MEMOIR OF DR WRIGHT. 4>5 



private houses of many of its most distinguished mem- 

 bers, he enjoyed this advantage in a very eminent de- 

 gree ; and while at these interesting interviews he 

 supplied his full quota of ratiocination and discovery, 

 he was enabled to bring up the state of his informa- 

 tion to the level of the latest improvements in the 

 medical art. It was on the records of the Medical 

 Society, that the evidence was preserved of Dr 

 Wright's indisputable priority in the use of cold 

 water in fever, by the communication of that remark- 

 able narrative, from which an extract has already been 

 given. But although the narrative itself was read at 

 three different meetings of the Society, and although 

 it was communicated in consequence of a request that 

 it should appear in the sixth volume of the Medical 

 Reports ; yet such is the force of prejudice in the 

 highest walks of a profession which claims, par excel- 

 lence, the palm of liberality, that the interesting paper, 

 and the important facts which it recorded, were silent- 

 ly suppressed ; so that it was not given to the world 

 until the second return of Dr Wright from the 

 West Indies in 1786. 



In consequence of the gloom which at this period 

 pervaded the western horizon, and of the probability 

 which thence arose of its being necessary to resume 

 the practice of his profession, Dr Wright was warmly 

 urged by many of those friends who could appreciate 

 his talents, and were acquainted with his medical skill, 

 to set himself down as a physician in the metropolis. 

 But whether from a certain diffidence of manner in the 

 presence of strangers, which, in his case, may be said 



