In buildyng verye plentie.
Dr. John Mayow, mentioned by Mr. Bond, and who has been noticed under St. Martin’s, must have been a
very extraordinary man, worthy of being ranked with the first chemists or philosophers of any age.
In the forty-first number of the publications made by the Royal Society previous to the regular series of the Philosophical Transactions, anno 1668, p. 833, will be found an account of two works by John Mayow, LL.D. and M.D. Tractatus duo. Prior de Respiratione, Alter de Rachitide (the rickets); see also the Abridgment, vol. i. p. 295, where the authors say in a note, “As an account of the life and opinions of Dr. Mayow was published only a few years ago by a physician now living, we deem it unnecessary to insert in this place a biographical notice of this distinguished chemist and physiologist. We shall only remark, that in his writings are to be found the primordia of some of the most important theories and experiments of modern chemical philosophers.”
The physician alluded to was Thomas Beddoes, of Pembroke College, Oxford, and afterwards of Clifton, near Bristol, whose life has been given to the public by Dr. John Edmonds Stock, in one vol. 4to, printed for Murray in 1811; and his pamphlet is entitled, “Chemical Experiments and Opinions extracted from a Work published in the Last Century. Printed at the Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1790.”
Doctor Beddoes here bestows on Mayow the praise he most justly merits, and to be praised by Doctor Beddoes is laudari a laudato viro. Few persons ever displayed more genius or power of invention; and to him we mainly owe the preparation of Humphry Davy for his splendid philosophical career, after a most fortunate introduction by the Editor of this Work.
Anthony Wood gives the following particulars of Mayow:
“John Mayow descended from a genteel family of his name, living at Bree in Cornwall; was born in the parish of St. Dunstan in the West in Fleet-street, London, admitted scholar of Wadham College the 27th of September
1661, aged sixteen years; chosen Probationary Fellow of All Souls College soon after, and upon the recommendations of Henry Coventry, esq. one of the Secretaries of State; where, though he had a legist’s place, and took the degrees in the civil law, yet he studied physic, and became noted for his practice therein, especially in the summer time in the city of Bath; but better known by these books, which show the pregnancy of his parts.
De Respiratione, Tractatus Unus. Oxon. 1668-69, 8vo.