In the summer of 1801 he removed to Great Marlborough Street, and brought his family to London, and he sought for practice as a physician. He built a lecture room; he made arrangements for editing the ‘Annals of Philosophy, Natural History, Chemistry, Literature, Agriculture, and Fine Arts’ for the year 1800, intending to continue it yearly; and he prepared himself to give not less than eight courses of lectures during the winter. At his own house he gave two courses on Chemistry, one on Mineralogy, one on Botany, two on Experimental Philosophy, and a private course on this subject also; he gave a course on Botany at Brompton, and in a room at Tom’s Coffee House, in the City, a course of popular lectures on Zoonomia, or the Laws of Animal Life in Health and Disease. This was for the convenience of medical students and others in that part of the town.
A return of ill health prevented him from completing some of these courses, but he used every means to increase his private practice. In May 1802 he was elected physician to the Marylebone Dispensary, which he thought would bring the success which he seemed never able to obtain. Very weak in body and not exempt from anxiety of mind, he began the hard work of his Dispensary. He caught typhus fever from one of the patients in June, and died on the 28th of that month.
He left his children penniless.
On August 2 Dr. Garnett’s executor, Mr. Parker, asked permission to have the popular lectures on the Laws of Animal Life, the Zoonomia, printed at the press of the Royal Institution, and that the printer to the Institution, Mr. W. Savage, might receive subscriptions for the publication of the work. The managers resolved to subscribe for the Institution 50l., and in 1804, when the work was published in quarto, they allowed it to be dedicated to them, a privilege which they refused on many occasions afterwards. The dedication was in these words:
To the Right Honourable and Honourable the Managers of the Royal Institution of Great Britain these Lectures, composed by a man who, in his lifetime, was honoured by their selection as their first lecturer, and whose infant family have since experienced their benevolence and protection, are, with permission, dedicated by the trustees of the subscription in favour of these orphans.
The amount of the subscription was nearly two thousand guineas.
[CHAPTER IV.]
THE PROGRESS OF THE INSTITUTION TO THE RESIGNATION OF PROFESSOR YOUNG.
1801 to 1803.
WITH THE LIFE OF DR. THOMAS YOUNG.
1773 to 1829.
In 1801 Count Rumford continued to carry out his plans at the Institution. In February he engaged Mr. Humphry Davy as Assistant Lecturer on Chemistry, Director of the Chemical Laboratory, and Assistant Editor of the Journals. On March 11 Davy arrived at the Institution and took possession of his situation, and in April he began to lecture.