On returning to England towards the end of 1855, Marshall Hall’s mind fastened with characteristic eagerness on a new subject, suggested by reading the Humane Society’s “Rules to Restore the Apparently Drowned.” He remarked: “There is nothing in the treatment to restore respiration.” He at once thought out the question in the light of his researches on the physiology of respiration, and when he had mentally devised his system of restoration, proceeded to make experiments to test them. Hitherto it had been believed that it was useless to attempt to restore those who had been immersed three or four minutes. He said to the Secretary of the Humane Society: “If we take this for granted, we shall do nothing; surely it is worth while to make the effort to restore after a longer period.” His plan for producing artificial respiration, by turning the body first on the face, then on the side, and repeating the motion for a quarter of an hour, making equable pressure on the back of the chest when in the prone position, removing it when rotating on to the side, is known all over the world as the Marshall Hall method, and has saved thousands of lives. Numerous details are added to increase the efficiency of the treatment. But the Humane Society looked coldly on the novel plan, and long persisted in ignoring it. The National Lifeboat Institution wisely adopted it; the medical profession received it with acclamation; it was applied to the revival of still-born infants, and the restoration of those in danger of dying from asphyxia from other causes than drowning. At the same time when Palmer’s trial for poisoning was occurring, Dr. Hall drew attention to the facility with which the presence of strychnia could be proved by administering any suspected matter to young frogs, which would be affected by the five-thousandth part of a grain of strychnia.
But he now began to succumb to the effects of his long-continued malady in the throat. Expectoration of blood became more frequent, difficulty of swallowing increased; at times he was near absolute starvation, and his sufferings were horrible, but his patience and resignation marvellous. After months of terrible illness, during which his cheerfulness never left him, he died on the 11th August 1857, of ulceration of the upper part of the gullet and windpipe. During his illness his mind was as active as ever, he wrote continually his new ideas, and worked out to fuller ends his former discoveries. Throughout he was especially bright and affectionate to all little children; the manner in which he entered into children’s delights was most exquisite to witness. His Christian faith was unclouded; as he said, religion was to him the principal thing. In the simplicity, beauty, and happiness of his character he resembled Sir Charles Bell, of whom he was the true successor.
FOOTNOTES:
[20] Medical Times and Gazette August 29, 1857.
[21] Memorials of Marshall Hall, by his widow, 1861.
[CHAPTER X.]
SIR BENJAMIN BRODIE AND SIR WILLIAM LAWRENCE, TWO GREAT PRACTICAL SURGEONS.
The influence of heredity and of association and connexion with talented persons is well illustrated in the case of Sir Benjamin Brodie. His paternal grandfather, Alexander Brodie, was a native of Banffshire, who came to London as a humble adventurer and almost as a Jacobite refugee. He married a daughter of a physician named Shaw, of similar Jacobite family and connexions. Brodie became an army clothier, and one of his daughters, who married Dr. Denman, the eminent obstetric physician, was the mother of Lord Denman. Margaret and Sophia, the twin daughters of Dr. Denman, married—the former Sir Richard Croft, who attended the Princess Charlotte at her death in 1817, the latter Dr. Matthew Baillie, the eminent physician, and nephew of John Hunter. The army clothier’s wife was herself a woman of considerable abilities, and it was said that there was royal blood in the family.
The father of Sir Benjamin was educated at Charterhouse and at Oxford. As a boy he was patronised by the first Lord Holland, and spent much time at Holland House. A warm attachment existed between them, in which Charles James Fox shared. When Lord Holland died in 1774, he directed by will that Mr. Brodie, who had taken holy orders, should have the next presentation to whichever of his livings first became vacant. This desire was soon fulfilled, and Winterslow in Wiltshire became the home of the Brodies. The Rev. Mr. Brodie married in 1775 a daughter of Mr. Collins, a banker at Salisbury; and of this marriage Benjamin Collins Brodie was the third son, having been born in 1783.
Sir Benjamin in his “Autobiography” gives a pleasing picture of his father, a man of sound classical knowledge, great energy, minute acquaintance with parishioners, and devotion to his parochial duties. Notwithstanding his wife’s considerable fortune, Mr. Brodie found he could not afford to send all his sons to public schools, and he consequently determined to educate them himself. An elder sister who joined the brothers at lessons became no mean proficient in classics. Under the strict discipline of their father the children grew up in the habit of methodical study, and Sir Benjamin records that idleness even for a day was always irksome to him in after life, and he had little inclination for any pursuit without a definite ulterior object. Seven miles distant from Salisbury, the family learned to be self-dependent for interest of all kinds, and their solitude was little varied except by occasional visits of cousins, such as Lord Denman, who was for a year a resident pupil with Mr. Brodie after leaving Eton, and a few others, one of whom was afterwards Dr. Maton, a well-known London physician, and (Sir) John Stoddart, afterwards Chief Justice at Malta. Vigour of character was shown markedly when in 1798 the brothers raised a company of volunteers on the alarm of a French invasion. The eldest at nineteen received a commission as captain, while Benjamin, only fourteen, was appointed ensign. Great pains were bestowed on the drill of this company, and the officers expended their pay in entertaining the men in a great barn; and the influence already possessed by the youths was evident in the maintenance and increase of the numbers of the corps and the attention paid to drill. The eldest brother, Peter, became a distinguished conveyancing barrister. The second was a local banker, proprietor of a newspaper, and represented Salisbury in three Parliaments.
As he drew towards adult age, Brodie read extensively in science and philosophy and general literature. In the autumn of 1801, the medical profession having been chosen for him, he went to London without any special bent towards the occupation in which he was destined to shine so conspicuously. He gives it as his opinion, in after years, that those who succeed best in professions are those who have embarked in them not from irresistible prepossession but perhaps from some accidental circumstance, and persevere in their course as a matter of duty, or because they have nothing better to do. “They often feel their new pursuit to be unattractive enough in the beginning; but as they go on, and acquire knowledge, and find that they obtain some degree of credit, the case is altered; and from that time they become every day more interested in what they are about:”—a great encouragement to the vast majority of students who do not feel the stimulus and inspiration of genius.