EMINENT DOCTORS.

Ballantyne Press

BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO.
EDINBURGH AND LONDON

EMINENT DOCTORS:
Their Lives and their Work.

BY

G. T. BETTANY, M.A. (Camb.), B.Sc. (Lond.), F.L.S.

AUTHOR OF “FIRST LESSONS IN PRACTICAL BOTANY,”
“ELEMENTARY PHYSIOLOGY,” ETC.
AND LECTURER ON BOTANY IN GUY’S HOSPITAL MEDICAL SCHOOL.

“There is to me an inexpressible charm in the lives of the good, brave, learned men, whose only objects have been, and are, to alleviate pain and to save life.”

—G. A. Sala.

IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. I.

LONDON:
JOHN HOGG, PATERNOSTER ROW.

[All rights reserved.]

[PREFACE.]

Medical Biography has not taken its due place in the thoughts of our countrymen, nor has it received deserved attention from literary men. Anecdotes of big fees, brilliant operations, brusque actions, or suave politeness, have too exclusively contributed to form the popular idea of eminent physicians and surgeons. Aikin’s incomplete “Biographical Memoirs of Medicine,” Macmichael’s “Lives of British Physicians,” and Pettigrew’s “Medical Portrait Gallery,” have been the chief collective records of British medical men; and the latter, owing to its expensive form, was inaccessible to most persons. Munk’s “Roll of the College of Physicians” is a mine of information about members of that College, and a similar record of members of the College of Surgeons would be invaluable. In 1865 Dr. Herbert Barker commenced, and after his lamented death Dr. Tindal Robertson continued, a series of memoirs of living medical men, accompanied by photographs. The Midland Medical Miscellany commenced to publish a somewhat similar series of memoirs, with portraits, in 1882. The medical press has been distinguished for the ability and general fidelity of its biographical notices of deceased members of the profession.

There is no book, however, in current literature which supplies medical men or the general public with biographical accounts of the most notable men who in this kingdom have contributed to make the medicine and surgery of to-day what they are. It is the aim of the present book to occupy this vacant place. It is hoped that this has been done in a form neither too technical for the general reader, nor unsuitable for the busy practitioner, who has very little time to read elaborate biographies, but would fain store his mind with the principal facts and lessons of the lives of his great predecessors and teachers.

The difficulty of selection has been great. It was felt that sure ground would be occupied by taking the foundation of the London College of Physicians as a starting-point, and giving a place only to those celebrated men in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries whose title to fame none would deny. Paucity of biographical materials has prevented the introduction of some names; others have been excluded because they were rather notorious for their fees, their bonmots, or their fantastic behaviour, than for their solid contributions to medicine.

In regard to men of the present century, the task of selection has been still more difficult. For the most part distinguished physiologists, zoologists, &c., do not find a place in these pages, unless they have also won distinction in medical practice. It cannot be expected that the list of living names will satisfy everybody. Others as worthy might have been included. If in refraining from commenting on the career of his present colleagues at Guy’s Hospital, the author may appear to have done injustice to their great merits, he is convinced that he has thereby best steered clear of the dangers of partiality. The utmost care has been taken to avoid giving details which should be private during a man’s life, and to state only those facts about living men which have already for the most part been made generally accessible.

The task of reading hundreds of biographical memoirs, medical treatises, scattered pamphlets and papers, has been exceedingly heavy. All those named in the following pages have been consulted; and where details are not given of controversies or incidents which some may be surprised to see passed over, this has been the result of careful deliberation. The author desires specially to acknowledge his great obligations to the Lancet and other medical journals. He trusts he has contributed to the object which they, like himself, have at heart, of elevating the medical profession in the public estimation.

Dulwich, September 1885.

CONTENTS OF VOL. I.

EMINENT DOCTORS.

[CHAPTER I.]
LINACRE, CAIUS, AND THE FOUNDATION OF BRITISH MEDICINE.

The name of Thomas Linacre must stand at the head of any account of the history of British medicine, for before his accession to the office of tutor and physician to Prince Arthur, eldest son of Henry VII., in 1501, no physician of such ability as to have left works of permanent value had arisen in this country. To him belongs the honour of having founded the Royal College of Physicians of London, the earliest of the British medical corporations; and by that one act he may be said to have constituted medicine a distinct profession. The slightness of the emphasis which can be laid upon the medical profession up to Linacre’s time may be recognised from the fact that he was both tutor and medical attendant to a prince, and that he subsequently became a not undistinguished ecclesiastic.

Canterbury gave birth to this founder of British medicine about 1460. He derived his descent, however, from a Derbyshire family of Saxon blood flourishing before the Conquest at Linacre, near Chesterfield. His school-days were passed under the superintendence of William Selling, at the monastic school of Christchurch in Canterbury. Selling was an enlightened man for his time, and had travelled in Italy, where he studied Greek with one of the most eager students of the time, Politian, and had brought home with him numerous valuable manuscripts. A fellow of All Souls’ himself, he doubtless had some influence in securing the election of his pupil to a fellowship there at an early age, in 1484. At Oxford Linacre was a pupil of Cornelio Vitelli, an Italian, one of the earliest teachers who brought Greek learning into this country.

Before long Linacre himself took charge of pupils, the most famous of whom afterwards became Sir Thomas More. Linacre accompanied Selling to Italy when Henry VII. appointed the latter on a mission to the Roman pontiff. In Italy he received the benefit of introductions to, and instructions from, Politian and others, and formed an acquaintance with Aldus Manutius, the celebrated printer, at Venice. At Florence he was introduced to Lorenzo de Medici, who specially approved of his companionship with his sons both in their studies and their amusements. After taking the degree of Doctor of Medicine in the University of Padua with great applause, owing to the skill with which he defended the positions of his thesis, he returned to England. He apparently betook himself at once to Oxford, where he was incorporated M.D. It is presumed that he was still most concerned in academical pursuits; and he was the first Englishman to publish a correct rendering of a Greek author after the revival of letters, namely, the “Sphere” of Proclus, printed by Aldus at Venice in 1499. Whether he was also incorporated at Cambridge, as Dr. Caius relates, cannot now be proved, but it is rendered probable by the fact of his subsequent foundation of a lectureship in medicine at that university.

At this period of his life Linacre had the good fortune to be the instructor, especially in Greek, of no less a person than Erasmus. The latter was evidently a most appreciative admirer of our erudite doctor, as well as of the facilities for classical study afforded in England. “In Colet,” says he, writing to Robert Fisher, “I hear Plato himself. Who does not admire the perfect compass of science in Grocyn? Is aught more acute, more exalted, or more refined than the judgment of Linacre? Has nature framed anything either milder, sweeter, or happier than the disposition of More? It is wonderful how universally copious is here the harvest of ancient learning, wherefore you should hasten your return.”

With the beginning of the sixteenth century, however, a new era in Linacre’s life dawns. Whether or not he was introduced to court in 1501 in connection with the visit of Prince Arthur to Oxford, it is certain that about the period when the prince was contracted in marriage to Catherine of Arragon, his health and further education were intrusted to Dr. Linacre; and it is believed, though without sure grounds, that he also became one of the king’s domestic physicians.

The death of the young prince, however, relieving Linacre of his tutorial duties, appears to have had the effect of throwing him with ardent zeal into the practice of the medical profession. Erasmus had availed himself of his skill, as is testified by a letter of his from Paris in 1506, giving an account of his complaints, and lamenting the want of his accustomed advice and prescriptions. His friends even found that he was too devoted to his studies and practice, and begged him to relax so far as to write to them occasionally. Probably the economical disposition of Henry VII. prevented Linacre from reaping too great a reward from his connection with the court, and he would hail with hopeful feelings the accession of Henry VIII. with his more liberal tendencies. His position was soon assured by his appointment as one of the king’s physicians, apparently the principal one; and his estimation at court was higher than his office alone would have occasioned, in consequence of his learning and social qualities. His other patients included Cardinal Wolsey, Archbishop Warham, and Fox, Bishop of Winchester.

About the commencement of Henry VIII.’s reign Linacre took up the study of theology, which he had previously neglected in his zeal for the revival of letters; and, in accordance with the practice of the age, on becoming convinced of the importance of Christian doctrines, he sought ordination. In October 1509 the Primate gave him the rectory of Merstham, in Kent, which he held only a month, receiving in December a prebendal stall in the cathedral of Wells, and in 1510 the cure of Hawkhurst, in Kent, which he held till 1524. Still higher preferment, however, awaited him, for he became canon and prebend of Westminster in 1517. Numerous other appointments followed, which we will not particularise. It does not appear certain that Linacre gained any conspicuous distinction in theology, but his preferments were rather acknowledgments of his general learning and merit, being the most convenient form in which such recognition could at that time be given.

Linacre’s intercourse with Erasmus continued, but was somewhat embarrassed by reason of the latter’s constant demand for pecuniary aid. We gain a glimpse of the prudence which Linacre had attained, from a letter of Erasmus in 1521, complaining of the unfavourable reception of his applications for money, mentioning that though his health was infirm, and though he possessed only six angels, he had been advised to curtail his expenses and bear his poverty with fortitude, rather than apply further to the Primate and Lord Mountjoy.

We have now to recur to Linacre’s medical pursuits, which were not interrupted to any serious extent by his clerical preferments. Early in Henry VIII.’s reign, he read before the University of Oxford a “Shagglyng” lecture, of which nothing but the name is preserved. His renewed connection with Oxford occasioned it to be bruited abroad that he had a special design of making benefactions to the university, and the authorities bethought themselves that they had somewhat neglected their distinguished alumnus. Consequently they presented him with an address, in which they seem to have been actuated by that kind of gratitude which consists in a lively sense of favours to come. Part of it runs thus (translated from Latin), showing how much dignity a learned university then possessed:—

“To Thomas Linacre, the most skilful physician

of the king.”

“We are not a little troubled, excellent sir (to mention nothing besides), and most learned of physicians, since till now we have never greeted your pre-eminence by letter (let us confess the truth), how we may readily devise the means by which we may handsomely remove from ourselves the stain of ingratitude which we have incurred, were we otherwise than assured that you are rather displeased at the greater goodwill, nay the more ardent affection, which your courtesy has entertained towards our university, than at any negligence, not to say sluggishness of our own. How excellent the mind, how liberal the devotion of him, who, whilst he is the most eminent, is indisputably the most eloquent of his contemporaries, towards the university of Oxford, is a secret to none. How well you think of us, and how generously you have resolved to provide for our interests, we have fully learned from the report of our colleagues, who have discoursed with you.... But that we have yet made no returns for your extraordinary bounty towards us (to repay, alas! accords not with our poverty), which we can only do with our whole hearts ... we give you truly our fullest thanks, resting our chief hope in you, whose reputation stands so high with the king’s majesty, that we may with good reason commemorate you amongst the most active leaders and foremost patrons of our academical host.”

The form which very many attempts to promote the progress of medicine in that age took was that of translations of and commentaries on the works of Galen, which in the original Greek were inaccessible to nearly every one.

After spending much time on executing his share of a scheme for translating Aristotle’s entire works into Latin, in conjunction with Grocyn and Thomas Latimer, and which unfortunately never was published, Dr. Linacre betook himself to the congenial task of translating into Latin Galen’s works, the first portion of which, on the Preservation of Health, was published at Paris in 1517, and dedicated to Henry VIII. The feelings which moved him to this act arose, as he declares to the king, from finding himself wanting in the means of vying with those who, allured by the renown and glory of his name, daily contended in the number and variety of their gifts. For this reason he knew nothing more becoming his duty or his calling, than the dedication of some memorial of his studies, that he might satisfactorily account for the leisure which, by the royal indulgence, he sometimes stole from his appointed attendance, and at the same time show that he not only spent the hours of office, but even of recreation from its duties, in accomplishing, to the best of his ability, what he thought would be acceptable to him. A copy of this work on vellum, and magnificently embellished, was presented to Wolsey, with an adulatory letter. These are still preserved in the British Museum.

This translation was followed by several others from Galen, including the Method of Healing, 1519, dedicated to the king; the treatise on Temperaments, 1521, dedicated to Leo X.; on the Natural Functions, 1523, dedicated to Warham; on the Pulse, 1523, dedicated to Wolsey. Other treatises left complete at Linacre’s death were printed by Pynson in 1524. Of the treatises on grammar and language, compiled by Linacre, we need not here attempt to give an account.

Most important of all Linacre’s achievements towards the advancement of medicine was undoubtedly his securing the foundation of the Royal College of Physicians. “The practice of medicine,” says his biographer, Dr. J. N. Johnson, “when this scheme was carried into effect, was scarcely elevated above that of the mechanical arts; nor were the majority of its practitioners better educated than mechanics. No society as yet existed, independent of the monastic and ecclesiastical, which could at all be considered learned.”

Linacre was at the sole expense of founding the college, for the crown merely granted the letters patent. These were issued in 1518, incorporating all physicians in London as one faculty and college, with power to elect a president, to use a common seal, and to hold lands not exceeding the annual value of £12. They were to hold assemblies and govern their faculty in London and within seven miles, all persons being interdicted from practice who did not hold their license. Four censors were to be chosen yearly, for the correction and government of physic and its professors, the examination of medicines, and the punishment of offenders; and physicians were to be exempt from attendance at assizes, inquests, and juries. The power of correction by fine or imprisonment occasioned some embarrassment at a subsequent period, for when some offenders were committed by the college, the gaolers would not receive them into prison, considering the college must charge itself with the custody of its own culprits. To obviate this difficulty a statute (I Mary, sess. 2, c. 9) was passed, requiring gaolers to receive persons committed by the college, and also enjoining all justices, mayors, &c., in London to assist the President of the college in searching for faulty apothecary wares.

Various defects having been found in the original letters patent, they were confirmed by a statute, 14 Henry VIII. (1523), which provided among other things that no person except graduates of Oxford or Cambridge should be permitted to practise physic throughout England, unless examined and approved by the President of the College of Physicians of London, and at least three other selected members. Previous to Linacre’s time, the bishops or their vicars-general were the persons who could grant licences to practise medicine (in addition to the universities), and this power was long after this retained by them, although they called in physicians to assist them in determining to whom licences should be granted.

As was but natural, Linacre was the first President of the college which owed its existence to himself, and he held that office till his death. His residence, the Stone House, in Knight-Rider Street, Paul’s Wharf, convenient for access to the Court, then kept up at Bridewell, was also the meeting-place of the college. The front portion of the house, a parlour below, and a council room and library above, were given to the college during his lifetime, and remained the property of the college until 1860.

In considering the import of Linacre’s endeavours to promote the study of medicine at Oxford and Cambridge, it must be remembered that the idea of establishing lectureships or professorships for public instruction was quite a novel one in England, and that Fox, Bishop of Winchester, appears to have been the first, in 1517, to endow lectures in Greek and Latin. And Linacre unquestionably has the merit of first applying such an idea to the improvement of instruction in medicine. His foundations did not take full effect till 1524. Again, we have a letter from the University of Oxford “to the renowned Dr. Linacre,” couched in the most exaggerated style of panegyric, thanking him for his proposition to endow “splendid lectures” in medicine, lauding his “sober gravity and erudite judgment,” “his greatness,” “the transcendency of his gifts.” The letters patent founding the lectures were dated on the 12th of October, 1524, only eight days before his death. Two of the lectureships were to be founded at Oxford and one at Cambridge, and to be named Linacre’s Lectures. Thirty pounds a year, a considerable sum then, was to be devoted to this purpose by his trustees, out of the proceeds of two manors at Newington, near Sittingbourne. But although the trustees, Sir Thomas More, Tonstal, Stokesley, Tonstal’s successor, and John Shelley, were men who might have been expected to pay attention to Linacre’s desires, yet, probably owing to the busy occupations in which they were engaged, they failed to carry them into full effect; and it was not till the third year of Edward VI. that Tonstal, the surviving trustee, assigned two of the lecturers to Merton College, Oxford, and one to St. John’s College, Cambridge. Their office was to expound publicly certain parts of Hippocrates or Galen. That his lectures failed to become what Linacre would have wished, was due to the common defect of that age in not foreseeing the revolutions in learning that were to come, and not providing any elasticity in their foundations. Thus these lectureships, which might have powerfully aided the development of medicine, remained of little use till modern times, when they have been placed on an improved footing.

“It has been questioned,” writes his biographer, “whether he was a better Latinist or Grecian, a better grammarian or physician, a better scholar or man. That Linacre was of a great natural sagacity, and of a discerning judgment in his own profession, we have the concurrent testimony of the most knowing of his contemporaries. In many cases which were considered desperate, his practice was successful. In the case of his friend Lilye, he foretold his certain death if he submitted to the opinion of some rash persons who advised him and prevailed with him to have a malignant strumous tumour in his hip cut off, and his prognostic was justified by the event.

“In private life he had an utter detestation of everything that was dishonourable; he was a faithful friend, and was valued and beloved by all ranks in life. He showed a remarkable kindness to young students in his profession; and those whom he found distinguished for ingenuity, modesty, learning, good manners, or a desire to excel, he assisted with his advice, his interest, and his purse.”

Linacre had suffered for years from stone in the bladder, which had limited his usefulness and the perfection of several of his designs; and he died of ulceration of the bladder, on the 20th October, 1524, having made his will four months previously. He was buried in St. Paul’s Cathedral, in a spot chosen by himself, and expressly named in his will. No memorial was erected over his grave until 1557, when Dr. Caius, one of his successors, reared a monument with a suitable inscription, ending with a favourite expression which he afterwards placed on his own tomb, “Vivit post funera virtus.”

The will of Dr. Linacre includes annuities to his two sisters, a bequest to his brother, and other legacies. To his nieces Alice and Margaret he bequeathed each a bed, Margaret to have the better; and to William Dancaster, a priest who witnessed the will, a feather-bed and two Irish blankets were left. The simplicity of these details shows that a man of high distinction in many ways at that time counted as important possessions articles now universal.[1]

John Kaye or Key, better known by the Latinised form Caius, which retains nevertheless the pronunciation derived from the English original, Keys, was born at Norwich on the 6th of October, 1510, being thus fourteen years old at Linacre’s death. He entered Gonville Hall, Cambridge, on the 12th September, 1529, and here he early distinguished himself by translating from Greek into Latin two treatises—one by Chrysostom—and by making an abridgment of Erasmus’s “De Verâ Theologiâ.” He took the degree of B.A. in 1532-3, and was appointed principal of Physwick Hostel on the 12th November, 1533, being elected to a fellowship of Gonville Hall on December 6th following. Proceeding M.A. in 1535, he is recorded as subscribing, with the master and fellows of Gonville Hall, the submission to Henry VIII.’s injunctions.

In 1539 he went to Italy, and studied medicine at Padua under Montanus, lodging in the same house with Vesalius, who became the most distinguished anatomist of his time. In 1541 the degree of Doctor of Medicine was conferred upon him at Padua, where in the next year we find him delivering public lectures on the Greek text of Aristotle, in conjunction with Realdus Columbus, the stipend for which was provided by some Venetian nobles. The next year, 1543, he largely occupied in visiting all the most celebrated libraries of Italy, collating manuscripts, principally with a view to publishing correct editions of Galen and Celsus.

Returning to England after further travels in France and Germany, he was incorporated M.D. at Cambridge, and practised apparently at Cambridge, Norwich, and Shrewsbury, with such success that he was appointed physician to Edward VI., an appointment he continued to hold under Queens Mary and Elizabeth. On the 22d December, 1547, he was admitted a Fellow of the College of Physicians, and in 1550 became an Elect, in 1552 Censor. In the latter year appeared his English treatise on the Sweating Sickness, which had broken out at Shrewsbury in 1551. This was afterwards enlarged and published in Latin.

“The Boke or Counseill against the Sweatyng Sicknesse,” was dedicated by Dr. Caius to William, Earl of Pembroke. The dedication begins thus: “In the fearful time of the sweat, many resorted unto me for counsel, among whom some being my friends and acquaintance, desired me to write unto them some little counsel how to govern themselves therein.... At whose request at that time, I wrote divers counsels so shortly as I could for the present necessity, which they both used and did give abroad to many others, and further appointed in myself to fulfil the other part of their honest request for the time to come. The which the better to execute and bring to pass, I spared not to go to all those that sent for me, both poor and rich, day and night. And that not only to do them that ease that I could, and to instruct them for their recovery; but to note also thoroughly the cases and circumstances of the disease in divers persons, and to understand the nature and causes of the same fully, for so much as might be.”

A certain conceit is evident throughout the brief treatise, as when he describes his early translations from Latin into English, and partially apologises for writing in English, then gives an account of the life and writings of his friend, William Framingham, a fellow-townsman of his who died young. The description of the disease which he gives indicates a very acute rheumatic affection, inasmuch as perspirations of disagreeable odour, acute pains in the limbs, delirium, quick and irritable pulse, &c., were prominent among them.

It is notable how little medical science was progressing beyond Galenic principles. Dr. Caius says, “This disease is not a sweat only, but a fever in the spirits by putrefaction venomous, with a fight, travail, and labour of nature against the infection received in the spirits, whereupon by chance followeth a sweat, or issueth an humour, compelled by nature, as also chanceth in other sicknesses which consist in humours.” Still, a glimpse of truth is shown in the view expressed that “our bodies can not suffer anything or hurt by corrupt and infective causes, except there be in them a certain matter prepared, apt and like to receive it, else if one were sick, all should be sick.”

Dr. Caius showed himself notably before his age also in his censures of excess in eating and drinking, his commendation of the bath, and of muscular exercise. His advice to his readers to have recourse to a good physician, and to be at least as good to their bodies as to their hose or their shoes, is followed by a picture of the army of quacks who in default of science preyed upon the masses. “Simple-women, carpenters, pewterers, braziers, soapball-sellers, apothecaries, avaunters themselves to come from Pole, Constantinople, Italy, Almaine, Spain, France, Greece, Turkey, India, Egypt or Jury; from the service of emperors, kings, and queens, promising help of all diseases, yea incurable, with one or two drinks, by drinks of great and high prices, as though they were made of the sun, moon, or stars, by blessings and blowings, hypocritical prayings, and foolish smokings of shirts, smocks, and kerchiefs, with such others, their phantasies and mockeries, meaning nothing else but to abuse your light belief, and scorn you behind your backs, with their medicines (so filthy, that I am ashamed to name them), for your single wit and simple belief, in trusting them most, which you know not at all, and understand least; like to them which think far fowls have fair feathers, although they be never so evil favoured and foul; as though there could not be so cunning an Englishman, as a foolish running stranger, or so perfect health by honest learning, as by deceitful ignorance.” From all which the reader may judge whether somewhat similar remarks might not be applicable to the last century, and even to a great part of the present, in its credulity of the efficacy of quack medicines and the powers of audacious empirics.

In 1555 Dr. Caius was elected President of the College of Physicians, an office which he continued to hold until 1561. He applied himself with devoted energy to promoting the interests of the college, commencing to record its annals, till then unpreserved, procuring the copying and binding in grand style of the college statutes, designing the insignia, the cushion of crimson velvet edged with gold on which the statutes were laid, the silver staff ornamented with the college arms borne by the President, to remind him, according to Caius, by its material (silver), to govern with patience and courtesy, and by its symbols (the serpents), with judgment and wisdom. His zeal further exhibited itself in protecting the privileges of the college, as when he appeared successfully, in Elizabeth’s reign, against the barber surgeons, who were claiming the right to prescribe medicines for internal administration in cases where their operative assistance was called in.

One of the most striking innovations which Dr. Caius introduced into this country was unquestionably the practice of dissection of the human body. He had actually taught practical anatomy in the Barber Surgeons’ Hall, not long after his return from Italy; and he further provided for the development of that science by procuring from Queen Elizabeth, about 1564, a grant to the College of Physicians to take annually the bodies of two criminals after execution, for dissection, and the fellows were required, under penalty of a fine for refusing, to give demonstrations and lectures on anatomy in turn. He left a fund for defraying the expenses attending these dissections.

Dr. Caius had never wavered in his attachment to learning, and to his alma mater, Cambridge. Notwithstanding his numerous public interests, the court, the college, and private practice, he developed fully and had the pleasure of carrying into execution a design for improving and enlarging Gonville Hall, which under his auspices became a college, with the addition of his name to its title. He added to its resources very considerably, founded three fellowships and twenty scholarships, and enlarged it by building an entirely new court, known as Caius Court. Together with this enlargement he pleased his taste by erecting three new gates, two on its external boundaries, and one within it. The first, severely simple, was inscribed “Humilitatis;” the second, more lofty, and surmounted by several rooms, was on one side inscribed “Virtutis,” on the other “Jo. Caius posuit Sapientiæ.” The last, smaller, but highly decorated, leading to the Senate House and the Schools, bore the word “Honoris;” and thus the worthy doctor signified that by way of humility we attain to virtue and honour.

By the authority of letters patent granted by Philip and Mary, 4th September, 1557, Dr. Caius was authorised to frame new statutes for Gonville and Caius College. It was not till 1558 that he was incorporated M.D. at Cambridge, and the next January he was reluctantly induced to accept the dignity of master of the college, which then fell vacant. He made this a further occasion of benefaction by refusing the stipend and emoluments of the office, which he held till one month before his death. For one year he resigned the presidency of the College of Physicians, that he might more uninterruptedly superintend the erection of his new court at Cambridge; but he returned to the presidency for 1562-3, and again in 1571.

A man of Dr. Caius’s incessant activity and zeal for his own opinions could not hope to remain without enemies. In 1565 three fellows of his college, whom he had expelled, charged him with atheism and opposition to professors of the Gospel. His maintenance of his post at court under sovereigns of opposite religious professions, notwithstanding his attachment to Romanism, was made a subject of accusation of unsteadiness in his religious principles. Fuller remarks that “his being a reputed papist was no great crime to such who consider the time when he was born, and foreign places wherein he was bred. However, this I dare say in his just defence: he never mentioneth Protestants but with due respect, and sometimes doth occasionally condemn the superstitious credulity of popish miracles.” Nevertheless, he retained in his college certain books and vestments formerly used in the Roman Catholic service, and Bishop Sandys having written to the vice-chancellor, Dr. Byng, complaining of this, they were collected and burnt in 1572 (Dec. 13), much to Dr. Caius’s vexation, who considered Dr. Byng’s action most arbitrary, and inveighed strongly against the conduct of certain fellows of his college in the matter.

Previous to this time, in 1570, Dr. Caius had published an account of British dogs, which is the earliest scientific description of the kind of dogs then occurring in this country. It had been the result of a request by the celebrated naturalist, Gesner, whose death in 1565 prevented its earlier publication. Numerous other accounts of British natural history had been furnished by Dr. Caius to Gesner, and were inserted in his works. To give an idea of our doctor’s ability in descriptive natural history, we subjoin his account “Of the dog called a Bloodhound.”

“The greater sort which serve to hunt, having lips of a large size, and ears of no small length, do not only chase the beast while it liveth, but being dead also by any manner of casualty, make recourse to the place where it lieth, having in this point an assured and infallible guide, namely the scent and savour of the blood sprinkled here and there upon the ground. For whether the beast being wounded, doth notwithstanding enjoy life, and escapeth the hands of the huntsman, or whether the said beast being slain is conveyed cleanly out of the park (so that there be some signification of blood shed), these dogs with no less facility and easiness than avidity and greediness, can disclose and bewray the same by smelling, applying to their pursuit agility and nimbleness without tediousness. And albeit peradventure it may chance that a piece of flesh be subtilly stolen and cunningly conveyed away with such provisos and precaveats as thereby all appearance of blood is either prevented, excluded, or concealed, yet these kind of dogs by a certain direction of an inward assured notice and privy mark, pursue the deed-doers, through long lanes, crooked reaches, and weary ways, without wandering awry out of the limits of the land whereon those desperate purloiners prepared their speedy passage. Yea, the nature of these dogs is such, and so effectual is their foresight, that they can bewray, separate, and pick them out from among an infinite multitude and an innumerable company—creep they never so far into the thickest throng, they will find him out notwithstanding he lie hidden in wild woods, in close and overgrown groves, and lurk in hollow holes apt to harbour such ungracious guests. Moreover, although they should pass over the water, thinking thereby to avoid the pursuit of the hounds, yet will not these dogs give over their attempt, but presuming to swim through the stream, persevere in their pursuit, and when they be arrived and gotten the furthen bank, they hunt up and down, to and fro run they, from place to place shift they, until they have attained to that plot of ground where they passed over.”

This treatise was so highly esteemed by Pennant that he inserted it in his British Zoology; and it was reprinted in a very neat form in 1880.[2]

We need not particularise the very numerous editions and translations from Galen, Celsus, Hippocrates, which Dr. Caius published or left in manuscript. His own original medical works were the Method of Healing, based however upon Galen and Montanus, and the account of the sweating sickness, concerning which Hecker remarks, “Although, judged according to a modern standard, it is far from satisfactory, yet it contains an abundance of valuable matter, and proves its author to be a good observer.”[3]

Dr. Caius is credited with having predicted the very day of his death. He had his own grave prepared in Caius College Chapel, on the 2d, 3d, and 4th of July, 1573, and died at his London house on the 29th of the same month, aged sixty-three. His body being removed to Cambridge as he had directed, the master and fellows of his college and the principal members of the university in procession met it at Trumpington. The inscription on his tomb in Caius Chapel is characteristic of the man, in whose eyes his own works and achievements, undoubtedly considerable, loomed large. “Vivit post funera virtus,” as he had recorded on Linacre’s monument. “Fui Caius,” he adds, as a pithy if egotistic comment.

Among other notable men of the sixteenth century must be mentioned William Gilbert, M.D., a native of Colchester, who was born in 1540, and became senior fellow of St. John’s College, Cambridge, in 1569. Having settled in London in 1573, his distinction was such that he became physician to Queen Elizabeth. But he was one of the first of the illustrious series of English physicians who employed their leisure in philosophical research. By his book, “On the Magnet, on Magnetic Bodies, and the Great Magnet the Earth,” published in 1600, he had the good fortune to become the stimulator of Galileo himself to the study of magnetism, and that master described him as “great to a degree which might be envied.” Queen Elizabeth added to her titles to regard by conferring a pension on Gilbert, which aided him in prosecuting his experiments. Gilbert was in fact a great originator in science, having discovered the earth’s magnetism, and that to this is due both the direction of the magnetic needle north and south, and the variation and dipping of the needle. Thus he stands as the discoverer of the facts on which the science of magnetism was based. He is said to have been no less exact in chemistry, but unfortunately nothing of his is extant on that subject. Fuller says of him in the “Worthies”—“Mahomet’s tomb at Mecca is said strangely to hang up, attracted by some invisible loadstone; but the memory of this doctor will never fall to the ground, which his incomparable book, ‘De Magnete,’ will support to eternity.” Gilbert died in 1603, shortly after being appointed physician to James I.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Life of Thomas Linacre. By J. Noble Johnson, M.D. London, 1835.

[2] “Of Englishe Dogges:” 170 Strand, W.C.

[3] “Epidemics of the Middle Ages.” Sydenham Soc. Publ. London 1844.

[CHAPTER II.]
WILLIAM HARVEY AND THE CIRCULATION OF THE BLOOD.

“Oft have I seen a timely-parted ghost,

Of ashy semblance, meagre, pale, and bloodless,

Being all descended to the labouring heart,

Who in the conflict that he holds with death,

Attracts the same for aidance ’gainst the enemy;

Which with the heart there cools, and ne’er returneth

To blush and beautify the cheek again.”

If the man who discovered a new material world deserves immortality, equally meritorious is he who revealed a new world of activity, and promulgated the first true conception of the ceaseless round of vital processes. As Dr. Parkes says in his Harveian Oration, 1876, “When any one examines into this discovery of Harvey’s, and gradually recognises its extraordinary importance, he cannot but be seized with an urgent wish to know how the mind which solved so great a problem was constituted; how it worked and how it reached, not merely the probability, but the certainty, of a grand natural law.... There was no accident about it—no help from what we call chance; it was worked out and thought out, point after point, until all was clear as sunshine in midsummer. Nor had it been anticipated.”

William Harvey, eldest son of Thomas Harvey and Joan Halke, was born at Folkestone in Kent, on the 1st of April, 1578, and that his parents were in easy circumstances may be judged by the fact that five of his brothers became substantial London merchants. Of his mother it is recorded on her monumental tablet that she was “a careful, tender-hearted mother, dear to her husband, reverenced of her children, beloved of her neighbours.” Her eldest son, after some years’ education at Canterbury, was entered at Gonville and Caius College in 1593, where he remained till 1597, when he left the university with the B.A. degree, and betook himself to Padua. This renowned university then boasted among its professors Fabricius, the anatomist, whose influence upon Harvey was evidently remarkable. After five years, Harvey obtained his doctorate in medicine, couched in terms of the utmost praise of his astonishing ability, memory, and knowledge, and returned to England. He was admitted to the same degree at Cambridge, and settled in practice in London, marrying the daughter of Dr. Launcelot Browne in his twenty-sixth year—a union which proved childless.

Having become a candidate for the Fellowship of the College of Physicians in 1604, he was admitted in 1607 after due probation; and we find him in 1609 seeking the reversion of the physiciancy to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, gaining the king’s letters recommendatory, and producing such testimonials from the President of the College of Physicians and others that he was chosen before the vacancy occurred, and on the death of Dr. Wilkinson was appointed to the office, October 14, 1609.

Harvey now rapidly advanced in general favour as a physician, and in 1615 was appointed Lumleian Lecturer at the College of Physicians, an office then held for life. His first lectures were given in April 1616, and in this and subsequent years he gradually unfolded the novel views on the heart and the circulation of the blood which he was acquiring, and which he published in 1628. The novelty of his views does not, however, consist in the idea that the blood actually moves in the vessels. This was known before, and Shakespeare gives expression to a current conception in the passage at the head of this chapter. Servetus, in 1553,[4] had asserted that the blood finds access from the right side of the heart to the left through the lungs, thus explaining the intermixture in the heart of the two kinds of blood appropriate to arteries and veins respectively. For a long time the partition between the ventricles was believed to be perforated like a sieve, so that a mixture of venous and arterial blood could take place. But this had been completely disproved by Berengarius and Vesalius. Consequently the two kinds of blood, according to this view, after meeting in the head, thorax, and abdomen, returned to the heart by the way they came, for a fresh supply of the exhausted or enfeebled spirits on which the principal functions of the body depended. Servetus, it is true, asserts a communication between the pulmonary artery and veins; but he particularly declares that “the vital spirit has its origin in the left ventricle, the lungs assisting especially in its generation,” and that “it is engendered from the mixture that takes place in the lungs of the inspired air with the elaborated subtile blood which the right ventricle of the heart communicates to the left.” The extent of his knowledge is further shown by his statement that “the blood is mixed in the pulmonary vein with the inspired air, and by the act of expiration is purified from fuliginous vapours, when having become the fit recipient of the vital spirit, it is at length attracted by the diastole.” Still very great credit is due to the man who first declared that “the crimson colour is imparted to the spirituous blood by the lungs, not the heart.”

Servetus was, however, ignorant of the force by which the blood is impelled into the arteries, and the contractile functions of the heart were unknown. The ventricle was believed to dilate from some undiscovered cause, and thus to suck in the purified “spiritus vitalis.” But Servetus’s explanation, whatever it was worth, occurred in a theological work, the issue of which led to the author’s death at Calvin’s persecuting hands, and the work remained unknown—for Calvin carefully burnt every copy possible—until 1694, when Sir Henry Wotton disinterred it.

Realdus Columbus, the associate of Dr. Caius at Padua, had in 1559 published a treatise containing some advanced views, showing that the blood once having entered the right ventricle from the vena cava, cannot return in consequence of the opposition of the tricuspid valves, and he further perceived the effect of the pulmonary valves; but he still held the idea that the blood had to be converted in the lungs into a kind of spirit, and looked upon the liver as the fountain-head of the blood. Finally, he denied the muscular structure of the heart.

Cæsalpinus added to this some more complete idea of the greater circulation, but he knew nothing of the valves in the veins, and held to the belief that there were two kinds of blood, one for the growth, another for the nourishment of the body. He imagined that it was only during sleep that the veins become distended while the pulsations of the arteries become moderated. He had no idea of the connection between the emptying of the arteries and the filling of the veins, nor of the heart being the cause of the blood’s movement.

Fabricius, Harvey’s teacher of anatomy, had made such a distinct step in advance in discovering the valves of the veins and the effect they must have, that it is quite astonishing that he should not have proceeded farther. But the fact is, that without the microscope as developed in after years,[5] it was impossible to solve a multitude of questions satisfactorily, and we may rather marvel that Harvey was able to achieve so much with the means at his disposal. The principal means he employed to this end was undoubtedly the vivisection of animals.

Chapter i. of his celebrated treatise on the Motion of the Heart and the Blood (Frankfort, 1628) begins emphatically, “When I first gave my mind to vivisections, as a means of discovering the motions and uses of the heart, and sought to discover these from actual inspection, and not from the writings of others, I found the task so truly arduous, so full of difficulties, that I was almost tempted to think, with Fracastorius, that the motion of the heart was only to be comprehended by God.[6]

“At length, and by using greater and daily diligence, having frequent recourse to vivisections, employing a variety of animals for the purpose, ... I thought ... that I had discovered what I so much desired, with the motion and the use of the heart and arteries....

“These views, as usual, pleased some more, others less; some chid and calumniated me, and laid it to me as a crime that I had dared to depart from the precepts and opinions of all anatomists.... At length, yielding to the requests of my friends, that all might be made participators in my labours, and partly moved by the envy of others, who, receiving my views with uncandid minds and understanding them indifferently, have essayed to traduce me publicly, I have been moved to commit these things to the press.... Finally, if any use or benefit to this department of the republic of letters should accrue from my labours, it will perhaps be allowed that I have not lived idly, and, as the old man in the comedy says:—

‘For never yet hath any one attained

To such perfection, but that time, and place,

And use, have brought addition to his knowledge;

Or made correction, or admonished him,

That he was ignorant of much which he

Had thought he knew; or led him to reject

What he had once esteemed of highest price.’

“So will it, perchance, be found with reference to the heart at this time; or others, at least, starting from hence, the way pointed out to them, advancing under the guidance of a happier genius, may make occasion to proceed more fortunately, and to inquire more accurately.”

In the second chapter, after a vivid description of the behaviour of the heart, he thus declares its muscular nature. “The motion of the heart consists in a certain universal tension—both contraction in the line of its fibres, and constriction in every sense. It becomes erect, hard, and of diminished size during its action; the motion is plainly of the same nature as that of the muscles when they contract in the line of their sinews and fibres; for the muscles, when in action, acquire vigour and tenseness, and from soft become hard, prominent, and thickened: in the same manner the heart.”...

“These things, therefore, happen together or at the same instant: the tension of the heart, the pulse of its apex, which is felt externally by its striking against the chest, the thickening of its parietes, and the forcible expulsion of the blood it contains by the constriction of its ventricles.”

In further chapters he establishes separately, and in a masterly manner, the facts that the pulse in the arteries depends on the contraction of the ventricles; that when the left ventricle ceases to contract, the pulse in the arteries also ceases; that the two auricles contract together, and also the two ventricles together, but the ventricles following the auricles in a certain rhythm; that the heart accomplishes a transfusion of the blood from the veins to the arteries; and that the blood sent into the lungs from the right ventricle passes through the porous structure of the lungs and back to the left ventricle.

In his eighth chapter, Harvey feels himself to be bringing forward considerations of so novel a character, that “I tremble,” he says, “lest I have mankind at large for my enemies, so much doth wont and custom, that become as another nature, and doctrine once sown and that hath struck deep root, and respect for antiquity influence all men: still the die is cast, and my trust is in my love of truth, and the candour that inheres in cultivated minds.” He found it impossible to account for the constant influx of blood into the arteries, and the return of blood to the heart, unless there was “a motion, as it were, in a circle.” And he shows by calculations of the quantity passing through the heart in an hour, that it is much more than the whole body contains, and that there is no way except by communications taking place from arteries to veins in every part of the body. Finally, he clearly shows how the valves in the veins promote the return of blood to the heart.

Throughout the whole of this treatise considerations from comparative anatomy, from the phenomena of human diseases, and from natural philosophy, are thickly interspersed, and imagery of the most suggestive character is called into requisition; the whole forming a treatise that every scientific man might well read, and that no doctor should consider himself fully educated without having attentively perused. In a subsequent letter to John Riolan the younger, Professor of Anatomy in the University of Paris, Harvey lays down—in opposition to those who repudiate the circulation because they cannot see the efficient nor final cause of it, and who exclaim, Cui bono?—the fundamental scientific axiom, “Our first duty is to inquire whether the thing be or not, before asking wherefore it is.” Again, “He who truly desires to be informed of the question in hand, and whether the facts alleged be sensible, visible, or not, must be held bound, either to look for himself, or to take on trust the conclusions to which they have come who have looked; and indeed there is no higher method of attaining to assurance and certainty.”

Everything that Harvey wrote shows him to have been pre-eminently an example of the scientific mind, that which submits everything to the test of experiment and observation. Anatomy he professed to learn and teach, not from books, but from dissections, not from the positions of philosophers, but from the fabric of Nature. In the introduction to his Treatise on Generation he praises the “more excellent way” of those “who, following the traces of nature with their own eyes, pursued her through devious but most assured ways till they reached her in the citadel of truth. And truly in such pursuits,” he goes on, “it is sweet not merely to toil, but even to grow weary, when the pains of discovering are amply compensated by the pleasures of discovery. Eager for novelty, we are wont to travel far into unknown countries, that with our own eyes we may witness what we have heard reported as having been seen by others, where, however, we for the most part find that the presence lessens the repute. It were disgraceful, therefore, with this most spacious and admirable realm of nature before us, and where the reward ever exceeds the promise, did we take the reports of others upon trust, and go on coining crude problems out of these, and on them hanging knotty and captious and petty disputations. Nature is herself to be addressed; the paths she shows us are to be boldly trodden; for thus, and whilst we consult our proper senses, from inferior advancing to superior levels, shall we penetrate at length into the heart of her mystery.”

True and scientific as the Treatise on the Heart and the Circulation was, or rather because it was so true and scientific, its publication gave a decided and severe check to Harvey’s professional prosperity. It was believed by the vulgar, says Aubrey, that he was crack-brained. Writing many years after the publication, Aubrey says that though he was allowed to be an excellent anatomist, nobody admired his therapeutic methods. It was said by practitioners that they could not tell by his prescriptions what he aimed at. Yet he continued well in favour with the court, and with numerous persons of distinction. Having become Physician Extraordinary to James I. in 1618 or earlier, he was in 1623 promised the reversion of the office of Physician in Ordinary when a vacancy should occur. But his accession to this post only took place in 1630 under Charles I.[7]

Harvey became Treasurer of the College of Physicians in 1628, but resigned this office and also procured the appointment of a deputy at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in 1630, when he was commanded by the King to attend the young Duke of Lennox in his travels on the Continent. Having returned from this expedition, in 1632 he was sworn in Physician in Ordinary for his Majesty’s household, and in 1639 we find a letter in the Lord Steward’s office, giving orders for settling a diet of three dishes of meat a meal with all incidents thereunto belonging upon Dr. Harvey. But later on, in 1640, the King when at York makes another arrangement, devoting £200 a year to Dr. Harvey, the three dishes of meat probably not having been readily forthcoming just then. In 1632-3 a deputy had again to be appointed at St. Bartholomew’s; in 1636 he was required to accompany the Earl of Arundel on his embassy to the Emperor of Germany. This gave him an opportunity of personally explaining the circulation to various eminent physicians in the principal German cities. On one of these occasions, at Nuremberg, we find it recorded that Harvey gave a public demonstration of the circulation, which satisfied all except Caspar Hofmann.[8] Returning to England, Harvey accompanied Charles I. in his expeditions, such as that to Scotland in 1639; and we may remark that, being in such close proximity to the royal person, he contrived very skilfully not to become involved in court intrigues, his best protection being his devotion to his medical and physiological investigations.[9] Even when war had broken out, Harvey became in no way obnoxious to the Parliament, for he tells us himself that he attended the King not only with the consent but by the desire of Parliament. In this way Harvey was present on the very field at the battle of Edgehill.

“During the fight,” says Aubrey, “the Prince and Duke of York were committed to his care. He told me that he withdrew with them under a hedge, and took out of his pocket a book and read. But he had not read very long before a bullet of a great gun grazed on the ground near him, which made him remove his station.” We cannot but admire the coolness and serenity of mind which could thus occupy itself with reading in the midst of carnage, having evidently no sort of belief in, or vocation for, the employment of force in the arbitrament between opposing opinions. Accompanying Charles to Oxford, he found congenial society, and was incorporated Doctor of Medicine on the 7th December, 1642. “I first saw him at Oxford,” says Aubrey, “1642, after Edgehill fight; but was then too young to be acquainted with so great a doctor. I remember he came several times to our college (Trinity) to George Bathurst, B.D., who had a hen to hatch eggs in his chamber, which they opened daily to see the progress and way of generation.”

Thus we see Harvey continuing engaged in that study of the mysteries of reproduction and development to which he devoted so many years and so many toils. He must have commenced his studies on this subject at least early in Charles’s reign.

In 1645, while the King and his physician still remained at Oxford, Sir Nathaniel Brent having quitted Merton College, of which he was Warden, and taken the Covenant, Harvey was appointed Warden in his place by virtue of a royal mandate. He had indeed lost more than his time in following the royal fortunes, and deserved any reward the King could bestow upon him. At the close of the sixty-eighth section of his treatise on Generation Harvey says, “Let gentle minds forgive me if, recalling the irreparable injuries I have suffered, I here give vent to a sigh. This is the cause of my sorrow: whilst in attendance on his Majesty during our late troubles and more than civil wars, not only with the permission but by the command of the Parliament, certain rapacious hands stripped not only my house of all its furniture, but what is subject of far greater regret with me, my enemies abstracted from my museum the fruits of many years of toil. Whence it has come to pass that many observations, particularly on the generation of insects, have perished, with detriment, I venture to say, to the republic of letters.”[10]

The Wardenship of Merton was not long Dr. Harvey’s, for when Oxford surrendered to the Parliamentary forces in July 1646, he quitted the university and returned to London, and Sir Nathaniel Brent was reinstated in his former position. Nothing has been ascertained of the reason for Harvey’s cessation of personal attendance on the King at this period, but it is certain that he took refuge in the homes of his brothers, each of whom, whether in the City, at Lambeth, at Roehampton, or at Combe, kept special apartments reserved for him. It is most pleasing, indeed, to note the great brotherly affection existing in this family. The earliest of them to die, Thomas Harvey, in 1622, has the following inscription on his monumental tablet. “As in a Sheaf of Arrows. Vis unita fortior. The Band of Love the Uniter of Brethren.” Thus, leaving his financial concerns in charge of his brother Eliab, William devoted himself, at the age of sixty-eight, more fully to his researches on Generation, which his friend Dr. Ent extracted from him at Christmas 1650.

Dr. Ent, addressing the President and Fellows of the College of Physicians, writes an introduction to this work, in which he gives us a pleasing view of Harvey in his retirement. He says: “Harassed with anxious, and in the end not much availing cares, about Christmas last, I sought to rid my spirit of the cloud which oppressed it by a visit to that great man, the chief honour and ornament of our college, Dr. William Harvey, then dwelling not far from the city. I found him, Democritus like, busy with the study of natural things, his countenance cheerful, his mind serene, embracing all within its sphere. I forthwith saluted him, and asked if all were well with him. ‘How can it,’ said he, ‘while the Commonwealth is full of distractions, and I myself am still in the open sea? And truly,’ he continued, ‘did I not find solace in my studies, and a balm for my spirit in the memory of my observations of former years, I should feel little desire for longer life. But so it has been, that this life of obscurity, this vacation from public business, which causes tedium and disgust to so many, has proved a sovereign remedy to me.’” An extended conversation is recorded, in which Harvey discourses in his wisest vein on the value of the interrogation of nature in every possible way. Dr. Ent informed him that the learned world were eagerly looking for his further experiments. Harvey rejoined, “You know full well what a storm my former lucubrations raised. Much better is it oftentimes to grow wise at home and in private, than by publishing what you have amassed with infinite labour, to stir up tempests that may rob you of peace and quiet for the rest of your days.” He at last produced the treatise on generation of animals, and Dr. Ent urging him to publish it both in consideration of his own fame, and the public benefit, and offering to see it through the press, the author consented to its publication at once or at some future time. Dr. Ent was exultant, feeling, like another Jason, laden with the golden fleece. “Our Harvey,” he says, “rather seems as though discovery were natural to him, a thing of ease and of course, a matter of ordinary business; though he may nevertheless have expended infinite labour and study on his works. And we have evidence of his singular candour in this, that he never hostilely attacks any previous writer, but ever courteously sets down and comments upon the opinions of each; and indeed he is wont to say, that it is argument of an indifferent cause when it is contended for with violence and distemper, and that truth scarce wants an advocate.”

This great work, published in 1651, begins by describing the hen’s egg and its development, the doctrine being enunciated that all animals as well as plants are produced from ova. Incidentally, as well as subsequently, observations of great merit and value on reproduction in all kinds of animals are given, and it is clearly shown that instead of containing, from the first, excessively minute but complete animals, eggs at first include extremely simple structures, which by successive and gradual changes come to be like the adults from which they have sprung. It is true that Harvey, with Aristotle, believed that the germs of lower animals could arise out of non-living matter; but it is only in the most recent days that the most elaborate microscopical investigations seem finally to have disposed of this view. The doctrine that the simply constructed germ grows by feeding on non-living matter, converting it into living matter, and gradually transforming it into the form characterising the parent, was a great innovation in Harvey’s age, and it hung fire till Caspar Wolff, in 1759, securely established it. But this has remained till the present century to be made fruitful.

Throughout Harvey’s treatise it is evident how greatly the lack of powers such as those of the microscope crippled the entire investigation, although it is truly wonderful how much was accomplished without its aid. Incidental remarks show the acute mind everywhere tending towards sound procedure, as in tying the main artery of a tumour he wished to destroy; arriving on the brink of a discovery even when its full perception did not come, as when in regard to the lungs he says, “Air is given neither for the cooling nor the nutrition of animals,” contrary to the prevailing notion. But the absence of chemical knowledge in that age prevented his going farther.

His published works only represent a portion of Harvey’s life-work. We find allusions to his “Medical Observations” and “Medical Anatomy,” which, if written, were probably destroyed in the College of Physicians at the Great Fire. In one place Harvey states that in his medical anatomy he meant, “from the many dissections he had made of the bodies of persons worn out by serious and strange affections, to relate how and in what way the internal organs were changed in their situation, size, structure, figure, consistency, and other sensible qualities, from their natural forms and appearances, such as they are usually described by anatomists, and in what various and remarkable ways they were affected. For even as the dissection of healthy and well-constituted bodies contributes essentially to the advancement of philosophy and sound physiology, so does the inspection of diseased and cachectic subjects powerfully assist philosophical pathology.” Thus it appears that, had we possessed Harvey’s pathological observations, he would also have merited the title of founder of pathology.

About the time of the publication of the Treatise on Generation, Harvey’s work on the Heart and Circulation was gaining continued and widespread adhesion on the Continent. In Italy, Trullius, a Roman professor; in France, John Pecquet of Dieppe; in Leyden, Thomas Bartholin, were occupied in promulgating Harvey’s views. A notable convert was Plempius of Louvain, who, having given himself up to the refutation of Harvey, found himself compelled to retract when he himself made some experiments on living dogs.

Harvey was constantly solicitous for the welfare of the College of Physicians, before which he continued to deliver the Lumleian Lectures up to 1656. At an extraordinary meeting held on 4th July, 1651, Dr. Prujean, the President, read to the Fellows the following anonymous proposal: “If I can procure one that will build us a library, and a repository for simples and rarities, such a one as shall be suitable and honourable to the college, will you assent to have it done or no?” The offer was of course unanimously and gratefully accepted, but it does not appear at what period it transpired that Harvey was the munificent donor. However, on 22d December, 1652, the college decreed a statue to him, which was executed in his doctor’s cap and gown, inscribed “Viro monumentis suis immortali.” It was not, however, till the 2d of February, 1653-4, that the new building was opened, consisting, as Aubrey tells us, of a noble building of Roman architecture (of rustic work with Corinthian pilasters), comprising a great parlour, a kind of convocation-room for the Fellows to meet in below, and a library above. Harvey was present on the opening occasion, having provided a handsome entertainment, and formally handed over the title-deeds and entire interest in the building in a speech of the utmost benevolence and goodwill. He had contributed not merely the building, but also a considerable library, and many surgical instruments and objects of interest to the museum.

On the 30th September, 1654, Harvey was elected in his absence to the presidency of the college, which, however, he declined on the next day, owing to his age and growing infirmities, and recommending the continuance in office of Dr. Prujean, who nominated him as one of the council, which office he did not refuse. He continued to lecture, although his strength was diminished by severe attacks of gout, but in July 1656 he resigned his lectureship. In taking leave of the college, at a grand banquet which he gave, he presented it with his patrimonial estate at Burmarsh in Kent. One special provision settled a salary for a librarian, and another established what has since been known as the Harveian Oration, delivered yearly in commemoration of benefactors to the college, and now extended to those who have added to medical science during the year.

The long and truly fortunate career of Harvey—for fortunate he must be deemed, who, like Darwin, having enunciated an epoch-making discovery, lived to see it inculcated as a canon—was now drawing to a close. In several of his later letters he expresses his feelings of infirmity. Writing in 1655 to Dr. Horst, at Hesse-Darmstadt, he speaks of “advanced age, which unfits us for the investigation of novel subtleties, and the mind which inclines to repose after the fatigues of lengthened labours.” Later, on the 24th April, 1657, writing to Dr. Vlackveld, at Harlem, he says: “It is in vain that you apply the spur to urge me, at my present age—not mature merely, but declining—to gird myself for any new investigation. For I now consider myself entitled to my discharge from duty.”

Harvey died on the 3d of June, 1657, in the eightieth year of his age, and the Fellows of his college followed his remains far out of the city towards Hempstead, in Essex, where his brother Eliab had a vault. His will is a characteristic document. He thus expresses his Christian faith: “I do most humbly render my soul to Him that gave it, and to my blessed Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus.” Making his brother Eliab executor and residuary legatee, he bequeaths legacies to all his relations with most affectionate expressions: we do not know the date of his wife’s death (she was still living in 1645), but she is here mentioned as “my dear deceased loving wife.” “I give to the College of Physicians all my books and papers, and my best Persia long carpet, and my blue satin embroidered cushion, one pair of brass andirons, with fireshovel and tongs of brass, for the ornament of the meeting-room I have erected.” It seems very probable that these books and papers included some much-regretted observations of Harvey’s, which were destroyed, with the building which he erected and the statue to his memory, in the great fire of 1666. He left £10 to his friend Hobbes of Malmesbury, who describes Harvey as the only one that he knew who conquered envy and established a new doctrine in his lifetime.

“The private character of this great man,” says Aikin, in his Biographical Memoirs of Medicine in Great Britain, “appears to have been in every respect worthy of his public reputation. Cheerful, candid, and upright, he was not the prey of any mean or ungentle passion. He was as little disposed by nature to detract from the merits of others, or make an ostentatious display of his own, as necessitated to use such methods for advancing his fame. The many antagonists whom his renown and the novelty of his opinions excited were, in general, treated by him with modest and temperate language, frequently very different from their own; and while he refuted their arguments, he decorated them with all due praises. He lived on terms of perfect harmony and friendship with his brethren of the college; and seems to have been very little ambitious of engrossing a disproportionate share of medical practice. In extreme old age, pain and sickness were said to have rendered him somewhat irritable in his temper.... It is certain that the profoundest veneration for the great Cause of all those wonders he was so well acquainted with appears eminently conspicuous in every part of his works. He was used to say, that he never dissected the body of any animal without discovering something which he had not expected or conceived of, and in which he recognised the hand of an all-wise Creator. To His particular agency, and not to the operation of general laws, he ascribed all the phenomena of nature. In familiar conversation Harvey was easy and unassuming, and singularly clear in expressing his ideas. His mind was furnished with an ample store of knowledge, not only in matters connected with his profession, but in most of the objects of liberal inquiry, especially in ancient and modern history, and the science of politics. He took great delight in reading the ancient poets, Virgil in particular, with whose divine productions he is said to have been sometimes so transported as to throw the book from him with exclamations of rapture. To complete his character, he did not want that polish and courtly address which are necessary to the scholar who would also appear as a gentleman.”

According to Aubrey, who knew him well, Harvey was not tall, but of the lowest stature; round-faced, olivaster in complexion, with little round eyes, very black and full of spirit, his hair black as a raven, but quite white twenty years before he died. His portrait in the College of Physicians corresponds with this account, indicating a nervous, bilious temperament, and showing a compact, square, wide forehead. The general expression is highly intellectual, contemplative, and manly.

Harvey has the rare distinction of standing at the head of three departments of science in England—comparative anatomy, physiology, and medicine. When these scarcely existed, he evolved them into living form from chaos. The extent of his achievements must be gauged by the extent of the superstructure built upon his foundations. He laid the foundations broad and firm, and practised the true method of science. Notwithstanding Harvey’s infirmities, his mind in old age was characterised by an abiding youthfulness and desire to learn, so that Aubrey found him studying Oughtred’s “Clavis Mathematica,” and working problems not long before he died. He was equally pleased to communicate his knowledge to others, and, as Aubrey relates, “to instruct any that were modest and respectful to him. In order to my journey (I was at that time bound for Italy), he dictated to me what to see, what company to keep, what books to read, how to manage my studies—in short, he bid me go to the fountain-head and read Aristotle, Cicero, Avicenna.” He was always very contemplative, and was wont to frequent the leads of Cockaine House, which his brother Eliab had bought, having there his several stations in regard to the sun and the wind, for the indulgence of his fancy. At the house at Combe, in Surrey, he had caves made in the ground, in which he delighted in the summer-time to meditate. He also loved darkness, as he could then best contemplate. The activity of his mind would often deprive him of sleep, when he would rise and walk about in his shirt, until he was cooled and could gain sleep. Similarly he treated his attacks of gout; he would sit with his legs bare, even in frost, on the leads of Cockaine House, and put them into a pail of water until he was almost dead with cold, and thus he found his attacks could be moderated.

His great works were, according to the custom of the age, written in Latin; and Dr. Willis, who has translated all of them into English, describes his Latin as generally easy, often elegant, and not unfrequently copious and imaginative—he never seems to feel in the least fettered by the language he is using.

The College of Physicians, says Dr. Munk, possesses some interesting memorials of Harvey, two of which may be mentioned. One the whalebone probe or rod, tipped with silver, with which he demonstrated the parts in his Lumleian Lectures at the college. The other, consisting of six tables of wood, upon which are spread the different blood-vessels and nerves of the human body, carefully dissected out, probably prepared by Harvey himself, and presumed to have been used by him in his lectures. They were presented to the college by the Earl of Winchelsea, one of whose ancestors, the Lord-Chancellor Nottingham, had married the niece of Harvey.

FOOTNOTES:

[4] Restitutio Christianismi.

[5] Malpighi first saw the blood circulating. In 1661 he records his having seen the circulation of the blood in the frog’s lungs. Later he saw it also in the frog’s mesentery.

[6] Dr. Willis’s Translation of Harvey’s Works. Sydenham Soc. 1847.

[7] Harvey’s personal history is comparatively little concerned with the controversy which arose in establishing the truth of his discovery. His lectures and demonstrations at the College of Physicians were so convincing that he met with but slight opposition from capable critics in England. Continental professors, however, were slower to accept his teaching. “The Circulation of the Blood,” he says in his first answer to Riolan in 1649, “has now been before the world for many years, illustrated by proofs cognizable to the senses, and confirmed by numerous experiments; but no one has yet attempted opposition to it on the ground of ocular testimony. Empty assertions, baseless arguments, captious cavillings, and contumelious epithets are all that have been levelled against the doctrine and its author.” We need not, therefore, follow here the history of the final and full triumph of Harvey’s views on the Continent.

[8] That Harvey’s scientific ardour was in full operation during this journey we also learn from a remark of Hollar the artist, who accompanied the ambassador: “He would still be making of excursions into the wood, making observations of strange trees, plants, earths, &c., and sometimes like to be lost; so that my lord ambassador would be really angry with him, for there was not only danger of wild beasts, but of thieves.”

In a letter written on this journey, Harvey says: “By the way we could scarce see a dog, crow, kite, raven, or any bird, or anything to anatomize; only some few miserable people, the reliques of the war and the plague, whom famine had made anatomies before I came.”

[9] There is every reason to believe that by this course of conduct Harvey lost nothing of the King’s favour and regard. Harvey records that on several occasions the King had exhibited to him the beating heart of the chick in the shell. We learn that he placed at Harvey’s disposal several does for his experiments, and was present on various occasions at his dissections. Though it is not definitely recorded, Harvey appears to have accompanied Charles on at least one of his journeys to Scotland, and to have visited the Bass Rock. In his work on Generation he incidentally describes the seabirds which he found so abundant there.

[10] It is in reference to this that Cowley says:—

“O cursed war! who can forgive thee this?

Houses and towns may rise again,

And ten times easier ’tis

To rebuild Paul’s than any work of his.”

[CHAPTER III.]
THOMAS SYDENHAM, THE BRITISH HIPPOCRATES.

In the front rank of practical physicians in England stands Thomas Sydenham, descended from an ancient Somersetshire family, one branch of which migrated into Dorsetshire in the reign of Henry VIII., and settled at Winford Eagle. Here he was born in 1624. We know nothing of his early years till we find him entered at Magdalen Hall, Oxford, in 1642. His studies were interrupted by Charles I.’s residence there, and it is very probable that he took arms on the side of the Parliament, while it is certain that his brothers did so—one of them, William Sydenham, having been a well-known Parliamentarian commissioner, and Governor of the Isle of Wight. His mother, too, was in some way, of which we have no account, “killed in the civil wars” in 1644, so that there is sufficient reason why Thomas Sydenham should have withdrawn from Oxford at this time. Sir Richard Blackmore indeed describes him as a disbanded officer, and this appears possible from what Sydenham himself states.

In his letter dedicatory to Dr. John Mapletoft of the third edition of his “Medical Observations,” Sydenham says: “It is now thirty years since I had the good fortune to fall in with the learned and ingenuous Master Thomas Coxe, Doctor.... I myself was on my way to London, with the intention of going thence to Oxford, the breaking out of the war having kept me away for some years. With his well-known kindness and condescension, Dr. Coxe asked me what pursuit I was prepared to make my profession.... Upon this point my mind was unfixed, whilst I had not so much as dreamed of medicine. Stimulated, however, by the recommendation and encouragement of so high an authority, I prepared myself seriously for that pursuit. Hence all the little merit that my works may have earned in the eyes of the public is to be thankfully referred to him who was the patron and promoter of my first endeavours.”

Dr. Lettsom in 1801 communicated to the Gentleman’s Magazine a MS. anecdote which has since been found to be derived from “The Vindicatory Schedule,” by Dr. Andrew Brown, published two years after Sydenham’s death. “Dr. Thos. Sydenham was an actor in the late civil war, and discharged the office of captain. He being in his lodgings in London, and going to bed at night with his clothes loosed, a mad drunken fellow, a soldier, likewise in the same lodging, entered his room, with one hand gripping him by the breast of his shirt, with the other discharged a loaded pistol into his bosom; yet, oh strange! without any hurt to him.” The story then goes on to relate how the bullet happened to be discharged in the line of all the bones of the palm of the hand edgeways, so that it lost its force and was spent without doing any harm to Sydenham.

When Oxford surrendered to the Parliament, Sydenham returned to Magdalen Hall, and was soon afterwards elected a fellow of All Souls’ in place of an expelled Royalist. The degree of M.B. he took in 1648, without taking a degree in arts; and he appears to have resided at Oxford for some years, with possibly an interval spent at the Montpellier School of Medicine. Soon after taking his degree he began to suffer from gout and symptoms of stone, to which he was a martyr more or less for the rest of his life.

We do not know in what year Sydenham finally quitted Oxford and went to London. He gives an account of the epidemics of 1661 in London, where he must then have been settled. In 1663 he became a licentiate of the College of Physicians, but could not proceed further without a doctor’s degree, which he did not take till comparatively late in life, in 1676.

In 1666 appeared Sydenham’s first work, the first edition of the “Method of Curing Fevers,” dealing with continued and intermittent fevers, and with smallpox.

This first edition was dedicated to Robert Boyle, whom Sydenham describes as “truly and wholly noble,” and to whom he ascribes transcendent parts, such as to raise him to the level of the most famous names of foregone ages. He acknowledges many and great favours conferred upon him by his friend; and he states soberly that it was on Boyle’s persuasion and recommendation that he undertook to write the book, and by his experience that some portions of it had been tested. Boyle occasionally accompanied Sydenham in his visits to the sick. The physician hopes his book will not find less favour for being “neither vast in bulk, nor stuffed out with the spoils of former authors.” “I have no wish to disturb their ashes,” he remarks.

The preface to the first edition begins thus: “Whoever takes up medicine should seriously consider the following points: firstly, that he must one day render to the Supreme Judge an account of the lives of those sick men who have been intrusted to his care. Secondly, that such skill and science as, by the blessing of God, he has attained, are to be specially directed towards the honour of his Maker and the welfare of his fellow-creatures, since it is a base thing for the great gifts of heaven to become the servants of avarice or ambition. Thirdly, he must remember that it is no mean ignoble animal that he deals with. We may ascertain the worth of the human race, since for its sake God’s only-begotten Son became man, and thereby ennobled the nature that He took upon Him. Lastly, he must remember that he himself hath no exemption from the common lot, but that he is bound by the same laws of mortality, and liable to the same ailments and afflictions with his fellows. For these and like reasons let him strive to render aid to the distressed with the greater care, with the kindlier spirit, and with the stronger fellow-feeling.”

The candid and philosophic temperament of the man is also well exemplified in the conclusion of the same preface. He foresees that “even where my practice has been tried, and its results been recognised, it will be asserted that my statements are anything but new, and that the world has long known them. I have, notwithstanding, never allowed myself to be deterred from communicating the following pages to those of my fellow-creatures who unite the love of truth with the love of their kind. It is my temper and disposition to be careless both of the sayings and the doings of the over-proud and the over-critical. To the wise, however, and the honest, I wish to say this much:—I have in no wise distorted either fact or experiment; I told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.... In the meanwhile I ask the pardon, and submit to the arguments, of better judges than myself, for all errors of theory. Perhaps I may myself hereafter on many points change my mind of my own accord. As I have no lack of charity for the errors of others, I have no love of obstinately persisting in my own.”

At the outset of his treatise he asserts that a disease is an effort of nature which strives with might and main to restore the health of the patient by the elimination of the morbific matter. Yet he is so far in accord with modern discovery of bacterial germs, that he refers the specific differences between fevers to some unknown constitution of the atmosphere. His wisdom is conspicuous when he says he prefers nothing, on the outbreak of a new fever, to a little delay, and diligently observes the character and cause of the disease, and what kinds of treatment do good or harm. He discerns thoroughly that the scientific working out of the characteristics and phenomena of each disease must be accomplished before it can be asserted that any good work worthy of mention has been got through. It would be difficult to exhibit a more modest and a more truly philosophical spirit than that shown in the following lines at the close of his second chapter: “One thing most especially do I aim at. It is my wish to state how things have gone lately; how they have been in this the city which we live in. The observations of some years form my groundwork. It is thus that I would add my mite, such as it is, towards the foundation of a work that, in my humble judgment, shall be beneficial to the human race. Posterity will complete it, since to them it shall be given to take the full view of the whole cycle of epidemics in their mutual sequences for years yet to come.”

A signal instance of his philosophic moderation is given in the following extract: “For my own part, I am not ambitious of the name of a philosopher, and those who think themselves so, may perhaps consider me blameable on the score of my not having attempted to pierce into those penetralia. Now, writers like these I would just recommend, before they blame others, to try their hand upon some common phenomena of nature that meet us at every turn. For instance, I would fain know why a horse attains its prime at seven, and a man at one-and-twenty years? Why, in the vegetable kingdom, some plants blow in May and others in June? There are numberless questions of this sort. Hence, if many men of consummate wisdom are not ashamed to proclaim their ignorance in these matters, I cannot see why I am to be called in question for doing the same. Etiology is a difficult, and, perhaps, an inexplicable affair; and I choose to keep my hands clear of it. I am convinced, however, that Nature here, as elsewhere, moves in a regular and orderly manner.”

In how wise and firm a tone does Sydenham denounce and demolish the quacks and patent medicine vendors! He considers that any man who can, by any sure line of treatment, or by the application of any specific remedy, control the course of diseases or cut them short, is bound by every possible bond to reveal to the world in general so great a blessing to his race. If he withheld it, he pronounced him a bad citizen and an unwise man; for no good citizen would monopolise for himself a general benefit for his kind, and no wise man would divest himself of the blessing he might reasonably expect from his Maker in contributing to the welfare of the world.

Sydenham stands out as a great advocate and champion of Peruvian bark, which, in its modern form of quinine, has justified all that he claimed for it. He is also the founder of the “expectant” treatment. “My chief care,” he says, “in the midst of so much darkness and ignorance, is to wait a little, and proceed very slowly, especially in the use of powerful remedies, in the meantime observing its nature and procedure, and by what means the patient was relieved or injured.”

The new treatise at once attracted attention, and was reviewed in the Philosophical Transactions for 1666. In the same year there appeared a Dutch edition of the Method. The value and the effect of this treatise we can scarcely fully appreciate at the present time, but its pith is well given by Dr. John Brown, author of the “Horæ Subsecivæ.” “Besides their broad, accurate, vivid delineations of disease—portraits drawn to the life, and by a great master—and their wise, simple, rational rules for treatment, active and negative, general and specific—there are two great principles continually referred to as supreme in the art of medicine. The first is that nature cures diseases; that there is a recuperative and curative power, the vis medicatrix, in every living organism, implanted in it by the Almighty, and that it is by careful reverential scrutiny of this law of restoration that all our attempts at cure are to be guided; that we are its ministers and interpreters, and neither more nor less; and the second, that symptoms are the language of a suffering and disordered and endangered body, which it is the duty of the physician to listen to, and as far as he can to explain and satisfy, and that, like all other languages, it must be studied. This is what he calls the natural history of diseases.... What Locke did for the science of mind, what Harvey and Newton did for the sciences of organic and inorganic matter, Sydenham did for the art of healing and of keeping men whole: he made it in the main observational; he founded it upon what he himself calls downright matter of fact, and did this not by unfolding a system of doctrines or raising up a scaffolding of theory, but by pointing to a road, by exhibiting a method—and moreover teaching this by example, not less than by precept—walking in the road, not acting merely as a finger-post, and showing himself to be throughout a true artsman and master of his tools. The value he puts upon sheer, steady, honest observation, as the one initial act and process of all true science of nature, is most remarkable; and he gives himself, in his descriptions of disease in general and of particular cases, proofs quite exquisite of his own powers of persevering, minute, truthful scrutiny.”

In 1668 a second edition of the Method was published, with additions, especially a chapter on the Plague, and prefaced by a eulogistic address in Latin verse, extending to fifty-four lines, by the illustrious Locke. In 1676 appeared the third edition of the Method, so much enlarged that it is better regarded as the first edition of the “Medical Observations.” In the same year Sydenham proceeded to the degree of Doctor of Medicine, not at Oxford, but at Cambridge, this choice being probably due to the fact that his son had entered at Pembroke College, Cambridge, two years before.

From the preface to his treatise on gout and dropsy, published in 1683, we find that Sydenham was compelled to lay aside his project of a complete book on chronic diseases by the extreme attacks of gout which his labours brought on. “Whenever I returned to my studies,” he says, “my gout returned to me.” A few years before, in 1677, he had been prevented from practising by a severe attack of gout, and he was compelled to spend another three months in the country to restore his health. He continued his labours, however, it is to be believed, beyond his strength, and several editions of his works, with fresh observations, were issued in the later years of his life. He died at his house in Pall Mall on the 29th of December, 1689, aged sixty-five, being buried at St. James’s, Westminster. The truly appropriate description, “Medicus in omne ævum nobilis,” was given of him by the College of Physicians in 1810, when a mural tablet was raised to his memory near his place of burial.

Sydenham’s will shows that he had three sons—William, Henry, and James—the eldest of whom received entailed estates in Hertfordshire and Leicestershire. He bequeathed £30 for the professional education of his nephew James, afterwards Sir James Thornhill, Hogarth’s father-in-law. Sydenham’s executor was Mr. Malthus, an apothecary of Pall Mall (great-grandfather of Professor Malthus), whom he enjoins to bury him with a careful abstinence from all ostentatious funeral pomp.

It is perhaps not necessary to regret so acutely the lack of biographical details regarding Dr. Sydenham, as many have done, for we think that his character stands out clearly in his writings. In his letter to Dr. Mapletoft, already referred to, he says:—

“After a few years spent in the arena of the university, I returned to London for the practice of medicine. The more I observed the facts of this science with an attentive eye, and the more I studied them with due and proper diligence, the more I became confirmed in the opinion which I have held up to the present hour, viz., that the art of medicine was to be properly learnt only from its practice and its exercise; and that, in all probability, he would be the best skilled in the detection of the true and genuine indications of treatment who had the most diligently and the most accurately attended to the natural phenomena of disease.”

The same preface contains Sydenham’s opinion of a great contemporary and valued friend of his. “You know also how thoroughly an intimate and common friend, and one who has closely and exhaustively examined the question, agrees with me as to the method I am speaking of—a man who, in the acuteness of his intellect, in the steadiness of his judgment, in the simplicity (and by simplicity I mean excellence) of his manners, has amongst the present generation few equals and no superiors. This praise I may confidently attach to the name of John Locke.” Dugald Stewart, commenting on this, says: “The merit of the Method therefore may be presumed to have belonged in part to Mr. Locke.” There is no reason, however, in the co-operation of these great minds, for detracting from the praise of either.

Sydenham’s idea of a satisfactory method of curing was a line of practice based upon a sufficient number of experiments. His business was, he says, to support his own observations, not to discuss the opinions of others. The facts would speak for themselves, and would alone show whether he acted with truth and honesty, or, like a profligate and immoral man, was to be a murderer even when in his grave. In the preface to the third edition he says, “The breath of life would have been to me a vain gift, unless I contributed my mite to the treasury of physic.” He considered that medicine was to be advanced in two main ways—by a history of diseases, by descriptions at once graphic and natural, and by formulating a praxis or method of treating them. The most modern thought could produce no sounder principle for describing disease than the following: “In writing the history of a disease, every philosophical hypothesis whatsoever that has previously occupied the mind of the author should lie in abeyance. This being done, the clear and natural phenomena of the disease should be noted—these and these only. These should be noted accurately and in all their minuteness.” He wittily remarks that it often happens that the character of the complaint varies with the nature of the remedies, and that symptoms may be referred less to the disease than to the doctor. He traces the lack of accurate descriptions of diseases to an idea that disease was but a confused and disordered effort of nature defending herself in vain, so that men had classed the attempts at a just description with the attempts to wash blackamoors white.

Sydenham conceived the idea, too, of paying some attention to the wishes and tastes of the patient. “A person in a burning fever desires to drink freely of some small liquor; but the rules of art, built upon some hypothesis, having a different design in view, thwart the desire, and instead thereof order a cordial. In the meantime the patient, not being suffered to drink what he wishes, nauseates all kinds of food, but art commands him to eat. Another, after a long illness, begs hard, it may be, for something odd or questionable; here, again, impertinent art thwarts him and threatens him with death. How much more excellent the aphorism of Hippocrates: ‘Such food as is most grateful, though not so wholesome, is to be preferred to that which is better, but distasteful.’” He has nothing of the meddlesome practitioner about him. “Indeed, if I may speak my mind freely, I have been long of opinion that I act the part of an honest man and a good physician as often as I refrain entirely from medicines, when, upon visiting the patient, I find him no worse to-day than he was yesterday; whereas, if I attempt to cure the patient by a method of which I am uncertain, he will be endangered both by the experiment I am going to make on him and by the disease itself; nor will he so easily escape two dangers as one.”

A fine description of one aspect of hysteria and hypochondria may here be given as an example of his power in the delineation of disease: “The patients believe that they have to suffer all the evils that can befall humanity, all the troubles that the world can supply. They have melancholy forebodings, they brood over trifles, cherishing them in their anxious and unquiet bosoms. Fear, anger, jealousy, suspicion, and the worst passions of the mind arise without cause. Joy, hope, cheerfulness, if they find place at all in their spirits, find it at intervals ‘few and far between,’ and then take leave quickly. In these, as in the painful feelings, there is no moderation. All is caprice. They love without measure those whom they will soon hate without reason. Now they will do this, now that—ever receding from their purpose.... All that they see in their dreams are funerals and the shadows of departed friends.”

The great physician has nowhere described his own character more clearly than in the following passage: “In all points of theory where the reader finds me in error, I ask his pardon. In all points of practice I state that I speak nothing but the truth; and that I have propounded nothing except what I have properly tried. Verily, I am sure that, when the last day of my life shall have come upon me, I shall carry in my heart a willing witness that shall speak, not only to the care and honesty with which I have laboured for the health of both rich and poor who have intrusted themselves to my care, but also to those efforts which I have made to the best of my power, and with all the energies of my mind, to give certainty to the treatment of diseases even after my death, if such may be. In the first place, no patient has been treated by me otherwise than I would myself wish to be treated under the same complaint. In the second, I have ever held that any accession whatever to the art of healing, even if it went no further than the cutting of corns or the curing of toothaches, was of far higher value than all the knowledge of fine points, and all the pomp of subtle speculations—matters which are as useful to physicians in driving away diseases, as music is to masons in laying bricks.”

The last comparison leads us to note that a vein of humour runs through Sydenham’s works, as when he quotes

“Tua res agitur paries quum proximus ardet,”

as a reason for his leaving London in the height of the plague.

In another passage, he is referring to the want of opportunity of the poor to injure themselves by unsuitable diet in smallpox, owing to the “res augusta domi.” Yet even among the poor, he says, since they learnt the use of certain cordials, many more have died than in previous ages less learned but more wise. “Nowadays every house has its old woman,” he says, “a practitioner in an art she never learnt, to the killing of mankind.”

In one place he grimly remarks, that if a certain mode of treatment be resorted to, the patient will die of his own doctor, an end which in that age must have too frequently resulted, though not specified in the catalogue of diseases.

Here is a specimen of Sydenham’s witty apophthegms: “A man who finds a treasure lying on the ground before him, is a fool if he do not stoop and pick it up; but he is a greater one who, on the strength of such a single piece of luck, wastes labour and risks life for the chance of another.”

Again, “The usual pomp of medicine exhibited over dying patients is like the garlands of a beast at the sacrifice.” Elsewhere he refers to some persons “to whom nature has given just wit enough to traduce her with.” We must also refer to Sydenham’s humour his answer to Sir Richard Blackmore, who asked him what books he should study medicine in: “Read Don Quixote, sir, which is a very good book: I read it still.”

We notice as an instance of Sydenham’s kind-heartedness, a case in which he lent a poor man one of his horses for a several days’ journey, believing continuous horse-exercise to be the best cure for his disease.

Another characteristic touch is the following: “I have always thought that to have published for the benefit of afflicted mortals any certain method of subduing even the slightest disease, was a matter of greater felicity than the riches of a Tantalus or a Crœsus.” To Dr. Brady he remarks: “To you that undeserved abuse wherewith I am harassed by many, is a vexation and sorrow; whilst, of those who utter it this I may safely say, that if a harmless life, hurting none by word or deed, had been sufficient to protect me from their tongues, they never would have thundered against me. Since, then, it is from no fault of mine that these calumnies have fallen on me, this is my resolution, viz., that I will not afflict myself because other men have done wrong.”

Again he says: “My fame is in the hands of others. I have weighed in a nice and scrupulous balance, whether it be better to serve men, or to be praised by them, and I prefer the former. It does more to tranquillise the mind; whereas fame, and the breath of popular applause, is but a bubble, a feather, and a dream. Such wealth as such fame gives, those who have scraped it together, and those who value it highly, are fully free to enjoy, only let them remember that the mechanical arts (and sometimes the meanest of them) bring greater gains, and make richer heirs.”

He addressed to Dr. Thomas Short his treatise on Gout and Dropsy, because “although others despised the observations which I previously published, you had no hesitation in attributing to them some utility.”... “It is my nature to think where others read; to ask less whether the world agrees with me than whether I agree with the truth; and to hold cheap the rumour and applause of the multitude.”

We have yet to note a remarkable fragment entitled “Theologia Rationalis, by Dr. Thomas Sydenham,” in manuscript in the Cambridge University Library. It appears to coincide very closely with other indications of his views, and it has been said of it, “There is much in it of the spirit both of Locke and Butler—of Locke in the spirit of observation and geniality; of Butler in the clear utterances as to the supremacy of reason, and the necessity of living according to our own true nature.” The general principles of his regard of the Divine Being may be judged from the following extract: “Wherefore, to this eternal, infinitely good, wise, and powerful Being, as I am to pay all that adoration, thanks, and worship which I can raise up my mind unto; so to Him, from the consideration of His providence, whereby He doth govern the world, myself and all things in it, I am to pray for all that good which is necessary for my mind and body, and for diverting all those evils which are contrary to their nature; above all desiring that my mind may be endowed with all manner of virtue. But in requesting things relating to my body and its concerns, having always a deference to the will of the Supreme Being, who knows what is best for me better than I do myself. And though my requests to these bodily concerns of mine are not answered, nevertheless, herein I worship Him, by declaring my dependence upon Him; and forasmuch as that, in many respects, I have transgressed His divine laws written upon my nature, I am humbly to implore His pardon, it being as natural for me to do it, as it is to implore the pardon of a man whom I know I have offended. In all which requests of mine, and all His creatures, how many soever they be in number, and how distant soever they be in place, He being infinite, is as ready at hand to hear and to help as any man who is but finite is at hand to administer food to his child that craves it.”

Thus we take leave of Sydenham, denominated by Locke “one of the master-builders at this time in the commonwealth of learning;” reckoned by the masters in his own and the next age as second to Hippocrates alone—the man whom Boerhaave never mentioned to his class without lifting his hat, describing him as “Angliæ lumen, artis Phœbum, veram Hippocratici viri speciem.”

[CHAPTER IV.]
THE MONROS, CULLEN, THE GREGORYS, JOHN BELL, AND THE FOUNDATION OF THE EDINBURGH SCHOOL OF MEDICINE.

Notwithstanding the early date of the foundation of the College of Physicians of London, and the fact that the illustrious names of Harvey and Sydenham and others adorn the rise of rational medicine in the south, the credit of first developing a famous medical school belongs to Edinburgh, where the Monros, Gregorys, Cullen, Black, and Rutherford maintained during the eighteenth century an unbroken succession of brilliant names. It cannot be allowed, however, that the Town Council of Edinburgh, in founding medical professorships, deserves as much of this credit as do the outside founders of medical teaching, whose existence and success extorted from the municipality a recognition formal and limited at first, and certainly unremunerated. It may be questioned whether the University of Edinburgh has not really been indebted almost as much to the extra-academical teachers of medicine who have continually stimulated the actual professors to their best endeavours, as to those professors themselves.

Anatomy, the necessary foundation of medicine, had a kind of beginning in Edinburgh in 1505, for the surgeons and barbers of the city had procured the insertion in their charter of a clause enabling them to obtain “once in the year a condemned man after he be dead to make anatomy of.” But little came of this, and it was reserved for a number of able physicians, educated abroad, in the latter part of the seventeenth century, to set on foot some practical teaching in medicine and the allied sciences. The names of Sir Robert Sibbald, Sir Andrew Balfour, and Sir Archibald Stevenson must be honourably mentioned in this connection. The first two of these were most influential in establishing the earliest public botanic garden in Edinburgh, a piece of ground about forty feet square, belonging to Holyrood House. They subsequently allied to themselves James Sutherland, who afterwards became a notable botanist, and obtained the appointment of keeper of a much larger garden near Trinity College Church. Many valuable collections of seeds and plants were procured; medical students were incited to collect and send home seeds and cuttings from places they might travel to; and so the garden became an important starting-point for materia medica.

Professional feuds already became prominent in Edinburgh. The surgeon-apothecaries were jealous of the physicians and doctors of medicine. Several abortive efforts were made by the latter towards the establishment of a College of Physicians. In 1621 King James gave a warrant to the Scottish Parliament for this purpose; but no action was taken. In 1630 the subject was referred to the Privy Council. In 1656 Cromwell constituted a College of Physicians for Scotland; but his death prevented its completion. Thus it was not till Sibbald and Stevenson, by the aid of Sir Charles Scarborough, Harvey’s friend, gained the ear of the Duke of York, that at last the College of Physicians of Edinburgh was founded, in 1681, notwithstanding the strong opposition of the surgeons and the townsmen.

Soon after this, in 1685, the Town Council of Edinburgh appointed three principal members of the College of Physicians to be Professors of Medicine in what they now for the first time, at any rate in existing documents, called “the university of this city.” Sir Robert Sibbald was appointed Professor of Physic, and rooms were allotted to him, but not a salary. Drs. Halket and Pitcairne were speedily added to the list of professors, and the division of duties between the professors was left to themselves. We have no record of any lectures given by these professors for a long period, but we know that Pitcairne in 1692-3 held a professorship at Leyden. On his return to Edinburgh he became enthusiastic in promoting the medical school, aiding Alexander Monteith in gaining permission from the Town Council to dissect the bodies of people who died in “Paul’s Work.” “We offer,” says Pitcairne, “to wait on these poor for nothing, and bury them after dissection at our own charges, which now the town does; yet there is great opposition by the chief surgeons, who neither eat hay nor suffer the oxen to eat it. I do propose, if this be granted, to make better improvements in anatomy than have been in Leyden these thirty years.”

Monteith obtained a grant in October 1694 of “those bodies that die in the correction-house,” and of “foundlings that die upon the breast.” He was allowed to make his dissections in “any vacant waste-room in the correction-house, or any other thereabouts belonging to the town.” Magistrates were to be admitted if they desired, and the apprentices of the surgeons might attend at half-fee. However, Monteith’s scheme did not succeed, because he had acted without concert with the other members of the Surgeons’ Corporation. These made a more successful start in the same year, having obtained a right to “the bodies of foundlings who die betwixt the time that they are weaned and their being put to schools or trades, also the dead bodies of such as are stifled in the birth, which are exposed and have none to own them; also the dead bodies of such as are felo do se and have none to own them; likewayes the bodies of such as are put to death by sentence of the magistrate and have none to own them.” A condition was annexed to this grant that by Michaelmas 1697 an anatomical theatre should be built, where public dissections should be made once a year, if opportunity offered. This was evidently intended to extend to a course of anatomy, including as much as could be taught on one body. The method, however, in which anatomy was first practised in the Surgeons’ Hall was for ten surgeons to lecture, on following days, each in succession taking a special part. The body had to be buried within ten days.

It was in 1705 that a special appointment of one man to lecture on anatomy was first made, and the first lecturer, Robert Elliot, was also made Professor of Anatomy in the University, with a small stipend. This formal appointment appears to have been directly occasioned by the offer of some unknown teacher to give public and private teaching in anatomy to the surgeons and their apprentices.

It is not till 1706 that we have any record of Sibbald’s lectures. The Edinburgh Courant was then made the medium whereby he announced, in Latin, his intention to lecture on natural history and medicine “in privatis collegiis,” or private courses of lectures. He appears to have lectured in Latin, and to have received no pupils but such as were skilled in Greek, Latin, mathematics, and philosophy.

About this time had settled in Edinburgh the progenitor of the long line of distinguished Monros, John Monro, formerly an army surgeon, who became President of the College of Surgeons in 1712. His son Alexander, afterwards so distinguished, was born in London on the 8th September, 1697. Being an only son, his father gave unusual attention to his training, and early perceiving his acuteness of mind, sent him successively to London, Paris, and Leyden to obtain the best medical education at that time accessible. The anatomical preparations which he made during his studentship gave such evidence of ability, that Drummond, who then taught anatomy at Edinburgh, offered to resign in his favour as soon as he returned home. Cheselden in London and Boerhaave in Leyden were highly impressed by the young Scotchman’s promise.

The year 1720 may be taken as witnessing the actual start of the Medical School of Edinburgh, and Alexander Monro as its real founder. Although the father did much to promote the successful start, the son becoming actually the competent teacher, must necessarily have the greater credit. At the age of twenty-two, Monro was appointed Professor of Anatomy, and having announced his first course of lectures on anatomy, to be illustrated by the preparations he had made and sent home when abroad, his father, without his knowledge, invited the President and Fellows of the College of Physicians and the whole of the city surgeons to the first lecture. The surprise caused the young lecturer to forget the discourse which he had committed to memory, and being without notes, he had presence of mind enough to commence talking about some of his preparations, and soon became collected in speaking of what he was confident he understood. Thus the surprise and temporary forgetfulness thereby caused was a foundation of his success: he found himself applauded as a ready speaker, and resolved throughout life to speak extempore, being persuaded that words expressive of his meaning would always occur in speaking on a subject which he understood. From this time the subjects of anatomy and surgery in Monro’s hands attracted large classes of students, the average of the first decade being 67; of the second, 109; of the third, 147. Even during the second session his lectures attracted students from all parts of Scotland, also from England and Ireland. Seizing the opportunity, other professors were persuaded to start courses of lectures, so that soon a respectable curriculum was provided, and Monro secured in 1722 a grant of his professorship for life. It had previously been held only at the will of the Town Council.

Monro was now face to face with the difficulty of providing sufficient material for the instruction of his large classes. Under Cheselden in London he had been accustomed to a supply of subjects, more even than he could make use of. In Edinburgh, as early as 1711, complaints were made at Surgeons’ Hall of violation of graves in Greyfriars’ Churchyard, “by some who most unchristianly have been stealing, or at least attempting to carry away, the bodies of the dead out of their graves.” But, said the surgeons, “that which affects them most, is a scandalous report, most maliciously spread about the town, that some of their number are accessory, which they cannot allow themselves to think, considering that the magistrates of Edinburgh have been always ready and willing to allow them what dead bodies fell under their gift, and thereby plentifully supplied their theatre for many years past.” They consequently beg that the magistrates will seek for and punish the offenders, and resolve to expel any of their number found accessory to the violation of graves. The populace nevertheless continued to be excitable on the subject of the violation of graves, and in 1721-2, surgeons’ apprentices were especially bound “not to raise the dead.” In March 1725 Monro was put under the stringent obligation of giving information when he procured each dead body, and guaranteeing that it was regularly obtained; but the mob were suspicious, and threatened to demolish his museum and theatre at Surgeons’ Hall. Monro consequently applied for and obtained a room in the university building, being there safer than at Surgeons’ Hall. Here his course included dissections not only of the human body, but also of animals. Diseases affecting the various organs were referred to; operations upon the dead body were performed; bandages were applied; and lastly, such physiology as was known was treated of. This course was continued for nearly forty years.

A great hospital was lacking, and the whole force of the medical faculty, with the powerful aid of the far-seeing provost, George Drummond, was engaged to secure the building of the infirmary. Monro and Drummond were constituted a Building Committee, and Monro planned in particular the operation-room. Dr. Moore in his Travels through Scotland records that “the proprietors of many stone-quarries made presents of stone, others of lime; merchants contributed timber; carpenters and masons were not wanting in their contributions; the neighbouring farmers agreed to carry the materials gratis; the journeymen masons contributed their labours for a certain quantity of hewn stones; and as this undertaking is for the relief of the diseased, lame, and maimed poor, even the day-labourers could not be exempted, but agreed to work a day in the month gratis toward the erection. The ladies contributed in their way to it; for they appointed an assembly for the benefit of the work, which was well attended, and every one contributed bountifully.”

The completion of the hospital gave Monro the opportunity of delivering clinical lectures on surgery, while Rutherford from 1748 gave clinical lectures on medical cases. Monro himself was present at every post mortem examination, and dictated to the students an accurate report of the case. It was said of him “it is hardly possible to conceive a physician more attentive to practice, or a preceptor more anxious to communicate instruction.”

His first and perhaps best known work was his Osteology, published in 1726, and translated into several foreign languages. A French edition appeared in folio with excellent engravings by M. Sue, demonstrator to the Royal Academy of Paris. A treatise on the Nerves followed; and later, a series of Medical Essays and Observations, many by Monro, was issued by him, as the result of meetings of the principal medical men in Edinburgh, which flourished for some years. Another interesting work of Monro’s was his treatise on Comparative Anatomy, in which he proposed to illustrate the human economy by the anatomy of such vertebrate animals as he knew. But the contrast is astonishing between Monro’s knowledge and that of the present day. He divides quadrupeds into carnivorous and herbivorous; fowls into those that feed on grain and those that feed on flesh; fishes into those that have lungs and those that have not. He remarks that the fishes that have lungs differ very inconsiderably from an ox or any other quadruped, and are not easily procured; consequently he omits all account of them. Moreover, he says, “as the structure of insects and worms is so very minute, and lends us but little assistance for the ends proposed, we purposely omit them.” He has a strangely unpenetrating view of the relation between an oyster and a sensitive plant. “What difference is there betwixt an oyster, one of the most inorganised of the animal tribe, and the sensitive plant, the most exalted of the vegetable kingdom? They both remain fixed to one spot, where they receive their nourishment, having no proper motion of their own, save the shrinking from the approach of external injuries.” Dr. Monro’s writings generally are not inviting to quote from, being written in a plain and rather bald style, with very little attempt at illustration.

In private life Monro, primus, was humane, liberal in sentiment, a sincere friend, and an agreeable companion, an affectionate husband and a kind father, having the art of making his children his companions and friends. In 1745, after Prestonpans, he went down at once to the battlefield to assist the sick and wounded, dressed their wounds, and busied himself in securing them provisions and conveyance to town. Nor did he confine his attentions to the loyal, but aided the rebels also. He took an important share in the education of his children, of whom Donald became a successful physician, and wrote his life prefixed to the quarto edition of his works, 1781, to which all subsequent biographies are much indebted.

Monro was a man of a strong muscular make, of middle height. Yet his constitution was considerably weakened in early life owing to his being too frequently bled. He was liable to attacks of chest affections throughout life, but died finally of a painful ulcer of the rectum and bladder, on July 10th, 1767. He had resigned his chair of anatomy to his son Alexander in 1759, but continued to practise and to attend the infirmary till the last. He bore his painful illness with fortitude and Christian resignation, and talked of his approaching death with the same calmness as if he were going to sleep.

“He was,” says Professor Struthers, “an able and active, and at the same time a calm and placid man. He had family and friends influential and plenty, but the work he had to do was of a kind at which friends could only stand and look on. He had to do a new thing in Edinburgh; to teach anatomy and to provide for the study of it, in a town of then only thirty thousand inhabitants, and in a half-civilised and politically-disturbed country; he had to gather in students, to persuade others to join with him in teaching, and to get an infirmary built. All this he did, and at the same time established his fame not only as a teacher but as a man of science, and gave a name to the Edinburgh School which benefited still more the generation which followed him.”

Although we must depart from strict chronological order to do so, it will be more convenient to give here an account of the second Monro, who was born May 20th, 1733, and was early attracted to the study of anatomy, showing great perseverance and possessing a good memory. He soon became a very useful assistant to his father in the dissecting-room, and when the students grew too numerous for one lecture, his father deputed his son, at the early age of twenty, to repeat his course in an evening lecture to those who had failed to obtain admission in the morning. His father, seeing how successful his son was, petitioned the Town Council to have him appointed as his colleague and eventual successor, promising, if this were granted, to send his son to the best medical schools in Europe, and in every way to fit him for the post. This plan being carried out, young Monro took his M.D. degree at Edinburgh in 1755, and set out for a round of medical schools, London, Leyden, Paris, and Berlin; in London he attended William Hunter; in Berlin he had the still greater advantage of living in the house of, and sharing the intimate instruction of, the great anatomist, Meckel—a truly good start for a promising career. On his son’s return to Edinburgh in 1758, his father resigned his chair to him, and the son commenced by teaching quite novel views on the blood, controverting his father’s teaching. “The novelty of his matter, combined with the clearness of his style, is described by one who was present as having acted like an electric shock on the audience. It was at once seen that he was master of the subject, and of the art of communicating knowledge to others; his style was lively, argumentative, and modern, compared with that of his more venerable colleagues; and from the beginning onwards, for half a century, his career was one of easy and triumphant success” (Struthers). As a lecturer he was clear, earnest, and impressive, eloquent without display, and at the same time grave and dignified. No wonder that his classes increased in size, until they even reached four hundred.

At the same time Monro entered into practice as a physician, and became one of the leading practitioners in Edinburgh, so much so that Dr. James Gregory described him as being far more than half a century at the head of the medical school, and for a great part of that time at the head of the profession as a practising physician. He was also frequently called into consultation on surgical cases, though he did not operate. His chief fame is, however, as a successful anatomist and teacher of anatomy. In 1777 he successfully resisted the appointment of a separate Professor of Surgery, claiming that his office included surgery.

Monro secundus claimed, and not without good grounds, to have made important original discoveries in regard to the lymphatic system; but his merits as a discoverer in this department do not interfere with the greater lustre of William Hunter and Hewson. His observations on the structure and functions of the nervous system enjoy the distinction of having called Sir Charles Bell’s attention to the ganglion of the fifth pair of cranial nerves, and to important particulars of the origin of the spinal nerves, which led in no insignificant degree to his own great discoveries.

In 1758 Monro published at Berlin his first essay on the Lymphatics, and Professor Black testified to having read this essay in manuscript in 1755. It contained an account of the lymphatics as a distinct system of vessels, having no immediate connection with the arteries and veins, but arising in small branches from all cavities and cells of the body into which fluids are thrown, and stating that their use was to absorb the whole or the thinner parts of these fluids, and to restore them to the general circulation. He showed further by medical observation that in cases where acrid matter was applied to the pores of the skin, or gained access to the cellular membranes, the glands between the parts affected and the centre of the body became swollen and painful, manifestly from being absorbed by the lymphatics.

Monro also first ascribed the absorption of bones and other solid parts in cases of tumour to pressure. His various works on the Nervous System, on the Muscles, on the Brain, Eye, and Ear, and on the Structure and Physiology of Fishes, all contain observations which were of considerable value in building up the science of anatomy in the last century, but none of them furnish attractive reading, such as we have found in the works of Harvey and Sydenham. This is somewhat remarkable, considering that Monro shone as an anecdotist, was intimate with all the celebrated Edinburgh men of his time, and was a great admirer of the theatre, being equally attracted by Mrs. Siddons, whom he felt the greatest pleasure in attending as a patient, and by Foote, whose performance as President of the College of Physicians to Weston’s Dr. Last under examination he enjoyed extremely. It was said that Monro sent his own scarlet robe to the theatre for the mock doctor to wear.

Another of Monro’s personal tastes was that of horticulture. He planted and beautified several romantic hills around his estate at Craiglockhart. Here he fitted up, says Dr. Duncan, a rural cottage, consisting of two commodious apartments, adjoining his head gardener’s house, whose kitchen could provide dinner for a few select friends. He would keep no bedroom there, that he might never be tempted to stay away from his professional duties in Edinburgh; but in his cottage he often passed a summer day and regaled his friends with the choicest fruits. Dr. Duncan in his Harveian Oration relates his disappointment that the younger generation of his friends “prefer the instrumental music of a fiddle, a flute, or an organ in a drawing-room to that of the linnet, the thrush, or the goldfinch in the fields;” and that the gardens of his old friends in which he had spent such happy hours were now let out for market gardens.

Monro was very economical of his time, and carefully measured it out to each subject which occupied him; and he worked nearly as hard towards the end as at the beginning of his career. He did not deliver stereotyped lectures, but continually improved them. He is to be credited also with having favourably received Jenner’s discovery of vaccination, and vaccinated many children himself.

In person the second Monro was of middle height, of vigorous and athletic make. His head was large, with strongly marked features and full forehead, light blue eyes, and somewhat large mouth. His neck was short, and his shoulders high.

In 1798 his son, Monro, tertius, was conjoined with him in the professorship, but for ten years more the old man continued to give the greater part of the course. His last lecture was that introductory to the session of 1808-9, after which he retired from practice also, and lived on till he died of apoplexy, 2d October 1817, in his eighty-fifth year.

Born to a great name and a ready-made position, as Professor Struthers remarks, the second Monro had every advantage which education, friends, and place could secure. But it is to his credit that among brilliant colleagues like Cullen, Black, Dugald Stewart, Playfair, and others, he held his own both intellectually and socially, even if he has not left so abiding a mark upon medical and anatomical science as his contemporaries must have expected him to make.

Notwithstanding the note which the Monros have attained for their anatomical teaching, and the distinction won by the Gregorys as Professors of Medicine and able physicians, they are outshone by William Cullen, who is justly the most conspicuous figure in the history of the Edinburgh Medical School in the eighteenth century. William Cullen was born on the 15th of April, 1710, at Hamilton, Lanarkshire, his father having been factor to the Duke of Hamilton. Early prominent at the local grammar-school by his quick perception and retentive memory, he was sent to the University of Glasgow in due course, and apprenticed to a medical practitioner named Paisley, who was both studious and possessed a good medical library, a signal advantage to young Cullen. It became remarked by his companions that while he took little or no part in their discussions when he happened to be ill-informed on the subject, he always so studied it afterwards that he could surpass the best of them if it came up again. At the close of 1729 Cullen went to London, and first obtained the surgeoncy to a merchant ship, commanded by a relative, with whom he went to the West Indies, remaining six months at Portobello. On his return to London he took a situation in an apothecary’s shop in Henrietta Street, and studied as diligently as ever, when not occupied in the shop. His father had died, and there was little provision for a large family; his eldest brother’s death compelled him to return to Scotland in the winter of 1731-2, to make arrangements for the education of his younger brothers and sisters. He began practice at Auchinlee near Hamilton, taking charge of the health of a relative, and perseveringly carrying on from books those studies which he had not money to prosecute at the seats of learning where he longed to be.

The receipt of a small legacy was the turning-point of Cullen’s earlier fortunes: and how small a sum a studious Scotchman can make available in this direction is well known. Cullen resolved to devote himself to study entirely until he should be qualified to take a firm stand as a surgeon at Hamilton. He first went to reside with a dissenting minister in Northumberland, for the study of literature and philosophy, and then spent the winter sessions of 1734-5 and 1735-6 at Edinburgh Medical School, now rapidly rising into note. On establishing himself as a surgeon at Hamilton early in 1736, young Cullen was soon employed by the Duke and Duchess of Hamilton and the leading families of the neighbourhood. In this comparatively retired situation Cullen yet gained the confidence of Dr. Clerk, an able Edinburgh physician called in to Hamilton Palace, and was the means of influencing William Hunter to the choice of the medical profession. William Hunter was Cullen’s resident pupil from 1737 to 1740, and declared these to have been the happiest years of his life. Thus natural selection brings men of future note together before the world has known them, and the lineal succession of minds is as fruitfully carried on as that of bodies. The affection of these two continued throughout life. Long after William Hunter refers to him as “a man to whom I owe most, and love most of all men in the world.”

Cullen determining to devote all his time to medicine, proceeded to the M.D. degree at Glasgow in 1740, and took a partner who was to relieve him of surgical work. In November 1741 he married Miss Anna Johnstone, a lady of much conversational power and charming manners, whose companionship he enjoyed for the long period of forty-six years. She became the mother of seven sons and four daughters. Dr. Cullen’s name was now becoming known considerably beyond his native locality, and in 1744 he removed to Glasgow, a step which he would have taken previously but for the solicitations and promises of the Duke and Duchess of Hamilton. His constant attendance on the duke in his painful illness was ended by the death of the latter in 1743, which put an end to the project of a chemical laboratory and a botanical garden at the palace, which had been among the inducements by which he had been prevailed upon not to quit Hamilton. Henceforth, in the intervals of practice and study, he began to occupy himself vigorously with the founding of a medical school at Glasgow. He at once began to lecture on medicine, and subsequently added to his courses chemistry, materia medica, and botany, in all of which he gave lectures not merely representing the knowledge of the time, but also including original views of high value. The young school grew, though not so rapidly as that of Edinburgh; but thus early he was brought into contact with yet another great man, Joseph Black, who was for some years his intimate pupil, and afterwards left Glasgow for Edinburgh. Cullen discerned the promise of his pupil, and carefully abstained from entering upon fields of research in which he expected him to make a mark. Black submitted his treatise on fixed air to Cullen, and dedicated it to him. About this time Cullen made some important discoveries on the evolution of heat in chemical combination, and the cooling of solutions, some of which were not published till 1755, while others remained in manuscript, but suggested to Black important points in his view of latent heat.

At the beginning of 1751, by the interest of the Duke of Argyll, Dr. Cullen succeeded Dr. Johnstone as Professor of Medicine in the University of Glasgow, at the same time that Adam Smith was appointed to the Chair of Logic; and a friendship of great intimacy arose between these thoughtful minds. Only a few months afterwards, Adam Smith’s transfer to the Moral Philosophy chair led Dr. Cullen to favour strongly the election of David Hume to the vacant chair, on an occasion when Edmund Burke was also a candidate. Neither was elected, strict orthodoxy carrying the day. At this period the applications of chemistry to arts and manufactures and to agriculture engaged Cullen’s attention considerably, and he proposed to carry out a process for purifying common salt, but it proved too expensive.

Cullen, finding that Glasgow did not promise to build up a large medical school at present, and being compelled to take country practice, began to look longingly to Edinburgh, to which also his friends were calling him. He says in a letter to William Hunter, in August 1751, “I am quite tired of my present life; I have a good deal of country practice, which takes up a great deal of time, and hardly even allows me an hour’s leisure. I get but little money for my labour; and indeed by country practice, with our payments, a man cannot make money.” Various circumstances, however, prevented this step being taken, until, in the beginning of 1756, he was appointed to the professorship of chemistry at Edinburgh, and was thus fairly launched on his notable career. In the competition for this chair, Joseph Black had been nominated, but the two friends honourably refused to do anything to prejudice each other, and on appointment indeed Cullen offered Black all the fees if he would assist him. Cullen’s first course at Edinburgh was attended by only 17 students, his second by 59, while it rose later to 145. Practice soon came to him, and freed him from his pecuniary struggles.

In 1757 Dr. Cullen first undertook to give clinical lectures in the infirmary, and in this work his especial talents shone. He had now had sufficient experience of practice, with the best knowledge of chemistry and materia medica that the time afforded; and his skill in observation and graphic description of disease, added to his zeal for imparting knowledge, soon made his clinical lectures renowned. In these lectures, for eighteen years most carefully prepared, the first real model of what is now so familiar to medical students as a clinical lecture was afforded. His candour may be judged from the following expressions: “In these lectures, however, I hazard my credit for your instruction, my first views, my conjectures, my projects, my trials, in short, my thoughts, which I may correct and if necessary change; and whenever you yourselves shall be above mistakes, or can find anybody else who is, I shall allow you to rate me as a very inferior person. In the meantime I think I am no more liable to mistakes than my neighbours, and therefore I shall go on in telling you of them when they occur.” Promoted by such candour, Cullen’s reputation rapidly grew. His lectures were remarkable for simplicity, ingenuity, and comprehensiveness of view, with copiousness of illustration. He taught his students to observe the course of nature in diseases, to distinguish between essential and accidental symptoms, and to carefully discriminate the influence of remedies from the curative operations of nature. “There is nothing,” he said, “I desire so much as that every disease we treat here should be a matter of experience to you, so you must not be surprised that I use only one remedy when I might employ two or three; for in using a multiplicity of remedies, when a cure does succeed, it is not easy to perceive which is most effectual.” Again, he says, “Every wise physician is a dogmatist, but a dogmatical physician is one of the most absurd animals that lives. We say he is a dogmatist in physic who employs his reason, and, from some acquaintance with the nature of the human body, thinks he can throw some light upon diseases and ascertain the proper methods of cure; and I have known none who were not dogmatists except those who seemed to be incapable of reasoning, or who were too lazy for it. On the other hand, I call him a dogmatical physician who is very ready to assume opinions, to be prejudiced in favour of them, and to retain and assert very tenaciously, and with too much confidence, the opinions or prejudices which he has already taken up in common life, or in the study of the sciences.” He sought to build up rational views of medicine, indeed, on the basis of fact and experiment. In giving his clinical lectures he was at great pains to choose diseases of the most common types, as most useful to the students. He adhered to great simplicity of prescriptions, compared with the complex and barbarous nostrums of preceding times, and he experimentally used and introduced many new drugs of great value, such as Cream of Tartar, Henbane, James’s Powder, and Tartar Emetic.

The novelty with which Cullen invested his subject and the boldness of his views made many, especially conventional practitioners and lecturers, regard him with disfavour, and decry him for not regarding Boerhaave’s views as final, and for adopting those of Hoffmann in conjunction with his own. Yet his lively and entertaining lectures, combined with his pleasing treatment of patients, and “his manner, so open, so kind, and so little regulated by pecuniary considerations, made him win his way more and more. He was the friend of every family he visited.” William Hunter writes in 1758, “I do assure you I have never found anything in business so pleasing to me as to hear my patients telling me, with approbation, what Dr. Cullen had done for them, and to hear my pupils speaking with the reverence and esteem of Dr. Cullen that is so natural to young minds.”

As a sign of the general mental attitude of Dr. Cullen, the following extract from a letter to his son James, on setting out for a foreign voyage, is of interest: “Study your trade eagerly, decline no labour, recommend yourself by briskness and diligence, bear hardships with patience and resolution, be obliging to everybody, whether above or below you, and hold up your head both in a literal and figurative sense.” While he aided his juniors in the best sense to acquire independence of character, he “admitted them freely to his house; conversed with them on the most familiar terms; solved their doubts and difficulties; gave them the use of his library; and, in every respect, treated them with the affection of a friend and the regard of a parent. It is impossible for those who personally knew him in this relation,” says Dr. Aikin, “ever to forget the ardour of attachment which he inspired.” Another and not less pleasing view of Cullen is shown in his recommendation of “Don Quixote” to Dugald Stewart when a boy suffering from some indisposition, and the interest he manifested in his patient’s progress in that delight. He used to talk over with the lad every successive incident, scene, and character, manifesting the minutest accuracy of recollection of the master-piece.

We shall not follow the discussions which arose at Edinburgh about the succession to Dr. Rutherford’s chair of the Practice of Physic, nor the circumstances which led to Dr. John Gregory’s appointment. Suffice it to say that on the death of Dr. Whytt, Cullen consented to accept the chair of the Theory of Physic in 1766, and that subsequently an arrangement was made by which the two professors lectured alternately on the Theory and Practice of Physic, to the still greater advantage of the now celebrated school. This appointment was strongly promoted by both the Monros, and by an address signed by 160 medical students. The arrangement now made lasted till Dr. Gregory’s death in 1773, when Cullen became sole Professor of the Practice of Physic. Black was brought to Edinburgh to succeed Cullen in the Chair of Chemistry.

Cullen’s principal works are the “Nosology,” a synopsis and classification of diseases, with definitions, which obtained wide popularity, although only an approximation to a sound system; and his “First Lines of the Practice of Physic,” 4 vols., 1778-85, which went through numerous editions. One of its especial merits was that it pointed out more clearly than preceding works the extensive and powerful influence of the nervous system on disease. It is now held as the defect of his system that it was too theoretical, and that its views were not adequately supported by facts. It cannot be denied that Cullen had but moderate anatomical and physiological knowledge, and this has prevented him from leaving works capable of being read with much profit by the practitioners of the present day.

It is after all on William Cullen’s personal influence on the School of Medicine, which he did so much to maintain, that his fame will chiefly rest. The character of this influence is honourable and stainless. Dr. James Anderson has left in unequivocal language a record of his bearing in his conspicuous position which does equal honour to his intellectual energy and to his qualities of heart. Dr. Cullen, he says, was employed five or six hours a day in visiting patients and prescribing by letter; lecturing never less than two hours a day, sometimes four; yet, when encountered, he never seemed in a hurry or discomposed—always easy, cheerful, and sociably inclined. He would play at whist before supper with as keen interest as if a thousand pounds depended on it.

Cullen did not leave his acquaintance with his students to originate by chance, but invited them early in their attendance, by twos, threes, and fours, to supper, and gaining their confidence about their studies, amusements, difficulties, hopes, and prospects. Thus he got to know all his class, and paid especial attention to those who were most assiduous, best disposed, or most friendless. He made a point of finding out who among them were most hampered by poverty, and often found some polite excuse for refusing to take a fee even for their first course, and in many cases for their second course. One method he adopted was to express his wish to have their opinion on a particular part of his course which had been omitted for want of time the previous session, and he would thereupon present them with a ticket for the second course. After two courses he did not require any fee for further attendance. He is credited, too, with having introduced into Edinburgh the practice of not taking fees for medical attendance on students of the university. This ease and generosity about money matters was the cause of his eventually dying without any fortune. It is said that he used to put sums of money into an open drawer, to which he and his wife went when they wanted any.

We shall not enter here into the controversy between Dr. John Brown, founder of the Brunonian theory of medicine, and his disciples, and Dr. Cullen, to whom Brown had owed everything in his youth. Brown’s system proved to be no more stable than his personal character, although its noisy advocacy, and the abuse heaped upon him personally, caused Dr. Cullen much pain.

Cullen continued to deliver his lectures until 1789, having resigned his professorship on the 30th December, and he died on the 5th February 1790, almost eighty years of age. He was buried at Kirknewton, in which parish was situated his estate of Ormiston Hill. This latter, which he had beautified with very great care, had to be sold after his death for the benefit of his family.

Dr. Anderson describes Dr. Cullen as having a striking and not unpleasing aspect, although by no means elegant. His eye was remarkably vivacious and expressive. In person he was tall and thin, stooping very much in later life. In walking he had a contemplative look, scarcely regarding the objects around him. When in Edinburgh he rose before seven, and would often dictate to an amanuensis till nine. At ten he commenced his visits to patients, proceeding in a sedan chair through the narrow closes and wynds. He always lived, while in Edinburgh, in a comparatively small house in the Mint, not far from the seat of his academical duties. For them he may be said to have lived and died.

The family of the Gregorys has been perhaps equally celebrated with the Monros in connection with university life in Scotland, and has certainly furnished it with a larger number of eminent professors. James Gregory, the celebrated inventor of the reflecting telescope, was the first great man of the family, and his publication of a work on optics in 1663 marked an era in that science. His early death in 1675, at the age of 37, deprived science of many brilliant discoveries in prospect. His only son, James, became Professor of Medicine in King’s College, Aberdeen, and died in 1731.

His younger son, John Gregory, the first of the medical Gregorys who became associated with the fame of Edinburgh, was only seven years old when his father died in 1731. After being educated at Aberdeen, under the care of his elder brother, who had succeeded his father, and also under the influence of his cousin, Thomas Reid, the well-known metaphysician, young Gregory entered at Edinburgh in 1741, and studied under the elder Monro, Sinclair, and Rutherford; and at the Medical Society commenced a warm friendship with Mark Akenside, author of the “Pleasures of Imagination.” In 1745-6 he studied at Leyden under Albinus, and having received the M.D. degree from Aberdeen during his absence, he was elected to the chair of philosophy there on his return, and lectured there for three years on mathematics, and moral and natural philosophy. In 1749 he resigned this chair in order to devote himself to medicine, and in 1752 he married Elizabeth, daughter of Lord Forbes, who had beauty, intellect, and wit, and brought him a fortune.

Finding that Aberdeen afforded him no sufficient field for practice in competition with his elder brother, Gregory went in 1754 to London, where he had already friends such as Wilkes and Charles Townshend, whom he had met at Leyden, and where he speedily made other friends, of whom may be mentioned George, Lord Lyttelton, Edward and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. He was at once elected into the Royal Society, and would no doubt have gained fashionable support; but his elder brother dying in 1755, he was recalled to Aberdeen to fill the Professorship of Medicine. Here he continued to practise and to lecture till 1764, publishing in the latter year “A Comparative View of the State and Faculties of Man with those of the Animal World.” He then removed to Edinburgh with a view to securing a professorship there. This fell to his lot in 1766, on the death of Rutherford. In the same year he succeeded Dr. Andrew Whytt as physician to the king in Scotland. He at first lectured on the Practice of Physic solely, but in 1770 he agreed with Cullen that they should lecture in alternate years on the Theory and the Practice, and this arrangement was continued permanently. As a lecturer he was very successful, simple and not in any way oratorical in style. He was especially noted for some lectures on the “Duties and Qualifications of a Physician,” which were afterwards published, and went through several editions. He gave the profits to a poor and deserving student. In 1772 he published “Elements of the Practice of Physic,” a kind of syllabus of lectures; and this completes the list of his medical works. His name was more known after his death as the author of a little book of advice to young girls, “A Father’s Legacy to his Daughters,” which has gone through very many editions. His tone may be judged from the following extract:—

“Do not marry a fool; he is the most untractable of all animals; he is led by his passions and caprices, and is incapable of hearing the voice of reason.... But the worst circumstance that attends a fool is his constant jealousy of his wife being thought to govern him. This renders it impossible to lead him; and he is continually doing absurd and disagreeable things, for no other reason but to show he dares do them.... A rake is always a suspicious husband, because he has known only the most worthless of your sex. He likewise entails the worst diseases on his wife and children if he has the misfortune to have any.”

Gregory’s predominant qualities were good sense and benevolence. In conversation he had a warmth of tone and of gesture that were very pleasing, united to gentleness and simplicity of manner. To his pupils he was a friend, ever easy of access, and ready to assist them to the utmost. His Edinburgh life was spent in intimate association with David Hume, Lord Monboddo, Lord Kaimes, Dr. Blair, and the elder Tytler. James Beattie loved him with enthusiastic affection, as the closing stanzas of “The Minstrel” testify. Gregory died suddenly on the 9th February 1773, from gout, from which he had frequently suffered. He had thus scarcely attained the age of fifty.

James Gregory, who succeeded his father in the professorship, was born in Aberdeen in 1753. He was educated in Edinburgh, and also studied for a short time at Christ Church, Oxford, where his relation, Dr. David Gregory, had been dean. He acquired a strong taste for classics and no little classical erudition, so that he was throughout life fond of making apposite Latin quotations, and wrote that language easily and accurately. He was still a student of medicine at Edinburgh when his father’s sudden death took place in 1773. The son by a great effort completed his father’s course of lectures, and showed so much ability that the professorship was practically kept open for him. In 1774 he took the M.D. degree, and spent the next two years in studying medicine on the Continent. In 1776, being then only twenty-three, he was appointed Professor of the Institutes of Medicine, and in the following year also commenced to give clinical lectures at the infirmary, which method of instruction he continued for more than twenty years. His practice at first was not extensive, until his pupils had themselves become practitioners, and called him in as a consultant. In his later years, after Cullen’s death, his practice increased largely, and in the ten years preceding his death he had the leading consulting practice in Scotland.

In 1780-2 Gregory published his “Conspectus Medicinæ Theoreticæ,” written in excellent Latin; it speedily became widely known, and was extensively read not only in Britain but also on the Continent. It has gone through numerous editions. Its more important and valuable portions were those dealing with therapeutics. In 1790 he was appointed Cullen’s successor in the chair of the Practice of Medicine, and from that time continued to lecture to large classes down to his death in 1821 (April 2). Thus he held an almost autocratic position for the long period of over thirty years; and it is much to be regretted that his great talents in repartee, quick memory for telling quotations, and fondness for a joke, led him to take an active part in the medical controversies which have embittered so many careers in Edinburgh. The long list of controversial books and pamphlets by Dr. Gregory, given by Mr. John Bell in his “Letters on Professional Controversy and Manners,” 1810, could be considerably extended, and it affords a melancholy picture of misplaced energy. One of these extended to 700 pages quarto, and its tone may be judged from the following extracts from the “Memorial to the Managers of the Royal Infirmary.”

“Let us suppose that in consequence of this memorial, every individual member of the College of Surgeons shall, to his own share, make forty times more noise than Orlando Furioso did at full moon when he was maddest, and shall continue in that unparalleled state of uproar for twenty years without ceasing. I can see no great harm in all that noise; and no harm at all to any but those who make it.... Ninety-nine parts in the hundred of all that noise would of course be bestowed on me; whom it would not deprive of one hour of my natural sleep, and to whom it would afford infinite amusement and gratification while I am awake.”

“We are certainly a most amiable brotherhood, as every person must acknowledge who has had the good luck to see but a dozen and a half or two dozen of us together, especially if he saw us at dinner. Yet, whatever the majority of us may be, I am afraid we are not all perfect angels. Some of us at least appear to be made of the same flesh and blood, and to be subject to the same frailties and passions and vices as other men. The consequence is, that when two or three of us are set down together in a little town, or fifty or a hundred of us in a great town, and obliged to scramble for fame, and fortune, and daily bread, we are apt to get into rivalships, and disputes, and altercations which sometimes end in open quarrels and implacable animosities, to the very great annoyance of those who are, and the no less entertainment of those who are not, our patients. A consultation among any number of such angry physicians or surgeons in all probability will conduce as little to the benefit of their patient as a congress of an equal number of game-cocks turned loose in a cock-pit, for probably the good of the patient will be the last and least object of their thoughts.”

Inasmuch as he takes occasion to say of John Bell, “any man, if himself or his family were sick, should as soon think of calling in a mad dog as Mr. John Bell,” we can judge of the position in which any one found himself who had the misfortune to displease Dr. Gregory. We must believe, however, on the testimony of many who knew him, that he must have possessed many remarkable and excellent qualities to have won so large a share of their attachment and esteem as he undoubtedly did. Dr. Alison says of him (Encyc. Brit., 8th ed.), that the boldness, originality, and strength of his intellect, and the energy and decision of his character, were strongly marked in his conversation, and that he showed both warm attachment to his friends, and a generosity almost bordering on profusion. He disdained to conciliate public favour, and often gave unrestrained vent to a strongly irascible temper. He would not give up his point in argument, and would overwhelm his opponents with quotations, jests, and satire.

As a teacher Gregory was conspicuous for a sound practicality. He highly approved of a maxim which he often brought forward: “The best physician is he who can distinguish what he can do from what he cannot do.” Pathology in his days was a very rudimentary science, and hence he distrusted all theories in regard to the essential nature of disease as premature and visionary. He was at home in the study of diagnostic and prognostic symptoms, and paid considerable attention to the action of remedies. He had no tendency to meddlesome medicine, restraining and discountenancing treatment when there was no hope or prospect of success. He believed strongly in the antiphlogistic or lowering treatment of inflammatory diseases, and in the use of preventive measures in warding off the attacks of chronic diseases. Thus he presented the spectacle of an advocate of temperance, of bodily exertion without fatigue, and of mental occupation without anxiety, who by no means followed his own prescriptions.

As a lecturer he displayed a most ready command of language, and an excellent memory especially for cases he had seen, the details of which he could accurately remember from the name alone of the patient. He gained great influence over the minds of his pupils, not merely by the humour and the abundance of his illustrations, but also by the outspoken exposition of his views and his commanding energy. His frankness showed itself too in the candour with which he communicated his opinions to the relatives or friends of his patients. He took a genuine interest in his patients, and convinced them of his sincerity, notwithstanding a certain roughness of manner. Where he felt no personal antagonism he was on very cordial terms with his professional friends, and succeeded in gaining their esteem and regard by his manner towards them in consultation. He was, as we have said before, the admitted autocrat of the profession in Edinburgh in his later years, and it is much to be regretted that his contributions to the science of medicine are so few.

Gregory used to say that while physic had been the business, metaphysics had been the amusement of his life. Reid dedicated jointly to him and to Dugald Stewart his “Essays on the Intellectual Powers;” and he was an attached friend of Thomas Brown, and interested himself greatly in securing his succession to Dugald Stewart in the chair of Moral Philosophy. He went so far in philology as to publish a Theory of the Moods of Verbs in the “Edinburgh Philosophical Transactions” for 1787. His “Literary and Philosophical Essays,” in two volumes, (1792), dealt mainly with the old controversy as to Liberty and Necessity. However, since he had a strong opinion that metaphysics admits of no discoveries, it is not surprising that his contribution to the science failed to secure a permanent place. His fourth son, William Gregory, became a distinguished chemist, the friend of Liebig and translator of his “Familiar Letters on Chemistry,” and Professor of Chemistry in the University of Edinburgh.

John Bell, who comes last to be mentioned in the list of great Edinburgh men of the eighteenth century, is linked with the nineteenth in part by his surgical career and posthumous “Observations on Italy,” and still more by his relationship to his great brother, Sir Charles Bell. Every one who reads the scattered memorials of John Bell will be filled with regret that his career should have been blighted by controversy and what appears even malignant opposition, led by Dr. James Gregory. His artistic tastes and acquirements, combined with his original views on anatomy and surgery, made him a specimen of a new genus in Edinburgh, and it is certain that Edinburgh did not adequately appreciate him.

John Bell, the second son of the Rev. William Bell, a clergyman of the Scottish Episcopal Church in Edinburgh, was educated for the medical profession by his father’s choice, in gratitude for the relief he had received by means of a difficult surgical operation about a month before his son’s birth, in 1763. He was apprenticed to Alexander Wood, a well-known surgeon in 1779, for five years. He attended the lectures of Black, Cullen, and the second Monro, and became a fellow of the Edinburgh College of Surgeons in 1786. Monro not being an operating surgeon, John Bell saw many defects in his teaching as to the applications of anatomy to surgery. In fact, surgical anatomy was never adequately taught in Edinburgh till he himself commenced to teach, and actual dissection was little thought of. He says, “In Dr. Monro’s class, unless there be a fortunate succession of bloody murders, not three subjects are dissected in the year. On the remains of a subject fished up from the bottom of a tub of spirits are demonstrated those delicate nerves which are to be avoided or divided in our operations; and these are demonstrated once at the distance of one hundred feet, nerves and arteries which the surgeon has to dissect, at the peril of his patient’s life.”[11]

Immediately after qualifying, therefore, John Bell commenced lecturing on anatomy and surgery on his own account, an audacious proceeding which did not fail to draw down upon him the antagonism of all those who stood by the old lines. He was vigorous in his denunciation of the stereotyped methods and imperfections of the old school of Monro and Benjamin Bell. He built a house for his courses and practical work in Surgeons’ Square, where he carried on his work after 1790. He soon came into popularity, and this increased as his style became more polished and formed, being in fact the most graphic which had appeared in the Edinburgh Medical School. He was a masterly descriptive writer, and used all the charms of style to give interest to his subject. Consequently his opponents said that he romanced and exaggerated. He stuck to his text that surgery must be based upon anatomy and pathology; and unfortunately aroused the bitterest opposition of James Gregory, who first published an anonymous pamphlet entitled “A Guide to the Medical Students attending the University of Edinburgh,” warning students against attending John Bell’s lectures. The next attack was a “Review of the Writings of John Bell, Surgeon in Edinburgh, by Jonathan Dawplucker.” This malignant attack, says Bell, was stuck up like a playbill, in a most conspicuous and unusual manner, on every corner of the city; on the door of my lecture-room, on the gates of the college, where my pupils could not but pass, and on the gates of the infirmary, where I went to perform my operations.

Bell replied by adopting the nickname used by his opponent, at the same time attacking his surgical ally in conventional methods, Benjamin Bell, whose “System of Surgery,” in six volumes, afforded him excellent sport. Bell says, “I neither mistook my bird, nor missed my shot; and on the day in which the second number was published, the great surgical work of Benjamin fell down dead.” At this time it was customary for all the surgeons of Edinburgh who cared to do so to operate in rotation at the infirmary, and Gregory put forward a plan by which only a select and limited number of surgeons were to be allowed this privilege. But the scheme was especially aimed at securing the exclusion of John Bell, and this Gregory accomplished in 1800. However, Bell had gained notoriety and practice, though he had lost the hospital appointment, and apparently all chance of a university professorship. He gave up teaching, and devoted himself to practice. He had been instrumental in raising the tone of university requirements and theories in his branch, and it could not again sink to its former inferior condition. He became the leading operator and consulting surgeon of his time. “He was not only a bold and dexterous operator,” says Professor Struthers, “but combined all the qualities, natural and acquired, of a great surgeon, to an extraordinary degree. He was original and fearless, and a thorough anatomist; he had intellect, nerve, and also language—was master alike of head, hand, and tongue or pen; and he was laborious as well as brilliant.” Generous himself and liberal to those who were necessitous, he knew how to reprove niggardliness in the wealthy. On one occasion a rich Lanarkshire laird gave him a cheque for £50 for services which Bell considered to deserve much higher remuneration. On reaching the outer door he met with the butler, and said to him, “You have had considerable trouble opening the door to me, there is a trifle for you,” and gave him his master’s cheque. The astonished butler of course consulted his master about this mark of doubtful favour, and the laird, understanding the hint, sent after the skilful surgeon a cheque for £150.

John Bell has, however, other claims to remembrance than his teaching and his operative skill. His anatomical and surgical writings are still worthy of consultation, and aided materially in the progress of the science. His principal works of this class were the “Anatomy of the Human Body,” 3 vols. (1793-1802); “Engravings of the Bones, Muscles, and Joints,” illustrating vol. i. of the Anatomy, 1794; “On the Nature and Cure of Wounds,” 1795; and “Principles of Surgery,” 3 vols., 1801-8. Sir Charles Bell speaks of “the rapid improvement in the surgery of the arteries which followed the publication of this part of the Anatomy:” and further, that it could not easily be surpassed for correctness and minuteness of description. The third volume of the Anatomy was by his brother Charles, under whose subsequent editorship the book went through numerous editions, and was translated into German. The treatise on Wounds contained clear expositions of the novel practice of aiming at the early union of wounds after operations, and also emphasised the importance of the free anastomosis of arteries in all cases where injuries were sustained by the main arterial trunks. In his “Principles of Surgery” he gave excellent historical views of his subject, as well as the latest and best practice founded on anatomy and physiology. Sir Charles Bell makes the following pointed contrast between his brother and Sir Astley Cooper, in regard to their methods: “He (John Bell) seems ever most happy when he can support his reasoning by the authority of those who have preceded him, and feels that he has conferred a double benefit when he can at the same time illustrate the truth and vindicate the character of some excellent old surgeon, and teach the youth of the present day to look back to the history of the profession for their most useful lessons. Sir Astley Cooper, on the other hand, hates all authority which interferes with his popularity; votes that volume to be an old musty one which is dedicated to himself; omits all mention of his respectable contemporaries; and only varies his terms of praise and eulogy on the young men whom he flatters, journalists and connections in business, down to the cutler who makes his instruments.”

In 1805 John Bell married Rosina Congleton, daughter of a retired Edinburgh physician, and in her found congeniality of tastes, an appreciation of the artistic, literary, and musical sides of his nature, and admirable assistance in his propensity for exercising hospitality. His entertainments, and his own performances on the trombone, became celebrated. His taste for art was accompanied by remarkable skill in design and execution, in which he was only excelled among surgeons by his own brother Charles. He never, however, felt quite at ease after his exclusion from the infirmary. His rivals occupying their position of authority, Dr. Gregory in perpetual sway, could not but impress him with a sense of undeserved failure. Early in 1816 he was thrown from his horse, and did not recover rapidly from his injuries. In 1817 his health was so much impaired that he went on a foreign tour with his wife, and his last three years were spent in Italy, where his artist soul found great delight, and where he also, had much professional practice among English visitors to Italy.

During his residence in Italy he was well aware of the dangerous condition of his health, but his singular degree of spirit and ardour of character prevented his ever betraying his consciousness of it. A few pencilled lines, written by him before leaving Paris, express well the inmost heart of the man whose career had presented such outward turbulence. He says: “I have seen much of the disappointments of life. I shall not feel them long. Sickness, in an awful and sudden form; loss of blood, in which I lay sinking for many hours, with the feeling of death long protracted, when I felt how painful it was not to come quite to life, yet not to die—a clamorous dream! tell that in no long time that must happen, which was lately so near.” He died of dropsy, at Rome, on April 15, 1820.

In Florence and Rome he visited all the principal galleries, and took pencil notes of his observations, both from a scientific and artistic point of view. These formed the main bulk of his posthumous “Observations on Italy,” edited by his friend, Bishop Sandford of Edinburgh, published in quarto form in 1825, subsequently in 2 vols. 8vo in 1835, with additional chapters on Naples. On their publication they at once took high rank, from their singular combination of artistic sympathies, literary expression, and scientific criticism. The New Monthly Review, on its first page, described the language of these observations as vigorous, terse and pure; his lights and shadows as disposed with a masterly hand. His descriptions both of landscapes and of manners in Italy are referred to as the most fascinating that had yet appeared. As a specimen of this vivid and picturesque style, showing how much his art was aided by that quickness to perceive characteristic expressions and traits which was so trained by his medical experience, we may quote his account of a Lenten preacher whom he heard at Rome.

“A sandal-footed, bare-armed, unclothed-looking monk, young, with a pale visage and negligent aspect, stood leaning against a pillar at the upper end of the middle nave; his grey coarse habit, girded by various folds of thickly-knotted cords, seemed scarcely to cover his person; his almost naked arms hanging down by his side, while his cowl, which had fallen back, discovered a wild pallid countenance, and a long lean bony throat. He stood silent and motionless, like an image or statue, as if lost in meditation, or exhausted by the vehemence of his own overwrought feelings poured out upon his auditors. The orator had evidently reached to an elevated strain before my entrance, leaving, as he had suddenly paused, vivid traces of the force of his arguments on the countenances of those he addressed. Here the spread hands, the half-opened mouth, the strained eye, spoke an earnest yet amazed attention, while perhaps near him stood, with silvered hair and meek aspect, the pale anchorite, trembling while he listened, lest perchance even he might not be secure against the punishments of the evil-doer: while beyond him might be seen the dark, gloomy, steady gaze of the brooding fanatic, whose flashing eye seemed to kindle with the orator, and keep pace with his denunciations,—perhaps contrasted by the quiet unthinking air of contented stupidity, looking as if the sense of hearing alone were roused, or by the speaking eye, beaming with zealous fire, as if ready to challenge or answer each new proposition. Some stood with downcast looks, serious and reflecting; others walked softly along, now seen, now lost among the pillars; while the larger portion, who had been as it were surprised by their emotion into a momentary taciturnity, were hastily forming into groups, and beginning, in whispered accents, to converse with that eagerness and vivacity which so peculiarly characterise their nation. But soon, above those murmuring sounds, the full deep-toned voice of the preacher struck the ear, when suddenly all was again hushed to silence. Slow and solemn he opened his discourse; but, as he proceeded, his features became gradually more animated; his dark deep eloquent eye kindling as he spoke, and throwing momentary radiance over his wan and haggard countenance, while the round mellow tones of the Italian language gave the finest energy to his expressions. With frequent pauses, but with increasing power, he continued his discourse; his voice now low and solemn, now grand and forcible, but still with moderated and ever-varied accents, which worked on the feelings, at one moment producing the chill of strong emotion, and then, as he changed his tone, melting the heart to tenderness. The object of his sermon and self-imposed mission was to gain votaries, and win them to a monastic life, by portraying the dangers, the turbulence, and the sorrows of the worldly, contrasted with the peaceful serenity of the heaven-devoted mind. Occasionally, as if warmed by a prophetic spirit, with an air now imploring and plaintive, now wild and triumphant, with animated gesture and tossing of the arms, alternately pointing to heaven and to the shades below, he seemed as if he would seduce, persuade, or tear his victim from the world. The powers of his voice and action gave an indescribable force to his language, carrying away the minds of his auditors with a rapidity that left no pause for reflection. The sombre chastened light of day bringing forward some objects in strong relief, and leaving others in shade, the peculiar aspect of the monk, the magic influence which seemed to hang on his words and lend force to his eloquence, gave to the whole scene a character at once singular and striking.”

John Bell was below middle stature, of good figure, active, with regular features, keen penetrating eyes, and highly intellectual expression. His widow says of him: “To a classical taste and knowledge of drawing (many of his professional designs being finely executed by his own hand) he joined a mind strongly alive to the beauties of nature. He would often, in his earlier years, yield to the enjoyment they produced, and, wandering among the wild and grand scenery of his native land, indulge his imagination in gazing on the rapid stream or watch the coming storm. Such habits seem to have tended, in some measure, to form his character; training him especially to independence in judgment, and perseverance in investigation, that led him to seek knowledge, and boldly publish his opinions. With warm affections and sanguine temper, he looked forward with the hope that his labours and reputation would one day assuredly bring independence; and meanwhile, listening only to the dictates of an enthusiastic nature, and yielding to the impulse of feeling, he would readily give his last guinea, his time, and his care, to any who required them. Judging of others by himself, he was too confiding in friendship, and too careless in matters of business; consequently from the one he was exposed to disappointment, and from the other involved in difficulties and embarrassments which tinged the colour of his whole life.”

FOOTNOTES:

[11] “Letters on the Education of a Surgeon,” by John Bell, 1810.

[CHAPTER V.]
WILLIAM AND JOHN HUNTER AND THE APPLICATIONS OF ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGY TO SURGERY.

It is somewhat surprising that anatomy, the necessary basis of a sound treatment of the human body in disease, should have so long remained comparatively uncultivated in this country as a practical art, after Harvey had led the way and shown how brilliant discoveries might be made by dissection. Continental schools certainly put to shame early English efforts in anatomy: and it would appear not easy to establish in England any new study, unless the subject is one from which large pecuniary profits may immediately be anticipated—in which enterprise there can be no sort of merit. When a man has attained some reputation as an anatomist or physiologist, all the efforts of British society seem to be directed towards taking him away from that pursuit of which he has proved himself an ornament, and converting him into a man whose business it is to cure private ailments, thereby preventing him but too successfully, in most instances, from pursuing that for which he has shown conspicuous talent. Thus we find Cheselden, whose publication of an Anatomy of the Human Body, in 1713, and Osteography in 1733, had shown great anatomical ability, was carried into a large private practice. And William Hunter, the founder of the first great anatomical museum, was diverted from his proper studies to become an obstetrician, in order to obtain money for his special objects.

William Hunter, whose name has been previously mentioned in our account of Cullen, was born on May 23, 1718, at Kilbride, Lanarkshire, being the seventh of ten children of John and Agnes Hunter. At fourteen he was sent to Glasgow for his education, remaining there five years, it being his father’s wish that he should enter the Church. Imbibing liberal opinions, he soon became averse to this proposal, and his intimacy with Dr. Cullen determined his thoughts towards medicine. In 1737 he became Cullen’s resident pupil at Hamilton, and remained with him three years. It was then agreed that he should go and study medicine at Edinburgh and London, and afterwards return to Hamilton to a partnership with his master. Their mutual attachment was lifelong.

The winter of 1740-1 was spent by William Hunter at Edinburgh, where Monro primus was then teaching anatomy. The following summer he went to London, and obtained the position of assistant to Dr. Douglas, who was then engaged on a great book on osteology, which he did not live to complete, the education of Dr. Douglas’s son being also placed in his charge. He considered this offer so inviting that he remained in London, although it was contrary to the wishes of his now aged father, who thought the arrangement with Dr. Cullen preferable. The father died on the 30th October following, aged 78.

The young man soon became expert in dissection, and he entered as a surgeon’s pupil at St. George’s Hospital. His prospects were soon after clouded by the death of Dr. Douglas, but his residence in the family was not interrupted. As early as 1743 he communicated to the Royal Society a paper on the Structure and Diseases of Articulating Cartilages; and thereafter was occupied in preparing to commence teaching anatomy. His opportunity came in 1746, when Mr. Samuel Sharpe gave up a course of lectures on surgery, which he had been delivering to a society of navy surgeons in Covent Garden, and recommended William Hunter in his place. His lectures were found so satisfactory that they asked him to extend his course to anatomy. He had great timidity in lecturing at first, but soon gained confidence. One of his pupils who accompanied him home after his introductory lecture, relates that he carried his fees for the course, amounting to seventy guineas, in a bag under his cloak, and that he remarked that it was a larger sum than he had ever been master of before. The profits of these courses he expended in no niggardly spirit, to a large extent in befriending others, and he was consequently unable to begin his next season’s lectures at the proper time, owing to lack of means to advertise their commencement. He learnt a salutary lesson by this delay, for he found that by so far straining his resources he had only encouraged the idleness of his friends. This made him for the future cautious of lending money, and more economical than before, and may be said to have laid the foundation of his fortune.

In 1747 William Hunter was admitted a member of the College of Surgeons, and in the spring took a continental journey, in which he met Albinus at Leyden. Although he commenced practice as a surgeon, he gradually discontinued it when he began to succeed as an accoucheur, being appointed surgeon-accoucheur to both the Middlesex Hospital and the British Lying-in Hospital. His conciliating manners and pleasing address contributed to make him popular in this branch of practice. In 1750 he obtained the degree of M.D. from the University of Glasgow, and about the same time ceased to reside with Mrs. Douglas, and went to Jermyn Street, so long associated with the Hunters. In 1751 he visited his home at Long Calderwood, Kilbride, and gratified his affection for Dr. Cullen, who had now become established at Glasgow. As Cullen was one day riding with him, he pointed out to Hunter how conspicuous Long Calderwood was from a distance, when the latter replied with energy, “Well, if I live, I shall make it still more conspicuous.” This, however, was his only visit to his native place after his settling in London.

William Hunter joined the College of Physicians in 1755, and the Medical Society about the same time. His “History of an Aneurism of the Aorta,” appears in the first volume published by that Society, in 1757. In regard to aneurisms he had made many original observations, such as to place the subject in a totally new aspect. Several papers he contributed to this Society bear directly on problems of interest in midwifery and the diseases of women.

It was in 1762 that the first edition of the “Medical Commentaries” appeared, in which Monro secundus was severely attacked for having claimed as his own discoveries which William Hunter had, years before, promulgated at his lectures. It is to be regretted that in regard to these very matters, as well as others, disputes afterwards arose between William Hunter and his brother John, who it appears had made at least some of these discoveries, while engaged as assistant to his brother. In respect of a number of these, the elder brother gave credit to his junior both when lecturing and in his publications; in regard to others, the elder gave no credit at all when John conceived himself entitled to much, or all, of the praise of originality. Both brothers were strikingly sensitive as to their claims to originality, and William Hunter on several occasions seems to have regarded a new demonstration as his property because made in his dissecting-room, though not by himself. Yet we find it recorded that in the winter 1762-3, when the brothers had separated, William Hunter would frequently say in his lectures: “In this I am only my brother’s interpreter”—“I am simply the demonstrator of this discovery; it was my brother’s.” We must recur to this subject later, merely mentioning now, that John Hunter acted as his brother’s assistant and dissected for him from 1748, and that from 1755 to 1760 a certain portion of the lectures was delivered by him; in 1760 they separated.

There is no question that in general education, in manners, in delivery, in all that makes the successful lecturer and the attractive practitioner, William Hunter greatly excelled his brother. Dr. Baillie has said of him, “No one ever possessed more enthusiasm for his art, more persevering industry, more acuteness of investigation, more perspicuity of expression, or indeed, a greater share of natural eloquence. He excelled very much any lecturer whom I have ever heard in the clearness of his arrangements, the aptness of his illustrations, and the elegance of his diction.” If it were not for the tenacity with which he pursued controversial topics, and his unfortunate disagreement with his brother, there would be nothing to mar the pleasurable nature of the picture of William Hunter. The way in which he himself viewed this side of his character may be gathered from the following extract from the Supplement to his Medical Commentaries, published in 1777.

“It is remarkable, that there is scarce a considerable character in anatomy, that is not connected with some warm controversy. Anatomists have ever been engaged in contention. And indeed, if a man has not such a decree of enthusiasm, and love of the art, as will make him impatient of unreasonable opposition, and of encroachments upon his discoveries and his reputation, he will hardly become considerable in anatomy, or in any other branch of natural knowledge.

“These reflections afford some comfort to me, who unfortunately have been already engaged in two public disputes. I have imitated some of the greatest characters, in what is commonly reckoned their worst part: but I have also endeavoured to be useful; to improve and diffuse the knowledge of anatomy: and surely it will be allowed here, that if I have not been serviceable to the public in this way, it has not been for want of diligence, or love of the service.

“It has likewise been observed of anatomists, that they are all liable to the error of being severe on each other in their disputes. Perhaps from being in the habit of examining objects with care and precision, they may be more disgusted with rash assertions, and false reasoning. From the habit of guarding against being deceived by appearances, and of finding out truth, they may be more than ordinarily provoked by any attempt to impose upon them; and for anything that we know, the passive submission of dead bodies, their common objects, may render them less able to bear contradiction.”

It would have been pleasing if we could have related that William Hunter allowed supreme merit to any one anatomist or physiologist who preceded him. But we find him saying about Harvey: “In merit, Harvey’s rank must be comparatively low indeed. So much had been discovered by others, that little more was left for him to do, than to dress it up into a system; and that, every judge on such matters will allow, required no extraordinary talents. Yet, easy as it was, it made him immortal. But none of his writings show him to have been a man of uncommon abilities.” Dr. Hunter must surely have been aware that this was carping criticism, for on a preceding page he had spoken of Harvey as a first-rate genius for sagacity and application.

The years after his brother’s secession brought Dr. Hunter to the summit of professional success. His obstetric knowledge and skill were known to be so great that he was called in to consultation respecting the Queen in 1762. Two years later he was appointed physician extraordinary to her majesty. His increasing engagements soon left him little time for his dissecting-room and lectures, and he engaged as assistant one of his pupils, William Hewson, and afterwards took him into partnership in his lectures. But this connection was severed, owing to disputes, in 1770, and Hewson commenced lecturing on his own account, and achieved great success, which was cut short, however by his early death from fever in 1774. Cruickshank was his successor with Dr. Hunter, and continued his partner till the death of the latter.

In 1768, the year after his election into the Royal Society, William Hunter was appointed the first Professor of Anatomy to the newly-founded Royal Academy, and he entered upon this field of work with great vigour, applying his anatomical knowledge to painting and sculpture with his usual success. On the death of Dr. Fothergill he was elected President of the Society of Physicians, now the Medical Society of London.

The most remarkable work which William Hunter published was a great series of folio plates of the Human Gravid Uterus, begun in 1751, and published in 1775. In the dedication of this work to the King he acknowledged that in most of the dissections he had been assisted by his brother, “whose accuracy in anatomical researches is so well known,” he says, “that to omit this opportunity of thanking him for that assistance would be in some measure to disregard the future reputation of the work itself.” But this acknowledgment did not content John Hunter, who claimed the original merit of most of the discoveries his brother announced, and communicated a full account to the Royal Society in 1780, five years after his brother’s work was published. At the next meeting of the Society William Hunter replied to his brother’s claims, and John rejoined. The consequence was that the Society published nothing on the subject, but retained the papers of both in manuscript. The anatomical description of William Hunter’s plates was completed by his nephew, Dr. Baillie, and published in 1794.

A still more important work, as regarded costliness, was the formation of the museum, which still remains for the benefit of students as the Hunterian Museum in Glasgow University. Economical from the first, as regarded his personal expenses, William Hunter, after laying aside a sufficient sum to provide for old age or sickness, applied his thoughts to the foundation of an anatomical school in London. During Mr. Grenville’s administration, in 1765, he petitioned him for the grant of a piece of ground on which to build an anatomical theatre, undertaking to spend £7000 on the building, and to endow a permanent professorship of anatomy. It can hardly be believed that such a munificent offer was rejected; but it was the middle of the eighteenth century, and the government pension to Dr. Johnson was probably considered the utmost stretch of public countenance to learning and science. Lord Shelburne, it is true, expressed a wish that Dr. Hunter’s proposal might be carried out by means of a general subscription, and offered himself to contribute a thousand guineas. But William Hunter was not the man to depend for the execution of his projects upon an appeal of this kind, and he consequently purchased a plot of ground in Great Windmill Street, near the Haymarket, where he built a suitable house for his own residence, with a lecture-theatre, dissecting-rooms, and a handsome room for a museum. To this he removed in 1770 from Jermyn Street. He had already a very large collection of human, comparative, and morbid anatomy, which he continued to augment. He purchased all the best collections of morbid and other anatomical specimens that were offered for sale, such as those of Sandys, Falconer (which included Hewson’s), and Blackall. To these were added numerous specimens of rare diseases, presented to him by medical friends and pupils. We discern the light in which he viewed these gifts by the following statement in one of his publications: “I look upon everything of this kind which is given to me as a present to the public, and consider myself as thereby called upon to serve the public with more diligence.” And the museum was always open to the many visitors who were attracted by its fame.

Dr. Hunter’s tastes expanded. He collected fossils, rare books, and coins. Dr. Harwood described his library as including the most magnificent treasure of Greek and Latin books that had been accumulated by any person then living. The anatomist even discovered a bibliographical novelty in comparing two copies of the Aldine edition of Theocritus, which he found to present material differences, though representing the same edition. The collection of coins in this museum was of such value and importance that an illustrated quarto was devoted to the description of a portion of them by William Combe. The preface gives an account of the progress of the collection, which had now cost no less than twenty thousand pounds.

Another important addition was made to the museum in 1781 in the shape of Dr. Fothergill’s collection of shells, corals, and other natural history specimens. Dr. Fothergill’s will directed that William Hunter should have the first refusal of the museum at five hundred pounds less than its value as ascertained by appraisement, and Dr. Hunter eventually made the purchase for twelve hundred pounds.

This noble museum was left by his will, not to his brother John, but to his nephew Dr. Baillie, and in case of his death to Mr. Cruickshank, for thirty years, at the end of which time the collection was to go to the University of Glasgow. Dr. Baillie, however, handed it over to Glasgow before the time specified. Eight thousand pounds was also left to keep up and increase the collection.

Dr. Hunter never retired from practice, although much tormented by gout in his later years. He thought at one time of settling down somewhere in Scotland, when suffering more than usual from ill-health, but having found the title of an estate offered him to be defective, and also having to provide for his constantly increasing museum expenses, he laid aside his intention. He continued most persevering both in his practice and in his lectures, notwithstanding his augmented sufferings, until on the 15th of March 1783 he was almost prostrated. On the 20th, however, he would deliver his lecture introductory to the operations of surgery, notwithstanding the dissuasions of his friends. Towards the end of his lecture he fainted, and had to be carried to bed by two servants. In the following night he had an attack of partial paralysis, from which he did not rally. During his illness he said to his friend, Mr. Combe, “If I had strength enough to hold a pen, I would write how easy and pleasant a thing it is to die.” His brother John was admitted to see and attend him on his deathbed, and no hint of disagreement on these occasions is given. William Hunter died on the 30th March 1783, in his sixty-fifth year, and was buried at St. James’s Church, Piccadilly.

William Hunter was of an elegant figure, slender, and rather below the middle height. The portrait of him by Sir Joshua Reynolds adorns the Hunterian Museum at Glasgow. An unfinished painting by Zoffany represents him in the attitude of lecturing on the muscles at the Royal Academy, surrounded by academicians. Hunter’s portrait is the only completed part. It was presented to the College of Physicians by Mr. Bransby Cooper in 1829.

We hear of no matrimonial projects at any time on William Hunter’s part. He was wedded to his museum, his profession, his lectures. He lived a frugal life, eating little food, and that plainly prepared; rising early, and being always at work. When he invited friends to dine with him, he seldom provided more than two courses, and he often said, “A man who cannot dine on one dish deserves to have no dinner.” A single glass of wine was handed after dinner to each guest. Some accused him of parsimony. The truth is that he did not relish the amusements and luxuries in which most people indulge, but he was by no means parsimonious as to the pursuits in which he found real pleasure. His biographer, Dr. Foart Simmons, says: “There was something very engaging in his manner and address, and he had such an appearance of attention to his patients when he was making his inquiries as could hardly fail to conciliate their confidence and esteem. In consultation with his medical brethren, he delivered his opinions with diffidence and candour. In familiar conversation he was cheerful and unassuming. All who knew him allow that he possessed an excellent understanding, great readiness of perception, a good memory, and a sound judgment.”

Dr. Hunter made no bequest to his brother John; but he knew that the latter was well established and successful. Still, his bequest of the family estate at Long Calderwood to his nephew, Dr. Baillie, appears not to have been altogether satisfactory to the latter, who handed it over to his uncle John. Dr. Hunter left an annuity of £100 to his sister, Mrs. Baillie, for life, and £2000 to each of her daughters. Dr. Baillie was his residuary legatee.

The name of John Hunter recalls the glories of a great medical school, the labours of an indefatigable dissector, the skill of a brilliant operating surgeon, and the formation of the noblest of the Hunterian museums, that of Lincoln’s-Inn-Fields, the richest heritage of the London College of Surgeons. The youngest son of the same parents as William Hunter, John was the child of his father’s old age, the latter approaching seventy at John’s birth on February 13th, 1728. The father died when John was ten years old, and his mother appears to have been extremely indulgent to her youngest child, and so little controlled his desires for amusements that he left the local grammar-school almost destitute of classical knowledge, which formed, of course, the staple instruction there imparted. The imperfection of his general early education was a painful drawback to John Hunter all his life.

There is no doubt that when about seventeen John went to Glasgow on a visit to his sister, Mrs. Buchanan, whose husband, a cabinet-maker, was failing to get on in business, owing to his musical and social qualities. How far John took part in the business is not recorded, but it is likely that he owed much of his mechanical skill to what he learnt at the shop, which seemed to stick to him much more closely than any book-learning. Finding his efforts to relieve his sister from her difficulties ineffectual, he returned home to Long Calderwood. Mrs. Buchanan died in 1749.

We have extremely little knowledge of the workings of John Hunter’s mind in his youth, or how far he was conscious of the great talents that were awaiting the appropriate incentive. His being much given to country amusements is all that we know. At length he tired of having no profession, and his brother William’s success attracted him to London. He begged that he might pay a visit to him, and be his assistant in anatomy, if possible. The request being acceded to, John arrived in London in September 1748, was at once set to work upon a dissection of the muscles of the arm to illustrate his brother’s lectures, and succeeded beyond expectation. He was now established in his brother’s dissecting-room in the winter, and in the summer attended Chelsea Hospital under Cheselden. It was evident that John had found an occupation suited to his capabilities, and in his second season he was placed in full charge of the pupils in the dissecting-room, while Dr. Hunter almost confined himself to his lectures. In 1751 John became a pupil at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, where Percival Pott was then a leading surgeon. In 1754 he was entered as a surgeon’s pupil at St. George’s Hospital, where a chance of a surgeoncy was more likely than at St. Bartholomew’s. In 1756 he was for some months house-surgeon at St. George’s.

Between these two last dates he became temporarily resident at Oxford, where his name was put down at St. Mary’s Hall, June 5, 1755. Probably the idea was that he should become a physician, taking an Oxford degree in medicine; but he was in no humour “to stuff Latin and Greek at the University;” and he never conquered his aversion to classics. Long afterwards he wrote: “Jesse Foot[12] accuses me of not understanding the dead languages; but I could teach him that on the dead body which he never knew in any language dead or living.” The last entry of charges for battels against John’s name in the buttery-book of St. Mary’s Hall occurs on July 25, 1755, so that he probably resided less than two months. His name was kept on the books, however, till December 10, 1756.

The only variation we hear of in his constant round of work was a visit John paid to his home in 1752. In 1755 John was admitted to a certain degree of partnership in Dr. Hunter’s lectures; besides undertaking a definite part of the course, he was to supply his brother’s place when absent on professional engagements. This was a serious source of discomfort; the younger Hunter’s defective education here became prominent. We may take a description of his style of lecturing at a later period from his avowed enemy, Foot, but it will be well to deduct one half from it as the product of animosity. “In the beginning, these lectures were written on detached pieces of paper; and such was the natural confusion of his mind, that he would be frequently found incapable of explaining his own opinions, from his notes; and after having in vain tried to recall the transitory ideas, now no longer floating in the mind, nor obedient to the will—after having in vain rubbed up his face, and shut his eyes, to invite disobedient recollection—he would throw the subject by, and take up another.”

Meanwhile, passing laborious days in the dissecting-room, John was becoming a more perfect anatomist than his brother, and began making discoveries on his own account, some of which William demurred to at first, but usually accepted and brought forward in his lectures, giving John credit for them. Among other discoveries of this time may be mentioned that of the ramifications of the nerves of smell in the nose, the unravelling of branches of the fifth nerve, previously unknown, the tracing of the arteries in the gravid uterus, and the existence of lymphatic vessels in birds. Other discoveries made by John Hunter are described in William Hunter’s Medical Commentaries. But it soon appeared that the younger brother felt he did not receive a due share of praise and acknowledgment of his labours, while the elder considered every discovery made in his dissecting-room as more or less his property. John continued to dissect “with an ardour and perseverance of which there is hardly any example. His labours were so useful to his brother’s collection, and so gratifying to his disposition, that although in many other respects they did not agree, this simple tie kept them together for many years” (Sir E. Home).

John gradually became led into the study of comparative anatomy, from finding that structures which were complex in the human subject were simpler in animals, or different in plan, in both cases throwing light on human anatomy and physiology. Thus he made dissections of all the commoner animals, and always preserved the parts which interested him. He soon passed beyond the ordinary range, and made acquaintance with the keeper of the Tower menagerie, that he might obtain the bodies of such animals as died there. Similarly he even would purchase animals when alive, from travelling showmen, simply requiring them to bring him their bodies whenever they happened to die. He bought all rare animals that came in his way: others were presented to him by friends, and thus an ample supply of material was secured.

There is some obscurity about the reasons which induced the younger brother in 1760 to accept an appointment as staff-surgeon in the army, joining the expedition to Belleisle in 1761. There is not much doubt, however, that his health had suffered, and that a foreign voyage and residence were calculated to restore him. In 1762 he was employed with the army in Portugal, and in this experience laid the foundation of his knowledge of military surgery. During this expedition he neglected no opportunity of forwarding his studies in comparative anatomy and physiology. Thus when at Belleisle, in order to discover whether animals in a state of hibernation could digest food, he introduced worms and pieces of meat into the stomachs of lizards, and kept them under observation in a cool place. He found the substances so introduced remained perfectly undigested. So in 1762, near Lisbon, he tested the hearing of fishes by observing the effect of the report of a gun upon the inhabitants of a nobleman’s fish-pond.

Retiring from the army after the peace of 1763, John Hunter found his place in his brother’s dissecting-room occupied by Mr. Hewson, a most capable dissector and lecturer. Hence he had no option but to depend on his own exertions, and he started in London practice as a surgeon in Golden Square. He found that practice came but slowly, and formed a class for the study of anatomy and practical surgery to add to his income. This, too, never proved nearly so remunerative as his brother’s lectures, owing to John’s defects of style and expression already mentioned. His success in practice was also retarded by his refusal or failure to employ any of the arts or tact needed to gain personal popularity. Although he was a good convivial companion, at any rate in his earlier days, any festive enjoyment was always subordinated to his zeal for a new specimen or a rare case, from which he could learn something. He would take any trouble, or go any distance, with these ends in view; while his feeling about an ordinary case may be gathered from a remark to his attached friend, Lynn, as he laid aside his dissecting instruments—“Well, Lynn, I must go and earn this d--d guinea, or I shall be sure to want it to-morrow.” Mere fashionableness Hunter could not tolerate. Dr. Garthshore, a physician of the old school, always formal, polite, and well dressed, accosting him one day in his dissecting-room with his usual empressement, “My d-e-a-r John Hunter,”—was astonished to hear the mocking reply, “My d-e-a-r Tom Fool.” The busy dissector was not likely to value highly the formalities of the courtly doctor, who as a contemporary remarks, “occasionally looked in, wound up his watch, and fell asleep.”

Finding his collection of live animals grow beyond his means of providing for them in town, Hunter purchased a considerable piece of ground at Earl’s Court, then about two miles outside London, and built upon it a house with a lawn behind it, upon and around which he kept a collection of curious variety, and sometimes under comparatively slight control, in order that their habits might the more readily be watched. On one occasion two leopards got loose, and one was scaling the boundary wall, while the other was engaged in combat with dogs, when Mr. Hunter, unarmed, went out and seized them both and replaced them in their outhouse; an act of courage which, when it was over, nearly caused him to faint.

In 1767 an accident by which Mr. Hunter ruptured his tendo Achillis, whether while dancing, or in getting up from the dissecting-table after being cramped by long sitting, is not certain, occasioned him to study carefully the process by which ruptured tendons are healed. His method of treating himself was to keep the heel raised, and to compress the muscle gently with a roller, thus preventing any spasmodic contraction. He divided the same tendon in several dogs, killing them subsequently at different periods to examine the progress and nature of the repair; and his experiments and specimens were the origin of the present practice of cutting through tendons for the relief of distorted and contracted joints.

In the same year, 1767, Mr. Hunter was elected into the Royal Society, before his brother—an evidence that his eager investigations were already making him well known to men of inquiring minds. At a later period he was one of the originators of meetings at a coffee-house to discuss papers before their submission to the Society generally. In 1768 he became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons, and in the same year, supported by his brother’s interest, he was elected surgeon to St. George’s Hospital by 114 to 42 votes. He was now in a position in which more patients were at his disposal for experimental or novel modes of treatment, and in which he could take resident pupils on advantageous terms. In 1770 his brother’s removal to his new premises in Great Windmill Street, led to John’s transfer to his brother’s late house in Jermyn Street, where he found much more ample accommodation for his work than he had hitherto possessed. Here among his earliest pupils was Dr. Jenner, who was an enthusiastic disciple, and whom Mr. Hunter would gladly have permanently associated with him. He kept up a continual and intimate correspondence with him throughout life, often asking Dr. Jenner for information on questions of natural history.

Soon after his removal to Jermyn Street, namely, in July 1771, Mr. Hunter married Anne, eldest daughter of Mr. Robert Home, an army surgeon, father of his subsequent pupil and associate, Sir Everard Home. He had been engaged to Miss Home for some years, but financial reasons had hitherto postponed the marriage. Mrs. Hunter had artistic, literary, and musical tastes, which to some extent, by their expense, trenched on her husband’s scientific objects. She is remembered as the author of the words of a number of Haydn’s English canzonets, including the celebrated one, “My mother bids me bind my hair.” Mr. Hunter sometimes found that his wife’s friends were too fashionable or frivolous for his taste, and occasionally his irritation got the better of his manners. It is related that once, returning late in the evening after a wearisome day’s work, he unexpectedly found his drawing-room filled with gay company, walked straight into the room, and addressed the assembly in these terms: “I knew nothing of this kick-up, and I ought to have been informed of it beforehand; but as I am now returned home to study, I hope the present company will now retire:” a hope speedily realised. Hunter much preferred the weekly social assemblies at which his scientific friends were welcomed, and where the conversation was pointed and informing. Still there is no ground for reflecting on the general happiness of Mr. Hunter’s married life. Of his two children who survived infancy, he often said that if he had been allowed to bespeak a pair of children, they should have been those with which Providence had favoured him. His wife survived him till 1821, when she died in her 79th year.

Early in 1771 Mr. Hunter published his first work of any magnitude, the first part of his “Treatise on the Natural History of the Human Teeth,” which long continued a standard work, largely appropriated by subsequent writers. The second part, treating of the diseases of the teeth, did not appear till 1778. In 1772 he made his mark at the Royal Society by his celebrated paper on the digestion of the stomach after death, which he attributed to the action of the gastric juice upon the dead tissues. His stores of knowledge and learning were afterwards made evident by many papers in the “Philosophical Transactions,” of which the principal were those on the torpedo (1773), on the air receptacles of birds, and on the Gillaroo trout, 1774; the production of heat by animals and vegetables, 1775; the recovery of persons apparently drowned, 1776; the communication of smallpox to the fœtus in utero, 1780; the organ of hearing in fishes, 1782; the specific identity of the wolf, jackal, and dog, and on the structure and economy of whales, 1787; observations on bees, 1793; and on some remarkable caves in Bayreuth, and fossil bones found therein, 1794. The titles of these papers, however, convey but a very imperfect idea of the wide range of subjects treated in them. When he described a structure, he made it the starting-point of a dissertation, in the course of which he brought to bear all his vast stores of knowledge to establish general principles or to illustrate important points of physiology.

In the autumn of 1772 his brother-in-law, Everard Home, became his pupil. He describes Hunter’s museum at this time as already having an imposing magnitude. All the best rooms in the house were devoted to it, and it was continually being enlarged by his unremitting toil. From six, or earlier, till nine, when he breakfasted, Hunter dissected; after breakfast till twelve he was at home to patients. Punctuality he observed to a fault. He would leave patients at home in order to start punctually to his outside consultations, “for,” said he, “these people can take their chance another day, and I have no right to waste the valuable time of other practitioners by keeping them waiting for me.” He kept one book at home in which to enter these, and had an exact copy of it always in his waistcoat pocket: thus those at home by referring to the book could invariably find him. Once his former pupil, Cline, having to meet Hunter in consultation, made a second arrangement, unknown to Hunter, to take him to see another patient of his immediately after. Hunter’s outburst of passion at this unjustifiable disturbance of his arrangements for the afternoon was with difficulty appeased. His punctuality at dinner, at four, was equally settled, but he strictly ordered that dinner should be served whether he were at home or not. For many years he drank no wine, and sat but a short time at table, except when he had company; but he nevertheless pressed the guests to disregard his example. “Come, fellow,” said he, in his usual blunt way, to Mr., afterwards Sir William, Blizard, “why don’t you drink your wine?” The guest pleaded in excuse a whitlow, which caused him much pain. Hunter would not allow the validity of the plea, but continued to urge him and ridicule his excuse. “Come, come, John,” said Mrs. Hunter, “you will please to remember that you were delirious for two days when you had a boil on your finger some time ago.” This turned the laugh against Hunter, who ceased to importune his guest.

In addition to his own pre-eminent industry, Hunter was not without the most important talent of making others’ labours advance his ends. Thus for fourteen years he employed a very capable young artist named Bell, keeping him resident in his house, occupied in making drawings, and anatomical preparations, and generally in museum work. Bell was frequently called in also to act as Hunter’s amanuensis. After he left Mr. Hunter, in 1789, he became an assistant-surgeon under the East India Company, settling at Bencoolen, where his zoological studies were continued with much promise of great achievement; but, unfortunately for science, he died of fever in 1792.

In 1772 Hunter began to lecture on the theory and practice of surgery, at first to his pupils and a few friends admitted gratuitously, but afterwards on payment of a fee of four guineas. This may be accounted the first introduction into this country, perhaps to any, of the idea of principles of surgery, and the necessity of a rational explanation of processes of repair, and of a scientific basis for operations. Instead of a study of anatomy alone being required by a surgeon, he elevated pathology into its true position, and brought in all the aids with which physiology and comparative anatomy could at that time illuminate the subject. But in advance of any of these aids was his own clear insight, which penetrated to the core of a question, and often brought out truth which he could not himself explain, or only imperfectly. He never overcame his difficulty in lecturing; at the commencement of each course he always composed himself by a draught of laudanum. His lectures, delivered on alternate evenings from October to April, were given from seven to eight o’clock. His class was usually comparatively small, never exceeding thirty; but the quality of his audience was good, as may be gathered from its having included Astley Cooper, Cline, Abernethy, Carlisle, Chevalier, and Macartney. He never became an attractive lecturer; from deficiency in extempore speaking, he was compelled to read his lectures, and seldom raised his eyes from his manuscript. His manner was frequently ungraceful, but his matter was for the most part highly intelligible and luminous to those of his hearers who came prepared by thought and attainments to be really edified, while he was often unintelligible to those who had no practice in thinking for themselves and desired to keep clear of that odious pain. In his lectures he was equally unsparing towards his own and others’ errors, and he never clung to his own past opinions. “Never ask me,” he replied to a question, “what I have said or what I have written; but if you will ask me what my present opinions are, I will tell you.”

The following extract from Ottley[13] gives an interesting view of Hunter’s after-dinner habits. “After dinner he was accustomed to sleep for about an hour, and his evenings were spent either in preparing or delivering lectures, in dictating to an amanuensis the records of particular cases, of which he kept a regular entry, or in a similar manner committing to paper the substance of any work on which he chanced to be engaged. When employed in the latter way, Mr. Bell and he used to retire to the study, the former carrying with him from the museum such preparations as related to the subject on which Hunter was engaged: these were placed on the table before him, and at the other end sat Mr. Bell, writing from Hunter’s dictation. The manuscript was then looked over, and the grammatical blunders, for Bell was an uneducated man, corrected by Hunter. At twelve the family went to bed, and the butler, before retiring to rest, used to bring in a fresh Argand lamp, by the light of which Hunter continued his labours until one or two in the morning, or even later in winter. Thus he left only about four hours for sleep, which, with the hour after dinner, was all the time that he devoted to the refreshment of his body. He had no home amusements for the relaxation of his mind, and the only indulgence of this kind he enjoyed consisted in an evening’s ramble amongst the various denizens of earth and air which he had congregated at Earl’s Court.”

In January 1776 Mr. Hunter attained a court position, being appointed surgeon-extraordinary to the king. In the same year he became interested in the efforts of the Humane Society, and at its request drew up a paper for the Royal Society on the recovery of the apparently-drowned. Herein he makes a just distinction between absolute death and suspended animation, illustrates different modes of dying, and describes many signs of life and death. This year was also the first in which he delivered the Croonian lecture to the Royal Society, on muscular motion, a subject which he continued in successive years till 1782 (omitting 1777); but the lectures were never published, being, he said, too incomplete.

In the year 1773 Mr. Hunter suffered the first open onset of the disease which occasioned him such acute pain and distress for many years, in an attack of spasm accompanied by cessation of the heart’s action apparently for three quarters of an hour. During the attack, however, sensation and voluntary actions were kept up, and he was able to continue respiring by voluntary effort. In the next few years the attacks were somewhat rare; but from 1783 onwards he was subject to severe angina pectoris whenever mentally agitated. In 1777 a constant giddiness or vertigo seized him on account of his being called upon to pay a large sum of money for a friend for whom he had become security, at a time when it was exceedingly inconvenient to do so. This illness led him to visit Bath in the autumn, leaving Mr. Bell and Mr. Home to catalogue his museum. At Bath Dr. Jenner visited him and was surprised at his altered appearance, and here first diagnosed his case as dependent upon an organic affection of the heart: but he did not tell Hunter his diagnosis, fearing an injurious effect. Returning to town, and soon recovering his usual health and vigour, Mr. Hunter published in 1778 the second part of his Treatise on the Teeth, dealing with their diseases. In 1779 a paper contributed to the Royal Society on the hermaphrodite black cattle or free martin gave him occasion to describe hermaphroditism in general. In 1780 occurred the unfortunate controversy with his brother, in regard to the discovery of the utero-placental circulation, to which we have already referred. The estrangement which followed was extreme, and protracted till the elder brother lay on his deathbed. After his brother’s death, however, which occurred just at the conclusion of John Hunter’s course of lectures, when he had finished his lecture, he still seemed to have more to say; and at length, appearing as if he had just recollected something, he began, “Ho! gentlemen, one thing more: I need not remind you of ——: you all know the loss anatomy has lately sustained.” He was obliged to pause and turn his face from his hearers. At length recovering himself, he stated that Mr. Cruickshank would occupy the place of Dr. Hunter. This, and a few words more, were not spoken without great emotion, nor with dry eyes. The scene was so pathetic, that a general sympathy pervaded the class; and though all had been preparing to leave, they stood or sat motionless for several minutes.

The eagerness with which Mr. Hunter sought and appropriated all rarities is amusingly illustrated by his own remarks to Dr. Clarke, who had a preparation illustrating extra-uterine pregnancy, which Mr. Hunter often viewed with longing eyes. “Come, Doctor,” said he, “I positively must have that preparation.” “No, John Hunter,” was the reply, “you positively shall not.” “You will not give it me, then?” “No.” “Will you sell it?” “No.” “Well, then, take care I don’t meet you with it in some dark lane at night, for if I do, I’ll murder you to get it.” It is reported that a specimen which remains one of the most valued in the Hunterian Museum cost Mr. Hunter no less than £500 in 1783, namely, the skeleton of O’Brien, the Irish giant, seven feet seven inches high. It appears that O’Brien had heard of and dreaded the scalpel of the famous dissector, and took special precautions to frustrate his ends. He made an Irish league with several compatriots that his body should be taken to sea, and securely sunk in deep water; but Mr. Hunter, more subtle than the giant, had made a big bargain with the undertaker, who arranged that during the funeral progress towards the sea the coffin should be locked up in a barn while its guardians were drinking at a tavern. The corpse was speedily extracted, and a sufficient weight of stones substituted; and Hunter soon rejoiced in the possession of his prize, which he drove to Earl’s Court in his own carriage, and quickly converted into a skeleton.

In 1781 Mr. Hunter was called by the defence as a witness in the trial of Captain Donellan at Warwick Assizes for the murder of his brother-in-law, Sir Theodosius Boughton. In his evidence Mr. Hunter gave all that could justly be deduced from the facts known to him, but refused to speak positively as to the cause of death. Under cross-examination he became confused and hesitating, as was certain to be the case. This rather aroused the wrath of Mr. Justice Buller, who in his charge said, “I can hardly say what his opinion is, for he does not seem to have formed any opinion at all of the matter.” But Hunter’s caution was undoubtedly justifiable.

In 1783 the lease of the Jermyn Street house expired, and finding it difficult to accommodate his museum in any premises he could obtain, Mr. Hunter purchased the remainder of the lease, extending to twenty-four years only, of a house on the east side of Leicester Square, with ground extending on the rear to Castle Street, where there was a second smaller house. On the vacant ground Mr. Hunter determined to build a museum for his collection, including a large upper room fifty-two feet by twenty-eight, lighted from above, and having a gallery running round it. A lecture-room and other rooms were beneath. By the spring of 1785 this considerable undertaking was complete, absorbing all Hunter’s spare cash and costing him more than £3,000. But the museum, which was removed to it in April 1785, had by 1782 cost him £10,000 in addition to valuable presents, so that it cannot be said that the casket cost more than the jewels although being on so short a lease it was doubtless expensive. The museum in its new home became continually more celebrated, and was visited by many foreign anatomists of distinction, including Blumenbach, Camper, Scarpa, and Poli. At this period Hunter was at the height of his career; his mind and body were in full vigour; “his hands,” says Home, “were capable of performing whatever was suggested by his mind; and his judgment was matured by former experience.” There were diverse opinions about his skill as an operator, however; Astley Cooper did not consider him especially dexterous or elegant. Nevertheless his anatomical knowledge and great experience stood him in good stead, and he was almost always successful in completing his operations. It must be recollected, however, that special importance was, in pre-chloroform days, attached to speed, and in this Hunter did not excel. Indeed, to him, operating was a distasteful element in a surgeon’s curative efforts. “To perform an operation,” he would say, “is to mutilate a patient we cannot cure; it should therefore be considered as an acknowledgment of the imperfection of our art.”

The year of greatest success, however, was marked by a period of grave illness, with attacks of violent spasms of the heart, followed by syncope. These recurred on occasions of extra exertion, anxiety of mind, fits of temper, or even the fear lest an animal which he wished to secure might escape before a gun could be brought to shoot it. To this year (1785) we are indebted for the celebrated portrait of Hunter by Sir Joshua Reynolds, in the possession of the Royal College of Surgeons. He was a bad sitter, but Reynolds, dissatisfied with his progress, one day was gratified by seeing Hunter in deep reverie, with his head supported by his left hand. He at once turned his canvas upside down, and began to record that life-like face, which shows Hunter the philosopher in the true profundity of his nature. Sharp engraved this portrait, and it was one of his greatest successes.

The year 1785 was that in which Hunter first tied the femoral artery in a case of popliteal aneurism, and thus initiated one of the greatest modern improvements in surgery, relying upon the enlargement of the smaller communicating or collateral vessels to make up for the cessation of circulation through the principal vessel. This appears to have been suggested to him by an experiment on the mode of growth of deer’s antlers. Having been granted by the king the privilege of experimenting with the deer in Richmond Park, he tied one of the external carotid arteries supplying (inter alia) one of the half-grown antlers. The antler became cold, but after a week or two Hunter, to his astonishment, found that it had again become warm and was growing again. On a post mortem examination he discovered that this continued growth was due to the enlargement of small branches of the carotid above and below the wound, to an extent sufficient to restore the blood-supply in the antler. And by a stroke of genius Hunter saw that a similar process might be expected to occur in cases of aneurism, and supersede the then generally fatal methods of operating by means of amputation, or by directly evacuating the sac of the aneurism. The fourth patient Hunter performed the new operation upon lived for fifty years; a specimen illustrating the case is preserved in the Hunterian Museum.

In 1786, on the death of Middleton, Hunter received the appointment of deputy surgeon-general to the army; becoming in 1790, on the death of Mr. Adair, surgeon-general and inspector of hospitals. In 1786 he published his long-deferred work on the Venereal Disease, which, though printed and sold in his own house, met with a rapid sale, and proved a very valuable work. In the same year he collected a large number of his papers contributed to the Royal Society, together with others not previously published, into a quarto volume entitled, “Observations on certain Parts of the Animal Œconomy,” and thus placed his researches in imposing bulk before the general public. The Copley Medal of the Royal Society was awarded to Hunter in 1787 for his discoveries in natural history.