Page:Lives of British Physicians.djvu/258

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

BRITISH PHYSICIANS. diseased organs ; it illustrates almost every diseased alteration in the human body, and is now pre- served in the College of Physicians, to whom he presented it, with a sum of six hundred pounds towards its maintenance, and with his medical library. In 1787, in his twenty-seventh year, he was elected one of the physicians to St. George's Hos- pital ; and two years afterwards, took the degree of doctor of medicine at Oxford, and became a fellow of the College of Physicians of London. Animated and surrounded by the labours of the two Hunters, Baillie collected and arranged a mul- titude of pathological facts, which he presented to the world, in 1795, in his most useful work on The Morbid Anatomy of some of the most important farts of the Human Body. This well-known book reached five editions during his lifetime ; it was twice translated into French, and twice into German ; it has also appeared in Itahan. The illustrious Professor Soemmering was one of his German translators : in the letter which accom- panied the present of his translation to Baillie, he styles it superior to any eidogium in his power to bestow. When speaking, in print, of its merits, he observes, in language which is doubly valuable, as coming from one of the most competent judges of the subject ; — " the strictest attachment to truth characterizes every page of Dr. Baillie's work ; accurate and impartial reasoning is every where conspicuous ; and there is no part but what dis- plays the share of attention that had been paid in observing those alterations of structure to which the various parts of our body are subject. Atten-