Memoirs of John Abernethy, F.R.S., with a view of his lectures, writings, and character

Front matter

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Preface

My father practiced on the borders of a forest, and when he was called at night to visit a distant patient, it was the greatest treat to me, when a little boy, to be allowed to saddle my pony and accompany him. I used to wonder sometimes what he could see so very disagreeable in that which to me was the greatest possible pleasure; for whether we were skirting a bog in the darkest night, or cantering over the heather by moonlight (the colder the better), I certainly thought there could be nobody happier than I and my pony. My father knew the forest nearly as well as his own garden; but still, in passing bogs in impenetrable darkness, the more refined topography of a forester would be necessary ; and it was on one of these occasions that I first heard two words, "Meward" and "Abernethy," the one from our forester guide, which I have never heard since, and the other, which I have heard more frequently, perhaps, than any other. The idea I then had of Abernethy was that he was a great man who lived in London. The next, distinct impression I have of him was derived from hearing my father say that a i v PREFACE.

lady, who had gone up to London to have an operation performed, had been sent by him to Mr. Abernethy, because my father did not think the operation necessary or proper ; that Mr. Abernethy entirely agreed with him, and that the operation was not performed ; that the lady had returned home, and was getting well. This gave me a notion that Abernethy must be a very good as well as a great man. I found that my father had studied under him, and his name became a sort of household word with us. Circumstances now occurred which occupied my mind in a different direction, and for some years I thought no more of Abernethy.

As long as surgery meant riding across a forest with my father, holding his horse, or, if he stopped too long, seeing if his horse rode as well as my pony, I thought it a very agreeable occupation ; but when I found that it included many other things, I soon discovered there was a profession I liked much better. Some years had rolled away, when, one afternoon in October, about the year 1816, and somewhat to my own surprise, I found myself, about two o'clock, walking down Holborn Hill on my way to Mr. Abernethy's opening lecture at St. Bartholomew's. Disappointed of being able to follow the profession I had chosen, looking on the one I was about to adopt with something very much allied to repulsion, voting every thing in this world flat and unprofitable, and painfully depressed in spirits, I took my seat at the lecture.

When Mr. Abernethy entered, I was pleased with the expression of his countenance. I almost fancied that

PREFACE. v

he could have sympathized with the melancholy with which I felt oppressed. When he commenced, I listened with some attention; as he went on, I began even to feel some pleasure; as he proceeded, I found myself entertained; and before he concluded, was delighted. What an agreeable, happy man he seems ! What a fine profession! What would I give now to know as much as he does ! Well, I will see what I can do. In short, I was converted.

Years again rolled on ; I found myself in practice. Now I had an opportunity of proving the truth and excellence of the beautiful principles I had been taught. I found how truthful had been his representations of them. I was, however, grieved to find that his opinions and views were very much misunderstood and misrepresented, and I had very frequent opportunities of seeing how much this restricted their application and abridged their utility.

Some few years after his death, I tried to induce some one to endeavor to correct the erroneous impressions which prevailed in regard to him ; but to do Abernethy full justice would require a republication of his tvorks, with an elaborate commentary. This was a task involving too much time, labor, and expense for any individual to undertake ; while any thing less, however useful or instructive to the public, must necessarily subject the author to a criticism which few are disposed to encounter.

But as it appeared t» me that scruples like these stood in the way of that which was alike just to the vi PREFACE memory of Abernethy and useful to the public, I was resolved, at all hazards, to undertake at least a memoir myself. I shall say little of the difficulties of the task. I feel them to have been onerous, and I believe them to have been, in some respects, unexampled.

Apologies for imperfections in works which we are not obliged to write are seldom valued : the public very sensibly take a work for what it is worth, and are ultimately seldom wrong in their decision. I have only said thus much, not in deprecation of criticism so much as to show that I have not shrunk from what I deemed just and useful on account of the somewhat oppressive sense I entertain of the risk or difficulty which it involves.

The scientific reader may, I fear, think that, in endeavoring to avoid too tedious a gravity, I may sometimes have been forgetful of the dignity of biographical memoir ; but in the difficulty of having to treat of subjects which, however important, are not always of the most popular kind, I have been obliged sometimes to think of the " quid vetat ridentem." In the very delicate task of discussing subjects relating to some of my contemporaries, I have endeavored simply to do Abernethy justice ; and beyond what is necessary for that purpose, have avoided any quotations or other matter calculated unnecessarily to revive or rekindle impressions which may as well be dismissed or forgotten. It may appear to some that, in my remarks on the present state of professional affairs, I may have been too free. I can only say that I have stated exactly

PREFACE. v ii

what I feel. I am earnestly desirous of seeing a better state of things, but I have no idea that we can materially improve that which we are afraid to examine.

I have to express my warmest thanks to several gentlemen for the readiness with which they have contributed their assistance ; my most grateful acknowledgments to my respected friend, Mr. Fowler, of Datchet, and his son, Mr. Alfred Fowler, Mr. Thacker and Mr. Tumtnins, of Wolverhampton — three of them being old school-fellows of Abernethy's ; to Mr. White, the distinguished head master of Wolverhampton School, whose acceptable services have been further enhanced by the ready kindness with which they were contributed ; to Mr. Belfour, the Secretary of the Royal College of Surgeons, and Mr. Stone, the librarian, I have to express my best thanks for their kind assistance, and to the latter especially for many very acceptable contributions.

I have also to acknowledge the kind interest taken in the work by Mr. Wood, of Rochdale, Mr. Stowe, of Buckingham, old and distinguished pupils of Abernethy. My best thanks are also due to Dr. Nixon, of Antrim, not only for his own contributions, but still more for the personal trouble he was so kind as to take in relation to some particulars concerning the ancestors of Mr. Abernethy; as also to Mr. Chevasse, of Little Coldfield, for very acceptable communications ; to Mr. Preston, of Norwich. I have also to express my obligation to several gentlemen whom I have consulted at various viii PREFACE.

times. My thanks are specially due to Professor Owen. My old friends and fellow-pupils, Mr. Lloyd, Dr. Barnet, Mr. Skey, and Mr. Wellbank, have shown as much interest as their opportunities allowed them, and deserve my best thanks.

MEMOIRS OF ABERNETHY.

Chapter I

" The Author of Nature appears deliberate throughout His operations, accomplishing His natural ends by slow, successive steps. And there is a plan of things beforehand laid out, which, from the nature of it, requires various systems of means, as well as length of time, in order to the carrying on its several parts into execution." — Butler's Analogy.

A retrospect of the history of human knowledge offers to our contemplation few things of deeper interest than the evidence it so repeatedly affords of some great law which regulates the gradual development of truth, and determines the Progress of Scientific Discovery.

Although knowledge has at times appeared to exhibit something of uniformity in its advances, yet it can not have escaped the least observant that, as a whole, the Progress of Science has been marked by very variable activity. At one time marvelously rapid ; at another, indefinitely slow; now merged in darkness or obscurity, and now blazing forth with meridian splendor.

We observe a series of epochs divided by intervals of great apparent regularity — intervals which we can neither calculate nor explain — but which, nevertheless, exhibit a periodicity, which the very irregularity serves to render striking and impressive.

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"We may remark, also, a peculiar fitness in the minds of those to whom the successive enunciation of truth has been intrusted : a fitness, not merely for the tasks which have been respectively assigned to each in the special mission of the individual, but also in the collective relations of different minds to each other. This adaptation to ends which different minds have unconsciously combined to accomplish, might be illustrated by very many examples, from the earliest records of antiquity down to our own times. This would be incompatible with our present purpose; we will, therefore, only refer to one or two examples, which, as being familiar, will serve to illustrate our meaning, and to lead us, not unnaturally, to our more immediate object.

We can hardly contemplate men like Bacon, Galileo, and Kepler, for example, without feeling how auspicious the precession of such minds must have been to the development of the genius of Newton.* It will be observed that Newton was born the same year that Galileo died. There is something very interesting and significant, too, in the peculiar powers of Kepler. Prolific in suggestion, great in mathematical ability, elaborate in analysis, and singularly truthful in spirit, Kepler exemplified two things very distinct from each other, but both equally instructive, both alike suggestive of the link he represenled in the chain of progress. In the laws he discovered, he showed the harvest seldom withheld from the earnest search for truth, while in

Born - Died.

Bacon 15G1 162 g

■ The same year that Galileo died.

the limit prescribed to his discoveries, he exemplified the vast additional labor, and the comparative shortcoming of the greatest minds when proceeding too much on hypothesis. Now it is interesting to remember that this was coincident with the dawning of that glorious light, the inductive philosophy of Bacon, and shortly succeeded by the splendid generalization of Newton.

In like manner, if we think of the discoveries of Sir Humphrey Davy — their nature and relations to physiology as well as chemistry, we see how much there might have been that was preparatory, and to a mind like Davy's, suggestive, in the investigations of preceding and contemporaneous philosophers. Priestley had discovered oxygen gas, Galvani and Volta had shown those remarkable phenomena — that powerful branch of knowledge which we term a voltaic electricity, Berzelius had effected the decomposition of certain salts by the voltaic pile, and Lavoisier had even predicted as probable what Davy was destined to demonstrate.*

In medical science few things have been more talked of than the discovery of the circulation of the blood. Now it is curious to observe that every fact essential to the demonstration of it had been discovered by previous investigators,! but no one had deduced from

Born. Died.

* Priestley 1733 1804

Lavoisier 1743 1794

Craaford 1749 1795 t The valvular contrivances in the veins and heart, which .showed that the hlood could only move in one direction, had been either them the discovery of the circulation until Harvey, although it was a conclusion scarcely more important than obvious.

There is surely something very encouraging in the reflection that the advance of knowledge results from the accumulated labors of successive minds. It suggests that however unequally the honors may appear to be distributed — however humble in our eyes the function of those who unconsciously prepare the way to great discoveries, still it may involve a duty no less important than the more lofty mission of enunciating them.

Humanly speaking, we naturally ascribe discoveries to those who have practically demonstrated them; but when we examine all the clews which have been furnished by previous observers, we frequently have misgivings as to the justice of our decisions. In our admiration of the successful labor of the recent inquirer, we sometimes forget the patient industry of the early pioneer. With regard to those laws which govern the human body, we can not suppose that the development of them can be destined to progress on any plan less determined than other branches of human inquiry. But in all laws of nature, we know that there are interferences which, until explained, serve to obscure or altogether to conceal the law from our view.

In relation to the Physiological laws, these interferences are very numerous. 1st. Many are furnished by the physical laws, many arise from the connection

observed, described, or their effects respectively remarked on by Paul, Sylv.us, Michael Servetus, Realdus Columbus, Andreas Cesalpinus, and especially by Fabricius ab Aquapendente, of whom Harvey was a pupil.

of the physical with the moral laws, and especially from the abuse of a (responsible) volition. These interferences, however, when duly considered, only illustrate the laws they at first obscure ; for the common characters of subjects, in which the law is usually exemplified, are brought out into higher relief by the very diversities in the midst of which they occur. The progress of mankind at large toward this point is slow, but still, we think, plainly perceptible. An individual life, indeed, however distinguished, represents a mere point in time. It affords little scope for considering, much less for estimating the true meaning of various events, which nevertheless ultimately prove to have had important influence on the progress of knowledge.

These are world-wide things, which we must survey as the geologist does the facts concerning which he inquires. We must endeavor to combine, in one view, facts over which long periods of time may have rolled away with such as are still passing around us. This will frequently suggest designs and relations altogether unobservable by the mere abstract inquirer. In the course of the following pages, a further opportunity may occur for a few remarks on such views — the elaborate discussion of the subject would be altogether beyond our present objects.

It will be our endeavor to point out the position occupied by Abernethy in that (as we trust) gradually dawning science, to a particular phase of which our object and our limits will alike restrict our attention — we mean that period when Surgery, having approached to something like a zenith as a mere practical art, began to exhibit, by slow and almost imperceptible degrees, some faint characters of science — a shadowy commencement, of a metamorphose, which we believe promises to convert (though we fear at a period yet distant) a monstrous hybrid of mystery and conjecture into the symmetrical beauty of an inductive science — a science based on axioms and laws, powerfully influential to the social progress and to the health of nations.

In considering Hunter and Abernethy, we shall see not only a remarkable adaptation for the tasks in which they were respectively engaged, but also how the peculiar defects of the one were supplied by the characteristic excellences of the other ; thus co-operating in throwing open to us clear and definite objects, which, though far as they were from fulfilling the requisitions of an inductive science, were eminently calculated to lead us to stumble on the necessity of it.

We no sooner begin to inquire with clear and definite purpose, than we are led to the means necessary for the attainment of it.

Abernethy himself, in speaking of the ordinary resources of daily practice, used to say, " If a man has a clear idea of what he desires to do, he will seldom fail in selecting the proper means of accomplishing it."

So, in gathering the materials for building up a science, the first thing is to be clear as to those things in which it is deficient. This once determined, all may lend assistance ; and this very division of labor, when directed with definite purpose, may render even men most addicted to narrow and partial inquiries contributary to a great and common object.

In this way those blows and discouragements so common in the infancy of science, which test our motives and try our patience, may prove tolerable when distributed over the many, instead of proving, as is too common, depressing or destructive to the efforts of the few.

If we desire to shorten this labor, we need scarcely say there is no way of doing it but by the rigid adoption of that mode of proceeding to which every other branch of science owes its present position.

I mean the rejection of all hypothesis, setting to work by collecting all the facts in relation to the subject, and dealing with them in strict compliance with the precepts of common sense, or, what is the same thing, inductive philosophy.

This will soon show us the just amount of the debt we owe to Hunter and Abernethy ; and, in leading us onward, instructively point out why these great men did not further increase our obligations.

We shall see how the industry and circumspection of the Argus-eyed Hunter, as Abernethy used to call him, enabled him to unfold a legend in nature which he had neither length of days, sufficient opportunity, nor perhaps aptitude wholly to decipher, and how far it was developed into practical usefulness by the penetrative sagacity and happy genius of Abernethy, which, like light in darkness, guides and sustains immediate research, and animates and encourages onward inquiry. To appreciate Abernethy, however, it is necessary that the public should have correct views, at least, of the general nature and objects of Medical Science.

We hope to show in this volume that the public have not only a very real interest in a sound enmmonsense view of the objects of medicine and surgery, but a far deeper interest than it is possible for any one medical man to have merely as such, or all medical

8 MEMOrRS OF ABERNETHY

men put together. This may, to those who have not considered the matter, appear new, and therefore startling, but we only beg the reader to be patient, and brand-by he will be able to judge for himself.

It is right, however, at once to observe, that mankind have been taught or induced to believe that the objects of medicine and surgery are to prevent or relieve diseases and accidents by the astute employment of drugs, or by certain adroit manipulatory or mechanical proceedings, and, par excellence, by " operations." Now here is a great error — an idea so far from true, that nothing can more delusively define, or more entirely conceal the higher objects of the science.

The converse of the proposition would be nearer the truth. It would be more correct to say, that while the object was to relieve diseases and accidents by removing all interferences with the reparative powers of nature, that this was accomplished more perfectly in proportion as we were enabled to dispense with the employment of drugs or the performance of operations.

The making the lame to walk, the blind to see, and the deaf to hear, were chosen among the appropriate symbols of a Divine Mission ; and we need scarcely observe, that in the restricted sphere of human capacity, this is a portion of the mission of every conscientious surgeon.

We may well, therefore, be dissatisfied with the narrow, not to say degrading definition of our duties too generally entertained; but, on the other hand, if we would make these more lofty views of our calling practically useful, wc should recollect there is only one way of our attaining even human approximation to these symbols, and that is by the applied interpretation of those no less miraculous symbols, no less certain manifestations of Divine Power, the " Laws of Nature." To name a science from something not essential to it, is like naming a class of animals from some exceptional peculiarity in an individual. It is as if we would infer the mission of the ocean wave from the scum sometimes seen on its surface, or as if we would deduce the use of a feather, not from its common character of levity and toughness, so much as from the use we make of it in writing; treat an exception as a rule, or any other manifest absurdity.

We hope to return -to this subject. At present we must rest satisfied in having awakened the reader's attention to it, and proceed to the more ordinary objects of Biographical Memoir.

John Abernethy was born in London, in the parish of St. Stephen's, Coleman Street, on the 3d of April, 1764, exactly one year after John Hunter settled in London. It is also interesting to remark, that Abernethy's first work — his " Surgical and Physiological Essays," Part I. — was published the same year that Hunter died, 1793, so that while his birth occurred nearly at the same time as the commencement of the more sustained investigations of Hunter, his opening contribution to science was coincident with the close of the labors of his illustrious friend and predecessor.

The Abernethy family, in their origin, were possibly Scotch, and formed one of those numerous intermigrations between Scotland and the North of Ireland which, after lapse of time, frecmently render it difficult to trace the original stock. There seems little doubt they had resided for some generations in Ireland.

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JO MEMOIRS OF ABERNETIIY.

John Abernethy, who was the pastor of a Coleraine congregation in 1688, was an eminent Protestant Dissenting minister, and the father of one still more distinguished. The son (also named John) had been for some time pastor of the old congregation of Antrim, whence he removed to Dublin about the year 1733, to take charge of the Wood Street, now Strand Street, Dublin. He is the author of several volumes of sermons, which are not a little remarkable for the clearness of thought and earnestness of purpose with which they inculcate practical piety. He had a son who was a merchant, who subsequently removed to London, and traded under the firm of Abernethy and Donaldson, in Rood Lane, Fenchurch Street. This gentleman married a lady whose name was Elizabeth Weir, daughter of Henry and Margaret Weir, of the town of Antrim, and they had two sons and three daughters.

James, the elder brother, was also in business as a merchant, and died about the year 1823. He was a man of considerable talent, spoke with an accent suggestive of an Irish origin, and was remarkable for his admiration and critical familiarity with our immortal Shakspeare. He was probably born before his father loft Ireland. John, the second son, the subject of our Memoir, was, as we have already said, born in London. The register of his christening at St. Stephen's is as follows :

, , ) John, son of

Abernethy < . , , _,.,

• ) John and Elizabeth,

' April 24.

This register would suggest that he was born a year later than I have stated. I have, however, preferred 1761 as the year adopted by his family; for, although

MEMOIRS OF ABERNETHY. H

a man's birth is an occurrence respecting the date of which he is not the very best authority, he usually gets his information from those who are. Besides, it was no uncommon thing at that time to defer the christening of children for a much longer period. The education of his early childhood was most likely altogether conducted at home, but it is certain that, while yet very young, he was sent to the Grammar School at Wolverhampton. Here he received the principal part of his education, and though the records are somewhat meagre, yet they tend to show that at an early age he manifested abilities, both general and peculiar, which were indicative of no ordinary mind ; and which, though they do not necessarily prefigure the future eminence at which he arrived, were sufficiently suggestive of the probability that, whatever his career might be, he would occupy a distinguished position.

Chapter II

" Ah, happy hills ! ah, pleasing shade ! Ah, fields beloved in vain, Where once my careless childhood stray'd A stranger yet to pain." — Gray.

Mankind naturally feel an interest in the boyhood of men of genius.

But it often happens that very little attention is paid to early indications, and, when observed, it is certain that they are often interpreted very falsely.

Nothing more emphatically suggests how much we have to learn on this subject, than the obscurity which so often hangs over the earlier years of distinguished

J2 MEMOIRS OF AHKRNF.THY.

men. At school, a number of variable organizations are subjected to very much the same order of influences ; the necessity for generalization affords little opportunity for individual analysis. The main road is broad and conventional; there is little scope for bypaths, even should the master have the penetration to perceive, in individual cases, the expediency of such selection. Hence the quickening of those impulses, on which the development of character so much depends, is greatly a matter of uncertainty. The moment boys leave school, on the contrary, this uniformity of external influences is replaced by an interminable diversity, at home scarcely two boys being subjected to exactly the same. Thus, in many instances, it would be easier to deduce the character of the boy from the man, than to have predicted the man from the boy. The evidences of the one are present to us, those of the other may have been entirely unelicited, unobserved, or forgotten.

We can not wonder, then, that expectation should have been so often disappointed in the boy, or that excellences little dreamed of should have been developed in the man.

Dryden, who, regarded in the triple capacity of poet, prose writer, and critic, is hardly second to any English author, took no honor at the University. Swift, perhaps our best writer of pure English, whose talents proved scarcely less versatile and extraordinary than they had appeared restricted and deficient, was " plucked" for his degree in Dublin, and only obtained his recommendation to Oxford "speciali gratia," as it was termed. The phrase, however, being obviously equivocal, and used only in the bad sense at Dublin, was fortunately for Swift, interpreted in a good sense at Oxford, a misapprehension which Swift, of course, was at no pains to remove.

Sheridan was remarkable for his readiness and wit ; as a writer, he showed considerable powers of sustained thought also. He had an habitual eloquence, and on one occasion delivered an oration before one of the most distinguished audiences that the world ever saw,* with an effect which seems to have rivaled the most successful efforts of Cicero, or even Demosthenes. Yet he had shown so little capacity as a boy, that he was presented to a tutor by his own mother with the complimentary accompaniment that he was an incorrigible dunce.

Some boys live on encouragement, others seem to work best up stream. Niebuhr, the traveler, the father of a son no less illustrious, with any thing but an originally aoute mind, seems to have overcome every disadvantage which the almost constant absence of opportunity could combine. Those who are curious in such matters might easily multiply examples of the foregoing description, and add others where — as in the case of Galileo, Newton, Wren, and many others — the predictions suggested by early physical organization proved as erroneous as the intellectual indications to which we have just adverted.

The truth is, we have a great deal to learn on the subject of mind, although there is no want of materials for instruction. Medicine and surgery are not the only branches of knowledge which require the aid of strictly inductive inquiry. In all, the materials (facts) are abundant. * We allude to his first speech on the trial of Warren Hastings.

In Abernethy there was a polarity of character, an individuality, a positiveness of type, which would have made the boy a tolerably intelligible outline of the future man. The evidence is imperfect; it is chiefly drawn from the recollections of a living few, who, though living, have become the men of former days; but still the evidence all inclines one way.

We can quite imagine a little boy, "careless in his dress, not slovenly," with his hands in his pockets, some morning about the year 1774, standing under the sunny side of the wall at Wolverhampton Grammar School ;* his pockets containing, perhaps, a few shillings, some halfpence, and a knife with the point broken, a pencil, together with a tolerably accurate sketch of "Old Robertson's" wig — this article, as shown in an accredited portrait! now lying before us, was one of those enormous by-gone bushes which represented a sort of impenetrable fence round the cranium, as if to guard the precious material within — the said boy just finishing a story to his laughing companions, though no sign of fun appeared in him, save a little curl of the lip, and a smile which would creep out of the corner of his eye in spite of him. I have had the good fortune to find no less than three school-fellows of Abernethy who are still living: John Fowler, Esq., of Datchet, a gentleman whom I have had the pleasure of knowing for many years, and who enjoys in hon-