126 FOTHERGILL'S MEDICAL FRIENDS CHAP. 



was then thought of. Whilst, however, he was seeking 

 introductions to some of the chief families in the latter 

 neighbourhood, Fothergill advised Dorchester, and 

 Cuming accordingly went thither in 1739, carrying with 

 him recommendations from influential physicians in 

 London. Cuming was a man of modest and unaspiring 

 mind ; paucis contentus vivere didici, he says of himself 

 " I have learned to live content with few things " ; but 

 his sterling worth, his learning, and the interest he took 

 in his patients, gave him in course of time a large practice 

 amongst nearly all the county families, who regarded 

 him as not only their physician, but their friend. In 

 1752 he received the ad eundem degree of M.D. from his 

 old university, and he was elected a Fellow of the Royal 

 College of Physicians of Edinburgh soon after. 



On the death of Dr. Alexander Russell in 1768, Fother- 

 gill, who had a high regard for his old fellow-student, 

 proposed Cuming's removal to London, but his attach- 

 ment to the large circle of those who had given him their 

 confidence in Dorset induced him to decline. Later on, 

 when Fothergill was gone, Lettsom was his successor in 

 the bond of close friendship with Cuming, although they 

 never actually met until the former went down to see 

 him in his last illness. Cuming had interests outside 

 his medical work, having a fine collection of shells, and 

 occupying himself during four years in caring for the 

 publication of Hutchins' History of Dorset, which appeared 

 in 1774 ; he was. also a Fellow of the Society of Anti- 

 quaries. He suffered from tenderness of the eyes for 

 most of his life, and died at Dorchester of dropsy in 1788 ; 

 his epitaph at that place states, that he " desired to be 

 buried in the churchyard rather than the church, lest he, 

 who studied whilst living to promote the health of his 

 fellow-citizens, should prove detrimental to it when 

 dead." 



Cuming was a physician of high character, " chaste 

 manners," and integrity ; a man of a kindly spirit, he 

 never lost a friend he once made, and his life " glided on 

 in a calm uniform stream " to its tranquil close. As a 



