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Home , Ralph Bathurst

Jean GUY (Martock, )

C 12

A REVEALING EXAMINATION PAPER RALPH BATHURST AND THE OXFORD CIRCLE IN THE MID-SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

Ralph Bathurst's ordination to the priesthood in 1644 at the age of 24 co-incided with a critical period of the , and all hope of a career in the church, even for a fellow of Trinity College, Oxford, was futile. His biographer, Thomas Warton, writing in 1761, fifty-seven years after Bathurst's death, expresses his dilemma thus : « The confusions of the grand rebellion hastening on a pace, and promising but little support or encouragement to the ministerial function, he changed his proposed plan and became a student in physic »(1). Bathurst has left no autobiographical material, except for a few short passages in such correspon­ dence as survived him. Nor was Warton, being Professor of Poetry in Oxford, in any position to assess Bathurst the physician or Bathurst the scientist. He did, however, print the « literary remains », consisting of several pieces of prose and poetry, both English and Latin, for public and private occasions; letters to prominent people in the last forty years of the seventeenth century ; and Bathurst's medical examination papers, in Latin. They consist of three of his six M.B. essays (2), and his three lectures on respiration for the degree of M.D. (3). These provide a revealing glimpse into seventeenth century medical education in Oxford. After the Restoration, Bathurst became, successively and together, President of Trinity College, Oxford (4), Dean of Weils Cathedral (5), and for three years Vice-Chancellor of the (6). He was a royal chaplain (7), and John Evelyn esteemed him as an excellent preacher (8). He was obviously not shy of public office, or of the grand occasion, yet he was wary of publication. Neither his sermons nor his scientific writings were published in his lifetime, despite encouragement from his friends and colleagues (9). He was also reticent about his activities as a physician, and tried to minimise the importance of his medical period. He wrote in 1662 : « physic being only my refuge in bad times, and not my primitive design »(10). Despite Bathurst's own protestations, such evidence as survives indicates that his medical career influenced his own sub­ sequent life and the lives of his contemporaries. The evidence for Barthurst's scientific activity comes from a multiplicity of sources. His attendance at scientific gatherings and classes is attested by John Aubrey ano Anthony Wood, by the records of the Royal Society of London and of the Oxford Philosophical Society, and in the writings of , John Lydall and Walter Pope (11). These references extend well back into the Civil War period on the one hand, before the date of his medical degree in 1654, and, on the other hand, forwards into the post-Restoration era. Bathurst was the common factor in many of the intellectual groupings of the time, and was highly thought of by those whose work was published. As to the content of his thought, we have only the aforesaid examination

130 papers. The medical examinations were taken verbally, possibly on subjects chosen by the candidate. They were prepared beforehand and debated in public. There was a different set of questions for each candidate, and those set for Ralph Bathurst in 1651 were as follows : Whether the foetus is nourished by maternal blood — No. Whether every sense is tactile — Yes. Whether acid rather than heat is the digestive factor in the stomach — Yes (12). You will notice that the standpoint of the respondent is established when the question is put : his task is to defend the thesis. Bathurst's M.B. examination was interrupted by service as a naval pysician. His second set of three questions was published in 1654, but the answers no longer survive (13). Even a cursory survey of the texts of Quaestiones and Praelectiones is impossible here, but they give a very good idea of the ways in which old ideas and new were working together in the medical training of the mid-seventeenth century. In post-Laudian Oxford Aristotle is certainly in evidence, Hippocrates is quoted frequently, Galen, Pliny and several other classical authors figure prominently in Bathurst's own footnotes. However, the ideas Bathurst puts forward are not the old ones. Of the eighty authors he acknowledges, the majority are renaissance and contemporary men, from the continent and from England, mainly writers on anatomy, chemistry and philosophy. Amongst English authors he quotes Francis Bacon, Edward Jorden, and John Lydall(14). Ent and Lydall were close friends of his. Bathurst was not only well-read, he was up to date. His 1651 essay on foetal nutrition and the one on gastric digestion include quotations and comments from Harvey's book, On Generation, published only three months before (15). He was thus the first to quote this book of Harvey's publicly, and in this way draws it to the attention of his Oxford audience. Bathurst is likely to have met Harvey at Oxford in 1643(16). The M.D. lectures are arranged in the traditional Galenic manner, in order of causality. They deal first of all with the mechanics of respiratory movement, secondly with the control of respiration, describing a theory of neuromuscular activity, and thirdly with the purpose of respiration, its final cause. The third lecture is the most interesting, and has been analysed briefly by Robert Frank in his Harvey and the Oxford Physiologists (17). Bathurst suggests that there is a vital portion or function of the inspired air which he calls the « nitrous spirit», « nitrous food» or « nitrous vapour». He shows that this is essential to all forms of animal and plant life. In man the « nitrous food » serves to replenish the vital spirits of the blood. He distinguished the form of this nitrous substance, found in the air as a volatile salt, from the mineral nitre in its fixed-salt form, and explained that air was necessary for the formation of the mineral nitre. The use of the term « nitre» derives from the widespread use of saltpetre as a chemical reagent during the earliest days of chemistry, and its use as an essential ingredient of gunpowder (18). It is what we now know as a powerful oxidising agent, but it was to be over a century later that Lavoisier named and proved the chemical properties of oxygen. As Frank has shown, Bathurst was not the first to suggest an « aerial nitre ». It had been hinted at by George Ent thirteen years before. However, Bathurst amplified and illustrated his ideas to such good effect that they provided the stimulus for research and discussion within scientific circles in Oxford and London for the next twenty years. The purpose of respiration was the key problem of this fruitful period in the dawn of English science. Experiments on the physical behaviour of gases, practical and speculative chemistry, new tech­ niques in vivisection and corpuscular philosophy, provided the essential ele­ ments for this scientific revolution. What part Bathurst played in the experi-

131 mental aspect of Oxford science is not known, as a vital notebook has been lost (19). However, allusions to, and direct quotations from, his unpublished lectures are found over the next few years in several publications by his colleagues. is the most famous of these. He did not arrive in Oxford until 1655, but made the acquaintance of Ralph Bathurst and his lectures soon after this. Boyle and tried to pursuade him to publish the lectures, and Bathurst produced a fair copy with footnotes, presumably with the intention of publication, but changed his mind in 1656 and refused to allow Boyle to see it through the press (20). However, the manuscript continued to circulate in Oxford and is known to have been read by Nathaniel Highmore, Richard Lower and . Willis was Bathurst's closest friend and medical partner. Some authors have implied that Bathurst was Willis's pupil, but there is evi­ dence that their affection and admiration was mutual. It began in the early 1650s and continued until Willis's death. Thomas Willis dedicated his essay On Urine to his colleague in 1659. Bathurst is known to have corrected that content and Latin style of Willis's Cerebral Anatomy, and probably wrote its preface. On its author's behalf, he presented this justly famous work to the Royal Society in 1664. Willis left Oxford in 1667, but Bathurst gave his personal imprimatur as Vice-Chancellor to the two volumes of Willis's Rational Pharmacy in 1674 and 1675(21). Ralph Bathurst ceased to earn his living as a physician in 1663, but there is a tradition that he continued to treat the sick poor of Wells during his periods of residence as Dean after 1670 (22). Nor did he abandon his interest in scientific medicine. Bathurst attended a series of chemistry classes in 1662 (23). He became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1663, although he seldom attended meetings and does not appear to have contributed any experimental material (24). He joined its Oxford counterpart, founded in 1677, and became its president in 1688 (25). His major contribution to the healing profession after the Restoration was his reform of the teaching within Trinity College, of which he became President in 1664 (26), and to which he devoted his time, money and energy for the last forty years of his life, except for his annual visits to his Deanery in Wells, and visits to London as royal chaplain or on college business (27). gives an account of education in Trinity, which is printed in the college history (28). This passage refers to the mid 1680s : Lectures were read in experimental philosophy and chemistry... There was also in this coll : a very good collection of philosophical and mathematical books of all kinds... in... the Lower Library where every undergraduate had the liberty to go and study as long as he pleased. This seems to have been unusual in the Oxford of the time. Bathurst contributed to the college libraries from his own collection of books in his will : other medical and non-medical books of his are to be found in Library (29). Despite Ralph Bathurst's reluctance to publish his scientific writings, they exerted considerable influence on the better-known « experimental philosophers» of his own and the next generation. The works of Robert Boyle (30), Richard Lower (31), and John Mayow(32) on the nature of the air and the purpose of respiration not only post-date but are obviously influenced by Bathurst's theories. Although Harvey produced a revolutionary work on the circulation (33), he had not been able to formulate an adequate account of the purpose of the lungs and breathing to replace the Galenic one, that the function of respiration was to cool the heart. Bathurst not only showed this to be false, but suggested a hypo­ thesis which stimulated his friends to experimental activity.

132 TEXTUAL REFERENCES

1. Thomas WARTON. — The Life and Literary Remains of Ralph Bathurst (London, 1761), pp. 36, 304-206. 2. Ibid. — Pp. 211-238. 3. Ibid. — Pp. 127-210. 4. Herbert BLAKISTON. — Trinity College (Oxford University College Histories, London, 1898), pp. 153-183. 5. D. Sherwin BAILEY (ed.). — Wells Chapter Act Book 1666T683 (Historic Manuscripts Commission, 1973), p. xv. 6. WARTON. — Op. cit., pp. 95-144 ; Anthony Woid, Fasti Oxonienses, vol. 2, p. 106. 7. WARTON. — Op cit., p. 61, quoting Anthony Wood, History and Antiquities of the University of Oxford, p. 295, c. 2. 8. John EVELYN. — The Diary of John Evelyn (ed. E.S. de Beer, Oxford, 1959), entry for 1 March 1665. 9. WARTON. — Op. cit., pp. 59-61. Anthony Wood, The Life and Times of Anthony Wood (ed. Andrew Clarke Oxford Historical Society, 19, 1891), vol. 2, p. 271. 10. WARTON. — Op. cit., p. 54. 11. Robert G. FRANK, jr. — Harvey and the Oxford Physiologists (Berkeley, California, 1980), p. 106 and passim. 12. Bodleian Library MS. Fol. 659. Warton, op. cit., pp. 211-238. 13. Bodleian Library MS. G. A. Oxon. b. 137 (3). 14. WARTON. — Op. cit., e.g. pp. 191, 127, 204; 186, 193, 209; 129, 174, 187, 188, 191, 192 ; 192. 15. . — Disputations touching the Generation of Animals [March, 1651], trans. G. Whitteridge (Oxford, 1981), preface, p. xx. 16. «William Harvey», in John Aubrey, Brief Lives (ed. Oliver Lawson Dick, London, 3rd ed., repr. 1968), p. 129. 17. FRANK. — Op. cit., pp. 108-112. 18. Ibid. — Pp. 117-118 and passim. 19. WARTON. — Op. cit., preface, p. ix. 20. Ibid. — P. 60 n., quoting MSS. Wood D 19, « Of the King's Coming to Oxon ». 21. Ibid. — Pp. 39-41, p, 58 & n. See also the prefaces of Willis's books, 1674, 1675. 22. E. H. PLUMPTRE. — The Life of Thomas Ken, D.D (London, 1888), vol. I, p. 201. 23. WOOD. — Life and Times, 1, pp. 290, 472-473. 24. Thomas BIRCH. — The Histmy of the Royal Society of London for Improving of Natural Knowledge, from its first rise (London, 1756-7), vol. I, pp. 2, 15, 406< 444 and passim ; John Wallis, A Defence of the Royal Society (London, 1678) ; Thomas Sprat, The History of the Royal Society of London for the Improving of Natural Knowledge (London, 1667) ; Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, vol. I. 25 .Bodleian Library, Ashmolean MSS. pol. 1810, ff. 20, passim, vol. 1811, ff. 16, passim Warton, op. cit., p. 45. 26. WARTON. — Op. cit., p. 61. 27. Ibid. — Pp. 64-88. 28. BLAKISTON. —Op. cit., pp. 172-177. 29. WARTON. — Op. cit., pp. 197-198. British Library MSS. Loan 57/68, 749 c, Bathurst family papers 5 Henry V, 1772, ff. 62-71. 30. Hon. Robert BOYLE. — Certain Physiological Essays, written at distant times and on several occasions (London, 1661), esp. Essay 4, pp. 107-135. FRANK op.cit. pp. 123, 125 31. Richard LOWER. — Tractatus de Corde (London, 1669), pp. 169-170, cf. Warton, op. cit., pp. 209-210, Frank, op. cit., p. 342. 32. John MAYOW. —- Tractatus Duo. Quorum prior agit de respiratione : alter de rachitide (Oxford, 1668), esp. pp. 43-44, Frank, op. cit., pp. 227-231. 33. William HARVEY. — Exercitation anatómica de motu cordis et sanguis in animalibus (Frankfurt, 1628).

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