BED 



132 



BED 



Upon retiring from Oxford he took up his abode with a 



friend in Shropshire, whore he wrote a work, entitled Hit- 



/ /.i<i.- ./--FiAint. intended U> check drunkenness ; and 



several iiinlii-.il works, in which he embodied his peculiar 



regarding the origin and treatment of several diseases. 

 The few and feeble attempts which had, for gome years pre- 



-. been made to maintain the soundness of the basis ol 

 umorol pathology as the universal cause of diseases, 

 served rather to convince the examining and reflecting part 

 of the profession of its want of foundation, than to add to 

 the number of believers in it The application of chemistry 

 to the investigation of the composition of the fluids of the 

 human budy, and the different condition of these fluids which 

 n demonstrated to exist in different states of disease, seemed 

 to furnish new facts in its favour. Beddoes, with that zeal 

 which marked all his actions, stepped forward as its advocate, 

 and referred all diseases to the predominance or deficiency 

 of some elementary principle. He attributed scurvy to an 

 abstraction of oxygen, and consumption to an accumulation 

 of oxygen. The remedies which he proposed for the cure 

 of these diseases were in conformity with these views ; and 

 he believed that breathing an atmosphere charged with the 

 principle which was deficient would cure the one, and with 

 a principle opposed to that which predominated would cure 

 the other. Not only did he write in support of these views, 

 but he sought an opportunity of testing them by experi- 

 ment. At first he thought of London as the place best 

 fitted for his purpose, but ultimately fixed on Bristol for the 

 scene of his pneumatic hospital. In 1798 a pneumatic insti- 

 tution was established, in effecting which object Dr. Beddoes 

 was materially assisted by Mr. Richard Lovell Edgeworth, 

 one of whose daughters he married in 1794, and Mr. Gre- 

 gory- Watt. His publications at this time prove his activity, 



11 as the particular direction of his thoughts. They 

 almost all refer to peculiar views respecting the possibility of 

 curing diseases by breathing a medicated atmosphere. That 

 the results did not correspond with the expectations of the 

 founder of tins new method is well known ; but the under- 

 taking was the means of bringing into notice the talents of 

 Humphrey Davy, who was recommended to Dr. Beddoes by 

 Mr. Gregory Watt, as a fit person to superintend the che- 

 mical laboratory connected with the Institution. The first 

 discoveries of this eminent chemist were given to the world 

 in a publication which came from Beddoes' s Institution : 



i-iiiirnldl Essays on Heat, Light, and the Combina- 

 tions i if Liz lit, by Humphrey Davy, appeared among the 

 Contributions to Medical mid Physical Knowledge from 

 I In' West of England, Bristol, 1799. 



Many publications of Dr. Beddoes about this time referred 

 to the political topics of the day. in which he always em- 

 braced the liberal side of the question. 



His principal medical publications after this date were : 

 a Popular Essay on Consumption, 1779, containing, if we 

 except the author's peculiar doctrines, many valuable re- 

 marks on the predisposing causes and means of preventing 

 that disease ; Hygeia, or Essays Moral and Medical, 

 which is a popular treatise on the 'Causes of Diseases,' and 

 the means of avoiding them, 3 vols. Svo. 1802. He also 

 wrote at an earlier date a work on Demonstrative Eri- 

 dcnce, 1792. An Essay on Fever was written in I MI;, 

 with many others of less note, which he continued to pub- 

 lish in rapid succession till 1808, when, in consequence of 

 an affection of the heart, he died in December of that 

 year, in the forty-eighth year of his age. 



He is represented by his biographer and friend, Dr. Stock, 

 as an extremely amiable man, who had only truth for his 

 object, and the good of his fellow-creatures as the end of all 

 bin efforts. He was extremely enthusiastic in whatever he 

 undertook; but the ardour of his imagination, and the ten- 

 dency to hasty generalization which characterized his mind, 

 prevented him from examining carefully his data, or forming 

 the most correct conclusions. A passage in his E^tay 

 on Fever, in which he condemns the hasty views of other 

 d the unsuccessful practice founded on them, 

 the truest character of his own labours and writings. 

 If these systems,' says he, ' have superseded the invest lu- a- 

 tion of phenomena such as, when once ascertained, strike 

 uses too powerfully to leave the judgment in suspense; 

 if they have prevented us from anal) sing the mutual rela- 

 tions of these phenomena; if they have tempted ingenuity 

 to waste itself upon the means of correcting imaginary'!'-' 

 viations from the standard state of health ; we may surely 

 pass them by, after giving a moment of regretful admira- 



tion, to the talenU by which some of them were con- 

 structed.' 



(See Stork's Life of Rtddort, one vol. -Ito. Lond. 1810.) 



BEDE-HOUSE, a term used for an alms -house. Hence 

 bede-man, or beid-man, a person who resides in a bcde- 

 house, or is supported from the funds appropriated for tliij 

 purpose. In the $tati*tic<d An-ount of .S .///;/,/, u,l. xiii. 

 p. 41-J, parish of Rathveii in Banlfshiie. it is said ' There 

 is a bede-house still in being, though in bad repair; and six 

 bede-men on the establishment, but : m Ine in 



the house.' In the Court of Exchequer i !, (his 



term is used (o denote that class of paupers who enjoy the 

 royal bounty. 



BEDKLJU WILLIAM, Bishop of Kilmore in Ire-land. 

 one of the most exemplary prelates of the seventeenth cen- 

 tury, was descended from a good family, and was born in 

 the year 1570, at Black Nolley in Ke\. He was matricu- 

 lated a pensioner of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, March 

 12, 1584, where he was placed under the care of Dr. ( 'had- 

 dcrton, for many years the head of that house. II.. 

 early into holy orders, which he received from the suffragan 

 bishop of Colchester. In 1593 he was chosen fellow 

 college, and in 1599 took the degree of bachelor in divinity. 

 He then removed from the University to St. Kdnnindsbury 

 in Suffolk, where he had a church, to the duties of which 

 he assiduously attended for a few years, till an opportunity 

 offered for his going as chaplain to Sir Henry Wutton, the 

 English ambassador to the state of Venice, about tho \ ear 

 1C04. While he resided in that city he became intimately 

 acquainted with Father Paul Sarpi, who took him into Ins 

 confidence, and taught him the Italian language, of which 

 Bedell became so perfect a master, that he translated into 

 that tongue the English Common Prayer Book,' which w as 

 extremely well received by many of the clergy there, 

 cially by the seven divines who were appointed by the Re- 

 public to preach against the pope, during the time of the 

 Interdict, and which they intended to have taken for their 

 model had they broken absolutely with Rome, which was 

 what they sincerely desired. In return for the favours he 

 received from Father Paul, Mr. Bedell drew up an English 

 Grammar for his use, and in many other re- p. 

 him in his studies. He continued eight years in Venice, 

 during which time he not only studied the Hebrew lan- 

 guage, but entered deeply into rabbinical learning, under 

 Rabbi Leo. He made acquaintance also with the celebrated 

 Antonio de Dominis, archbishop of Spalatro, who \\, 

 pleased with his conversation as to give him his thorough 

 confidence, and showed him his famous book, DC lir- 

 publica Erclesiastica, which was afterwards printed at 

 London. Bedell corrected many misapplications of scrip- 

 ture, and quotations from the fathers in that work, and was 

 highly valued by De Dominis, who even accompanied him 

 to England. At Bedell's departure from Venice, Father 



Paul expressed a deep concern, and said that both hi 1 



many others would have come over with him to England if 

 it had been in their power; but that he might never be for- 

 gotten by him, he gave him his picture, with a Hebrew 

 Bible without points, a little Hebrew Psalter, in which he 

 wrote some sentences expressive of his esteem, the MS. of 

 his History of the Council of Trent, and the histories of 

 the Interdict and Inquisition; together with the originals 

 of the Letters which Father Paul had received weekly from 

 Rome, during the contests between the Jesuits and the 

 Dominicans concerning the efficacy of grace. 



On his return to England Mr. Bedell retired immediately 

 to his charge at St. Edmundsbury, where he continued his 

 ministerial labours ; employing himself at the same time in 

 translating into Latin the Histories of the Interdict and 

 Inquisition, and the two last books of the Hi.\tory of t/n- 

 Council of Trent, Sir Adam Newton having translated the 

 two first. At this time he mixed so little with the world 

 that ho was almost totally forgotten. So little, indeed, was 

 ho remembered that some years after, when the celebrated 

 Diodati of Geneva came over into England, he could not, 

 though acquainted with many of the clergy, hear of Mr. 

 Hedcll. Diodati was greatly amazed that so extraordinary 

 a man, who was so much admired at Venice by the best 

 judges of merit, should not be known in his own country : 

 and he had given up all hopes of finding him out, when, to 

 their no small joy, they accidentally met each other in the 

 streets of London. Upon this occasion Diodati presented 

 liis friend to Morton, the learned bishop of Durham, 

 and told him how highly he had been valued by Father 



