Life and character of the celebrated Mr. Martin Van Butchell, surgeon dentist and fistula curer, of Mount-street, Berkeley-square.

Date:
[1803]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Life and character of the celebrated Mr. Martin Van Butchell, surgeon dentist and fistula curer, of Mount-street, Berkeley-square. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    a ground-Avoi'k of these recommendations, to the knowledge of the French language, and other accomplishments, a good character, and a prepossessing address, were no trivial stimulants towards his ad%'ancement in life. Hence, his first recommendation to the family of Sir Thomas Robin- son, was for the purpose of that gentleman’s making him a travelling companion to his son. This offer, however, from a misrepresentation of the temper and disposition of Sir Thomas, Mr. Van Butchell did not think advisable to accept of; but in lieu of the same, very soon after went into the family of the Viscountess 1'albot, where, as Groom of the Chambers, he remained nine years. As this situa- tion was probably lucrative, it enabled him on leaving it, to pursue his favourite studies of mechanics and medicine, and particulai-ly anatomy. And as the human teeth acci- dentalh'^ became a principal object of his attention, through the breaking of one of his own, and having engaged him- self as a pupil to the celebrated Dr. J. Flunter, the pro- fession of a Dentist, waa that by which lie first appeared in the world as a public character. In this lie was so emi- nently successful, that for a complete set of teeth, he is known to have received a price as high as eighty guineas. And of one lady we have heard, that being dissatisfied with her teeth for which she had paid him ten guineas, he voluntarily returned her the money, though in a very carlv, and consequently not the most lucrative period of his prac- tice; however, he had scarcely slept upon the contempla- tion of this disappointment, before she returned, soliciting the set of teeth which he had made her, as a favour, ivith an immediate tender of the price which she had originally paid for them, and received them back again accordingly. • Of another lady we have becn told, who in the course of Mr. Van Butchell’s ]iracticc as a Dentist, exhibited a strik- ing proof in her own person, that the character of the painted