TRANSACTIONS OF THE LEICESTER LITERARY & PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY VOLUME 99 AUGUST 2005 Literary Medical Men Is Spring Getting Earlier Parole and Life Sentences Rotwang and Sons Victorian Shakespeare Understanding the Universe Orwell and the Miners Cosmic Fingerprinting James VI and I Bennett Fund Reports Nature’s Nanotechnology Annual Reports Self-regulation of the Press Survey Ancient Human Occupation of Britain Constitution TRANSACTIONS OF THE LEICESTER LITERARY & PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY. VOLUME 99 • AUGUST 2005 CONTENTS SKETCHES OF LITERARY MEDICAL MEN Presidential Address by D.P.S. Sandhu................................................................................2 DANGEROUS DECISIONS? THE PAROLE BOARD AND THE LIFE SENTENCE PRISONER Judith Pitchers ....................................................................................................................7 ‘OUR ENDLESS JOY – OUR MATCHLESS PRIDE’ THE VICTORIAN SHAKESPEARE Professor Richard Foulkes,...................................................................................................9 ORWELL AND THE MINERS Professor Robert Colls .......................................................................................................12 KING JAMES VI AND I - MORE SINNED AGAINST THAN SINNING Colin Pendrill ....................................................................................................................17 NATURE’S NANOTECHNOLOGY Professor Clive R. Bagshaw ...............................................................................................22 SELF-REGULATION OF THE PRESS Tim Toulmin ......................................................................................................................26 THE ANCIENT HUMAN OCCUPATION OF BRITAIN (AHOB) PROJECT Professor Chris Stringer......................................................................................................29 IS SPRING GETTING EARLIER? Tim Sparks.........................................................................................................................33 ROTWANG AND SONS – THE STORY OF A DESIGN IDEA Professor Sir Christopher Frayling ......................................................................................35 EARTH SYSTEMS SCIENCE: ARE WE PUSHING GAIA TOO HARD Crispin Tickell....................................................................................................................36 COSMIC FINGERPRINTING: THE KEY TO UNDERSTANDING THE UNIVERSE Professor Martin Barstow...................................................................................................37 BENNETT FUND FOR RESEARCH: REPORTS OF BENEFICIARIES. The Lodestone Project Leader: Dr Allan Mills.......................................................................................41 Microfossils Associated with the Giant Fossil Fish Leedsichthys Found at Star Pit, Whittlesey Project leader: Andrew Swift.........................................................................................41 ANNUAL REPORTS...........................................................................................................42 SURVEY ............................................................................................................................49 CONSTITUTION...............................................................................................................51 Cover picture: Main Entrance, New Walk Museum, Leicester © Copyright 2005 The Leicester Literary & Philosophical Society, c/o Leicester Museum, New Walk, Leicester, LE1 7EA ISSN 0141 3511 Transactions of the Leicester Literary & Philosophical Society. SKETCHES OF LITERARY MEDICAL MEN Presidential Address by D.P.S. Sandhu, M.D., F.R.C.S. (Ed.UROL), F.R.C.S. (Glas) Delivered on October 4th 2005 When one looks at the topic of literary medical men where does one begin? Should I start with Aesculapius, the Greek God of Medicine, Homer, Hippocrates or St. Luke the beloved physician of the Gospel? In my research I have come over 50 examples of well known literary figures who trained as doctors. In such a presentation I can only limit myself to a handful. This is not a scholarly work of their literary output, but a personal view of aspects of their lives that has interested me. George Crabbe is now forever linked with Benjamin by Wordsworth, Scott and Byron, who said of him, Britain and Snape Maltings near Aldeburgh. The poet ‘nature’s sternest painter yet her best’. His was hooked on landscape around Aldeburgh and in parishioners said of him: ‘He broke through the common with his pitiable fishermen Peter Grimes obscurity of his birth, yet never ceased to feel for the trudging along the old estuary, he was born part of it less fortunate, entering into the sorrows and and, later, it became part of him. His father worked as deprivations of the poorest of his parishioners; and so a warehouse manager and then as a collector of salt discharging the duties of his station as a minister and taxes. At the age of 13 Crabbe was apprenticed to a a magistrate as to acquire the respect and esteem of doctor, Mr Squeers, at Wickhambrook near Bury St. all his neighbours.’ Edmonds, where he also had to double up as a farm labourer. He was dubbed the poet of the poor. He Born on the 10th November 1728 at Pallas near Bally saw all round him poverty, degradation and suffering Mahon, Ireland, Oliver Goldsmith’s life was full of and wanted to, as he says, ‘paint the cot as truth will incidents. His writings drew largely based upon his paint it and as the bard will not’. He spent time as a own experience in which his own generosity and doctor in Aldeburgh and, to gain more experience gullibility are irradiated by a sense of sheer fun. In and skills in surgery, went to London where he was ‘The Citizen of the World’ he writes about his father. threatened with prison because of bad debts. ‘His education was above his fortune and his Fortunately, the statesman Edmond Burke bailed him generosity greater than his education. Poor as he was, out and took him under his wing and introduced him he had his flatterers still poorer than himself. For to such luminaries as Samuel Johnson, George Fox every dinner he gave them, they returned the and Sir Joshua Reynolds. In 1781, due to Burke’s equivalent in praise, and this was all he wanted. We influence, the Bishop of Norwich licensed George were told the Universal Benevolence was what first Crabbe as curate to the rector of Aldeburgh. Later, cemented society. We were perfectly instructed in the Crabbe was Chaplain to the Duke of Rutland at art of giving away thousands, before we were taught Belvoir Castle. At the age of 28, he published his long the more necessary qualification of getting a farthing’. poem ‘The Village’, an honest portrait of rural life. He drafted many novels but destroyed them all Goldsmith qualified from Edinburgh in 1752 and unpublished including ‘An English Treatise and pursued further study of medicine at Leyden. His Botany’. For 22 years he did not write poetry again literary skills were recognised by Dr Johnson who until 1810 when he published his famous poem ‘The introduced him to the literary circle in London with Borough’, a long poem based on Crabbe’s knowledge which Crabbe was also familiar. Goldsmith was a of Aldeburgh and the village characters, such as the history scholar and a journalist, but best remembered fearsome fisherman, Peter Grimes. now for his marvellous play ‘The Vicar of Wakefield’ and amongst his poems, ‘The Magnificent Traveller’ His wife Sarah Elmy declined into mental and and ‘The Deserted Village’. He died from a kidney physical ill health. Crabbe eventually settled in infection on the 4th April 1774 in London and is Trowbridge, Wiltshire and remained there for about buried in the Temple. In 1776, a monument was 20 years until his own death in 1832. He was praised raised to him by Joseph Nollekins which is in 2 Volume 99 • 2005 Transactions of the Leicester Literary & Philosophical Society. Westminster Cathedral with a Latin inscription by which he described in his book ‘The Elephant Man Doctor Johnson. Behind that witty façade, and other Short Stories.’ Goldsmith was lonely and one of his favourite quotations was ‘that human life is at the greatest and ‘There is no such thing as brave surgeons there are best but like a forward child that must be played only brave patients’, is an aphorism of Sir William with, and humoured a little to keep it quiet, until it Osler. Osler, the genius of medical education, stated falls asleep and then the care is over’. that knowledge comes but wisdom lingers. This is testified by his academic distinctions. He graduated ‘Medicine is my legal wife, literature my mistress. from McGill University Montreal in 1872 where later When I’m bored with one I spend the night with the he held the Chair of Professor of Medicine. He went other.’ So said Anton Chekhov. He was born on 17th on to be Professor Medicine at the University of January 1860 at Taganrog in the far south of Russia. Pennsylvania and, in 1889, became Professor of He entered the medical faculty at Moscow University medicine at John Hopkins Medical School in in 1879 aged 19 years. An early experience of Baltimore, and also in Oxford. Numerous essays and peritonitis may have influenced him to go into bibliography exceeding 1500 are now part of the medicine. In 1888 he won the literary Pushkin prize, McGill collection. His book ‘Aequanemitas and and in 1890 travelled across Siberia, a thousand other Addresses’ has given pleasure to public and miles,