And sumptuous arches bear its oval height;
A golden globe, placed high, with artful skill,
Seems to the distant sight—a gilded pill.”
Amongst the remarkable men of Harvey’s time were Shakespeare, Bacon, Van Helmont, and Sydenham, all of whom had personal intercourse with him; of these we shall first notice Thomas Sydenham, who was born in 1624. Boerhaave called him the second Hippocrates on account of his close observation of the natural phenomena of disease, but he is too well known to us to require any detailed description either of his method, or of his general knowledge. The story of his reply to Dr. Blackmore, when asked by him what books he should read, that “Don Quixote was a very good book” has been erroneously supposed to express his contempt for learning, but the joke was a personal one. Blackmore was a poet, and Sydenham saw that the man who consulted him did not possess the stuff of which doctors are made, he therefore referred him to the most lively piece of writing then in existence, as furnishing fitter pabulum for a poet, than the dry discussions of medical subjects could afford. To describe the character of Sydenham, it would be necessary to call to our aid the highest forms of panegyric; a good and honourable man, living in harmony with his brethren, and as far as the troubled state of the country would allow, in peace with all men. He lived to see the revolution of 1688 accomplished, and his aspirations as a patriot being thus gratified, he died in the following year.
Contemporary with Sydenham, we find the celebrated Sir Wm. Petty, the founder of the Lansdowne family. He was the eldest son of Anthony Petty, who, Aubrey the Antiquary tells us, was a clothier in Romsey. In his early days he showed great liking for all mechanical operations, and at twelve years of age had acquired considerable skill in carpentry[carpentry] and smiths’ work. Educated at the free school of his native place, at the age of fifteen he began his remarkable career as a self-helping man; from his own account, we learn that he went over to Caen, in Normandy, with a little stock of merchandise, and had such good success that out of the profits he educated himself in the French tongue, and perfected his knowledge of classics and mathematics. In his twentieth year he had saved about three-score pounds, and acquired as much progress in mathematics as any of his age: to his love of learning was joined the desire to acquire wealth; he was at all times practical, and seems to have held pecuniary advantage to be the most comprehensive form of the practical. He tells us that when the civil wars between the King and Parliament grew hot “I had sixty pounds in money and went into the Netherlands and France for three years, and vigorously pursued my studies, especially that of medicine at Utrecht, Leyden, Amsterdam, and Paris. I returned to Romsey with about ten pounds more than I had carried out of England.” In Paris, Petty made the acquaintance of Hobbes, who retired early from the civil wars. Hobbes soon discovered the capacity of his young friend, and read with him the Anatomy of Vesalius. He entered at Brazennose College, Oxford, in April, 1648, and took his degree there as Doctor of Physic, in March, 1649. The date of his admission to the College of Physicians is 25 June, 1650. He had been previously deputy to Doctor Thomas Clayton, Professor of Anatomy at Oxford, who laboured under the singular disqualification of having an insurmountable aversion to the sight of a mangled corpse. On the resignation of Clayton in 1651, Petty became Anatomical Professor, and about the same time he succeeded Dr. Knight in the Professorship of Music in Gresham College. About the year 1645, the Royal Society was formed, and Petty was one of the earliest members of the Oxford branch.
In 1652 he was appointed Physician to the Army in Ireland, which post he retained for seven years, at a salary of twenty shillings a day, while his practice produced him £400 a year more. His first great step to wealth, however, arose from his dealings with the forfeited lands in Ireland, and in a few years he managed his financial affairs so skilfully that he acquired a rental of £18,000 a year; part of this he was dispossessed of at the Restoration, as being unfairly obtained. He, however, had still a large fortune at his command, and bought the Earl of Arundel’s house and gardens in Lothbury, and erected thereupon the buildings forming Tokenhouse Yard, which was partly destroyed by the great fire. Petty had the tact to make his peace with the new government, and became a favourite with Charles II., who knighted him, and bestowed on him the place of Surveyor General for Ireland; and it is said, by Aubrey, that he was created Earl of Kelmore, though he never assumed the title. When the College of Physicians obtained its new Charter his name was published in the list of Fellows, although he had then resigned practice. The universality of his genius is clearly shewn by the list of his published works. He was a man of a genial character and handsome person:—“If he has a mind to it,” says Aubrey, “he will preach extempore, either as a Presbyterian, Independent, or as a Capucin friar, or Jesuit.” As a proof of his humour, when he was challenged to fight by Sir H. Sankey, he told his opponent, that as his short sight would not allow of the usual mode of warfare, he would meet him, if he was so minded, in a dark cellar, each to have a carpenter’s axe for his weapon: this the knight declined. He died in 1687 of a gangrene of the foot, and was buried at Romsey, by the side of his father and mother: there lie his remains, covered with a flat stone, on which an illiterate workman has cut these words:—“Here layes Sir William Pety.”
The part played by the Good-Wives and Ladies Bountiful in this age deserves a passing notice, and we will make one or two quotations from books especially devoted to their use. Thus: “To make Oil of Swallows:—Take lavender cotton, spikenut grass, ribwort, and twenty other simples, of each a handful, sage of virtue, camomiles and red roses, of each two handsful, twenty live swallows; beat all together in a mortar, add a quart of neatsfoot oyl or May-butter, and mix. This oyl is exceeding sovereign for any broken bones, bones out of joint, or any grief of the sinews.”
“The ‘Usnea Humana’[[12]] described as a moss two lines long, grown on the skulls of malefactors who have been a long time exposed to the air. This little plant is found chiefly in England and Ireland, where the bodies of men are left hanging in chains for many years after their execution. It is of a volatile astringent nature, good for bleeding of the nose, and of use internally for epilepsy.” The writer adds, “I have seen in the apothecaries’ shops in London these skulls exposed with the Usnea upon them.” Then again we have a whole tribe of “holy remedies” and cabalistic charms, &c.
Hiera Picra and Solomon’s seal are used to this day. The charm for burns is as follows:—“In the name of, &c. There came two angels from the East, one brought fire, the other water; I command them both: out fire!! in water!! and so I say Amen.” This is mumbled by the charmer, and the sufferer is relieved without daring to doubt, for if he doubts the charm is destroyed. Warts and wens are disposed of by a similar process.
So much for the march of intellect; in its progress very much like the military goose step.