The mother of Dr. Baillie was the sister of John Hunter, the celebrated anatomist and physiologist. From the university of Glasgow, he went, in 1780, to Balliol College, Oxford, where he graduated, and settled early in London, under the immediate superintendence of his other maternal uncle, Dr. William Hunter. Following the example of his distinguished relations, he became himself a teacher of anatomy in 1785; and he continued to lecture for nearly twenty years. In delivering his lectures, he expressed himself with great clearness, and conveyed his information to his pupils in the most simple and intelligible language. For this talent he was greatly indebted to the assiduous instruction of his uncle, who spared no pains in cultivating in his young pupil a habit of ready and exact explanation; and was accustomed to teach him in this manner: “Matthew, do you know any thing of to-day’s lecture?” demanded Dr. Hunter of his nephew. “Yes, sir, I hope I do.” “Well, then, demonstrate to me.” “I will go and fetch the preparation, sir.” “Oh! no, Matthew, if you know the subject really, you will know it whether the preparation be absent or present.” Dr. Hunter then stood with his back to the fire, and his nephew demonstrated. Thus was the young student encouraged by approbation and assistance, or immediately convicted of loose and inaccurate information.

His work on morbid anatomy, published in 1793, was dedicated by him to his friend Dr. David Pitcairn, as a testimony of high esteem for his character, and of gratitude for many kind offices. The splendid engravings which were afterwards published as illustrations of this work, were alike creditable to his own taste and liberality, and to the state of the arts in this country.

When I passed from the hands of Pitcairn into the possession of Dr. Baillie, I ceased to be considered any longer as a necessary appendage of the profession, and consequently the opportunities I enjoyed of seeing the world, or even of knowing much about the state of physic, were very greatly abridged, and but of rare occurrence.

Once only was I introduced into a large party. It was on a Sunday evening, when I was taken to one of the scientific meetings, held at the house of Sir Joseph Banks in Soho Square. How different from the gay conversaziones in Ormond Street, in the spacious library of Dr. Mead, filled with splendid books, and ornamented with antiques of the most costly description! On entering the house of Sir Joseph, I was ushered up a sort of back staircase, and introduced into two gloomy apartments, in the farther corner of the first of which sat the President of the Royal Society, wearing the red riband of the Order of the Bath, in a gouty chair. Here I was passed from one to the other, and considered rather as a curious relic, than regarded, as I was wont to be, as the support and ornament of the faculty. My only consolation arose, as I was handed about, from the observation, which it was impossible not to make, that among the philosophers present there was a great proportion of medical men, who examined me, as may be supposed, with more than ordinary interest. Among others, I did not escape the keen and scrutinizing eye of a physician who then held the office of Secretary to the Royal Society, who early relinquished the practice of his profession for other pursuits, but whose name is identified with the history of modern chemistry, and will live as long as science shall be cultivated.

From what has been stated of the condition to which I was now reduced, it will be inferred, that it was chiefly from the position which I occupied in the corner of the room in which Dr. Baillie received his patients at home, that I became at all acquainted with what was going on in medicine.

My present was the very reverse, in almost every particular, of my early master, Dr. Radcliffe. In person, Dr. Baillie was considerably below the middle size, with a countenance rather plain than prepossessing, a Scotch dialect, and blunt manners. Than his first address nothing could be less imposing; and yet, before he had been in company with you for five minutes, he would have convinced you that he was one of the most sensible, clear-headed physicians you had ever listened to.

From his habit of public lecturing, he had acquired two great advantages; First, a minute and accurate knowledge of the structure of the human body; and, Second, the most perfect distinctness and excellent arrangement, in what may be called the art of statement. For this latter quality he was very remarkable; and even when he was compelled to relinquish lecturing (by which he had acquired it), in consequence of the growing extent of his practice, it continued to be of daily advantage to him. In examining a patient, for the purpose of learning the symptoms of the complaint, the questions he put were so few as to give an impression of haste and carelessness; in conversing on the case with the physician whom he met in consultation, he was very short and clear; and it was not until the relations or friends of the patient were admitted, and he proceeded to communicate to them the result of the consultation, that he appeared to full advantage. He then gave a short practical lecture, not merely on the symptoms of the patient, but on the disease generally, in which all that was known on the subject was brought to bear on the individual case, and in doing this, his utterance was so deliberate, that it was easy to follow him. His explanations were so concise, that they always excited attention, and never tired; and the simplicity of the language in which they were conveyed, where all technical terms were studiously avoided, rendered them perfectly intelligible.

It was a maxim with him, that the most successful treatment of patients depended upon the exertion of sagacity or good common sense, guided by a competent professional knowledge, and not by following strictly the rules of practice laid down in books, even by men of the greatest talents and experience. “It is very seldom,” was he used to say, “that diseases are found pure and unmixed, as they are commonly described by authors; and there is almost an endless variety of constitutions. The treatment must be adapted to this mixture and variety, in order to be as successful as circumstances will permit; and this allows of a very wide field for the exercise of good common sense on the part of the physician.”

In his view of the case of a patient, he selected the leading features of the subject, and neglecting all minor details, he systematically abstained from touching upon any thing ingenious, subtle, or far-fetched. Hence, in the treatment of disease, he was not fertile in expedients, but aimed at the fulfilment of a few leading indications, by the employment of the simplest means; if these failed, he was often at a loss what to do next, and had not the talent, for which some are distinguished, of varying his prescription every day, so as to retain the confidence and keep alive the expectation of the patient. But this peculiarity of mind, which was perhaps a defect in the practice of his profession, was a great advantage to him in his discourse, and rendered him unrivalled as a lecturer. After writing a prescription, he read it over with great care and consideration, for fear of having committed a mistake.

During his latter years, when he had retired from all but consultation practice, and had ample time to attend to each individual case, he was very deliberate, tolerant, and willing to listen to whatever was said to him by the patient; but when in the hurry of great business, when his day’s work, as he was used to say, amounted to seventeen hours, he was sometimes rather irritable, and betrayed a want of temper in hearing the tiresome details of an unimportant story. After listening, with torture, to a prosing account from a lady, who ailed so little that she was going to the opera that evening, he had happily escaped from the room, when he was urgently requested to step up stairs again; it was to ask him whether, on her return from the opera, she might eat some oysters: “Yes, Ma’am,” said Baillie, “shells and all.”

As I was not present on this occasion, this story, though often related, may possibly not be true; and, indeed, I cannot suppose that so experienced a practitioner would have treated with so much levity the important mystery of cookery. To judge of the true skill and merit of a Physician requires a competent knowledge of the science of medicine itself; but to gain the good opinion of the patient or his friends, there is, perhaps, no method so ready as to show expertness in the regulation of the diet of the sick. Discretion and judgment will of course be required; the rules should not be unnecessarily severe or rigid, otherwise they will not be followed; but the prudent Physician will prescribe such laws as though not the best, are yet the best that will be obeyed. In many cases, however, it is not enough to say “you must avoid meat, fermented liquors, or pastry.” All this is infinitely too vague, too general, and unsatisfactory; you must be precise and peremptory about trifles. In a long illness the mind of the patient is enfeebled, the invention of his attendants has been exhausted, and they all like to be saved the trouble and effort of thought; the Doctor therefore must think for them, and direct the diet of the sick as he would his draught. Besides indicating an anxious solicitude for the comfort of the invalid, it shows a nice discrimination of the virtues and qualities of the ordinary articles of food, not possessed by less sagacious persons.

It is in the judicious management of this branch of our art that French Physicians particularly excel. Par exemple:

“Le dÉjeÛner consistera en thÉ froid, ou eau froide sucrÉe, ou non sucrÉe avec du lait, et du pain À volontÉ. Le diner permet une ou deux portions de viande fraiche, tendre, du pain rassis et des lÉgumes farineux.

“Le vin sera mis avec l’eau pour boisson, et on en boira un seul verre pur (de Xeres) sur la fin du dÎner.

“Les pÂtisseries, la graisse, les lÉgumes venteux, les fruits, sont defendus.

“Une soupe au bouillon ou de l’eau avec du lait, ou du thÉ et du pain serviront de souper.”

A letter of directions like these, though followed by the prescription of nothing more energetic than une lÉgÈre infusion de feuilles d’oranger, et deux demi lavemens, will go farther to impress upon the mind of his patient a high opinion of the skill of the Doctor, than the simple and efficient practice of the most judicious and honest Physician of the English school.

If this be true in ordinary cases of sickness, it is more especially so with the hypochondriac, or with those whose appetites are jaded by a long course of indulgence. To them an expert Physician will say, “I advise you to take some calves’-feet jelly made with hock; or could you not fancy the claw of a boiled lobster, with a little butter and Cayenne pepper?”

But I have few adventures to relate; my state of retirement kept me in an almost total ignorance of what was passing in the great world. It may therefore be a fit opportunity for me to pause a little, and review, for a moment, the progress of medicine for the last hundred and fifty years.

Sydenham died the very year I became connected with the profession; him, therefore, I never saw, but with his name and merits I soon became abundantly familiar. He has been usually styled the English Hippocrates, and with reason, for there is a great resemblance between their characters. Although they were both theorists, and, on many occasions, apparently founded their practice upon their theories, yet they were still more attentive to the observation of facts, and seldom permitted their speculative views to interfere with their treatment of their patients. In opposition to the Physicians of his time, Sydenham directed his first attention to the careful observation of the phenomena of disease, and chiefly employed hypothesis as the mere vehicle by which he conveyed his ideas. His merit has been justly appreciated by posterity, both in his own country and among foreigners; and his works continue to this day to be a standard authority, and are as much esteemed after the lapse of a century and a half, as they were immediately after their publication. But his skill in physic was not his highest excellence, his whole character was amiable, his chief view being the benefit of mankind, and the chief motive of his actions the will of God. He was benevolent, candid, and communicative, sincere and religious; qualities which it were happy if they would copy from him, who emulate his knowledge and imitate his methods.

Sydenham died at his house in Pall Mall, on the 29th December, 1689, and was buried in the aisle near the south door of the church of St. James, in Westminster. But the epitaph that indicated the spot being nearly obliterated, the College of Physicians resolved at their general quarterly meeting, (comitia majora ordinaria) held December 22, 1809, to erect a mural monument as near as possible to the place of interment, within that church, to the memory of this illustrious man, with the following inscription:

Prope hunc Locum sepultus est
Thomas Sydenham,
Medicus in omne Ævum nobilis.
Natus erat A. D. 1624,
Vixit Annos 65.
Deletis veteris Sepulchri Vestigiis,
Ne Rei Memoria interiret,
Hoc Marmor poni jussit Collegium
Regale Medicorum Londinense, A. D. 1810.
Optime Merito!

Amongst the direct practical improvements for which Society is indebted to Sydenham, is the employment of the cooling treatment in small-pox.

“I see no reason,” said he, “why the patient should be kept stifled in bed, but rather that he may rise and sit up a few hours every day, provided the injuries arising from the extremes of heat and cold be prevented, both with respect to the place wherein he lies, and his manner of clothing.” But the prejudices and authority of his contemporaries opposed the immediate introduction of this natural method; though so convinced was its judicious and discerning author of its propriety, that he foretold, with confidence, its ultimate universal employment—obtinebit demum me vit functo.

The prediction has been completely fulfilled; for what Sydenham recommended, the popularity and more extensive practice of Radcliffe soon introduced into general use, and the treatment has been amply sanctioned by experience. For, strange as it may appear, notwithstanding the estimation in which the works of this great ornament of physic have been always held, he made no powerful impression himself upon the general state of medicine, nor diverted in any material degree the current of public opinion from its former channel. The mathematical physicians, who succeeded him, invented new theories, more captivating than any which had hitherto appeared, and the full effect of the example of Sydenham was for some time lost in the seductive influence of visionary speculation.

What Mead effected in the improvement of medicine, by contributing so materially as he did to promote the practice of inoculation, has been already mentioned.

The mechanical systems which, for some years afterwards, prevailed, were powerfully assailed by the metaphysical theory of Stahl, revolution succeeded to revolution, old systems yielded to new doctrines, till the inductive philosophy gradually extended itself to the study of the animal economy. From among the various authors of these rival systems, it is impossible not to select the name of Boerhaave, superior perhaps in learning and information, and possessing more judgment than any of them. He has been compared to Galen, being endowed with the same extensive range of knowledge on all topics directly or indirectly connected with medicine, the same dexterity in availing himself of the information of his predecessors or contemporaries, and the same felicity in moulding these separate materials into one consistent and harmonious whole. By his great assiduity, his acquaintance with chemistry and botany, in short with every department connected with medicine, he raised the University of Leyden, his native town, to the rank of the first medical school in Europe. The next name, at which in this hasty and imperfect sketch, one would pause, would probably be that of Haller, whose correct description of the laws of the muscular and nervous systems gave a new impulse to the progress of pathology.

Cullen, who occupied the medical chair in the University of Edinburgh for a long series of years, was a man of a shrewd and penetrating genius, and for some time his doctrines, which were proposed with an air of candour, and even with a spirit of philosophical scepticism, received almost the universal assent of his contemporaries. In thus approaching modern times, we cannot fail to be struck with the great change that has taken place in the general character of the systems of physic, which has been effected by the gradual substitution of observation and experiment for learning and scholastic disputation. No one will deny that the result of this change has been the improvement of the practice of our art; hence the rate of mortality has decreased nearly one-third, within the last forty years, referable to the more temperate habits which prevail almost uniformly through all orders of society, to the entire disappearance or mitigated severity of many fatal diseases, and, above all, to the substitution of Vaccination for the small-pox.

It was in the year 1798 that Jenner published his “Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the VariolÆ VaccinÆ,” and announced to the world the important fact, that the cow-pox protects the human constitution from the infection of small-pox.

By this discovery the beauty of the human race has been greatly improved, and the vestiges of the small-pox have been almost driven away; for to see in our churches, our theatres, or in any other large assemblage of people, a young person bearing the marks of that disease is now of very rare occurrence. And if this be true in England, where every free-born Englishman values himself chiefly on the unquestioned liberty of doing what is foolish and wrong, without the dread of the least control, it is still more so in other countries of Europe. With us, crowds of the poor go unvaccinated, permitted not only to imbibe the small-pox themselves, but to be at large, scattering the poison on those whom they chance to meet. Whereas abroad, in most of the other parts of Europe, vaccination has been ordered by government; no one who has not undergone either cow-pox or small-pox being allowed either to be confirmed, put to school, apprenticed, or married.

Before the introduction of inoculation, small-pox killed one out of four of those whom it attacked; that method changed it into a disease by which one only out of several hundreds perished. Vaccination, by the excitement of a very trifling disorder, imparted a charmed life, over which the small-pox generally seemed to have no influence; for its protecting power must be qualified. It is foolish to deny that the pretensions of this great discovery were, in the enthusiasm of the moment, somewhat overrated; but, after more than twenty years’ experience, this consoling truth seems finally to be firmly established, that the number of those who take the small-pox after vaccination, and pass through a safe and harmless disease, is not greater than the number of those who used to die under inoculation, namely, one in three hundred.

But I must return from this short digression, to speak of the benefits conferred by Dr. Baillie on his profession, and particularly of his donation to the College, of which he was so distinguished an ornament.

In 1819 he presented to that body his entire collection of anatomical preparations, by far the greater number of which had been made by his own hands, and from which he had chiefly selected the splendid engravings that illustrated his work on Anatomy.

He lived only four years after this donation, when his health gradually gave way, and though a hope was entertained, that the failure of his strength might be ascribed to the fatigue of business, and that retirement would afford him relief, he sensibly and rapidly sunk, and died before he had completed his sixty-third year.

His bust is placed in the College of Physicians, and the President, on the 22d December, 1823, having announced the bequests contained in his will, consisting, amongst others, of his library, read the following observations on the medical character of his departed friend and colleague.

“The same principles which guided Dr. Baillie in his private and domestic life, governed his public and professional behaviour. He was kind, generous, and sincere. His purse and his personal services were always at the command of those who could prefer a proper claim to them; and every branch of the profession met with equal attention. Nay, such was his condescension, that he often incurred great inconvenience to himself, by his punctual observance of appointments with the humblest practitioners.

“In consultation, he was candid and liberal in the highest degree; and so industriously gave credit to the previous treatment of the patient (if he could approve of it), that the physician who called him in, never failed to find himself in the same possession of the good opinion of the family as he was before the circumstances of the case had made a consultation necessary.

“His manner of explaining the disease, and the remedies recommended, was peculiar to himself, and singularly happy. It was a short compressed lecture, in which the objects in view, and the means by which they were to be obtained, were developed with great clearness of conception, and in such simple unadorned language as was intelligible to his patient, and satisfactory to his colleague.

“Before his time, it was not usual for a physician to do much more than prescribe remedies for the malady, and to encourage the patient by such arguments of consolation as might present themselves to humane and cultivated minds. But as the assumed gravity and outward signs of the profession were now considered obsolete customs, and were, by general consent, laid aside by the physicians, and as a more curious anxiety began to be observed on the part of the patient to learn every thing connected with his complaint, arising naturally from the improved state of general knowledge, a different conduct became necessary in the sick room. The innovation required by the spirit of modern times never could have been adopted by any one more fitted by nature and inclination to carry it into effect than by Dr. Baillie.

“The attention which he had paid to morbid anatomy (that alteration of structure, which parts have undergone by disease), enabled him to make a nice discrimination in symptoms, and to distinguish between disorders which resemble each other. It gave him a confidence also in propounding his opinions, which our conjectural art does not readily admit; and the reputation, which he enjoyed universally for openness and sincerity, made his dicta be received with a ready and unresisting faith.

“He appeared to lay a great stress upon the information which he might derive from the external examination of his patient, and to be much influenced in the formation of his opinion of the nature of the complaint by this practice. He had originally adopted this habit from the peculiar turn of his early studies; and assuredly such a method, not indiscriminately but judiciously employed, as he employed it, is a valuable auxiliary to the other ordinary means used by a physician of obtaining the knowledge of a disease submitted to him. But it is equally true that, notwithstanding its air of mechanical precision, such examination is not to be depended upon beyond a certain point. Great disordered action may prevail in a part without having yet produced such disorganization as may be sensibly felt: and to doubt of the existence of a disease because it is not discoverable by the touch, is not only unphilosophical, but must surely, in many instances, lead to unfounded and erroneous conclusions. One of the inevitable consequences of such a system is frequent disappointment in foretelling the issue of the malady, that most important of all points to the reputation of a physician; and though such a mode of investigation might prove eminently successful in the skilful hands of Dr. Baillie, it must be allowed to be an example of dangerous tendency to those who have not had his means of acquiring knowledge, nor enjoyed the advantages of his great experience, nor have learned, by the previous steps of education and good discipline, to reason and judge correctly. The quickness with which a physician of keen perception and great practice makes up his mind on the nature of a disease, and the plan of treatment to be employed, differs as widely as possible from the inconsiderate haste which marks the decisions of the rash and the uninformed.

“Dr. Baillie acquired business early by the credit of his book on Morbid Anatomy. From the date of its first publication in 1793, its materials must have been furnished principally by a careful inspection of the diseased preparations collected in the museum of his uncle, Dr. Hunter. But it opened a new and most productive field of curious knowledge and interesting research in physic; and when he came to add, in the subsequent editions which were required, an account of the symptoms which accompany the progressive alteration made in the natural structure of parts by some diseases during the life of the patient, from his own observation and experience, he rendered his work highly valuable, and universally popular. Impressed as he was with the great importance and value of such morbid preparations in assisting the physician to discriminate obscure internal diseases, his generosity prompted him, after the example of the immortal Harvey, to give, in his lifetime, his own collection to the College of Physicians. He has thus laid the foundation of a treasury of knowledge, for which posterity will owe him a debt of gratitude to the latest period.

“He published from time to time several medical papers in the Transactions of the College, and in other periodical works; all written in a plain and simple style, and useful as containing the observations of a physician of such extensive experience.

“But justice cannot be done to Dr. Baillie’s medical character, unless that important feature in it which appeared in every part of his conduct and demeanour, his religious principle, be distinctly stated and recognised. His ample converse with one of the most wonderful works of the Creator—the formation of man, inspired in him an admiration of the Supreme Being which nothing could exceed. He had, indeed, ‘looked through Nature up to Nature’s God;’ and the promises of the gospel, on the conditions explained by our Redeemer, were his humble but confident hope in life, and his consolation in death.

“If one precept appeared to be more practically approved by him than another, it was that which directs us to do unto others as we would have them do unto us; and this was felt and acknowledged daily by all his professional brethren in their intercourse with him.

“On the whole, we may say of him, what Tacitus does of Agricola—Bonum virum facile crederes; magnum libenter.”

The sentiments of the College itself towards Dr. Baillie may be collected from the following tribute to his memory, which was ordered to be inserted in their Annals on the 30th September, 1823.

But I have done. It has already been explained how I came to occupy my present position; and having once passed under the splendid portico of the New College, I am afraid there is no chance of my ever emerging from the dark recess I occupy in its library.

The publication of the First Edition of my history has at least procured for me one of the advantages I ventured to anticipate: for having become to a certain degree an object of curiosity, my seclusion has occasionally been broken in upon by a temporary exhibition to a visitor. Upon the whole, however, my leisure has been so little interrupted, that I have had abundant time to recollect more fully the various scenes, which I have witnessed; and it is to be hoped, that these additional memoirs will be given to the world by the Registrar of the College with the same scrupulous regard to truth that formed the sole merit of my first imperfect narrative.

THE END