Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 02.djvu/431

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Baillie
419
Baillie

whom Mrs. Baillie spoke after his death as a 'paternal friend' (Trifles in Verse, pp. 40 and 41). The title of the volume was 'First Impressions on a Tour upon the Continent in the Summer of 1818, through Parts of France, Italy, Switzerland, the Borders of Germany, and a Part of French Flanders,' 8vo, London, 1819. In the same year Mrs. Baillie wrote a poetical 'Farewell to Twickenham.' After spending some time in Devonshire, she entered in June 1820 upon a residence of about two years and a half in Portugal. There she wrote a series of letters to her mother, afterwards published, with an inscription to the Earl of Chichester, 'to whose kindness they owe their existence,' in two volumes, entitled 'Lisbon in the Years 1821, 1822, and 1823,' 8vo, London, 1824; second edition 1825. Several of her poems, published first in her letters, and afterwards in 'Trifles in Verse,' describe the beauties of Cintra. The Baillies returned to England in October 1823, and settled in London. Mrs. Baillie died in 1831.

[Martin's Bibliographical Catalogue of Privately Printed Books, 2nd ed. 1854.]

BAILLIE, MATTHEW (1761–1823), morbid anatomist, was born at Shots, Lanarkshire, on 27 Oct. 1761. His father (James) was the minister of the parish, and was afterwards professor of divinity at Glasgow. His mother (Dorothea) was a sister of the great anatomists, William and John Hunter. Joanna, the poetess, was Matthew's sister. Baillie went to the grammar school of Hamilton, and thence to the university of Glasgow. On the advice of Dr. William Hunter he chose medicine as his profession. He came to London at the age of eighteen, and lived in William Hunter's house. Baillie entered at Balliol College, Oxford, and worked hard there at the studies of the place; but his more valuable education was carried on in Windmill Street in the vacations. A lecture-theatre and museum adjoined Dr. William Hunter's house, and in them Baillie attended public lectures, which his uncle supplemented by instruction whenever he and his nephew were together. He taught Matthew how to observe, communicated to him his own love of science, and set him an example of lucid exposition. In two years Dr. William Hunter died, and left theatre and house to his nephew. The museum was ultimately to go to Glasgow, where it now is, but its present use was left to Matthew, and so was a family estate in Scotland. This Baillie honourably handed over to his uncle, John Hunter, as the natural heir. No man could have had a more foitunate introduction to medicine, and Baillie showed that he understood his advantages. He began to lecture, and turned his attention in Particular to every kind of diseased structure, In 1787, being M.B., he was elected physician to St. George's Hospital, and in 1789 took his M.D. degree, and became a fellow of the College of Physicians. Somewhat later he was elected F.R.S. His first publication appeared in 1794, and was an edition of a treatise on the 'Anatomy of the Gravid Uterus,' which Dr. William Hunter had left in manuscript. In 1795 Baillie published 'The Morbid Anatomy of some of the most important Parts of the Human Body,' the work on which his fame rests. It was the first book on the subject in English, and excelled any of the previous Latin treatises in lucidity. Morgagni's 'De Sedibus et Causis Morborum,' the work which may be regarded as the foundation of the study of diseased structures and organs, is long, intricate, and difficult of reference. Morgagni's method, which is also that of the other predecessors of Baillie, is to state in full the history and symptoms of cases, with a minute account of all the appearances found on opening the body after death. Baillie's was the first book in which morbid anatomy was treated as a subject by itself. He followed the plan of treatises on normal anatomy, going through the morbid appearances of each organ. This system, without any loss of exactitude, enabled him to set forth a great collection of observations in a few words. What was common was confirmed by the statement of many observations, without wasting space on the details of each; and what was rare was placed near the more frequent conditions to which it was related. The great majority of the observations are Baillie's own, some made in his examinations of bodies, others in the specimens preserved by his uncles, William and John Himter. He sometimes mentions the descriptions of Morgagni, of Lieutaud, and of a few of his own contemporaries; but he does so to fill up gaps in his own series, and does not profess to reduce into order the mass of details contained in their pages. His work is limited to the thoracic and abdominal organs and the brain. He leaves untouched the morbid changes observable in the skeleton, muscles, nerves, and spinal cord. A short paper ('Observations on Paraplegia,' 1822), published elsewhere, shows that he had begun to pay attention to diseases of the spinal cord, of which very little was then known, but that he had not advanced far into the subject. The pathology, or explanation of morbid appearances, necessarily changes with the advance of knowledge, but accurate