268 PATRICK BLAIR, SURGEON APOTHECARY. [Sess, uxxt. 
perform the whole journey, each passenger paying £4, 10s., 
allowing each passenger 20 lbs. of luggage; all above, 6d. per 
lb. The coach sets off at six o’clock in the morning.” 
Dr. Blair proposed leaving Dundee in February or March 
1715. but I have come across no account of his stay in London, 
nor the meeting of the friends, although no doubt there 
would be pleasant times—the London botanists made the 
most of their ‘“herborisings.” Petiver, for example, writes 
to a kindred spirit, giving a description of one of their 
outings, and tells that when they reached Winchelsea they 
were entertained at the Mayor’s house, and the place not 
affording any wine, they were regaled with excellent punch 
made by the Mayoress, ‘‘every bowl of which was better than 
the former one ” (Sloane MSS. 344, p. 279). 
In a letter dated Birmingham, October 9th, 1713, Dr. 
Blair gives his ‘‘ kind landlord and special friend” Petiver 
some news as to his homeward journey. He had been at 
Oxford and saw Bobart, who had charge of the Botanic 
Garden there, and as Bobart was also a behever in Morison,! 
and ultimately worked out and completed the system of 
classification which Morison’s accidental death prevented. 
there would be some congenial talk. He saw the Ashmolean 
Museum, “ but was so surfeited in his appetite after seeing 
Sloare’s and Petiver’s collections, that he had no extraordi- 
nary relish for it, though there be abundance to satiate an 
hungry stomach.” He went to Lichfield to see Sir John 
Floyer, the medical man who is perhaps best known from 
the fact that by his advice young Samuel Johnson was sent 
to be touched by Queen Anne for scrofula—King’s Evil. 
They discoursed upon several parts of the practice of medi- 
cine, particularly the cold bathing, as to the virtues of which 
the two were agreed. Blair related an experience of his 
own, which Floyer passed on to another medico, and which 
later on appeared in print, somewhat different from the 
original tale. In one of his memoirs Dr. Blair gives his 
original version, which is worth repeating here, from its 
local connection, as a sample of the narrator’s style, and as 
an illustration of how they did things in this city of ours 
two hundred years ago. I may premise that in the paper 
1 “ He (Bobart) is as biggot on Morison’s Method as you are upon 
Ray’s.” 
