Thomas Beddoes to William Nicholson, Editor of A Journal of Natural Philosophy, Chemistry and the Arts, 2 March 1800
Letter from Dr. Beddoes, with a Proposal for a Course of Lectures.
To Mr. NICHOLSON.
SIR,
If you approve the spirit of the undertaking, announced in the enclosed paper, pray notice it in your Journal. I hope the example will be followed. Whether the number of persons, aware of the paramount importance of the science of animal nature, is at present sufficient to ensure a reasonable compensation to those who may attempt to explain it in lectures, I am not uncertain. But this æra is fast approaching. I am persuaded we shall see institutions for this purpose, similar to those which have long existed, or been lately formed for important, but very inferior purposes.
The success at first experienced in the treatment of palsy by the gas, before spoken of in your Journal, continues. I repeat my undoubting conviction, that the introduction of factitious air into medicine, will amply recompence the pains that have been taken to bring it about. I had engaged an able director and draughtsman, for the purpose of co-operating with Mr. Davy and myself in physiological researches. But an opportunity offering for his advantage, I of course relinquished my claims upon him; I am much in want of a successor, and I wish some ingenious young man, accustomed to manage the scalpel and the pencil, may be induced, by this notification, to join us in an enterprize which must be congenial to the feelings of every ardent cultivator of medical philosophy. I should make the conditions as agreeable to him as it lies in my power to do.
I am, Sir,
Your’s, with great esteem,
THOMAS BEDDOES.
March 2, 1800.
Lectures on the Laws of Animal Nature, and on the Means of preserving the System from Injury upon the most important Occasions of common Life.
At some convenient place in Bristol Dr. Beddoes proposes to attempt a popular exposition of the principles of the animal œconomy, with their application to the purposes of individual and domestic welfare, upon a plan widely different from that of any existing publication. For his opinion on the advantage of disseminating physiological information, he may refer to his Lecture introductory to Messrs. Bowles & Smith’s Course of Anatomy; and an exemplification of the manner in which he thinks the subject ought to be treated will be found in his Essay on Consumption.
Heretofore an acquaintance with the causes of his personal condition has seldom been numbered among the accomplishments of the scholar, or the qualifications with which the man of business is fitted out for success in the world. Yet it will be confessed, that neither success in business, nor proficiency in the sciences, accounted liberal, are separately sufficient for rendering the condition of human life desireable. And, in part, to endeavour by any combination of these materials, to construct a system of personal happiness, is to project an edifice which shall stand secure without a foundation. – Of a truth, so long and so generally neglected, a portion of the public, it is believed, begins to feel that degree of conviction which operates upon conduct. In this belief, the present opportunity of instruction is offered to those who may be desirous of it.
If it be allowed that the moral and physical attributes of human nature are inseparable, persons interested in the art of education will scarce require to be reminded of the value of that species of knowledge which the lectures, here announced, are intended to communicate.
They ought to prevent many of those mortal bruises which travellers along the road of life give themselves for want of knowing the quality and position of the objects in their way.
By presenting a just estimate of that art to the operations of which almost every one is sooner or later doomed to submit, they should afford some protection against gross medical incapacity or fraud.
They should reduce to their just value many of those axioms that wander about the world concerning what is wholesome or unwholesome in diet or exercise: – axioms which the instinct of self-preservation impels men to take up; and upon which, however loosely adopted, they act with as full assurance as if they knew them to have the most solid foundation in physiological science.
Numbers fall victims to their own impatience under illness, or to the wavering conduct of their friends. Frequently in the onset of dangerous diseases, people by suffering themselves to be amused by trifling domestic expedients, lose an opportunity which no medical skill can ever retrieve. Upon these evils the prevalence of juster ideas would act as a check. Nor is it paradoxical to suppose that the mortality among infants would be smaller, and debility of constitution at all periods of life more rare, if parents (however instructed in other things) were not in common nearly upon a level with nurses in that which it so much imports them to possess – an acquaintance with the powers that operate to the injury or advantage, the destruction or preservation, of the objects of their affection.
The Author further hopes (if he may repeat his own words) to contribute towards preventing the ‘ignorant from tampering with the sick; towards promoting the ascendancy of science over intrigue; alluring curiosity from the pernicious frivolities of literature, and elevating the conceptions of men to the level of their highest interests.’
As the whole course will be connected, the tickets will not be transferable – The number of lectures cannot be determined beforehand – But that there may be little chance of exclusion by reason of narrow circumstances, the subscription is fixed at ONE GUNIEA – The lectures will be calculated for both sexes and different ages – They will be delivered in the evening, and commence sometime in April next – probably near the middle of the month – provided fifty persons shall have entered their names by the 31st of March. This condition is indispensable. Without a tolerably numerous audience, the author presumes he could bestow his time in a manner more advantageous to the public.
Subscriptions received by Mr. SHEPPARD, Bookseller, opposite the Exchange, with whom conditions for printing a SYLLABUS may be seen.
Rodney-Place, Clifton, March 3, 1800.
Published: A Journal of Natural Philosophy, Chemistry and the Arts, 4 (March, 1800), 43–45