JOHN MAYOW : CHEMIST AND PHYSICIAN. 321 



shown by the fact that in 1668, at the age of twenty-three, he 

 published two tracts in latin, one on Rickets, the other on 

 Respiration, which gained him much reputation. The tract on 

 Rickets "was allowed to be the best extant on that subject" 

 (Grranger). In 1671 they were both reprinted at Leyden; accord- 

 ing to Jocher the Dutch not merely reprinted but also translated 

 them. Hansen in an address published at Gottingen in 1762 

 often quotes Mayow on the subject. 



The tract on Respiration is of even greater merit, but it is 

 difficult to dissociate the effect of this from that of his later 

 tracts. It is however worthy of remark here, that Dr. Draper,^ 

 who was a physiologist as well as historian, mentions Mayow's 

 work on Respiration as one of the signs of the intellectual activity 

 of that time ; and all authorities acknowledge that " Mayow was 

 the first to publish views worth recording on this difficult 

 subject." How difficult the subject was then is shown by this : 

 three years before, Sir George Ent, president of the College 

 of Physicians, lectured before the Royal Society, showing not only 

 that it was not — but that it could not — be known of Respiration, 

 either " how it was managed " or " for what use it is."^" 



It is not known at what age he left Oxford, but in 1674 he 

 republished there his two earlier tracts, together with three 

 others. The first and most important of them on Nitre and a 

 Nitro-aerial spirit is spoken of by Hoefer^ as " one of the most 

 remarkable books published during the seventeenth century." 

 It is the work on which Mayow's reputation mainly depends. 

 The other tracts were on Foetal respiration and Muscular motion 

 and Animal spirits. 



He published nothing after this, but he " became noted for 

 his practice " as a physician, especially at Bath in the summer 

 season. Granger speaks of his practice as " attended with great 

 success." 



" He paid his last debt of nature in an apothecary's house 

 bearing the sign of the anchor in York Street, near Covent 

 Garden (having being married a little before not altogether to 

 his content), in the month of September, 1679, and was buried 



9. — Intellectual development of Europe. — Dra;per. 

 10. — Pepys' Diary. 



