Doctors and patients, or, Anecdotes of the medical world and curiosities of medicine / by John Timbs.
- John Timbs
- Date:
- 1876
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Doctors and patients, or, Anecdotes of the medical world and curiosities of medicine / by John Timbs. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by University of Bristol Library. The original may be consulted at University of Bristol Library.
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![describing the scene, ' to a friend, to -whom I related the whole affair, and despatched him to my kinsman at his coffee-house. As soon as the latter arrived, I pointed to the broken garter, which lay in the middle of the room; I apprised him also of the attempts I had been making. His words were, ]\Iy dear Mr. Cowper, j'^ou terrify me ! To be sure you cannot hold the office at this rate^where is the dissertation T I gave him the key of the drawer where it was deposited, and, his business requiring his immediate attendance, he took it away with him; and thus ended all my connection with the Parliament office.' ^SoiMiey's Cmoper, vol. i.,p. 130. It was while he was a boy at Westminster School that, late one evening, Cowper received the second of his serious impres- sions, which gave a colour and character to all his after-life. ' Crossing St. Margaret's churchyard,' says his biographer, Southey, ' a glimmering light in the midst of it excited his curi- osity, and instead of quickening his speed, and whistling to keej) his courage up the while, he went to see from whence it pro- ceeded. A gravedigger was at work there by lantern-light, and just as Cowper came to the spot he threw up a skull, which struck him on the leg. This gave an alarm to his conscience, and he remembered the incident as amongst the best religious impressions which he ever had. John Hunter's Eesidence at Kensington. This pre-eminent anatomist and surgeon had a country resi- dence at Earl's Court, of which we read in Foot's ' Life of Hunter' (1794) :— ' John Hunter chose a cottage at Earl's Court, about a mile, in the midst of fields, beyond Erompton. There he sometimes retreated for fresh air and took his hobby-horse along with him. Nobody of common curiosity could have passed this original cottage without being obliged to enquire to whom it belonged. Ey observing the back of the house a lawn was found stocked with fowls and animals of the strangest selection in nature, and in the front there were to be seen four figures in lead or stone](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21443130_0472.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
