OUR PORTRAIT GALLERY. NO. VIII. SIR PHILIP CRAMPTON, BARONET, Surgeon-General, Physician in Ordinary to the Queen, F. R. S., &c. &c. &c. "Atque idem ego contendo, cum ad natuRAM EXIMIAM atque ILLUSTREM, accesserit ratio quædam, conformatioque DOCTRINE, tum illud nescio quid præclarum ac singulare, solere existere."- Here is a very beautiful, but very rare combination of qualities, tending to constitute however, all, probably, that is attainable of perfection, in genius and learning, in the human character. We need scarcely remind our classical readers, that in this felicitous and philosophic compliment, Cicero sums up the accomplishments of his friend and client, Archias. It is for wise purposes that there is an inherent disposition in most minds to gather and store up delineations of character, whether real or imaginary, of man as he is, or as he ought to be. There is an especial pleasure, only to be appreciated by those who have experienced it, in discovering in nature and in fact, what had no previous existence but in probability and thought. Forms of the "fair and good," the "pulchrum atque decens," are insensibly imbibed by study, or by observation, into the mind, and it enjoys its own peculiar satisfaction, "with which a stranger intermeddleth not," when the outline of the visionary and imaginative is filled up by the positive and true. So thought we, when we found with what complete exactness all that the Orator intended to convey, meets in the subject of our present sketch. We shall enter into none of the details of his brilliant professional career. With all that could interest them upon this subject, the present generation is already and sufficiently familiar. We shall not forestall for those who are to come, the future, and, we sincerely trust, far-distant labours of Sir Philip Crampton's biographer. Let us, however, and it is with pride and pleasure that we do so, contemplate him briefly as he is. Briefly, we say, more from the confined limits of our space, than of our inclination. For, in truth, to use an expressive phrase, which is often so apt that we could wish it were less vulgar, it is refreshing to withdraw occasionally from the hot strife under the vertical sun of politics, and, in the cool of dispassionate reflection, trace Science as she moves along her calm and lustrous path. Of all the sciences, the medical, beyond a doubt, is that which interests mankind most nearly. We are not for disparaging all other departments of knowledge when we assert this. But we desire, for plain purposes, to assign them their proper place. In full enjoyment of the vigour and energies of the moral and material frame, we might, probably, feel nearly as enthusiastic upon the head of mathematics, as their well-known devotee, who had no idea of future happiness beyond the solution of eternal problems; or upon the head of metaphysics, as a graceful, but sometimes dreamy speculator, who can conceive no other notion of another life but as an infinite expanse of mind. But we must award to medical science the undisputed VOL. XV. 2 T palm of the true sublime. An authority, as conversant with nature as an inspired insight into her mysteries could render him, testifies with us here, when, in a catalogue of wonders, he leaves this upon especial record—“ I am fearfully and wonderfully made." To have arrived at the summit of this science is Sir Philip Crampton's privilege; and we do not fear that we speak too largely, when we say it is the benefit of the country which has given him birth. We feel too secure from the aspersion or suspicion of ever indulging in unmerited eulogium, not to speak as we feel upon the matter in hand. Many and many an eye shall rest upon this page, and the reflection shall arise in many a mind, that if the vivid and grateful recollections of the most tender sympathies, and most consummate and successful skill, could find a voice, they should make all we have said, or now intend to say, seem cold and weak. We should not be sorry, for the contrast's sake, to pause for a moment, if we could, and think in what odour amongst their patients the practitioners of the day may have been, who followed literally the chart laid down for them by Celsus. "The surgeon," says this ancient worthy, inter alia, "must not have a trembling hand. His sight must be clear and penetrating-his mind pitiless! immisericors !" [the notes of admiration are our own] “and he must disregard the screams and lamentations of his patient!" We should say that one portion of the doctrine here laid down would appear best adapted to procure disciples in the shambles, so far from qualifying the attendant on a bed of suffering to convey the relief, which is so often felt under the influence even of a kind word, or a compassionate look. The steady hand, the penetrating sight we know are indispensable. But for the pitiless mind!-How strange, that when this marble-hearted operator spoke of mind at all, he could attach to it no loftier nor worthier epithet. Sir Philip Crampton's practice is not based upon this principle. It is the exact reverse. Immisericors should be the very last libel one could cast upon him, or his heart, or mind, who ever saw him by the cradle of an ailing child. His mind is not pitiless; but it is powerful. It exercises well those functions so necessary to his critical pursuits. It collects, combines, amplifies, and animates. It is full of that energy, "without which," says Johnson, "judgment is cold and knowledge inert." Sir Philip is a man of constant, accurate, and deep reflection. It could not be enough to meet all the requirements and exigencies of his varied and extensive practice by a mere memory of facts, however aided by all the theories that study could supply. He must draw, as he does, close and well-defined conclusions from these facts; and it is, no doubt, owing mainly to this timely and excellent provision, that in cases where others waver and hesitate, because they see not at all, or, at the best, but dimly, his sight is not less distinct and immediate than his action resolute and prompt. It is evident that in medical, but more especially in surgical treatment, decision on the part of the practitioner is of the utmost importance. But this is a quality not so easily attainable. It is, besides, far more perilous than serviceable in its exercise, unless based upon the clearest penetration and sagacity. In the almost infinite variety of maladies to which the human frame is liable, and in the diversified forms which these maladies are often found to assume, it is obvious that they are more likely to be successfully baffled at the outset, or led through their necessary stages to a favourable result, when with the quickness of an intuitive perception the eye of the practitioner takes in the whole of the case. This is one of Sir Philip's most remarkable gifts. His mind, if we may so speak, maps out the mazy course of the complaint, and if it is to be met at all, soundness and solidity of judgment, together with the decisive energy of experience, shall be brought to bear upon its exigencies. Our readers are all, doubtless, familiar with the likeness which struck Sir Walter Scott, between Sir Philip and Sir H. Davy, in person, if we recollect rightly, as well as in the liveliness and range of his conversation. Sir Philip kindly did the honours of Lough Bray and the Dargle on the occasion of Sir Walter's visit to this country;-a visit made memorable, as Sir Walter expressed himself, by the acquisition of three friends, Lord Plunket, Sir P. Crampton, and Mr. Blake. In conversational power, Sir Philip certainly is almost without a rival. His opportunities of acquiring information are, no doubt, numerous, but he has a happy art of communicating it which is peculiarly his own. With a mind ever on the alert, he finds, as may be supposed, "good in every thing;" and it is obviously his pleasure to dispense it. We do not know if he is more successful in his feeling and beautiful delineations of the more mournful and darker shadows of our chequered life, or in the play of his own delicate and graceful humour, caught from the lights, or eccentricities, of brighter scenes. We would say a word here upon that province, for such we must consider it, of the medical profession, of rendering its peculiar science serviceable to the great and absorbing ends of true religion. In public and in private, in the lecture-room, as in the sick-chamber, a wide field is opened for more than passing usefulness. The days have gone by, and, under God, we are indebted to the present leaders of the profession for the change, when the term surgeon was usually held synonymous with infidel, and when an intimate acquaintance with the mechanical functions of the body, was supposed to have divested, necessarily, the initiated mind of the anatomist of that too vulgar superstition, the existence of a soul. To sneer at Revelation, because based upon futurity;-that futurity involving, essentially, the fact of a new mode of being, exquisitely and eternally susceptible of inconceivable joy, or woe-to shake the Christian's hope-to sap and mine the Christian's peace, is now no recommendation to one, who would work a far wider mischief, spread a far deadlier disease than that which he undertakes to remove or remedy. The science, in whatever department, that would exalt itself above the level which the Word of Truth assigns it, ceases to deserve the name. We are, indeed, happy to have fallen upon days when the specious theories, which do not profess absolute denial of the truth, but still hide their destructive tendency under the more modest and less alarming semblances of doubt, occasion little or no sensation for their unhappy advocates. They may possess all the wiliness, all the lubricity, all the entangling coils of the reptile which they most resemble, but they are partakers, also, of its curseUpon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat." 66 Prevailing so widely as totally different sentiments and feelings are amongst the eminent in medical science in our day, how desirable should it be, were they to direct the extraordinary influence which they possess, in the manner and cause we venture to suggest. It is true, "What man knoweth the things of a man, but the spirit of man which is in him.” The only chamber which we are conscious of our ability to keep always secure and unrifled; where no earthly intruder's eye, nor any earthly despoiler's foot can penetrate, is the chamber of thought. But next to himself, notwithstanding, the intelligent practitioner knows the spirit of man best. Whether it is that, believing him thoroughly conversant with what is invisible and unknown to us—our internal organization, for example, in all the minute and delicate complexity of its arrangement and adjustment-we think he may go farther still, and learn some of the combinations that exist in mind; or whether we feel that in detailing the affections, whatever they may be, of the infirm body, we must disclose some of the secret springs of thought-from whatever cause, the effect is certain, that medical men are masters of an influence, which few, comparatively, in any other sphere of action, can command. If the prac titioner be one of acknowledged ability, and, if so, has ascended high, or attained, it may be, the summit of professional fame, we would say his powers of moral persuasion should be almost unlimited. Under this conviction, we should be glad to see them in the course of application, and to enjoy the rejoicing over their results. We have often listened, with the most unfeigned delight, to Sir Philip Crampton, when in the too brief, we must say, perorations of his brilliant and instructive lectures on zoology, he has brought the well-explained wonders of the natural world to bear on the being and perfections of their author, GOD. We have sat in the enlightened, crowded, and hushed assembly-hushed so still that even Sir Philip's own voice, ever soft, gentle, and low" as it is, seemed loud; and this was the silence of reverence. The lecturer is quick to catch the moment when the senses are wrapt in astonishment at the development of wonders in creation, hitherto unthought of and unknown. Unfolding his subject with a simplicity that interests childhood, at the same time investing it with a dignity that claims respect from age, he wins the attention both of the youthful and mature, and prepares all minds for the reception of the solemn question—“ If God be thus mirrored in the organic life and structure of a sentient being, many degrees less visible, it may be, than a mote, how fair and full a transcript ought not His surpassing excellence to find in us?" Such is the character of the reflections with which we have invariably retired from the lecture-room, where Sir Philip had suggested them, in reference to ourselves. him It is but common justice if we entertain this truth in reference to "Affectuum potens, at lenis dominator, The metaphysician, deep read as he may be in the phenomena of mind, knows well that it is one thing to analyse an emotion, and quite another to produce it. OUR FELLOW LODGERS.* BY THE REV. R. WALSH, LL.D. AND M.D. THERE is no pretence, perhaps, more unfounded, or less capable of being sustained, than that which man assumes to the exclusive possession of his own body. He arrogantly supposes, that because he is allowed for a season to exercise over it some control, he is therefore its sole possessor -that it is made entirely for his use -and that its great Architect collected the materials from the various elements of heaven and earth, to erect an edifice in which he was alone to dwell. It is most true that this edifice is "fearfully and wonderfully made," -beautiful in its structure, cunning in its contrivance, and a meet residence for that immortal spirit which its builder has placed within it; but it is not true that that spirit is the only living occupant; many others are permitted equally to share the right, and to some of them is assigned possession of its very best apartments. This will be most apparent, if we take a brief view of our fellow lodgers. Entomologists enumerate above 1600 species of minute beings, endued with animal life, of various forms and organization, which they denominate entozoa. Of these, 18 are found connected with the human body; some in parts which nature seems to have fitted for their reception, and of which they are the permanent and regular occupants; such as Ascarides, small white worms; Lumbrici, large round worms; and Tenia, flat tape worms. Others are only occasional residentsexterns which settle in different convenient parts adapted for their temporary sojourn, and where they are not generally found: those are called by various names, according to the circumstances of their generation; and some are of a form and nature so anomalous, that no particular name has been yet assigned them. On these last, I will venture to offer a few remarks. It is well known that the fluids of the human body abound with animalcules, invisible to the naked eye, but distinctly seen when submitted to a microscope of high magnifying powers. If a globule of some of those fluids be placed under a lens, immediately on being taken from the body, and while yet warm and preserving its animal heat, it presents the appearance of a bath, in which many animated beings are seen to swim about. In those that I have examined, they resembled tadpoles, impelling themselves by their tails, which they vibrated with great activity, and moved forward with considerable velocity. I have frequently tried to observe some trait of their habits and manners, but the time allowed for the examination was SO brief, that I was always disappointed. When the liquid in which they swam lost its animal heat, the vital principle it imparted was withdrawn, the animalcules ceased to move and seemed to perish, and immediately became invisible in the fluid in which they floated. Of this description are the minute beings detected in the pustules of psora, and other cutaneous diseases, whose generation are supposed to be not the cause, but the consequence of the vitiated fluid. em But besides these, the existence of larger entozoa in the living human body in this way, has been phatically dwelt on by writers both sacred and profane. The earliest account we have, perhaps, is that recorded in the book of Job. The distemper under which the patriarch laboured, seemed to be a collection of entozoa, which we translate worms, forming a lodgment in his skin, and in the integuments of the muscles. He exclaims, in the bitterness of his anguish, "My flesh is clothed with • Read before a meeting of the Royal College of Physicians, at Sir Patrick Dunn's Hospital, on the evening of the 10th day of April, 1840, at which his Excellency the Lord Lieutenant was present. |