G. T. Bettany

“ Woodville, eager to rank among the vaccinators, discovered cowpox in a dairy in Gray’s Inn Lane, in January 1799, found that the milkers became infected, and took from them matter with which he vaccinated a number of persons; but contrary to Jenner’s practice, he proceeded to insert smallpox matter in their arms on the third and fifth days after vaccination, as if that could afford a fair trial of the new method. No wonder that the patients exhibited pustules like those of smallpox, and this was the first of the many disasters that arose from the injudicious zeal of Jenner’s first followers. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A light is thus thrown on his even career of uniform progress. Training his powers from youth upwards, by linguistic and literary studies, by scientific pursuits, by the diligent practice of his art, by mixing with men, he brought to bear on the multifarious questions which come before a great master of healing, a mind alike accustomed to acquire and to communicate, a temper made gentle by considerate kindness, a tact that became all but unerring from his perfect integrity. He saw that every material science conduces to the well-being of man ”

“ It is the story of one who kept his affections young, and his love of the pure and the refined unsullied, while fighting bravely the battle of life; whose heart was as tender as his intellect was vigorous and original who, while he gained a foremost place among his fellows, turned with undiminished zest to his home and his friends, and found there the object, the reward, and the solace of his life. ”

“ The antagonism of vaccination to the so-called designs of Providence was loudly asserted. One Dr. Squirrel on this head maintained that “Providence never intended that the vaccine disease should affect the human race, else why had it not, before this time, visited the inhabitants of the globe? Notwithstanding this, the vaccine virus has been forced into the blood by the manufacturing hand of man, and supported not by science or reason, but by conjecture and folly only, with a pretence of its exterminating the smallpox from the face of the earth.” ”

“ 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.” ”

“ As a teacher, he was always distinguished for the value of the matter he had to communicate. Those who heard him in the early part of his career say that he was then energetic rather than polished; that he appeared to struggle with the weight and mass of facts he had stored up in his mind. But, in later years, his delivery was fluent and perfect. No man in his profession could deliver himself more readily or more elegantly than Sir Benjamin Brodie. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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 [Pg 94] 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. ”

“ As an operator, if not among the greatest, he is entitled to hold a high position. But it must be acknowledged that ‘his principles were somewhat lax, his heart was somewhat hard.’ We speak of him now merely in a public capacity, for in all the relations of private life he was most estimable and affectionate. Notwithstanding the low estimation in which he held surgeons in general practice, it is probable no pure surgeon of modern times ever had so large a general practice as himself. ”

“ MARSHALL HALL, AND THE DISCOVERY OF REFLEX ACTION. The character of Marshall Hall, who divides with Sir Charles Bell the principal honours of discovery as to the nervous system, presents a contrast to his in that it displays a mind more minutely active, and more distinctly medical in its tone, combined with a marvellous degree of detailed benevolence. Thus Hall’s reputation has, like Harvey’s and John Hunter’s, grown largely since his death. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is perhaps more interesting, it is certainly more important, to notice the influence exerted upon one mind by another, than to examine the influences of any material objects upon human nature. In this light we may view with pleasure the relations which existed between Jenner, his elder brother already mentioned, and the great anatomist, John Hunter. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 [Pg 33] 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 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. ”

“ Bigsby says of him: “Few men have changed during [Pg 266] their progress through life so little as Marshall Hall. As he began, so he ended, delighting in the labour—the labour itself—of investigation.... All the stores of knowledge which his predecessors had either gathered or created, Marshall Hall was eager to acquire; a hardy, enduring constitution seconding all his efforts.... All his energies were directed to the formation of the skilful bedside physician, that is, to the alleviation and cure of disease.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ During the investigation of the casual cowpox, I was struck with the idea that it might be practicable to propagate the disease by inoculation, after the manner of the smallpox, first from the cow, and finally from one human being to another. ”

“ He will lecture on surgical principles,—true ones they must be,—if he changes them yearly in accordance with his observations. But he will not, he cannot, lecture on comparative anatomy or zoology. Why not? It does not conform enough with his main bent to surgery, to practical aim, to a duty. He believes in a vital principle, therefore he must have an aim before him. [Pg 166] He succeeds in his aim; and by the masterly introduction of the operation on aneurism which bears his name he saves thousands from a painful death. ”

“ 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. ”