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of the town, and, on the very night of his arrival, caught a cold which brought on the first attack of that disease of the lungs which, after the lapse of seven-and-twenty years, carried him to the grave. Removal to the south, and two winters passed at Leghorn and Marseilles, effected a partial cure, but it was not until the year 1823 that he was able fairly to enter upon his career as a medical practitioner in Edinburgh. In its influence upon his subsequent position this delay may be pronounced to have been for tunate. During his long illness he learned to apply those principles which he had studied under Dupuytren and Richerand and Esquirol. Condemned to watch the rise and progress of disease upon his own ever-feeble frame, taught to trace home every loss of health in his own case to some departure from that course of life which was suitable to his condition, his mind became necessarily fixed upon those natural laws which regulate health and disease, obedience to which secures the former, whilst the latter is the necessary consequence of their breach. He was thus led at once to a capacity for that highest description of medical practice which is founded upon a thorough investigation not so much of the obvious and apparent symptom as of the obscure and latent cause, and which teaches the application of curative and remedial agents principally to the latter. All doctoring of mere symptoms, which makes up so much of our ordinary medical treatment, disappeared at once from the practice of Andrew Combe. The period of his illness, from 1819 to 1823, which he and his friends, no doubt, so bitterly regretted, was the growing time of his medical genius, and stood him in better stead than long practice and experience have done many men who have acquired a

name.

In 1825 he graduated M.D. at Edinburgh and was soon in the midst of a respectable practice. His conduct towards his professional brethren was in the highest degree scrupulous and honourable, but he acquired a firm hold upon all who once became his patients by means which it would well become others to adopt more generally. In all cases in which it was possible,

without doing injury to the patient himself, Dr. Combe at once admitted him into an exact knowledge of his condition. Having himself clear views of the causes of disease, he made it his care to impart in the simplest language equally clear notions to others. He explained to the sick man how he had fallen out of health, what was the rationale of his cure, and how he might be kept from a recurrence of disease. Thus, instead of a blind faith in administered nostrums, he strove to obtain "the intelligent co-operation of his patient in the measures necessary for the restoration of health." He avoided all mystery, and those who consulted him were sure to receive rational and invaluable instruction in self-management, even if they were not cured.

It was not until August 1831 that he had a second attack of his pulmonary disease, which was brought on apparently by over exertion in the way of his profession, followed by exposure to damp and cold in an excursion to the Highlands. Under the advice of Dr. Scott, he relinquished his profession, and, accompanied by a niece, proceeded to Naples for the winter. There, in January 1832, he was brought to death's door by a third attack, but in the following May he was sufficiently recovered to be able to quit Naples, acting upon the opinion of Dr. Spurzheim, that a hot climate is not favourable to tubercular complaints when established, however favourable it may be to prevent them. He returned by sea from Leghorn to London, and thence proceeded to the neighbourhood of Edinburgh, where he took up his abode. His medical friends thought the condition of his lungs much worse on his return than at his departure, but, nevertheless, from that time he continued to improve. The result ought to be told in his own words, extracted from one of his subsequent publications.

"The author, aware that his only chance lay in assisting nature to the utmost extent, by placing every function in the circumstances best fitted for its healthy performance, acted habitually on the principle of yielding the strictest obedience to the physiological laws, and rendering every other object secondary to this. . . . . The result was in the highest degree satisfactory. From being obliged to pause twice

in getting out of bed, a slow but progressive improvement took place, and by long and steady perseverance continued, till, at the end of two or three months, he was able to drive out and walk a little every day. From month to month thereafter, the amendment was so gradual as to be scarcely perceptible; but, at the end of a longer period, the difference was striking enough. Thus encouraged, the author continued true to his own principles, in resisting every temptation to which improving health exposed him; and the ultimate result has been, that every successive year from 1832 up to the present time, 1841, has, with one or two exceptions, found him more healthy and vigour ous than before; and that many of his

professional friends, who long regarded his partial convalescence as destined to be of very brief duration, cannot yet refrain from an expression of surprise on observing it to be still perceptibly advancing at the end of ten years."

From 1832 he resumed mental labour, and in 1834 completed and published his book, entitled "The Principles of Physiology applied to the Preservation of Health, and to the Improvement of Physical and Mental Education," of which 28,000 copies were ultimately sold in his life-time, besides numerous editions in America. In 1834 he returned partially to his professional practice, but was soon obliged to relinquish it again. In January 1836 he was well enough to accept an offer made to him through Sir James Clark to go to Brussels as resident physician to the King of the Belgians; but the climate of Laeken was unsuited to him. His malady increased, and, after six months' trial, he returned to Scotland, and was soon able, in the phrase of the nurse of his childhood, which were ever afterwards household words in his family, to "cat like a raven and sleep like a dyke" [a stone wall]. His bodily infirmity, however, may be gathered from the fact that he weighed at this time, being a tall, raw-boned man, upwards of six feet high, only 9 stone 4 lb.

In 1836 he completed his work entitled "The Physiology of Digestion

considered with relation to the Prin

In

ciples of Dietetics," which ran through nine editions in twelve years. March, 1838, Dr. Combe was appointed one of the Physicians Extraordinary to the Queen in Scotland, and was well

enough to be able to visit Belgium, where he was received most kindly by the King of the Belgians. He also renewed his acquaintance with Prince Albert and his elder brother, who had been patients of his when at Brussels. They were then studying at Bonn. He describes the former as 66 frank, generous-minded, and handsome." In 1840 he published "A Treatise on the Physiological and Moral Management of Infancy, being a practical Exposition of the Principles of Infant Training for the use of Parents," of which this country. In January, 1841, his six editions have been published in pulmonary affection reappeared in its most dangerous form. All exertion was now suspended, but after six months he was sufficiently improved to travel to London to consult Sir James Clark, whose opinion, communicated to Dr. Combe's brother George, as well as to the patient himself, was of the most discouraging kind:

"I have now obtained," writes Dr. Combe to his brother George, from Edinburgh, on the 1st Oct. 1841, "what I long sought in vain, the explicit opinion

of Sir James Clark and of James Cox on my state and prospects, and find that Sir James was anxious to make you fully aware that I might die before the end of the winter, and could not be expected to go on much beyond it, that you might arrange accordingly. A kind motive kept them from telling me earlier; but injudiciously. James Cox seemed so anxious for my going south that, backed as he was by the opinions of other friends, I wavered at times, although satisfied in my own judgment that no good and some considerable harm might result. Now, I take the whole responsibility on myself, and decide, once for all, that here I remain. The comforts of home and friends are nearly all that are left for me; and why throw them away? At present, however, matters move at such a pace that I do not wish you as yet to change your plans on my account. I am thankful to Providence for having been spared so long and allowed so much enjoyment. I am grateful also for present comfort; and if easily, I shall be more thankful still. the future be within my power of bearing

...

do; but I have had years of usefulness Many things I would have liked still to beyond what I once expected; and if I cannot do more I have the satisfaction of having brought out my three books on Physiology, Digestion, and Infancy, not

to mention that on Insanity, which I hope will give a better direction to the inquiries of others, and turn the public mind to things that there is great need of attending to."

Thus calmly did this philosophic man prepare to meet the death which was yet, comparatively, far distant; for, marvellous as it seems, his extraordinary care and watchfulness, and his determined sacrifice of every thing that was likely to be prejudicial to his health, again baffled the mighty conqueror. In the autumn of 1842 he returned to London and consulted Sir James Clark, who was astonished at his improvement, and advised him to winter in Madeira. He did so, and his letters from thence contain valuable observations upon the climate of the island, and its suitableness as a residence for invalids. He returned in improved general health, the disease in his chest being kept at bay. The next winter he passed in Madeira. That following he spent in Edinburgh. In February he caught cold and was alarmingly ill, but again recovered, and determined to brave another winter in the north. The season was mild and he passed through it safely. In 1846 he was able to resume his correspondence, and even some of his literary labours. A fortunate visit to Kingston-on-Thames during a warm July was most beneficial to him. His mind was fully occupied in correspondence upon important subjects, but he complained of some decay in mental vigour. The statement is confirmed by his brother; but certainly nothing of the kind appears in his letters, which are well reasoned and energetic to the last. After wintering at home, he determined to try the effect of a seavoyage. Trips to Cork, Dublin, and other places had been found so beneficial, that he resolved to extend his range across the Atlantic. He was unfortunate in his ship and in the weather on his arrival in America. He returned in haste, landed at Liverpool on the 25th June, attended the funeral of his eldest sister within a week after his return to Edinburgh, and a month afterwards was laid himself beside her. He had accomplished his mission, his work was ended, and an attack of diarrhæa speedily put an end GENT. MAG. VOL. XXXIV.

to his life in this world on the 9th August, 1847.

That Dr. Combe was in many respects a remarkable man no candid person will deny. His general mental power was of a high order; strong reasoning faculties and great clearness of thought being its chief peculiarities. There was no versatility amongst his endowments, no richness, no vivacity, but there was a deep stream of calm good sense, ever agreeable in temperature and force, and ever clear, bright, and pure. Amidst all the drawbacks inseparable from an existence which was not so much a life as a struggle of thirty years' duration against inevitable death, he exhibited no weakness; on the contrary, his whole course-everything he said or did-was pervaded by consistent, independent manliness; and in this manliness there was nothing rough or uncourteous. A certain calm simplicity and gentleness were as obvious parts of his character as his firmness. The temperate self-control which was forced upon him by his physical condition "leavened" his whole demeanour, and kept his conduct in harmony with what was the great purpose of his life, the enforcement upon the public mind of the existence of laws of health applicable to all human conditions, and the consequent folly and danger of acting in opposition to them. This truth is set forth in his writings with the spirit and stedfastness of a missionary; it was the subject of his teaching, the keystone of his practice. That he based it upon the doctrines of phrenology, or connected it inseparably with those doctrines, may be considered by many persons to have been a mistake. We are of that opinion. For whatever degree of truth there may be in phrenology, the doctrine that health is the result of the observance of natural laws, and disease the consequence of their disregard, has not necessarily a phrenological foundation. If true, it is universal. But phrenology is a doctrine singularly attractive to a great variety of minds. It solves many difficulties, or, what to many people is the same thing, it appears to take the inquirer one step higher in the chain of causation, and it has a oneness and generality of application which are

G

peculiarly in unison with certain qualities of intellect.

The great defect in the character of Dr. Combe was a want of imagination. Intellectually he was far too shrewd and sensible not to respect and value those powers which invoke the moral emotions, but in his practice and writings the appeal was so entirely from and to the reason, as to assume a tone of coldness and mere utilitarianism which we are ready to believe had no counterpart in his own mind. Something of this apparent coldness may be found in the letter written in contemplation of a speedy death, from which we have quoted above. Some persons may esteem its tone to be the result of mere philosophic calmness; to us it seems scarcely natural, and, if natural, to be intensely selfish. But in truth it is difficult to form conclusions from isolated examples of this kind. In one of. Dr. Combe's letters we find him describing the same event to which the letter we have already quoted refers, as "becoming the tenant of an underground mansion on a perpetual lease; "--words which, taken by themselves, and in their strict literal meaning, would be pronounced no less objectionable in sentiment than heartless in their flippancy of expression; but, as if to show that such phrases are not to be construed seriously and literally, the same event is spoken of again within a few lines of the place where these words occur, as an "abrupt departure for another world." Still, without attributing to Dr. Combe any personal coldness or want of natural affection, it must be admitted that his teaching is too often peculiarly unimpassioned and rationalistic.

Upon religious subjects his history is we fear a too common one. Brought up in the bosom of a hard and coarsely expressed predestinarianism, his reason rejected its conclusions, and, not having studied the subject sufficiently to be able to winnow the chaff and husk of the doctrine from the good corn within, we fear he altogether abandoned Christianity as a scheme of redemption, and, with an inconsistency by no means uncommon, transferred his faith from a Calvinistic fatalism which he judged to be unreasonable, to a fatalism as obviously unreasonable that of phrenology. If properly considered,

the two doctrines, as stated by their respective defenders, are merely different distortions of the same truth. In both, man is represented as the passive subject of an impulse which moves him onward to a fate which it is not possible for him to escape.

Love of purity, attachment to truth, and reverence for a beneficent Creator, were constant feelings of Dr. Combe's generous nature, but not his, alas! the blessing of that completer faith which would have added a tenfold power to his teaching, and would have gilded the weary period of his long decay with many a glorious hope. He unfortunately added another to the too long list of medical men, of whom, in the words of old Chaucer, it may be said,

His studie was but litel on the Bible.

Besides the works which we have already mentioned, Dr. Combe published a work in 1831 on mental derangement, which he seems to have allowed to fall out of print, although his attention was ever alive to the proper treatment of the insane. He also reprinted a valuable book by Dr. Beaumont, an American physician, containing some curious observations and experiments on gastric juice and digestion practised upon Alexis St. Martin, a young man who had an external opening into the stomach. Besides these separate works, Dr. Combe contributed many papers to the Phrenological Journal, and to Dr. Forbes's British and Foreign Medical Review, and a valuable letter on medical education communicated to the University of London. His writings have unquestionably done much good, and they will yet do much more. They have a tendency to raise the character and aims of medical practice, by giving it that foundation upon true principle which is more entirely indispensable in medicine than in any other science. Without it the tentative efforts of our practitioners are mere ignorant experiments; and yet how many of them still know little about either disease or cure save as the practical results of experiments in which their patients have been the sufferers! But the medical profession will be most effectually improved from without. A little knowledge of the general laws affecting health spread

abroad amongst the people at large by means of books written upon the sound views of Dr. Combe, will drive out incompetent medical men, as well as stop the growth of much successful charlatanerie.

The Memoir of Dr. Combe, written by his brother George, his co-teacher of phrenology, is very modestly and ably put together, for the most part

from Dr. Combe's own correspondence. We should have liked it better if the compiler had thought it right to have assumed a warmer, heartier tone. He seems to have been restrained, as we think unwisely, "by relationship and circumstances," from offering such a comment upon his brother's character as he alone could give.

THE OLD GENEALOGICAL OAK PRESS IN THE POSSESSION OF THE POET WORDSWORTH.

[IN illustration of the following very acceptable communication from the historian of Hallamshire, we may remind our readers, that in our biography of the poet Words. worth, contained in our last number (p. 668), allusion is made to an old press or armoire made in the year 1525 at the expense of an ancestor of the poet, one William Wordsworth of Peniston. Carved upon that same oak press is an inscription which furnishes a pedigree of the family for several generations anterior to the William of 1525. This singular relic of family history was formerly in the possession of the late Mr. Beaumont, but as we stated, upon the authority of a recent Yorkshire newspaper, it was restored by him to the Wordsworth family about ten years ago.]

June 10.

MR. URBAN, THE old oak press or armoire, with the genealogical inscription of the family of Wordsworth, of which you speak at p. 668, is a very singular and perhaps unique work of its kind. The inscription may be rendered thus: "This work was made in the year 1525, at the expense of William Wordesworth, son of William, son of John, son of William, son of Nicholas, husband of Elizabeth, daughter and heir of William Proctor [or the proctor], of Peniston, on whose soul may God have mercy."

It seems to shew what brought the Wordsworths to Peniston, in Yorkshire, where the family existed for several centuries in different branches, where this singular work was executed, and where it remained till towards the close of the eighteenth century. They were in all their generations, and in all their branches, leading people in the parish affairs; and those of the family who removed from Peniston and were settled in neighbouring parishes, or in towns at no great distance, as at Sheffield and Doncaster, maintained a highly respectable social position. Their descendants attained a distinction far in advance of those who remained at Peniston, who, seem, indeed, not to have been so

fortunate as their ancestors and more distant relatives.

Of the branches of the family which had become planted in the neighbourhood of the parish of Peniston, the Wordsworths of Sheffield became ultitimately represented by the families of two ladies who married Sir Charles Kent, Bart. and Mr. Verelst, the governor of Bengal. The Wordsworths of Falthwaite, in the adjoining parish of Silkston, produced the late Master of Trinity, and his brother William Wordsworth, whose name would give a distinction and lustre to any family however otherwise illustrious it might be.

The information which you have gathered from a recent Yorkshire paper respecting the possession of the oak press by the late Mr. Wordsworth is perfectly correct, and perhaps you may think a short account of the manner in which he became possessed of it not unworthy a place in your Miscellany. I am able to give it, having myself had something to do in the transaction.

In the autumn of 1831, when spending a week or ten days in the lake-country, I had an introduction to Mr. Wordsworth, which was the first opportunity I enjoyed of conversing with this remarkable man. In the course of one of our conversations I happened

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