128 FOTHERGILL'S MEDICAL FRIENDS CHAP. 



and that it would much improve them both ; Lettsom's 

 loquacity and Thompson's diffidence being shared between 

 them. Thompson acted as secretary to the small Medical 

 Society (of Physicians), and drew up at the desire of that 

 society after Fothergill's death a short Memoir of his 

 Life and Character, carefully and thoughtfully expressed. 

 It is one of the sources used for the present volume. 

 Dr. Thompson retained his quiet and unassuming manners 

 throughout life, with an integrity of character worthy of 

 his Quaker profession. He lived and practised in Size 

 Lane, and afterwards in Salters Hall Court, Cannon 

 Street, where he died in 1803. The, occasional cultiva- 

 tion of a gentle and rather formal muse led him in 1801 

 to publish a little volume of Select Translations from the 

 Works of Homer and Horace, with Original Poems. These 

 betoken a classical habit of mind, and a close familiarity 

 with Homer and with the early British poets. Amongst 

 the poems is a Latin epigram on Blanchard, the French- 

 man, who was borne through the air by means of an 

 aerostatic globe in I793. 1 



DR. RUTTY 



Dr. John Rutty, another friend of Fothergill's, came 

 of an old family at Melksham, Wiltshire, where his father 

 of the same name joined the Friends in 1692, and where 

 the son was born six years later. Rutty studied medicine 

 at Leyden in the great days of Boerhaave, and graduated 

 M.D. there in 1723, with a thesis De Diarrhoea. He 



1 " Qualis purpuream Auroram cum voce salutans 



In ccelum celeri fertur alauda fuga : 

 Qualis et astra ferit nervo percussa sagitta, 



Gaudet et ^Eolios antevolare notos : 

 Tails se sphaerae astheriae moderamine Gallus 



Libravit, superas ausus adire domos. 

 Miramur nova gesta viri, miramur et aeque 



Quod levior Gallus fit levitate sua ? " 



Dr. G. Thompson married in 1771, Mary, daughter of Wm. and Ann 

 Edmondson, late of Wray, Lanes. See on his life, Mem. Lettsom, i. 10, 21, etc. ; 

 MS. Letters of Dr. J. Fothergill, Frds. Ref. Lib. ; MS. Journal of Betty 

 Fothergill ; MS. Registers, Soc. of Frds. ; Gent. Mag. (1803) ; Munk, Roll 

 Roy. Coll. Phys. ; Jos. Spence Hodgson, The Rise of Penketh Preparative 

 Meeting, Penketh School Magazine, 1916-17 ; J. Jenkins, op. cit. p. 585. 



