The two tracts here reprinted were written in English by Jean Paul Marat during his residence in Church Street, Soho, where he practised as a Physician.
Both of the tracts are exceedingly rare. Speaking of the former one, Mr. Morse Stephens, in his article on “Marat” in the EncyclopÆdia Britannica,[1] says, “no copy is to be found.” Since the date of Mr. Stephens’s notice of Marat a copy has come to light, and is now in the possession of Dr. J. F. Payne. Of the latter tract there is only one known copy: this is in the Library of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society of London. I have to thank the Council of the Society and Dr. Payne for their kindness in allowing copies of the pamphlets to be made for the purpose of publication.
The first tract is dedicated to the Worshipful Company of Surgeons in London, and is dated November 1775. As the type is broken the day of the month cannot be read with certainty in the copy from which this was reprinted: there is no other known copy to which reference can be made. The date is either the 21st or 24th: as regards the month and the year there is no doubt. The second tract has an address to the Royal Society, and is dated January 1st, 1776: as Marat returned to Paris in 1777 both these works were issued towards the end of his residence in London.
A few months before the publication of the Essay on Gleets, Marat had received an M.D. degree from the University of St. Andrews. The degree was equivalent to an honorary one, and, as was the custom of the time, was given on the recommendation of two medical men known to the Senate. The two who recommended Marat were Hugh James and William Buchan, doctors of medicine in Edinburgh. Marat passed no examination for the degree, and probably did not even go to St. Andrews to receive it. At that time it was customary to forward the Diploma on receipt of the graduation fee. Mr. Morse Stephens[2] is of opinion that Marat received degrees from other universities, because in 1777 on his appointment as physician to the body-guard of the Comte d’Artois he is described as “docteur en mÉdecine de plusieurs facultÉs d’Angleterre.” It may, however, be pointed out that at this date there were very few universities or faculties granting an M.D. degree, and also that the older universities did not give the Doctor of Medicine as an honorary degree. It is known that Marat resided for some time at Edinburgh and at Dublin, but there is no record of his having received a degree from either of these Universities.
Although diligent search has been made by historians no record of any other qualification has been found, and it may fairly be assumed that the above description is an exaggeration of the St. Andrews degree.
There is evidence in both pamphlets that Marat practised medicine in Paris before coming to London. In the Essay on Gleets[3] he speaks of his “ten years practice”; this probably gives a clue to the actual date of the beginning of his professional life. The duration of his practice in France before his coming to England must have been short. He took up his residence in England in 1766; the Essay is dated November 1775, and Marat was born in 1742: allowing for the ten years he mentions, he would have started practice about 1765, at which date he was twenty-three years of age.
The “Gleet” Tract shows that Marat’s early work was not devoted entirely to this department of practice. Mr. Morse Stephens[4] says, “from Bordeaux he went to Paris, where he effected a remarkable cure of a disease of the eyes, which had been abandoned as hopeless both by physicians and quacks, by means of electricity.” This, no doubt, is the case of Charlotte Blondel, described on page 34 of this reprint. Marat himself says, speaking of the employment of bougies for the treatment of gleet, “as it was not my province to treat venereal diseases, this method had not engaged my attention.”
Marat evidently had in mind other medical works. In the Essay on Gleets[5] he says, “If this essay should meet with approbation, I shall offer to the public a new method of radically curing gonorrhoeas in a short time.” And again, in the tract on Diseases of the Eye,[6] speaking of the action of mercury, “A complete Examination of them would swell these Sheets beyond the proposed Size; I therefore reserve it for the Subject of a future Publication.” It may, I think, be safely said that these intentions were never carried out. Watt, in his Bibliotheca Britannica, gives the titles of the two tracts here reprinted, but makes no mention of the others; and, so far as I can find, they never saw the light.
The Daran under whose care the cases described in the first tract were before they came under Marat’s observation, was Jacques Daran [1701-1784], a man who greatly distinguished himself whilst in the army during an epidemic of the Plague at Messina: after travelling all over Europe he lived at Marseilles, but finally settled in Paris. He was chiefly celebrated for his bougies for the treatment of diseases of the urethra: the composition of the bougie he kept a secret, and thus amassed a very large fortune. He ultimately, however, died at Paris in very poor circumstances.
The famous T ***, under whose care the case described on page 17 was, I cannot identify with any degree of certainty.
The “ingenious Mr. Miller, Oculist,” mentioned on page 44, was probably John Miller, an optician, who died at Edinburgh in 1815, having occupied for forty-eight years a leading position in that city. He was originally in business at 7 Parliament Close, and afterwards was in company as Miller and Adie in Nicolson Street.
The original tracts are printed in 4to without any running title; the top of each page simply having the pagination in square brackets. The reprints follow the originals exactly as regards orthography, punctuation, etc. Obvious errors have not been corrected: the pamphlets are reproduced exactly as Marat wrote them.
Marat’s nationality comes out very strongly in more than one passage, where, whilst using English words, he has kept entirely to the French idiom. In the preface to the first tract he apologises for his imperfect knowledge of the language in which he is writing.
The tract on the Eye is printed with that prodigality of capitals so common in books of that date: curiously enough the one on Gleets is entirely free from this lavish use of capitals, and only has them where absolutely necessary. There is no note (b) in the original of the “Eye” tract: the letters have been followed exactly.
In the second tract the word “Gentlemen” both at the beginning and end of the address to the Royal Society is in MS. The writing is undoubtedly that of a foreigner: Mr. Stephens thinks that in all probability it is in the handwriting of Marat himself,[7] and that this copy is the presentation one. There being no other known copy it is impossible to see if the words were added to the whole of the tracts issued for sale, or whether they exist only in this copy. “Gentlemen” is printed in the earlier tract, and it certainly looks as though it were an omission in this case, not noticed until too late to have the word inserted in print. If this were the “presentation copy,” its proper home would be at the Royal Society, but there is no mark of its ever having belonged to that Library.
