Thomas Beddoes to James Watt, 30 March 1795
Dear Sir
You will probably be startled when you read your name on the page destined to dedication; but I cannot prevail upon myself to send these Considerations a second time abroad, without acknowledging my satisfaction in having had you for a fellow labourer. To establish a new department in Medicine, would have exceeded my single strength; and I do not know any person who could have afforded me such effectual assistance as you have done.
That the pneumatic practice is beginning to acquire the certainty of a genuine art, may be too bold a thing for me to assert; but if this should prove to be the case, I need not explain how much it is indebted to you for the rapidity of its progress, the means of judging being fully before the public. The zeal however with which you exerted your talents to do good, could be witnessed but by a few; and it is particularly incumbent on me to return thanks both to you and Mr. Boulton, for so liberally consenting, at my earnest request, to manufacture your air-apparatus. The profits were never likely to requite any man – much less persons engaged in such extensive concerns – for the expence and vexation always occasioned by a new branch of business.
Though you have succeeded so far as to enable any one, who chooses, to procure elastic fluids with perfect ease, and in the utmost abundance, I hope you will not entirely abandon the subject. By turning your thoughts to it from time to time, you will not fail to help us forward by some useful hint, or happy invention.
Of those members of the medical profession who have already made trial of factitious airs, the desire of certainty or the uneasiness of doubt would ensure the perseverance, even though they had met with no direct encouragement. Others will feel it their duty or interest to adopt the same practice. Nor will the sick or their friends be universally quieted by unmeaning objections or overawed by that authoritative tone which ignorance and medical ignorance, more especially is so apt to assume. Notwithstanding the times, a much more lively interest has been manifested by the public in this arduous undertaking than I could have expected. And should the pursuit, which I by no means apprehend, be abandoned here, it will be continued in other countries. I could prove by sufficient testimonies how favourably the proposal for the extensive employment of aeriform remedies, has been received in different parts of the civilized world. At present, I shall only remark, that a celebrated American physician is composing a work, to explain the most remarkable appearances of the yellow fever of Philadelphia, according to the principles stated in the following pages. Should his explanation be true to nature, the same principles will doubtless suggest effectual means for checking the ravages of this consuming disorder in future.
No contingencies therefore, it should seem, can altogether put a premature end to these interesting researches. When the time for balancing success and failure shall arrive, the result, I trust, will not diminish the satisfaction you must have derived from cases within your certain knowledge.
I am, dear Sir,
Your’s with sincere esteem,
Thomas Beddoes
Clifton, March 30, 1795.
Published: Considerations (1795), Parts I and II, pp. 1–4.