Joseph Frank Payne

“ Among the medical humanists certainly no one enjoyed a higher reputation than Linacre, or did better service to the cause of learning.
It was, however, as a scholar that he was most highly esteemed by his contemporaries. Erasmus, Budé, Melanchthon, Lascaris, Aldus, Vives, and many more pay him the highest eulogies. Erasmus said that Galen, in Linacre's version, spoke better Latin than he did Greek in the original, and Aristotle in Linacre's Latin had a grace of style hardly equalled in his own tongue. ”

“ Such were the qualities which led him to undertake the task by which, more than by professional success, his name will be known, that of ameliorating the condition of the poor in Scotland through a reform in the system of public relief.
From the beginning of his medical experience among the poor, Alison had been penetrated with a sense of the way in which poverty and unfavourable social conditions assisted in the spread of disease. The epidemic of cholera in 1831–32, and subsequent epidemics of fever, confirmed him in the belief of the momentous importance to national health of this question. ”

“ The views thus expounded by a competent authority (Edinburgh Medical Journal, 1859, p. 475) were applied by Alison to explain not only physiological processes, but processes of disease, such as asphyxia and inflammation. They deal with a long-standing controversy in biology, whether life precedes organisation, or is the result of organisation, and one not yet decided. But the vortex of dispute has drifted away from the standpoint of Alison, and it would be impossible here to discuss the bearings of his views on modern controversies. ”

“ Although there is no one subject in which he made any striking discovery, the general body of fact and argument in his writings constitutes an important contribution to medicine and to the science of health. ”

“ In the words of an unquestionable authority, Sir Joseph Banks, ‘at an expense seldom undertaken by an individual, Dr. Fothergill procured from all parts of the world a great number of the rarest plants, and protected them in the amplest buildings which this or any other country has seen.’ He liberally paid those who brought plants which might be ornamental or useful to this country or her colonies. ”

“ In common, however, with other learned physicians, whom we may call the ‘medical humanists,’ he did medicine the great service of calling men back to the study of the classical medical writers, in place of the ‘Neoterics’ and ‘Arabists,’ who had long been regarded as the fountains of knowledge. ”

“ Hawkins was an eminent and successful surgeon, who throughout his long life won the respect of the whole profession by his attainments and character. His opinion was especially valued in difficult cases. While in comparative retirement as consulting surgeon he was often seen in the wards of St. George's Hospital, where he gave his colleagues the benefit of his long experience. He was noted as being for a long time the only surgeon who had performed the operation of ovariotomy with success in a London hospital, and he did much to popularise the operation of colotomy. ”

“ The barren speculations on an obsolete school of medical thought possess now only an historical interest, but Cheyne was to produce in after years works of more permanent value, the history of which is strangely interwoven with that of his own life, graphically told by himself in 'The English Malady.' Having been from his youth accustomed to sedentary and temperate habits, he, on coming up to London, suddenly changed his manner of life. ”

“ The revival of classical medicine, though not without its drawbacks, led immediately to the revival of anatomy, of botany, and of clinical medicine as progressive sciences, and produced results quite comparable to those ascribed to the renascence in other departments of knowledge. ”

“ The services which Blane rendered while in medical charge of the West India fleet, and the reforms which, firmly supported by Rodney, he was able to introduce, were indeed of the most signal importance, not only to the efficiency of that fleet, but as inaugurating a new era in the sanitary condition of the navy. Before his time scurvy prevailed to a lamentable extent among seamen, so that important naval operations often failed from this cause alone. Fevers and other diseases arising from infection and the unhealthy state of ships also caused great mortality. ”

“ To attack disease it was necessary first, he thought, to attack the conditions favouring disease. Imbued with these ideas it became to his philanthropic and conscientious nature a religious duty to express them, as he did, in the pamphlet, ‘Observations on the Management of the Poor in Scotland, and its Effects on the Health of the Great Towns’ (Edinburgh. 1840) . ”

“ In 1849 he delivered a course of lectures on ‘Animal Chemistry in its application to Stomach and Renal Diseases,’ which were published in the following year, and at once caused him to be recognised as an authority in those classes of diseases. He belonged to the school of Liebig, and though many of the views which he held in common with his master have been superseded, much of his work has preserved its value. Its weak point was a too direct application of the laws of chemistry to the complex phenomena of the human body. ”

“ Francis Adams combined in a remarkable manner the character of a busy country doctor and an indefatigable scholar. Through the whole of his life his fondness for classical and especially Greek literature amounted to a passion. Though unceasingly engaged in his profession, he found time to read ‘almost every Greek work which has come down to us from antiquity, except the ecclesiastical writers,’ and to produce some important works. In pure scholarship his chief works were ‘Hermes Philologus,’ on the difference between the Greek and Latin syntax, &c. ”

“ In 1815 he entered the serious work of his profession as physician to the newly-founded New Town Dispensary, and by laborious practice among the poor gained that deep sympathy with the working-classes and knowledge of their wants and sufferings which inspired the most important part of his public work in after life. ”

“ In anatomy he did no original work of any value, but was a very brilliant lecturer, and as such instructed most of the eminent men of the coming generation. As a physiologist he became known for some desultory and not very important researches, but chiefly as the defender of John Hunter, whose views, after his death and before the posthumous publication of his lectures, Abernethy had almost a monopoly in expounding. ”

“ Whether in consequence of this illness, or from other reasons, it is curious to note that Bright was in 1818 again induced to set out on continental travel, and spent the greater part of a year in a tour through Germany, Italy, and France. In the year 1820, however, he finally settled down in London, in Bloomsbury Square; and being in the same year elected assistant-physician to Guy's Hospital, he commenced that course of arduous clinical study and indefatigable industry as a teacher which made his own reputation, and contributed much to raise that of the school in which he worked. ”

“ Other public questions which engaged Alison's attention were the best methods of registration, with a view to an act for the registration of births, deaths, and marriages in Scotland, and the reclamation of waste lands, a subject on which he wrote a dissertation (Edinburgh, 1850) .
Such were the public works of Dr. Alison. A few words must be said of his character. He seems to have been one of those men whose moral superiority is such as to cause their intellectual powers to appear of secondary importance. Nevertheless, these powers were in Alison very considerable. ”

“ Fothergill's success in his profession was rapid and assured, especially after the publication of his ‘Account of the Sore Throat,’ which greatly advanced his reputation, and before many years he had one of the largest and most lucrative practices in the city. But outside professional pursuits he took a keen and persistent interest in science and philanthropy, and holding no public appointments was able to give to these objects all his spare time. His chief scientific interest was in botany, especially in the collection and cultivation of rare plants. ”

“ Hawkins was an accomplished physician, whose genial temperament made him very popular in professional circles, and as a good scholar he was a worthy representative of the old school of university physicians. ”

“ A similar reaction against the scholastic medical systems of the last century is shown in the 'Dissertations on Fever,' in which the leading principle is that 'observation of the disease is entirely to be adhered to, without any reasoning why or how anything in it takes place.' Fordyce's observations on the temperature of the human body were numerous and historically important. ”

“ Munk, 'with a physician more loved or more respected than was Dr. Babington.'
If in the course of his busy life he made no conspicuous addition to the science of medicine, it was that his energies were devoted to the sciences of chemistry and mineralogy. He lectured on chemistry at Guy's Hospital for many years, and published some memoirs in 'Nicholson's Journal.' In mineralogy his interest was still greater, and he achieved more. ”

“ Bright, by his investigations of the state of the body after death, ascertained that in all such cases a peculiar condition of the kidneys was present, and thus proved that the symptoms spoken of were really those of a disease of the kidneys. The explanation once given seems as simple as 'putting two and two together;' but the importance of the discovery is shown by the fact that no one before had suspected the kidney to be the organ implicated. It proved Bright not only to be an acute observer, but to possess the much rarer Bright faculty of synthesis, which makes an observer a discoverer. ”

“ It is difficult now to estimate Linacre's skill as a physician, but it was probably considerable. He was honoured with the confidence of the most important persons in church and state, and of the most distinguished scholars. Erasmus speaks highly of his friend's medical services, and the one specimen of his treatment which has been preserved shows the practical good sense of a family doctor. ”

“ The only interest attaching to these discreditable works and their author is the singular fact that a man who might in the present day even be liable to prosecution, should in the reign of Charles II have enjoyed the status of the king's physician. ”

“ Bence Jones was an accomplished physician, who acquired a large and remunerative practice. He was also an excellent chemist, and devoted himself especially to questions bearing on the applications of chemistry to pathology and medicine, in which subjects, being an enthusiastic and diligent worker, he made numerous important researches. ”

“ Begbie was well fitted, physically, morally, and intellectually, for the work of his profession, and was, in the highest sense of the word, remarkably successful, not only in relieving the bodily ills of his patients, but in winning their confidence and affection. These qualities gained him deservedly a very high reputation in Scotland. ”

“ Lower must be regarded as one of the most important of English physiologists. Modern research gives him higher credit for his work in anatomy and physiology than was formerly assigned him. The anatomical researches in Willis's work, ‘De Cerebro,’ of which he has generously, though evidently with justice, assigned the chief credit to Lower, are of great importance in the history of science. ”

“ He was obnoxious to the college, not only because he practised without a license, or because he lauded chemical remedies and despised the traditional 'Galenical'—i.e. animal and vegetable drugs—but because he kept the composition of his remedy a secret, and put it forward as a panacea for all diseases. ”

“ With the College of Physicians he was equally displeased on account of his having been rejected when he first presented himself as a candidate for the licentiateship, an accident which may often happen when a physician established in practice has to undergo examination on subjects with which he was familiar as a student. Dr. Armstrong is described by his friend Dr. Boott as a man of high integrity, absorbed in his profession, of gentle and reserved character, with much power of sympathy. ”

“ Abernethy's success was one of the causes which induced the governors of St. Bartholomew's to build a lecture theatre, where in 1791 he began to lecture on anatomy, physiology, and surgery, and thus became the founder of the medical school attached to that ancient hospital. About this time he was himself a diligent attendant at the lectures of John Hunter, with whom he had also private conferences on scientific matters, and whose influence greatly determined the bent of his mind. ”

“ Jebb was a learned physician, and a very painstaking scholar. His literary productions were chiefly editions and translations, and he published no original work on medicine. His most important literary enterprise was his edition of Roger Bacon's ‘Opus Majus’ (‘Rogeri Bacon Opus Majus nunc primum ed. S. Jebb,’ Lond. 1733, fol.; reprinted Venice, 1750) , the fruit of three years' labour, undertaken at the instigation of Dr. Mead, to whom it is dedicated. As the first edition of Bacon's work, it is a most valuable contribution to the history of science [see Bacon, Roger] . ”

“ Beginning as an innovator, he came in the end to be conservative, and was much opposed to what he regarded as the teachings of the German school. He took great interest in art, was himself a fair amateur artist, and a keen connoisseur in engraved gems, coins, and similar objects. On this subject he published an elaborate text-book, illustrated with photographs, which has reached a second edition. Billing was a man of great physical as well as mental activity, and was perhaps the last London physician who occasionally visited his patients on horseback. ”