Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 02.djvu/234

 1811,’ and ‘An Essay on Proportion;’ in 1814 a paper ‘On the Difference between the Followers of Newton and Leibnitz concerning the Measure of Forces;’ and in 1815 an essay ‘On the Possibility and, if possible, on the Consequences of the Lunar Origin of Meteoric Stones.’

About this period he embraced a wider field in the course of his inquiries, and read in 1816 an essay on the ‘Nature and Con[n]ection of Cause and Effect.’ In 1818 he composed a valuable essay ‘On Truth,’ and in 1819 ‘A New Mode of investigating Equations which obtain among the Times, Distances, and Anomalies of Comets moving around the Sun, as their Centre of Attraction, in Parabolic Orbits.’ In 1821 Atkinson, who meanwhile had studied Smith's ‘Wealth of Nations’ and other treatises on political economy, read an essay ‘On the Effects produced on the different Classes of Society by an Increase or Decrease of the Price of Corn.’ In 1824 he produced a paper ‘On the Utility and probable Accuracy of the Mode of determining the Sun's Parallax by Observations on the Planet Mars near his opposition.’ This paper was subsequently presented to the Astronomical Society of London. Another paper, submitted to the Newcastle Society, was ‘On the true Principles of calculating the Refractive Powers of the Atmosphere.’ This he afterwards greatly enlarged, entitling it ‘An Essay on Astronomical and other Refraction, with a connected Enquiry into the Law of Temperature in different latitudes and at different altitudes.’ In its revised form the paper was presented to the Astronomical Society of London (1825), and it elicited very high encomiums from several of the most learned men in Europe. In 1826 Atkinson read before the society at Newcastle a long paper ‘On Suspension Bridges, and on the Possibility of the proposed Bridge between North and South Shields.’ The following year he delivered a course of lectures on astronomy. Atkinson likewise contributed solutions of many of the abstruse mathematical questions propounded in the ‘Gentlemen's Diary’ and the ‘Ladies' Diary.’

He died at Newcastle 31 Jan. 1829, and was buried in St. Andrew's churchyard.

[Memorials of his life, by Robert White, in Richardson's Local Historian's Table Book (Legendary Division), iii. 363–75; also the Historical Division of the same work, iv. 8.]  ATKINSON, JAMES (1759–1839), surgeon and bibliographer, son of a medical practitioner and friend of Sterne in York, is chiefly known by his ‘Medical Bibliography,’ of which the dedication is thus worded: ‘To all idle medical students in Great Britain sit—,’ with a picture of that part of the human spinal column known as the ‘sacrum.’ The author's reason for attempting the work was: ‘Wanting better amusement, and through mere accident, I stumbled upon the dry, dusty, tedious, accursed, hateful bibliography (see p. 365).’ The subject undoubtedly deserves all these epithets, but Atkinson managed to write a book to which none of them can be truly applied. It is full of anecdote, humour, and out-of-the-way information. The scientific value is, however, small, the bibliography consisting of a simple list of editions arranged alphabetically under names of authors. The notes are merely excuses for the compiler's discursive and amusing remarks on things in general. The book is usually spoken of as unfinished, as it is only devoted to letters A and B; but there is nothing to show that it was the intention of Atkinson to go any further. Dibdin made his acquaintance in York in the course of his bibliographical tour, and speaks of him (p. 213) as ‘a gentleman and a man of varied talent: ardent, active, and of the most overflowing goodness of heart. … The heartiest of all the octogenarians I ever saw, he scorns a stretch and abhors a gape. … His library is suffocated with Koburgers, Frobens, the Ascensii, and the Stephens.’ On the title of his book Atkinson is described as ‘surgeon to H.R.H. the Duke of York, senior surgeon to the York County Hospital and the York Dispensary, and late V.P. to the Yorkshire Philosophical Society.’ He was also an enthusiastic member of the Musical Society. He collected portraits of medical writers, and projected a catalogue with memoirs. For many years he was the chief medical man in York, and remained in practice to within a few years of his death, which took place at the age of eighty, at Lendal, in the city of York, on 14 March 1839. He was buried at St. Helen's, Stonegate, his great popularity causing his funeral to assume somewhat of a semi-public character. The ‘York Herald’ observes (16 March 1839): ‘Mr. Atkinson, throughout his long and useful life, has been highly and universally respected. Ever prominent with his aid at every benevolent institution, he possessed the blessing of the poor and afflicted whilst among them, and will live in their grateful remembrance beyond the grave.’

His works are ‘Medical Bibliography, A and B,’ London, 1834, 8vo. 2. ‘Description of the New Process of perforating and destroying the Stone in the Bladder, illustrated with Cases and a Drawing of the