The portrait given us by Faithorne of this celebrated charlatan of Queen Anne's reign is simply an altered likeness of Thomas Betterton, the noted English actor and dramatist, and nothing more. J. Chaloner Smith gives an interesting description of this print in his work on "British Mezzotinto Portraits." The original plate was engraved by R. Williams from Sir Godfrey Kneller's painting of Betterton and subsequenty altered three times. The engraving illustrating this paper is described as the last, or fourth state. William Read began life originally as a tailor and became progressively a mountebank and an itinerant quack. He was an illiterate and ignor'ant man for he could neither read nor write, although he essayed to pose as the author of "A Short, But Exact Account of All the Diseases Incident to the Eyes." He visited the provincial towns about Oxford and London for a time and finally went to London in 1694. By means of a few scraps of Latin and his impudence he made the ignorant flock to him from every quarter. One of his charlatan advertisements was headed, "Post Nubila Phoebus; Nihil Absque Deo." Another is of historical interest having made its appearance after the battie of Malplaquet fought on the 11th of September, 1709: "Sir William Read, Her Majesty's Oculist, being very sensible that many of Her Majesty's soldiers must have received damage in their eyes or visive faculty, in the late bloody and unparalleled battle, thought fit to give public notice, for the benefit of all such persons, that he will constantly attend at his house in Durham Yard. Where all such persons bringing certificates from their respective officers shall be kindly received, and all due care taken in order to their speedy cure, GRATIS; as it has been his constant practice ever since the beginning of the war. NOTE-Sir William Read couches cataracts GRATIS, to all such poor people as shall be recommended to him as fit objects of charity, as the poor Palatines. (1) He hath several to couch this month and next at his house aforesaid, where he has performed about one hundred such operations since Ladyday last. And any gentleman or lady shall be welcome to see the curious operation performed." We find one of the hand-bills of this "botching tailor" in the British Museum, probably a type of one previous to his being made "Sir William." It has a large pictorial heading divided (1)_"About the beginning of June, 1709, six or seven thousand Palatines were brought into England, recommended as great objects of charity. They proved, however, both idle and useless, and having been maintained wholly at the public expense some three months, some of them were sent back to Hol'and, and the rest to Ireland and the American plantations." Detroit, Mich., Oct. 15, 1905. VOL. 5. NO. 7. into compartments, the central one representing Read in the act of couching a cataract. It reads as follows: "Oculist and Chirurgical Operator, who, after 22 years' travel and practice, hath Acquired the true Method of performing all Curable Distempers, Incident to ye Eyes, as Couching of Cataracts, Glaucomas, Suffusions, as his frequent Performances on Hundreds, in England, Scotland, and Ireland may Sufficiently Demonstrate, as well in the Universitye and City of Oxford, upon several Blind people, after many years continuance under such Distempers, and who are now (By God's Blessing) restored to their perfect sight that continue after their Couching, which is a Performance that many pretend to, but few perform like him; he does these things upon al! Persons before he takes any Money, which is a Confirmation, that he is not one of the many Circumforaneous Pretenders, that Infest this Land. He also furnishes you with approved Remedies Yt preserve and strengthen Ye Sight in Young or Old, and Infallibly cures pains in the Head that very often occasion Gutta Sereras, Black Cataracts, that are never cured, but means may be used in time, that may prevent those Obsctructions in Ye Optick nerves, that occasion them, You may have faithful Advice of him whither you are Curable or not, and may be Spoken with at his Lodgings from 8 in the Morning till 6 in the Evening." "Hee cureth Ye Poor of Blindness, Cancers, Wens, Heair Lipes, Wry Necks, and Dephness for Charity." In his later advertisements in the Tatler, he announces, "That he had been thirty-five years in the practice of couching cataracts, taking off all sorts of wens, curing wry necks and hair-lips without blemish." He made an excellent thing out of his advertisements, and his knighthood was a mine of wealth to him. In the Spectator, No. 547, he is mentioned satirically with Richard Grant a rival quack eye-doctor and others. London abounded with oculists, ignorant, dangerous and unscrupulous and Queen Anne's weak eyes caused her to pass from one empiric to another. As a mark of royal favor for his great services (sic) in curing great numbers of seamen and soldiers of blindness gratis, he was knighted by Queen Anne on July 27th, 1705. About the same year a poem entitled "The Oculist" appeared announcing the fact and celebrating his skill and magnanimity in fulsome terms. "Whilst Britain's Soverign scales such worth has weighed, That sacred hand does your fair chaplet twist, Great Read her own entitled Oculist. To hail the Royal Foundress of the feast; When the great Anne's warm smiles this favourite raise, A few extracts from his book published in 1706 will put us in possession of all we want to know about it. The work contains chapters on: "Some Errors Committed by the Pretended Practitioners for the Eyes." "A Short Catalogue of Most Medicines Commonly Used for the Eyes, with the best Method of using them." "Of Imperfect Cataracts." "Cobweb-like Cataracts." "The Mistake and Mismanagement of Certain Medicines pernicious to the Eyes." "Cataracts may be too long a standing." "Concerning Drinking in the Morning for the Eye-sight." "Of the Temperature and Operations of most Simples used in the Diseases of the Eyes." From the various chapters the following are selected: "Nothing being more common than as soon as a Patient complains of Pain, or any other Grief of the Eyes, to have recourse to all sorts of Medicines without any regard to their Vertues or the true Nature of the Disease." "Some of them lick the Eye with their Tongues, some draw a cutting Grass through the eye, and smooth it with a gold ring; some put a lowse into the eyes, etc." "There is especially a gross and most pernicious abuse among some pretended Practitioners, in the use of certain sharp Waters, in cases of sharp Defluctions into the Eye which causing a hollow Ulcer of the CORNEA, they mistake for a PEARL or WEB. By the use of sharp Waters, the Ulcer is not only made larger and deeper, but also oftentimes the Membranes, being corroded, the Humours issue forth and the Eye sinketh; whereas by easie, gentle, and familiar Medicines, the Pain might have been eased, the Ulcer healed, and the Eye preserved; which I have often done with such Medicines as are without any corroding Quality, but cooling, comforting, and strengthning the Eye.” “Allum, Copperiss, Sandiver, Salt and such like, these used alone or mixed with other powers or Waters made with them must not be too sharp." "GOD hath created and framed the Eyes with such extraordinary Wisdom, and endowed them with such marvelous Excellency and Beauty, that deservedly they may be judged the most perfect piece of Work which is in our Body." "Concerning their convenience and use, they are given unto Man principally for the benefit of Sight, and to guide and direct him to the Knowledge of GOD, in beholding his fair and goodly Works, whereof we can neither have Knowledge nor give Judgment by any other Sense, but by the Eyes, and also to serve in the place of Guides and Leaders to the whole Body." "They could not have been placed more fitly than in the highest and most eminent part of all the Body, as it were in a sublime high Tower and Station seeing they must serve as Spies and Watchmen to defend and guide all the other parts." "According to the advice of the Old Writers, some red thing must be fastened on the Temples, or on the contrary Ear to the turning awry of the eye, that the Child may turn the eye that way, and so amend the deformed sight. In like manner the Cradle shall be set with the contrary side to the light." Read's wealth allowed him to mix with the best literary society and Dean Swift writes to Stella, "Henley ould fain engage me to go with Steele, Rowe, etc., to an invitation at Sir William Read: surely you have heard of him; he has been a mountebank, and is the queen's oculist. He makes admirable punch and treats you in golden vessels." Swift, however, declined his invitation to dinner, having an objection to "Garnet," and a still greater objection to charlatans. He died at Rochester on the 24th of May, 1715, and the couching and cataract business was carried on with great success after his death by his wife, "the Lady Read" as she advertised herself. 31 Washington St. THE PHARMACOPOEIA OF 1900.* By A. B. LYONS, M. D. Member of Committee of Revision of the U. S. Pharmacopoeia. Once in ten years the U. S. Pharmacopoeia is revised and re-written. In these days a scientific book ten years old is obsolete, so rapidly do facts accumulate and theories change. At first glance the new book does not appear very different from its predecessor. It contains only a few more pages of matter, the general arrangement remaining substantially unchanged. Yet every page of the text bears evidence that the twenty-five men to whom was committed the work of revision have realized fully their responsibility to the physicians and pharmacists of America from whom they received their commission. The work should be of the highest grade, since the only reward these men receive is the satisfaction of having had a share in making the U. S. Pharmacopoeia a book above criticism. Physicians are often disappointed to find that the Pharmacopoeia contains so little that can help them in their practice. It treats of the materia medica from the standpoint of the pharmacist, not from that of the therapeutist. It is, in fact, simply a book of authoritative standards, naming and describing the several remedies the physician may prescribe, but giving no hint of their medicinal uses. The present pharmacopoeia has introduced one new feature that may perhaps appeal to the practicing physician, viz.: doses of each official article. In my judgment, the mere statement of an average dose—not a range of dose, and not a maximum safe dose-is not what should appear in a pharmacopoeia. Few medicines are given always with reference to producing one given effect, so that any statement of a dose is incomplete unless the effect desired is specified. Only the junior (or freshman) medical student can gain any information from a bald statement of the "average" dose of each Read before the Detroit Academy of Medicine, Sept., 1905. |