xi DR. PERCIVAL OF MANCHESTER 133 



Dr. A. Fothergill retired from practice in 1803 with an 

 ample fortune, and spent some years in Philadelphia, 

 where he continued to make medical observations. 

 Having returned to England, he died at Christchurch, 

 Surrey, in 1813. By his will he requested his friend 

 Lettsom to publish his selected essays, leaving him 1000 

 for the purpose, but Lettsom's own course was nearly 

 over and the task was never fulfilled. He bequeathed 

 500 to the Medical Society to establish a Fothergillian 

 Medal. He left also large sums to charitable institutions, 

 and directed that an epitaph should be placed upon his 

 tomb, making a solemn appeal to the passer-by to 

 remember whither he is hastening. 1 



DR. THOMAS PERCIVAL 



Dr. Thomas Percival came of a medical family, and 

 was born in 1740 at Warrington, a town with which 

 Fothergill had some connections. Trained at Edinburgh 

 under Cullen and afterwards in London, he took his 

 degree at Leyden, and his wide scholarship and his in- 

 genuity in physical science early obtained for him an 

 introduction to the Royal Society. Percival settled at 

 Manchester, where he had a large practice, and he became 

 one of the most eminent of the physicians to the infirmary. 

 He was an acute medical observer, substituting cautious 

 induction for the speculation hitherto so much in vogue. 

 He wrote on the use of cod liver oil in chronic rheumatism ; 

 of this he gave large doses, with peppermint and carbonate 

 of potash ; and he made experiments with the rectal 

 injection of different gases in putrid fever and other 

 disorders, being convinced of the necessity of correcting 

 putrescence in the primce vice. Two volumes of Essays 

 Medical and Experimental bear witness to the freshness 

 and accuracy of his thought. A trained mathematician 



1 On Dr. A. Fothergill, see Munk, Roll ; Foth., Works, iii. 159-176 ; Nichols, 

 Lit. Anecd. ix. 211 ; Mem. Lettsom, ii., iii. 270; also his Hints, ii. 297-311 

 (silhouette portrait) ; Phil. Trans. Ixix. i, a case of St. Vitus' Dance cured 

 by means of shocks from a Le-yden Jar ; Ixvi. 587 ; Roy. Soc. Letters and 

 Papers, Decade iv. 404, viii. 122. 



