A Book about Doctors Part 2

"_Electuarium de Gemmis._--Take two drachms of white perles; two little peeces of saphyre; jacinth, corneline, emerauldes, granettes, of each an ounce; setwal, the sweate roote doronike, the rind of pomecitron, mace, basel seede, of each two drachms; of redde corall, amber, shaving of ivory, of each two drachms; rootes both of white and red behen, ginger, long peper, spicknard, folium indic.u.m, saffron, cardamon, of each one drachm; of troch, diarodon, lignum aloes, of each half a small handful; cinnamon, galinga, zurubeth, which is a kind of setwal, of each one drachm and a half; thin pieces of gold and sylver, of each half a scruple; of musk, half a drachm. Make your electuary with honey emblici, which is the fourth kind of mirobalans with roses, strained in equall partes, as much as will suffice. This healeth cold diseases of ye braine, harte, stomack. It is a medicine proved against the tremblynge of the harte, faynting and souning, the weaknes of the stomacke, pensivenes, solitarines. Kings and n.o.ble men have used this for their comfort. It causeth them to be bold-spirited, the body to smell wel, and ingendreth to the face good coloure."

Truly a medicine for kings and n.o.blemen! During the railway panic in '46 an unfortunate physician prescribed for a nervous lady:--

?. Great Western, 350 shares.

Eastern Counties} North Middles.e.x } a--a 1050 Mft. Haust. 1. Om. noc. cap.

This direction to a delicate gentlewoman, to swallow nightly two thousand four hundred and fifty railway shares, was regarded as evidence of the physician's insanity, and the management of his private affairs was forthwith taken out of his hands. But a.s.suredly it was as rational a prescription as Bulleyn's "Electuarium de Gemmis."

"_A Precious Water._--Take nutmegges, the roote called doronike, which the apothecaries have, setwall, gatangall, mastike, long peper, the bark of pomecitron, of mellon, sage, bazel, marjorum, dill, spiknard, wood of aloes, cubebe, cardamon, called graynes of paradise, lavender, peniroyall, mintes, sweet catamus, germander, enulacampana, rosemary, stichados, and quinance, of eche lyke quant.i.ty; saffron, an ounce and half; the bone of a harte's heart grated, cut, and stamped; and beate your spyces grossly in a morter. Put in ambergrice and musk, of each half a drachm. Distil this in a simple aqua vit?, made with strong ale, or sackeleyes and aniseedes, not in a common styll, but in a serpentine; to tell the vertue of this water against colde, phlegme, dropsy, heavines of minde, comming of melancholy, I cannot well at thys present, the excellent virtues thereof are sutch, and also the tyme were to long."

The cure of cancers has been pretended and attempted by a numerous train of knaves and simpletons, as well as men of science. In the Elizabethan time this most terrible of maladies was thought to be influenced by certain precious waters--_i. e._ precious messes.

"Many good men and women," says Bulleyn, "wythin thys realme have dyvers and sundry medicines for the canker, and do help their neighboures that bee in perill and daunger whyche be not onely poore and needy, having no money to spende in chirurgie. But some do well where no chirurgians be neere at hand; in such cases, as I have said, many good gentlemen and ladyes have done no small pleasure to poore people; as that excellent knyght, and worthy learned man, Syr Thomas Eliot, whose works be immortall. Syr William Parris, of Cambridges.h.i.+re, whose cures deserve prayse; Syr William Gascoigne, of Yorks.h.i.+re, that helped many soare eyen; and the Lady Tailor, of Huntingdons.h.i.+re, and the Lady Darrell of Kent, had many precious medicines to comfort the sight, and to heale woundes withal, and were well seene in herbes.

"The commonwealth hath great want of them, and of theyr medicines, whych if they had come into my handes, they should have bin written in my booke. Among al other there was a knight, a man of great worshyp, a G.o.dly hurtlesse gentleman, which is departed thys lyfe, hys name is Syr Anthony Heveningham. This gentleman learned a water to kyll a canker of hys owne mother, whych he used all hys lyfe, to the greate helpe of many men, women, and chyldren."

This water "learned by Syr Anthony Heveningham" was, Bulleyn states on report, composed thus:--

"_Precious Water to Cure a Canker_:--Take dove's foote, a herbe so named, Arkangell ivy wyth the berries, young red bryer toppes, and leaves, whyte roses, theyr leaves and buds, red sage, selandyne, and woodbynde, of eche lyke quant.i.ty, cut or chopped and put into pure cleane whyte wyne, and clarified hony. Then breake into it alum gla.s.se and put in a little of the pouder of aloes hepatica. Destill these together softly in a limbecke of gla.s.se or pure tin; if not, then in limbecke wherein aqua vit? is made. Keep this water close. It will not onely kyll the canker, if it be duly washed therewyth; but also two droppes dayly put into the eye wyll sharp the syght, and breake the pearle and spottes, specially if it be dropped in with a little fenell water, and close the eys after."

There is reason to wish that all empirical applications, for the cure of cancer, were as harmless as this.

The following prescription for pomatum differs but little from the common domestic receipts for lip-salve in use at the present day:--

"_Sickness._--How make you pomatum?

"_Health._--Take the fat of a young kyd one pound, temper it with the water of musk roses by the s.p.a.ce of foure dayes; then take five apples, and dresse them, and cut them in pieces, and lard them with cloves, then boyle them altogeather in the same water of roses, in one vessel of gla.s.se; set within another vessel; let it boyle on the fyre so long until all be white; then wash them with ye same water of muske roses; this done, kepe it in a gla.s.s; and if you wil have it to smel better, then you must put in a little civet or musk, or of them both, and ambergrice. Gentilwomen doe use this to make theyr faces smoth and fayre, for it healeth cliftes in the lyppes, or in any other place of the hands and face."

The most laughable of all Bulleyn's receipts is one in which, for the cure of a child suffering under a certain nervous malady, he prescribes "a smal yong mouse rosted." To some a "rosted mouse" may seem more palatable than the compound in which snails are the princ.i.p.al ingredient. "Snayles," says Bulleyn, "broken from the sh.e.l.les and sodden in whyte wyne with oyle and sugar are very holsome, because they be hoat and moist for the straightnes of the lungs and cold cough. Snails stamped with camphory, and leven wil draw forth prycks in the flesh." So long did this belief in the virtue of snails retain its hold on Suffolk, that the writer of these pages remembers a venerable lady (whose memory is cherished for her unostentatious benevolence and rare worth) who for years daily took a cup of snail broth, for the benefit of a weak chest.

One minor feature of Bulleyn's works is the number of receipts given in them for curing the bites of mad dogs. The good man's horror of Suffolk witches is equal to his admiration of Suffolk dairies. Of the former he says, "I dyd know wythin these few yeres a false witch, called M. Line, in a towne of Suffolke called Derham, which with a payre of ebene beades, and certain charmes, had no small resort of foolysh women, when theyr chyldren were syck. To thys lame wytch they resorted, to have the fairie charmed and the spyrite conjured away; through the prayers of the ebene beades, whych she said came from the Holy Land, and were sanctifyed at Rome. Through whom many goodly cures were don, but my chaunce was to burn ye said beades. Oh that d.a.m.nable witches be suffred to live unpunished and so many blessed men burned; witches be more hurtful in this realm than either quarten or pestilence. I know in a towne called Kelshall in Suffolke, a witch, whose name was M. Didge, who with certain _Ave Marias_ upon her ebene beades, and a waxe candle, used this charme for S. Anthonies fyre, having the sycke body before her, holding up her hande, saying--

'There came two angels out of the North-east, One brought fyre, the other brought frost,-- Out fyre, and in frost!'

"I could reherse an hundred of sutch knackes, of these holy gossips.

The fyre take them all, for they be G.o.d's enemyes."

On leaving Blaxhall in Suffolk, Bulleyn migrated to the north. For many years he practised with success at Durham. At s.h.i.+elds he owned a considerable property. Sir Thomas, Baron of Hilton, Commander of Tinmouth Castle under Philip and Mary, was his patron and intimate friend. His first book, ent.i.tled "Government of Health," he dedicated to Sir Thomas Hilton; but the MS., unfortunately, was lost in a s.h.i.+pwreck before it was printed. Disheartened by this loss, and the death of his patron, Bulleyn bravely set to work in London, to "revive his dead book." Whilst engaged on the laborious work of recomposition, he was arraigned on a grave charge of murder. "One William Hilton," he says, telling his own story, "brother to the sayd Syr Thomas Hilton, accused me of no less cryme then of most cruel murder of his owne brother, who dyed of a fever (sent onely of G.o.d) among his owne frends, fynis.h.i.+ng his lyfe in the Christian fayth. But this William Hilton caused me to be arraigned before that n.o.ble Prince, the Duke's Grace of Norfolke, for the same; to this end to have had me dyed shamefully; that with the covetous Ahab he might have, through false witnes and perjury, obtayned by the counsel of Jezabell, a wineyard, by the pryce of blood. But it is wrytten, _Testis mendax peribit_, a fals witnes shal com to naught; his wicked practise was wisely espyed, his folly deryded, his bloudy purpose letted, and fynallye I was with justice delivered."

This occurred in 1560. His foiled enemy afterwards endeavoured to get him a.s.sa.s.sinated; but he again triumphed over the machinations of his adversary. Settling in London, he obtained a large practice, though he was never enrolled amongst the physicians of the college. His leisure time he devoted to the composition of his excellent works. To the last he seems to have kept up a close connection with the leading Eastern Counties families. His "Comfortable Regiment and Very Wholsome order against the moste perilous Pleurisie," was dedicated to the Right Wors.h.i.+pful Sir Robart Wingfelde of Lethryngham, Knight.

William Bulleyn died in London, on the 7th of January, 1576, and was buried in the church of St. Giles's, Cripplegate, in the same tomb wherein his brother Richard had been laid thirteen years before; and wherein John Fox, the martyrologist, was interred eleven years later.

CHAPTER III.

SIR THOMAS BROWNE AND SIR KENELM DIGBY.

Amongst the physicians of the seventeenth century were three Brownes--father, son, and grandson. The father wrote the "Religio Medici," and the "Pseudoxia Epidemica"--a treatise on vulgar errors.

The son was the traveller, and author of "Travels in Hungaria, Servia, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Thessaly, Austria, Styria, Carinthia, Carniola, Friuli &c.," and the translator of the Life of Themistocles in the English version of "Plutarch's Lives" undertaken by Dryden. He was also a physician of Bartholomew's, and a favourite physician of Charles II., who on one occasion said of him, "Doctor Browne is as learned as any of the college, and as well bred as any of the court."

The grandson was a Fellow of the Royal Society, and, like his father and grandfather, a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians; but he was by no means worthy of his distinguished progenitors. Alike unknown in literature, science, and art, he was a miserable sot, and was killed by a fall from his horse, between Southfleet and Gravesend, when in a state of intoxication. He was thus cut off in the July of 1710, having survived his father not quite two years.

The author of the "Religio Medici" enjoys as good a chance of an immortality of fame as any of his contemporaries. The child of a London merchant, who left him a comfortable fortune, Thomas Browne was from the beginning of his life (Oct. 19, 1605) to its close (Oct. 19, 1682), well placed amongst the wealthier of those who occupied the middle way of life. From Winchester College, where his schoolboy days were spent, he proceeded to the University of Oxford, becoming a member of Broadgates Hall, i.e., Pembroke College--the college of Blackstone, Shenstone, and Samuel Johnson. After taking his B.A. and M.A. degrees, he turned his attention to medicine, and for some time practised as a physician in Oxfords.h.i.+re. Subsequently to this he travelled over different parts of Europe, visiting France, Italy, and Holland, and taking a degree of Doctor in Physic at Leyden. Returning to England, he settled at Norwich, married a rich and beautiful Norfolk lady, named Mileham; and for the rest of his days resided in that ancient city, industriously occupied with an extensive practice, the pursuits of literature, and the education of his children. When Charles II. visited Norwich in 1671, Thomas Browne, M.D., was knighted by the royal hand. This honour, little as a man of letters would now esteem it, was highly prized by the philosopher. He thus alludes to it in his "Antiquities of Norwich"--"And it is not for some wonder, that Norwich having been for so long a time so considerable a place, so few kings have visited it; of which number among so many monarchs since the Conquest we find but four; viz., King Henry III., Edward I., Queen Elizabeth, and our gracious sovereign now reigning, King Charles II., of which I had a particular reason to take notice."

Amongst the Norfolk people Sir Thomas was very popular, his suave and un.o.btrusive manners securing him many friends, and his philosophic moderation of temper saving him from ever making an enemy. The honour conferred on him was a subject of congratulation--even amongst his personal friends, when his back was turned. The Rev. John Whitefoot, M.A., Rector of Heigham, in Norfolk, in his "Minutes for the Life of Sir Thomas Browne," says, that had it been his province to preach his funeral sermon, he should have taken his text from an uncanonical book--"I mean that of Syracides, or Jesus, the son of Syrach, commonly called Ecclesiasticus, which, in the 38th chapter, and the first verse, hath these words, 'Honour a physician with the honour due unto him; for the uses which you may have of him, for the Lord hath created him; for of the Most High cometh healing, and he shall receive Honour of the King' (as ours did that of knighthood from the present King, when he was in this city). 'The skill of the physician shall lift up his head, and in the sight of great men shall he be in admiration'; so was this worthy person by the greatest man of this nation that ever came into this country, by whom also he was frequently and personally visited."

Widely and accurately read in ancient and modern literature, and possessed of numerous accomplishments, Sir Thomas Browne was in society diffident almost to shyness. "His modesty," says Whitefoot, "was visible in a natural habitual blush, which was increased upon the least occasion, and oft discovered without any observable cause. Those who knew him only by the briskness of his writings were astonished at his gravity of aspect and countenance, and freedom from loquacity." As was his manner, so was his dress. "In his habit of cloathing he had an aversion to all finery, and affected plainness both in fas.h.i.+on and ornaments."

The monuments of Sir Thomas and his lady are in the church of St.

Peter's, Mancroft, Norwich, where they were buried. Some years since Sir Thomas Browne's tomb was opened for the purpose of submitting it to repair, when there was discovered on his coffin a plate, of which Dr. Diamond, who happened at the time to be in Norwich, took two rubbings, one of which is at present in the writer's custody. It bears the following interesting inscription:--"Amplissimus vir Dr. Thomas Browne Miles Medicin? Dr. Annos Natus et Denatus 19 Die Mensis Anno Dmi., 1682--hoc loculo indormiens corporis spagyrici pulvere plumb.u.m in aurum convert.i.t."

The "Religio Medici" not only created an unprecedented sensation by its erudition and polished style, but it shocked the nervous guardians of orthodoxy by its boldness of inquiry. It was a.s.sailed for its infidelity and scientific heresies. According to Coleridge's view of the "Religio Medici," Sir Thomas Browne, "a fine mixture of humourist, genius, and pedant," was a Spinosist without knowing it. "Had he,"

says the poet, "lived nowadays, he would probably have been a very ingenious and bold infidel in his real opinions, though the kindness of his nature would have kept him aloof from vulgar, prating, obtrusive infidelity."

Amongst the adverse critics of the "Religio Medici" was the eccentric, gallant, brave, credulous, persevering, frivolous, Sir Kenelm Digby. A M?cenas, a Sir Philip Sydney, a Dr. Dee, a Beau Fielding, and a Dr.

Kitchener, all in one, this man is chief of those extravagant characters that astonish the world at rare intervals, and are found nowhere except in actual life. No novelist of the most advanced section of the idealistic school would dare to create such a personage as Sir Kenelm. The eldest son of the ill-fated Sir Everard Digby, he was scarcely three years old when his father atoned on the scaffold for his share in the gunpowder treason. Fortunately a portion of the family estate was entailed, so Sir Kenelm, although the offspring of attainted blood, succeeded to an ample revenue of about ?3000 a-year.

In 1618 (when only in his fifteenth year) he entered Gloucester Hall, now Worcester College, Oxford. In 1621 he commenced foreign travel. He attended Charles I. (then Prince of Wales) at the Court of Madrid; and returning to England in 1623, was knighted by James I. at Hinchinbroke, the house of Lord Montague, on the 23rd of October in that year. From that period he was before the world as courtier, cook, lover, warrior, alchemist, political intriguer, and man of letters. He became a gentleman of the bedchamber, and commissioner of the navy. In 1628 he obtained a naval command, and made his brilliant expedition against the Venetians and Algerians, whose galleys he routed off Scanderon. This achievement is celebrated by his client and friend, Ben Jonson:--

"Though, happy Muse, thou know my Digby well, Yet read in him these lines: he doth excel In honour, courtesy, and all the parts Court can call hero, or man could call his arts.

He's prudent, valiant, just, and temperate; In him all virtue is beheld in state; And he is built like some imperial room For that to dwell in, and be still at home.

His breast is a brave palace, a broad street, Where all heroic, ample thoughts do meet; Where nature such a large survey hath ta'en, As other souls, to his, dwelt in a lane: Witness his action done at Scanderoon Upon his birthday, the eleventh of June."

Returning from war, he became once more the student, presenting in 1632 the library he had purchased of his friend Allen, to the Bodleian Library, and devoting his powers to the mastery of controversial divinity. Having in 1636 entered the Church of Rome, he resided for some time abroad. Amongst his works at this period were his "Conference with a Lady about the Choice of Religion," published in 1638, and his "Letters between Lord George Digby and Sir Kenelm Digby, Knt., concerning Religion," not published till 1651. It is difficult to say to which he was most devoted--his King, his Church, literature, or his beautiful and frail wife, Venetia Stanley, whose charms fascinated the many admirers on whom she distributed her favours, and gained her Sir Kenelm for a husband when she was the discarded mistress of Richard, Earl of Dorset. She had borne the Earl children, so his Lords.h.i.+p on parting settled on her an annuity of ?500 per annum. After her marriage, this annuity not being punctually paid, Sir Kenelm sued the Earl for it. Well might Mr. Lodge say, "By the frailties of that lady much of the n.o.blest blood of England was dishonoured, for she was the daughter of Sir Edward Stanley, Knight of the Bath, grandson of the great Edward, Earl of Derby, by Lucy, daughter and co-heir of Thomas Percy, Earl of Northumberland." Such was her unfair fame. "The _fair fame_ left to Posterity of that Truly n.o.ble Lady, the Lady Venetia Digby, late wife of Sir Kenelm Digby, Knight, a Gentleman Absolute in all Numbers," is embalmed in the clear verses of Jonson. Like Helen, she is preserved to us by the sacred poet.

"Draw first a cloud, all save her neck, And out of that make day to break; Till like her face it do appear, And men may think all light rose there."

In other and more pa.s.sionate terms Sir Kenelm painted the same charms in his "Private Memoirs."

But if Sir Kenelm was a chivalric husband, he was not a less loyal subject. How he avenged in France the honour of his King, on the body of a French n.o.bleman, may be learnt in a curious tract, "Sir Kenelme Digby's Honour Maintained. By a most courageous combat which he fought with Lord Mount le Ros, who by base and slanderous words reviled our King. Also the true relation how he went to the King of France, who kindly intreated him, and sent two hundred men to guard him so far as Flanders. And now he is returned from Banishment, and to his eternall honour lives in England."

Sir Kenelm's "Observations upon Religio Medici," are properly characterized by Coleridge as those of a pedant. They were written whilst he was kept a prisoner, by order of the Parliament, in Winchester House; and the author had the ludicrous folly to a.s.sert that he both read the "Religio Medici" through for the first time, and wrote his bulky criticism upon it, in less than twenty-four hours.

Of all the claims that have been advanced by authors for the reputation of being rapid workmen, this is perhaps the most audacious.

For not only was the task one that at least would require a month, but the impudent a.s.sertion that it was accomplished in less than a day and night was contradicted by the t.i.tle-page, in which "the observations"

are described as "occasionally written." Beckford's vanity induced him to boast that "Vathek" was composed at one sitting of two days and three nights; but this statement--outrageous falsehood though it be--was sober truth compared with Sir Kenelm's brag.

But of all Sir Kenelm's vagaries, his Sympathetic Powder was the drollest. The composition, revealed after the Knight's death by his chemist and steward, George Hartman, was effected in the following manner:--English vitriol was dissolved in warm water; this solution was filtered, and then evaporated till a thin sc.u.m appeared on the surface. It was then left undisturbed and closely covered in a cool place for two or three days, when fair, green, and large crystals were evolved. "Spread these crystals," continues the chemist, "abroad in a large flat earthen dish, and expose them to the heat of the sun in the dog-days, turning them often, and the sun will calcine them white; when you see them all white without, beat them grossly, and expose them again to the sun, securing them from the rain; when they are well calcined, powder them finely, and expose this powder again to the sun, turning and stirring it often. Continue this until it be reduced to a white powder, which put up in a gla.s.s, and tye it up close, and keep it in a dry place."

The virtues of this powder were unfolded by Sir Kenelm, in a French oration delivered to "a solemn a.s.sembly of n.o.bles and Learned Men at Montpellier, in France." It cured wounds in the following manner:--If any piece of a wounded person's apparel, having on it the stain of blood that had proceeded from the wound, was dipped in water holding in solution some of this sympathetic powder, the wound of the injured person would forthwith commence a healing process. It mattered not how far distant the sufferer was from the scene of operation. Sir Kenelm gravely related the case of his friend Mr. James Howel, the author of the "Dendrologia," translated into French by Mons. Baudoin. Coming accidentally on two of his friends whilst they were fighting a duel with swords, Howel endeavoured to separate them by grasping hold of their weapons. The result of this interference was to show the perils that

"Environ The man who meddles with cold iron."

His hands were severely cut, insomuch that some four or five days afterwards, when he called on Sir Kenelm, with his wounds plastered and bandaged up, he said his surgeons feared the supervention of gangrene. At Sir Kenelm's request, he gave the knight a garter which was stained with his blood. Sir Kenelm took it, and without saying what he was about to do, dipped it in a solution of his powder of vitriol. Instantly the sufferer started.

"What ails you?" cried Sir Kenelm.

"I know not what ails me," was the answer; "but I find that I feel no more pain. Methinks that a pleasing kind of freshnesse, as it were a cold napkin, did spread over my hand, which hath taken away the inflammation that tormented me before."