery, that in July, 1807, Parliament voted him the
sum  of £20,000.   The practice  of vaccination was not
confined to medical men, for many clergymen were in
the habit of performing the operation.  Rowland Hill, the
late eminent preacher, ably defended  Dr. Jenner's  dis-
covery against its opponents.   " This," he said, " is the
very thing for me;" and wherever  he went to preach, he
announced after his sermon,  " I am ready to vaccinate
to-inorrow  morning, as many children as you  choose;
and if you wish them to  escape that horrid disease, the
small-pox, you will bring  them."   Once  a week he ino-
culated the children who were brought to him from
Wotton and  the  neighbourhood;  and it  is well  known
that one of the most effective vaccine boards  in London,
was established, and still continues in operation, at Surrey
Chapel.  Mr. Hill once introduced Jenner to a nobleman,
in these terms: " Allow me to present to your lordship
my friend, Dr. Jenner, who has been the means of saving
more  lives than  any  other man."  " Ah 1" said Jenner,
" would I, like you, could  say souls."*
  Dr. Baron says, that in a visit which lie  paid to Jenner,
he showed him  the  hide  of  the cow that afforded the
matter which infected Sarah  Nelmes, and from  which
source he derived the virus that produced the disease in his
first patient, Phipps.  The hide hung in the coach-house:
he said, "What shall I do with it?"   I replied (says Dr.
Baron), " Send it to the British Museum."  The cow had
been turned out to end her days peaceably at Broadstone,
a farm near Berkeley.
  Dr. Jenner often alluded to the effects of his discovery
on some of his sapient townsfolk.   One lady, of no mean
* Sidney's Life ofR. Hill. 
             CHRONICLES OF WARWICK HALL.        15!)

influence among them, met him  soon  after the publica-
tion of his Inquiry.   She accosted him in this form, and
in true Gloucestershire dialect.  " So your book is out at
last   Well! I can tell you that there be'ant a copy sold
in our town;  nor eha'nt, neither, if I can help it."  On
another occasion, the same notable  dame  having  heard
some  rumours  of failures in vaccination, came  to  the
doctor with great eagerness, and said, "Shan't us have a
general inoculation now ?"  These anecdotes Jenner re-
lated  in perfect good  humour.
  The  celebrated Charles Fox,  during a residence  at
Cheltenham, had frequent intercourse with Jenner. His
mind had been a good deal poisoned as to the character
of cow-pox  by his  family-physician, Moseley.  In  his
usual playful and engaging manner, he said one day to
Jenner : " Pray, Dr. Jenner, tell me of this cow-pox that
we have heard so much about;—what is it like?" " Why,
it is exactly like  the section  of a pearl on a rose-leaf."
This  comparison, whicii is not  less remarkable for  its
accuracy than for its poetic beauty, struck Mr. Fox very
forcibly.
  In  the drawing-room of St. James's he chanced to over-
hear a noble lord, who was high in office, mentioning his
name, and repeating the idle calumny which had been
propagated concerning  his own want of confidence in
vaccination.  He with great  promptitude  and decision,
refuted  the charge and abashed the reporter.  His  person
was not known to the noble lord, but with entire compo-
sure he advanced to his  lordship, and looking fully in his
face, calmly observed, " I am  Dr. Jenner."   The effect of
this  well-timed  rebuke was  instantaneous.  The  noble
lord,  though  " made  of sterner  stuff" than most men,
immediately retired,  and left Jenner in possession  of the
field.                                                   ry
  The  great opponent of vaccination was Dr. Moseley, ^»
physician to  the Chelsea  Hospital and  to the~pnme
minister.  The doctor saw, in distinct prospect, an awful


             #v tt(/.t~ &+>»*/Ljfrs* ;;jW*A*>< 
160             PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
aggravation of human ills from the admixture of humours
with the " cow-mania," as he termed it  Cases were pub-
lished in which vaccinated  persons became covered with
hair, and even exhibited horns and a tail; and that of a
child was cited, whose natural disposition was so bruti-
fied that it ran on all fours, bellowing like a bull.  Jenner
was ridiculed in various publications ;  squibs and satires
were resorted to  in order  to prejudice the  public mind
against vaccination.  He was  caricatured riding on a
cow.
  The following lines appeared on the  subject.

" Oh, Moseley! thy book nightly phantasies rousing,
  Full oft makes me quake for my heart's dearest treasure;
  For fancy, in dreams, oft presents them all browsing
  On commons, just like little Nebuchadnezzar.
  There, nibbling at thistle, stand Jim, Joe, and Mary,
  On their foreheads, O horrible ! crumpled horns bud;
  There Tom with  his tail, and poor William all hairy,
  Reclined in a corner, are chewing the cud."

   In the early part of Jenner's career  he is said to have
amused himself by extemporaneous versification, chiefly
facetious and epigrammatic; of which the following spe-
cimen,  which a lady received from him with  a couple of
ducks,  has been preserved:

 " I've despatched,  my dear madam, this scrap of a letter,
   To say that Miss-------is very much better;
   A regular doctor no longer she lacks,
   And, therefore, I've sent her a couple of quacks."

   The  last words which this eminent philanthropist ut-
 tered, were to the following effect:  " I do not  marvel
 that men  are  grateful to me; but I am surprised that
 they do not feel  gratitude to God for  making me a  me-
 dium of good." 
             CHRONICLES OF WARWICK HALL.         161

  Dr. Jenner died  suddenly of apoplexy, on the  26th  of
January, 1823.   The following lines  are engraven on his
monument:

  " Within this tomb hath found a resting-place,
   The great physician of the human race—
   Immortal Jenner! whose gigantic mind
   Brought  life and health  to more than half mankind.
   Let rescued infancy his worth proclaim,
   And lisp out blessings on his honoured name!
   And radiant  beauty drop her saddest tear,
   For beauty's truest, trustiest friend lies here."

  The illustrious Dr.  James  Gregory  succeeded  Cullen
in the chair of the Practice of Medicine, at the Univer-
sity of Edinburgh, in the year 1776, at the  early age  of
twenty-three.  For above thirty years he annually taught
the medical  students the most important part of their pro-
fessional duties ; and an  admiration  of his abilities, and
reverence for his character, extended as  far as the English
language was spoken, and  as far as  the light of civiliza-
tion had spread in the world.  His celebrated work Con-
spectus Medicinal   Tfieoreticce  remains  to this  day  a
standard authority with medical  men.
  Great, however,  as was his reputation as a professor,
as a man of science and  literature, it was  yet inferior  to
that  which  his character had acquired among his  own
personal friends.  Descended by the  father's side from a
long and memorable line of ancestors,  among whom the
friend and contemporary  of Newton is remembered—and
by the  mother's, from one of the  most ancient noble
families of Scotland—his character was early formed on
an elevated  model;  and  throughout his  whole life he
combined, in a degree  seldom equalled, the  studies  and
acquirements of a  man of science, with the taste and ho-
nourable feeling of a high-born gentleman.  His society
was sought  after by the  first persons  of rank and cmi- 
162
PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
nence in this country.  The brilliancy of his wit, and the
epigrammatic force of his conversation was long remem-
bered by those who had  the  good fortune to enjoy his
acquaintance.  To the poorer classes his advice was at
all times afforded gratuitously.
  Among the many amusing illustrations with  which
Dr. Gregory enlivened  his lectures, he used to relate the
following remarkable case of loss of memory.   He wrote
to a  gentleman  in  the  country, with  whom he was
acquainted, to come  to  Edinburgh to attend the funeral
of a mutual friend. The gentleman obeyed the summons;
but when he arrived  at  the doctor's house, he had totally
forgotten the object of his visit.  A few hours afterwards,
hearing some one mention the doctor's name, he said he
was very glad to  hear that the doctor was in Edinburgh,
forgetting that he had  just parted from him.   When in
London, he forgot the place where his lodgings were, and
it was with great difficulty  that he again reached his
home. After  this,  he  always carried about  with him,
fastened to his coat,  a piece of paper with his name and
place of abode written upon it.—Another anecdote which
the doctor used  to relate, may serve as a caution to his
less-experienced brethren. A gentleman, whose temper
had  been irritated by  some occurrence  that  had taken
place in his family, locked himself up in his dining-room.
After waiting several hours, the family became alarmed,
and  bursting open the  door,  discovered the unfortunate
gentleman lying on the  floor insensible.   A  physician
was sent for, who immediately directed the patient's head
to be shaved, and applied a large blister.   Mustard sina-
pisms were placed  on  his feet, and he was bled. The
young doctor prognosticating  a favourable issue, took his
leave, promising  to see  his patient early in the morning.
On his arrival, to his infinite surprise, he found his pa-
tient  in full health,  but bitterly complaining  of blisters,
bleedings, and sinapisms. The secret was now explained.
The  poor gentleman had sought for consolation  in the 
             CHRONICLES OF WARWICK HALL.      -  163

wine-bottle, and had, unthinkingly, drank such a quan-
tity as to throw him into this pseudo-apoplexy.
  Dr. Gregory enjoyed a large share of private practice,
and was most highly esteemed by all who had occasion
to consult him.  His good-nature was often taken advan-
tage of.  He has been heard to declare, that nearly one-
third of the patients who consulted him  never paid their
fees.  He was a man too independent in spirit to demand
what  he  had a right to claim, and consequently he was
much imposed upon.  That the profession are  much ex-
posed to the  tricks of dishonest men, the  following anec-
dotes  will testify.
  Of  the  noted Cooke, who died some years ago at Pen-
tonville,  many  anecdotes  have  been  related,  of plans
which he practised in  order to cheat medical men into
gratuitous advice.   One of his modes was to attire him-
self in rags,  and  ape the pauper.  Another was to pro-
cure a letter from some dispensary, and  to attend there,
which he did once for several  weeks before he was found
out to be a man of immense fortune.
  On  some occasions, however, he found himself obliged
to seek advice in propria persona, but even then he went
upon a saving plan: at one time, having  a complaint in
his leg, he applied to a surgeon in his neighbourhood, a
Mr. Pigeon, asking him how long it would take to make
a cure.   The  surgeon answered,  " A  month."  This
alarmed the miser, who anxiously inquired what would
be the medical demand ; and on being  told by the sur-
geon,  who saw the  complaint  was trifling, that it would
be a guinea, Cooke replied " A guinea!  very well; but
mark  this—a guinea is an  immense sum of money ; and
when  I agree upon  sums of such magnitude, I go upon
the  system of no cure no  pay; so if I am not cured by
the expiration of the month, I am to pay nothing !"
  Mr. Pigeon accepted the terms; and by his  diligence
and surgical skill,  would  have closed the wound com-
pletely some  days  within  the limited space; which the 
164
PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
miser observing, and trembling for his gold, was deter-
mined to prevent, if possible; and actually procured an
irritating plaster, which he put on, so as to extend the
period of cicatrizing,  which  was  then going on whole-
somely ;  and was  thus enabled, on the last day of the
specified term, to show to the surgeon that the wound
was still unhealed. The unhappy wretch,  proud of his
own infamy, had the hardihood to boast of it afterwards,
under the cant phrase of " plucking a pigeon."
  Even on his death-bed the ruling passion was still strong
upon  him;  for having sent for several medical men, one
only would  attend ; and  he having in a few days sent in
some medicine, the dying miser at length entreated  him
to say how long he thought he might live.  The candid
apothecary  honestly said, " perhaps  five or six  days;"
when  Cooke, collecting all his strength for  the moment,
and starting up in his  bed, exclaimed, " There ! are you
not a dishonest man, a rogue, and  a  robber, to serve mg
so?"  The  apothecary, in some  surprise, naturally in-
quired how  he deserved those epithets.   " How, Sir!"
faintly uttered the dying miser, " why, you are  no better
than a pickpocket, to rob me  of my gold, by sending in
two draughts a day, to a man that all  your physic  will
not keep alive  for six days! begone from my house, and
never  enter it again."
  The celebrated  Dupuytren was  more successful in ob-
taining his fees than Dr. Gregory.  He was often cheated
by his patients, until he had recourse to the following in-
genious device:—
  He  had a faithful servant, who was stationed at the
door of the hall.  Dupuytren  had two bells fixed over the
porter's head,  communicating with his consulting-room.
On  bowing  the patient out, Dupuytren rung one of the
two bells. If  the  fee  was paid, one  particular bell was
rung,  and the  servant understood  that all was right and
the  patient was allowed to  depart  without any interrup-
tion.  If the patient forgot the baron's fee, the " no pay" 
              CHRONICLES OF WARWICK HALL.         165

 bell was tingled,  and  the servant understanding the
 signal, addressed the patient very politely in  the follow-
 ing manner:—"Mille  pardons,  Monsieur, I  think you
 have forgotten to give the baron his fee."  " Ciel.'" ex-
 claims the patient, " quelle negligence! le void avec mille
 apologies au baron."   Notwithstanding Dupuytrcn's im-
 mense wealth, he  lived in quite a different  way from
 what persons of his rank do in this country.  He occu-
 pied only one suite of apartments—a floor as we call it—
 and it was owing to this circumstance that he had it not
 in his  power to prevent a ball  from  taking place  in the
 room immediately over his head a night or two before he
 died; and which, it is said, greatly disturbed his dying
 moments.
  Dr. Gregory died April 2, 1821.
  Dr.  John Coakly Lettsom must be allowed  to tell the
 particulars of his own early career.  In a letter  to his
 friend  Dr. Cuming, dated January 13, 1785, he says, " I
 went to Settle,  an apprentice, a fatherless lad.   I rode
 from the house of  Samuel  Fothergill,  at  Warrington,
 alone; and my guardian, when he parted with  me, im-
 pressed  upon my  mind his  last words:  ' Please thy
 master, and, above all, please thyself   If thou turncst out
 well, I will reccjinmend thee to my  brother, the doctor;
 and never forget that to be good is to be happy.'
  " Poor Sutcliff! once, and only once, wast thou angry
 with me, and I  shall  never forget  thy  words:  ' Thou
 mayest make a physician, but I think* not a good apothe-
 cary.'  My master had never fewer than two apprentices.
 The one  prior to me was  very facetious.   For  some
 weeks  before my  arrival, he informed the market-people
 that an apprentice was coming from  a country where the
 feet of the inhabitants were opposite  to those of England.
 The country people imagined from such  discourses, that
this antipode walked  on his head.   The morning  after
 I arrived was the  market-day.  Our house  faced the
market, and an immense concourse  surrounded the win-
                        15 
166             PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
dow, through which I was surveying my new neighbour-
hood, little suspecting that I was the object of investiga-
tion.  In their  features were depicted surprise, curiosity,
disappointment, and other passions.   At length I heard a
wise old codger, who seemed  to have more discernment
than his neighbours, exclaim amongst the crowd, 'Marry!
I think  he looks like  other folk!' and  away he went to
the market, and  the company  followed, as soon as they
had  made the same  discovery, by finding that my heels
were under my head!"
  It appears  that  Abraham  Sutcliff  was  a  surgeon
apothecary,  established in practice  at  Settle, in  York-
shire.  He was distantly related to S. Fothergill, at that
time Lettsom's  guardian.  Sutcliff  was  an  excellent
classical scholar, although self-taught.  Mr.  Pettigrew
thus describes his origin :—" About Halifax weaving was
extensively encouraged.   Sutcliff having no patrimony,
received only twelve months' instruction to spell and read
a little English, when he was  appointed to the loom; but
the exertion of throwing the  shuttle was too lrard for his
constitution to bear.   He was asthmatic early in life; and
he  suffered so much in the  chest  from the mechanical
exertion of weaving,  as  to be obliged  to relinquish the
employment  He had a distant relation ai Kendal, of the
name of Ecroyd, an eminent surgeon, to whom he applied
for any species of servitude.   This journey, a distance of
sixty miles, he performed on  foot.   At first he was en-
gaged  in carrying out medicines and cleaning the shop.
In  this town a considerable  school was conducted  by
Thomas Rebanks.   Young Sutcliff became acquainted
with some of the schoolboys, from  whom he  borrowed
books, and occasionally  procured  instruction..  He left
the loom when he was about  sixteen years of age, and at
eighteen he had acquired a knowledge of so much Latin
as  to enable him to read a prescription, which  he also
learned to compound, and at length was permitted to visit
patients for his master.  Having by strict economy saved 
              CHRONICLES OF WARWICK HALL.         167

 a little money, he was allowed by him to visit Edinburgh
 to attend some of the classes.   Here he regularly studied
 under Professors Monro, Sinclair, Rutherford, &c.   In
 summer he walked  back again to his own station, and re-
 sumed his  services  to  his indulgent master.   For two or
 three subsequent winters he repeated his perambulations,
 and became not only a scholar, but a proficient in medical
 science; and  with  a view of exercising his abilities in-
 dependently,  he  visited the town of  Settle,  and  com-
 menced  his  professional duties,  in a single chamber,
 practising  surgery,  midwifery, and pharmacy.  He  ac-
 quired so much celebrity, as to include in his attendance
 an  extent of at least ten miles on every quarter from his
 residence, at the period when Dr. Lettsom was apprenticed
 to him."*
  "I was  born a Quaker," says Lettsom, "and what is
 still more  strange, I was born so within  the  tropics.  I
 was brought  up in  notions which encouraged ideas of a
 favourite people, of a little remnant, of a chosen few, and
 such like narrow principles.  As I loved  reading, I ac-
 quired the power of thinking; and, considering that all
 our society together, compared to  the universal creation,
 was in less proportion  than  a grain of sand to the great
 globe, I entertained  more ample  notions of the universal
 Parent.
  "When I came to London (after the termination of five
 years apprenticeship to Sutcliff) clothed in a long-flapped

  * After Lettsom had  established  himself in town, Sut-
 cliff retired from practice  in  favour of his son ; and, on
 visiting London, he  called on his  former  apprentice, Dr.
 Lettsom, who  advised  him to commence practice as a
 physician.  He replied that  it was his  intention to do so,
 but he feared it would  be difficult to procure  a diploma.
 Upon this  Dr. Lettsom presented him  with one.  " My
 lad," said Sutcliff, with  lirs eyes suffused  with tears of
joy, " this is more than I know how to acknowledge." 
168
PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
coat, and carrying on my head a little bob-wig, unknown,
and knowing no one, I  was revolving, as I walked slowly
along Lombard  Street, ' what  an atom of insignificance
am I in this new world!'  At this moment a person
abruptly interrupted my reveries, by asking,  'Art thou
not from  Tortola V  ' Yes.'  ' I  am glad to  see thee:
wilt thou dine with  me ?'  'With all my heart, for I am
here like Adam, without one associate.'  I do not know
by what fatality Lord Beezley thus accosted me and took
me to his lodging,  for we were  total strangers.  He was
some  inches taller than me;  his coat had large flaps,
which added to his height; his arms and legs made up in
length what they lacked in circumference.
  " I  remember  once, as he walked  up Cheapside, a little
impudent  boy  kept strutting  before him, crying out,
' Ladies and gentlemen, make  way, make may, make way,
the monument is coming.'
  " Beezley never  minded this, but  kept his pace, throw-
ing his  arms about him, and forming a periphery of three
yards equilaterally from the centre of motion."
  James Beezley,  who thus kindly  took  Dr. Lettsom
under his care, was the author of the Defence of the Cha-
racter of George Fox against Formey.
  Lettsom  commenced his medical studies in London at
St. Thomas's Hospital, under  surgeons  Cowell,  Baker,
and Smith, and physicians Akenside, Russell, and Grieve.
  It is not our intention to give the minute details of Dr.
Lettsom's life.   The recder must be satisfied with an
outline,  containing such anecdotes as we  consider illus-
trative of his character and that of his contemporaries.
  It appears  that, after spending twelve months  in Lon-
don,  Dr. Lettsom  returned to  the West  Indies, to take
possession of some  little property which had been left him
by his father.  It consisted of a small portion of land, and
filly slaves: and although, at  this  period, Lettsom was
only  possessed  of  fifty pounds  in the world, he, with a
feeling  of humanity which does him immortal  honour, 
CHRONICLES OF WARWICK HALL.         169
soon after his arrival at  Tortola, emancipated the whole
of the slaves;  thus reducing himself, by an act of justice,
to great poverty at the age of twenty-three.
  At Tortola, his native place, Lettsom commenced prac-
tice ;  and,  in  five  months, he  succeeded in amassing
nearly £2,000; half of which he gave to his mother, and
with the other half he returned to England, with the view
of following in the footsteps of the celebrated Dr. Fother-
gill.   After attending the Edinburgh school for some time,
he, at last, graduated  as an M. D. at Leyden, on the 20th
of June, 1769 ; and, after marrying a lady of considerable
wealth, he commenced practice in  London, where he rose
to great eminence  as a  physician and an author.  Dr.
Lettsom introduced into this country the Mangel  Wurzel,
or Beta Hybrida, as he termed  it: he also suggested the
establishment of the  Infirmary  at Margate; and many
other institutions of a similar character.   After the dis- \
covery of vaccination by Jenner, Dr. Lettsom was the first |
person who  sent  the vaccine lymph across the Atlantic,
and  consigned it to the  fostering  care of his friend Dr.
Waterhouse, professor of medicine in the University of  '
Cambridge,  Massachusetts; from which it spread through  i
the  United  States.   He founded  the London  Medical
Society; assisted in  establishing  the Royal Jennerian
Society; and  in  promoting  the interest  and welfare of
every charitable institution in the  country.  He wrote  a
large number of works and  pamphlets,  on a variety of
subjects, and entered into correspondence with  most of
the distinguished literary men of the day.
  He died, after a short illness, on the 1st of November,
1815.
  For a considerable  time he maintained the first prac-
tice as a physician  in the city of London.  His profes-
sional  emoluments  were great.   In 1783, he received
£3,600; in 1784, £3,900; in 1785, £4,015; and in 1786,
£4,500.
  Mr. Pettigrew  observes, had he at this  time taken all
                          15* 
170
PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
the fees that were  presented to him, his receipts would
have been doubled.  In 1800 he received, in fees, £12,000.
This was  considerably more  than Dr.  J. Fothergill  ever
derived from his practice; his highest sum was £5,000 in
one year.
  The following anecdotes have  been related, as illustra-
tive of Lettsom's generosity:—
  In 1782, he was sent for to visit an  old gentleman, 74
years of age, who resided in the county of Essex.  This
gentleman had been a great American merchant; he had
kept a princely house, and his heart was  literally made
up of generosity.   The American war ruined him; but
his creditors, valuing his upright character, permitted him
to reside at his house  in  the country, with a genteel al-
lowance, until his affairs could be settled.  The protracted
American  war destroyed the prospect of retrieving his
affairs; his allowance was, therefore,  taken away.  He
fell sick, and consulted  Dr. Lettsom.  When  the Doctor
visited him, the gentleman said to him, pointing to his
garden, "Those  trees I planted, and  have lived  to see
some of them too old to bear fruit.  They are part of my
family; and my children, still dearer to me must  quit
this  residence, which was the delight of my youth, and
the hope of my old age."
  The benevolent Doctor, upon quitting the  apartment,
left, enclosed in a letter, a check to relieve his immediate
necessities.  He also purchased the house, which  was
freehold, for £500,  and gave it him for life.   The  poor
merchant's health was restored, his garden continued to
be the object of his attention,  and he daily blessed his
worthy benefactor.
  Lettsom was by birth and education a Quaker; but by
no means a bigot to the peculiar notions  entertained by
the Society of Friends.  He  was  ready to join with all,
without any distinction of sect, in worshipping the great
God, feeling the truth of the following sentiment:— 
             CHRONICLES OF WARWICK HALL.         171

      ------"True Religion
      Is always mild, propitious, and humble;
      Plays not the tyrant, plants no faith in blood,
      Nor bears destruction on her chariot wheels;
      But stoops to polish, succour, and redress,
      And builds her grandeur on the public good."
                                           Miller.

  In 1806, Dr. Lettsom determined to enter  into  serious
combat  with the quacks,  who were then infesting the
metropolis; and he prevailed on Phillips, the  proprietor of
the." Medical Journal," to  allow  him to insert, in every
number of that work, an anonymous article on each of the
advertising quacks of the country.  Lettsom  began with
Brodum, the proprietor of the Nervous Cordial, and otHer
furiously advertized preparations ; and, without ceremony,
charged him with  killing thousands by  their indiscrimi-
nate use :  and, to undermine  Brodum, stated that  he had
been a shoe-black at Copenhagen, a Jew vender of oranges,
and, finally, a footman to a mountebank.  All this might
be  partly  true, but  it could not  be  legally  proved in  a
court  of law.  Brodum, to  whom the costs of a suit were
of no importance, set his attorney to work, and Phillips,
the printer, and three or four venders, were  served with
actions for £.>,000 damages.
  Phillips called on Lettsom, and the whole college, one
by one, to enable him to justify, but in vain; for  not one
could  prove that Broduni had even a single swallower of
his nostrums.  The  lawyers held consultations, and the
ingenious  Carrow was anxious to get his brother-in-law,
Lettsom, out of the scrape.   In the mean time, Brodum's
attorney pressed for proceedings.  At length, the editor of
a newspaper slept between  Phillips and Brodum; the
latter  agreed  to withdraw his actions, and submit to the
costs,  provided the author was given up; but, if not, then
he expected all expenses to  be  paid without demur ; that
the author should whitewash him in the next Journal, 
172             PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
under the same signature; and, further, that Phillips and
the newspaper  editor should dine with  him.  Lettsom
gladly paid the two attorney's  bills, amounting to 390Z.
Phillips had  a  splendid  dinner, and  the next Medical
Journal contained a high eulogium on the talents and
virtues of Dr. Brodum.
  Thus ended Lettsom's campaign against the London
quacks!
  An adventure which this  celebrated  physician once
met with, we find recorded in his own words :—" It was
my lot, a few years ago, to be attacked on the  highway
by a  genteel-looking person, well mounted, who demanded
my money,  at  the  same time placing a  pistol  to my
breast.  I requested him to remove the pistol, which he
iimnediately  did.  I  saw his agitation, from whence I
could perceive he had not been habituated to this hazard.
ous  practice; and  I added  that  I had both gold and
silver about me, which  I freely gave him, but that I was
very sorry to see a young gentleman  risk  his life in so
unbecoming a manner, which would probably soon termi-
nate  at the gallows: that at the best, the casual pittance
gained on the highway would afford but a precarious sub-
sistence ; but that if I could serve him  by a private assist-
ance, more becoming his appearance, he might  farther
command my purse ;  and, at the same  time, I desired him
to accept a card containing my address, and to call upon
me, as he might trust to my word for his  liberty and life.
He accepted my address, but I observed his voice faltered;
it was late at night; there was, however, sufficient star-
light to enable me to perceive, as I leaned towards him on
the window of  the carriage,  that  his  bosom was over-
whelmed with  conflicting passions:  at length, bending
forward on his horse, and recovering the power of speech,
he affectingly said, 'I thank you for your offer; American
affairs have ruined me ;—I will, dear sir, wait upon you.'"
  The  man  kept his word, and Lettsom finding, on in-
quiry, the account he gave of himself to be correct, after 
             CHRONICLES OF WARWICK HALL.         173

making an unsuccessful application, in his behalf, to the
Commissioners for relieving the American sufferers, pre-
sented a memorial on the subject to the Queen, who it is
said, procured the man a commission in the  army; and
his name subsequently appeared on two occasions, in the
Gazette, for promotion, on account of good conduct.
  The following  well-known  squib  on the doctor was
written  by  some wag:—

       " When any sick  to me apply,
           I  physics, bleeds, and sweats' em :
        If after that they choose to die,
           What's that to me ?
                                       I. Lettsom."

  The following  answer to this ridiculous jeu d'esprit,
was written by his friend Sir  M. Martin:—

   " Such  swarms of patients  do to me apply,
     Did I  not practice, some  would surely die;
    'Tis true, I purge  some, bleed  some, sweat some,
    Admit I expedite a few, still many call
                                       I. Lettsom."

  Dr. Lettsom was remarkable for his  punctilious  atten-
tion to cleanliness.   He has often  been heard to declare
that he would sooner relinquish his fee altogether,  than
have any thing to do with  a  persop  who neglected this
duty, as he called it.   He once offended one  of his best
patients, who brought her child for him to see, by telling
her that the  little patient's disease  was brought on by
allowing particles of dirt to prevent the cutaneous secre-
tion  from  going on.   The  lady felt very indignant, and
left the doctor's house in a great rage.*
  * This reminds us of an anecdote of an American physi-
cian whom a lady consulted about her child's precious
health.  Among other things, she inquired if he did not 
174
PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
  Though medical  knowledge  is undoubtedly increased
by experience, for, as Shandy says, "an ounce of a man's
own knowledge, is worth a ton of other people's," yet that
physician is not always the most experienced, who sees
the greatest number of patients.   The understanding does
not gallop as  fast as the feet  do.  A physician who is
constantly on the  trot may see  too much, and think too
little.   Hugh Smith, who was a very popular man in his
day, used to arrange  his  patients very  much after the
manner of Dr.  Last; when he  meant to have a holiday,
he would say, " I physic all my patients to-day, because
I am going into the country to-morrow."*   Lettsom, at
one period of his practice, was in the habit of seeing more
patients  than any one  physician practising in London;
and on showing Dr. William Saunders his long list, one
day at a consultation, the latter facetiously said, " My
think the springs would be useful.  " Certainly, Madam,"
replied the doctor, as he looked at the child, " I have not
the least hesitation in recommending the springs—and
the sooner you apply the remedy  the  better."  "You
really think it would  be good  for the dear little thing,
don't  you ?"   " Upon my word it is the best remedy I
know of."  " What springs would you recommend, doc-
tor ?"  " Any will do, Madam, where you can get plenty
of soap and water."
   * The late  Dr.  Sutherland,  of Bath,  when at Paris,
attended L'Hospital  de la  Charite.  One  day he ac-
companied the physician running through one  of the
wards to visit the patients, a friar trotting after him with
his book in hand, to minute  down the prescriptions: the
French  doctor stops at a bed, and  calls out to the patient
in it, with the utmost precipitation,  Toussez vous ? then
suez vous? allez vous  a la  Selle?  then turning  round
instantly to  the friar,  " Purgezle." " Monsieur, il  est
mortl"  replied the  friar.  "Diable! allons!" said the
doctor, and galloped on to the next patient with rapidity. 
             CHRONICLES OF WARWICK HALL.         175

dear doctor, how do you manage ? do you write for them
by the dozen ? or have you some patent plan for practis-
ing by steam, my much-esteemed friend ?"
  In the cold weather, when the  poor were out  of work,
Dr. Lettsom constantly employed them about his grounds.
It happened that a gentleman, whose premises adjoined,
met the doctor one winter's morning, and upbraided him
for  keeping so many men in a state of apparent idleness.
" True, neighbour," said the doctor, with a smile of com-
placency,  "but who pays them ;  thou, or I ?"  The gen-
tleman felt the reproof; and turning on his heel, bade the
doctor good morning.
  The doctor was  in the practice of carrying the pro-
duce of his fees  carelessly in his  coat pocket.   His foot
man, being aware of this, used to make free with a gui-
nea occasionally, while the coat hung up in  the passage.
The doctor having repeatedly missed his gold, was sus.
picious of his footman, and took an opportunity of watch.
ing him.   He succeeded in  the detection, and, without
even noticing it  to the other  servants, called him  to his
study, and coolly said to him, " John, art thou in want of
money ?"  " No," replied  John.  " Oh!   then, why  didst
thou make so free with my pockets ?  and since thou didst
not want money, and hast told me a lie, I must part with
thee.  Now, say what situation thou  wouldst like abroad,
and I will  obtain it for thee ;  for I cannot keep thee ;  I
cannot recommend thee ; therefore, thou must go."  Suf-
fice it to say, the doctor procured John  a  situation, and
he went abroad.
  " I remember  at  Spa,"  says Lettsom, "to have been
accosted by a beggar, in very  classical Latin. I  had
just been under an Albinus, a Gaubius, and a  Van Ruycn,
when this language  was more familiar  to me than it is
at present; and  I confess I seldom met it purer than in
the mouth of the beggar."
  In a previous chapter  we have given  a sketch of the
celebrated  Dr. Messenger Mounsey,  the eccentric physi- 
176             PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
cian of Chelsea Hospital.   Since the publication of that
portion of the work, we have  discovered the following
anecdotes of him, which are too good to be omitted :—
  At one period, when the  doctor was coming from his
brother's in Norfolk  to  London, in  the  Norwich  coach,
during the  Christmas holidays, the inside of the coach
was crowded with game,  as  presents from the country
gentlemen to their friends  in  town.   As there was  only
room for one passenger, the  doctor would gladly have
deferred  his  departure, although his business in town
was of an urgent nature;  but they refused at the coach-
office to return him the money he had paid to secure his
seat, so he determined to put  up with the inconvenience,
and seated himself inside the  coach.   When daylight
had dawned, he perceived that the game was directed to
different people ; and being disposed to  have a little fun
at the expense of  others, he  commenced altering the
directions.   The pheasants,  which were  directed  to a
nobleman, were sent to some  tradesman, and vice versa,
so that the  greatest confusion was created at the  coach-
office, much to the delight of  the mischievous doctor.
  Mounsey was one day riding with his  servant, when
he stopped at a village.   Seeing the innkeeper at the door,
who bowed to him very graciously, he said, he wanted
some tea, and added, " I suppose, since the commutation
act, you can give  me  plenty of home-made  bread,  with
good  Norfolk fresh  butter and cream, for  sixpence?"
" You had  better have added  half-a-dozen  new-laid  eggs
into the bargain,"  said the  publican:  " but alight, sir,
and walk in."  The  doctor did so, and the host led him
into a large room, where there were no windows.   " Now,
Sir, if you are willing to pay for candles, I will agree to
supply you for the proposed  sum."   The doctor enjoyed
the reply as well as the joke, and stopped the whole night
as well  as the next day with him.—A day or two after-
wards, riding over some downs, he observed a shepherd
tending his flock, with a new  coat on.   " Harkee, friend," 
CHRONICLES OF WARWICK HALL.         177
said the  doctor, " who gave you that new coat ?" The
shepherd, thinking he was a parson, replied, " The  same
that  clothed  you—the  parish!"  The  doctor, highly
pleased with the answer, rode on a Uttle way, and then
desired his servant to go back, and ask  the shepherd if
he wanted a place, as he wanted a fool.  The servant  de-
livered  the  message.  "Tell  your master,"  said  the
shepherd, " that his living will not support three of us."
  Mounsey  being the intimate friend of  Lord Godolphin,
he was in the habit of telling many anecdotes as related
by that nobleman, and among  others the following one,
relative to his grandmother, Sarah, Duchess of Marlbo-
rough.  In a  conversation which  Lady Sutherland had
with her mother the  Duchess, the former  observed, " In
all the torrent of abuse poured out on your grace, your
worst enemies have never called you a faithless  wife."
" It was no  great merit," said the  Duchess, as  she was
turning over the papers afterwards sent to Mallet for  her
husband's history, " it was no great merit, for I had  the
handsomest, the most accomplished, and bravest man in
Europe for my husband !"  " Yet, Madam, you don't say
he was without faults ?"  replied Lady Sutherland.  " By
no means.   I knew them  better than  he did himself, or
even  than I do my own.  He came  back  one day from
my poor  misled mistress Queen Anne,  (I believe when
he resigned  his commission,) and  said  he  had  told her
that he thanked God, with all his faults, neither avarice
nor ambition could be laid to  his charge.  When he told
me this," continued she,  though not  in  a  laughing hu-
mour, " I bit my tongue  almost through to prevent my
smiling in his face."
  Dining with Garrick, in company with Dr. Warburton
and  Dr. Browne (author  of Barbarossa), Mounsey was
rather grave.   " Why so much out of spirits,  doctor ?"
said Garrick.  " Oh he is afraid of Dr. Warburton," said
Browne.   " Afraid of him!"  said Mounsey, looking  in-
dignantly  at both,  " No,  I may be dull  to-day, for how
                         16 
178
PHYSIC AND PHSYSlCIANS.
can it be otherwise from the effects of this conversation ?
but I assure you I am not afraid  of Dr. Warburton, nor
of his man Jack either."
  Though Mounsey lived in intimacy with Garrick  at
the theatre, and at a variety of private  tables, Garrick
was not very fond of asking him  to his house; and the
reason he gave for it was, to use  his  own  words, " that
the doctor was so  great a blackguard, he  could  not be
sure of him for a moment."  On his promising, however,
to behave himself better for the  future, Garrick ventured
to ask him to meet a  large party of right honourables
and fashionables at his  house  in Southampton  Street,
where Mounsey figured for some time with his usual wit
and pleasantry, very much to the pleasure and  entertain-
ment of the company.  At the  second course,  the doctor
wished for a piece of roasted chicken, which was at the
upper end of the table, and  calling for it to no  purpose
several times  to Mrs. Garrick, who happened to be en-
gaged in talking to some  noble lord at her elbow, he  at
last, raising his voice, exclaimed aloud, " You little  con-
founded  toad, will you,  or will  you  not,  send  me the
wing, leg, bit of the breast, or merry-thought, of some of
those  chickens ?"  The  company laughed, but Garrick's
pride was hurt to the  quick, in feeling himself so cava-
lierly treated  before  so many noble personages.  Dr.
Thompson was  present  on this  occasion, and Garrick
protested he would transfer his  interest and patronage  to
this physician, in consequence of Mounsey's insolence.*

  * Dr. Thompson, who  was a celebrated physician  in
his day, was remarkable for two things—viz., the sloven-
liness of his person, and his dislike to  muffins, which  he
always reprobated as being  very unwholesome.  On his
breakfasting one morning at Lord Melcomb's, when Gar-
rick was present a  plate of muffins being introduced, the
doctor grew  outrageous,  and vehemently exclaimed,
" Take  away  the  muffins!"  " No,  no," said Garrick 
             CHRONICLES OF WARWICK HALL.        179

  Mounsey was the  intimate friend of the  eccentric  Dr.
Barker, who  at that time practised as an  apothecary in
Cheapside.  It is said that during the great plague of
London, four thieves, availing  themselves  of the public
calamity,  took that opportunity to plunder  the houses of
the dead  and  dying, yet, notwithstanding, escaped  the
infection themselves.  On  its being inquired how they
thus insured their safety, it was found that they constant-
ly carried about with them sponges dipped in  prepared
vinegar, which circumstance led the  public to  suppose
that this was  a preservative from infection, and  all apo-
thecaries  sold  it under the  denomination  of " the four
thieves' vinegar."
   During  the  prevalence of the influenza, Barker exhi-
bited at his shop window, " The Four Thieves'  Vinegar
sold here."  This  being  observed  by a  physician  of
Foote's acquaintance, who was in the habit of frequenting
the shop, he asked the apothecary " how long it was since
he took in three partners ?"   Barker assured him that  he
stood alone in  the firm of the  house.   The  doctor took
him to  the window, and showing  him  the card, recom-
mended him  " to deceive the public  no longer."   Moun-
sey was in the habit of telling this  story with  conside-
rable glee.
  Sir Richard Croft was  a distinguished accoucheur.
He married  a daughter of Dr. Dcnman.   He  went to
Paris to attend the Duchess of Devonshire in her confine-
ment, which circumstance  partly increased his business
on his return to the metropolis.  He rose to great emi-
nence in the department of practice to which he  directed
his mind.   Ho  was called in to attend the Princess Char-
lotte ; and  after tho fatal termination of the Princess's
delivery, the obloquy which it gave rise to, and  the dis-
appointment it occasioned, preyed upon his mind to such
seizing the plate, and looking significantly at the doctor,
" take away the ragamuffins." 
180.             PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
a degree, that about three months subsequent to her death
he, in a fit of temporary insanity, shot himself in his bed-
room.
   It was  proved, at the inquest held on  his body, that
since the death of the  Princess  Charlotte, he had never
been free from melancholy and abstraction ; and  on  Dr.
Thackeray's asking after  one of his patients, he replied,
" That  he would give five hundred guineas if it were
over, rather  than have  to  attend her."  On the night of
the suicide,  he exclaimed to his servant, who complained
of being unwell, " What is your agitation compared to
mine ?" And a few days  before, he struck his forehead
with much violence, in the presence of Mr. Hollings, and
abruptly said to him, "Good God ! what will become of
me ?" His conduct, with reference  to the Princess, was
much censured at  the  time; but Dr. Baillie  stated that
every thing  was done by Sir Richard Croft that  skill and
humanity could suggest.  The fatal issue of the case
filled his mind with despair, and alarmed  his friends for
the safety of his intellect.  He  was heard frequently to
ejaculate  to himself, " I shall  go mad—I  shall end  my
life in a mad-house—I  am ruined—Who will place any
confidence in me ?" As he was driving in his carriage to
the Princess when  she was taken ill, he  observed to a
member of his family,  " This case  will either make mc,
or ruin me." Poor Sir Richard! he appears to have had
a presentiment that sometking was about to happen which
would seriously  affect  his prospects in life.  It is said
that a few days before he attended his illustrious patient,
he  fancied he  saw the Princess  clad  in  white, glide
through his  bed-room.  Sir Richard was a man  of fine
and honourable feelings,  and  wis beloved by all who
knew him.
  Dr. Thomas Bateman, author of the  celebrated work
on  "Cutaneous  Diseases," edited by Drs. Willan and
A. T. Thompson, was  born  in  1778.   He  attended  the
lectures of Dr.  Baillie, who  spoke highly  of Bateman's 
             CHRONICLES OF WARWICK HALL.         181

talents  and industry.   His character, both private  and
professional, is said to have been marked by strict mora-
lity  and  unimpeachable  integrity.  He  has,  however,
been charged with dissipation, and a leaning towards the
doctrines of materialism.   At the commencement  of his
illness,  in 1815, he exclaimed, in a  paroxysm of pain, to
a friend who attended him, " All these sufferings are  a
just  punishment for  my long scepticism and neglect of
God and religion!"  In this conversation he was absurd
enough to  attribute  his sceptical notions  to the natural
tendency of some of his professional studies.  Some time
after he said, in allusion to the first of Scott's Essays on
the  subject of  religion, " This is demonstration! com-
plete demonstration!"
  Although endowed with  extreme sensibility, and the
warmest affections, his deportment to strangers was cold
and  forbidding.  On one occasion, he peremptorily re-
fused to prolong a  pleasant visit, because, he said to  a
companion, he had promised he would be home at twelve
o'clock, and could not break his word even to a  chamber-
maid.
  Dr. Bateman  was a  most indefatigable student.  He
was  hardly ever without a pen or book in his hand.  His
work on the Diseases of the Skin, brought him conside-
rable practice.   He has been observed  to  say, that  if a
medical man wished soon to establish himself in practice,
he ought to write a treatise on a practical point connected
with medicine.   " I  have done so," he would say, " and
it has succeeded."   But Dr. Bateman was well known as
a clever experienced physician, prior to the publication of
the work in question.  This eminent man  died in 1820,
much regretted by  his contemporaries,   relations,  and
friends.
  Of the early life of the late Dr. Mackintosh we have
some very interesting facts  on record.   When about ten
days old, a curious  incident  occurred  to him.  His  late
Majesty, when  Duke of Clarence, happened to dine at
                          16* 
182
PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
the barrack at Halifax, to which  the  father of the late
professor was attached.   The child  was  introduced  to
him in a very novel way.   Being  put  into a large dish,
and concealed by the silver  cover, he  was placed, during
the repast, before the  gracious prince,  whose astonish-
ment  may be  better conceived than described, when he
discovered the nature of the " dainty dish" that had been
served up to him.  His Royal Highness enjoyed the joke
amazingly, laughed heartily,  and took the child in  his
arms, and, kissing it, desired that it should be called after
him.  The young doctor had unfortunately, however, been
previously christened.
  Owing to  the  military profession  of his father,  the
education of the  doctor was  a  wandering one.  In  his
lectures  he  has been heard to  say that he  had been at
twenty-five different elementary schools.   His  education
was completed at St. Andrews.
   From  his earliest years  Mackintosh  displayed an open-
ness of character, and an  originality and independence of
mind which have conspicuously marked his subsequent
career.
   At an  early age he was bound  an  apprentice to  one of
the first surgeons of Edinburgh.  It has been  said, with
reference to this circumstance, that it was  his misfortune
to be  placed  under the  guidance of a man of a haughty
turn of inind, who, instead of encouraging  his pupils,  and
rendering interesting the abstruse principles of science,
treated them with every mark of  disrespect  and unkind-
ness ; thus  exhibiting a  character of mind which is be-
neath contempt.   He was therefore in his studies left to
follow the bent of his own mind.  Anatomy and chemistry
interested him, and he pursued  these sciences  with great
zeal.  The enthusiasm  which he  displayed, in acquiring
a knowledge of anatomy, attracted the notice  and admi-
ration of the celebrated  Monro  (secundus) and  of Dr.
 Barclay, who always took a lively interest in his welfare.
 He early displayed a turn for original investigation,  and, 
             CHRONICLES OF WARWICK HALL.         183

accordingly, almost even  before he knew the nature of
disease, he  took  every opportunity to observe its phe-
nomenon at the bedside of the patient.  He was, at this
period of life, seldom  known to read  a medical and sur-
gical work, because he  candidly confessed he did not un-
derstand the author's meaning—for  this admission we
give him credit.
  The education of the doctor was essentially a practical
one, and early accustomed him to observe and judge for
himself, and to depend upon his own  resources.   It thus
accorded with  the bent of his genius; and although by
judicious  direction his education might have  been im-
proved, still the world  has had no cause to lament the
practical discipline he then underwent  With such early
indications of a talent  for original investigation,  and a
love of truth more than of theory, we are at no loss to
understand  why he afterwards turned out so eminent a
pathologist, and so sound a practitioner.
  After  finishing his  education, Dr. Mackintosh was
appointed assistant surgeon  of artillery.  At the  period
he entered the army,  the Egyptian ophthalmia raged to a
great extent  He soon observed that the want of success,
in the treatment of tiiis disease, arose from the employ-
ment of injudicious means.   He then suggested that the
disease should be treated on the same plan that is adopted
in other cases of  inflammation; viz., by copious bleeding
to fainting, and by abstaining from the use of stimulants
during  the acute stage.  By following the mode of prac-
tice laid down by Dr. M., this formidable disease was
much more successfully managed than before;  and Dr.
Mackintosh was much praised for the improvement intro-
duced into this department of surgery.
  Being desirous of investigating  the nature of yellow
fever, intermittent  fever, and other diseases  of warm
climates, he volunteered his services to accompany an ex-
pedition then ready to sail for Barbadocs, where it was to
be employed on a very arduous and dangerous enterprise. 
184
PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
Dr. M. was  appointed  surgeon to a battalion ; and the
general commanding  the  expedition expressed his satis-
faction at having  with  them  a medical officer of such
enterprising talents, and whose gentlemanly manner, and
pleasing address, had  rendered hiin so great a favourite
in the regiment to which he had previously belonged.  In
this expedition, which was one of the most hazardous and
successful during the late ever-memorable war, Dr. M.
partook of all its difficulties and dangers; and on more
than  one occasion  narrowly  escaped  death  from  the
cannon of  the enemy.   In endeavouring to reach the
island, the boat which contained him upset, and went to
the bottom.   Not being able to swim, he must have been
drowned but for the  assistance of a sailor.  On another
occasion a shell exploded  in the tent where he was lying
ill of  a fever, but he was preserved uninjured.
  During this eventful  struggle his talents  shone con-
spicuously, and his bold and affable spirit were found to
encourage the soldier  in the field of battle.
  Owing to the great  labour, physical and mental, which
the doctor  underwent, he was attacked  with fever, and
subsequently  he was seized with agne.  While labouring
under this  attack,  be had  an opportunity of patiently
studying the nature of this disease; and on himself he
first tried the effect of bleeding in  the  cold stage, which
practice lie pursued after  he had established  himself in
Edinburgh,  and  the  adoption  of  which  was strongly
recommended in his work  on the Practice of Physic.
  Subsequently to this period he served in South America,
and different parts of the globe,  with the  same  high
character which  has ever  distinguished his career.  Dr.
M. was obliged to return to Europe  in consequence of ill
health.  After residing  at Edinburgh for some time, he
was sent to the continent of Europe, and  was engaged in
all those brilliant struggles which so gloriously terminated
in the overthrow of Napoleon Bonaparte.  He remained
with the army of occupation in France till the year 1 "ilS, 
CHRONICLES OF WARWICK HALL.         185
 when  the  troops returned home, and he was allowed to
 retire  on half-pay.  He now settled with his family in
 Edinburgh ; more, however, with the view of educating
 his children than of getting into  practice.   It was not
 long before  his eminent professional skill began to  be
 appreciated, and patients flocked to his house to have the
 advantage of his advice.  In the year 1822, an epidemic
 puerperal fever raged  in Edinburgh.   Dr.  Mackintosh
 made  himself conspicuous on  this  occasion  by his  un-
 wearied and unremitting exertions in behalf of the sick,
 and his fame  soon  spread  from one  part of the city to
 the other.   He published the result of his experience and
 practice in this disease, which is  considered to exhibit
 great knowledge of his profession, united with reasoning
 power of a high order.
   Dr.  Hamilton replied to  Mackintosh's pamphlet on
 puerperal fever; and to this he made a rejoinder, which is
 considered a very masterly production.
   In consequence of the death of Dr. James Gregory, Dr.
 Mackintosh, who had already been lecturing on the prin-
 ciples and practice of physic, was petitioned, by upwards
 of three hundred students  of the  Royal  Infirmary,  to
 offer himself for the vacant chair in the university.  The
 election  took place  on  Monday, the  1th, when, to  the
 astonishment and disappointment  of the students, Dr.
 Both wick was   elected.  In  the application  which the
 doctor  made to the managers  of the Royal  Infirmary,
 Edinburgh, lie enters into a brief description of his  pro-
 fessional career. In alluding to his works, he says, "The
 first medical work which I  puhlisiicd was on Puerperal
 Fever,  in 1 *2'2, which was so'well received by the profes-
 sion that it is now out of print  In 1829, 1  published a
 work  on the Principles of  Pathology and  Practice of
 Physic, in  two  volumes, which litis since gone through
two editions; and  since  the first of November last,  five
hundred copies of the third edition have been sold."
  Again, in alluding to his professional services, he says, 
186             PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
" When this city was threatened with cholera, I reluc-
tantly accepted the  situation of physician to the Drum-
mond Street Hospital, which was pressed upon me.  Hav-
ing accepted the office, I endeavoured to  perform the
duties to the best of my abilities.   During the first seven
months  I  passed upwards of thirty entire nights in the
hospital; and, in addition to visiting it seven  or  eight
times during the day, I generally made a night  visit, be-
tween the hours  of one and  three  o'clock, a. m.  In thus
conscientiously discharging the duties which I had under-
taken, I, on two different occasions, ran the risk of my
life, and the receipts of my practice were materially dimi-
nished from the  dread which many had of infection, and
from my not being in the way when sent for."
  Dr. Mackintosh's death was deeply  deplored by a  large
and respectable  circle of friends, to whom he was much
endeared.
  Cheselden,  the eminent surgeon and anatomist, came
before the  public at an earlier period of life than almost
any other in the long list of professional excellence.  He
was a fellow of the  Royal Society at twenty-one years of
age, and at twenty-two gave lectures on surgery!  He
was truly master of his art, which he simplified, improved,
and ornamented. Living at a period, considered as an
intellectual  era  in  this country, be was the companion
and friend of the " great  master-spirits of the ag«," the
men of genius and taste.
  He acquired great fame by giving sight to a  boy who
was born blind ; but what distinguished him  most, was
his skill in performing the operation  of lithotomy.  Per-
sons came from all pa,rts of the world for his professional
assistance; and  the arrival of a distinguished foreigner is
thus announced, in May, 1734:—" Baron Carlson, Secre-
tary of State to the King of Sweden, lately arrived here
for that  purpose, was cut for the stone, at  the  house of
Baron Sparr, by W. Cheselden,  who  took  from him, in
(100 minutes and-fonr seconds, two stones, each as big as
a large walnut, and three of a smaller size." 
             CHRONICLES OF WARWICK HALL.         187

  Cheselden  has been said  to have  been vain of his ac-
quirements.  Be  that as it may, he was a charitable and
a good man ; he belonged to many public charities; and
when the Foundling Hospital was  first proposed, he sent
a benefaction with two lines from Pope:

    " 'Tis what the happy to the unhappy owe ;
      For what man gives, the gods by him bestow."

  In the beginning of 1736, Cheselden was thus honour-
ably mentioned  by Pope, " As  soon as I  had sent  my
last letter, I received a most kind one from you, express-
ing great pain for my late illness at Mr. Cheselden's.   I
conclude you were eased of that friendly apprehension in
a few days after you had  despatched  yours,  for mine
must have reached you then.  I wondered a little at your
question, who Cheselden was.  It  shows that the  truest
merit docs not travel  so far any way as on the wings of
poetry : he is the most noted, and most deserving man in
the whole  profession  of chirurgcry;  and has saved  the
lives  of  thousands  by  his  manner  of cutting for  the
stone."
  He appears to  have  been on terms of intimate friend-
ship with  Pope,  who  frequently,  in his letters to Mr.
Richardson, talks of dining with Cheselden, who then
lived in or near Queen Square.*
  Another  proof of his intimacy arises from a poem of
the  younger Richardson, sent to Pope at Twickenham,
after being declared out of danger by his physicians, in
which we are told that,

             " Cheselden, with candid wile,
Detains his guest; the ready Lares smile.
* " I'll do what Mead or ( heselden advise."
               Pope—Imitation of Horace, p. 39, 
188             PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
Good Chiron too, within his welcome bower,
Received of verse the mild and sacred power;
With anxious skill supplied the blest relief,
And healed, with balms, and sweet discourse, his grief."

  Cheselden's manners were extremely kind and gentle ;
and notwithstanding the extensive  practice he had been
engaged in, he always,  before an  operation, felt sick
at the thoughts of the pain he was about to inflict; though
during its performance, his coolness and presence of mind
never forsook him.  In alluding to this feeling, Moraud
relates an anecdote of a French surgeon, who, on visiting
the hospital, expressed great surprise at witnessing such
an evidence of weakness,  as he considered it, on the part
of so famous a surgeon.   After the operation was over,
the visiter was  invited by Cheselden to accompany him
to the fencing-school, whither he  was  going to see a
sparring-match;  but here  the tables  were  completely
turned, for  no sooner did  the  contest begin, than  the
stranger turned pale at the sight, and was obliged speedily
to betake himself to the open air.
  A relation of this eminent physician was condemned
to be  banged.   Cheselden proposed, if the king  would
pardon him, to  take out the drum of the prisoner's ear, in
order to try what effect  it would  have; and if it suc-
ceeded, the experiment was to  be repeated on Lady Suf-
folk.  The man was pardoned, but the operation was never
performed!
  Cheselden  had considerable  taste in matters of art:
the plan of Fulham Bridge was drawn by him.   In  the
frontispiece  to  Cheselden's great work on the Bones, is
the figure of Belchier in  his morning-gown, and Sharp,
is the young man  behind  him.  Cheselden is not  repre-
sented himself.   It is stated that this distinguished sur-
geon lost 1700J. by  this work, as so many of the expensive
plates were cancelled, and  alterations made while he was
about it.  Douglass, who  wrote a peevish intrigue upon 
CHRONICLES OF WARWICK HALL.         189
it, called Belchier  up one morning at six o'clock, when
the work was published, and asked him if Cheselden was
mad, by saying that he  had not room enough  to write
more on the bones.  " What!" said he, " could he not get
more paper."
   Of the illustrious surgeon, Pott, a short notice must be
given.   Mr. Percival Pott was originally intended for
the church, in which he had considerable prospect of pre-
ferment ; but he resisted  the importunities of his friends,
having  manifested, in early life, a strong propensity for
the profession to which  he was destined  in after-life to
become so bright an ornament.  In  1736,  Pott  com-
menced practice in Fenchurch Street.  In  1749, he was
appointed one of the principal surgeons of St. Bartholo-
mew's Hospital.  At this period the state  of the science
of surgery  was still very  imperfect, notwithstanding some
sensible and ingenious men had  published observations
which had  enlightened and improved it.  Still the maxim,
" Dolor medecina doloris," remained unrefuted; the severe
treatment of the old school, in the operative part of sur-
gery, continued in force;  the first principles of the science,
the natural process  and  powers of healing, were either
not  understood, or not  attended  to;  painful  escharotic
dressings were continually employed; and the actual
cautery was in such frequent use, that, at the times when
surgeons visited the hospital, it was regularly heated and
prepared in the wards of the hospital and in the presence
of the  patients, as a  part of the necessary  apparatus.
Mr.  Pott lived to see these remains of barbarism set
aside, and a more humane and rational plan, of which he
was the originator, universally adopted.
  An accident which Pott met with made  him an author.
As he was  riding he was thrown from his horse, and suf-
fered a  compound fracture of his leg, the bone being
forced through the integuments. Conscious of the danger
attendant on fractures of this  nature, and thoroughly
aware how much they may be  increased by rough treat-
                           17 
190
PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
   ment or improper position, he would not suffer himself to
   be moved until he had made the necessary dispositions.
   He sent to Westminster for two chair-men to bring their
   poles;  and patiently lay on the cold  pavement, it being
   the middle of January, until they arrived.  In this situa-
   tion he purchased a door, to which  he made them nail
   their poles.   When all  was ready, he caused himself to
   be  laid on  it, and was carried through Southwark, over
   London Bridge, to Watling Street,  where he was then
   living—a tremendous distance in such a state!  It was
   during his confinement  in consequence of this accident,
   that he planned and partly executed his celebrated treatise
   on Ruptures.
      In 1760,  he published  his  work  on the Injuries to
   which the Head is liable from external violence; a publi-
   cation which placed his  name  in the  highest rank as a
   writer, and  as an able surgeon.  He was much engaged
   in  practice  at  this time;  and in order to collect many
   facts bearing upon the subject of his treatise, he was in
   the  practice of visiting, almost daily,  every  hospital in
   London;  and  entered  into a correspondence with  the
   most eminent continental surgeons. " I must have facts,"
   he would say :  " what are mere opinions worth;  any man
,   may give an opinion, but it is not every mind that is qua-
   lified to collect and arrange important facts ?"
      Pott  possessed a  kind and humane disposition.  He
   was ever ready to lend a helping-hand to medical men in
   distress.  At one period he had three surgeons, who had
   been reduced in circumstances, living in bis own house,
   until he could  find means by which they could earn an
   independent livelihood.   He was  most kind and  attentive
   to  the patients  in  the hospital: in  particular  cases, he
   was not satisfied with seeing them at the ordinary periods,
   but he visited the hospital several times during the day.
   On  one  occasion, he had  performed a complicated and
   dangerous operation.   He  had  seen the patient three
   times during the day;  and during  the  following night 
             CHRONICLES OF WARWICK HALL.         191

he dreamed  that the assistant at  the  hospital  had for-
gotten to administer a particular medicine that he had
ordered, and from which lie  had anticipated much good
effect  He could not remain easy whilst this  impression
was on his mind.  He rose from his bed, dressed himself,
and in the middle of the night, without disturbing any of
the family, went to the hospital, gained admission, had
the house-surgeon summoned to his side, in order to sa-
tisfy himself that his instructions had been punctually
obeyed.  To his great  astonishment he found that the
medicine had not been  exhibited !   Pott always declared
that his dream had saved  his patient's  life.—Although  a
great surgeon and skilful operator, Pott was nervous prior
to performing any difficult operation.  He never allowed
a  day to pass  without dissecting some, portion  of the
human body.  He  considered  it the sacred duty of every
surgeon who might  be  called upon to operate  upon the
living, to be always operating  upon the dead.  This was
his practice,  and he strongly recommended it to others.
   The retirement  of Sir  Csesar Hawkins from London
practice, was the means of considerably enlarging Pott's
connexions.  He then lived in Hanover Square.
   Pott died on the 23d of December, 1788.  On the last
day of his illness he observed, " My lamp is almost extin-
guished ; I hope it has burned for the benefit of others."
   The person of Mr. Pott was elegant, though  less than
the middle size; his  countenance animated and  expres-
sive ; his  manners  and deportment were graceful;  and
his remarkable  vigour  and activity seemed  unabated by
age.  He was distinguished as a  surgeon for his sound
judgment,  cool  determination,  and great manual dex-
terity.
   Mr. William Hey was a most distinguished surgeon.
He commenced his studies at the place of his birth, Leeds,
and came to London in 1757, and  placed himself under
the tuition of  the  most  able masters  of his day.  He
studied under Broomfield, and Dr. Donald Monro of St. 
192             PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
George's Hospital.  During the period which Mr. Hey
devoted to the study of his profession in London, he un-
dertook, says  Mr. Pearson, the very difficult task  of go-
verning his thoughts; and perhaps very few persons ever
exercised such a perfect control over them  as he was en-
abled to do, from those early days of his youth to the end
of his life.  He determined that he would meditate upon
a given subject, while he was walking a certain distance,
and that then  he would turn his attention  to some other
topic; and he was thus accustomed to pass  through the
streets of London investigating the various subjects to
which his thoughts had  been directed by the lectures, or
other professional occupations.  The effect of this  habit
remained with him through life; and he found it of admi-
rable use, not only in  preserving him from  the intrusion
of a swarm of impertinent ideas, but in enabling him to
form  a correct judgment on many  points  pertaining to
divine and human knowledge.
  After finishing his education in  London he returned to
Leeds, where he immediately established himself in prac-
tice.  He soon rose to great eminence in his profession.
At the establishment of the Leeds Infirmary, he was una.
nimously elected the principal surgeon of the institution,
which office  he filled for many years, with great credit
and  honour to himself, and advantage to the patients ad-
mitted under his care.   He was also appointed Mayor of
Leeds, in  consequence of the celebrity which his talents
had  enabled  him to  acquire.  Mr.  Hey was as distin-
guished for his piety as for his professional skill. He was
beloved and respected by  all who had the high privilege
of being acquainted with  him.   At the  age of eighteen,
he joined the  Methodists, who were under the direction
and  superintendence of the Rev. J. Wesley, and he con-
tinued in connexion with them for  twenty or thirty years.
Mr. Hey left behind many records of his professional exer-
tions.  His " Surgical Observations," is  still a standard
medical  work.  He  was  a  skilful operator—in fact, he 
CHRONICLES OF WARWICK HALL.         193
possessed  all the qualifications necessary to constitute a
good surgeon.  He invariably retired to a room to offer
up a prayer to the Divine Being, previous to his perform-
ing any operation, and he attributed his success in the
use of the knife to this circumstance.
  In domestic life he was kind, tender, and affectionate—
as a  magistrate, just,  legal, and conscientious.   In  him
virtue and religion found a father and a protector—vice,
a stern but merciful judge and  monitor.  His surgical
writings, which will be studied by  the faculty as long as
true knowledge of their profession  is an object evince a
strong, comprehensive, and enlightened view of those sub-
jects which he undertook to illustrate.
  Mr. Hey died in March, 1819.
  James  Heaviside was  born at Hatfield,  where his
father was a general practitioner, much esteemed by the
neighbouring gentry, and  particularly patronised by the
Duke of  Leeds and Lord Salisbury.  " I had the plea-
sure," says  the writer  from whom we have borrowed the
particulars  of our sketch  of this eminent surgeon, " of
making Hcaviside's acquaintance very early in life, and
received many civilities from him, partly from that urba-
nity which was  natural to him, and partly  from some
friendly recollections of a very near and dear relation,
with whom he was fellow-pupil under Mr. Pott."  Heavi-
side commenced  his  professional  career in  Mortimer
Street, Cavendish Square; where having more leisure
time  than was good for his health,  his father thinking
that horse-exercise would benefit  it, purchased for him a
surgeoncy in the Life-Guards.   Shortly after, he became
a candidate for the office of assistant-surgeon to St. Bar-
tholomew's Hospital;  and  though  he did not succeed, it
must be remembered, to his credit, that he did not canvass
for it—a point of honour not so scrupulously attended to
by his opponents. When  his father died, he came into a
fortune, on  which he might have retired; but his charac-
ter displayed  itself, and he evinced his love for the pro-
                          17* 
194             PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
 fession by forming  his museum, which for  many years
 attracted public curiosity, and at last excited professional
 attention and jealousy;  as some were pleased to think,
 that

       " With coffee, tea, and butter'd rolls,
        He found an easy way to people's souls;"

 and which the  envious  insisted, pertained  more to the
 nature of a discovery in  philosophy than physiology.
 Amongst the qualifications that fit  a man for the impor-
 tant duties of a  professional life, may be ranked punc-
 tuality, attention, assiduity, and gentleness ;  all of which
 Mr. Heaviside possessed in an eminent degree, and  they
 doubtlessly contributed largely to his  success.   He  may
 be said to have lived in surgery for  half a century.   He
 never  left London for  recreation; and was always forth-
 coming, whenever an  emergency required his presence.
 His domestic staff was  well appointed, and his zealous
 aide-de-camp, who was his valet for thirty  years, never
 failed  to produce his master at any* hour of the day and
 night; which,  perhaps, may furnish  us  with  a reason
 why he was  so frequently called in to cases of  accidents,
 and consequently so often  figured  as a witness in the
 courts of justice.  " Egad," said Jekyl one day, "we never
 have a homicide, or a suicide, or any other cide, without
 a Heaviside.'"
   The principal event in his life  arose out of his profes-
 sional  attendance at  the fatal duel between Colonel Mont-
 gomery and Captain Macnamara, in 1802.   For this he
 was committed to Newgate, and during a whole fortnight
 subjected to much pain and anxiety.  His friends, Messrs.
 Erskine  and Garrow, Mr.,  afterwards Baron Wood, and
others, volunteered their  aid ; but still, the dread of the
capital  punishment, and with  it  the forfeiture of his
property, made  his  situation  seriously  uncomfortable.
In this dilemma, his  brokers, Messrs. Johnson and Lang- 
             CHRONICLES OF WARWICK HALL.         195

den, sold out  his stock, which, together with  the rest of
his possessions, was conveyed to a third party in safety;
and to the credit of these gentlemen it should be told, that,
though the amount must have been an object to be desired,
yet, under the circumstances of the case, they transacted
the business without the charge of a single farthing.  In
the end, the  grand jury  ignored the bill against Mr.
Heaviside.
  This surgeon died  on  the 19th  of September,  1828,
much regretted by a large  circle of admiring friends. 
196              PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
                  CHAPTER VIII.

             MAD DOCTORS, AND MAD-HOUSES.

Importance of the subject—Instruction to Medical Witnesses-
  Curious cases of insanity showing the cunning of lunatics—
  Remarkable mental delusions—A visit to a mad-house.

  The subject upon which we are now entering is one of
the highest interest—both to the medical world, and to the
whole  community; inasmuch as are  included within it,
not only questions of physiology, pathology, and  medical
jurisprudence, but likewise those which involve the liberty
and happiness of every member of society.  When called
upon to decide in a case of ordinary disease, the physician
may err in judgment, and his error may be productive of
great evil to the patient: his life may be jeopardized, or
at least his health may be irrecoverably damaged; but if
he errs in judging a case of suspected insanity, he not
only perils, the life and health of his patient but  his very
liberty.  Upon his decision, the  man is to be either re-
stored  to the rank and privilege of a rational and respon-
sible being, or to be subjected to those moral and  physical
restraints, which the law has deemed  necessary to throw
around the lunatic, for the protection of himself, his pro-
perty,  and the society in which he  moves.  It  may  be
urged  that whatever is the primary effect of a physician's
opinion, in a case of suspected insanity—the ulterior pro-
ceedings  and their results are not consequent  upon his
decision, but upon the verdict  of a jury.  But  let it be
remembered that the first step in the inquisition must be 
             MAD DOCTORS, AND MAD HOUSES.          197

taken by the physician ; he is called to examine the case,
and  without his certificate, the patient cannot be con-
signed to a mad house;—by his report to the Lord Chancel-
lor, when required to send him an opinion of the case, his
lordship is guided in his decision, whether to dismiss the
petition or to send the case to  a jury;—and, lastly, when
the writ De Lunatico Inquirendo is issued, the judgments
of the commissioners and  jury must be almost entirely
governed by the evidence of the medical witnesses.  How
important then is the investigation of mental disease; and
yet it is a melancholy fact, that there are no affections so
little understood, or  that have received so little attention,
as diseases of the intellectual  powers.   It is astonishing
how various have been the theories of insanity, and how
much  ignorance and quackery have been, until a very
recent period, exhibited in the treatment of the insane.
At one period they were  considered  under satanic in-
fluence, and driven away from the abodes of men.  After-
wards they were supposed to be affected by lunar changes,
which opinion gave  origin to the term lunatic, and pre-
vails  to this day to  a  great extent among  the ignorant.
Then it was supposed that the malady was not a bodily
affection,  but one which  had seized upon  the  spiritual
part, and therefore placed  beyond  the  reach of physical
remedies, so that medical treatment was regarded as alto-
gether useless;—to this opinion is owing the neglect into
which these investigations had fallen, and the discredita-
ble ignorance of the  great body of practitioners upon the
subject of insanity.   Of late  years, however, great ad-
vances have been made, by improved theories and prac-
tice, towards both the comfort and  restoration of the in-
sane; and physicians are  becoming more  and more con-
vinced of the value of medicine as a remedial agent in the
cure of insanity.  Still, however, it cannot be denied that
this disease, in common with most of the class of nervous
affections, is involved  in  great obscurity, of which we
have a melancholy proof in almost every case where  a 
198             PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
judicial investigation is necessary.  Lawyers are too apt
to regard an inquiry into the state of a lunatic's mind as
they would a case at nisi prius; and because of their fee,
they  deem  it  necessary  to bring  all  the pettifogging
trickery of their  profession, to bear down if possible the
opposing testimony;  and knowing the obscurity of the
subject, and the  difficulties which medical  men  have to
contend with, in arriving  at a correct opinion, they  most
unfairly in their examination, endeavour to tie them down
to definitions, and then, by showing their fallacy, weaken
the whole effect of their  testimony.  An honest lawyer
should remember, that he, with the  commissioners, jury,
and witnesses,  have only one object, viz., the interest of
the unfortunate lunatic : if he  be of unsound  mind, and
incapable of managing himself and his affairs—doubtless
humanity urges the necessity of all legal protection and
restraint; but,  if he be still, notwithstanding some eccen-
tricity of conduct, a rational and  responsible being, no
fee, or reward, or party, should induce a man to mystify
the subject, or  obstruct by skilful pleading or ingenious
quibbling, the progress of truth.  As however all lawyers
will not be guided by such pure feelings toward the sub-
ject of their investigation, it is necessary for medical men
to guard themselves  well against any admissions which
may, by a skilful advocate, be turned against them.  As
was before remarked, there is nothing so eagerly seized
upon, as a definition—therefore the witness should be very
cautious in  committing himself by attempting to define
insanity; and it will  be wiser  and  better at once to ac-
knowledge his  incapacity to do  so—than by a vain and
ostentatious display of metaphysical  lore, to peril the
interest of a fellow-creature.
   The medical witness is called upon to say, from his
previous examination of the case, and from the facts which
have  been brought before him, during the investigation
in  court, whether the supposed lunatic  be of unsound
mind, and incapable of managing himself and his affairs, 
             MAD DOCTORS, AND MAD HOUSES.         199

with or without lucid intervals;  and, lastly, if unsound,
when that unsoundness commenced.  The term unsound
mind, it must be confessed is one  of the worst that could
iiave been devised to denote that condition of mind which
requires legal restraint, as it may  include almost every
variety and  degree of mental disorder—from imbecile
judgment to confirmed insanity.  But the medical witness
has nothing to do with the legal  definition  of  the term.
All that is required of him is to determine whether there
exists, or  has existed, such a morbid condition of the in.
tellectual powers, as unfits a man  for the management of
himself or his affairs; and it  is not necessary that he
should have proof of want of judgment and discretion in
the control of his  affairs, in order to judge him unfit for
such control; but  he may infer such unfitness from the
existence of depraved intellect.  The great question for
the physician's examination  therefore is—does a morbid
condition of the intellect  exist;  and when did it com-
mence; and  have  there  been,  during its existence, any
lucid intervals ? In conducting his examination, the phy-
sician  must  never  forget the exceeding cunning and
subtlety often displayed  by lunatics, in  evading the evi-
dence,  and  artfully  concealing  his  real opinions and
feelings.  A  curious  case, tried before  Lord Mansfield,
may be adduced in illustration of this fact.  A man named
Wood, had indicted Dr. Monro  for false  imprisonment in
a mad-house—he being sane.  The  plaintiff underwent a
most  severe  examination  by  the  defendant's  counsel,
without exposing his complaint;  but Dr. Battie having
come  upon the bench, and having  desired the  judge to
ask him what was become of the Princess whom he had
corresponded with in cherry-juice, he showed in a moment
his delusion, by answering that there was nothing at all
in that, because having been (as  every  body knew) im-
prisoned in a high  tower, and being debarred the  use of
ink,  he had no other means of correspondence but by
writing his  letters  in cherry-juice, and throwing  them 
200            PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.

into the river which  surrounded the tower, where the
Princess received them in a boat.  There existed of course,
no tower, no imprisonment, no writing in cherry-juice, no
river, no boat: but the whole the inveterate phantom of a
morbid  imagination.  I  immediately  (continued  Lord
Mansfield) directed  Dr. Monro to  be  acquitted; but this
man Wood, being a merchant in Philpot Lane, and having
been carried through  the city in his way to the  mad-
house, indicted Dr. Monro over again, for the trespass and
imprisonment in London, knowing that he had  lost his
cause by speaking of the Princess at Westminster : and
such (said Lord Mansfield) is the extraordinary subtlety
and cunning of madmen, that when he was cross-examined
on the trial in London, in order to expose his madness, all
the ingenuity of the  bar,  and all the authority of the
court, could *not make him say a single  syllable  upon
that topic, which had put an end to the indictment before,
although he still had the same indelible impression on his
mind, as he  signified  to those  who were near him; but
conscious that the delusion  bad occasioned his defeat at
Westminster, he obstinately persisted  in concealing it.
  Lord Erskine, in defending Hatfield, who was tried for
shooting at George  the III.  in Drury Lane  Theatre, in
1800,* mentioned a very  striking instance of the cunning
with which madmen sometimes stifle the disorder.  Lord
  * This unfortunate man had a child eight months old,
of which he was passionately fond.   On the day on which
he attempted the life of the King, he went to the bed-side
of the mother, who had the infant in her arms; and while
the tears of affection for  his offspring ran down  his face,
he  seized it, and  endeavoured to dash  out  its brains
against the wall.  This man was perfectly conscious that
he was the husband of the woman, and the father of the
child; he knew that it was criminal to  perform the act
which he contemplated; but he acted " under the overrul-
ing dominion of a morbid imagination." 
             MAD DOCTORS, AND MAO HOUSES.         201

Erskine  had wasted a whole day in a vain endeavour to
demonstrate to the judge and jury the insanity of an un-
fortunate gentleman who had brought an action against
his brother and the keeper of a mad-house for confining
him in a mad-house when he asserted his perfect sanity.
He replied  so well to Lord Erskine's  queries, that the
judge, the jury,  and the audience believed that he was
sane,  and the victim of wanton oppression.  At  last Dr.
Sims  came into court, and suggested to Lord Erskine to
inquire  whether he  did  not  believe himself to be Jesus
Christ ?  Lord Erskine  took the hint, and pretended to
lament his ignorance, and the indecency of his examina-
tion ;  the poor gentleman expressed his  forgiveness, and
with the utmost gravity, in  the face of the whole court,
emphatically exclaimed,  " I  am the Christ ?" and so the
cause ended.                           •
   There are two modes of establishing this morbid state
of the faculties;  first, by showing the presence of a speci-
fic delusion—and secondly, by proving the existence of a
series, of extravagancies  in opinion or conduct.  The first
is the most  conclusive evidence which  can  be adduced;
and when proved, carries conviction at once to the mind
of the jury.
   When the proof depends upon the existence of a series of
extravagancies, the physician must guard himself against a
trick  which  lawyers sometimes practice in order to over-
turn tho  effect of this species of evidence.  The witness
has detailed a scries of extravagant conduct, and has  in-
ferred therefrom the mental  unsoundness of the  patient;
and, taken collectively, it may be as strong and unan-
swerable as  any other  description of evidence; but, in
the cross-examination of the witness, the counsel by a
species  of legal analysis, skilfully separates  the  whole
conduct of the patient into detached portions, and putting
each  extravagance seriatem to  the  witness,  inquires
whether  it is a proof of unsoundness; and thus may he
be reduced to the necessity of renouncing his opinion, or
                         18 
202
PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
of absurdly maintaining it, after all  the evidence upon
which it was based, has been knocked away.  We have
known a medical witness  brought into this humiliating
predicament by the  ingenuity of counsel, because he had
not nerve enough to explain, that the force of his evi-
dence did not depend  upon any  single act of extrava-
gance, but upon the whole conduct of the  patient taken
collectively.
  We cannot better illustrate our views than by adding
some cases of remarkable delusion, by which it will be
shown that the utmost cunning and care are often neces-
sary to  enable  the  practitioner to detect  aberration of
mind.
  A gentleman who was insane, and had  long  been the
inmate of a mad-house, wrote to his friends that he had
recovered his s%nses, and although he was perfectly aware
that he  had been properly shut up, yet now that he was
well, he trusted they would no longer force him to asso-
ciate with madmen, and suffer  all the miseries  of the
place  in which he  was confined.  A  clergyman  and
physician  were sent to examine  him, and their report
was favourable to his sanity : his friends appointed a day
to restore him to liberty and society.  They went to the
asylum, and were rejoiced to hear him converse so  sen-
sibly, that no doubt of his sanity existed in their minds,
and they prepared to take him with them.   As the party
descended the stairs  of the mad-house,  a  half-naked
madman, in one of the cells called out, with a loud voice,
" where are you taking that madman ?   You shall repent
of your folly,—for I am Neptune, I  shall prevent  any
rain from falling upon the  earth for many weeks, so that
your crops will be burnt up and utterly destroyed."   The
madman whom  the party was  removing, looked round
upon  the poor maniac who had uttered this threat, with
an expression of extreme contempt.  " Do not regard his
threat," said he, speaking to his  friends, " he says he is 
             MAD DOCTORS, AND MAD HOUSES.         203

Neptune !  well, I am Jupiter, and I can make it rain
whenever I please."
   A celebrated  watch-maker,  at Paris, was  infatuated
with the chimera of perpetual motion ; and to effect this
discovery,  he set to work  with  indefatigable ardour.
From  unremitting  attention  to the  object of his enthu-
siasm, coinciding with the influence of revolutionary dis-
turbances,  his imagination was greatly heated, his sleep
was interrupted, and, at length, a complete derangement
of the understanding took place.  His case was marked
by a  most whimsical illusion of the imagination.   He
fancied that he had  lost his head on the scaffold; that it
had been thrown promiscuously among the heads of many
other victims; that the judges having repented of their
cruel sentence, had ordered those heads to be restored to
their respective owners, and placed  upon their respective
shoulders; but that, in  consequence of an unfortunate
mistake, the gentleman, who had the management of that
business, had placed upon his shoulders the head of one
of his unhappy companions.  The idea of this whimsical
exchange of his head  occupied his  thoughts  night and
day, whicii induced his relatives to send him to the Hdtel
Dieu: from thence he was transferred to  the Asylum de
BieGtre.   Nothing  could exceed the extravagance and
ridiculousness of the notions which had taken  possession
of his imagination.  He sung,  cried, or danced incessantly;
and, as there appeared no propensity in him to commit
acts of violence or disturbance, he was allowed to wander
about the hospital unrestrained, in order to expend, by
evaporation, the effervescent excess of his spirits. " Look
at these teeth," he constantly  cried ; " mine were exceed-
ingly  handsome—these  are  rotten and  decayed.  My
mouth was sound and healthy—this is the  reverse.  This
is not my hair;  this is  not my nose; my cheeks were
ruddy—these are pale and ghastly."
   It is to  this extraordinary case that Moore  alluded in
his, " Fudge Family in Paris." 
204
PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.
   " Went to a mad-house,—saw a man
      Who thinks, poor wretch, that, while the Fiend
    Of Discord here full riot ran,
      He, like the rest was guillotin'd ;—

    But that when, under Boney's reign,
      (A more discreet, though quite as strong one)
    The heads were all restored again,
      He, in the scramble, got a wrong one.

    Accordingly he still cries out
      ' This strange head fits me most unpleasantly;'
    And always runs, poor dev'l, about,
      Inquiring for his own incessantly!"

  In going round the wards  of a  large asylum, not far
from the city of London, we entered a room where  we
saw a number of lunatics seated on each side of a long
table.  We sat down by a young man who had a very in-
telligent expression  of countenance.   He looked  at  us,
and after bowing and saying, " How do ye do," he  ex-
claimed, " I am the king !"   " Are you ?"  we replied,
" we had no idea that we  had the honour of sitting so
near majesty."  " Oh, yes, I am the king," he continued,
" I have cured three hundred  patients since I have been
here.  We have a grand feast to-night.  I shall let them
all out of the house.  Will you come here this evening ?"
We questioned the lunatic as  to what he intended to do.
He said he was going to build a house up to heaven, and
then asked if we thought Christ would be angry.   He
promised us a seat next to the queen, and he appeared
mucli delighted at  our  consenting to visit  him in  the
evening.                                 .
  We had  a long  conversation   with  a woman who
imagined herself to be the Queen of the Belgians.  She
thought that Prince  Leopold  had treated her with great
cruelty.  She was convinced she was his lawful wife, and 
            MAD DOCTORS, AND MAI) HOUSES.         205

wished  to  know  if we  would promise  to let the king
know where she  was,  and  how shamefully she  was
treated.   On our  promising to comply with  her  request
she appeared satisfied.—In the same  institution  we saw
an interesting  case of mania  caused by religious excite-
ment.  The poor  youth, who  was remarkably interesting
in appearance, was always engaged in.prayer.  The first
thing he would do in the  morning, was to  go into one
corner of the  ward  and stand  over  a sink,  where he
would remain the greater part of the day engaged in fer-
vent prayer.  No entreaties could induce him to abandon
this practice.
   Esquirol, in his work on the " Illusions of the Insane,"
relates several  interesting cases which have formed the
basis  of some important observations relating  to the treat-
ment of insanity.
   The famous Terouane de Mericourt lived  ten years at
the Salpetriere in a state of madness.  She used to throw
two pails of water on her bed every morning and evening,
and lie down immediately afterwards.  " I have seen her,"
says Esquirol, "break up the  ice  to procure  water from
the fountains."
   An artillery  officer, twenty-seven years of age, of a
sanguineous temperament, and of a strong athletic form,
was seized  with an intermittent fever during the Prussian
campaign.   They made him swallow a large glass of
brandy,  into which they had mixed the gunpowder of two
cartridges.   He  became  mad immediately,  and  tore up
every thing that fell  in his way, linen, wearing apparel,
and bed-clothes ; they were obliged to  let him sleep upon
straw.  Feeling himself pricked,  he placed  the straw in
a ring, leaving in  the centre  an empty space, which he
occupied ; he now moved his head in every direction,
blowing incessantly  upon the straw,  which  surrounded
him,  and screaming from time, as  if  to  drive away
menacing objects.  This symptom continued night  and
day for more than three weeks.   It was then discovered
                         18* 
206             PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS.

that he mistook the straws for the beaks of birds of prey
that had wounded him.  He  blew  upon the straw, and
screamed  in order  to frighten  away  these  annoying
animals.   Subsequently  the  same patient  had new illu-
sions of a still more extraordinary character.
  A general officer, more  than  fifty years old, who had
suffered from  rheumatism during  the  war, was seized
with furious madness after  some  domestic  trials.  His
teeth were bad,  and he suffered much  from them.  He
attributed the  pains  he felt  to the sun, and when they
were very acute, he screamed in a most frightful manner,
and threatened to exterminate  the sun with  his  brave
troops.  Sometimes the pains  attacked one knee; he
would then seize with one hand the afflicted  part, and
with the other hand  closed  would strike it  violently,
calling out, " Wretch!  thou shalt not escape." He fancied
he had a thief  in that  knee.
  A woman, about fifty-seven years of age, of a strong
constitution had been porteress at the nunnery of Notre-
Dame, and was very devout.   The  events  of the revolu-
tion with other circumstances connected with her bodily
health, concurred to deprive her of reason, and she was
taken to the Salpetriere, where she lived a great  number
of years.  She was of small  size, had a thick and short
neck,  and large head, and her countenance had some-
thing mysterious  about it.   She was called the " mother
of the church," because she spake  incessantly on religi-
ous subjects.   She fancied  she had in her inside all  the
personages of the New Testament, and  sometimes  those
of the Bible.   She would frequently  exclaim,  " I can
bear it  no longer!  when will there  be  peace in  the
church ?"  If her  pains  became more  acute, she would
add, with  imperturbable coolness,  "They arc crucifying
Jesus Christ to-day ; I hear the blows of the  hammer as
they drive in  the nails."  She imagined also  that  the
pope held a council  in her abdomen, and  nothing  could
dissipate these ludicrous illusions.  Upon the death of 
             MAD DOCTORS, AND MAD HOUSES.         207

this patient, considerable structural disease was discover-
ed in the abdominal cavity.
  " We have," says Esquirol, " at Charenton, a monoma-
niac  who fancies he is conducted to the cellars of the
opera every night, and that there, and sometimes in his
own  room;  they stab him with  poniards in his back and
chest;  then they cut off sometimes  one of his arms, at
other times one of his thighs, and sometimes even his
head.  When this unfortunate man is reminded that his
head is on  his shoulders, that he still possesses his limbs,
and that his body displays no wounds, he answers, " They
are witches, conjurors, and freemasons, who possess the
secret of putting limbs  on again, without its being per-
ceived."  If they insist upon  it he says, " You side with
these monsters and  brigands; kill me! kill ine!  I can-
not bear their  cruelty, nor  resist the sufferings which
they make  me endure."
  There is a patient confined  in an asylum in the vicinity
of London, whose insanity was caused by the political
excitement which took place after the rejection of the
Reform Bill, by the  House  of Lords.  This man was
actively engaged in promoting  the establishment of the
great political union, in London, and  it was during this
period  that he evinced decided symptoms of mental aber-
ration.  His delusion took a singular turn.  He fancied,
and still fancies, himself a candidate for a seat in parlia-
ment.   He occasionally mounts a bench, and harangues
in the most impassioned manner the other lunatics in the
ward.   He tells them to send him to the House of Com-
mons', to represent their interests, by their unbought and
unsolicited  suffrages.   We are told by a medical gentle-
man who has seen this case, that he affords considerable
amusement to the inmates of the asylum.  He is most
violent in his abuse of the House of Lords, for rejecting
the " people's bill," as he terms it.  This  is his only de-
lusion : when he is not engaged in speaking  to the doc-
tors, he  is usually employed in  writing  addresses and 
208    .         PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS,

advertisements.  The gentleman under whose care he is
placed, has frequently endeavoured to persuade him that
the Reform Bill was carried, and is now the  law of the
land.  He laughs at the assertion, and says " it is a weak
invention  of the  enemy."  A fracas took place in the
ward one afternoon, in consequence of a hmatic, who had
just been admitted, and who of course, was unacquainted
with the morbid delusion of this man, refusing to promise
to vote for him.  The would-be M. P. swore at him, made
use of every opprobrious epithet he couldHhink of, and at
last commenced pummelling the lunatic.   The other pa-
tients thought this an  unparliamentary course of proce-
dure, and took the poor man's- part, and the result was,
that the " reformer," was compelled to  beat  a retreat in
order to escape  the punishment which  his conduct so
richly deserved.
   The following affecting case is recorded by Mr. Hill.
A gentleman, on the point of marriage, left his intended
bride for a short time; he usually travelled in the stage-
coach to the place of her abode; the last journey he took
from her, was the last of his life.  Anxiously expecting
his return, she went to  meet the  vehicle.  An old friend
announced to her the death of her lover.  She uttered an
involuntary and piteous exclamation, " he is dead!" From
that fatal  moment, for  fifty years, has this unfortunate
female daily, in all  seasons, traversed  the distance of a
few miles, to the spot where she expected her future hus-
band to alight from his coach, uttering, in a  plaintive
tone, " He has not come yet—I will return to-morrow."
THE END. 
              CONTENTS
                    OF THE

HOME  &   TRAVELLER'S

              LIBRARY.
No. I.—TEXAS AND  THE GULF OF MEXICO; OR,
     YACHTING IN  THE  NEW  WORLD.  By Mrs.
     Houstoun.  With Illustrations.  Price 25 Cents.

  " An excellent and entertaining work."—U. S. Gazette.
No. II.—THE ENGLISHWOMAN IN EGYPT.  By Mrs.
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  " The first English lady who has been admitted as a privi-
leged friend into the hareems of those of tho highest rank in
the Egyptian Capital."—Blackwood's Magazine.
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there was more."—Smith's Weekly Volume.

  " The excellent little book which results from Mrs. Poole's
observations, gives  us, in a few pages, more information on
the grand mystery of Oriental homes, than we  have ever
been able to draw  from other sources."—London Quarterly
Review.
  " All the men in Europe together could  never have gained
or imparted the information in this book."—London Morning
Post.
  " Emphatically the book of a lady."—Frazer. 
2
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No.  III.—NIGHTS OF THE ROUND  TABLE.  By  Mrs.
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the publishers proceed as they  have commenced, they will
give families one of the most valuable cabinets of miscellane-
ous reading ever printed."—Saturday Post.
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healthy feeling, forcible delineation of character, beauty of
description and strength  of  thought, all clothed  in elegant
and nervous language."—Aberdeen Herald.
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carrying instruction with amusement.   Many of them contain
striking pictures of virtuous poverty, and of self-denial in the
middle ranks  of life, drawn in a  piquant and pleasing style.
We reckon it no small recommendation of these tales, that in
them the common-place virtues of every-day life obtain more
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No. IV.—SKETCHES  OF   IMPOSTURE, CREDULITY,
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has lived and been imposed upon.  It is a work not merely 
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struction."—Smith's Weekly Volume.
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man.
No. V.—THE OPIUM WAR; BEING RECOLLECTIONS
      OF SERVICE IN CHINA.  By Captain Arthur Cu-
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most  vivid and animating  account of  the  splendid closing
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in China, is a brief but most novel and entertaining glimpse
of the celestials and the fun that Her Gracious  Majesty's fleet
and  army  had with the celestial boobies: the British  brag
about their war with the celestials, but we think there is not
much glory in not being frightened with wooden artillery
painted to the life, the noise of gongs, and celestial warriors
dressed up in  tiger skins,  who, when they find they can't
frighten  the  ' outside barbarians' in this way, take to their
heels, and instead of fighting like tigers,  run away like rabbits.1
What  glory for Her Majesty's army and navy to  encounter
and conquer such an enemy!"—Wayne  Co. Herald.

No.   VI. — IMPRESSIONS  OF  IRELAND AND THE
      IRISH.  By the author of " Random Recollections of
      the  Lords and Commons," " The Great Metropolis,"
      &c.   Price 25 Cents.
  " The most agreeably entertaining work that has for many
a day met our view."—Jackson (Tenn.) Republican. 
4
   " An entertaining work."—Jeffersonian.
  No. VII.—DONALDSON'S EVENTFUL LIFE OF A SOL-
        DIER.  Price 25 Cents.
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  of the kind ever published. The author served many years in
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  caped the worst effects of a soldier's life upon the character,
  his narrative furnishes the  strongest proofs of the evils of
  war."—Smith's  Weekly Volume.

  No. VIII.—DUNN'S HISTORY OF THE OREGON TERRI-
       TORY AND BRITISH  NORTH AMERICAN FUR
       TRADE.  Price 25 Cents.
   " One of the latest and most informing books on the Oregon
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  ceri, it cannot but be deeply interesting in the present posture
  of affairs."—U. S. Gazette.
   " The unconcealed hostility of Mr. Dunn injures the cause
  he  advocates, and  will give offence in  America,  without
  affording  satisfaction here.   The work, however, contains
  much, and of interest, about  which there need be no discus-
  sion : a rapid sketch of the History of the Oregon Settlement,
  of  the Hudson's Bay and other  fur-trading  companies, an in-
  teresting account of the fur trade, and of those engaged in it,
  with  characteristic  anecdotes and  illustrations of the habits
  and manners of the native Indians."—London Athenceum.
  NO.  IX.—NARRATIVE OF THE MUTINY AT SPIT-
        HEAD AND THE NORE.   Price 25 Cents.
    "One of the most interesting episodes  in British history, and
  comparatively little known."—Smith's Weekly Volume.
0 
       GREAT LITERARY ENTERPRISE.
                  BOOKS BY MAIL!
 The " Waldie" System Revived by the Original
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  The cash system carried to its utmost limit by a reduction
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         TEN COPIES FOR 92 50 PER ANNUM EACH !!
  On the first of January. 1845, was commenced at Philadel-
phia the publication of SMITH'S WEEKLY VOLUME, a
Select Circulating Library for town and country, on the plan
of Waldie's, at a greatly reduced price, of a larger size and new
type.__Conducted by the original, and for the first seven years,
the sole editor of Waldie's  Library, and published by his son.
  The plan embraces the publication of the newest and best 
6
  books in the various departments of Travels, Voyages, Tales,
  Sketches, Biography and Memoirs; in short, the whole range
  of polite literature, and including translations made expressly
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                        TERMS.
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 ry," is printed on  a  double super-royal sheet, sixteen pages
 quarto, three columns on each, and mailed weekly with great
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   *„* Journal of Belles Lettres.  By thus  increasing the
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 Lettres, formerly printed as a cover.
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 order is accompanied with the remittance.
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                         LLOYD  P. SMITH, Publisher.
   No.  19  St. James' Street, running from 6th  to Tih,  above
Market, and directly in the rear of St. James's Church.
  Philadelphia, 1845.
  55" A few  complete sets of the back numbers are still on
hand. 
 HOME  &  TRAVELLER'S LIBRARY,

A  Serial  of Popular  and Standard Litera-
   ture, in which the  following  Works  are
   published:—

No. I.—TEXAS AND THE GULF OF MEXICO; OR,
    YACHTING IN THE NEW  WORLD  By Mrs.
    Houstoun.  With Illustrations.  Price 25 Cents.

No. II.—THE  ENGLISHWOMAN IN EGYPT.  By
    Mrs. Poole. With an Engraving of the Interior of
    the Great Pyramid.  Price 25 Cents.

No. III.—NIGHTS OF THE  ROUND TABLE.  By
    Mrs. Johnstone, author of "Clan Albyn," "Elizabeth
    De Bruce," &.c. Price 25 Cents.

No. IV—SKETCHES OF  IMPOSTURE, CREDULI-
    TY, AND FANATICISM. Price 25 Cents.

No. V—THE  OPIUM WAR; BEING  RECOLLEC-
    TIONS OF SERVICE IN CHINA.   By Captain
    Arthur Cunynghame.  Price 25 Cents.

No. VI.—IMPRESSIONS OF  IRELAND AND THE
    IRISH.  By the author of" Random Recollections of
    the Lords and Commons," "The Great Metropolis,"
    &c. Price 25 Cents.

No. VII.—DONALDSON'S  EVENTFUL LIFE OF A
    SOLDIER. Price 25 Cents.

No. VIIL—DUNN'S HISTORY OF THE OREGON
    TERRITORY AND BRITISH NORTH AMERI-
    CAN FUR TRADE.  Price 25 Cents.

No. IX—THE  MUTINY AT SPITHEAD AND THE
    NORE.  Price 25 Cents.
No. X.—PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS. Part I. 

Lf1 *tJws«;
 

^H^'V


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