334 Biographical Sketch of 



a most charitable and benevolent man, who combined tl>e 

 scientific talents of the philosopher with the exalted purity 

 of the Christian, and cured more patients and killed fewer 

 than any other phvsician of his ase and coimtrv." Beini^ 

 a most conscientious man, he was a diffident practitioner, 

 and he always administered powerful drugs or known poi- 

 sons to his patients with a caution and personal care which, 

 for the sake of humanity, we wish were more generally 

 adopted or universallv imitated. 



With an active, vigorous, and independent mind, it was 

 not to be expected that he could entertain respect for those 

 corporate bodies which have no internal stimulus but self- 

 ishness, no principle of science but puerile innovation, 

 and which are otherwise remarkable only for their rapid 

 transitions from a state of morbid somnolencv to that of 

 the wildest enthusiasm or the most scandalous quackery. 

 During his life also he was decidedly hostile to those in- 

 terested combinations of men vcleped " Medical Societies ;" 

 all of which were anxious to insert his resjiectable name in 

 the lists of their members ; but they were often obliged to 

 make very humble apologies for the liberty, and never re- 

 ceived from him any sanction in their sordid projects of 

 extending individual practice. To his immortal honour it 

 must be rccoided that he never founded nor patronized any 

 such bodies-, and ail those modern conspiracies against so- 

 ciety which are organized by the more ambitious and arro- 

 gant to enable them to prey on the more simple practi- 

 tioners, by assisting them in paying the expense of adver- 

 tising their names under the mask of Medical Transactions, 

 he conscientiously and openlv condenmed. Yet, whatever 

 could by any honourable means contribute to the advance- 

 ment ot science, or the improvement of the heahngart, in- 

 variably and promptly received his active support. It 

 was not in his nature, indeed, to refuse assistance to any 

 measure honestly designed for public utility ; but his per- 

 ception was too quick, and his judgement too correct, to 

 be deluded by any false pretences of visionary good. 



As a liberal patron of science his memory will long be 

 cherished by its votaries : his attention to the Royal So- 

 ciety, and his extensive support of the Royal Institution, 

 evinced his zeal in the general cause of knowledge; while 

 his Monday evening conversations, conducted on the most- 

 laudable principles, contributed to diffuse useful truths, 

 scrutinize medical or scientific facts, bring philosophers 

 3nd men of taste into habits of mutual con)municalion, 

 find destroy all those petty jealousies, narrow-minded pre- 



.... . judices, 



