One cannot more strikingly emphasise the change which has taken place during the present century in the views and practice of medical men than by quoting from Sir Henry Halford’s biographical notice of Baillie, the nephew of William and John Hunter, and brother of Joanna Baillie. Here we have Halford acknowledging a current sentiment against physical examination of the patient. “He (Baillie) appeared to lay a great stress upon the information which he might derive from the external examination of his patient, and to be much influenced in the formation of his opinion of the nature of the complaint by this practice. He had originally adopted this habit from the peculiar turn of his early studies,—and assuredly such a method, not indiscriminately but judiciously employed, as he employed it, is a valuable auxiliary to the other ordinary means used by a physician, of obtaining the knowledge of a disease submitted to him. But it is equally true that, notwithstanding its air of mechanical precision, such examination is not to be depended upon beyond a certain point. Great disordered action may prevail in a part without having yet produced such disorganisation as may be sensibly felt; and to doubt of the existence of a disease because it is not discoverable to the touch, is not only unphilosophical, but must surely, in many instances, lead to unfounded and erroneous conclusions. One of the inevitable consequences of such a system is frequent disappointment in foretelling the issue of the malady, that most important of all points to the reputation of a physician, and though such a mode of investigation might not prove unsuccessful in the skilful hands of Dr. Baillie, it must be allowed to be an example of dangerous tendency to those who have not had his means of acquiring knowledge, nor enjoyed the advantages of his great experience, nor have learned by the previous steps of education and good discipline to reason and judge correctly.” Halford then refers to the quickness with which a good physician makes up his mind on the nature of a disease; at that time it was oftener a guess than a process of reasoning. Baillie was one of the first to study pathology, and to bring into practice physical examination.
Matthew Baillie was born on the 27th October 1761, in the manse of Shotts, Lanarkshire, his father having been Professor of Divinity in Glasgow University, his mother, Dorothea, sister of William and John Hunter. After two sessions at Glasgow, Baillie entered, in 1779, at Balliol College, Oxford, where he completed his M.D. in 1789. Residing during vacations with William Hunter, he became almost like a son to him, and assisted him much in making his anatomical preparations and superintending his dissecting-room. On the death of his uncle in 1783, he and Cruickshank continued the lectures with great success. Baillie lectured till 1799. One of his pupils said of him that his style, though not eloquent, irresistibly commanded attention; he appeared completely master of his subject, was exceedingly clear, concise, and condensed, and never at a loss for an appropriate word. He was always modest and unostentatious. When left sole heir of his uncle William, he at once transferred to John Hunter the family estate of Long Calderwood, to which he regarded him as entitled.
Baillie’s principal work is pathological. In 1793 he published “The Morbid Anatomy of some of the most Important Parts of the Human Body,” and although pathology is now very different from what it was in his day, and his classification is not now useful, his facts, when properly interpreted, are still found excellent. The work met with very great success, and was translated into many European languages, besides going through five English editions in the author’s lifetime.
Baillie gradually got into good practice, being appointed physician to St. George’s Hospital in 1787, elected Fellow of the College of Physicians in 1790, Censor in 1791 and 1796, and Fellow of the Royal Society in 1789. On the retirement of Dr. Pitcairn from practice in 1798, Baillie succeeded to a great part of it, and his practice was still further benefited by his marriage with the daughter of Dr. Denman, whose great obstetric practice enabled him to recommend Baillie very frequently. He resigned his hospital work in 1799, and from that time had perhaps the leading practice in London, making ten thousand pounds in some years. He was consulted about George III.’s case, and in 1810 was made Physician to the King and offered a baronetcy, which he declined. In 1814 he was also appointed Physician-in-Ordinary to the Princess Charlotte, and attended many members of the royal family. His manner towards his fellow-practitioners was as pleasing as his conduct to patients. To both he would carefully explain, as far as possible, his views of the nature of the case and the treatment required, and he was exceedingly successful in tranquillising the apprehensions of his patients. His modesty was transparent. He would say to his friends: “I know better perhaps than another man, from my knowledge of anatomy, how to discover a disease, but when I have done so, I do not know better how to cure it.” From this one is not surprised to learn that he was not fertile in expedients, but if the simplest means failed, he was often at a loss what to do next, and was not apt at varying his prescriptions.
Baillie was not without an irritability of temper, in which we see some resemblance to John Hunter; but his heart was at bottom most kindly. He would often say after an outbreak, “I have spoken roughly to that poor man; I must go and see him, be it ever so late;” “that patient is in better health than I am myself, but I have been too hard with him, I must make him amends.” There were many instances of his great and delicate generosity to his patients. Overwork, to the extent of devoting sixteen hours a day to practice, enfeebled his constitution, and before the age of sixty he was compelled to retire in a large measure from practice. He died at his seat, Duntisbourne House, near Cirencester, on the 23d September 1823, leaving a fortune of £80,000. He bequeathed a considerable sum to the College of Physicians, with his manuscripts and other interesting curiosities, such as the gold-headed cane used by Radcliffe, Mead, and others, whose arms are engraved on it. He was buried in Duntisbourne Church, but his memory was commemorated by his professional friends by a fine bust by Chantrey in Westminster Abbey. His excellent qualities and his strong religious principle were well set forth by Sir Henry Halford in an address to the College of Physicians.
Sir Henry Halford was long a contemporary of Baillie, but survived him more than twenty years. He was the second son of Dr. James Vaughan, a successful physician at Leicester, whose third son became a judge of the Court of Common Pleas; the fourth son was Dean of Chester and Warden of Merton College, Oxford; the fifth, Envoy-extraordinary to the United States; and the sixth was the father of Dean Vaughan, the well-known Master of the Temple. The eldest son died in his twenty-third year. The distinction which Vaughan’s sons attained shows that his judgment was admirably exercised in their education. In fact, he spent his whole professional income in providing for them the best possible educational aids. Henry, like the others, was sent from Rugby to Oxford (the youngest only going to Cambridge); and he records, in eulogising his father’s treatment of them, that not one of them asked or received further pecuniary assistance from him after he had finished his education, and commenced his own efforts to provide for himself.
Henry Vaughan was born on October 2d, 1766. Entering at Christchurch, Oxford, he graduated B.A. in 1788, M.D. 1791. He studied medicine for some months at Edinburgh, and also practised for a time with his father at Leicester. About 1792 he came to London, and having a good opening through his Oxford friends, had courage enough to borrow £1000 on his own security in order to establish himself in London practice. Here his good manners and evident learning stood him in good stead, and he was elected physician to the Middlesex Hospital in 1793, becoming a Fellow of the College of Physicians in 1794. In March 1795 he still further promoted his advancement by his marriage with the third daughter of Lord St. John, and rapidly rose into note. With all his talents, however, it looks like one of fortune’s freaks that Vaughan should have been appointed Physician-Extraordinary to the King in 1793, at the age of twenty-seven; and that his practice should have so increased that in 1800 he was compelled to give up his hospital appointment. But fortune had more favours in store for him. He inherited a large property on the death of Lady Denbigh, widow of his mother’s cousin, Sir Charles Halford; and he consequently changed his name in 1809 by Act of Parliament from Vaughan to Halford. George III. created him a baronet in the same year.
The King had indeed a strong preference for Sir Henry Halford, as he now became. He secured Sir Henry’s promise, before the onset of his last long derangement, that he would not leave him, and that if necessary he would call in also Dr. Heberden and Dr. Baillie. To recite the number of royal personages to whom Sir Henry was physician would be tedious; suffice it to mention that he attended, besides George III., George IV., William IV., and Queen Victoria, having thus been the physician of four English sovereigns.
There is no doubt that Halford possessed talents of a high order. He is said to have been inferior to Baillie in accuracy of diagnosis, but superior in the cure and alleviation of disease. He had quick perception, sound judgment, and great knowledge of the powers of medicines. For many years after Baillie’s illness and death he was undisputedly at the head of London practice. At the College of Physicians his rule continued unchecked, if not unquestioned, for more than twenty years, he having been President from 1820 till his death on the 9th of March 1844. He was largely instrumental in securing the removal of the College from Warwick Lane in the city to the present commodious building in Pall Mall East. His bust by Chantrey was presented to the College by a number of Fellows. His portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence is at Wistow, Leicestershire, where he was buried in the parish church.