118 REMINISCENCES OF DR. L. H. POTTS. 



In 1824 he was re-elected lecturer on chemistry and 

 experimental philosophy, his old instructor Brodie (afterwards 

 Sir Benjamin) being made an honorary member; he also 

 delivered lectures on phrenology. 



There are many stories told of the doctor, one is about a 

 ghost, there have been many ghosts in Truro, but this was a 

 particular one in his time, a very common sort of ghost, which 

 annoyed the inhabitants by breaking windows and ringing bells. 

 The Mayor and Corporation could not fathom the mystery. At 

 last a boy at the barracks was supposed to have been frightened 

 into a fit by this ghost, the doctor was summoned, and having his 

 suspicions as well as a great contempt for ghosts, turned up the 

 eyelid of the boy, and finding the pupil sensitive to light (a fact 

 not generally known at the time), the doctor sent for a cane, 

 and applied it so vigourously, that the boy soon roared for mercy 

 and confessed that he alone had committed the mischief supposed 

 to have been done by the ghost, which was eminently satisfactory 

 to the good doctor, but not received with equal pleasure by our 

 worthy Mayor and those who had given credence to the affair. 



He also invented a tube containing reflectors, with a hole 

 in the side, on looking through this hole, what was taking place on 

 the other side of an eminence could be seen, and I have been told 

 that nervous people in the next street, engaged at their morning 

 toilets, were rendered uneasy, with the knowledge of the 

 existence of such an instrument, and complained of it. I have 

 seen such an instrument shown by Mr. Robert Hunt at the 

 Polytechnic. 



I have reasons for believing that he was on terms of 

 intimacy with members of my family, as well as those of my 

 wife's. I have heard my late uncle, Mr. John James, state that 

 he considered Dr. Potts was the cleverest man that ever came 

 into Truro. 



Doctors' prescriptions were in those days kept by the 

 chemist, and I remember seeing an old tea chest, half full of 

 those mysterious productions, most of them having the, then 

 familiar, initials L. H. P. 



At Polsue, where my wife's relations resided, there were 

 many reminiscences of the doctor, one was a little wooden model 



