616 F O T 
from the Latin MS. of his excellent mailer, of a work 
entitled The Circles of Proportion, and the Horizontal 
Inftrument. The former (hewing the Manner how to 
work Proportions both fimple and compound, and the 
ready and eafy refolving of all Q^iedions, in Arithmetic, 
Geometry, Altronomy, &c. The latter teaching how to 
work moft Qjiedions, which may be performed by the 
Globe, and to (delineate Dials upon any kind of Plane, &c. 
quarto, 1663. 'The other was Mark Foster, who lived 
at a later period than either of the preceding, and pub- 
■ lifired a treatife entitled An Arithmetical Trigonometry; 
being the Solution of all the ufual Cafes in plain Trigo¬ 
nometry by common Arithmetic, without any Tables 
whatfoever, nmo. 1690. 
FOS'TEK, a townlhip of the American States, in Pro¬ 
vidence county, Rhode ifland, containing by the cenfus 
2268 inhabitants; feventeen miles wederly of Providence, 
and thirty-one north-well of Newport. 
FOS'TERAGE,/. The charge of nurfing; alterage. 
-—Some one adjoining to this lake had the charge and 
fojler age of this child. Raleigh. 
FOS'TER-BROTHER-, f. [poj-teyt ppobeyi, Sax.] 
One bred at the fame pap ; one fed by the fame nurfe. 
I'OS'TERCHILD, f. [popteji cilb, Sax.] A child 
nurfed by a woman not the mother, or bred by a man not 
the father.—The fojlerchildren do love and are beloved of 
their foderfathers. Davies on Ireland. 
The goddefs thus beguil’d, 
With pleafant (lories, her falfe fofierchild. Addifon. 
FOS'TERDAM, f. A nurfe; one that performs the 
office of a mother by giving food to a young child: 
There, ^y the wolf, were laid the martial twins : 
Intrepid on her fwelling dugs they hung; 
The fojlerdam loll’d out her fawning tongue. Dryden. 
FOSTERE'ARTH, /. Earth by which the plant is 
nouriffied, though it did not grow at fird in it: 
In vain the nurfling grove 
Seems fair a while, cherifli’d with fojlerearth ; 
But when the alien compod is exhaud, 
Its native poverty again prevails! Phillips. 
FOS'TERER, f. A nurfe ; one who gives food in the 
place of a parent.—In Ireland they put their children to 
foflerers ; the rich men felling, the meaner fort buying, 
the alterage of their children. Davies on Ireland. 
FOS'TERFATHER,/. [popteppabejt, Sax.] One 
who gives food in the place ot the father.—In I re kind 
fofterchildren do love and are beloved by their fojler- 
fathers, and their fept, more than of their own natural 
parents and kindred. Davies. 
Tyrrheus, the fojlerfather of the bead, 
Then clench’d a hatchet in his horny fid. Dryden. 
FOS'TERLAND, f. Lands allotted for the mainte¬ 
nance of a perfon. 
FOS'TERLE AN,y. [Saxon.] The jointure of a wife, 
a nuptial gift. 
FOSTERMO'THER, f. A nurfe. 
FOSTERNUR'SE,y. [This is an improper compound, 
becaufe fojler and nurfe mean the fame.] A nurfe : 
Our fojlernufe of nature is repofe, 
The which he lacks. Shakefpcare. 
FOS'TERSON, f. One fed and educated, though not 
the fon by nature : 
Mature in years, to ready honours move; 
O of celedial feed ! O JoJlcrJ'on of Jove ! Dryden. 
FOS'TRES’S, y. A female that rears up and fupports 
any body : 
Glory of knights, and hope of all the earth, 
Come forth, your fojlrejs bids; who from your birth 
Hath bred you to this hour. “ Ben JonJ'on. 
FOTH'ER, or FoD'DiiR,y [fuder, Teiit.] Awciglu of 
Fox 
lead, containing eight pigs, and every pig one and twenty 
done and half; fo that it is about a ton, or common cart¬ 
load. Among the plumbers in London, it is nineteen 
hundred and a half; and at the mines, it is two and 
twenty hundred and a half. Skene. 
FOTH'ERGILL (George), born of an ancient family 
in Wedmoreland, in 1703, on acompetent edate that had 
defeended regularly from father to fon for feveral genera¬ 
tions. After an academical education in Queen’s college, 
Oxford, of which lie became a fellow, he was, in 1751, 
eleCted principal of St. Edmund’s-hall, and prefented to 
the vicarage of Bromtey in Hamplhire. Having been 
long afflicted with an adhma, he died in 1760. He was 
the author of a collection of much-edeemed fermons, in 
2 vols. 8vo. 
FOTH'ERGILL, (John, M.D.),aneminentphy(ician, 
born in 1712, at Carr-end in Yorkshire, where his father, 
a refpedtable member of the fociety of quakers, refided 
upon a family edate. He received his clafiical education 
chiefly at the fehool of Sedbergh, and in his fixteenth 
year was placed with Mr. Bartlett an apothecary at Brad¬ 
ford in Yorkfhire. He was afterwards fent to the uni. 
verfity of Edinburgh, where he took the degree of doCtor 
of phyfic in 1736, and then came to London, and entered 
as a pupil in St. Thomas’s hofpital. In 1740 he accom¬ 
panied fome friends in a tour to the continent; and upon 
v his return he fat down to the ferious bufinefs of his pro- 
feflion. He did not negleCt the means of making himfelf 
known in a literary and fcientific capacity ; and two of his 
papers on profellional fubjeCts appeared in the Philofo- 
phical TranfaCtions in 1744 and 1745. But it was in 1748 
that his medical reputation obtained a great and fudden 
acceffion by his publication entitled An Account of the 
Sore Throat attended with Ulcers. The difeafe which 
was the fubjeCtof this treatife had then become epidemic, 
and then excited an extraordinary alarm in the metro¬ 
polis. The work palfed through feveral editions, was 
tranflated into French, and fpread his name through 
foreign countries, as well as to the remoted parts of his 
own. Another laudable exertion to make public his fe- 
dulous attention to profellional objeCts, was a monthly 
account of the weather and difeafes of London, which 
he continued for feveral years. This may be accounted 
the parent of various fubfequent (fatements of the like 
kind, the fcientific utility of which is extremely apparent. 
His celebrity now began to obtain the notice of learned 
focieties. He was nominated an honorary member of the 
Edinburgh College of Phyficians in 1754, and was ad¬ 
mitted into the Royal Society of London in 1763. He* 
was entitled to the regard of this lad body, not only by 
his medical didinCtion, but by his zeal in promoting the 
advancement of natural hiltory, particularly the botanical 
part of it. About 1762 he purchafed a fmall edate at 
Upton near Stratford in Eflfex, which contained fome 
acres of garden-ground. Thefe he converted into a fe- 
minary of curious plants, foreign and indigenous, which 
became the favourite objeCt of his amufement, and was 
receiving continual accedions during the whole of his life, 
fo that his collection of exotics at length became one of 
the mod choice and confiderable in England, and confe- 
quently in Europe. He fpared no expence in enriching 
it from every quarter of the globe, and liberally concurred 
with other levers of botany in promoting refearches into 
the vegetable treafures of remote regions by perlons pro¬ 
perly qualified for the talk. His collections in other de¬ 
partments of natural hiflory, particularly of (hells, corals, 
and infeCts, werealfo extenfive. The medical reputation 
of Dr. Fothergill gradually rofe to a height which at 
length placed him probably at the fummit of employ¬ 
ment in the metropolis, and procured him applications in 
extraordinary cafes from molt parts of the kingdom. He 
maintained a very refpeftable place in the edimation of 
his brethren of the faculty, by the fagacity and judgment 
which he difplayed in his practice, and by the profellional 
information he never ceafed occalionally to communicate 
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