William Alexander Greenhill

“ He determined to settle in London as a physician, and was for a time attached to the Westminster General Dispensary. But he suffered from almost constant ill health, which rendered him quite unequal to bear the harassing fatigues of medical practice, and obliged him, during the nineteen years that he struggled on in London, to give it up sometimes for weeks, sometimes even for months together. ”

“ The article undoubtedly did good in helping to prove that far too much medicine was habitually given to patients. When Forbes gave up the ‘Review’ it was amalgamated with Johnson's, under the title of ‘The British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review,’ and continued on the same lines till the end of 1877. In 1845 Forbes was made a fellow of the London College of Physicians, in 1852 an honorary D.C.L. of Oxford, and in 1853 he was knighted. He was also a member of various learned and scientific societies both in Europe and America. ”

“ F. Barker, ‘An Account of the Rise, Progress, and Decline of the Fever lately Epidemical in Ireland,’ London, 1821, 2 vols. Cheyne's average professional income for about ten years at this period of his life was 5,000l. per annum, with the probability of still increasing; but in 1825 his health began to fail, and he became affected with a species of nervous fever, from which he never entirely recovered. As the active practice of his profession became more and more burdensome to him, he determined to relinquish it altogether. ”

“ During the early part of his residence at Sherington he tried to utilise his great professional experience by giving medical assistance to the poor in his neighbourhood, and also by contributing some articles to Forbes's ‘Cyclopædia of Practical Medicine.’ One of the last subjects that engaged his attention was the futility of attempting to cure insanity (especially religious insanity) by moral discipline, before the bodily disorder with which it is connected has been relieved. ”

“ His relations with his parishioners were not happy, and although he retained the living of Banbury for upwards of thirty-three years, he resided in Oxford about half that time. In 1849 the new bishop of Oxford, Samuel Wilberforce, induced him to exchange Banbury for the rectory of Over Worton, a small village near Woodstock. He did not find the new living more congenial than the old, and continued to reside in Oxford, where he frequented the Bodleian Library, and was respected for his learning. ”

“ For four years Forbes continued to reside at Chichester, but in 1840 he removed to London, chiefly with the object of improving the ‘Review.’ This move no doubt entailed upon him a considerable pecuniary loss, for he could never expect at the age of fifty-three (even though, through the influence of his friend, Sir James Clark, he was appointed physician to the queen's household) to obtain a London practice equal to what he had enjoyed at Chichester. ”

“ But his income as a pure surgeon did not keep pace with the requirements of an increasing family, and in 1876 he determined to leave London and establish himself in general practice in the country. Accordingly he took his M.D. degree at Oxford, and removed to Southborough, near Tunbridge Wells in Kent, where he passed the remainder of his life, carefully attending to his patients, and at the same time taking an active part in all local affairs that were calculated to benefit his poorer brethren. ”

“ In 1870 he had been most happily married to a lady of cultivated tastes, and of entire sympathy with his philanthropic pursuits and his religious convictions, and who, with four sons, survived him. London, where he had so many useful objects in hand and in view, would have appeared to be the proper place for such a man. ”

“ After 1750, finding the popularity of his anatomical lectures diminished by the increasing celebrity of William Hunter [q. v.] , he abandoned them, and devoted himself wholly to medical practice, in which, owing to occasional fits of deafness and to some personal peculiarities, he achieved less success than his abilities, learning, and character deserved. ”

“ When one was offered to him he would say with a smile, ‘The poor are my only paymasters now, and they are the best I ever had; for their payments are placed in a government fund that can never fail, and my security is the only King who can do no wrong.’ His conversation is said to have been ‘easy, chearful, and interesting, pure from all taint of party scandal or idle raillery.’ He died in London 30 April 1735, aged 86, leaving behind him an only son, of the same name. ”

“ In 1845 Hussey was presented by the dean and chapter of Christ Church to the perpetual curacy of Binsey, a very small parish, with a very small emolument, within a short walk of Oxford. He was subsequently appointed rural dean by Bishop Wilberforce, and was elected one of the proctors in convocation for the diocese of Oxford. In 1854, when the new hebdomadal council was appointed, Hussey was chosen one of the professorial members almost by general suffrage. Tall and strong, and fond of manly exercise, Hussey died rather suddenly of heart disease on 2 Dec. ”

“ EDEN, CHARLES PAGE (1807–1885) , clerical author and editor, born in or near Bristol in 1807, was third son of Thomas Eden, curate of St. George's, Bristol, who died when Charles was an infant, leaving a widow and young family in poverty. Charles was educated at a day school at Bristol, and at the Royal Institution School at Liverpool. ”

“ In 1822, on the death of Sir Christopher Pegge, regius professor of physic at Oxford, Lord Liverpool, on the recommendation of Sir Astley Cooper (Life of Sir Astley Cooper, ii. 200) , appointed Kidd his successor. In this office his principal service to the medical profession was the active part he took in the enactment of what was popularly called after him, ‘Dr. Kidd's Examination Statute’ for the degree of M.B. He did not lecture as regius professor, but continued the practice of his predecessor of giving courses of non-professional lectures on anatomy and physiology ”

“ Professionally he was highly esteemed by his contemporaries both in this country and on the continent, though he cannot in any sense be reckoned among the really great physicians. He was not only an elegant scholar but a man of genuine learning, and his ‘History of Physic’ is still well worth consulting. ”

“ In 1849 he was one of a committee of five members 'appointed to consider the means advisable to be adopted with a view to bring the subject of medical ethics before the medical profession;' and in 1850, on the occasion of the association holding its next annual meeting at Brighton, he was requested to prepare a paper on the medical topography of the district. He was a devout member of the church of England, but his chief interest was in benevolent schemes for improving the condition of the poorer classes. ”

“ With Copleston, John Davison, Whately, and Keble among its fellows, Oriel was at this time the most distinguished college in Oxford. There Hawkins lived, first as fellow and then as provost, for more than sixty years. Becoming tutor for a few months to Viscount Caulfeild, son of the second Earl of Charlemont, he was in Paris at the time of Napoleon's escape from Elba in 1815, and left that city on the morning of the day on which Napoleon entered it, 20 March. Devoting himself to divinity he was ordained, and in 1819 became tutor of his college. ”

“ He came under the influence of the Oxford movement, and continued a high churchman to the end of his life. In 1837 he was made examining chaplain to his friend the Bishop of Salisbury, and in 1841 left Oxford with some reluctance to become a canon in Salisbury Cathedral. At Salisbury he threw himself into the duties of his new position with characteristic energy. ”

“ In 1811 he was appointed physician at the Meath Hospital, and shortly afterwards professor of the practice of physic at the College of Surgeons, which appointments he held for about four years, till he received from the lord-lieutenant that of physician to the House of Industry. It was while Cheyne held this post that the fever which ravaged Ireland for upwards of two years became epidemic in Dublin in 1817, and the House of Industry was converted into a depôt for fever patients, of whom upwards of seven hundred were accommodated in its wards. ”

“ By her he had one daughter, who died in infancy, and eight sons, of whom seven survived him, the sixth, Robert Baker, being principal of Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, from 1877 to 1889.
Girdlestone was a man of sincere piety, and an energetic and enlivening preacher. Both as a politician and as a churchman he chose in early life the via media, but after middle age he sided with the evangelicals and conservatives, though always an advocate of church reform and reform of convocation, of revision of the prayer-book and also of the authorised version of the Bible. ”

“ In 1809 he published his ‘Outlines of Mineralogy’ (2 vols. 8vo, Oxford) , which were reviewed by Dr. Thomas Thomson of Edinburgh in the ‘Quarterly Review’ (vol. ii.) in an article which Gifford, the editor, altered in some parts as being ‘very splenetic and very severe, and much too wantonly so.’ Gifford added: ‘Kidd is a modest and unassuming man, and is not to be attacked with sticks and stones like a savage’ (Smiles, Memoir of John Murray, i. 162) . ”

“ He passed much of his life in foreign parts, chiefly in Malta and the Ionian Islands. Wherever he was stationed he was zealous in promoting the circulation of the Bible, the establishment of schools, and other benevolent objects. While stationed as physician to the garrison at Cephalonia he accidentally made the acquaintance of Lord Byron, who passed a few months there on his way to Greece in 1823. Kennedy was then delivering a series of lectures on the evidences of Christianity, to which some rather sceptical friends of his were invited. Byron was at the first meeting ”

“ In private life, while professing, as it is said (Med. Times and Gaz.) , too little perhaps of the Christian faith, Forbes was a man to be both loved and honoured, and few men in the present century have done more to promote the cause of sound medical literature. ”

“ Charles was educated first at a large private school at Brighton, and afterwards, when he chose medicine for his profession, in the house of a general practitioner in London. He studied in Edinburgh for three years, and graduated M.D. in 1838, the subject of his inaugural essay being ‘Continued Fever.’ After visiting with a patient Malta, Italy, Greece, and Egypt, he returned to England and was admitted an extra-licentiate of the London College of Physicians, July 1842. He practised for a few years at Windsor with success. ”

“ Greatrakes laid his hands on the affected parts with prayer, and within a month the boy was healed. Several similar cases of scrofula were partially or entirely cured in the same way, and Greatrakes was encouraged to undertake the treatment of ague and other diseases with the like success. The reports of these extraordinary cures brought him a vast number of patients during the next three years from various parts of Ireland and also from England. He set apart three days each week for the exercise of his cure. ”

“ His father, Thomas, belonged to a branch of the Scottish Hopes, long settled in Lancashire. Having realised a handsome fortune as a merchant and manufacturer, he retired from business and settled at Prestbury Hall, near Macclesfield in Cheshire. After four years (1815–18) at the Macclesfield grammar school, James resided for about eighteen months at Oxford, where his elder brother was then an undergraduate, but never became a member of the university. In October 1820 he went as a medical student to Edinburgh, where he highly distinguished himself, and passed five years. ”

“ He speaks of himself as holding firmly the catholic faith as set forth by the reformed church of England; as having avoided the errors both of (so-called) evangelicals, and of rationalists, and (which is the last ulcer) of ritualists and romanisers (Papizantium) ; and of having devoted his life to study without patronage, gain, or honour; and as ready, above all things, in his old age to assist younger students. ”

“ His mother was Elizabeth, daughter of William White of London, who had by one husband thirty-nine children, all (it is said) born alive and baptised, and all single births except one. An addition was made to the arms of the family in 1698, in commemoration of this extraordinary case of fecundity. There are portraits of Elizabeth Greenhill at Walling Wells, near Worksop, and at Lowesby Hall, Leicestershire. Thomas was a surgeon of some repute, who lived in London, in King Street, Bloomsbury, and died about 1740, leaving a family behind him. ”

“ He became M.D. of Edinburgh in 1840, and in September of the same year was appointed senior surgeon on board the Albert, which joined the government expedition sent to the Niger for geographical and commercial purposes, and especially with the hope of striking an effectual blow at the slave-trade. No expedition was ever more elaborately supplied with everything that could conduce to the health and comfort of the crews, who were all picked men, and for the most part acquainted with service in warm climates ”

“ Johnson was a man of much ability, industry, and religious feeling. He was a good practitioner, and the author of some popular medical works.
Besides the works already mentioned he wrote: 1. ‘The Influence of the Atmosphere on the Health of the Human Frame, with researches on Gout and Rheumatism,’ 8vo, London, 1818. 2. ‘Practical Researches on the Nature, Cure, and Prevention of Gout, with a critical Examination of some celebrated Remedies and Modes of Treatment,’ 8vo, London, 1819. 3. ‘Treatise on Derangements of the Liver, Internal Organs, and Nervous System,’ 3rd edit. 8vo, London, 1820. ”

“ Out of 145 whites who took part in the expedition 130 were seized with fever and 40 died; but among 158 blacks there were only 11 cases of fever and 1 death (ib. p. 128) . McWilliam reached England on 19 Nov. 1841, but he received from the admiralty no mark of recognition of his services. In 1843 he brought out his 'Medical History of the Niger Expedition,' which was well received. It is written in a modest, unpretentious style, and supplies a history of the fever, description, morbid anatomy, sequences, causes, treatment, with cases ”