204 Biographical Account of 



timents and language according to his company, yet lie was 

 conftitutionally cautious, and could, without much effort, 

 praiSlife the allowable policy of filence. " Commune with 

 thy heart and be ftill," was the maxim of 36 years of his 

 life. That it exerted its natural influence upon his charafter, 

 will not be denied ; but it did not prevent him from being a 

 very amiable, ufeful, aud refpeftable member of fociety. 



The fituation of Blandford had not hitherto afforded any 

 great fcope for medical pradice; but Dr. Pulteney foon ex- 

 tended its limits. His reputation fpread through the circum- 

 jacent country, and he received profeffional calls from the 

 market and trading towns in a compafs of twenty or thirty 

 miles round his centre, as well as from many of the country 

 families of principal diftinftion in that part of the kingdom. 

 As his induftry was great, and his expenfes were moderate, 

 he began to accumulate property. He continued to live in 

 a ftate of celibacy till Oftober 1779, when he married mifs 

 Elizabeth Galton, of Blandford. He could not have chofen 

 more fortunately for domertic happinefs; and the addition 

 this connexion made to his comforts was proportionable to 

 the want he had previoufly felt of that fociety which alone 

 can intereft the heart. No children were the fruit of this 

 union; but in the additional fociety of an amiable young 

 relative of Mrs. Pulteney he enjoyed the pleafure of an adop- 

 tive parent. 



He continued to employ hi? Icifure in occafional writings 

 on topics of medicine and natural hiftory. In 1772 he ad- 

 dreffed a letter to his friend Dr. Watfon (publiflied in the 

 Philofophical Tranfa&ions, vol. Ixii.) concerning the medi- 

 cinal effetls of the Qi.nanthe crocaia, an umbelliferous plant 

 of a poifonous nature, the juice of which was exhibited, by 

 mlftake, inflead of that of the water-parfnep. In the Ixviiith 

 volume of the fame collection, for > 778, he gave an accurate 

 account of the bills of mortality for the pari(h of Blandford 

 during forty years paft, with obiervations. To the London 

 Medical Journal, vol. v. he communicated an accoimt of the 

 poifonous effeAs of the Hemlock Dropwovt, (the CEnanthe 

 crocala above mentioned.) 



He had hitherto appeared as an author onlv in detached 

 memoirs infertcd in periodical publications. But in 1781 

 lie ventured to offer to the public a feparate volume, on a 

 lubjcft, indeed, with which no man could claim a more in- 

 timate acquaintance. This was " A General View of the 

 Writings of Linnaeus," 8vo. The purpolc of this work was 

 to afford an exaA fynopfis of all the labours of the great 

 Swedilh naturalill, who appears to have been the objccl of 



his 



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