A medical roll of honour : physicians and surgeons who remained in London during the Great Plague / by S.D. Clippingdale.

  • Clippingdale, Samuel Dodd, -1925.
Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: A medical roll of honour : physicians and surgeons who remained in London during the Great Plague / by S.D. Clippingdale. 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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    (5 work durin*' the plaguoyear; “Jiolton, Mayor, 26 Feb- ruary, 1666.—Uj)oii llio humble deHire of Doctor J*eck, who did es2jccial service iu visiting and ])rescribing idjysic to the ))oor infected iu the late visitation of tlie i)lague within this city and liberties, it is ordered by this Court that ]\Ir. Chamberlain shall jmy unto him the sum of fifty jmunds iu recomj)cnso of the said service.” (From MS. 295 in the Guildhall Library.) Peck had further sums from the Cor^ioration, amounting in all to £100. Wharton, Thomas, resided in Aldersgate Street. He was descended from an ancient North of England family, and was the only son of Mr. John Wharton of Winston, co. Durham, where he was born in 1614. He studied at both the Universities of Oxford (Trinity) and Cambridge (Pem- broke). He did not, however, at the time receive a degree from either, but subsequently—namely, in 1647—by virtue of letters patent issued by the Parliamentary General, Sir Thomas Fairfax, he received the degree of M.D. from the University of Oxford. Meanwhile he had been up in London studying physic under Dr. Bathurst, Physician to Oliver Cromwell. Having obtained his degree, he was admitted a Member of the Royal College of Physicians in 1648, and a Fellow in 1650, and held the post of Censor for the years 1658-61-6-7-8-73. When the plague broke out he set himself seriously to determine whether he should remain in London or flee. He decided to remain, being induced to that course, it is said, out of consideration for the large number of poor people who attended his clinic at St. Thomas’s Hospital, of which he was then Physician. To St. Thomas’s Hospital, also, the Government sent all the Foot Guards as soon as they were seized with the plague. For his services to the troops Wharton was pro- mised the first vacant post as Physician-in-ordinary to the King; but when the vacancy arose he was jput off with an augmentation in his coat of arms, for which he had to pay Sir William Dugdale, the Herald, £10.^ Dr. Wharton died in 1673, and was buried in the Church of St. Michael Bassishaw, where a marble tablet bears an eloquent testi- monial to his worth and work. Dr. MTiarton was the author of Adenograpliia (in which “ ^Vliarton’s duct ” is first described), jniblished in London in 1646, and again in Amsterdam in 1659. Witherley, Sir Thomas, was a member of the University of Cambridge, and received his M.D. degree thei’e in 1655. He became a Fellow of the College of Physicians in 1677, Censor in 1683, and President in 1684-5-6-7. He ^yas Physician in Ordinary to King Charles II. He died March 23rd, 1693. For his services during the plague he received two sums of £100 each from the City Corporation (Guildhall Library, MS. 270). II.—Surgeons. Most of the books of the Barber-Surgeons Company were destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666. The courteous Clerk 113RITISU Medical, Journal, Noveiulici-2nd. 1907.