1798

Thomas Beddoes to Davies Giddy, 21 March 1798

You desire me to write about Miss Baines in continuation However there is nothing to say – She has declined with as little suffering as possible – I strenuously advised Lady Knightley that she sh^d be taken to Penzance & that a room sh^d be altered so as to be loaded with various various,¹ at will – Miss B seems very averse to Penzance – The exp^t with cow dung &c. produced no effect – & I believe (as I rather apprehended) that it has set Miss B. against me. But indeed how she sh^d not <have> been soon tired of a physician who has done her no good is difficult to imagine – I suppose Capt. Baines will be here soon – In the last Vol. of Med. Annals (just published) is a case of very distinct cure of consumption by accidental vapours, much in confirmation of what I formerly wrote –

I am writing down all the variety of volatiles I can think of to try in the pneumatic Instⁿ which will be set on foot in winter, if the times permit. The no. of acc^ts of cures of which I receive acc^ts are too numerous & decisive to leave a doubt of the occasionally good effects of gasses – the case of Bath shews evidently the power of oxygene over the capillaries – It was an oozing of blood from a cutaneous eruption to a great amount – It seemed evidently cured by oxygene & the cure has lasted many months – Mrs Partington (the medical electrician’s wife ) was very palpably cured of dumbness by the same – but the cure is recent –

I hope Dick Edwards will come in time to let me have copper & an acc^t of the copper process in 6 weeks – I left the specimens he once sent me at Oxford pro bono publico. My lectures begin next week. I shall have more hearers than room.

Can you or your sister call to mind the nature of the vessel in which my Cornish specimens were packed? Was it barrel or box? – Do you think the copies of the paper on hospitals were included? It is somewhere in Reynolds’s premises; & we want some acc^t of the exterior of the package.

I am Dear Giddy
Yours truly

Thomas Beddoes

21 March

Address: Davies Giddy Esq / Tredrea / Marazion / Cornwall
Endorsement: Doctor Beddoes / 1798 / March the 21^st
MS: Cornish Archives MS DG 42/28

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