Thomas Trotter, M.D / by Sir Humphry Rolleston.

  • Humphry Rolleston
Date:
[1919?]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Thomas Trotter, M.D / by Sir Humphry Rolleston. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    apoplexy, right pleural effusion, and oedema, and adds, “I shall make no comment on this singular case, but leave the pneumatic physician to ac¬ count whether this obstruction in the auricle was the cause of the blood not being fully oxygenated by the blood.” His considerable work entitled “A View of the Nervous Tempera¬ ment, being a Practical Enquiry into the Increasing Prevalence, Prevention and Treatment of those Diseases Commonly Called Nervous, Bilious, Stomach and Liver Complaints, Low Spirits and Gout, ” provides solid reading. He finds that the eighteenth century was remarkable for the increase of nervous diseases and that whereas in the “English Malady” (1733) George Cheyne of Bath and Lon¬ don estimated that one-third of the upper classes were thus affected, Trotter says that nervous diseases constitute two-thirds of all the disorders of civilised society, attack the poor as well as the well-to-do, and are tending rapidly to abridge the physical strength and mental capacities of the human race. The remedy is a return to the simple life. The appearance in 1805 of his pamphlet of 47 pages, “A Proposal for destroying the Fire and Choak-damp in Coal-mines,” by fumiga¬ tion and water at 40° F. run in by a fire-engine, was followed by a wordy warfare; in 1806 “A Friend to Rational Improvement” attacked Trotter in a brochure of 46 pages, and almost at the same time H. Dewar, M.D., Honorary Physician to the Manchester Infirmary (1804-6), poured out 53 pages of chemical and other strictures on Trotter's proposals. To these Trotter at once replied, but the “Friend to Rational Improvement” had the last word in August, 1806. These five polemic exercises are bound up in one volume in the Library of the Royal Medical Society of Edinburgh; but they have long been buried in oblivion, as in 1815 Sir Hum¬ phry Davy brought out his safety lamp for miners, which also raised a small storm for priority with George Stephenson, the future pioneer of railway enterprise, and in its turn has been super¬ seded by the electric light. “The Practicable Plan for Manning the Royal Navy and Pre¬ serving our Maritime Supremacy without Impressment” (1819) is not without interest in connexion with recent events, for it gives an account of the general mutiny in the Royal Navy in 1797 for increase of pay and rations, of which Trotter as serving under
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