Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 19.djvu/295

 displayed afterwards his care for this society by some valuable presents. Probably also he had an early connection with the church at Lincoln, inasmuch as twenty years after his uncle's death, under the episcopate of Bishop Lumley, he was chosen to be dean (1451). Lincoln Cathedral was then in a most disturbed state from the long and bitter struggle which had been carried on between the late dean, Mackworth, and the bishop, Alnwick. Doubtless the disputes between the episcopal and decanal powers still continued, and this may have induced Flemming to leave his cathedral and become a resident in Italy. Here also he had far greater facilities for cultivating his literary tastes. Flemming is said by Leland and Pits to have distinguished himself at Oxford, and to have gained a reputation for his elegant Latin scholarship. His journey to Italy is attributed to his eager desire for instruction. He visited, according to the same writers, all the more celebrated universities, and formed friendships with their most learned scholars. At Ferrara he became the pupil of Baptista Guarino, professor of Greek and Latin, and attended his lectures for a considerable period. He then went to Rome, where he remained several years intent upon study. Here he formed a friendship with Platina, the author of the ‘Lives of the Popes,’ and librarian of the Vatican, and other learned men, and became known to the reigning pontiff, Sixtus IV, a pope whose sole recommendation was his love of letters. Pope Sixtus appointed Flemming to the office of prothonotary, and he thus became employed in the complicated affairs of the Roman see. In summer, during the hot season, it was his custom to retreat to Tivoli, and here he composed his poems, written in heroic metre and dedicated to the pope. These poems were entitled: 1. ‘Lucubrationes Tiburtinæ.’ 2. ‘Epistolæ ad diversos.’ 3. ‘Carmina diversi generis.’ In addition to these Flemming is said to have compiled a dictionary of the Greek and Latin tongues, but whether this was written during his sojourn in Italy or after his return to England does not appear. Other works (unspecified) are attributed to him. Flemming, on his return from Italy, bestowed some valuable manuscripts, curiously illuminated, and, according to Wood, ‘limned on their margins with gold,’ on Lincoln College, which are probably still to be found among the manuscript collections of that college. He also gave the college copies of his own works, and a table for the high altar in the college chapel. He had probably returned to England before 1467, in which year he was installed into the prebend of Leighton Manor in Lincoln Cathedral. This he exchanged in 1478 for that of Leighton Buzzard. There does not appear to be any special record of his work as dean of Lincoln. Both his predecessor and his successor were remarkable for their turbulence. But the great number of dispensations from Pope Sixtus found to be existing in Lincoln Cathedral at the visitation in 1501 may have been due to Flemning's influence with that pope. He died in 1483.

[Wood's Athenæ, vol. ii.; Pits, De Script. Illustr. s. v.; Bishop Smyth's Memorandum Register, MS. Lincoln.]  FLEMYNG, MALCOLM, M.D. (d. 1764), physiologist, was born in Scotland early in the eighteenth century. He was a pupil of Monro at Edinburgh and of Boerhaave at Leyden. In the first of his five printed letters to Haller (Epist. ad Hallerum, vol. iii.) he speaks of Boerhaave as their common preceptor, and as having been ‘mihi supra fidem amicus et beneficus,’ but to Haller himself he would be ‘prorsus ignotus,’ although they may have been at Leyden at the same time. He began practice in Scotland about 1725, and removed after a time to Hull. In 1751, finding his health unequal to a country practice, he came to London, and made an attempt to support a wife and three children by teaching physiology. His lessons were intended for medical pupils who had not been at the universities, and were unable to read the standard books in learned or foreign languages. He seems to have read only one course of lectures, in the winter of 1751–2; in 1752 he issued a syllabus of the lectures, but probably he got no more pupils, the attempt being premature for London. About the end of 1752 he left London and settled at Brigg in Lincolnshire, on account of his wife's health, and to obtain practice. In a letter to Haller (February 1753), shortly after his arrival at Brigg, he hints at a possibility of teaching physiology at Oxford and Cambridge. The last letter to Haller (Brigg, June 1753) contains a Latin ode on the peace of Aix, ‘to fill up the page.’ In 1763 he was living at Lincoln, and still in practice. He died there 7 March 1764 (Gent. Mag. 146).

Flemyng's writings show him to have been well abreast of the best physiological teaching of his time, and an original experimenter and reasoner as well. One of the Haller letters (iii. 369) contains a statement of the fact that motor and sensory nerves are anatomically distinct, although they might coexist in the same bundle; the experimental proof came many years after. The ossicles