134 FOTHERGILL'S MEDICAL FRIENDS CHAP. 



himself, he made a successful effort to reform the bills of 

 mortality and to enumerate the population in his own 

 town. He worked also for the regulation of cotton mills 

 and the institution of fever hospitals. 



Percival wrote a famous treatise on Medical Ethics, 

 which was the pioneer and basis of later codes of the sort ; 

 the book was indeed a reflection of his own character and 

 conduct, for he was a pattern of delicacy and rectitude ; 

 governed by a high moral sense, polished and urbane, he 

 was ready to attend to the feelings of the humblest who 

 were around him. A sincere Unitarian, he never intruded 

 his religious views ; a collection of Moral Tales from his 

 pen was thought worthy of translation into French and 

 German. In his earlier life he had known Voltaire and 

 a circle of brilliant French writers at Paris, of whose 

 Royal Medical Society he became a Foreign Associate. 

 His own literary tastes were shown by his presidency for 

 twenty years of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical 

 Society, which was set up by himself and others in 1781. 



Delicate health, evidenced in part by a weakness of 

 the eyes, forbade long life to Percival ; he died in 1804. 

 His portrait shows a countenance marked by thought 

 and refinement. The encomium of his kinsman, the 

 eloquent Magee, afterwards archbishop of Dublin, may 

 be quoted : " He was an author without vanity, a 

 philosopher without pride, a scholar without pedantry, 

 a student without seclusion, a moralist without morose- 

 ness, a patriot without faction, and a Christian without 

 guile. The great object of his life was usefulness, and 

 the grand spring of all his actions was religion . ' ' Perci val's 

 thoughtful estimate of Fothergill's character will be noted 

 elsewhere. 1 



1 A good account of Percival with a portrait is given by Dr. E. M. Brockbank 

 in his work, The Honorary Medical Staff of the Manchester Infirmary (1904). 

 De Quincey, in his boyhood, knew Percival. See also Foth., Works, iii. 

 pp. Ix, 142 ; Med. Obs. & Inq. v. 270-282 ; Mem. Lettsom, i., iii. 391 ; Mem. 

 Cullen, i. 635. There are letters from Dr. Percival to Da Costa and to Lord 

 Hardwicke among the Brit. Mus. MSS. 



