Doctors of Samuel Johnson and his court / by James P. Warbasse.

  • James Peter Warbasse
Date:
1908
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Doctors of Samuel Johnson and his court / by James P. Warbasse. 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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    consulted, recommended Dr. Jodrell who received the honor of knighthood and sailed forthwith for India. Sir Robert Sibbald (1641-1712), M.D., was the Founder of the Royal College of Physicians at Edinburgh. He was a celebrated Scottish antiquarian. His “Remains,” containing his autobiography, was published in 1837. The autobiography alone had been .published earlier. In this latter he discovers himself to be a most candid man. He relates how that the Duke of Perth, then Chancellor of Scotland, urged him to embrace the Roman Catholic faith. He long resisted, until one day he felt himself instantaneously convinced, and with tears in his eyes riushed into the Duke’s arms and embraced the ancient faith. He was devout and steadfast until one winter he accompanied his Grace and family to London, and lived in his household. Here the rigid fasting, prescribed by the Church, he found disposed him to reconsider his conversion, and he returned to the old Scottish Church. As a Catholic he became a protestaut against dietary re.strictions, and his ajKistacy was effected through the flesh pots of j)rotcstanti.sm. Martin' W’au., M.D., I'.R.C.P., practiced medicine at Oxford where he was a physician to the Radcliffe Infirmary. When Johnson visited Oxford in 1784. he engaged in a di.scus- sion with Dr. Wall, over their tea cu])s, in which he .said that it was wonderful how little good Radcliffe’s traveling fellowships had done: he knew nothing that had been imported by them, yet many additions to our medical knowledge might be got in foreign countries. “Innoculation, said Johnson, “has saved more lives than war destroys; and the cures performed by the Peruvian bark are innumerable. But it is in vain to send our traveling physicians to France, and Italy, and Germany, for all that is known there is known here; I’d send them out of Chri.stendom; I’d send them among barbarous nations.” Lorp Tri.mlestown' was descended from an ancient Irish line. He had studied physic and prescribed gratis for the poor. Concerning Sir Sibbald’s autobiography it was Trimlestown who remarked that “as the ladies love to look to see themselves in a glass, so a man likes to see himself in his journal. John R.xdcliffe (1650-1714), M.D., was one of the most striking personalities of this period. He was brusque and suc- cessful, arrogant and honest, witty and eminent. He went to school at Oxford, where he was graduated in arts and medicine. In his medical studies he interested himself particularly in the