The last will and testament, with the inventory of the estate, of Maister Peter Lowe, founder of the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons, Glasgow / by James Finlayson.

  • Finlayson, James, 1840-1906.
Date:
[1898]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The last will and testament, with the inventory of the estate, of Maister Peter Lowe, founder of the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons, Glasgow / by James Finlayson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    4/8 (page 2)
    revised copy of his Chyrurgerie being sent up to his publisher (Thomas Purfoot) in London by his executors about the time the will was confirmed in January, 1611, so that it might be published for the benefit of his son “John,” to whom had been left, among other things, “ certain buiks and instrumentis belanging to his croft.” The “Presages of Hippocrates,” issued with this treatise, bears the date 1611 ; the preface to this, signed by Peter Lowe, is dated from his “ owne house in Glasgow, the 7. day of November, 1611.” The larger work would take longer time to pass through the press, especially as many illustrations appeared in this edition for the first time. The introduction of these illustrations, as I stated in my memoir (p. 34), “ seems to have been an afterthought, as there is little allusion, if any, to the figures by Peter Lowe in his text.” The publisher, or his adviser, in issuing the second edition, probably introduced these illustrations, mostly of instruments, copied from well-known sources, as likely to add to the interest of the volume; in printing the prefaces they seem to have put in the date at which they were being printed, regardless of the author’s MS., and ignoring the fact of his death. Even modern publishers, sometimes, by way of giving freshness to an edition, have been known to put on the new year some months before it arrived. This explains, so far, the absence of any reference in the text to the numerous illustrations in this second edition. The next point of importance which is brought out in the Testament is that Peter Lowe had been married twice, for “ there was a contract of maria^e betuix Mr. David Wemis [“the Parson of Glasgow”] and him that Helein Wemis his docter now his spous should have nane of his guidis nor geir quhill his first wyffis bairnes were payit of sevin thousand and fywe hundredth merkis.” This sum is made over in the will (with detailed statements of how it is made up) to his son “ John; ” from this it appears that he was not a son of “ Helen Wemyss,” the second wife. Mention is made in the will (executed two days before he died) of this son’s tutors, whom he named; and arrangements are made in his provision for his wife for “ the honest interteinment of his sone and haulding of him at the schuill during the said space [four years] at the sicht of his saidis tutoris.” From all this we gather that his son, by his first wife, was under age at the time of his father’s death.1 1 This confirms the view I took (p. 3) that although his son “John” figures as an “ interloquutor ” in the second edition of the Chyrurgerie, he was much too young to be learning this art.