Thomas Beddoes to Charles Brandon Trye, [1785]
Dear Sir
Many apologies are due to you on acc’ of the time that has elapsed since I recd
your letter. I have been in truth very much engaged between lectures & societies & fits of idleness. Your opinion of this medical school is I am afraid too just. We are all mad after theory & between the Brunonians & Cullenians Truth & Nature are too much forgotten. For my own part if I was to continue here long, I shd fall into a state of total apathy for all medical speculation & shd become a mere empiric; so much have I been disgusted with the wild explanations of the phaenomena of health & disease, which I have been obliged to hear; nor does it seem to me that any exception ought to be made in favour of those that descend from the chair. Take away from the sum of Cullen’s merit his definitions & descriptions, & what will be the remainder? I am satisfied that as soon as xxxx he shall give way to another professor, his hypotheses will go whither all others have gone before.
When I recd your letter, I enquired of the booksellers if any copies of your book were at hand; but found that few or none had been sent here: another cargo was expected from Murray & I hope that some copies wd make a part of it, but I am afraid this is not the case. It was therefore obviously of no use to advertise a work which cd not be procured: otherwise I wd have complied with your request. And if you will order some to be sent I will do it yet.
I do not think you need be anxious about Monro’s lectures. You will find most of his opinions, such as they are together with his abuse of Haller & Hewson though in a somewhat more modest form in his late & promised works—and they will cost rather less.
Black’s course is the best I ever heard or ever shall hear. But as you cannot see his exps in a MS, you may gain all the information this wd give you from Bergman & the new edition of Macquer’s dicty when it is published. I ought perhaps to except the doctrine of latent
Cullen does nothing but read from his textbook & therefore of late I have not thought it worth while to attend him.
Gregory’s clinical lectures are good. I shall have some notes of them, to which you shall likewise be welcome as well as the cases.
I have < borrowed> MS lectures of the best Professors on the continent, & shall take notes from them. Richter of Gottingen is as highly spoken of as any man I ever heard of.
You desire me to give orders for Hunter’s lectures to be returned to you, but I have the Vol. here & cd very much you wd send me the others; as I shd then be certain of procuring the use of Van Doeveren’s in return for the use of them, which contain I am told many good things never published & in particular long speculations on the vital principle. Of these if I procure them you shall have the use.
My friend Skeete is very deserving of all your praises. He knows more about the useful part of medicine than half the students put together. Simmons attends J. Brown & if I conjecture right has some bias towards his doctrines, though I have no direct proofs of this. But it is 10 to 1 that he becomes one of his disciples, for by some strange infatuation scarce any man except Cleghorn of Dublin & Skeete have come out of his den with the perfect use of their reason. Have you any desire of being in possession of the new Ed. of his book which is sold only at his own house; if so, [let] me know.
I hope you will improve me as a correspondent by setting me a good example. If you can let me have the other vols of Hunter, send them to Murray & I shall soon get them. I beg to know what becomes of your Diabetic patient. If you have any remarkable case & can make no better use of it, send it me & it shall be given to the Medl Society for publication.
I remain yours sincerely
Thos Beddoes
MS: Gloucestershire Record Office, D303/Cl/61
Published: T. H. Levere and P. B. Wood, ‘Thomas Beddoes and the Edinburgh Medical School: A Letter to Charles Brandon Trye, c. 1785’, University of Edinburgh Journal, 32 (1986), 36‒39