577 



in the appointment of physician to the King, whose favour he soon 

 conciliated, and bj whom he was more than once offered a baronetcy 

 and a pension, distinctions which his high-minded aversion to de- 

 pendence and ostentation always induced him to decline. The 

 ambition of great professional success appears to have been super- 

 seded by his fondness for literary pursuits, diverting him by degrees 

 from the laborious exertions and exclusive devotion which are ever 

 requisite for rising to the higher eminences in medicine ; for we find 

 him, in 1812, when suddenly left a widower with a family of nine 

 young children, gradually relinquishing practice, and retiring from 

 active life to the village of Datchet, in Buckinghamshire, where for 

 the ensuing fourteen years, he devoted himself to the superintend- 

 ence of his children's education, to the cultivation of letters, and the 

 enjoyment of a select society. It was during this period that he 

 amused himself with translating Cicero's Letters to Atticus, which 

 he subsequently published. He yvslS also the author of a short 

 Treatise on General Education ; a subject which, from the peculiar 

 circumstances in which he was placed, had anxiously occupied his 

 mind. This was followed by a translation of that part of the Mo- 

 ralia of Plutarch that relates to brotherly love, which he dedicated 

 to his children. 



In the year 1826, he again came to reside in London, principally 

 with the view of contributing by his instructions to advance his son 

 in those professional studies which he was pursuing in the same 

 hospital, from which he had himself derived a large portion of his 

 practical knowledge. But in this, his fondest hope, he was doomed 

 to suffer the most cruel disappointment; for the brilliant career of 

 which that favourite son was giving auspicious promise, was sud- 

 denly closed in death, occasioned by the reception of poisonous 

 matter during a post-mortem examination. Other domestic cala- 

 mities followed in quick succession : the loss of another son, and of 

 his eldest daughter, overshadowed his declining years with the deepest 

 gloom, w^hich found relief only in religious contemplation, and the 

 composition of various works illustrative of the Scriptures. He 

 died on the IQth of February, 184^5, aged 77. 



His contributions to the- Philosophical Transactions consist of two 

 papers ; the first in 1796, on the influence of cold on the health of 

 the inhabitants of London ; in which he shows, in opposition to the 

 popular prejudices then prevalent, that a severe winter is attended 

 with greatly increased mortality. The second paper is entitled 

 " On the heat of July 1825, together with some remarks on sensible 

 cold," in which he points out the causes which influence our sensa- 

 tions of temperature, and more especially the powerful effect of wind 

 in increasing the rate of cooling, and consequently of creating the 

 sensation of cold in the human body, independently of any actual 

 depression in the temperature of the air. 



John Frederic Daniell was born in Essex Street, Strand, 

 12th of IMarch, 1790. His father, George Daniell, Esq., Bencher 

 of the Inner Temple, provided him with a good classical education 



