CH. xi DR. ALEXANDER RUSSELL OF ALEPPO 119 



mercy ; and this even when Russell knew little or nothing 

 of the matter, till the poor wretch came to his house to 

 fling himself at his feet in gratitude. Russell himself 

 remarks that money went a long way in judicial decisions, 

 but there was this in their favour : a smaller bribe was 

 required for deciding right than for deciding wrong. 

 Nor were the doctor's services to the factory less valued, 

 and his reputation spread far amongst the provinces of 

 Turkey and even in the capital itself. 



His active mind enquired into the conditions and 

 circumstances of life in the city of Aleppo and the district, 

 the arts and customs of the people and their religion. 

 Besides the diseases especially plague and the Aleppo 

 evil, both then little known in England the natural 

 features of the country, climate, soil, fauna and flora, all 

 furnished material to his note-book. He took much 

 pains to obtain the seeds of the true scammony plant, at 

 that time much used in medicine, sending them home to 

 Collinson and Gordon, by whom they were grown. He 

 supplied also his friend Fothergill with the beautiful 

 Arbutus andrachne, a kind of strawberry-tree. 



After spending fifteen active years in Turkey, Russell 

 returned to England. Fothergill, ever on the alert to 

 promote the spread of knowledge, urged him to publish 

 his researches, and he embodied them in The Natural 

 History of Aleppo,' 1 one of those ample quarto monographs, 

 with large print, wide margins, illustrations and footnotes, 

 in which our forefathers delighted. The descriptions are 

 so accurate and judicious as to give a completeness and 

 permanent value to the work. The author was elected 

 to the Royal Society in the following year, and contri- 

 buted several papers on natural history to its Transactions. 



Russell now settled in London, having obtained the 

 M.D. degree from Glasgow University and the licence of 

 the College of Physicians of London, and he was soon 

 appointed a physician to St. Thomas's Hospital, where 



1 Published in London, 1756 ; in a second edition, enlarged with notes by 

 Dr. Patrick Russell (who succeeded his brother at Aleppo), 1794 ; also trans, 

 into Dutch, at Leyden, 1762. 



