Page:Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Vol 4.djvu/443

Rh the year 1814, under the presidency of Sir Henry Halford, Dr. Yelloly, Dr. Marcet, and other influential members, conceiving that great advantages would result to the Society, and its perma- nence be better secured, by its being incorporated under a Royal Charter, took the proper measures for accomplishing this object. The necessary forms were gone through, and the grant was on the eve of being signed, when an unexpected opposition was suddenly raised by the College of Physicians, who finally prevailed on the Privy Council to refuse the prayer of the petitioners. Dr. Yelloly, however, lived to see the great change which has since taken place in the spirit of the times ; for, in the year 1 834, his favourite scheme was realised, all opposition had subsided, and the Society obtained at once from the Crown the Charter under which it is now consti- tuted as the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society of London.

Although Dr. Yelloly diligently availed himself of the extensive opportunities afforded by his public appointments, and had acquired universal respect and esteem by the suavity of his manners and the kindness of his disposition, it is remarkable that he nevertheless failed to obtain more than a very moderate share of private practice. In course of time his family had become very numerous, while his pro- fessional income was by no means increasing in an equal ratio ; and prudential motives prevailing over his attachment to the metropolis, he at length determined to quit London, and establish himself at Carrow Abbey, in the immediate vicinity of Norwich. He resided there during many years, engaged in practice : he was soon elected one of the Physicians of the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital, and in- troduced into that establishment many useful reforms. It was during this period that he undertook the examination of the urinary calculi, of which the Hospital contained a large collection. He communicated to the Royal Society the result of his labours in a paper which was published in the volume of our Transactions for 1829*. In this paper he gives an account of the structure and chemical composition of 330 calculi, which had either been purposely divided or accidentally broken in their extraction. The results are arranged in tables, exhibiting, in the order of their superposition from the centre, the consecutive deposits of which each calculus is composed. It appears from these tables, that not less than two-thirds of all urinary calculi consist of the lithates, or have those substances for their nuclei : whence Dr. Yelloly inferred the probability that a large proportion of them owe their existence to the previous formation of such a nucleus, and was led to suspect that carbonate of lime, although

5. Case of preternatural growth in the lining membrane covering the trunks of the vessels proceeding from the arch of the aorta. (July 8, 1823. Ibid. vol. xii. p. 565.)

6. Observations on the statement made by Dr. Douglass, of Cheselden's improved lateral operation of lithotomy ; in a letter to Sir Astley Cooper, Bart, F.R.S. (April 14, 1829. Ibid. vol. xv. p. 339.)

7. Observations on vascular appearances of mucous and serous mem- branes, as indicative of inflammation. (Ibid. vol. xx. p. 1.)


 * p.55.