“His manner of explaining the disease, and the remedies recommended, was peculiar to himself, and singularly happy. It was a short compressed lecture, in which the objects in view, and the means by which they were to be obtained, were developed with great clearness of conception, and in such simple unadorned language as was intelligible to his patient, and satisfactory to his colleague.
“Before his time, it was not usual for a physician to do much more than prescribe remedies for the malady, and to encourage the patient by such arguments of consolation as might present themselves to humane and cultivated minds. But as the assumed gravity and outward signs of the profession were now considered obsolete customs, and were, by general consent, laid aside by the physicians, and as a more curious anxiety began to be observed on the part of the patient to learn every thing connected with his complaint, arising naturally from the improved state of general knowledge, a different conduct became necessary in the sick room. The innovation required by the spirit of modern times never could have been adopted by any one more fitted by nature and inclination to carry it into effect than by Dr. Baillie.
“The attention which he had paid to morbid anatomy (that alteration of structure, which parts have undergone by disease), enabled him to make a nice discrimination in symptoms, and to distinguish between disorders which resemble each other. It gave him a confidence also in propounding his opinions, which our conjectural art does not readily admit; and the reputation, which he enjoyed universally for openness and sincerity, made his dicta be received with a ready and unresisting faith.
“He 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 disorganization as may be sensibly felt: and to doubt of the existence of a disease because it is not discoverable by 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 prove eminently successful 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. The quickness with which a physician of keen perception and great practice makes up his mind on the nature of a disease, and the plan of treatment to be employed, differs as widely as possible from the inconsiderate haste which marks the decisions of the rash and the uninformed.
“Dr. Baillie acquired business early by the credit of his book on Morbid Anatomy. From the date of its first publication in 1793, its materials must have been furnished principally by a careful inspection of the diseased preparations collected in the museum of his uncle, Dr. Hunter. But it opened a new and most productive field of curious knowledge and interesting research in physic; and when he came to add, in the subsequent editions which were required, an account of the symptoms which accompany the progressive alteration made in the natural structure of parts by some diseases during the life of the patient, from his own observation and experience, he rendered his work highly valuable, and universally popular. Impressed as he was with the great importance and value of such morbid preparations in assisting the physician to discriminate obscure internal diseases, his generosity prompted him, after the example of the immortal Harvey, to give, in his lifetime, his own collection to the College of Physicians. He has thus laid the foundation of a treasury of knowledge, for which posterity will owe him a debt of gratitude to the latest period.
“He published from time to time several medical papers in the Transactions of the College, and in other periodical works; all written in a plain and simple style, and useful as containing the observations of a physician of such extensive experience.
“But justice cannot be done to Dr. Baillie’s medical character, unless that important feature in it which appeared in every part of his conduct and demeanour, his religious principle, be distinctly stated and recognised. His ample converse with one of the most wonderful works of the Creator—the formation of man, inspired in him an admiration of the Supreme Being which nothing could exceed. He had, indeed, ‘looked through Nature up to Nature’s God;’ and the promises of the gospel, on the conditions explained by our Redeemer, were his humble but confident hope in life, and his consolation in death.
“If one precept appeared to be more practically approved by him than another, it was that which directs us to do unto others as we would have them do unto us; and this was felt and acknowledged daily by all his professional brethren in their intercourse with him.
“On the whole, we may say of him, what Tacitus does of Agricola—Bonum virum facile crederes; magnum libenter.”