Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 5.djvu/235

 10* S. V. MARCH 10. 1906.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

191

DR. LETSUM OR LETTSOM.

(10 th S. v. 148.)

JOHN COAKLEY LETTSOM, M.D., is, no doubt, the man referred to by A. C. T. His life is given at some length in * D.N.B.,' xxxiii. 135. Born in the West Indies, of a Quaker family, on 22 Nov., 1744, he was the twin son of a mother who bore twins six times. He was educated in England, and eventually became the most popular and fashionable physician in London, a position which he held until his death on 1 Nov., 1815.

I cannot find that the lines alluded to in the query have ever appeared in 4 N. & Q.,' but they are well known, and ran as follows :

When any sick to me apply,

I physicks, bleeds, and sweats 'em ; If after that they chodse to die, What 's that to me? I. Lettsom.

Dr, Lettsom was one of the founders in 1773 of the Medical Society of London, to which he gave in 1784 his freehold house, No. 3, Bolt Court, Fleet Street often, but erroneously, said to have belonged to Dr. Johnson, who really lived (and died) at No. 8, Bolt Court. The latter house stood opposite to No. 3, and was destroyed by fire in 1819. The tablet still over the doorway of No. 3 is the one which Dr. Lettsom him- self directed to be put there. It bears on the^ ribbon at the top the name of the Society. The central figure standing in front of a pyramid is the Isis of Sais, the revealer of the secrets of nature, who presided over medicine, which she is said to nave invented, she having discovered the virtue of the healing plants. The Sphinx on either side of her and the coiled serpent represent eternity. Within the circle beneath her feet is an inscription written in Greek capitals, which translated reads: "I am whatever is, or has been, or will be ; and no mortal has hitherto drawn aside my veil." A sketch of the tablet appeared in The City Press of I think 13 Jan., 1897, illustrating a short article from which some of the above facts are extracted.

In 1850 the Society removed to George Street, Hanover Square, but its present quarters are in Chandos Street, where there is preserved a picture representing Dr. Lettsom in the act of giving the title-deeds of his house to the Society.

William Nanson Lettsom (3 rd S. viii. 500 ; ix. 49) was his grandson.

ALAN STEWART.

^ allusion is to Dr. Lettsom, born in the West Indies in 1744. After receiving his medical education he returned to Tortola, his native place, and emancipated his slaves, thus reducing himself to voluntary poverty.

To the lampoon on him his friend Sir J. Martin answered :

Such swarms of patients do to me apply,

Did I not practise, some would surely die.

'Tis true, I purge some, bleed some, sweat some,

Admit 1 expedite a few, still many call.

I. Lettsom.

He introduced into England the mangel wurzel, and wrote, inter alia, a book upon the medical qualities of tea and the effects of tea- drinking. See Munk, 'Roll of the Royal College of Surgeons,' vol. ii. p. 287.

GEORGE A. AUDEN.

In the early years of last century no name was better known in Camberwell than that of Dr. John Coakley Lettsom. He wrote on various subjects outside his profession, and most of this work, as well as the writing of private letters, he accomplished while driving about to see his patients. Men eminent in the world of letters and of medicine were entertained in his princely house on Grove Hill (the well of Camber, to which, as some antiquaries think', the borough of Camber- well owes its name, was on his property) ; and Boswell celebrated the amenities of the house and the character of Lettsom in an

Ode to Charles Dilly.' J. GRIGOR.

105, Choumert Road, Peckham.

Dr. Lettsom's mansion at Camberwell is noticed in Thornbury and Walford's 'Old and New London,' vi. 279, where are given some verses by Boswell, written to Charles Dilly, " celebrating at once the beauties of the physician's country seat and its owner's humane disposition." Lettsom's 'Life and Letters ' (by T. J. Pettigrew) were published in 1815, and J. C. Jeaffreson devotes chap. xix. of his amusing * Book about Doctors ' to him. R. L. MORETON.

[Several other correspondents are thanked for replies. MR. R. J. FYNMORE sends a copy of Boswell's verses, which we have forwarded to A.C.T.]

G. J. HOLYOAKE : CHARTISTS AND SPECIAL CONSTABLES (10 th S. v. 126, 156). MR. HEMS must have misunderstood Holyoake. It was Bradlaugh who lectured under the nom de (/uerre of Iconoclast, not Holyoake. Well can I remember going with my father to hear Iconoclast give an address on the occa- sion of the death of Orsirii, in which he fiercely attacked the French Emperor. There was much disorder when Bradlaugh com-