Page:Lives of British Physicians.djvu/132

 114 BRITISH PHYSICIANS. few vials, a skeleton, and a herbal, in one corner * of liis room. He became Bachelor of Medicine in 1675, and immediately began the exercise of his profession in the city of Oxford itself. At his first entrance upon the stage of action, he fell foul of the apothecaries, and experienced no small opposition from Foulks and Adams, two of the most eminent of that calling, who decried his method of practice, more espe- cially because it was contrary to the one adopted by Dr. Lydal, at that time the most celebrated practitioner in the University. The method of Lydal was slow ; that of RadclilTe expeditious, prompt, and decisive ; and the superiority of talent and good sense in the latter became soon so con- spicuous, that his opponents, the apothecaries themselves, were obhged to make interest with him, " to have his prescriptions on their files." His success, as may readily be believed, was not viewed without feelings of envy, and his rivals maintained that his cures were only guess-work, and affected sarcastically to regret that his friends, instead of breeding him up to physic, had not made a scholar of him. On the other hand, Radcliffe was not wanting in his own defence, nor sparing of abuse towards his antagonists, whom he be- spattered with all sorts of opprobrious names, and derided, because of the slops, caudles, and diet drinks with which they drenched their patients. It was neither, however, by his abuse of others, nor by any empirical boldness, that, at this early period of his medical career, he seems to have .completely gained the confidence of the public.