Account of the life and works of Maister Peter Lowe : the founder of the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow / by James Finlayson.

  • James Finlayson
Date:
1889
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Account of the life and works of Maister Peter Lowe : the founder of the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow / by James Finlayson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

    59/130 (page 29)
    29 Date of Death. There are many curious points raised in trying to fix the exact date of Peter Lowe’s death. In various histories of Glasgow this has been given as 1612, apparently upon the authority of the tombstone which bears this date at its head. But this date is not definitely given on it as that of his death; and it has been suggested that he might, like many others, have acquired the grave and even erected a tombstone there, for some reason, during his life- time. When the subject came to be discussed in full view of his work on “ Chyrvrgerie,” and especially of the preface to the second edition, dated from his “house in Glasgow,” 20th day of December, 1612, it was felt that some doubt might exist; for although every-day experience tells us that 11 days may readily enough suffice for a fatal illness, it seemed not unlikely that in such an event some allusion to his death, at the very date of the publication of the work, might have appeared in an elegiac stanza amongst the various commendatory verses which figure at the beginning of the volume. At that time communication was so slow between Glasgow and London that if the dedication and preface were really written in his “ owne house in Glas- gow, the 20. day of December, in the yeere of our Lord God. 1612.” and if he died within that year, the work cannot possibly have been actually published till some little time after his death ; but of this the volume bears no trace.1 On searching the list of deaths of the Parisian Surgeons, in the “ Index Funereus Chirurgorum Farisiensium ab anno 1315. ad annum 1729.”2 we find the following entry of his death:— “M. Petrus LOUVET, Scotus, Medico-Chirurgus praestantissimus. Obiit 30. Junii, anni 1617.” This precision in an official record might have seemed amply conclusive on this point; but probably the date given was that on which the intelligence of his death was received in Paris, long after his decease. Our local records in 1 The change of the beginning of the Scottish year from 25th March to January 1st can- not account for this, as this change began on January 1st, 1600. 2 See Recherches critiques ct hisloriques stir f origine, sur les divers ctats et stir les progre sdc la chirurgie en France. Paris, 1744, p. 554 [this work is by F. Quesnay and others].