The Bedell at the Royal College of Physicians was (and still is) the custodian of College property.
Born, 1733; educated: Eton College, 1748; Clare College, Cambridge, 1750-1753. MP for Whitchurch, 1754; clerk to the household of the Prince of Wales, 1756; Clerk of the Board of Green Cloth, 1760; Paymaster-General of the Forces, 1767-1768; left office and was to remain in opposition for the next fourteen years, 1768; opposition candidate for Speaker, 1770; Secretary at War, 1782; Home Office, 1782-1783; Home Secretary, 1783; left office 1789; created Viscount Sydney, 1789; Chief Justiceship in Eyre, south of the Trent, 1789-; Deputy Lieutenant of Kent, 1793-; died, 1800.
John Gorman, physican and surgeon, trained at the University of Edinburgh, became a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1817 and qualified as Doctor of Medicine from Aberdeen University in 1822.
George Gregory was born on 16 August 1790 at Canterbury, the son of William Gregory, clergyman and preacher of Canterbury Cathedral, and grandson of John Gregory, professor of medicine at Edinburgh University. He received his early education at King's School, Canterbury. His father died in 1803 and he went to live in Edinburgh with his uncle the physician James Gregory, author of the Conspectus Medicinae Theoreticae (1780-82).
Gregory studied medicine at Edinburgh University from 1806-9. He continued his studies in London at St George's Hospital and the Windmill Street School of Anatomy. At Windmill Street he was under the tutelage of the anatomist Matthew Baillie, a friend of Gregory's father from their early lives at Baliol College, Oxford. Gregory returned to Edinburgh and graduated MD in 1811.
He became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1812, and the following year was sent as assistant surgeon to the forces in the Mediterranean engaged in the Napoleonic Wars. He served in Sicily and in Italy, at the capture of Genoa. At the end of war in 1815 he retired on half pay and returned to England. In 1816 he was elected a licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians and began practice in London. He gave lectures at the Windmill Street School, and then at St Thomas's Hospital.
Gregory made many contributions to the medical journals, the Cyclopaedia of Practical Medicine, Sir John Forbes, John Conolly, and Alexander Tweedie (eds.) (1833-35), and Alexander Tweedie's (ed.) Library of Medicine (1840-42). His own major publication was Elements of the Theory and Practice of Physic (1820, 6th ed. 1846). He was made physician to the Smallpox and Vaccination Hospital in 1824, and subsequently wrote numerous articles on smallpox and vaccination. He was also physician at the General Dispensary. He became a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in 1839, and was a fellow of the Royal Society. In 1843 he published his Lectures on Eruptive Fevers.
He died at Camden Square, London, of heart disease on 25 January 1853, and was buried at Kensal Green cemetery.
Publications:
Elements of the Theory and Practice of Physic (London, 1820, 6th ed. 1846)
Lectures on Eruptive Fevers, delivered at St Thomas's Hospital in January 1843 (London, 1843)
William Hamilton was born at Strabane, Co Tyrone in 1758. He was eduated at Glasgow and Edinburgh from where he graduated MD 24 June 1779. He became LRCP 30 September 1786 and was elected Physician to the London Hospital 5 December 1787. He died 5 May 1807. [Source - Munk's Roll vol II p366].
Unknown
Thomas Marwood was physician to James I. Dr William Munk, who made an exhaustive study of the manuscript doubted the authorship of Dr Marwood, and rather favoured the suggestion that 'the volume is really neither more nor less than the daily entry book of a leading and fashionable Apothecary in London, containing the copies in extenso of the prescriptions he compounded for the physicians who patronised and the persons who employed him. He may even have been 'Apothecary to the Person.' As such he would have been in immediate attendance on the king, as glysters and cupping had to be employed. Or lastly, the report of the illness and of the post-mortem examination may have been merely copied by the writer of the volume from the notes of one of the many physicians who were present throughout. It is clear that the author of the report was a medical man, and one thoroughly conversant with the habits of the king and the king and the whole course of his illness'.
Sir Theodore Turquet de Mayerne was born on 28 September 1573 in Geneva, the son of Louis Turquet de Mayerne, a protestant French historian. Theodore Beza, John Calvin's successor, was Mayerne's godfather and namesake. After being educated in Geneva Mayerne went to the University of Heidelberg, where he studied for several years. Physic was his chosen profession and he went to Montpelier to pursue his medical studies. He proceeded MB in 1596, and MD in 1597.
Mayerne then moved to Paris where he lectured on anatomy and pharmacy. He had become greatly interested in chemistry, and in his medical practice made considerable use of chemical remedies. His support of this then recent innovation brought him into favour with Lazarus Riverius, first physician to Henry IV of France, who then procured Mayerne an appointment as one of the King's physicians in 1600. However Mayerne's support equally antagonised the Faculty of Paris, who would accept no dissent from Galen. In 1603 Mayerne, in conjunction with Quercetanus, was attacked by the Faculty in print, in Apologia pro Medicina Hippocratis et Galeni, contra Mayernium et Quercetanum. Mayerne responded with an apologetic answer, and his only medical publication, Apologia in qua videre est, inviolatis Hippocratis et Galeni legibus, Remedia Chemice praeparata tuto usurpari posse. Rupel. 1603. In this he demonstrated that chemical remedies were not only in accordance with the principles but also with the practice of Hippocrates and Galen.
Despite another interdict from the Galenists Mayerne remained in favour with the King, who appointed him to attend the Duke de Rohan in his embassies to the courts of Germany and Italy. Although he continued to rise in the King's esteem, Mayerne failed to secure the advantages the King offered because he refused to renounce his protestant beliefs and conform to the Church of Rome. Whilst the King would still have appointed him first physician, the Queen intervened to prevent it. Mayerne continued as physician in ordinary to the King until 1606, when he sold his place to a French physician.
It is thought that it was in the early part of 1606 that Mayerne came to England, on the invitation of an English nobleman he had treated in Paris. He was appointed physician to James I's Queen, Anne of Denmark, and was incorporated at Oxford on his Montpelier degree on 8 April 1606. It is thought that he spent the next few years in France, until the assassination of Henry IV on 14 May 1610 when he returned again to England. This was upon the request of James I, made via letters patent under the Great Seal. On his arrival the King appointed him first physician to himself and the Queen, and from this point until his death Dr Mayerne appears to have been considered one of the first physicians in the kingdom' (Munk's Roll, 1878, p.165). His practice soon thrived; he even had French patients cross the Channel to consult him. His patients included Sir Robert Cecil and Prince Henry, about whose demise by typhoid fever he wrote a detailed state paper. This document remainsa valuable monument of the medicine of the time' (DNB, 1894, p.151).
In 1616 Mayerne was elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians. The following year he was influential in obtaining a charter for the Society of Apothecaries, separating them from the Grocers, and was later the chief founder of the Company of Distillers. In 1618 he wrote the dedication of the first Pharmacopoeia Londinensis to the King. At about this time Mayerne revisited France. He was however in England again in 1624 when he was knighted at Theobalds. In the same year he wrote a collection of prescriptions and methods of practice for his colleagues, explaining that he would again be absent from his duties for a time. It has been said about this undertaking that
`certain prudential rules for their conduct are prefixed, which show the man of sense and liberal sentiments, but might, perhaps, be thought somewhat assuming and officious, considering the persons to whom they were addressed' (Munk's Roll, p.166).
In 1625 Mayerne returned for a short time to Switzerland, to his house in Aubonne, where a few years earlier he had taken the title Baron Aubonne.
On the accession of Charles I in 1625, Mayerne was appointed first physician to the King and Queen. During his reign Mayerne rose still higher in reputation and authority. His leisure time was spent conducting chemical and physical experiments, which he had begun in Paris. He introduced calomel into medical practice and invented the mercurial lotion known as the black-wash (lotio nigra). He experimented on pigments, and consequently did much to advance the art of enameling. He mixed paints and varnishes for artists, and cosmetics for the ladies at Court. It has been said of him that he was
`an innovator and a man of new ideas, and for that reason was perhaps over-anxious to prove his respect for what had long been generally received' (DNB, p.152).
Mayerne is ultimately famous for his copious case notes, the detail of which was extraordinary for his time.
It is thought that he remained in London, at his house in St Martin's Lane, during the Civil War, attending patients. On Charles I's execution in 1649, he was made nominal first physician to Charles II. In the same year he retired to Chelsea.
Mayerne was twice married, first to Marguerite de Boetslaer, by whom he had three children. His wife died in 1628. In 1630 he married Elizabeth Joachimi, by whom he had five children, of whom just one daughter survived him. Mayerne died at Chelsea on 22 March 1654/5. His body was interred in the church of St Martin-in-the-Fields, with the bodies of his mother, first wife, and five of his children. A monument was erected in his memory, with an inscription written by his godson, Sir Theodore des Vaux.
In 1690 Vaux published Praxis Medica, which contained a series of Mayerne's medical notes. In 1701 Joseph Browne published Mayernii Opera Medica, complectantia Consilia, Epistolas et Observationes, Pharmacopoeiam, variasque Medicamentorum formulas. Lond., which contains Mayerne's long counsels written in reply to letters. These offer some illumination of the duties of a fashionable physician in the early 17th century.
Publications:
Sommaire Description de la France, Allemange, Italie et Espagne (1592)
Apologia in qua videre est, inviolatis Hippocratis et Galeni legibus, Remedia Chemice praeparata tuto usurpari posse. Rupel. 1603
Publications by others about Mayerne:
Praxis Medica, Sir Theodore des Vaux (ed) (London, 1690)
Mayernii Opera Medica, complectantia Consilia, Epistolas et Observationes, Pharmacopoeiam, variasque Medicamentorum formulas. Lond. 1701 Joseph Browne (ed.)
`Rubens and Mayerne', Charles Davis (MA Thesis) (North Carolina, 1967)
Turquet de Mayerne as Baroque Physician: The Art of Medical Portraiture, Brian Nance (Amsterdam, 2001)
Born, 1875; educated at Llandovery College and at the University of Edinburgh; graduated MB, 1899 and MD, 1903; member of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, 1903; postgraduate study in Vienna and Berlin; held resident posts at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, and in London at the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street, the Brompton Hospital, and the Western Fever Hospital of the Metropolitan Asylums Board; diploma in public health, 1905; demonstrator and lecturer in public health at University College, London, 1907; deputy medical officer of health of the Metropolitan Borough of Stoke Newington, London, 1907; part-time officer, London County Council, 1909; full-time assistant medical officer, London County Council, 1911-1924, working in schools in the East End of London; prepared and implemented schemes for the control of tuberculosis and venereal diseases in London; Director of Hospitals and Medical services for the joint council of the British Red Cross Society and the Order of St John of Jerusalem, 1924, he also remained as London County Council part-time staff as a consultant on the tuberculosis and venereal diseases schemes; returned to full-time work for the London County Council, as County Medical Officer of Health, 1926-1939; returned to Caernarvonshire, where he acted as Inspector of hospitals and convalescent homes in north Wales for the British Red Cross Society and the Order of St John of Jerusalem; returned to London and undertook work on variouis committees, 1945; died, 1949.
Born, 1824; educated at Wakefield School; Trinity College, Oxford, 1844; medical school in Kinnerton Street attached to St George's Hospital, London; licentiate, 1850, and Fellow, 1855, of the Royal College of Physicians; MA and MB, 1851; MD, 1857; worked at morbid anatomy and was Curator of the Museum, St George's Hospital; assistant physician, 1857; full physician, 1866; resigned from St George's, 1876; returned to active practice and Consulting Physician for St George's Hospital, 1877; died, 1905.
John Noel O'Reilly was born on 15 December 1904, in Oxford, where his father was a civil servant. He was educated at the City of Oxford School and then in 1923 entered Jesus College, Oxford, as a mathematics exhibitioner, where he was a keen athlete. After becoming interested in natural sciences he chose to study medicine. He studied at the Middlesex Hospital Medical School in London, where he had a distinguished academic career. He became a licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians in 1929, and qualified BM BCh in 1930.
O'Reilly became a member of the Royal College of Physicians in 1932, and qualified MD from Oxford in 1936. He obtained a Medical Research Council travelling fellowship and went to Vienna, Heidelberg, and Munich to study tuberculosis in children. After returning to England he held registrar posts at the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street, before becoming consultant paediatrician to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in the East End of London in 1934.
During the Second World War he was found to be unfit for service in the Armed Forces, due to having undergone gastrectomy. He became medical superintendent and physician of an Army hospital, from 1940-43.
In 1943 he was appointed consultant paediatrician to St Helier Hospital, Carshalton, where he remained for 25 years. He was responsible for starting one of the earliest premature baby units in the United Kingdom. His hard work and high standards enabled the paediatric unit of the hospital to thrive, amongst an underprivileged population that had recently been re-housed from London's East End. He was an inspiration to many junior staff, and it has been said that he `inspired confidence in his excellent medical skills and related well to children' (Munk's Roll, 1994, p.400).
He simultaneously held appointments as paediatrician at several hospitals, including the Croydon General Hospital, whose staff he joined in 1946. In 1966 he became a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians.
He married Doreen Daly, consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist at St Helier's Hospital, in 1955. After retirement they travelled extensively and learnt Spanish, to add interest to their travels. O'Reilly suffered with diabetes towards the end of his life, and died at the age of 84 on 10 October 1989.
Baptised, 1785; Tancred studentship at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, 1803-1808; Physician at the Westminster Hospital, 1808-1813; Physician to the Penzance Dispensary, 1813-1817; returned to London to set up in practice, 1817; began a series of lectures in materia medica at Great Windmill Street School of Medicine, [1817]; lectured in materia medica for the Royal College of Physicians, 1819-1826; President of the Royal College of Physicians, 1844-1856; died, 1856.
Born, 1869; educated at Marlborough School; studied medicine at University College, Bristol and St Mary's Hospital; qualified, 1893; Assistant Physician at Great Ormond Street, 1900; Assistant Physician, in charge of the children's wards, at University College Hospital, 1903; full Physician at UCH, 1910; full Physician at Great Ormond Street, 1919; First World War captain in the Royal Army Medical Corps; Bradshaw lecturer at the Royal College of Physicians, 1924; Lettsomian lecturer at the Medical Society of London, 1927; President of the British Paediatric Association, 1931; Long Fox Lecturer at Bristol, 1934; retired from his hospital appointments, 1934; died, 1943.
George Rossdale was Member of the Royal College of Physicians in 1926 and subsequently became Senior Physician at St Mary's Plaistow and St Bartholomew's.
Catharine Sedley was the daughter of John Savage, Earl of Rivers, and was probably born in the late 1630s, or early 1640s.
She married Sir Charles Sedley, wit, dramatic author, and Member of Parliament for New Romney, on 23 February 1656/7 at St Giles-in-the-Fields. Her husband, favoured at the court of Charles II, gained a reputation as a patron of literature in the Restoration period, and was the Lisideius of the poet John Dryden's Essay of Dramatic Poesy (1668). His lewd, drunken behaviour brought him notoriety which rivaled his literary reputation. There are several references to Sedley's antics in Samuel Pepys's Diary.
Sir Charles and Lady Sedley had one daughter, Catharine, born in 1657. She became the favourite mistress of James, Duke of York, afterwards James II, who created her Countess of Dorchester.
Lady Sedley was eventually locked up in a madhouse, or confined in a convent, many years before she died (Guthrie, 1913, p.12; Boswell, 1929, p.1058). She is thought to have died in 1705.
An account of the life and work of R.W. Innes Smith (1872 - 1933) is given in H.T. Swan, 'R.W. Innes Smith: a man to study', in 'Proceedings of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh' vol.22 (1992), pp.224-37.
Baptized, 1624; educated Oxford University and Montpellier; began his career as an army officer in the army of Charles I; entered medicine and became a famous London practitioner, often called 'the English Hippocrates'; His conceptions of the causes and treatments of epidemics and his classic descriptions of gout, smallpox, malaria, scarlet fever, hysteria, and chorea established him as a founder of modern clinical medicine and epidemiology; died, 1689.
Born, 1661; education: Magdalen Hall, Oxford, 1667-1677; moved to London and continued to pursue anatomy, 1677; MD, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, 1680; Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, 1683; anatomical curator, Royal Society, 1683; Ventera reader in anatomy at the Company of Barber-Surgeons, 1684-1699; Physician to Bethlem and Bridewell Hospitals, 1684; died, 1708.
Born, 1885; educated: Prior Park College, near Bath, 1898-1901; University College School, London, 1901-1903; University College Hospital; National Hospital, Queen Square. Royal Army Medical Corps, consulting neurologist to the British forces in Egypt and the Middle East, 1915-; Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, 1920; staff of the National Hospital, 1921; the Department of Neurology was founded for him at University College Hospital, 1924; died, 1973.
Born, 1614; educated: Pembroke College, Cambridge, 1637; Trinity College, Oxford; studied chemistry and medicine with John Scrope at Bolton Castle, 1642-1645; moved to London to study medicine, 1645; returned to Oxford, 1646; DM, 1647; Fellow of the College of Physicians, London, 1650; incorporated at Cambridge on his doctor's degree, 1652; served as a censor of the College of Physicians, London, 1658, 1661, 1666, 1667, 1668, and 1673; practised medicine in London, 1648-; physician to St Thomas's Hospital, London, 1657-1673; died, 1673.
James Wilson was born, 1765; surgeon and from 1799 teacher of anatomy at the Hunterian School of Medicine in Great Windmill Street, London; father of James Arthur Wilson; died, 1821.
James Arthur Wilson was born, 1795; educated: Westminster School, 1808; Christ Church, Oxford, 1812-1815; entered his father's school in Great Windmill Street; studied at Edinburgh, 1817; MA at Oxford, 1818; MB, 1819; MD, 1823. Travelled through France and Switzerland to Italy as Physician to George John Spencer, second Earl Spencer, and his wife, 1819-1820; Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, 1825; practised in London and was Physician to the Lisson Grove establishment, 1829; Censor of the Royal College of Physicians, 1828 and 1851; Physician to St George's Hospital, 1829-1857; consulting physician to St George's Hospital, 1857-; left London for Dorking, 1869; died, 1882.
The College of Physicians was founded by Royal Charter in 1518 after a small group of distinguished physicians led by Thomas Linacre petitioned the King to be incorporated into a College similar to those found in a number of other European countries. The main functions of the College as set down in the founding Charter, were to grant licences to those qualified to practise medicine and to punish unqualified practitioners and those engaing in malpractice. Membership comprises Fellows, Licentiates and from 1859 Members. Membership is by examination, Fellowship by invitation after recommendation by an existing Fellow.
William Francis Victor Bonney was born in Chelsea in 1872. He was educated at a private school and at St Bartholomew's Hospital, but transferred to the Middlesex Hospital, intending to become a physician. Sir John Bland-Sutton invited him to the Chelsea Hospital for Women, where he laid the foundations of his success as a gynaecological surgeon. In 1905 he became obstetric registrar and tutor at the Middlesex Hospital. He was elected assistant gynaecological surgeon in 1908, a post which he held till 1930, when he succeeded his old friend Sir Comyns Berkeley FRCS as gynaecological surgeon. Together they wrote Textbook of Operative Gynaecology. During the first World War Bonney served as a surgeon made famous for his 'violet green anti-septic', popularly called 'Bonney's blue' (British Medical Journal 15 May 1915). At the Royal College of Surgeons he was a Hunterian Professor in 1908, 1930, and 1931, Bradshaw Lecturer in 1934, and Hunterian Orator in 1943. He was the only gynaecological specialist ever elected to the Council, and served with distinction from 1926 to 1946, being a Vice-President 1936-1938; died, 1953.
Nathaniel Bedford was born in 1757. In 1776 he served a years apprenticeship under John Gunning at St George's hospital. He qualified under the auspices of the Company of Surgeons as Second Mate, First Rate, March 5 1778 and as Surgeon, 5th Rate on April 19 1781. In December 1781 Bedford, joined the 'Formidable' as Surgeon. It was docked at Portsmouth and left in January 1782 sailing for the West Indies. Bedford was appointed Surgeon to the 'Ardent' in June 1782, soon after that he joined the 'Conqueror' in Barbados and sailed with it to New York and Boston and then back to Barbados. In December 1782 the ship sailed to Antigua and Guadeloupe and then to English Harbour returning to England in July 1783. The rest of Bedford's life and career is not known.
William Clift (1775-1849), museum curator and scientific illustrator, was born near Bodmin in Cornwall on 14 February 1775. He was the youngest of the seven children of Robert Clift (1720-1784), a miller, and his wife Joanna, a seamstress. Clift went to school at Bodmin, where is demonstrated his ability in illustration. This attracted the attention of Walter Raleigh Gilbert and his wife Nancy, who had been a schoolfellow of Anne Home who had married John Hunter in 1771. On the Gilbert's recommendation, Clift was apprenticed to John Hunter as an anatomical assistant, employed to make drawings, copy dictation and assist in the care of Hunter's anatomical specimens. Until Hunter's sudden death in 1793, Clift assisted him with dissections and often wrote from dictation from early morning until late at night. After Hunter's death, his collection of specimens was offered for sale to the government. During the period of negotiations, Clift was employed to look after the collections for a small income. He did this diligently from 1793 to 1799 when the collections were eventually purchased by the government. During this period, Clift feared for the safety of the collection, and copied out many of Hunter's unpublished manuscripts. This meant that much of the content of the collection was saved from loss through Sir Everard Home's destruction of his brother-in-law's manuscripts in 1823. In 1799 the government asked The Company of Surgeons (soon to become the Royal College of Surgeons in 1800) to look after the John Hunter collections. The Trustees of the College then made Clift conservator of the new Hunterian Museum paying him £80 per annum. Under Clift's supervision the collections were twice moved without damage into storage and then to new premises, and were greatly enlarged and enriched. Clift was a prolific record keeper and his diaries are a valuable resource for information about the workings of the College and Museum as well as wider social life in London. Clift married Caroline Harriet Pope (1775-1849) in January 1801. They had a son, William Home Clift (1803-1832) and a daughter, Caroline Amelia Clift (1801-1873). William Home Clift died after a carriage accident in 1832 and Caroline Amelia Clift married William Clift's assistant Richard Owen in 1835. William Clift was well known and highly thought of in the scientific community. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1823, was a member of the Society for Animal Chemistry, and also a fellow of the Geological Society. His skills as an illustrator were demonstrated through his work for Matthew Baillie's "A series of engravings... to illustrate the morbid anatomy of some of the most important parts of the human body," and also his work on illustrations in Sir Everard Home's numerous papers in the Philosophical Transactions. Clift submitted some papers to the Philosophical Transactions (1815, 1823), the Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal (1831), and to Transactions of the Geological Society (1829, 1835). William Clift and Richard Owen also published the "Catalogue of the Hunterian Collection of the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of London (1830-1831), and then the "Descriptive and illustrated catalogue of the physiological series of comparative anatomy contained in the museum of The Royal College of Surgeons (1833-1840). Clift retired from the museum in 1842, when he was replaced by Richard Owen as curator. His wife died on the 8th May 1849 and Clift died shortly afterwards on 20th June 1849, both being buried in Highgate cemetery. [Source: Edited from the entry by Phillip R. Sloan, 'Clift, William (1775-1849)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/5668, accessed 7 March 2005]
These are the collected letters, poems and relicts of the Hunter-Baillie family. Matthew Baillie, (1761-1823), was an anatomist and physician extraordinary to George III and nephew to the surgeons William Hunter (1718-1833) and John Hunter (1728-1893). Matthew had two sisters, Joanna Baillie, (1762-1851) poet and dramatist and Agnes Baillie (1760-1861), their parents were Revd James Baillie and Dorothea Hunter Baillie. The family moved from the manse at Bothwell, Lanarkshire, Scotland in 1775 to Glasgow when Revd Baillie was appointed Professor of Divinity at the University of Glasgow. Revd Baillie died in 1778 and Dorothea's brother William Hunter supported the family.
Matthew moved to London in 1779 to lecture at William Hunter's medical school in Great Windmill Street. When William Hunter died in 1783, he left his medical museum and his collections of manuscripts, books and coins to Glasgow University, subject only to the life interest of his nephew, Matthew Baillie, who succeeded him in his school of anatomy. Matthew Baillie kept only certain personal things, among them the letter-book, which Hunter had acquired from the family of Queen Anne's physician, John Arbuthnot (1667-1735). To this William Hunter had added letters written to himself by famous or distinguished people.
In 1783 Joanna, Agnes and Dorothea moved to London to keep house for Matthew. Joanna built up a close relationship in London with her other uncle, John Hunter, his wife, the poet, Anne Home Hunter [whose poems are included in this collection] and their daughter Agnes, later Lady Campbell. After Matthew's marriage to Sophia Denman in 1791 Joanna, Agnes and Dorothea moved to Red Lion Hill and later after the death of Dorothea in 1802 to Hampstead.
Joanna started publishing poems and plays in 1790 and gradually her reputation became known. She made friends with many leading literary and society figures of the day including Maria Edgeworth, Samuel Rogers, William Sotheby, William Wordsworth, and Lord Byron among many others. Joanna was particularly close to Sir Walter Scott [over sixty letters between them are included in this collection].
Joanna's long life, she died aged 88 in 1851 meant that she witnessed the death of many of her contemporaries, the death of her brother, Matthew in 1823 affected her strongly but she became close to younger generation especially her niece Elizabeth Margaret Baillie (1794-1876) companion of Walter Scott's daughter Sophia; and her nephew William Hunter Baillie (1797-1894). William, a barrister, moved in the same literary circles as his aunt and was interested in Hunter-Baillie family history.
Matthew Baillie was one of the leading London physicians of his day and a favoured friend at Court. He continued to add to the family collection letters, which he received, from his distinguished friends and patients. He also kept together the letters written to him by the Royal Princesses, all of which begin 'Dear Baillie.'
Matthew Baillie's wife was Sophia, daughter of Dr. Thomas Denman, (1733-1815) whose reminiscences of his early life as a ship's surgeon have been quarried for some historical novels. Denman had a fashionable obstetric practice, in which he was followed by his other son-in-law, the ill-fated Sir Richard Croft (1762-1818), who killed himself after the death of his patient Princess Charlotte, the heir to the Throne. Denman's son, Thomas Denman (1779-1854), a lawyer, advocated legal reform including the abolition of slavery, defended Queen Charlotte and became Lord Chief Justice.
Justice Denman interested himself in the family collection, helping Matthew Baillie's granddaughters to complete the work, begun by Matthew's wife Sophia, of identifying and arranging the letters. He also brought into it a miscellaneous collection of autographs gathered by his side of the family. Matthew Baillie had been a friend of Edward Jenner (1749-1823), discoverer of the small pox vaccine and of Jenner's biographer John Baron (1786-1851), and at the end of his life settled near them in Gloucestershire. Through Baron a small collection of papers of Jennerian interest was added.
John Hunter and his brother William ran a School of Anatomy in Great Windmill Street, London which was opened by William in 1768. John practised as surgeon in Golden Square from 1763, was Surgeon to St George's Hospital from 1768, and enjoyed widespread recognition as the leading teacher of surgery of his time. Edward Jenner was born in Berkeley, Gloucestershire, 1749, and was a resident pupil of John Hunter from 1770 to 1772. He returned to practice medicine at Berkeley in 1773, but continued to correspond with John Hunter on many subjects until Hunter's death in 1793. Jenner went on to investigate and experiment with vaccinations for small pox with cow pox, publishing articles and books on the subject. Hunter maintained a long correspondence with his former pupil which ended only with Hunter's death in 1793. Only Hunter's letters survive.
Joseph Rudyard Kipling was born in Bombay on 30 December 1865. He was the son of the architectural sculptor and designer John Lockwood Kipling (1837-1911) and a cousin of Stanley Baldwin (1867-1947). He was educated at United Services College, Westward Ho! North Devon. In 1882, he joined the staff of the Civil and military gazette and pioneer in Lahore, and became Assistant Editor serving until 1889. He then settled in London though travelled widely in China, Japan, America, Africa, and Australia. From 1902 he lived in Burwash. His early writing included Plain tales from the hills (1887), Soldiers three and Wee Willie Winkie . Other stories and verse such as The light that failed (1891), The jungle book (1894), Second jungle book (1895), and Captains Courageous (1897) brought him to the height of his fame. His publications also included Barrack-room ballads (1897), Kim (1901), the Just so stories for little children (1902), Puck of Pook's hill (1906), and A school history of England (1911). In 1907 Kipling was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Rudyard Kipling, who was a cousin of Stanley Baldwin, died on 18 January 1936.
Born, Langport, Somerset, 1815; educated by his father; gained an interest in microscopes early in life; at sixteen gave a course of lectures to the pupils of his school; apprenticed to a surgeon at Langport, and moved to London as apprentice to his brother Edwin; student at the London Hospital Medical College, and at Kings College; Royal Microscopical Society was founded in 1839 as the Microscopical Society of London in the house of Edward Quekett; qualified, 1840; won a three year Studentship in Human and Comparative Anatomy at the Royal College of Surgeons; lectured on histology; Secretary, Microscopical Society, 1841-1860; Assistant Conservator of the Hunterian Museum, Royal College of Surgeons of England, 1843; Demonstrator of Minute Anatomy, 1844-1852; his collection of 2,500 microscopical preparations purchased by the Royal College of Surgeons of England, 1846; Professor in Histology at the Royal College of Surgeons, 1852; gave some instruction to Prince Albert on the use of his microscope; Conservator of the Hunterian Museum, Royal College of Surgeons of England, 1856; Fellow of the Linnean Society, 1857; Fellow and President of the Royal Society, 1860; died Pangbourne, Berkshire, 1861; Quekett Microscopic Club was named in his honour, 1865.
Publications: A Practical Treatise on the Use of the Microscope (London, 1848); Descriptive and illustrated catalogue of the Histological Series contained in the Museum of the Royal College, etc. Vol. 1. Elementary tissues of vegetables and animals [By J T Duckett] (London, 1850); Lectures on Histology ... Elementary Tissues of Plants and Animals ... Illustrated by woodcuts 2 vol (London, 1852-54); Lectures of Histology Vol 11 structure of the skeleton of plants and invertebrate animals (Bailliere 1854).
Elizabeth Isham was born in Braunston, Northamptonshire, in c 1558. She lived in Warden, Bedfordshire and married Henry Cave. She died in c 1630.
No biographical information is currently known for Thomas Sendall, fl 1659.
John Falconer was a student of anatomy at the Royal College of Surgeons, in 1852-1853. The Medical Directories for 1852 and 1853 list Falconer as one of the students of anatomy. As the Directory was published at the beginning of each year, it is likely that Falconer began his studentship in Jun or Jul 1851 and finished it in 1853. The candidates for the studentship had to be members of the College and be under the age of 26. Assuming that Falconer began his studentship in 1851 at the age of 26, the earliest date he could have been born is 1825. The students were paid one hundred pounds per year and their duties included the study of anatomy, physiology and related areas, and service in the Museum. Falconer doesn't specify in his manuscript notes which hospital he was related to. Currently there is no further information on John Falconer after he completed his studentship.
Bernhard Siegfried Albinus was born in 1697. He was the son of Bernhard Albinus (1653-1721), Professor of Medicine at the University of Leiden. He was educated in Leiden and briefly in Paris and became Professor of Anatomy and Surgery in Leiden in 1721. He published an edition of the complete works of Vesalius in 1725, and the artist Jan Wandelaar (1690-1759), engraved the plates. Albinus and Wandelaar worked together for over 30 years, and their best-known work was the Tabulae sceleti et musculorum corporis humani, published in 1747. Albinus remained at the University of Leiden until his death in 1770.
Samuel Dodd Clippingdale received his medical education at the University of Aberdeen and at the London Hospital, where he was Surgical Scholar and House Physician. He was Surgeon to the Kensington Dispensary and Children's Hospital, and Police Surgeon for Kensington. He was elected President of the West London Medico-Chirurgical Society and Vice-President of the Section of Balneology and Climatology of the Royal Society of Medicine. He died in 1925.
No biographical information is currently known about Samuel Holland. He attended lectures in Edinburgh in 1740, from the evidence of these notes of lectures by Charles Alston, and also the notes of lectures by Alexander Munro, Primus, held at the Wellcome Library.
Charles Alston was born at Eddlewood, Lanarkshire in 1685. He was educated in Glasgow, and after his father's death, the Duchess of Hamilton became his patron. He studied in Leiden under the Dutch physician Hermann Boerhaave (1668-1738), in 1715. He also met Dr Alexander Monro, primus (1697-1767). On his return to Scotland, Alston was appointed lecturer in Botany and Materia Medica in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Edinburgh. He also became the King's Botanist and Keeper of the Garden at Holyrood. He held both of these posts until his death in 1760.
Francis Graham Crookshank was born in 1873. He was educated at University College London and qualified in 1894. He worked in resident appointments at University College Hospital, the Brompton Hospital, and the Northampton County Asylum. After this he began general practice at Barnes. During World War One he served in France as medical director of the English Military Hospital at Caen, and later as a captain in the Royal Army Medical Corps. After the war he worked at the London Hospital, the Prince of Wales General Hospital, St Marks Hospital and the French Hospital. At this time he became interested in the psychological and philosophical aspects of medicine, and contributed to standard works on psychology and psycho-analysis. He helped to form a medical group that became known as the Medical Society of Individual Psychology. He became Bradshaw lecturer at the Royal College of Physicians, in 1926. He died in 1933.
George Langstaff was born in Richmond, Yorkshire, in c 1780. He studied medicine at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, London. He travelled to the East and West Indies and became a naturalist and zoologist, collecting specimens which would become his museum. He became Surgeon to the workhouse of St Giles's Cripplegate where he had abundant opportunities of studying both pathology and practical anatomy. He became a Fellow of the Royal Medico-Chirurgical Society, in 1814. He published the catalogue of his museum, Catalogue of the Preparations illustrative of normal, abnormal, and morbid structure, human and comparative, constituting the Anatomical Museum of George Langstaff in 1842. Part of the collection was bought by the Hunterian Museum, and the remainder bought by the Royal College of Surgeons of England. He died in 1846.
The Cardiothoracic Society, a travelling thoracic surgical club, was formed in 1959. The first chairman was Peter Jones, and the Society became known colloquially as 'Pete's Club'. The Society began with 15 members who would meet twice a year. The Society's purpose was to informally discuss mistakes or errors of judgement regarding cardiothoracic surgery to improve best practice. The one rule was 'no member should report any case which reflects credit upon himself.' By 1969 European surgeons were invited to become members. The first European visit of the Society was made to Paris, in 1975. The meetings included a presentation of surgical operations, a scientific meeting and a social event. The Society became more global by accepting members from Canada, the USA, Australia and New Zealand, in 1980-1981. In 1989 the Society decided that it no longer has a useful purpose, as fewer mistakes and errors were being reported. The final meeting took place in 1989 in Vancouver.
Albert Carless was born in Surrey, in 1863. He was educated at Carrington Lodge, Richmond; at King's College School, London; at King's College London, where he won the senior scholarship in 1885; and at King's College Hospital. He had a distinguished undergraduate career, qualifying for the gold medal in surgery at the BS examination in 1887 and at the MS examination in the following year. In the King's College medical faculty he won the gold medal and prize for botany, the junior scholarship, the second-year scholarship, the senior medical scholarship, the Warneford prize and the Leathes prize. He was appointed house surgeon to King's College Hospital in 1885 and three years later he became Sambrooke surgical registrar. He was elected assistant surgeon to the Hospital in 1889, having the good fortune to serve under Joseph Lister; became surgeon in 1898, and from 1902 to 1918 was Professor of Surgery at King's College in succession to William Watson Cheyne. He accepted a commission as major a la suite in the territorial service in 1912, and was gazetted colonel AMS in 1917, serving at first as surgeon to the 4th London General Hospital and later as consulting surgeon to the Eastern Command; for his services he was created CBE in 1919. He retired from surgical work on demobilisation in 1919, resigned his hospital appointments, and devoted himself during the rest of his life to philanthropic work. He acted as honorary medical director at Dr Barnardo's Homes from 1919 to 1926. He died in 1936.
Sir Herbert Taylor was born in 1775. While his family travelled on the continent he received private tuition and became a good linguist. Through an acquaintance with Lord Grenville, he obtained a job in the foreign office where his knowledge of languages was useful. Taylor met Prince Frederick, Duke of York (1763-1827), in 1793. He was given a commission as cornet in the 2nd dragoon guards, and promoted to Lieutenant, in 1974. He remained with the Duke of York as assistant secretary. He accompanied Lord Cornwallis to Ireland as his aide-de-camp, military secretary and private secretary, in 1798. He became private secretary to the Duke of York, from 1799-1805, receiving promotions to major, and lieutenant colonel. He became Private Secretary to the King in 1805, and then to Queen Charlotte after the establishment of the regency. He was knighted in 1819. He was made Colonel of the 83rd foot in 1823, and promoted to Lieutenant-General in 1825. He became deputy secretary of war in the War Office in 1827, and the King made him his principal aide-de-camp. The following year he became Adjutant-General of the Forces, and then later, Private Secretary to William IV. He retired in 1837 and died in 1839. Taylor had been a confidential friend of the Duke of York, and wrote the Memoirs of the last Illness and Decease of HRH the Duke of York (London, 1827).
Alfred Poland was born in London, in 1822. He was educated at Highgate, in Paris, and in Frankfurt. After qualifying he became Demonstrator of Anatomy; then Assistant Surgeon to Guy's Hospital in 1849; Surgeon in 1861; and was placed in general charge of the Ophthalmic Department. He was Surgeon to the Royal Ophthalmic Hospital, Moorfields, 1848-1861, but he gradually gave up ophthalmic practice due to ill health. He won an honorarium of fifty guineas for his Triennial Prize Dissertation,The Origin, Connection and Distribution of the Nerves of the Human Eye and its Appendages. He won the Fothergillian Prize with the Gold Medal for his essay Injuries and Wounds of the Abdomen, at the Medical Society of London, in 1853. He died in 1872.
Robert Whytt was born in Edinburgh in 1714. He studied in St Andrews, where he was awarded Master of Arts in 1730, and also in Edinburgh, Paris and Leiden. He was awarded Doctor of Medicine at the University of Rheims in 1736. He began to practice as a doctor in 1738. He was appointed Professor of Medicine, at the University of Edinburgh in 1747, and was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1752. Whytt's important work concerned unconscious reflexes, tubercular meningitis, and the treatment of urinary bladder stones. His experiments indirectly led to the discovery of carbon dioxide by Joseph Black in 1754. His studies of reflexology and tubercular meningitis had a greater impact on the science of medicine. Whytt was the first to ascribe a reflex - Whytt's reflex, a dilation of the pupil brought on by pressure on the optic thalamus - to a specific part of the body. He also demonstrated that the spinal cord, rather than the brain, could be the source of involuntary action. His description of 'dropsy of the brain' (tubercular meningitis) was the first methodical and accurate definition of the disease, and it would have been impossible to define to a more accurate extent with the instruments available in at that time. He was physician to King George III in Scotland from 1761. He was elected President of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh in 1763. He died in 1766.
John Thomas Woolhouse was born in Halstead, Essex, in 1666. Son of Thomas Woolhouse, royal oculist and of the third generation, according to Woolhouse, to have followed that profession. He was educated at Westminster School and matriculated in 1684 at Trinity College, Cambridge, on a scholarship. He graduated in 1686/7 and then travelled throughout Europe to familiarise himself with the various methods of treating diseases of the eye. He started a practice in London, and served for a time as Groom of the Chamber to King James II. He was working in Paris from before 1700 to about 1730. He served as surgeon to the Hospice des Quinze-Vingts in 1711. He originated the operation of iridectomy to restore sight in cases of occluded pupil, and he was the first to describe the complete and systematic extirpation of the lachrymeal sac when the duct was blocked. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Surgeons of England, in 1721, being at that time oculist to the French King. He was also a member of the Royal Academy of Berlin and of the Institute of Sciences of Bologna. He died in 1734.
The British Journal of Surgery was established in 1913. The first meeting of the Editorial Committee and Sub-Committee was held at the Royal College of Surgeons of England on 13 Feb 1913. It was attended by the following: Sir William Bennett, Edred Moss Corner, Sir Thomas Crisp English, Charles Herbert Fagge, William Sampson Handley, Robert Jones, Sir Berkeley Moynihan, Ernest William Hey Groves, and Sir Berkeley Moynihan as chairman. The British Journal of Surgery was to be a periodical devoted entirely to surgery, and was published by John Wright & Sons Ltd.
Thomas Henry Watson was a student at Edinburgh University from 1871-1875. He graduated Bachelor of Medicine and Master in Surgery in 1875. Watson's career history included Assistant Medical Officer, Fife and Kinross District Asylum; Resident Medical Officer at Mildmay Mission Hospital and Dispensary, Bethnal Green, London; Medical Officer, 2nd District, and Public Vaccination Officer, 4th District, Eastbourne Union. He died in 1927.
'Archibald John Richardson, Draper, Hotiern, Doncaster.' is written at the front if the volume, in the same hand as the prescriptions. It may be the name of the author, or a note written by the author. No further biographical information is available.
A card is pasted inside the back cover, which reads 'In affectioniate rememberance of Henry Motherby of Henshall, who died on the 26th December 1870, aged 41 years.' No further biographical information is available.
The name 'Pitt' is written on the inside of the front cover. No further biographical information is available.
No biographical information was available at the time of compilation.
No biographical information was available at the time of compilation.
George Kerr Grimmer studied his BA in New Brunswick, Canada in 1887, and his MB, CM at Edinburgh in 1892. He became a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh in 1900. He was a Junior Demonstrator of Anatomy and an Assistant Demonstrator of Practical Physiology, at Edinburgh University. He was a member of the Edinburgh Medical and Chirurgical Society. He was Clinical Assistant in the Ear and Throat department of the Royal Infirmary Edinburgh, and the Medical Officer for the Health Service at Queensferry. He died in 1942.
John Croft was born in Pettinghoe, near Newhaven, in Sussex, in 1833. He was educated at the Hackney Church of England School. He was apprentice to Thomas Evans, of Burwash, in Sussex, and entered St Thomas's Hospital in 1850, where he served as House Surgeon. He acted as Surgeon to the Dreadnought Seamen's Hospital Ship from 1855-1860, and then returned to St Thomas's Hospital to become Demonstrator of Anatomy and Surgical Registrar. He was appointed Resident Assistant Surgeon in 1863, and Assistant Surgeon, and then Surgeon in 1871. He was elected Consulting Surgeon in 1891. He was also Surgeon to the Surrey Dispensary, to the National Truss Society, to the Magdalen hospital at Streatharn, and to the National Provident Assurance Society. He was elected a member of the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1882 and resigned in 1890, after serving as Vice-President in 1889 and acting on the Court of Examiners from 1881-1886.