is matter in the wrong place. Those who now mourn over the slow progress made in these matters, may at least console themselves by reflecting that schoolmasters no longer believe it to be wholesome to inhale the air which has passed through the lungs of their pupils, and do not close the windows, in order purposely to facilitate that operation.[1] Shelburne used to say that he always believed Bentham to be the most good-natured man in the world till he had made an acquaintance with Ingenhousz.[2] The social charms of the learned physician were not however shared by his wife, who seems to have been a second Xantippe. This ill-matched pair had been for some time living apart, when some of the guests at Bowood forged a letter announcing that Mme. Ingenhousz would shortly arrive at the house. Her husband at once took steps towards leaving it himself, and was only prevented from actually departing, by a frank confession on the part of the authors of the letter.
The odd personal appearance of the doctor, and the strange tongue which he spoke, gradually caused him to be looked upon as "uncanny" by the country folk who lived around. When late at night the lamp was still seen to be burning in the little room beyond the library overlooking the terrace at Bowood, then the peculiar sanctum of Ingenhousz and still known as "the Laboratory," the inhabitants of the village which then existed on the opposite hill whispered to one another that the learned doctor was sitting up in the company of the Father of Evil and plotting the destruction of mankind.
Ingenhousz was especially celebrated as an operator of inoculation against small-pox; and an uncertain story would even connect him with the discovery of vaccination. According to this story he was the real discoverer, and either careless of fame, or unaware of the importance of his own achievement, he communicated it to Jenner without reserving any rights. The two doctors, so the
- ↑ A chapter in one of Ingenhousz's works is devoted to combating this notion. The doctrine which Ingenhousz combated is set forth in Dr. Campbell's Hermippus Redivivus, mentioned by Boswell on July 1st, 1763, and March 15th, 1776; Life of Johnson, edited by George Birkbeck Hill, i. 417, ii. 427.
- ↑ Shelburne to Bentham, 1790.
