Charles Creighton

“ Shortly after settling in London, where he had no connection with medical corporations, societies, hospitals, or schools of medicine, he began a series of clever polemical writings, in which he cast ridicule both on the intelligence and on the honesty of contemporary practice by way of recommending his original views. ”

“ A year after, being then twenty-four, he went again to Edinburgh, and applied fruitlessly for a vacant mastership in the high school. He then bethought himself of the medical profession, and obtained leave from Monro, the professor of anatomy, to attend his lectures free. The other professors gave him a like privilege, and he continued to attend the medical classes for five years, supporting himself by giving private lessons in the classics during the first year or two, and afterwards by preparing medical students for their examinations. ”

“ So late as 1841 Cullen's biographer appeals triumpliantly to 'the intelligent practitioner' on behalf of bloodletting in inflammatory fever (Life of Cullen, ii. 326) .
Brown carried on the war in Edinburgh six years longer against the professors and the general body of practitioners. Hardly any practice came to him, and the attendance at his public lectures fell away. The needs of a large family and his own improvidence brought him into serious money troubles, and he was at one time lodged in prison for debt. ”

“ Quitting the service in June 1816, he was elected at the same time (after two previous failures) surgeon to the Devon and Exeter Hospital, and commenced as a general practitioner in Exeter, his residence being in the Cathedral Close. At the hospital he gave lectures on anatomy and physiology, along with Barnes, and began the pathological museum, the catalogue of which occupied much of his leisure. He was a strong advocate of provincial as against exclusively metropolitan medical education, and became one of the original members of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association. ”

“ He began practice in Scotland about 1725, and removed after a time to Hull. In 1751, finding his health unequal to a country practice, he came to London, and made an attempt to support a wife and three children by teaching physiology. His lessons were intended for medical pupils who had not been at the universities, and were unable to read the standard books in learned or foreign languages. He seems to have read only one course of lectures, in the winter of 1751–2; in 1752 he issued a syllabus of the lectures, but probably he got no more pupils, the attempt being premature for London. ”

“ About 1857 he gradually withdrew from his extensive obstetric practice, and took the bold step of entering the field as a general medical consultant. In the opinion of Sir T. Watson his success in attaining the first rank was remarkable, considering that he had not served as physician to a large general hospital. Among his patients were distinguished leaders in politics and literature, many of whom became attached to him in private friendship. ”

“ Meanwhile Cullen employed him as tutor to his children, and afterwards as a kind of assistant to himself, the precise nature of his duties being a matter of dispute between Cullen's apologists and Brown's biographers. In 1765 he married the daughter of an Edinburgh citizen named Lamond, and set up a boarding-house for students. Cullen encouraged him to look forward to a professor's chair. He took an extra course of dissections for nearly a year, and studied botany in order to qualify himself for a new chair in the American colonies to which Cullen had the presentation. ”

“ FARMERY, JOHN, M.D. (d. 1590) , physician, a native of Lincolnshire, matriculated as a pensioner of King's College, Cambridge, in November 1561 (B.A. 1564–5, M.A. 1568) . He seems to have practised medicine in London, as an empiric, with powerful patrons. ”

“ The theory is now completely discredited; but Baron's description of a variety of hanging tubercle in man, the same that has its proper habitat in the bovine species, is not likely to lose its interest. These services to pathological science, aided doubtless by his intimacy with Baillie and Jenner, procured him admission into the Royal Society in 1823. ”

“ In 1850 he started a monthly journal, ‘The Chrono-thermalist, or People's Medical Inquirer,’ which ran for twenty-two months, being entirely from his own pen, and, like all the rest of his writings, devoted to the dual purpose of advocating Dicksonian truth and exposing other people's errors. ”

“ He was author of a tract on the curability of consumption, extracted from the manuscript of William White of York, of which a French translation by A. A. Tardy (London, 1793 ) is known; and also of a cookery-book, called 'Culina Famulatrix Medicinæ.' first published in 1804, reprinted in 1805, 1806, and 1807, and finally in 1820 under the title 'Receipts in Modern Cookery.' A production of his old age, which became well known, was a collection of maxims called `Men and Manners; or Concentrated Wisdom.' It quickly reached a third edition in 1808. ”

“ BARON, JOHN, M.D. (1786–1851) , physician, of Gloucester, and the friend and biographer of Jenner, was born at St. Andrews, where his father was professor of rhetoric in the university. At the age of fifteen he was sent to Edinburgh to study medicine, and he graduated M.D. there four years later (1805) , at the age of nineteen. He would appear to have taken a leading place among the students of his year, for he was elected one of the annual presidents of the Students' Royal Medical Society. In the year when he graduated his father died, and he prepared his college lectures for the press. ”

“ He studied divinity at Edinburgh, but afterwards turned to medicine. In 1768 he obtained the appointment of surgeon's mate in the East India Company's service. He retired from it about 1775, and settled in practice near Newcastle, having previously graduated M.D. at St. Andrews. He became well known for his active interest in schemes for the benefit of the sick poor. He was the founder of the Newcastle Dispensary; he recommended reforms in the management of the infirmary, and he called attention to the need of hospitals for infectious diseases, both in that town and elsewhere. ”

“ In 1832 he was elected surgeon to the new City of Dublin Hospital, and in 1837 lecturer on surgery at the Park Street School of Medicine, the rich museum of which he catalogued in 1843. He was medical officer to several institutions in Dublin, and carried on a private practice in York Street. ”

“ DICKSON, SAMUEL, M.D. (1802–1869) , author of the ‘Chrono-thermal System of Medicine,’ was born in 1802. He studied medicine at Edinburgh (where he attached himself to Liston in anatomy and surgery) and at Paris, qualifying at the Edinburgh College of Surgeons in 1825. Having obtained a commission as assistant-surgeon in the army, he went to India to join the 30th regiment of foot at Madras. ”

“ In 1813 he had been appointed demonstrator of anatomy (unpaid) at St. Thomas's Hospital, an office with various duties wherein he had many opportunities of lecturing, teaching in the wards, and operating. In the autumn of 1817 he went to Berlin to take a private course of instruction in philosophy with Solger, to whom he had been recommended by Ludwig Tieck when the latter visited London. He had already made acquaintance with Coleridge, who came to meet Tieck more than once at Green's house. ”

“ The favourite speculation of his later years was that the triangle was the ground-plan of all organic forms; in this way he sought to bring living organisms into the same view with crystals, man being a tetrahedron. His various papers ‘On the Dignity of the Human Body’ and other morphological subjects were collected, together with his scientific memoirs of an earlier period, in two posthumous volumes, Edinburgh, 1868. In 1850 he issued the first part of the ‘Annals of Anatomy,’ consisting of original papers by pupils and others ”

“ Through his connection with the fleet Cockburn was able to introduce his secret remedy for dysentery, which made his fortune. The account given (pamphlet on a 'Medicine against Looseness,' by La Touche, 1757) is that in July 1796 he was dining on board one of the ships in the company of Lord Berkeley of Stratton, when, after some compliments to him, it was remarked that 'there was nothing farther wanting but a better method of curing fluxes.' Cockburn replied that he thought he could be of use. ”

“ HAMILTON, WILLIAM (1758–1790) , surgeon, born at Glasgow 31 July 1758, was the son of Thomas Hamilton, professor of anatomy and botany, by Isabel Anderson, daughter of a former professor of church history. From the grammar school he went to Glasgow College in 1770, and graduated MA. in 1775. He studied medicine for two years at Edinburgh, and afterwards in London, under William Hunter, who took him into his house and gave him charge of his dissecting-room. In 1780 he returned to Glasgow, and conducted his invalid father's anatomical class. ”

“ JACKSON, ROBERT, M.D. (1750–1827) , inspector-general of army hospitals, born in 1750 at Stonebyres, near the Falls of Clyde, was the son of a small farmer. After a good schooling at Wandon and Crawford he was apprenticed for three years to a surgeon at Biggar, and in 1768 joined the medical classes at Edinburgh. Supporting himself by going twice on a whaling voyage as surgeon, he finished his studies without graduating, and went to Jamaica, where he acted as assistant to a doctor at Savanna-la-mer from 1774 to 1780. ”

“ BANCROFT, EDWARD NATHANIEL, M.D. (1772–1842) , physician, son of Edward Bancroft [q. v.] , was born in London and received his schooling under Dr. Charles Burney and Dr. Parr. He was entered at St. John's College, Cambridge, and graduated bachelor of medicine in 1794. In 1795 he was appointed a physician to the forces. He served in the Windward Islands, in Portugal, in the Mediterranean, and with Abercromby's expedition to Egypt in 1801. On his return to England he proceeded to the degree of M.D. in 1804, and began to practise as a physician in London, retaining half-pay rank in the army. ”

“ The central idea of the chrono-thermal system is the periodicity and intermittency of all vital actions, ague being regarded as the type-disease. The system is, of course, very inadequate, both as an analysis and as a synthesis ”

“ His return to Gresham College in 1660 coincides with the formation of the society there which, in 1663, received a charter of incorporation as the Royal Society. Goddard used his laboratory to make numerous experiments for the society (‘when any curious experiment was to be done, they made him their drudge till they could obtain to the bottom of it,’ Wood) ”

“ Hillary was a systematic observer of the weather and prevalent diseases. His observations began at Ripon in 1726, a year in advance of the corresponding work by Clifton Wintringham at York. They were discontinued during his practice at Bath, but resumed at Barbadoes, and continued until he left the colony, 30 May 1758. The first series is published in the appendix to his second edition of ‘Rational and Mechanical Essay on the Small-pox,’ London, 1740; 1st edition, London, 1735. ”

“ He was probably the first to do justice, in a professional sense, to the now familiar fact that malarial fevers often occur on dry and barren soils, either sandy plains or rocky uplands, where rotting vegetation is out of the question, his own experience having been gained with the troops in Holland, Portugal, and the West Indies. ”

“ The advantage of Clark's process over other softening processes is that no derivative compounds remain behind in the water. 'This character,' says Clark, 'is as fortunate as it is rare in chemical processes.' Another advantage is that the quantity of organic matter in the water is greatly reduced by the precipitation of the chalk, the water in large bulk having the natural pure blue colour of uncontaminated water, the process is somewhat expensive, from the numher of reservoirs required; but the cost of the caustic lime is more than balanced by the high price got for the chalk thrown down. ”

“ HILL or HYLL, ALBAN, M.D. (d. 1559) , physician, a native of Wales, studied at Oxford and at Bologna, where he proceeded doctor of physic. He `became famous for physics at London, not only the theoretical but practic part, and much beloved and admired by all learned men' (Wood, Athenæ Oxon.) He resided for many years in the parish at St. Alban, Wood Street, being `held in great respect, and esteemed one of the chief parishioners' (ib.) Caius calls him a good and learned man. ”

“ GOODSIR, JOHN (1814–1867) , F.R.S. and professor of anatomy in the university of Edinburgh, was born at Anstruther, Fifeshire, on 20 March 1814. His father was Dr. John Goodsir of that town, and his grandfather Dr. John Goodsir of Largo, a man of marked individuality, who carried on a large country practice, and during the last twenty years of his life officiated as preacher to the Largo baptists (for his biography and portrait see the Evangelical Mag. and Theol. Rev., June 1821) . ”

“ In 1808 he was candidate for the chair of botany in Trinity College. He was appointed physician to the prisons of Dublin, and was consulted at Westminster on the Prisons Bill of 1825. In 1820 he published ‘An Historic Sketch of the Contagious Fever Epidemic in Ireland in 1817–1819,’ one of the best works on the causes and circumstances of Irish typhus, with tables and reports for many parts of the country, and a comparison with the great typhus epidemic of 1741. ”

“ In 1741 he entered the navy as surgeon's mate, and remained in the service until 1748, occasionally attending the lectures of William Hunter and of Smellie in London. Having settled at King's Lynn, he acquired a good practice, and was consulted by patients from a distance. He was a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians at Edinburgh, and a member of several other learned societies. ”

“ Meanwhile, from 1794 to 1798, he had been on active service in Holland and in the West Indies, acquiring experience which formed the basis of his most important works. In 1811, his old enemies being now out of the way, he was recalled from his retirement at Stockton to be medical director in the West Indies, in which office he remained until 1815. He retired on half-pay as inspector-general of army hospitals, and a pension of 200l. ”

“ Another on 'The Danger of Improving Physick,' 1730, is a well-written rejoinder to the 'cabal' of academical physicians, who opposed him on account of his secret remedy, and particularly to Dr. Freind, who had turned against him in his 'History of Physick' (1725) after being on good terms with him for twenty years. 'The most learned physicians,' he says, 'are always most subject to obloquy, on account of their superior knowledge and discoveries.'
Cockburn was twice married: first, in 1698, to Mary de Baudisson, widow, who died on 6 July 1728, aged 64 ”

“ He lectured on physiology, and afterwards on medical jurisprudence. His repute as a lecturer stood very high; in 1836 he gave a course of popular lectures on physiology to large audiences of the educated laity of both sexes, illustrated by preparations and diagrams of his own making. ”