226 FOTHERGILL AS PHILANTHROPIST CHAP. 



death without obvious cause, and especially in fatal 

 accidents of various kinds, such as drowning, suffocation, 

 and death by hanging or by lightning, for which hitherto 

 bleeding had been the only resort. He compares the 

 animal machine to a clock, which is motionless without 

 some impulse communicated to the pendulum ; this the 

 timely inflation of the lungs may possibly- give, and he 

 thinks that the method may conduce to the saving of 

 many lives. 



After the lapse of a considerable period this subject 

 obtained attention on the continent of Europe. About 

 1767 a Society for the Recovery of Drowned Persons was 

 set up at Amsterdam, and similar bodies were formed at 

 Hamburg, Venice, Milan, Padua, St. Petersburg, Vienna 

 and Paris. An account of the Dutch society was 

 translated and fell into the hands of Dr. William Hawes 

 in 1773. Hawes was a medical practitioner residing in 

 Palsgrave Place, Strand, London, born in 1736, unselfish 

 in character, and totally, so we are told, " without guile : 

 self never entered into his contemplation." He was an 

 example of the type of men who seize one idea and pursue 

 it, for he took up the interests of the apparently drowned, 

 and became an enthusiast in the cause of resuscitating 

 them, never ceasing his efforts until he had enlisted the 

 sympathies of the slow and unwilling public. With 

 indefatigable zeal Hawes set up stations along the river 

 Thames, where the bodies of persons taken out of the 

 water could be brought to him or his friends, and during 

 a whole year he gave out of his own pocket rewards 

 to all who should bring such bodies within a reasonable 

 time after their immersion. Several lives were saved as 

 a result. 



Then Dr. Thomas Cogan came on the scene. Cogan 

 was a versatile man, in succession Unitarian minister, 

 physician, farmer and moral philosopher. At this time 

 he had a lucrative midwifery practice in Paternoster 

 Row, and was an active member of Lettsom's new Medical 

 Society. When resident in Holland Cogan learned of the 

 Dutch society and brought out an English version of its 



