Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 36.djvu/128

  no other instance of these two degrees being taken on successive days, and the indulgence may have been due to the queen's interposition. He joined the London College of Physicians, and was elected fellow about 1578. He was the first registrar of the college, and after filling that office for two years, he was on 3 Nov. 1581 elected for life. He was to have 40s. a year, paid quarterly, besides various fees of 3s. 4d. 'The duties of his office,' says Dr. Munk, 'he performed with the greatest care and diligence, as the annals themselves sufficiently testify.' In early life he had been noted for his caligraphy [sic], and while a B.A. had the honour of writing out a document to be presented to the lord chancellor. He filled various other college offices, viz. censor (1585, 1586), elect (1597), and consiliarius (1598, 1600, 1603, 1604). He renewed his acquaintance with the queen, and was appointed chief of the royal physicians. At the age of fifty-three in 1589 he was admitted to Gray's Inn, an honorary distinction which other well-known men of the time accepted. In September 1596 he accompanied the lord high admiral, Howard, in the expedition against Cadiz, and there is in the British Museum (Sloane 226) a beautiful manuscript (probably written by himself) entitled 'A Breefe and a true Discourse of the late honorable Voyage unto Spaine, and of the wynning, sacking, and burning of the famous Towne of Cadiz there, and of the miraculous ouerthrowe of the Spanishe Navie at that tyme, with a reporte of all other Accidents thereunto appertayning, by Doctor Marbeck attending upon the person of the right honorable the Lorde highe Admirall of England all the tyme of the said Action.' Another manuscript copy is in the Bodleian Library (Rawlinson MS. D. 124), and it is printed, without Marbeck's name, in Hakluyt's 'Voyages,' London, 1599, i. 607. A pamphlet, entitled 'A Defence of Tobacco,' London, 1602, is assigned to Marbeck because his name appears in an acrostic forming the dedication. A copy is in the British Museum. He died at the beginning of July 1605, and was buried in St. Giles's, Cripplegate, London.

 MARCET, ALEXANDER JOHN GASPARD, M.D. (1770–1822), physician, was born in 1770 at Geneva, and received his school education there. He went to the university of Edinburgh, where he became M.D. on 24 June 1797, writing a thesis on diabetes, printed at Edinburgh in the same year. On the title-page he uses only the first of his Christian names. The essay is for the most part a compilation, and contains no evidence of clinical experience, but is interesting as showing in several passages that the author had already an inclination for chemical experiments. He took a house in London, and was admitted a licentiate of the College of Physicians on 25 June 1799. Guy's Hospital did not then require any higher diploma, and he became one of its physicians on 18 April 1804. In 1805 he contributed an essay, 'A Chemical Account of the Brighton Chalybeate,' to a new edition of the 'Treatise on Mineral Waters' of his colleague, Dr. [q. v.] This was also published in the same year as a separate octavo pamphlet of seventy-four pages. He describes a variety of experiments of the rudimentary chemistry of that period made with the water of a chalybeate spring called the Wick, and shows that, unlike the Tonbridge spa, it might be drunk warm without any precipitation of iron. He took charge of the temporary military hospital at Portsmouth in 1809 for some months, when it contained invalids from Walcheren. He married Jane Haldimand [see ], lived in Russell Square, and, as he grew wealthier, grew less and less inclined for medical practice. He became lecturer on chemistry at Guy's Hospital, and published in 1817 'An Essay on the Chemical History and Medical Treatment of Calculous Disorders.' This contains much information and some good drawings. He complains that he was unable to give full statistics, as no great London hospital then kept any regular record of cases. He was probably the first to remark that the pain of a renal calculus is oftenest due to its passage down a ureter, and that it may grow in the kidney without the patient suffering acutely at all. He retired from the staff of Guy's Hospital 10 March 1819, and went to live in Geneva, where he was appointed honorary professor of chemistry. He visited England in 1821, and died, when preparing to return to Geneva, in Great Coram Street, London, 19 Oct. 1822. He had been elected F.R.S. in 1815, and published some chemical papers in the 'Philosophical Transactions.' His portrait was painted by Raeburn and was engraved by Meyer.

 MARCET, . JANE (1769–1858), writer for the young, was the only daughter of Francis Haldimand, a rich Swiss merchant established in London. On 4 Dec. 1799 she