best known, though less valued by his own pupils and immediate successors than his earlier works. In this, the ‘Essay on Disease of the Supra-renal Capsules,’ he announced a discovery of remarkable originality, viz., that these organs, not previously known to be the seat of any definite disease, were in certain cases affected in such a way as to produce a fatal malady, with well-marked symptoms, including a remarkable discoloration of the skin, and now known as ‘Addison's disease.’ The novelty of Addison's views, as well as the rarity of the phenomena by which they could be confirmed, caused them to be received with much incredulity, and two memoirs relating similar cases, not written but supported by Addison, were declined by a London medical society to which they were presented for publication. But the reality of the facts and the correctness of Addison's explanation are now generally admitted, both in this country and abroad. Although the disease, from its rarity, has fortunately no great practical importance, its discovery remains one of the most brilliant achievements of medicine in the nineteenth century. To the therapeutical side of medicine Addison devoted less attention, and in this he was less successful than in research. Partly from this cause, and partly, perhaps, from defects of manner which are attributed to him, he never obtained a large practice or accumulated great wealth; but, indeed, to both these objects of the ambition of many men, Addison seems to have been comparatively indifferent. His soul was in his hospital work; the correct diagnosis of disease, the efficient instruction of his pupils, and the prosperity of the Guy's medical school were the objects for which he lived.
Addison's independent publications were: 1. ‘An Essay upon the Operation of Poisonous Agents’ (jointly with John Morgan), 8vo, London, 1829. 2. ‘Observations on the Disorders of Females connected with Uterine Irritation,’ 8vo, London, 1830. 3. ‘Elements of Practice of Medicine’ (jointly with Richard Bright, M.D., but chiefly by Addison), vol. i. only published, 8vo, London, 1839. 4. ‘On Disease of the Supra-renal Capsules,’ 4to, London, 1855.
His other memoirs were chiefly published in the Guy's Hospital reports for various years, and republished as ‘A Collection of the Published Writings,’ &c. Edited by Dr Wilks and Dr. Daldy. New Sydenham Society, London, 1868.
[Munk's Roll of the Royal College of Physicians, 2nd edition, iii. 205, London, 1878; Biography prefixed to Syd. Soc. collection above cited; Greenhow's Lectures on Addison's Disease, London, 1875; Lonsdale's Worthies of Cumberland, London, 1873.]
ADDY, WILLIAM (fl. 1685), a writing-master in London, was the author of a system of shorthand published in 1685. The method, a modification of that of Jeremiah Rich, was so much practised that the Bible, the New Testament, and the Singing Psalms were published, according to its system, two years later. The 1695 edition of his work was entitled ‘Stenographia, or the Art of Short-Writing compleated in a far more compendious methode than any yet extant,’ 12mo. It was engraved throughout. The Bible had a portrait of Addy, engraved by Sturt from a painting by Barker; and the same engraver executed the rest of the work. In subsequent editions of the Bible the preliminary leaves were changed, and the book dedicated to King William. All the title-pages are dated 1687.
[James H. Lewis's Hist. of Shorthand, p. 94.]
ADEL- [See Ethel-]
ADELA (1062?–1137), mother of Stephen, king of England, and the fourth, and probably the youngest, daughter of William the Conqueror and Matilda of Flanders, was born about 1062. Her beauty and valour in her early years are described by many contemporary Norman chroniclers. While she was still a child she was affianced to Simon Crispin, earl of Amiens, the son and heir of Ralph, earl of Valois and Mantes, who received his military training at the court of William the Conqueror. But soon after his father's death in 1074 Simon fell into a settled melancholy; and on being summoned in 1077 to marry Adela, he refused, and withdrew to a monastery. But already in 1075 Adela had been demanded in marriage by Stephen, earl of Meaux and Brie, son and heir of Theobald, earl of Blois and Chartres, a powerful neighbour of William the Conqueror in Normandy; and although Stephen's suit had at first been unfavourably received, it was repeated in 1080, and readily accepted by William and his nobles. Adela was married in the same year at Breteuil, and the ceremony was repeated with much splendour at Chartres, the chief town in her father-in-law's dominion. Baldric of Anjou, abbot of Bourgeuil, and other courtly poets, speak of her at the time as being her father's equal in bravery, a Latin and Greek scholar, and a generous patron of poetry, at which she was herself an adept (Histoire Littéraire de la France, vii. 152, ix. 131).
In 1090, on the death of Theobald, her
