tale that has been told so often. Yet, we may extract something out of
the consideration of the times in which he lived, and the men by whom he
was surrounded. He was born at Folkestone, in 1578, and commenced his
travels at 19 years of age. What his previous education had been does
not appear, but we find him at the age of 24 elected Doctor of Medicine
at Padua—then the most famous University in the world. On his return to
England he received the honour of the degree of Doctor of Medicine at
Cambridge. James the First, and his son, Charles the First, favoured him
with their countenance, and in 1628 he was induced to publish an account
of his great discovery. As a matter of course he was at once denounced
as a visionary; personal abuse was unsparingly poured upon him; but as
the grand fact enunciated was not to be shaken, his enemies turned round
and discovered that, after all, it was not new, and had been the
doctrine of many eminent physicians from the earliest days. The old, old
story: the same sickening detraction—the same miserable envy rife in
every age and clime. Harvey died in 1658.
Shakespeare was 14 years old when Harvey was born, and the garrulous but
erudite Burton was about the same age, yet strange to say, the great
poet seems to have been unknown to the men of his own generation:
scholars knew nothing of poor players, and he who was born to delight
and instruct the future of mankind shone with but small lustre then.
The history of medicine in England now begins, although for some time
subsequently medical instruction was sought for in the schools of Italy,
France and Holland. The Reformation had swept away the monastic
institutions; but during the depressing middle ages, all the learning
that barbarism had spared took refuge in the cloister. The monks
practised physic very extensively, and considering the ignorance and
superstition of the period, it was natural that the vulgar should prefer
the medical assistance of those who arrogated to themselves the
immediate assistance of Heaven in the preparation of their remedies. The
women were especially fond of consulting the monks, if there be any
truth in the old epigram:—
“To Esculapian monks the good wives roam
What marvel, they have husbands sick at home.”
The alchymists again, like their lineal descendants in our days,
professed to have discovered the philosophers stone, and _universal
specifics_, and they were, as they are now, believed in proportion to
their presumption. The practice of medicine being chiefly engrossed by
empirics and monks, the latter very readily obtained licenses from the
Bishops of the various dioceses who had authority to examine candidates,
without having themselves any knowledge of the subjects in question,
beyond that acquired in their general education.
By the 5th Henry VIII., chap. vi., we find there were but twelve regular
Surgeons practising in all London, and about the same number of
Physicians.
The college of Physicians in London owes its foundation to Dr. Thomas
Linacre, of All Soul’s, Oxford, a man of profound learning, who had won
honours at Rome, Bologna, and Florence.
Linacre, through his interest with Wolsey, a wise and liberal patron of
learning, obtained, in 1518, letters patent from Henry the Eighth,
constituting a corporate body of regular Physicians in London. He was
elected the first president, and meetings were held at his house in
Knight Ryder Street until his death. With a munificence not without many
worthy imitators in our profession, as we shall presently point out, he
bequeathed this house to the College.
His successor in the presidential chair was one of those bright lights
who have contributed largely to the fame of medicine, in what I have
already called its social and scientific aspect, and therefore deserves
a passing notice. Dr. John Caius Kaye, of Gonville Hall, Cambridge, was
Court Physician to Edward the Sixth, and as he retained the favour of
Mary, after the demise of the pious young King, he procured from her a
license to advance Gonville Hall into a _College_ under the name of
Gonville and Caius College, on condition of enlarging the institution at
his own expense. In order to devote himself to this object, he resigned
the presidency of the College of Physicians, and completed his buildings
at Cambridge. The mansion of learning thus raised by his liberality,
became the retreat of his old age, and having given up the dignified
position of _Master_, with a disinterestedness equalled only by his
generosity, he continued to reside there as a gentleman commoner until
his death in 1573.
Harvey was elected president of the College of Physicians in 1654, but
excused himself on account of his age and infirmities. Such, however,
was his attachment to that body (best evinced by _donationes inter
vivos_), that in 1656, he made over his personal estate in perpetuity
for its use, having previously (on the occasion of the College being
removed from Knight Ryder Street to Amen Corner) built them a library
and public hall,[11] which he granted for ever to the corporation,
together with his own valuable collection of books and instruments.
Harvey’s grand result was the work of a quarter of a century of
unremitting toil. An admirer wrote:—
“There didst thou trace the blood, and first behold
What dreams mistaken sages coined of old.
For till thy Pegasus the fountain brake,
The crimson blood was but a crimson lake,
Which first from thee did tyde and motion gaine,
And veins became its channel, not its chaine.
With _Drake_ and _Ca’ndish_ hence thy bays are curl’d,
Fam’d circulator of the lesser world.”
He died in 1658.
-----
Footnote 11:
Now the site of Stationers’ Hall.
-----
I may here mention, that, after the fire of London, the College of
Physicians was rebuilt on a site in Warwick Lane, which, until the
erection there of the palatial residence of Guy of Warwick, the King
maker, was called Eldenesse Lane.
Sir Christopher Wren was the architect of the new College, and its
burnished dome gave Garth the opportunity of displaying his powers of
satire thus:—
“Witness a dome, majestic to the sight,
And sumptuous arches bear its oval height;
A golden globe, placed high, with artful skill,
Seems to the distant sight—a gilded pill.”
Amongst the remarkable men of Harvey’s time were Shakespeare, Bacon, Van
Helmont, and Sydenham, all of whom had personal intercourse with him; of
these we shall first notice Thomas Sydenham, who was born in 1624.
Boerhaave called him the second Hippocrates on account of his close
observation of the natural phenomena of disease, but he is too well
known to us to require any detailed description either of his method, or
of his general knowledge. The story of his reply to Dr. Blackmore, when
asked by him what books he should read, that “Don Quixote was a very
good book” has been erroneously supposed to express his contempt for
learning, but the joke was a personal one. Blackmore was a poet, and
Sydenham saw that the man who consulted him did not possess the stuff of
which doctors are made, he therefore referred him to the most lively
piece of writing then in existence, as furnishing fitter pabulum for a
poet, than the dry discussions of medical subjects could afford. To
describe the character of Sydenham, it would be necessary to call to our
aid the highest forms of panegyric; a good and honourable man, living in
harmony with his brethren, and as far as the troubled state of the
country would allow, in peace with all men. He lived to see the
revolution of 1688 accomplished, and his aspirations as a patriot being
thus gratified, he died in the following year.
Contemporary with Sydenham, we find the celebrated Sir Wm. Petty, the
founder of the Lansdowne family. He was the eldest son of Anthony Petty,
who, Aubrey the Antiquary tells us, was a clothier in Romsey. In his
early days he showed great liking for all mechanical operations, and at
twelve years of age had acquired considerable skill in carpentry and
smiths’ work. Educated at the free school of his native place, at the
age of fifteen he began his remarkable career as a self-helping man;
from his own account, we learn that he went over to Caen, in Normandy,
with a little stock of merchandise, and had such good success that out
of the profits he educated himself in the French tongue, and perfected
his knowledge of classics and mathematics. In his twentieth year he had
saved about three-score pounds, and acquired as much progress in
mathematics as any of his age: to his love of learning was joined the
desire to acquire wealth; he was at all times _practical_, and seems to
have held pecuniary advantage to be the most comprehensive form of the
practical. He tells us that when the civil wars between the King and
Parliament grew hot “I had _sixty pounds_ in money and went into the
Netherlands and France for three years, and vigorously pursued my
studies, especially that of medicine at Utrecht, Leyden, Amsterdam, and
Paris. I returned to Romsey with about _ten pounds more_ than I had
carried out of England.” In Paris, Petty made the acquaintance of
Hobbes, who retired early from the civil wars. Hobbes soon discovered
the capacity of his young friend, and read with him the Anatomy of
Vesalius. He entered at Brazennose College, Oxford, in April, 1648, and
took his degree there as Doctor of Physic, in March, 1649. The date of
his admission to the College of Physicians is 25 June, 1650. He had been
previously deputy to Doctor Thomas Clayton, Professor of Anatomy at
Oxford, who laboured under the singular disqualification of having an
insurmountable aversion to the sight of a mangled corpse. On the
resignation of Clayton in 1651, Petty became Anatomical Professor, and
about the same time he succeeded Dr. Knight in the Professorship of
Music in Gresham College. About the year 1645, the Royal Society was
formed, and Petty was one of the earliest members of the Oxford branch.
In 1652 he was appointed Physician to the Army in Ireland, which post he
retained for seven years, at a salary of twenty shillings a day, while
his practice produced him £400 a year more. His first great step to
wealth, however, arose from his dealings with the forfeited lands in
Ireland, and in a few years he managed his financial affairs so
skilfully that he acquired a rental of £18,000 a year; part of this he
was dispossessed of at the Restoration, as being unfairly obtained. He,
however, had still a large fortune at his command, and bought the Earl
of Arundel’s house and gardens in Lothbury, and erected thereupon the
buildings forming Tokenhouse Yard, which was partly destroyed by the
great fire. Petty had the tact to make his peace with the new
government, and became a favourite with Charles II., who knighted him,
and bestowed on him the place of Surveyor General for Ireland; and it is
said, by Aubrey, that he was created Earl of Kelmore, though he never
assumed the title. When the College of Physicians obtained its new
Charter his name was published in the list of Fellows, although he had
then resigned practice. The universality of his genius is clearly shewn
by the list of his published works. He was a man of a genial character
and handsome person:—“If he has a mind to it,” says Aubrey, “he will
preach extempore, either as a Presbyterian, Independent, or as a Capucin
friar, or Jesuit.” As a proof of his humour, when he was challenged to
fight by Sir H. Sankey, he told his opponent, that as his short sight
would not allow of the usual mode of warfare, he would meet him, if he
was so minded, in a dark cellar, each to have a carpenter’s axe for his
weapon: this the knight declined. He died in 1687 of a gangrene of the
foot, and was buried at Romsey, by the side of his father and mother:
there lie his remains, covered with a flat stone, on which an illiterate
workman has cut these words:—“_Here layes Sir William Pety._”
The part played by the Good-Wives and Ladies Bountiful in this age
deserves a passing notice, and we will make one or two quotations from
books especially devoted to their use. Thus: “To make Oil of
Swallows:—Take lavender cotton, spikenut grass, ribwort, and twenty
other simples, of each a handful, sage of virtue, camomiles and red
roses, of each two handsful, _twenty live_ swallows; beat all together
in a mortar, add a quart of neatsfoot oyl or May-butter, and mix. This
oyl is exceeding sovereign for any broken bones, bones out of joint, or
any grief of the sinews.”
“The ‘_Usnea Humana_’[12] described as a moss two lines long, grown on
the skulls of malefactors who have been a long time exposed to the air.
This little plant is found chiefly in England and Ireland, where the
bodies of men are left hanging in chains for many years after their
execution. It is of a volatile astringent nature, good for bleeding of
the nose, and of use internally for epilepsy.” The writer adds, “I have
seen in the apothecaries’ shops in London these skulls exposed with the
Usnea upon them.” Then again we have a whole tribe of “holy remedies”
and cabalistic charms, &c.
-----
Footnote 12:
Corroborative evidence of the esteem in which this remedy was held
will be found in Macaulay’s account of the death scene of Charles
II.:—“All the medical men of note in London were summoned. Several of
the prescriptions have been preserved; one of them is signed by
fourteen doctors. The patient was bled largely. Hot iron was applied
to his head. A loathsome volatile salt, _extracted from human skulls_,
was forced into his mouth.”
[This volatile salt is thus described in the Dictionares des Drogues:
Amsterdam, 1716. “L’Usnée humaine contient beaucoup de sel volatil et
d’huile; elle ne bouillonne point avec les acides.”]
-----
Hiera Picra and Solomon’s seal are used to this day. The charm for burns
is as follows:—“In the name of, &c. There came two angels from the East,
one brought fire, the other water; I command them both: out fire!! in
water!! and so I say _Amen_.” This is mumbled by the charmer, and the
sufferer is relieved without daring to doubt, for if he _doubts_ the
charm is destroyed. Warts and wens are disposed of by a similar process.
So much for the march of intellect; in its progress very much like the
military goose step.
A belief in the curative power of the Royal touch over scrofulous
affections continued to be universally held so late as the time of
William III. Shakespeare gives us an account of it in the tragedy of
Macbeth, which I have thought worth transcribing. In the 4th Act, Scene
3rd, a room in the King, of England’s palace:—
Enter a Doctor.
Malcolm. Comes the king forth, I pray you?
Doctor. Ay sir: There are a crew of wretched souls
That stay his cure. Their malady convinces
The great assay of art: but, at his touch,
Such sanctity hath heaven given his hand,
They presently amend. [Exit Doctor.
Macduff. What’s the disease he means?
Malcolm. ’tis called the Evil:
A most miraculous work in this good king;
Which often, since my here-remain in England,
I have seen him do. How he solicits heaven,
Himself best knows: but strangely-visited people;
All swoln and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye,
The mere despair of surgery, he cures;
Hanging a golden stamp about their necks,
Put on with holy prayers; and ’tis spoken,
To the _succeeding_ royalty he leaves
The healing benediction.
Macaulay gives us the following graphic account of the practice of
touching for the scrofula, as performed by that _most religious_ and
_gracious_ King Charles the Second.
“This ceremony had come down almost unaltered from the darkest of the
dark ages to the time of Newton and Locke. The Stuarts frequently
dispensed the healing influences in the Banqueting House. The days on
which this miracle was to be wrought were fixed at sittings of the Privy
Council, and were solemnly notified by the clergy in all the parish
churches of the realm. When the appointed time came, several divines in
full canonicals stood round the canopy of state. The surgeon of the
royal household introduced the sick. A passage from the sixteenth
chapter of the Gospel of St. Mark was read. When the words ‘They shall
lay their hands on the sick, and they shall recover’ had been
pronounced, there was a pause, and one of the sick was brought up to the
King. His Majesty stroked the ulcers and swellings, and hung round the
patient’s neck a white ribbon, to which was fastened a gold coin. The
other sufferers were then led up in succession; and, as each was
touched, the chaplain repeated the incantation, ‘They shall lay their
hands on the sick, and they shall recover.’ Then came the epistle,
prayers, antiphones and a benediction.... Theologians of eminent
learning, ability, and virtue gave the sanction of their authority to
this mummery; and, what is stranger still, medical men of high note
believed, or affected to believe, in the balsamic virtues of the royal
hand. We must suppose that every surgeon who attended Charles the Second
was a man of high repute for skill; and more than one of the surgeons
who attended Charles the Second, has left us a solemn profession of
faith in the King’s miraculous power.... We cannot wonder that, when men
of science gravely repeated such nonsense, the vulgar should believe it.
Still less can we wonder that wretches tortured by a disease over which
natural remedies had no power should eagerly drink in tales of
preternatural cures: for nothing is so credulous as misery. The crowds
which repaired to the palace on the days of healing were immense.
Charles the Second, in the course of his reign, touched near a hundred
thousand persons. The number seems to have increased or diminished as
the King’s popularity rose or fell.
“In 1682, he performed the rite eight thousand five hundred times. In
1684, the throng was such that six or seven of the sick were trampled to
death. James, in one of his progresses, touched eight hundred persons in
the choir of the Cathedral of Chester. The expense of the ceremony was
little less than ten thousand pounds a year, and would have been much
greater but for the vigilance of the royal surgeons, whose business it
was to examine the applicants, and to distinguish those who came for the
cure from those who came for the gold.” (_History of England, Vol. III.,
p. 478._)
William the Third gave great offence to the nonjurors by sneering at a
practice sanctioned by the highest ecclesiastical authorities; yielding
to importunity, he once consented to lay his hands on a patient, but his
good sense compelled him to exclaim:—“God give you better health and
more wisdom, my friend.”
Shortly after the death of Sydenham came Dr. Freind, who was born in
1675. Being a man of worth and learning, he soon acquired a leading
position in his profession, and having devoted himself early in life to
the study of politics, he was returned to Parliament as member for
Launceston, where, having warmly espoused the cause of the amiable
Atterbury, he fell under the censure of Walpole, who sent him to the
Tower on a charge of treason. This misfortune gave rise to one of the
finest instances of devotion, on the part of his friend Mead, that has
ever been recorded for the honour of human nature. Walpole was taken
seriously ill, and of course sent for Mead, who at that time was the
most popular physician. The doctor is reported to have addressed the
minister thus:—“You are very ill, Sir Robert, and I can cure you; but
one condition is indispensable. Dr. Freind has been in prison some
months, and my esteem for him is so great that I will not prescribe a
single thing for you until he is set at liberty.” Walpole hesitated, but
Mead was resolute, and at length the tyrant gave way. Freind was
released, and Mead when he paid his first visit of congratulation, took
with him a considerable sum of money, the produce of fees he had
received from Freind’s patients during his incarceration. Freind was a
voluminous writer, and compiled a history of medicine in which he
attacked some of the opinions of Leclerc, who had gone more extensively
and accurately into the subject.
Next in order, we must say a few words of Dr. Mead. Richard Mead was
born in 1673, at Stepney. Political troubles drove his father, who was
rector of the parish, into Holland, where this future ornament of the
medical profession was educated, at Utrecht, under Grœvius. He continued
his studies at Leyden, and travelling into Italy, took his degree of
doctor at Padua. On his arrival in England, whither his fame had
preceded him, the University of Oxford confirmed his title, and the
College of Physicians received him with applause, as did the Royal
Society (then but recently established.) He soon became the leading
practitioner of the day, and in course of time Physician to George the
Second. For more than half a century he attended at St. Thomas’s
Hospital, and is said to have suggested to Guy the foundation of the
hospital known by that name. A more noble, disinterested, and generous
man than Mead never lived. His emoluments were very large, and his
benevolence and hospitality kept pace with his income. It is stated that
no poor applicant ever left his door unrelieved.
“Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,
Heaven did a recompense as largely send.”
After a life of 80 years, he died full of honours, leaving his many
literary labors as monuments of his talents and industry.
The reign of Queen Anne has been called the Augustan age of literature
in England, and was in no less degree looked upon as the great day of
medical science. Amongst the literary men we have to name Swift,
Addison, Warburton, Pope, Steele, Parnell, Rowe, Gay, and others; and
amongst Physicians—Freind, Mead, Radcliffe, Cheselden, Arbuthnot, Garth,
&c. &c.
Radcliffe next comes under notice; he was a man cast in a rougher mould
than Mead. John Radcliffe was born at Wakefield, in Yorkshire, in 1650,
and educated at Oxford, where he became a Fellow of Lincoln College;
after a two years residence he resigned his Fellowship and devoted
himself to physic, removed to London, and settled in Bow-street, Covent
Garden. He was a man of ready wit, and great conversational powers, with
much pleasantry and frankness. In 1686 he was appointed physician to
Princess Anne of Denmark, and after the revolution was often consulted
by William the Third; the latter on his return from Holland sent for
Radcliffe, and shewing him his ankles swollen, and his body emaciated,
the doctor brusquely said, “Truly I would not have your Majesty’s two
legs for your three kingdoms.” This sally lost him the king’s favour,
nevertheless he still prospered, and sat in Parliament for the borough
of Buckingham.
In the last illness of Queen Anne, Radcliffe was sent for, but excused
his attendance on account of indisposition; the Queen died the next day,
and Radcliffe was greatly censured, which is said to have hastened his
own death, which took place three months after.
There is a story told of his quarrel with Sir Godfrey Kneller, the
celebrated painter. They were next door neighbours, and enjoyed a
certain garden in common. Kneller complained that Radcliffe took no care
that the door leading into this garden should be kept properly shut, and
sent a snappish message to the doctor, that if he were not more mindful
he would shut up the door and keep the key. Radcliffe’s answer was,
“Tell Sir Godfrey Kneller he may do what he likes with the door provided
he does not paint it.” Kneller retorted to this sarcasm, “Tell the
doctor I will take anything from him except his physic.”
I cannot find that Radcliffe ever published any work; but at his death
he left the munificent sum of £40,000 to the University of Oxford for
the formation of a public library of medical and philosophical science,
and a further considerable sum to provide for an annual augmentation of
books and instruments. Garth, in allusion to this bequest, remarked that
for Radcliffe to found a library was as if an Eunuch should establish a
Seraglio.