Chapter II (1)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“In 1622, Aselli discovered the Lacteals.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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