A Book about Doctors Part 3

"Since that you feel," rejoined Sir Kenelm, "already so good an effect of my medicament, I advise you to cast away all your plaisters. Only keep the wound clean, and in moderate temper 'twixt heat and cold."

Mr. Howel went away, sounding the praises of his physician; and the Duke of Buckingham, hearing what had taken place, hastened to Sir Kenelm's house to talk about it. The Duke and Knight dined together; when, after dinner, the latter, to show his guest the wondrous power of his powder, took the garter out of the solution, and dried it before the fire. Scarcely was it dry, when Mr. Howel's servant ran in to say that his master's hand was worse than ever--burning hot, as if "it were betwixt coales of fire." The messenger was dismissed with the a.s.surance that ere he reached home his master would be comfortable again. On the man retiring, Sir Kenelm put the garter back into the solution--the result of which was instant relief to Mr. Howel. In six days the wounds were entirely healed. This remarkable case occurred in London, during the reign of James the First. "King James," says Sir Kenelm, "required a punctuall information of what had pa.s.sed touching this cure; and, after it was done and perfected, his Majesty would needs know of me how it was done--having drolled with me first (which he could do with a very good grace) about a magician and sorcerer." On the promise of inviolable secrecy, Sir Kenelm communicated the secret to his Majesty; "whereupon his Majesty made sundry proofs, whence he received singular satisfaction."

The secret was also communicated by Sir Kenelm to Mayerne, through whom it was imparted to the Duke of Mayerne--"a long time his friend and protector." After the Duke's death, his surgeon communicated it to divers people of quality; so that, ere long, every country-barber was familiar with the discovery. The mention made of Mayerne in the lecture is interesting, as it settles a point on which Dr. Aikin had no information; viz.,--Whether Sir Theodore's Barony of Aubonne was hereditary or acquired? Sir Kenelm says, "A little while after the Doctor went to France, to see some fair territories that he had purchased near Geneva, which was the Barony of Aubonne."

For a time the Sympathetic Powder was very generally believed in; and it doubtless did as much good as harm, by inducing people to throw from their wounds the abominable messes of grease and irritants which were then honoured with the name of plaisters. "What is this?" asked Abernethy, when about to examine a patient with a pulsating tumour, that was pretty clearly an aneurism.

"Oh! that is a plaister," said the family doctor.

"Pooh!" said Abernethy, taking it off, and pitching it aside.

"That was all very well," said the physician, on describing the occurrence; "but that 'pooh' took several guineas out of my pocket."

Fas.h.i.+onable as the Sympathetic Powder was for several years, it fell into complete disrepute in this country before the death of Sir Kenelm. Hartman, the Knight's attached servant, could, of his own experience, say nothing more for it than, when dissolved in water, it was a useful astringent lotion in cases of bleeding from the nose; but he mentions a certain "Mr. Smith, in the city of Augusta, in Germany, who told me that he had a great respect for Sir D. K.'s books, and that he made his sympatheticall powder every year, and did all his chiefest cures with it in green wounds, with much greater ease to the patient than if he had used ointments or plaisters."

In 1643 Sir Kenelm Digby was released from the confinement to which he had been subjected by the Parliament. The condition of his liberty was that he forthwith retired to the Continent--having previously pledged his word as a Christian and a gentleman, in no way to act or plot against the Parliament. In France he became a celebrity of the highest order. Returning to England with the Restoration, he resided in "the last fair house westward in the north portico of Covent Garden," and became the centre of literary and scientific society. He was appointed a member of the council of the Royal Society, on the incorporation of that learned body in the year 1663. His death occurred in his sixty-second year, on the 11th of June, 1665; and his funeral took place in Christ's Church, within Newgate, where, several years before, he had raised a splendid tomb to the memory of the lovely and abandoned Venetia. His epitaph, by the pen of R. Ferrar, is concise, and not too eulogistic for a monumental inscription:--

"Under this tomb the matchless Digby lies-- Digby the great, the valiant, and the wise; This age's wonder for his n.o.ble parts, Skill'd in six tongues, and learned in all the arts.

Born on the day he died--the Eleventh of June-- And that day bravely fought at Scanderoon.

It's rare that one and the same day should be His day of birth, and death, and victory."

After his death, with the approval of his son, was published (1669), "The Closet of the Eminently Learned Sir Kenelme Digbie, Kt., Opened: Whereby is discovered Several ways for making of Metheglin, Sider, Cherry-Wine, &c.; together with excellent Directions for Cookery: as also for Preserving, Conserving, Candying, &c." The frontispiece of this work is a portrait of Sir Kenelm, with a shelf over his head, adorned with his five princ.i.p.al works, ent.i.tled, "Plants," "Sym.

Powder," "His Cookery," "Rects. in Physick, &c.," "Sr. K. Digby of Bodyes."

In Sir Kenelm's receipts for cookery the gastronome would find something to amuse him, and more to arouse his horror. Minced pies are made (as they still are amongst the homely of some counties) of _meat_, raisins, and spices, mixed. Some of the sweet dishes very closely resemble what are still served on English tables. The potages are well enough. But the barley-puddings, pear-puddings, and oat-meal puddings give ill promise to the ear. It is recommended to batter up a couple of eggs and a lot of brown sugar in a cup of tea;--a not less impious profanation of the sacred leaves than that committed by the Highlanders, mentioned by Sir Walter Scott, who, ignorant of the proper mode of treating a pound of fragrant Bohea, served it up in--melted b.u.t.ter!

CHAPTER IV.

SIR HANS SLOANE.

The lives of three physicians--Sydenham, Sir Hans Sloane, and Heberden--completely bridge over the uncertain period between old empiricism and modern science. The son of a wealthy Dorsets.h.i.+re squire, Sydenham was born in 1624, and received the most important part of his education in the University of Oxford, where he was created Bachelor of Medicine 14th April, 1648. Settling in London about 1661, he was admitted a Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians 25th June, 1665. Subsequently he acquired an M.D. degree at Cambridge, but this step he did not take till 17th May, 1676. He also studied physic at Montpellier; but it may be questioned if his professional success was a consequence of his labours in any seat of learning, so much as a result of that knowledge of the world which he gained in the Civil war as a captain in the Parliamentary army. It was he who replied to Sir Richard Blackmore's inquiry after the best course of study for a medical student to pursue--"Read Don Quixote; it is a very good book--I read it still." Medical critics have felt it inc.u.mbent on themselves to explain away this memorable answer--attributing it to the doctor's cynical temper rather than his scepticism with regard to medicine. When, however, the state of medical science in the seventeenth century is considered, one has not much difficulty in believing that the shrewd physician meant exactly what he said. There is no question but that as a pract.i.tioner he was a man of many doubts.

The author of the capital sketch of Sydenham in the "Lives of British Physicians" says--"At the commencement of his professional life it is handed down to us by tradition, that it was his ordinary custom, when consulted by his patients for the first time, to hear attentively the story of their complaints, and then say, 'Well, I will consider of your case, and in a few days will order something for you.' But he soon discovered that this deliberate method of proceeding was not satisfactory, and that many of the persons so received forgot to come again; and he was consequently obliged to adopt the usual practice of prescribing immediately for the diseases of those who sought his advice." A doctor who feels the need for such deliberation must labour under considerable perplexity as to the proper treatment of his patient. But the low opinion he expressed to Blackmore of books as instructors in medicine, he gave publicly with greater decorum, but almost as forcibly, in a dedication addressed to Dr. Mapletoft, where he says, "The medical art could not be learned so well and so surely as by use and experience; and that he who would pay the nicest and most accurate attention to the symptoms of distempers would succeed best in finding out the true means of cure."

Sydenham died in his house, in Pall Mall, on the 29th of December, 1689. In his last years he was a martyr to gout, a malady fast becoming one of the good things of the past. Dr. Forbes Winslow, in his "Physic and Physicians"--gives a picture, at the same time painful and laughable, of the doctor's sufferings. "Sydenham died of the gout; and in the latter part of his life is described as visited with that dreadful disorder, and sitting near an open window, on the ground floor of his house, in St. James's Square, respiring the cool breeze on a summer's evening, and reflecting, with a serene countenance and great complacency, on the alleviation to human misery that his skill in his art enabled him to give. Whilst this divine man was enjoying one of these delicious reveries, a thief took away from the table, near to which he was sitting, a silver tankard filled with his favourite beverage, small beer, in which a sprig of rosemary had been immersed, and ran off with it. Sydenham was too lame to ring his bell, and too feeble in his voice to give the alarm."

Heberden, the medical friend of Samuel Johnson, was born in London in 1710, and died on the 17th of May, 1801. Between Sydenham and Heberden came Sir Hans Sloane, a man ever to be mentioned honourably amongst those physicians who have contributed to the advancement of science, and the amelioration of society.

Pope says:--

"'Tis strange the miser should his cares employ, To gain those riches he can ne'er enjoy; Is it less strange the prodigal should waste His wealth to purchase what he ne'er can taste?

Not for himself he sees, or hears, or eats, Artists must chuse his pictures, music, meats; He buys for Topham drawings and designs, For Pembroke statues, dirty G.o.ds, and coins; Rare monkish ma.n.u.scripts, for Hearne alone, And books for Mead, and b.u.t.terflies for Sloane."

Pope's _Moral Essays_, Epistle IV.

Hans Sloane (the seventh and youngest child of Alexander Sloane, receiver-general of taxes for the county of Down, before and after the Civil war, and a commissioner of array, after the restoration of Charles II.) was born at Killileagh in 1660. An Irishman by birth, and a Scotchman by descent, he exhibited in no ordinary degree the energy and politeness of either of the sister countries. After a childhood of extreme delicacy he came to England, and devoted himself to medical study and scientific investigation. Having pa.s.sed through a course of careful labour in London, he visited Paris and Montpellier, and, returning from the Continent, became the intimate friend of Sydenham.

On the 21st of January, 1685, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society; and on the 12th of April, 1687, he became a Fellow of the College of Physicians. In the September of the latter year he sailed to the West Indies, in the character of physician to the Duke of Albemarle, who had been appointed Governor of Jamaica. His residence in that quarter of the globe was not of long duration. On the death of his Grace the doctor attended the d.u.c.h.ess back to England, arriving once more in London in the July of 1689. From that time he remained in the capital--his professional career, his social position, and his scientific reputation being alike brilliant. From 1694 to 1730, he was a physician of Christ's Hospital. On the 30th of November, 1693, he was elected Secretary of the Royal Society. In 1701 he was made an M.D. of Oxford; and in 1705 he was elected into the fellows.h.i.+p of the College of Physicians of Edinburgh. In 1708 he was chosen a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Paris. Four years later he was elected a member of the Royal Society of Berlin. In 1719 he became president of the College of Physicians; and in 1727 he was created President of the Royal Society (on the death of Sir Isaac Newton), and was appointed physician to King George II. In addition to these honours, he won the distinction of being the first[6] medical pract.i.tioner advanced to the dignity of a baronetcy.

[6] The learned Librarian of the College of Physicians in a letter to me, elicited by the first edition of "The Book About Doctors,"

observes on this point: "Sir Hans Sloane is commonly stated to have been the first medical baronet, but I think incorrectly. Sir Edmund Greaves, M. D., a Fellow of the College, who died 11th Nov., 1680, is said, and I am disposed to think with truth, to have been created a Baronet at Oxford in 1645. Anthony A. Wood it is true calls him a 'pretended baronet,' but he was acknowledged to be a true and veritable one by his colleagues of our college, and considering the jealousy of physicians, which is not quite so great by the way as you seem to think, this is no small testimony in favour of my belief. In the 5th edition of Guillim's Heraldry he is made to be the 450th baronet from the first inst.i.tution of the order, and is placed between William de Borcel of Amsterdam and George Carteret of Jersey. If you think the matter worthy of investigation you may turn to Nash's Worcesters.h.i.+re, vol. i., p. 198."

In 1742, Sir Hans Sloane quitted his professional residence at Bloomsbury; and in the society of his library, museum, and a select number of scientific friends, spent the last years of his life at Chelsea, the manor of which parish he had purchased in 1722.

In the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for 1748, there is a long but interesting account of a visit paid by the Prince and Princess of Wales to the Baronet's museum. Sir Hans received his royal guests and entertained them with a banquet of curiosities, the tables being cleverly s.h.i.+fted, so that a succession of "courses," under gla.s.s cases, gave the charm of variety to the labours of observation.

In his old age Sir Hans became sadly penurious, grudging even the ordinary expenses of hospitality. His intimate friend, George Edwards, F.R.S., gives, in his "Gleanings of Natural History," some particulars of the old Baronet, which present a stronger picture of his parsimony than can be found in the pages of his avowed detractors.

"Sir Hans, in the decline of his life, left London and retired to his manor-house, at Chelsea, where he resided about fourteen years before he died. After his retirement at Chelsea, he requested it as a favour to him (though I embraced it as an honour due to myself), that I would visit him every week, in order to divert him for an hour or two with the common news of the town, and with everything particular that should happen amongst his acquaintance of the Royal Society, and other ingenious gentlemen, many of whom I was weekly conversant with; and I seldom missed drinking coffee with him on a Sat.u.r.day, during the whole time of his retirement at Chelsea. He was so infirm as to be wholly confined to his house, except sometimes, though rarely, taking a little air in his garden in a wheeled chair; and this confinement made him very desirous to see any of his old acquaintance, to amuse him. He was strictly careful that I should be at no expense in my journeys from London to Chelsea to wait on him, knowing that I did not superabound in the gifts of fortune. He would calculate what the expense of coach-hire, waterage, or any other little charge that might attend on my journeys backward and forward would amount to, and would oblige me annually to accept of it, though I would willingly have declined it."

Such generosity speaks of a parsimonious temper and habit more forcibly than positive acts of stinginess would.

On the death of Sir Hans Sloane, on the 11th of January, 1753, his museum and library pa.s.sed into the hands of the nation for a comparatively small sum of money, and became the nucleus of our British Museum.

The Royal Society of Sir Hans Sloane's time differed widely from the Royal Society of the present day. The reader of Mr. Charles Weld's history of that distinguished fraternity smiles a painful smile at the feeble steps of its first members in the direction of natural science.

The efficacy of the divining rod, and the merits of Sir Kenelm Digby's sympathetic powder, were the subjects that occupied the attention of the philosophers of Charles II.'s reign. Entries such as the following are the records of their proceedings:--

"_June 5._--Col. Tuke related the manner of the rain like corn at Norwich, and Mr Boyle and Mr Evelyn were entreated to sow some of those rained seeds to try their product.

"Magneticall cures were then discoursed of. Sir Gilbert Talbot promised to bring what he knew of sympathetical cures. Those that had any powder of sympathy were desired to bring some of it at the next meeting.

"Mr Boyle related of a gentleman, who, having made some experiments of the ayre, essayed the quicksilver experiment at the top and bottom of a hill, when there was found three inches difference.

"Dr Charleton promised to bring in that white powder, which, put into water, heates that.

"The Duke of Buckingham promised to cause charcoal to be distilled by his chymist.

"His Grace promised to bring into the society a piece of a unicorne's horn.

"Sir Kenelme Digby related that the calcined powder of toades reverberated, applyed in bagges upon the stomach of a pestiferate body, cures it by several applications."

"_June 13._--Colonel Tuke brought in the history of rained seedes, which were reported to have fallen downe from heaven in Warwicks.h.i.+re and Shrops.h.i.+re, &c.

"That the dyving engine be going forward with all speed, and the treasurer to procure the lead and moneys.

"Ordered, that Friday next the engine be tried at Deptford."

"_June 26._--Dr Ent, Dr Clarke, Dr G.o.ddard, and Dr Whistler, were appointed curators of the proposition made by Sir G. Talbot, to torment a man presently with the sympatheticall powder.

"Sir G. Talbot brought in his experiments of the sympathetick cures."

It is true that these pa.s.sages relate to transactions of the Royal Society that occurred long before Sir Hans was one of the body. But even in his time the advances made towards greater enlightenment were few and feeble, when compared with the strides of science during the last century. So simple and childish were the operations and speculations of the Society in the first half of the eighteenth century, that even Sir John Hill was able to cover them with ridicule.

Sir Hans had two medical successors in the presidents.h.i.+p of the Royal Society--Sir John Pringle, Bart., elected Nov. 30, 1772, and William Hyde Wollaston, M.D., elected June 29, 1820. The last-mentioned physician had but a brief tenure of the dignity, for he retired from the exalted post on Nov. 30, 1820, in favor of Sir Humphrey Davy, Bart.

Humphrey Davy (the son of the Penzance woodcarver, who was known to his acquaintances as "Little Carver Davy") was the most acute natural philosopher of his generation, and at the same time about the vainest and most eccentric of his countrymen. With all his mental energy, he was disfigured by a moral pettiness, which, to a certain extent, justified Wordsworth's unaccustomed bitterness in "A Poet's Epitaph":--