[From Schenckius: Observationum Medicarum, Francofurti, 1609.] ANNALS OF MEDICAL HISTORY New Ser ies , Volu me V July , 1933 Number 4 A SKETCH OF THE CAREER OF THEODORE TURQUET DE MAYERNE PHYSICIAN TO FOUR KINGS, SPAGYRIC THERAPEUTIST, AND PIONEER IN THE COMPILATION OF ELABORATE RECORDS OF CLINICAL CASES By THOMAS GIBSON, M.B., C.M. (Edin.), F.R.C.P. (Can.)

KINGSTON, ONT.

H EO DO R E finally comes a copy of a French TURQUET DE pastoral play. These reveal a variety of MAYERNE was interests, and the second points to one born at May- of the ruling passions of his long life- erne, not far from concern to understand the precious Geneva, in the things found in, or springing out of the year 1573. His earth, so as to employ them for the use father was Louis of man. After his Geneva schooldays, Turquet de May- he spent four years at Heidelberg, and erne, a Protestant of Piedmontese de- then betook himself to Montpellier to scent, and his mother was Louis Ie study medicine, graduating m.b . in Magon, daughter of Antoine, Treas- 1596, and m.d . in 1597. urer-at-w’ar to Francis 1 and Henri 11 Young Mayerne lost no time in of France. Louis is remembered as the putting his fortune to the proof in writer of a history of Spain. Their son Paris, where Lazarus Riverius, Profes- was named after Theodore Beza, the sor of Medicine at Montpellier, was friend of Calvin. Among the Sloane one of the physicians attached to the manuscripts in the British Museum court of Henri iv. No doubt aided by (No. 2013) there is a notebook of his former chief’s influence, Mayerne Theodore’s when a school-boy of was soon appointed teacher of anat- twelve years of age, containing mis- omy to the surgeons, and of pharmacy cellaneous jottings of his studies. to the apothecaries, and in 1600 he One of these notes is on logic, another became a district physician of Paris, on processes of distillation with draw- by royal warrant, and was elected one of ings of various stills well executed, and the physicians-in-ordinary to the King. Before long Mayerne’s clinical use discharge of which his discretion and of metals and their salts drew the fire dignified bearing still further enhanced of the orthodox Galenists of the Paris his reputation. Early in 1606 one of those events, trivial in themselves, came about, which often change the current of a human life. An Englishman attached to the court of James 1 arrived in Paris on a visit to the French king. Falling ill, he was restored to health under Mayerne’s care. The personality of the French physician made such an impression upon him as to lead him to urge Mayerne to visit London. The invitation was accepted, and resulted for the visitor in a veritable triumph. Not only did the profession welcome him and the University of Oxford incorporate him on the strength of his Montpellier degree, but James faculty, one of whom published, in the appointed him one of the Queen’s year 1603, a book entitled “Apologia physicians, among whom there was pro medicina Hippocratis et Galeni, already another Huguenot French- contra Mayernium et Quercetanum. ” man, Peter Chamberlen, senior, re- Mayerne replied to this in a tract puted inventor of the obstetric forceps. of 120 pages, defending the teaching Mayerne, however, decided to return of his old school at Montpellier, and to his service at the French court, maintaining that his own practice was where he remained until the assassi- that of a reverent follower of the great nation of Henri on May 14, 1610. founders of medical tradition. This Soon after, James sent an escort to rejoinder, though moderate and digni- conduct Mayerne to London, where the fied in tone, still further annoyed the remainder of his busy career was spent. orthodox, and an abusive anonymous James appointed him forthwith pamphlet, traditionally traced to the chief physician to himself and his elder Riolan, and entitled “Ad famo- household, so that at one step he took sam Turqueti apologiam responsio, ” the premier post in the medical profes- brought to an end the wordy war. sion of Britain. His colleagues re- The Paris Faculty took action to the ceived him, upon the whole, in a most extent of condemning Mayerne’s friendly spirit, though there were the “Apologia,” forbidding his colleagues usual grumblings from the less fa- to consult with him, and advising that vored at his rapid preferment. “Much he should be deprived of his public envy,” writes John Chamberlen to offices. Sir Dudley Carleton August 11, 1621, Far from being influenced by these “was caused by Turquet’s preferment, attacks, the King honored him by who hath four hundred pounds from sending him on important missions to the King, four hundred from the German and Italian courts, in the Queen, with a house provided for him, and many other commodities which he not be very pleasing to her. When we were reckons at fourteen hundred pounds a both girls I had great acquaintance there, year.” The house which he occupied they lived in Chelsea by us, and as long until the death of the Royal Martyr as his son lived, Sir Theodore did me the was in St. Martin’s Lane: thereafter honour to call me daughter. But whilst I was first in France, he died, and with him he lived at the village of Chelsea. my converse with the family, for though That charming person, Dorothy my mother had often occasion to be there Osborne, gives us a pretty glimpse into yet I went but seldom with her, they were the family life of the Mayernes at still so passionate for their son that I Chelsea in the thirtieth of her letters never failed of setting them all a crying, to her betrothed, William Temple. and then I was no company for them. Temple had written to tell her of the But this poor lady had a greater loss of death of her old playmate Elizabeth my Lord Hastings, who died just when Mayerne. Elizabeth’s first betrothed, they should have been married, and sure Lord Hastings,* died on the eve of she could not think she had recovered it their marriage, and some time after all by marrying this buffle-headed she had married a Huguenot of dis- Marquis. And yet one knows not neither what she might think. I remember I tinguished family, Pierre de Caumont, saw her with him in the park a little while Marquis de Cugnac. after they were married, and she kissed What a sad story you tell me of the him the kindliest that could be in the little Marquise. Poor woman, yet she is midst of all the company. I shall never happy, she is dead, for sure her life could wish to see a worse sight than it was, nor to be anything longer than I am your * Henry, Lord Hastings, died of smallpox faithful D.O. at the age of nineteen. Like Henry, Prince of Wales, he was one of the most gifted youths of his time. His death was sadly commemo- William Temple’s mother was a rated in a volume of thirty-three elegies by sister of that Dr. John Hammond who many hands, entitled “Lachrymae musarum.” first attended Prince Henry Frederick Dryden, then in his eighteenth year, had been of Wales during the onset of his fatal his schoolmate at Westminster School, and illness, at Richmond on Thames in his first published poem was one of these the autumn of 1612. In the account elegies. It contains many fantastic conceits, of which the following is an example: lists of His Royal Highness’ household, Heaven would no longer trust its pledge, but thus we find John Hammond’s name as in Recalled it, rapt its Ganymede from us. receipt of one hundred and forty Was there no milder way but the small-pox? So many spots, like naeves, our Venus soil? pounds per annum. He also received One jewel set off with so many a foil? Blisters with pride swelled, which through his flesh forty pounds a year from the King. did sprout Mayerne was made a fellow of the Like rose-buds, stuck in the lily-skin about. Each little pimple had a tear in it, Royal College of Physicians in 1616. To wail the fault its rising did commit; He and a French Huguenot chemist Which, rebel-like, with its own lord at strife, Thus made insurrection ’gainst his life. had much to do with the preparation Or were these gems sent to adorn his skin, The cabinet of a richer soul within? of the first London Pharmacopoeia, No comet need foretell his change drew on, the dedication of which to James was Whose corps might seem a constellation. written by Mayerne. The book was For this reference, the writer is indebted published in 1618. to his friend, Professor Frederick Tupper, of the University of Vermont, Burlington. Mayerne From the year 1621 Mayerne’s attended his prospective son-in-law in his last name is sometimes accompanied by illness. the title Baro Albonae, Baron of Aubonne. About that time he had more economy and less danger to the purchased some property near Lau- State. Mayerne, with his usual adroit- sanne at Aubonne, the ancient name ness, gave the following opinion: of which had been Alba Bona, or Aula Bona, of which words Aubonne Spaw water is not fit for her at present, her body not being prepared. Any change was a corruption. The title was a of air would do her good, be it what it courtesy one not recognised in Eng- will. She hath a great opinion of the Spaw land. James dubbed him knight, eques water. Waters have twice done her good. auratus, in 1624. He was one of those Spaw water is better than the best waters who attended the King during his in England. To cure her body her mind last illness in March 1625, the cause of must be quieted. The Queen is sick in death being a tertian ague in a gouty body and in mind, and thinks she cannot man with chronic nephritis. recover, let her be out of reach of employ- Charles 1 retained Mayerne as chief ments that may disturb her. She believes physician, but his usual health called she is very ill. Unless remedies be used for little attention. The intimate terms she cannot live, and the waters must be upon which he stood with his royal taken between this [July 14th] and the middle of August.1 patients is evident from their letters to him, some of which Mayerne copied Henrietta Maria had doubtless cause into his case-books. In one of these enough to be in a neurasthenic state Charles writes: “Mayerne, pour of body and mind in those dangerous I’amour de Dieu, allez trouver ma days before the outbreak of the civil femme.” In another the Queen signs war. herself “votre bien bonne maitresse et It is believed that the great Oliver amie. ” was seen in consultation by Mayerne, In July, 1641, as we learn from the shall we say with our English Hippoc- memoirs of the Verney family, rates, Cromwell’s usual physician? Mayerne was called upon by a com- On the accession of Charles 11 Mayerne mittee of the Commons to furnish was confirmed in his office as nominal a report upon the Queen’s health, chief physician, but nothing is known especially as to whether it was neces- of any services rendered to that sary that she should go to the Con- sovereign. tinent for treatment at Spa. She had Mayerne died full of years and complained that her health had been honors at his house in Chelsea, on “much impaired by some discontents March 22, 1655, leaving a very large of mind and false rumours and libels sum of money behind him. There is a spread concerning her.” She also casual confirmation of the popular desired to take with her her daughter rumor as to Mayerne’s wealth in a Mary to visit her betrothed, Prince letter of Mary Verney’s to her William of Orange. Her enemies sus- husband, Sir Ralph Verney, April 1, pected her of a design to take large 1647: “Dr. Mayerne lives near in to sums of money out of the country to me. He hath but one daughter who, pay for the services of French troops they say, is the greatest marriage in England for the support of the in England.” The Verney Papers2 King’s party. The committee had report the following fragment of a cautiously suggested that the Spa letter written by Dr. Denton, phy- water could be used in London with sician to Charles 11: “Dr. Mayerne is buried and died worth £140,000.” court on account of his worth, nor anyone In passing, one may remark that the more ready to offer countenance to those same Dr. Denton wrote a book of of lower rank; among persons of all sorts political polemics entitled “Horae and during a period full of unrest, he Subsecivae.” It would be interest- was ever the same, and like himself, wise, politic, firm, undismayed, so that it ing to know whether that much appeared as if both events and men, yea beloved writer, Dr. John Brown, had even fortune herself were swayed by his come across this title as used by the genius. old royalist doctor when he chose it What more shall I say of Mayerne? for the baptism of his own so different, When you have said “Mayerne,” you and so charming, collection of stories shall have said all. and appreciations. His soul is escaped to heaven, his bones Sir Theodore was buried in St. are committed to this tomb and his im- Martins-in-the-Fields, the older edi- mortal memory rests with fame. fice which then occupied the site of Reader, be happy and fare thee well! the beautiful Gibbs church on the I who by my skill often turned back upon death his own darts, compelling Northwest corner of Trafalgar Square. very poisons to the cure of disease, even in As was the custom of the time, there dying I practise a similar art through was inscribed upon his tomb a profuse Christ; what is death to others, is healing and high-sounding Latin eulogium, for me. composed by his godson, Sir Theodore des Vaux. This may be rendered some- Mayerne was twice married, and what freely into English as follows: had seven children, but he outlived them all, and left no descendants of Reader, mayest thou always be in the third generation. The poor little health to venerate the memorial of him Marquise, Dorothy’s friend, died in whose skill preserved the lives of such a childbed at the Hague in 1653. Family multitude. afflictions indeed appear to have been He whose dust is hidden within this almost the only serious troubles which marble, was once that great man Theo- dore Mayerne, magnum nomen, second Mayerne encountered. He seems to Hippocrates, health-bringer to the world, have carried full sail throughout his ornament of his age, the shamer of his long life. We might liken him, in this opponents, and exemplar to his successors. respect, to Dr. Richard Mead, who, as To incomparable skill in the art of medi- Dr. Samuel Johnson said, “lived more cine and profound knowledge of nature’s in the full sunshine of life than any secrets he added marvelous acquaintance man.” Rich in gifts of head and heart, with the affairs of politics, prudence, with varied talents assiduously im- fertility in expedients, nimbleness of mind proved, he seems to have been com- to the height of miracle; his spoken pletely ready for any of the multifari- addresses had purity and charm of ous duties and responsibilities placed diction, and his opinions expressed in upon him, a royal physician living in consultation had the concise brilliance of gems; moreover there was evident in two of the most cultivated nations of his conversation a steadfast and reasoned the period, and during times of the profession of natural piety. greatest political peril to his royal There was none in the presence of masters. Considering facts like these, we Kings happier in the ingenuous freedom must admit that the lapidary inscrip- of converse, nor more a favourite with the tion was not, after all, overdone. Sir Wilmot Herringham, in his among the manuscripts in the library Harveian Oration of St. Luke’s day, of Jerome Welschius of Augsburg. 1929, pointed out that on May 19, There are here three reports of 1645, about one month before the methods used in some obstetric emer- battle of Naseby, which proved the gencies by Peter Chamberlen senior, decisive encounter of the civil war: who, as has been said, was one of the large group of physicians attached to He was paid the greatest compliment the household of James 1. that Parliament has ever, I suppose, paid to a medical man. The Lords sent There are twenty-three volumes of down a message to the Commons:— Mayerne’s case-records in the British “The Lords desire that the house of Com- Museum among the Sloane collections: mons would join with them in expressing the Royal College has another group, their esteem of a man whose extraordinary the last addition to which was be- abilities would make him welcome in queathed to it by the late Sir William any part of Christendom; and as he is Osler. The story of how he came to singular for his knowledge in his profes- possess these papers will be found in his sion, so he may be singular in being by Life by Harvey Cushing. Very few are the favour of the House exempted from in Mayerne’s handwriting, many are all payments which others are subject signed by him. He employed at least unto: it being but a continuation of that two amanuenses, both of whom were favour which he hath enjoyed for about thirty years without interruption.” The careless or but indifferent scholars. House of Commons agreed by sixty-nine French and Latin are used almost to sixty-six. exclusively, and the style is impure in both languages and full of mistakes in Thirty-five years after Mayerne’s spelling and syntax. The largest col- death, a committee of the College com- lection of these in print was made by piled a “Praxis Medica” by collating, Dr. Joseph Browne and published in under headings of the acute diseases, 1700 or 1701, for the date varies in his treatment of these as exemplified some of the volumes. Browne’s in the immense series of case records “Opera Omnia” contains a large found after his death. This furnishes, Mayernian Pharmacopoeia, no doubt perhaps, the most cogent proof of the his own private collection of useful immense authority which the leaders formulae, most of them not of his own in the profession still attached to the invention. To a few he lays that claim. Mayernian tradition. His library he There is a special collection of the bequeathed to the College, and it was formulae which Mayerne had pre- consumed in the great fire of London. scribed for the Queens among his Fortunately for the history of British patients. Many of these are concerned medical practice in the seventeenth with the toilet—and the preservation century, these case-records escaped. of good looks. Some of his formulae The “Praxis” must have been well are as simple as one could wish, but thought of, because in the next year, the great majority are of bewildering 1691, an edition was printed by a firm complexity, and must have been very of booksellers in Augsburg, with the costly to compound. Plentiful remains valuable addition of Mayerne’s tract of the nastiness of ancient pharmacy, upon the treatment of pregnant and some of its superstitions are women, which someone had found scattered here and there. Dr. Donald Monro, in his Harveian patient and the general diagnostic Oration of October 18, 1775, gave appellation heads each case-record. Mayerne credit for the discovery of So one after another of the nobility calomel. Pereira, however, in his Ma- and gentry of seventeenth century teria Medica tells us that Beguin, in France, England and Scotland pass 1608, and Oswald CroII, in 1609, were before the eye of our imagination as the first in Europe to mention this the patients of the great physician of compound of mercury, and that its the time. One of the first Mayerne discoverer is unknown. He assigns to attended after settling in London was Mayerne, however, the first use of the Robert Cecil, Elizabeth’s chancellor, name calomel for the mild chloride of then an old man dying of a malignant mercury. Mayerne claims discovery of abdominal growth. his mercurial water, our Iotio nigra, The most brilliant and charming and of a clyssus metallorum which figure among them all is that of Henry contained mercury and antimony. One Frederick, Prince of Wales, “the dar- of his formulae for the water was as ling of England” as he was fondly follows: Recipe, Aquaecalcis § vj, Mei- named. Sabatini, in his recent story of lis rosatae 3ij, Mercurii dulcis 3j— the period, entitled “The King’s Min- Misce. He writes to his old friend, ion” (Robert Car, Earl of Somerset) Lord Francis Conway, under date of thus sums up the personality of this September 19, 1648, as follows: “well-beloved youth,” from the con- ... I send you a bottle of my mer- temporary records: curial water. It is not to be drunk, but is Although still in his seventeenth year, only for bathing the parts which chafe and he was of good height and excellently well are irritated. Temper it well with rose shaped, as graceful in body as in mind, water and plantain, that it be not too and in all things the very antithesis of strong and burn the skin. So diluted, it his sire. High spirited, valiant, gracious, will, I hope, have good effect. Let me and even at this young age a patron of all know of its success. deserving arts, he was fast becoming the The freedom with which he gave mer- idol of the people, whilst the very flower cury internally may be judged by the of the nobility was found surrounding him following advices. For robust patients, at St. James’ Palace, where he held his such as rustics, smitten with venereal court. Athletic in his pursuits and austere infection, he gave 10 grains of calomel in manners, God-fearing and studious by with jalap, senna, and guaiacum. For inclination, he contrived to be dignified and princely beyond his years. repeated use in syphilis he advised a bolus compounded of mercury 3vi, The summer of 1612 was hot and dry Dij, Venice turpentine Div, with eleven beyond living memory and the Prince, sheets of gold leaf. This was to be after strenuous exercise followed by a divided into twenty pill masses, involv- heavy dinner, would spend hours in ing a dose of 20 grains of mercury in the shrunken waters of the Thames each dose. If these doses are correctly cooling off. He had a great liking for reported, there was some ground for oysters, both raw and cooked. May- the strictures of the Paris Faculty erne tells us these things in his pre- against the chemical physicians. liminary account of his patient’s life Except where the disease carried and health history. The oysters no with it opprobrium, the name of each doubt came from the Thames estuary, and were well infected in a low water of the more official account. He tells year. us that one afternoon, before leaving Dr. Norman Moore3 first pointed St. James to take some rest, he was out that here we have the original given a snack to eat (jusculum), well-observed and described clinical probably by some sympathetic butler. case of typhoid fever, in English at His account of the fatal omen of the least. Cases like it were common that lunar rainbow which appeared, one autumn in England, and were gener- limb over-arching St. James and the ally looked on at first as irregular ter- other off in the fields, about ten nights tians, until they became continuous. before Henry’s death, is omitted from They called it “the new disease” col- the French version also.* A certificate loquially. Mayerne’s account in from the King accompanies the French was in part an apologia to meet account of the illness and post- the wild rumors that flew fast during mortem, expressing complete satis- the Prince’s illness, and still more faction with everything that had been wildly after his death. He himself was done by the physicians. thought by some to have poisoned the To take just one example of less patient. At the post-mortem, the worthy therapeutic notions, we choose stomach was opened chiefly to prove the case of the twelve-year-old son of that it showed no sign of the effects Lord Monteagle, reported on January of such a poison as corrosive subli- 22, 1612. Lord Monteagle was one of mate, one of the commonest imple- those deputed to search the cellars of ments of the contemporary poisoner, the Houses of Parliament, where they as in the case of Sir Thomas Overbury. found Guy Fawkes watching the The intestines were not opened, so thirty-seven barrels of gunpowder, that we read nothing about the lesions insufficiently concealed under straw of the disease there. The treatment and faggots of wood. The supersti- used by Mayerne and his associates tious ideas still obscuring the minds of was, for those times, quite moderate. the profession in regard to epilepsy Mild purgative pills, laxative clysters, perhaps explain why the treatment cordials and cooling drinks, two mod- suggested by Mayerne falls so much erate bleedings, one early and the below his normal average. Three speci- lesser one late in the case were used, fics are offered, (a) The dung of a while bezoar stone and sundry alexi- white peacock one drachm infused in pharmics were thrown in to satisfy four ounces of white wine overnight: orthodox tradition. Foolish things in the morning it is to be strained and were done towards the end, in despera- tion, like the application of split live * The same phenomenon was observed by others. In the Somers Tracts, ed. 2, by Sir pigeons to the head and back of the Walter Scott (1809, 2: 237) we find the neck. Through it all, the young Prince following: “This evening there appeared a behaved with his usual manly dignity, very fatal sign, about two hours or more and composed himself for the inevi- within the night, bearing the colours and table end while yet mental clearness shew of a rainbow, which hung directly cross One can feel Mayerne - and over St. James’ house. It was first lasted. ’s affec perceived about seven o’clock at night, con- tionate concern, especially in his pri- tinuing till bedtime.” The date is October 29, vate notes of the case in Latin. In it 1612. The Prince died about eight o’clock on appear some intimate touches left out the evening of Wednesday November 6, 1612. some aromatic added to it. This is to an obscure fever from which the be given four times before the full Prince Palatine was suffering. May- moon, so that the last dose is to be erne’s reply is dated February 3, taken on the very day of the full 1636. He expresses his experienced moon, four hours before dinner, the sympathy as a fellow-regius physician, patient using walking exercise until and continues: free perspiration takes place, (b) Let a It is the genius of all Princes that what- living mole be split down the middle soever they desire they dare, even at peril and the viscera, wrapped up in moist of safety, so that their physicians ought tow, be dried in hot ashes and then truly to be judged unhappy men, called pulverised. Give the powder in white as they are to play the part of Cassandra. wine at first warning of an attack, Whatever, on the theatre of the Court, (c) Take valerian root collected before they may advise by way of caution, or the leaves have appeared, let it be predict from dangerous premisses, they dried in the dark and pulverised. Of are either not listened to, or laughed at, this from a half to one drachm may be at least, as of no account. In the long run, given daily in the morning. If worms however, the mighty must pay the price of spurning good counsels . . . Truly I should be found after the use of any am kept busy daily, while in the practice of these medicines, give boldly such of my profession beyond the limits of things as twelve grains of calomel, etc. the Court, in making proof of my expert- It seems strange that therapeutic ness without other medical witnesses, notions like the first two could persist even though they might be my advocates. right up to the time when Harvey was But I never advance to the attack upon conducting his great experiments. No the diseases of Royalty without a crowd wonder that Bacon, in his “Advance- of Asclepiadae fighting wholeheartedly ment of Learning” (1605), complained by my side . . . May good fortune that hitherto medicine had been attend you in your weighty task. I bid you “more laboured than advanced.” farewell who am your most loving Mayerne must surely have been ac- Mayerne. quainted with the preface to the “De Between the years 1620 and 1646 Magnete” of William Gilbert (1603), Mayerne paid a great deal of attention which sounded the Baconian chal- to the chemistry of pigments. There is lenge even earlier. One wonders a volume of his researches in this field whether he may have thought that among the Sloane collections.4 These by his elaborate records of the natural bore useful fruit when his Genevan history of many instances of diseased compatriot, Jean Petitot, arrived in states he might be doing something, London, after a period of artistic serv- at least the thing that seemed given ice at the French Court. Like our own to his genius to do, to enlarge the Raeburn, he began his career as a scope of medical observation and the goldsmith and then took to the art of knowledge of clinical facts. the miniaturist. Good authorities place One of the interesting items wisely him in the very front rank as an preserved by Joseph Browne is a exponent of this most delicate and Latin letter of Mayerne’s to William fascinating art. Anton van Dyke Harvey. Harvey was at Newmarket supervised Petitot’s renderings of with the Court and had written to some of his own finest portraits, and his friend to ask his advice concerning became his most influential patron. Horace Walpole, in his “Anecdotes of circumstances how it is to be used; I Painting,”5 tells us that it was May- answered him, That if he had asked me erne who introduced Petitot to Charles before, I would have frankly told him all, i, and that he “communicated to him for in his hands there was no feare that the process of the principal colours such a secret should be prostituted, and so which ought to be employed in enamel, I told him all. A little after the Doctor went to France, to see some fair Terri- and which surpass the famous vitrifi- tories that he had purchased near Geneva, cations of Venice and Limoges.” In which was the Barony of Aubonne. In particular Mayerne provided Petitot this voyage he went to see the Duke of with a new purple pigment which Mayerne, who had been a long time his enabled him to produce a soft carna- friend and protector, and he taught him tion tint for flesh coloring. his secret, whereof the Duke made many That curious and credulous dabbler, Experiments, which if any other but a Sir Kenelm Digby, in his “A Late Prince had done, it may be they had Discourse touching the Cure of passed for affects of Magick and Wounds by the Powder of Sym- Enchantments. pathy,” tells us how Mayerne came The following extracts from letters to find out that the magic powder was to one of his friends, Sir Francis Con- nothing but green vitriol (FeSO4). way, when they were both well Digby had given some to the King, at stricken in years and common experi- James’ own request, and Mayerne had ences of life, will illustrate Mayerne’s seen the King dissolving it in water temper and cheerful spirit in social with which to bathe the weapon which relationships. October 8, 1651: had inflicted the wound, or some garment or bandage stained with the Too often, in this matter of books, patient’s blood. The performance of “parturiunt montes, nascitur ridiculus this simple ritual was the means by mus. ”6 It is a powerful disease, this which immediate relief of the pain and writing, by which, especially in Germany, rapid cure of the wound was supposed most of the world is afflicted, and what is more, “scribimus indocti doctique poe- to be brought about. Digby had first mata passim.”7 used the method upon James Howell I had seen the receipt you sent for of the “Letters,” who had been making fat men lean, which is not bad severely wounded while trying to and can be taken without danger, though separate two of his friends whom he rather with cummin and vinegar than found fighting a duel. salt. But I assure you that I shall never The following is from Digby’s ac- use it, having been long aware that an count of Mayerne’s discovery: evil soul never, or rarely, dwells in a fat body. There is nothing new to me in Doctor Mayerne, his first Physician seeing sulphur taken internally to cure a watched to discover what was done by red face and eruptions on the body. I this secret, and at last came to know myself use it every day with success. that the King made use of Vitriol. After- You will oblige me greatly if you will send wards he accosted me, saying, he durst not me “L’EscoIe de Salerne, ”8 a burlesque demand of me my secret, because I made in verse by that Ovid of nice wit. I have some difficulty to discover it to the King already seen it, and if I feared death, himself. But having learnt with which should be afraid of putting myself again matter it was to be done, he hoped that into that burlesque humour, but I am I would communicate unto him all the dissuaded by the colour of my beard. The shortest follies are the best, but for “L’Es- symptoms, but gives large room to cole de Salerne,” that is quite in my style. theories “on the general scheme of Remember me always with affection, my fevers and on its origins.” The proper, Lord, your very humble and very obedient inevitable relation between morbid servant, Theo. Mayerne. anatomy and clinical medicine had not yet been realized. There are defi- October 17, 1651: nite traces of pathological observa- What use have bread when one has no tions in some of Harvey’s notes, for teeth, and music when the ears are deaf to example in his account of a case of the sound of a trumpet? Time, when it is suppurative hydatid of the liver, and past is irrevocable; if there is any joy for in the writings of William Clowes, an old sinner it must be sought in memory surgeon, in Elizabeth’s time (Norman —which is too often full of repentance to Moore). The bulk of Harvey’s clinical the wise, and regret to the spiritless, notes has, unfortunately, been lost. among whose number I have never been. Ambroise Pare has left us charm- Let us seize all the best we can and leave ingly human accounts of many of his the rest to the good God. Thus shall we cases, but, being a surgeon, he has live until we die in spite of physicians. more to say of the operative and other ... Be merry, my Lord, first of all from natural inclination, and then upon the common sense measures used in their order of him, once your physician, and wise treatment. Sydenham is more always your very humble servant, Theo. the master of brilliant general ac- Mayerne. counts of disease types. Thomas Willis sketches in many interesting cases in It is as an acute observer of the illustration of his general descriptive symptoms and physical signs of dis- medicine. One of these tells of the ease, so far as these might be traced sufferings for so many years of that by unaided human senses, and as a remarkable woman, Anne Finch Con- tireless and most voluminous recorder way, the friend and compeer of the and critic of such evidence that scholars of her time. Harvey was her Theodore Turquet de Mayerne is to family physician, but she had suffered be praised among seventeenth century many things at the hands of many physicians. Dr. Norman Moore, in his others. One of the last who tried to “Medicine in the British Isles,” re- charm away her agonizing headaches minds us that the first original descrip- was Greatrakes, the Irish “stroaker,” tion in Britain of a new disease a simple-minded but sincerely religi- observed in his own time is to be ous man who had felt a call to cure found in the “De ephemera Brit- folks by the laying on of hands, and tanica” of John Caius, London, 1555. seems to have had the gift of a sooth- The book, however, contains no series ing massage touch. All that, however, of clinical observations after the Hip- is quite another story. pocratic model, but only “a general To Mayerne, therefore, must be account of the epidemic, of its progno- given the credit of founding the prac- sis and of the treatment adopted.” tice and method of careful case taking, Caius was then living and working at and case recording. In Prince Henry’s St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. He case, every day has its separate short offers no discussion of morbid anat- history, with notes of the consulta- omy in order to explain observed tions and opinions of one or other of the consultants. This, however, is the . . . wonning in these ancient lands, exception. In the others, Mayerne is Enchased and lettered as a tomb, And scored with prints of perished hands, thinking aloud about it all, history And chronicled with dates of doom, from childhood, previous illnesses, Though my own Being bear no bloom their treatment and issue, onset of the I trace the lives such scenes enshrine, present attack, course up to date, Give past exemplars present room, discussion of causation, prognosis, And their experience count as mine. and, in most elaborate fashion, tabula- Thomas Hardy . tion of general measures, dietary, etc., Refer enc es winding up with the drug therapy 1. Verney Papers, ed. 1894, vol. 2, p. 23. illustrated by series of the most 2. Vol. 3, p. 195. elaborate formulae. Ponderous, otiose 3. St. Bartholomew Hosp. Rep., vol. 17, 1881. 4. Sloane Ms. No. 2052. even, but intensely sincere, and the 5. Vol. 3 of his Collected Works. work of a most devoted and keen- 6. Horace, Ars Poetica, 1, 139. minded physician. Truly, in his time 7. Horace, Epistolae, n, 1, 117. he played many parts, but the great 8. Dr. W. W. Francis believes that the book role was that of healer and friend of referred to was a burlesque of the “Via Salernitana,” with macaronie of mankind. Peace and honor to his Farengo and Remi Belleau, published memory. by Louis Martin.