John Locke, 1632-1704, physician and philosopher : a medical biography / with an edition of the medical notes in his journals.

  • Dewhurst, Kenneth.
Date:
1963
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Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: John Locke, 1632-1704, physician and philosopher : a medical biography / with an edition of the medical notes in his journals. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Hooke also drew up some notes on a Method for Making a History of the Weather in order to find what effects are produc'd upon other bodys, as aches in the bodys of men, as what diseases are most rife as colds, fea vers, agues, etc., or what other changes are produced. 1 Boyle's own contributions are to be found in his History of Cold (1665) and Observations and Directions about a Barometer (1666). 2 Using Boyle's barometer John Wallis 3 found that the quicksilver never ascended much above thirty inches nor fell much below twenty-eight inches. There was, therefore, considerable interest in this subject when Locke began his register 4 on 24 June, 1666, wherein he made daily recordings until 28 March, 1667. These observations, which included the strength and direction of the wind, the atmospheric pressure, the temperature, rain fall, and a few general remarks, were later published in Boyle's A General History of the Air (1692). 5 Locke continued to keep a weather register until a few months before his death, and when publishing his results he stated that he had undertaken this lifelong study in order to collect severall Rules and Observations which he hoped would be to the Great Advantage of Mankind. 6 These weather observations occupied only a fraction of Locke's time in 1 666 when he was busy studying the theory and practice of iatro- chemistry. He began by making extensive notes on all Boyle's books as soon as they came out: Certain Physiological Essays (1661), The Sceptical Chymist (1661), Usefulnesse of Experimental Naturall Philosophy (1663), Experimental History of Colours (1664), Experimental History of Cold (1665), and The Origins of Formes and Qualities (1666). His other reading was restricted to medical chemistry in which the works of van Helmont were his main guide ; and for practical work, he used Le Fèvre's Traité de Chymie (1660), newly translated into English as A Compleat Body of Chymistry (1663), when the author found an urgent need for such a manual on his arrival in England as apothecary to Charles II. Locke also read all the works of Basil Valentine who followed the alchemist's traditions, and though his writings were well laced with mysticism, they contained much useful information on preparing com pounds of antimony, a commonly used emetic. The iatrochemists had reached the peak of their influence in England, and were then challeng ing the authority of the College of Physicians, the citadel of Galenic 1 Thomas Sprat, History of the Royal Society, ed. Jackson I. Cope and Harold Whitmore Jones (1959), London, Appendix C, p. 75. 2 Philosophical Transactions, no. xi, 2 April, 1666. 3 R. T. Gunther, Early Science in Oxford (1923), Oxford, vol. I, p. 319. 4 Observations beginning 16 Sept., 1666 and kept intermittently until 22 May, 1703 are to be found at the end of Locke's medical notebook (B.L., MS. Locke, d. 9). 6 T. Birch, op. cit., vol. v, pp. 609-750. His original manuscript, revised and corrected by Locke, is in the Bodleian Library (MS. Locke, c. 37). 6 Philosophical Transactions (1705-7), 25, nos. 295-312, pp. 1917-37.