At the zenith of the career of Sake Deen Mahomed, Mr. Harrap obtained the custom of that professor, and for a long time continued to make and repair shoes for the family. This circumstance caused him frequently to visit Mr. Mahomed’s establishment, where he principally obtained that information which enabled him to commence the practice of rubbing, omitting the shampooing process, his inventive genius enabling him to substitute as many contrivances as the numerous cases of affliction entrusted to his skill and care required. Many of his inventions, which had been of benefit to sufferers, formed a species of Museum in a room at Mahomed’s establishment. From Mrs. Williams, too, a neighbour, in Ivory Place, who was celebrated for her healing unguents, Mr. Harrap gained much of his surgical knowledge.
Mr. Harrap was totally uneducated, and, at the commencement of his professional career, entirely unacquainted with medical science and nomenclature; yet, progressively, by natural instinct as it were, and studied practice, he acquired a knowledge of anatomy which astonished those who were conversant with that science; and gentlemen of high position in the medical profession—including the late Sir Matthew Tierney, Sir Astley Cooper, Sir Benjamin Brodie, &c.,—acknowledged his worth by awarding him that credit which they considered due to an energetic and gifted man. His perseverance enabled him to amass a large fortune; and after having been a great sufferer for more than two years, from a cancer of the bowels, he was removed by death from the scene of a most useful life, on Saturday, the 12th of October of last year, leaving a wife, the widow of the late Sidney Walsingham Bennett, Esq., solicitor, to lament her irreparable bereavement, and a large circle of grateful patients and sincere friends the remembrance of an honourable, and honoured man.
For some time previous to his decease he had been unable to attend actively to his professional duties; yet, he was present daily, at his house of business on the Grand parade, watching, and instructing his step-son, now his successor, Mr. Sidney Bennett, who qualified as a surgeon on the 29th of May, 1861, and there is little doubt his perseverance in the course pursued by the deceased will add a lustre to his father-in-law’s name, and confirm a credit due to the memory of a man who was never ambitious of praise, but perseveringly sought a remedy to alleviate the sufferings of the afflicted. Deceased was buried at the Parochial Cemetery, Lewes Road.
Nature has been peculiarly bountiful in her goodness towards Brighton; as, independent of the salubrity of the position of the town and the superlative excellence of its sea-water, the Chalybeate spring at the Wick is possessed of great curative properties, the opinion of Drs. Russell and Relhan, being confirmed by Dr. Henderson, who thus writes:—
This water, when first taken from the spring in a glass, in appearance greatly resembles a solution of emetic tartar in common water. The taste is not unpleasant, something like that upon a knife after it has been used in cutting lemons. It does not seem to contain the smallest portion of sulphur; it neither changes vegetable blues, red, nor does it effervesce with alkaline salts, calcareous earths, magnesia, nor fossil alkali; neither does it change vegetable blues, green, nor does it effervesce with acids; yet it curdles soap, and renders a solution of it in various spirits milky.
It seems to contain a considerable portion of calcareous earth, mixed with vitriolic acid in the form of its selenites, and also a considerable portion of iron, as will appear from the following experiment: Sixty-four ounces of this water by measure being evaporated to dryness, there was a residuum of a brownish colour, full of spiculæ, weighing eight grains, four ounces of which, with an equal quantity of charcoal, was made into a paste with oil, and calcined. On trying the calcined matter with the magnet, two pieces nearly in the metallic form adhered to it; and when put upon paper, at the distance of half an inch, moved in every direction with the magnet. These two pieces weighed one-eighth of a grain.
The gross residuum neither effervesces with alkali nor acids, and is sufficiently soluble in water.
This water becomes instantly transparent, like distilled water, on the addition of any of the mineral acids, especially the vitriolic.
A solution of galls in common water, added to an equal portion of this water, becomes black like ink, in a few minutes.
The Chalybeate has been found serviceable in several cases of general debility, crapulas, indigestion, atony of the stomach, and fluor albus; and in all those diseases where chalybeate and tonic remedies are required, it promises, under due regulation, to be useful.
Dr. Henderson was a physician of eminence in the town; and a minute of Vestry, at the Unicorn Inn, February 10th, 1794, shews the esteem in which he was held by the inhabitants. It runs thus:—“Dr. Henderson presented with a pint silver cup, for his care and attention to the parish.”
A character of the time, who also practised the healing art, is not so favourably mentioned in the Vestry Book, February 4th, 1805, the entry of him being:—“Resolved that Michael Cobby be allowed eight shillings per week, on his quitting the Poor-house; and his drugs and effects delivered up to him.” It must not, from this, however, be supposed medicine and surgery were so at a discount that parish relief was requisite to maintain
The wise physician skilled our wounds to heal.
Dr. Cobby, as he was familiarly known, had talent, but he was more a disciple of Bacchus, than of Galen, and the natural reply to him, as he tendered his services in his tattered clothes, which his poverty bespake, and as a foul specimen of the unwashed, would be “Physician, heal—cleanse—thyself.” Not that Brighton at that period had waned in the least from the character it had obtained for healthfulness, as a memorandum, made August, 1806, states:—“Such is the healthy condition of the town, that the doctors and apothecaries complain dolefully of their declining businesses, and undertakers are literally starved out, the latter declaring, ‘All trades must live,’ but the residents are determined not to serve them.” In 1580, there was but one medical man in Brighton, Dr. Mathews, who lived in Middle street. His terms for attending in confinements were: At Portslade and Rottingdean, 5s; at Blatchington, 3s 6d; and anywhere in the town of Brighthelmston, 2s 6d.
In the early part of 1886, a sad scourge, the small pox, pervaded the town, and on the 25th of January, that year, when the population amounted to 3620, the following return of its virulence was made:—