[22] A little dialogue between Soarenes and Chirurgi.—The name of Caius was spelt in many ways—Gauius, Gavius, Kaius. Anglicè—Kaye, Keye, Cay.
[23] The term Reader (Prælector) seems to have gone into disuse, except perhaps at Oxford, where the “Reader in Anatomy” teaches that Science, in Christ Church, in a small but elegant Theatre, which gives the ill-omened name of Skeleton Corner to a thickly peopled, but very inconvenient angle of that distinguished College.
[24] In 1665, Richard Lower made this experiment at Oxford; by means of long tubes, the blood of the vertebral artery of one dog was made to pass into the jugular vein of another, and it appeared proved, that there was no reason to fear any mischief, and that the character or nature of one animal was not likely to be changed by injecting into its veins the blood of another. An experiment similar to this, which preceded it a few years, and which, like it, was founded on the doctrine of the circulation of the blood, viz. the injecting of various fluids impregnated with remedies into the veins of animals, was originally suggested by Sir Christopher Wren, the celebrated architect. He was one of the early Fellows of the Royal Society, and being a man of the most universal accomplishments, was fond of the study of medicine, and occasionally employed his talents in the service of anatomical science; in proof of which, it may be mentioned that he gave the original drawings for the plates which illustrate Willis’ Anatomy of the Brain.
[25] The general reader may require to be told, that these are terms applied to particular parts of the liver, the heart, and the brain: though the anatomist may be surprised, that in the enumeration are not included many other names derived from the discoverers of particular minute structures: more especially that no notice was taken of the claim which Willis has to the honour of having first proposed the classification of the cerebral nerves, now most usually adopted, and given denominations to several of them, which they will most probably always retain.
[26] What is this to the modern quackery of craniology, in which every faculty and feeling has a distinct organ, in which it is generated, which however it deprives of the merit, small as it is, of originality?
[27] It is amusing to contrast this first rude natural infusion, with the present neat and condensed form of exhibiting the bark: for now a grain or two of the sulphate of quinine is the ordinary dose of the remedy.
[28] The black wash now so generally used by Surgeons is a prescription of Sir Theodore Mayerne’s, by the use of which he performed a great cure upon Sir Kenelm Digby. His formula is this:—
| ℞. | Aquæ calcis ℥vj. | |
| Mellis rosati ℨii. | ||
| Mercurii dulcis ℨi. | M. |
[29] Called Editio Optima.
[30] Some envious antiquary has lately insinuated that the coins from which Mead drew this inference were struck in honour of magistrates and not of medical men.