of Bolingbroke, the friend of Swift and Addison, and the patron of Pope,
he must have possessed great merit to have reached such a position. He
was born of a good family in Yorkshire: the date of his birth I have
been unable to discover, but he was admitted a Fellow of the College of
Physicians in 1693. Johnson classes him with the English Poets, and in
his description of him says, “He is always mentioned as a man of
benevolence, and it is just to suppose that his desire to help the
helpless disposed him with so much zeal to undertake the founding of a
dispensary:—Whether physicians have, as Temple says, _more_ learning
than the other faculties I will not stay to inquire, but I believe every
man has found in physicians great liberality and dignity of sentiment,
very prompt effusion of benevolence, and willingness to exert a
lucrative art, where there is no hope of lucre.”
Garth was an active and zealous Whig, and consequently familiarly known
to all the great men of that party; his orthodoxy was questioned, but it
was the fashion of the times to be a free thinker. Pope apostrophises
him in his second pastoral:—
“Accept, O! Garth, the muses early lays,
That add this wreath of ivy to thy bays.”
And again, in conjunction with Arbuthnot, in “the Farewell to London:”—
“Farewell Arbuthnot’s raillery
On every learned sot,
And Garth the best good Christian he
Although he knows it not.”
Pope’s favourite physician was Dr. John Arbuthnot, and never was
grateful affection better bestowed. He was the son of an Episcopal
clergyman in Scotland, born in 1675, and went through a course of
academical studies at Aberdeen, where he also took the degree of Doctor
of Physic. On his arrival in London he supported himself as a teacher of
mathematics, in which he was a great proficient, and became known to the
world of letters by his examination of Dr. Woodward’s “Account of the
Deluge,” and by an able treatise on the “Advantages of Mathematical
Learning.” The first book of the memoirs of “Martinus Scriblerus” has
also been attributed to him. An accident introduced him to Prince George
of Denmark, and led the way to his appointment as Physician to Queen
Anne; he retained the favour of the Court until the death of the Queen,
when, being more than suspected of Jacobite proclivities, he was
compelled to leave his quarters in St. James’s Palace, and retired to a
small house in Dover Street.
Pope dedicated to him the prologue to his satires, and thus gracefully
mentions him:—
“Friend to my life (which did not you prolong,
The world had wanted many an idle song.”)
The concluding stanzas are so full of tenderness that I venture to give
them:—
“Oh! friend, may each domestic bliss be thine,
Be no unpleasing melancholy mine,
Me, let the tender office long engage
To rock the cradle of reposing age,
With lenient arts extend a mother’s breath,
Make langour smile and smooth the bed of death.
Explore the thought, explain the asking eye,
And keep a while one parent from the sky!
On cares like these, if length of days attend,
May Heaven, to bless those days, preserve my friend,
Preserve him social, cheerful, and serene,
And just as rich as when he served a Queen.”
About the time of his preferment he made the acquaintance of the great
luminaries of art and learning, particularly Swift, (the mad parson as
he was first designated) Pope, Gay, Parnell, Atterbury, Congreve, &c.,
and greatly assisted, with his ready and witty pen, the ambitious
Bolingbroke.
What is greatly to his honour, in the midst of an age of scoffers, he
retained a deep sense of the importance of personal religion, and seems
to have lived in the affectionate esteem and remembrance of his friends;
Swift said of him, “Oh! if the world had a dozen Arbuthnots in it, I
would burn my travels” (Gulliver’s); and on another occasion expresses
himself thus, “Arbuthnot has more wit than all we have, and his humanity
is equal to his wit.”
For some time before his death he suffered from asthma and dropsy, and
bore his affliction with characteristic fortitude and resignation. He
died in 1734, leaving a son, who was one of Pope’s executors, and two
daughters.
Next to the illustrious Scotchman whom we have just dismissed, comes a
very worthy native of the Emerald Isle—Hans Sloane, the son of Alexander
Sloane, the head of a colony of Scotchmen, who, in the reign of James I.
settled in the north of Ireland. Hans was born at Killileagh, in the
year 1660. He very early showed a liking for Natural History, and on his
arrival in London attended lectures on Anatomy, Botany, and their
kindred sciences, and formed a close intimacy with Boyle and Ray. After
four years study he visited Paris and Montpellier, in which places he
took his degrees in Medicine. In 1684 he returned to London and
commenced practice, being a Fellow of the Royal Society and of the
College of Physicians. On the appointment of the Duke of Albemarle to
the government of Jamaica he accompanied that nobleman, and thus
acquired a rich addition to his Museum of Natural History. George the
First created him a Baronet, and on the death of Sir Isaac Newton, he
became President of the Royal Society—estimable as a man, and eminent in
science, he lived to a great age, and at his decease, bequeathed his
museum to the nation, conditionally on the sum of £20,000 being paid to
his executors for the benefit of his survivors: this sum bore no
proportion to the value of his collection, and as it laid the foundation
of the British Museum, it must ever be regarded as a patriotic and
generous act.
A curious illustration of the observant mind of Sir H. Sloane is
furnished by the fact of his having noticed that the natives of the West
Indian Islands, who eat much of the green fat of the turtle, perspired a
yellow oil; the explanation being that the true green fat of the turtle
is a green-coloured cellular tissue enclosing a yellow oil, which passes
through the system undigested. The anatomical data on which this
statement is advanced have been, at a comparatively recent period,
verified by actual experiments performed by the late Dr. Pereira,
assisted by our much esteemed former President, Dr. Daldy. It occurred
to my mind that this fact in dietetics might present a lesson of caution
to an audience peculiarly exposed, as citizens of London, to the
temptation of eating a material, which, however appetising, is incapable
of healthy assimilation.
In a sketch of such limited pretension we are compelled to pass over
names well deserving a niche in the temple of Esculapius:—every letter
of the alphabet furnishes its contingent. To many of the men, into whose
labours we have here entered, the civilised world is indebted for their
contributions to general literature, as well as to the science of
medicine; and in our endeavour to chronicle their importance, we can
never cease to admire the fertility of their talents, and the extent of
their industry in bringing to light so much useful knowledge out of the
scanty materials by which their enquiries were aided:—Akenside, Bacon,
Boyle, Blackmore, Cheselden, Darwin, Petty, Ray, among others, may be
noted as examples.
We have now reached the period at which legitimate medicine was
established in this country; and as my discourse has already exceeded
the assigned limits, it remains only to record our solemn tribute of the
affectionate remembrance we all entertain towards those members of our
society whose faces we shall so sadly miss in our next sessional
meetings. Constituted as our cherished society is, as a friendly
gathering of kindred spirits, actuated by mutual necessities, meeting as
brothers, knowing no rivalry but the desire to impart, each to other,
the results of our matured experience, it is with more than ordinary
grief that we bow submissively when Providence sees fit to lessen our
numbers by death.
But it is not we alone who have sustained a loss. The name of Barlow
will live for ages to come as the type of the scientific physician of
the nineteenth century. A man of cultivated intellect, of elegant mind
and blameless life, of calm judgment and exalted feeling, I look upon
his death as nothing less than a calamity to the whole medical
profession.
Too soon, alas! after him, we were shocked by the almost sudden removal
of the accomplished and genial Jeaffreson, endeared to his brethren by
those solid endowments which mark and govern the high minded
practitioner and amiable gentleman—no less than to the public by those
qualities that are inherent in a warm, kindly, and generous nature. And,
what then shall we say of our dear friend, Henry Blenkarne, so recently
carried to his rest. Who can ever forget his pure and simple nature, his
spotless life, and those endearing virtues which attached him so closely
to all whose privilege it was to enjoy his friendship—one of Nature’s
gentlemen, delicate and considerate of the feelings of others, generous
to the poor at the sacrifice of his valuable life, ready at all seasons
to give his time for the promotion of any and every benevolent scheme in
connexion with our calling; we shall long mourn over the good old man.
As I stood by and saw his remains committed to the ground but the other
day, my mind reverted to the other honoured members I have mentioned,
and I felt that one and all had realized and fulfilled to the letter the
following monition of Bacon:—
“I hold every man a debtor to his profession, from the which as men of
course do seek to receive countenance and profit, so ought they of duty
to endeavour themselves, by way of amends, to be a help and ornament
thereunto.”
I now beg permission to draw the curtain. I have laid before you, with
but little skill, some rapid sketches of our illustrious predecessors. I
have shown how worthily they have fulfilled their mission; and, having
approached the advent of that great man, to whose memory we dedicate
this evening, I make my bow and retire, first thanking you for the
attention you have accorded to my dull recital. I pause now because I
can add nothing to your knowledge of the character and labours of John
Hunter. His patience under such difficulties as would have destroyed an
ordinary worker, and his sublime indifference to personal comfort and
advantage when the interest of that science, which he so well loved was
in question—are “familiar in your ears as household words.”
But, whilst we honour him by these periodical meetings, and by the
discussion of subjects the elaboration of which formed the happiness of
his life, it is only in the great museum, founded by his energy, that
the grandeur of his character can be felt.
In that hallowed path, in which he delighted to tread, the mantle of his
genius has fallen upon one who, with a kindred love, aided by the
marvellous instinct of his own original mind, still follows out the
investigations of the great author, adding each day something to the
knowledge which went before, and still turning over some new page of the
book of Nature, wherein the finger of God has written, in characters
hitherto undeciphered, fresh evidences of His glorious infinity. Under
the auspices of our honorary member, Professor Owen, we gaze and admire.
THE END.
Transcriber’s notes:
● The errors deemed most likely to be the printer’s have been
corrected, and are noted here.
● Where hyphenation occurs on a line break, the decision to retain
or remove is based on occurrences elsewhere in the text.
● Errors in punctuation and quotes have been silently restored.
● The footnotes were moved near the corresponding paragraph.
● The numbers below reference the page or footnote and line in the
original book.
reference correction original text
5.24 lawgiver Jewish law-giver, it is a positive
fn3.11 Alnajah Speaking of the alnajah, an
34.13 fellow men he instructed his fellow-men,
fn8.1 Tylor Taken from E. B. Tyler—“Early History
56.11 Harvey our own great Hervey, of whom we
60.10 menstruous menstrous blood, and even then it is
68.23 carpentry skill in carpentery and smiths’ work.
92.6 knowledge something to the knowlege which went
----------------------------------------------------------------