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Dr. John Caius, Physician and Scholar James J The Linacre Quarterly Volume 7 | Number 4 Article 6 October 1939 Dr. John Caius, Physician and Scholar James J. Walsh Follow this and additional works at: http://epublications.marquette.edu/lnq Recommended Citation Walsh, James J. (1939) "Dr. John Caius, Physician and Scholar," The Linacre Quarterly: Vol. 7 : No. 4 , Article 6. Available at: http://epublications.marquette.edu/lnq/vol7/iss4/6 T THE LINACRE QUARTERLY i ' I ::I DR. JOHN CAIUS, PHYSICIAN AND SCHOLAR By JAMES J. WALSH, M.D., Ph.D. After Linacre, in the history of Works of John Caius, Cambridge English medicine, comes Dr. John University Press, 1912), gives the Caius, a very lovable member of ten spellings: Kees, Keys, Keis, the medical profession, whose ca­ Kesse, Cais, Kaius, Keyse, Cayus, • reer, unfortunately for him, ran Keysse, and Caius. The one thing its course during the disturbed that is important about all these sixteenth century. He deserves to variants IS that they terminate have a place of honor among those with the letter s. This used to be who organized the regular medical omitted in sketches of Caius but ~I I I profession m his day and to a has been restored, and Keys Col­ great extent succeeded in restrain­ lege is not written Key's, as used ing quackery which was rife at to be the case, but Keys. that period. Fortunately, his When it is recalled that the time name is enshrined in that of the during which Dr. Keys flourished college at Cambridge, named after was the classic or Elizabethan pe­ him because of all that he did for riod m English literature, when it. Caius is still the favorite col­ the deep foundations for the lan­ lege for students who are planning guage m its modern form were to go on with medical or some being laid, this orthographic and form of scientific studies. The etymologic inconsistency becomes alumni of Keys College are very all the more striking. Dr. Keys faithful in their allegiance to their not only had the best education alma mater and, as a consequence, possible, but also lived his life in it has been the home of a large association with the men and number of men who have distin­ women who were undoubtedly the guished themselves in the medical best speakers and writers of their profession and m scientific re­ time. Besides being a distinguished search. physician, he was also one of the Dr. Keys (more commonly greatest classical scholars of his known by the Latin form of his day. name, Caius) illustrates very well For many years at the begin­ what I said in a previous article ning of her reign, Dr. Keys was with regard to the looseness and, royal physician to Queen Eliza­ '•II above all, the inconsistency of beth. He was held in almost deep spelling and pronunciation of veneration by his medical col­ Jl English in Elizabeth's time. The leagues, and continues in high es­ I! name of the family to which he be­ teem among physicians even now, I longed was spelled in no less than more than four hundred years ten different ways. That would after his death. His distinction as i seem almost impossible, but his a physician IS evident from the biographer, John Venn (The fact that he was elected for nine [ 88 1 r1 THE LINACRE QUARTERLY successive terms president of the Caius found so valuable. Royal College of Physicians of After some three years of this London. This institution had been scholastic touring, he returned to founded in the generation before England to take up his life's work. Keys's time by Linacre, after He soon came to be looked upon whom our quarterly is named. as one of the great physicians of Like everyone else anywhere in the time, and was the favorite Europe at that time who wanted · medical consultant of many prom­ to get a better education than inent personages. He built up a could be obtained in his native lucrative practice, but so far from country, whether in literature or hoarding the wealth that came to art or science, Dr. Caius, after se­ him he used a good part of it to curing his degree of Master of re-found the college at Cambridge Arts at Gonville College, Cam­ at which he had been a student bridge, made his way down to and did that so judiciously that, Italy, where he studied under a ever since, this particular college group of distinguished men, par­ has been considered the best place ticularly under Vesalius, who is in England to make pre-medical often spoken of as the father of studies and prepare for a medical modern anatomy. Caius learned career. In compensation for the to think as much of his alma mater benefit thus conferred, the name in the classical and medical sci­ of Gonville College was changed ences as did Linacre. to that of Keys College, and as all Dr. Caius received his degrees documents relating to education of Master of Arts and Doctor of were written in Latin in those Medicine at Padua after some days, the college is usually called four years of study. He then made by the Latin form of his name, what might be called a scholastic Caius College, though students of _grand tour of the continent; that the college and university men is, he visited many of the better­ generally use both names, Gonville known universities in various parts and Caius College. I have dwelt of Europe in order to be brought on this because I am sure when intimately in contact with the you visit Cambridge, which is very scholars of his time. He was quite nearly like visiting Harvard in convinced that this intimate con­ this country, you will be particu­ tact meant much for broadening larly interested in this first of the the mind and adding to the value pre-medical colleges in the history of the knowledge he had acquired of education. · during his years of study. Many As I have said, Caius was royal physicians since then, and still physician, but this position served more medical students, have gone only to bring him in dangerous op­ for a time to Paris, Berlin, Vienna position to the governmental au­ and Italy in order to take this thorities of his day. The contro­ post-graduate course which Dr. versy as to whether the King or [ 89 ] THE LINAORE QUARTER L Y Queen of England was the head of original discoveries of his own. the Church as well as the State The first independent medical book blazed up in Elizabeth's time, and he wrote contained an account of I a number of scholarly men refused the sweating sickness . This was a to acknowledge the royal suprem- severe disease that swept over I ~ acy in religious matters. Some of England about the middle of the them were put to death, others sixteenth century. It is usually were thrown into the Tower in the consider ed that it was influenza hope of breaking their determina- which has been traced down the tion, but in spite of this many of centuries in epidemic form, recur­ them continued to be faithful ad- ring about every twenty years. he rents of the Pope. Caius was "Te know how severe the disease accused of refusing to give fealty can be for we have had occasion to the Queen. When an action was several times in our own gener a­ brought ag ainst him as a recusant tion t o realize that . At the end for r efusing to t ake the oath of of the Great War, because of the allegiance to the Queen as the run-down condition of a la rge head of Church and State, dili- p art of the population influenza gent search was made of his lodg- carried off some eight millions of ings, and it was found that he had victims, something like twice as concealed there vestments and many as it had taken four years precious vessels and various other of modern warfare with all its de­ materials connected with the old velopment of horrible engines of r eligion, manifes tly hidden away war to destroy. It is easy to un­ for use and for preservation until derstand, then, that the disease the time when the true religion deserved the special attention would once more be restored. Al- which Caius gave to it and he though he had many friends seems to have been the first who among the nobility and Elizabeth separated it from the other world herself thought much of him, that plagues that decimated humanity did not save him from p ersecution, in the Middle Ages. Caius's mon­ and his faithfulness to the Church ograph bore the striking title, A cost him his lucrative practice as Boke or Counseil against the Dis­ well as his position as royal physi- ease Commonly Called the Sweat cian, and he was forced to retire or S weatyng Sicknesse (London, I to the country. 1552), and represented a I and- In the midst of his very busy ma rk in the study of epidemic dis­ ! I, practice he made translations of eases. i various works of Hippocrates and It is not surprising, then, to : Galen which gave him a place in hear that Caius's name is still I' I medical literature. H e also made held in veneration in his own col­ original contributions to litera- lege and throughout the English­ ture for he had acute powers of speaking world.
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