Dulwich, September 1885.
CONTENTS OF VOL. I.
| PAGE | ||
| PREFACE | [v] | |
| CHAP. | ||
| I. | LINACRE, CAIUS, AND THE FOUNDATION OF BRITISH MEDICINE | [1] |
| II. | WILLIAM HARVEY AND THE CIRCULATION OF THE BLOOD | [25] |
| III. | THOMAS SYDENHAM, THE BRITISH HIPPOCRATES | [52] |
| IV. | THE MONROS, CULLEN, THE GREGORYS, JOHN BELL, AND THE FOUNDATION OF THE EDINBURGH SCHOOL OF MEDICINE | [71] |
| V. | WILLIAM AND JOHN HUNTER AND THE APPLICATIONS OF ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGY TO SURGERY | [119] |
| VI. | EDWARD JENNER AND VACCINATION | [169] |
| VII. | SIR ASTLEY COOPER AND ABERNETHY: THE KNIFE versus REGIMEN | [202] |
| VIII. | SIR CHARLES BELL AND THE FUNCTIONS OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM | [242] |
| IX. | MARSHALL HALL AND THE DISCOVERY OF REFLEX ACTION | [264] |
| X. | SIR BENJAMIN BRODIE AND SIR WILLIAM LAWRENCE, TWO GREAT PRACTICAL SURGEONS | [286] |
| INDEX. | [312] |
EMINENT DOCTORS.
[CHAPTER I.]
LINACRE, CAIUS, AND THE FOUNDATION OF BRITISH MEDICINE.
The name of Thomas Linacre must stand at the head of any account of the history of British medicine, for before his accession to the office of tutor and physician to Prince Arthur, eldest son of Henry VII., in 1501, no physician of such ability as to have left works of permanent value had arisen in this country. To him belongs the honour of having founded the Royal College of Physicians of London, the earliest of the British medical corporations; and by that one act he may be said to have constituted medicine a distinct profession. The slightness of the emphasis which can be laid upon the medical profession up to Linacre’s time may be recognised from the fact that he was both tutor and medical attendant to a prince, and that he subsequently became a not undistinguished ecclesiastic.
Canterbury gave birth to this founder of British medicine about 1460. He derived his descent, however, from a Derbyshire family of Saxon blood flourishing before the Conquest at Linacre, near Chesterfield. His school-days were passed under the superintendence of William Selling, at the monastic school of Christchurch in Canterbury. Selling was an enlightened man for his time, and had travelled in Italy, where he studied Greek with one of the most eager students of the time, Politian, and had brought home with him numerous valuable manuscripts. A fellow of All Souls’ himself, he doubtless had some influence in securing the election of his pupil to a fellowship there at an early age, in 1484. At Oxford Linacre was a pupil of Cornelio Vitelli, an Italian, one of the earliest teachers who brought Greek learning into this country.
Before long Linacre himself took charge of pupils, the most famous of whom afterwards became Sir Thomas More. Linacre accompanied Selling to Italy when Henry VII. appointed the latter on a mission to the Roman pontiff. In Italy he received the benefit of introductions to, and instructions from, Politian and others, and formed an acquaintance with Aldus Manutius, the celebrated printer, at Venice. At Florence he was introduced to Lorenzo de Medici, who specially approved of his companionship with his sons both in their studies and their amusements. After taking the degree of Doctor of Medicine in the University of Padua with great applause, owing to the skill with which he defended the positions of his thesis, he returned to England. He apparently betook himself at once to Oxford, where he was incorporated M.D. It is presumed that he was still most concerned in academical pursuits; and he was the first Englishman to publish a correct rendering of a Greek author after the revival of letters, namely, the “Sphere” of Proclus, printed by Aldus at Venice in 1499. Whether he was also incorporated at Cambridge, as Dr. Caius relates, cannot now be proved, but it is rendered probable by the fact of his subsequent foundation of a lectureship in medicine at that university.