Regius Professor Of Physic Research Articles

Religion, Magic, and the Origin of Science in Early Modern England by John Henry (review)

Reviewed by: Religion, Magic, and the Origin of Science in Early Modern England by John Henry Leen Spruit Religion, Magic, and the Origin of Science in Early Modern England. By John Henry. (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing. 2012. Pp. xii, 328. $170.00. ISBN 978-1-4094-4458-9.) The essays collected in this book focus on a central issue in the history of early-modern science: the rise of mechanical philosophy. New philosophers and scientists such as Galileo Galilei, René Descartes, and Thomas Hobbes claimed that physics could be confined to kinematics—the motions of bodies and the interactions arising from their motions were all that was required to explain any set of circumstances. For many authors, however, a strictly mechanicist kinematics seemed unworkable. Inspired by ideas derived from theological, magical, and alchemical traditions, many physicists, neo-Platonic philosophers, chemists, and physicians held that any physical body, or matter in general, was endowed with “active principles.” The animate nature of the Earth in William Gilbert’s De magnete, Robert Boyle’s “cosmical qualities,” and Isaac Newton’s action at a distance are cases in point. Until recently, efforts to trace the intellectual origins of Newton’s concept of active principles concentrated either on the influence of alchemy or on that of Cambridge Platonism. However, it was not Newton who reintroduced occult qualities into natural philosophy. Several exponents of English mechanical philosophy before him entertained the possibility of unexplained active principles in matter. In the present volume, John Henry reconstructs a highly interesting [End Page 370] “prehistory” of Newton’s natural philosophy. Walter Warner (1570–1642/43), who arrived at his mechanical philosophy by blending elements from medieval and Renaissance neo-Platonism with ideas from Thomas Harriot and Galileo, held that all bodies possess an efficient power or virtue. Walter Charleton, following his mentor Pierre Gassendi, argued that the atoms at their creation by God are endowed with “internal energy.” Francis Glisson (Regius professor of physics at Cambridge) wrote an entire treatise on the “energetic nature of substance.” Also, Boyle did not subscribe to a strictly mechanicist account of physics, as he acknowledged the need of active principles, and assumed the existence of “aerious, etherial, luminous” spirits in all mixed bodies. Robert Hooke used inherent vibrations of matter to explain light and gravity. Thus, Newton’s introduction of active principles in matter cannot be seen as his major philosophical innovation, as has been usually assumed in historical studies. However, Newton vigorously rejected Leibniz’s objection that gravity was an occult quality. Active principles are manifest; only their causes are occult. The author further develops his central claim in essays devoted to Henry More, Boyle, Hooke, and Newton. He shows that the differences between More and Boyle—apparently allies brought together by common interest in Cartesianism and the use of mechanical philosophy—were crucial, extending from their epistemological views to their beliefs about the nature of the world and of God. Hooke’s matter theory cannot be seen as simply mechanicist: his defense of the magician John Dee, written in 1690 toward the end of his career, shows a real concern for the importance of natural magic in the “improving of natural knowledge.“ A close reading of Newton’s frequently quoted letters to Richard Bentley, apparently excluding the possibility of action at a distance, shows that Newton’s pronouncements upon gravitational attraction are consistent with the view that he believed gravity to be a super-added inherent property of bodies that was capable of acting at a distance. In the final essay, the author argues that the leading figures in the magical tradition (including Girolamo Cardano, Girolamo Fracastoro, Giovan Battista Della Porta, Giordano Bruno, and Francis Bacon) turned to the occult not because they were fools with an occult mentality, but because occult traditions seemed to offer a source of help to find solutions to problems that the Aristotelian and Galenic traditions could not resolve. With this collection, Henry offers a surprising and innovative perspective on the intellectual history of early-modern Europe with particular attention to the impact of theology and Christian faith on philosophical and scientific views of natural reality. Most of the authors discussed here assumed that God endowed...

Sir Walter Langdon-Brown (1870–1946)

Sir Walter Langdon-Brown, born of robust Puritan stock, was a distinguished physician, teacher, medical historian and humanist at St Bartholomew's Hospital, London, before becoming Regius Professor of Physics at Cambridge. His contributions to clinical medicine were wide in relating symptoms and signs of disease to physiology, putting therapeutics on a scientific basis, showing the close linkage of the sympathetic nervous system to the ductless glands, and being regarded as a founder of clinical endocrinology. He was the first English physician to relate the work of Freud, Jung and Adler to clinical medicine and a pioneer in psychosomatic medicine and the study of neurotic behaviour.

Sir Walter Langdon-Brown and hormonology at the RSM

Professor Hadden (July 2005 JRSM1), citing Hunting's The History of the Royal Society of Medicine,2 claims that the RSM's Section of Endocrinology, constituted in 1945, was the brainchild of Dr Raymond Greene. This is at variance with what the endocrinologist Dr S L Simpson added to the obituary of Sir Walter Langdon-Brown in the BMJ3 in 1946 in writing that he was the moving spirit in the initiation of the Section, with his inaugural address ‘The birth of modern endocrinology’4 characteristically invigorating and creative. Sir Walter, born in 1870, consulting physician to St Bartholomew's Hospital and Regius Professor of Physic, University of Cambridge, 1932-1935, was president of three sections of the RSM—those of Urology, Therapeutics and Pharmacology, and History of Medicine—before becoming first president of the Section of Endocrinology. His book The Endocrines in General Medicine5 (1927) later gave rise to the claim that he could be regarded as the founder of modern clinical endocrinology in this country. In his Horsley Memorial Lecture6 on ‘The integration of the endocrine system’ in 1935, he remembered as an undergraduate at Cambridge in 1892 the excitement of hearing Victor Horsley give a paper on the function of the thyroid gland. It was in this lecture that Langdon-Brown famously named the pituitary gland as the leader of the endocrine orchestra, something he modified in his last (inaugural) lecture at the RSM by recognizing ‘that the hypothalamus holds the still more important rank of conductor’.

Medical Bookplates in Australia: A History with Progress Notes

A bookplate is a label, usually pasted inside the cover of a book, which indicates ownership. It is also referred to by some as an ex libris. The introduction of bookplates coincided with the development in Germany in the fifteenth century of printing from moveable type. However, the need for a similar device to either celebrate completion and acquisition of an important manuscript or to warn off potential 'borrowers' began long before the appearance of the earliest printed books. The British Museum has a clay tablet, which functioned as a bookplate to a 3400^year-old papyrus belonging to Pharoah Amenophis. On the other hand, the earliest recognised medical bookplate is one marking a gift of books by Dr John Collins, Regius Professor of Physic at Cambridge, to St John's College in 1634.1

Their lordships on medical research

Historically research policy swings between two poles. One pole is research driven by researchers pursuing what makes them curious and the opposite pole is research directed by politicians and managers to solve the problems that most concern them. The 1988 House of Lords report on medical research (produced with advice from Walter Holland, a professor with a particular interest in health services research) identified the fact that most medical research in Britain bore little relation to the needs of the NHS.1 From that House of Lords report grew the NHS research and development programme. But this week their lordships (advised this time by Keith Peters, regius professor of physics in Cambridge and a biomedical researcher to his fingertips) have produced a report in which they are worried that things have gone to far (p 1555).2 3 Now they are concerned that hospital based clinical research is losing out to health services research and research inprimary care and nursing. Their fears may be exaggerated. Most BMJ readers are probably bewildered by the proliferation of reports on research, so I will summarise the story so far. The first House of Lords report was born into the ferment of the debate that preceded the NHS changes, and the government …

From irritable heart to mitral valve prolapse—World War I, the British experience and Clifford Allbutt

Clifford Allbutt wrote “The Investigation of the Significance of Disorders and Diseases of the Heart in Soldiers” in 1917 when he was Regius Professor of Physic in the University of Cambridge, President of the British Medical Association, and 81 years old. 1 Allbutt was a transitional figure in 19th and 20th century British medicine and cardiology, participating in and transcending several medical eras. At the beginning of his career, he had as teachers George Humphrey, George Paget, Henry Bence Jones and Armand Trousseau, while during the latter part of his career, before, during and after World War I, his colleagues included William Osler, James Mackenzie, Thomas Lewis, John Parkinson, Samuel Levine and Paul Dudley White. This rich background and the perspectives attained during his 89-year span and his nearly 65 years of active professional life produced a rare combination of scholar-physician, medical leader and humanist.

Common Room

Each issue, someone connected with medical eduuation will present a diary of a week in his or her life. Our first contributor, Richard Wakeford, is not strictly a Medical Teacher; he works for the Regius Professor of Physic and the Dean at the new clinical medical school at Combridge University, monitoring the two-year course there.

Clinical scholars and health services.

The post-Flexner era of medicine began a generation ago with John Ryle's move from Regius Professor of Physic at Cambridge to Professor of Social Medicine at Oxford.1 Full recognition came in 1969 with the appointment of Richard Doll, the first epidemiologist elected to fellowship in the Royal Society, as Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford.2 Both demonstrate superior scholarship combined with commitments to medicine's clinical and social problems. What distinguishes them from colleagues who work only at the bedside, in the clinic or in the laboratory is their focus on the health problems of populations. They are distinguished also from . . .

Harold Haydon Storey, 1894-1969

Harold Haydon Storey was born on 10 June 1894 at Ashton-on-Mersey, Manchester; he was the fourth child of a family of four brothers and one sister. His father, Henry Storey, came from a family of engineers who established themselves in Manchester during the latter part of the nineteenth century. His mother, Marie Louisa (Ford), was a grand-daughter of David Everard Ford, a congregational minister, and was first cousin of Mrs Neville Keynes, once mayor of Cambridge. Storey was thus distantly related to, or connected with, the late Lord Keynes, Geoffrey Keynes and Professor A. V. Hill, and also with the late Sir Walter Langdon Brown, once Regius Professor of Physic in the University of Cambridge. His mother was a Justice of the Peace for the last twenty years of her life. Of Storey’s brothers, the eldest, John Everard, graduated at Manchester University in engineering; the second brother, Robert, graduated also at Manchester in chemistry, where he was a colleague of Sir Robert Robinson, Professor Simonsen, Professor Haworth and Dr E. Marsden. Both these brothers went into industry after serving in the first World War. The third brother, Gilbert, was a scholar of Queens’ College, Cambridge. After graduation he became Entomologist to the Egyptian Government, and later Secretary to the Cotton Research Board, shortly before his death in 1922. The youngest brother has spent his life in commerce mainly in the island of Trinidad, where he has recently been nominated a member of the Legislative Council.

THE RIGHT HONORABLE SIR THOMAS CLIFFORD ALLBUTT

Sir Thomas Clifford Allbutt (1836-1925), Regius Professor of Physic at Cambridge, has much in common with Sir William Osler (1849-1919), Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford and better known in America. Allbutt was born in Yorkshire, the only son of Rev. Thomas Allbutt, then Vicar of Dewsbury. The initial education was entrusted to a private tutor. This was followed by attendance at St. Peters School in York, one of the oldest in the country, founded not later than 627 A.D. Classics and mathematics were the subjects in which young Allbutt excelled. At the age of 19, he entered Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. The following year he gained a classics scholarship but transferred his interest subsequently to chemistry and anatomy. At the age of 22, the medical school of St. George's Hospital, London, received him as a medical clerk of Henry Bence Jones, who in turn had been a pupil

Studies in RadiotherapeuticsStudies in Radiotherapeutics. By MitchellJ. S., C.B.E., M.D., F.R.S., Regius Professor of Physic, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, England. A volume of 274 pages, with figures and tables. Published by Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1960. Price $9.00.

Studies in Radiotherapeutics<scp>Studies in Radiotherapeutics</scp>. By MitchellJ. S., C.B.E., M.D., F.R.S., Regius Professor of Physic, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, England. A volume of 274 pages, with figures and tables. Published by Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1960. Price $9.00.

The Regius Professor of Physic in Cambridge University

It is with great pleasure that we record the honour conferred on Professor J. S. Mitchell when Her Majesty the Queen approved his appointment as Regius Professor of Physic in the University of Cambridge. Radiologists everywhere, and especially those who are members of the British Institute of Radiology, will be delighted that one of their number has been elected to this ancient and distinguished Chair and they join with the Council of the Institute in wishing him a long and happy tenure of it.

An Approach to General Practice. By R. J. F. H. Pinsent. M.A., M.D. (Cantab) With a Foreword by Sir Lionel Whitby. C.V.O., M.C., Regius Professor of Physic, University of Cambridge. 166. pages. baltimore

An Approach to General Practice. By R. J. F. H. Pinsent. M.A., M.D. (Cantab) With a Foreword by Sir Lionel Whitby. C.V.O., M.C., Regius Professor of Physic, University of Cambridge. 166. pages. baltimore

Disorders of the Blood

Journal Article Disorders of the Blood Get access Disorders of the Blood. Ed. 7. By Sir Lionel E. H. Whitby, C.V.O., M.D., M.A., M.D. (Cantab.), F.R.C.P. (Lond.), D.P.H.; Regius Professor of Physic in the University of Cambridge; Honorary Physician to the United Cambridge Hospitals; Honorary Consulting Haematologist to the Army, Ministry of Pensions and Ministry of Supply; And C. J. C. Britton, M.D. (New Zealand), D.P.H.; Physician and Haematologist to the Prince of Wales's Hospital, London; Consulting Haematologist to Queen Mary’s Hospital, Roehampton; Pathologist to St. Andrew’s Hospital, Dollis Hill, The Finchley Memorial Hospital and the Hendon District Hospital. 856 pp., 20 plates and 106 figs. $9.50. New York: Grune & Stratton, Inc., 1954. Frank H. Bethell Frank H. Bethell Ann Arbor, Michigan Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar American Journal of Clinical Pathology, Volume 24, Issue 9, 1 September 1954, Pages 1076–1077, https://doi.org/10.1093/ajcp/24.9.1076a Published: 01 September 1954

Book Reviews

Journal Article Book Reviews Get access A Syllabus of Laboratory Examinations in Clinical Diagnosis. Critical Evaluation of Laboratory Procedures in the Study of the Patient. Edited by Ham T. H., Assistant Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School; Associate Director, Thorndike Memorial Laboratory. 496 pp., illustrated. $5.00. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1950. Disorders of the Blood. Diagnosis: Pathology: Treatment: Technique. Ed. 6. Whitby Sir Lionel E. H., C. V. O., M. C , M. D., Regius Professor of Physics in the University of Cambridge; Honorary Physician to the United Cambridge Hospitals, and Britton C. J. C., M. D., D. P. H., Physician and Hematologist to the Prince of Wales’ Hospital, London. 759 pp., 12 color plates. Philadelphia: The Blakiston Company, 1950. Culorimetric Determination of Traces of Metals. Ed. 2. By Sandbll E. B., Ph.D., Professor of Analytical Chemistry, University of Minnesota. 673 pp., 85 figs., 107 tables. $9.00. New York: Interscience Publishers, 1950. Plasma Proteins. Vol. II. Symposia on Nutrition of the Robert Gould Research Foundation. Edited by Youmans John B., M.D., Dean and Professor of Medicine, School of Medicine, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee. 351 pp., illus. $6.50. Springfield, 111.: Charles C Thomas, 1950. American Journal of Clinical Pathology, Volume 21, Issue 3_ts, March 1951, Pages 297–299, https://doi.org/10.1093/ajcp/21.3_ts.297 Published: 01 March 1951

The Right Honourable Sir Thomas Clifford Allbutt, K.C.B., M.A., M.D., F.R.C.P., F.R.S., Hon. M.D., D.Sc., D.C.L., LL.D., Regius Professor of Physic in the University of Cambridge. A Memoir.

The Right Honourable Sir Thomas Clifford Allbutt, K.C.B., M.A., M.D., F.R.C.P., F.R.S., Hon. M.D., D.Sc., D.C.L., LL.D., Regius Professor of Physic in the University of Cambridge. A Memoir.

The Right Hon. Sir Thomas Clifford Allbutt, K.C.B., M.A., LL.D., D.Sc., M.D., F.R.C.P., F.R.S., Regius Professor of Physics in the University of Cambridge

The Right Hon. Sir Thomas Clifford Allbutt, K.C.B., M.A., LL.D., D.Sc., M.D., F.R.C.P., F.R.S., Regius Professor of Physics in the University of Cambridge

The Right Hon. Sir Thomas Clifford Allbutt, K.C.B., M.A., Ll.D., D.Sc., M.D., F.R.C.P., F.R.S., Regius Professor of Physic in the University of Cambridge

The Right Hon. Sir Thomas Clifford Allbutt, <i>K.C.B.</i>, M.A., Ll.D., D.Sc., M.D., F.R.C.P., F.R.S., Regius Professor of Physic in the University of Cambridge

Book Review Diseases of the Arteries . By Sir Clifford Albutt, K.C.B., M.A., M.D., F.R.C.P., F.R.S., LL.D., D.Sc., Regius Professor of Physic in the University of Cambridge, England. In two volumes. London: Macmillan and Company, Ltd. 1915.

Book Review Diseases of the Arteries . By Sir Clifford Albutt, K.C.B., M.A., M.D., F.R.C.P., F.R.S., LL.D., D.Sc., Regius Professor of Physic in the University of Cambridge, England. In two volumes. London: Macmillan and Company, Ltd. 1915.

Recent Literature The Historical Relations of Medicine and Surgery to the End of the Sixteenth Century . An Address delivered at the St. Louis Congress in 1904. By T. Clifford Allbutt, M.A., M.D., Hon. M.D. (Dublin), Hon. LL.D. (Glasgow), Hon. D.Sc. (Oxf. and Viet.), F.R.C.P., F.R.S., F.L.S., F.S.A., Regius Professor of Physics in the University of Cambridge, etc. London: Macmillan

Recent Literature The Historical Relations of Medicine and Surgery to the End of the Sixteenth Century . An Address delivered at the St. Louis Congress in 1904. By T. Clifford Allbutt, M.A., M.D., Hon. M.D. (Dublin), Hon. LL.D. (Glasgow), Hon. D.Sc. (Oxf. and Viet.), F.R.C.P., F.R.S., F.L.S., F.S.A., Regius Professor of Physics in the University of Cambridge, etc. London: Macmillan