Page:A tour through the northern counties of England, and the borders of Scotland - Volume I.djvu/27

 Dr. Beddoes has proved that the Bristolians do not want that laudable curiosity in their character, which is the only parent of real knowlege, when a proper stimulus is held out to excite it, by the useful scientific institutions he has been able to establish under their munificent encouragement. This distinguished medical author held some years since the professorship of chemistry at Oxford; but circumstances occurring which induced him to resign his situation, he withdrew from the university, and established himself at Clifton. This situation he was induced to make choice of, as a place of all others best calculated to afford opportunities of trying some new modes of practice in consumption, deduced from ingenious and profound speculation upon that important subject. The same spirit of scientific and philanthropic investigation which turned his attention to the means of ameliorating this dreadful scourge of youth, innocence, and beauty, led him also to the formation of an establishment in Bristol, (by private subscripcription) called the Pneumatic Institution, for the purpose of ascertaining the peculiar medicinal properties of some new chemical agents, as well as for the general extension of chemical physiology and philosophic medicine. Here his exertions were seconded by the liberality of the citizens, and