Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 06.djvu/346

 between 1875 and 1879, and was published simultaneously in 4to and 8vo, 6 vols. each. The edition includes engravings of Faithorne's 'Map of London,' 1658, and Evelyn's 'Posture of the Dutch Fleet,' 1667. It corrects numerous errors occurring in the original decipherment, and inserts many passages hitherto suppressed. [A complete reissue of Bright's transcript was edited by H. B. Wheatley in 10 vols. in 1893-1899.]

Bright became paralysed about 1880, and died on 23 Feb. 1883, aged 65. He never married. Part of his interest in his 'Pepys' he bequeathed to Magdalene College. His portrait was painted by F. Dickenson, and presented by his friends to his college.

 BRIGHT, RICHARD (1789–1858), physician, born at Queen Square, Bristol, on 28 Sept: 1789, was the third son of Richard Bright, a merchant and banker of that city. The father belonged to the family of the Brights of Brockbury, Herefordshire, who trace their descent from Henry Bright, D.D. (d. 1626), master of the King's School at Worcester in Queen Elizabeth's time. In 1808 he matriculated at the university of Edinburgh in the faculty of arts, attending the instructions of Dugald Stewart, Playfair, and Leslie in their respective subjects, and in the next year entered the medical faculty, where his teachers were Hope, Monro, and Duncan.

In the summer of 1810 he was invited to join Sir George Stuart Mackenzie and Mr. (afterwards Sir Henry) Holland on a visit to Iceland, which occupied some months. To the account of this voyage, written by Sir George Mackenzie ('Travels in Iceland,' Edinburgh, 1811), Bright contributed chapters on botany and zoology. He also brought back with him a large collection of dried plants; and though this journey must have been a serious interruption to his professional studies, doubtless it had its use in training his great powers of exact observation.

On returning from Iceland, Bright pursued his medical studies in London, living for two years in the house of one of the resident officers of Guy's Hospital. Here he attended the medical lectures of Dr. W. Babington and James Currie, and studied anatomy and surgery in the united school of Guy's and St. Thomas's, under Astley Cooper, the two Clines, and Travers. It is supposed that from Astley Cooper he imbibed a sense of the value of morbid anatomy in the study of disease; and even at that time he executed a drawing, since preserved, of the appearance of the kidney in that malady, by the investigation of which he afterwards made himself famous. At the same time he became interested in the study of geology, probably through the example of Dr. William Babington, and in 1811 he read a paper to the Geological Society on the strata in the neighbourhood of Bristol.

In 1812 Bright returned to Edinburgh, where the celebrated Dr. Gregory was his principal teacher in medicine, and where he still pursued the study of geology and natural history under Professor Jameson. He graduated M.D. on 13 Sept. 1812, with a dissertation, 'De Erysipelate Contagioso.' It was at that time his intention to graduate also at Cambridge, and accordingly he entered at Peterhouse, of which college his brother was a fellow; but after having kept two terms he found residence in college incompatible with his other pursuits, and left the university. Bright then returned to London, and became a pupil at the public dispensary under Dr. Bateman. But his love of travel again carried him away from London, and in 1814, when the continent became open to English travellers, he made a tour through Holland and Belgium to Berlin, where he spent some months, attending the hospital practice of Horn and Hufeland, besides profiting by the acquaintance of other eminent men of science. From Berlin he passed to Vienna, where he spent the winter of 1814-15.

What is known as the old Vienna School of Medicine was then in high repute, and Hildenbrand was the chief clinical professor; but Bright was also much impressed by the then celebrated John P. F. Frank. The political interest of the congress then sitting also engaged much of Bright's attention, and he refers to it in an account of his travels which he afterwards published. In the spring he extended his journey to Hungary, but returned in the summer in time to reach Brussels a fortnight after the battle of Waterloo. Here the immense military hospitals, crowded with sufferers after the great battle, supplied matter of professional interest which naturally delayed his homeward journey.

On 23 Dec. 1816 Bright was admitted a licentiate of the College of Physicians. Soon after he was made assistant physician to the London Fever Hospital, and filled the same office for a short time at the Public Dispensary. In the fever hospital he contracted a severe attack of fever which nearly cost him his life. Whether in consequence of this illness, or from other reasons, it is curious to note that Bright was in 1818 again induced to