The Heberden Oration, 1961

Ann Rheum Dis: first published as 10.1136/ard.21.1.1 on 1 March 1962. Downloaded from Ann. rheum. Dis. (1962), 21, 1. THE HEBERDEN ORATION, 1961 WILLIAM ILEBERDEN 6ultimus Romanorum: medics vere Hippocraticus' BY THE RT. HON. THE LORD COHEN OF BIRKENHEAD, P.R.S.H., M.D., D.Sc., LL.D., F.R.C.P., F.S.A. Past-President of the Heberden Society I am deeply grateful for the enviable privilege and honour of delivering the Heberden Oration. I have chosen to speak of William Heberden, Senior, from whom we as a society derive our name, because it seems to me appropriate that in the saga of our Orations one at least should be devoted to an assessment of Heberden's work. My sub-titles are derived from two contemporary copyright. assessments. Heberden attended Samuel Johnson in his final illness in 1783-4. Of this Boswell wrote: Dr. Johnson being asked in his last illness what physician he had sent for, "Dr. Heberden", replied he, "ultimus romanorutm, the last of our learned physicians". Soemmerring, in his preface to the German edition of the "Commentaries", published in http://ard.bmj.com/ Frankfurt in 1804, named Heberden medics vere Hippocraticus-a sentiment echoed by Austin Dobson, who in his "Last Essays" (1921) included one on Heberden entitled "The 18th Century Hippocrates". Sir William Osler described Heberden as "the English Celsus"-a tribute not simply to his medical, on September 28, 2021 by guest. Protected but also to his classical scholarship. The earlier editions of the "Encyclopaedia Britannica" gave him a brief notice, but he disappeared after the 1Ith edition in 1910. Yet I share the view that he is William Heberden, Senior, from W. Ward's engraving of Sir William among the outstanding clinical observers of the Beechey's portrait, now in the Royal College of Physicians of London. 18th century, and I propose, therefore, to use the biographical details as are known, so that the briefest opportunity which this lecture provides to justify sketch of his life will here suffice. this view. He was born in London in 1710. His elder I shall be concerned primarily with his clinical brother by 7 years, Thomas, was also a doctor and contributions. Many of the publications cited in a Fellow of the Royal Society. the bibliography-especially Payne's notice in the William entered St. Saviour's School, Southwark, "Dictionary of National Biography" (1891), A. C. on July 17, 1717, at the age of 7, and in the same year Buller's "Life" (1879), and the papers by Percy his father, of whom little is known, died. His Davidson (1922) and Sir Humphrey Rolleston (1933) mother recognizing his ability, sent him to Cam- in The Annals of Medical History-document such bridge, where he entered St. John's College in 1724, Ann Rheum Dis: first published as 10.1136/ard.21.1.1 on 1 March 1962. Downloaded from 2 ANNALS OF THE RHEUMATIC DISEASES and was granted his Bachelor's degree in Arts in In London his reputation as a clinician rapidly 1728. He had acquired a wide classical learning, increased, although in his early years he went to and was well versed in Hebrew. Two years later, practise at Scarborough during the summer months. he was elected to a Fellowship of his College, and In 1752, he married the daughter of John Martin, then he pursued medical studies both at Cambridge a prominent citizen and member of Parliament, and London, receiving his Doctor's degree in but his wife died 2 years later, leaving him two sons, Medicine in 1739. one of whom, Thomas, was the father of a well- He remained at Cambridge for 9 years, actively known physician, Thomas Heberden. He married engaging in medical practice and teaching. He again in 1760 the daughter of William Wollaston. delivered annually a course of lectures on materia One of the eight children of this marriage was medica, a manuscript of which still exists. Pettigrew William Heberden, Junior, who prepared the gave extracts from these lectures in the Memoir of "Commentaries" for publication. He was able, and Heberden in his "Medical Portrait Gallery" (1840). became, in 1793, physician to St. George's Hospital, In these, classical allusions abound, but his classical unlike his father who had held no hospital appoint- learning is best exemplified by his contribution in ment, and again unlike his father, he accepted 1743 to a collected work by members of a literary several Royal appointments, including that of circle in Cambridge, the brief title of which is "The physician-in-ordinary to George III. Athenian Letters". To this work Heberden con- It is recorded that when George III invited tributed "A Letter from Cleander to Alexias on Heberden, Senior, to become physician to Queen Hippocrates and the State of Physic in Greece". Charlotte, he declined on the grounds that he was This increased his already high reputation for Greek apprehensive lest "it might interfere with those scholarship. connections of life which he had now formed". In 1745, he wrote "Antitheriaca: an Essay on In 1782, when he was 73 years old, he retired from Mithridatium and Theriaca". In this brief essay active practice. Thirty years earlier, he had been he pointed out that the ancients knew of three called in consultation with Dr. Richard Mead to see copyright. poisons only, namely hemlock, aconite, and those of the Duke of Leeds; at that time Mead was failing venomous animals. He asserted that the antidote and Heberden resolved to retire while still in com- alleged to have been used by Mithridates Eupator plete possession of his faculties. He wrote, in his the Great (133-63 B.C.) could have had no antidotal 85th year, 12 years after he had retired, that he had properties. It was, indeed, a simple remedy of not withdrawn from practice because of a wish to be rue, salt, and dried figs, though its composition had idle, but because he wished to give over "before varied throughout the ages. Despite Heberden's my presence of thought, judgement and recollection http://ard.bmj.com/ cogent diatribe against this 'farrago', as he called it, was so impaired, that I could not do justice to my the antidote remained in the Pharmacopoeia of the patients. It is more desirable for a man to do this Royal College of Physicians of London for another a little too soon than a little too late, for the chief half century. danger is on the side of not doing it soon enough". He was elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Heberden's other distinctions, listed in full in the Physicians in 1746, where in 1749 he delivered the memoirs by his son as an introduction to the Goulstonian Lectures, in 1750 the Harveian Oration, "Commentaries", by Pettigrew, Buller, Munk, and and in 1760 the Croonian Lectures. It was not more recent memoirs, included the Fellowship of on September 28, 2021 by guest. Protected until 1748 that he settled in London, whither he was the Society of Antiquaries to which he was elected invited by Sir Edward Hulse, physician to King in 1770. George III, and later learnt that an earlier invitation He died at the age of 92 at his residence in Pall had gone astray. Mall; he was then senior Fellow of the College of In 1749, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Physicians. He lies buried in the parish church of Society. In 1745 he had contributed to its Philo- Windsor. There, on a monument erected to his sophical Transactions a report on a large urinary memory, are inscribed words from which none of his calculus, which had been exhibited in the library of contemporaries would have demurred: "He practised Trinity College, Cambridge, for 80 years, but it is physic, first at Cambridge, afterwards in London, there no longer. In 1765, he described a second large with great and unsullied reputation above 50 years. urinary calculus which was 31 inches long and His distinguished learning, his sweetness of manners 4j inches in circumference in a woman, which was and active benevolence, raised him to an uncommon voided without help. His other contributions in height in public esteem". the Philosophical Transactions dealt with meteoro- I have already quoted Boswell's words, but his logical topics. popularity and success are well illustrated in the Ann Rheum Dis: first published as 10.1136/ard.21.1.1 on 1 March 1962. Downloaded from HEBERDEN ORATION 3 following verse common in the 18th century, which that "my desire is that mine adversary had written concerned the three most prominent physicians then a book", for Heberden was later to write, "If men of in London: letters could be obliged to write always with a view You should send, if aught should ail ye, to publishing, though without ever doing so, they For Willis, Heberden, or Baillie: would be perhaps the happiest of men." All exceeding skilful men, In his preface to the "Commentaries" Heberden Baillie, Willis, Heberden; wrote, "Plutarch says that the life of the vestal Uncertain which most sure to kill is virgin was divided into three portions: in the first Baillie, Heberden, or Willis. she learned the duties of her profession; in the second she practised them; and in the third she Heberden numbered amongst his friends and taught them to others. This is no bad model for patients many poets and writers. Samuel Richard- the life of a physician." He went on to say that son, the novelist, left a ring to "the kind Dr.

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