|
BLANE, SIR GILBERT, M.D.,
of Blanefield, Ayrshire, and Culverlands, Berkshire, Bart.— This eminent
physician was the fourth son of Gilbert Blane of Blanefield, in the county
of Ayr, and was born at that place A.D. 1749. Being destined by his
parents for the church, he was sent at an early age to the university of
Edinburgh; but in consequence of certain religious scruples, he abandoned
the purpose of studying for the ministry, and turned his thoughts to the
medical profession, for which he soon found that he had a peculiar
vocation. His remarkable diligence and proficiency in the different
departments of medical science secured the notice not only of his
classfellows, but the professors, so that on graduating as a physician, he
was recommended by Dr. Cullen to Dr. William Hunter, at that time of high
celebrity in London, both as physician and teacher of anatomy, who soon
learned to estimate the talents and worth of his young protege. He
therefore introduced Dr. Blane to the notice of Lord Holdernesse, whose
private physician he soon became, and he was afterwards appointed to the
same office to Lord Rodney. This transition from the service of a peaceful
statesman to that of an active naval hero, introduced the Doctor to a
wider sphere of medical practice, but to one also of greater danger and
trial. When Lord Rodney, in 1780, assumed the command of the West India
station, Blane accompanied him, and was present in six naval engagements,
in the very first of which he found himself compelled to forego his
professional privilege of being a non-combatant. This was in consequence
of every officer on deck being killed, wounded, or otherwise employed, so
that none remained but himself who could be intrusted with the admiral’s
orders to the officers serving at the guns. This hazardous employment he
cheerfully undertook and ably discharged, receiving a slight wound in its
performance. His conduct on this occasion was so gratifying to his
Lordship, that at his recommendation, he was at once raised to the
important office of physician to the fleet, without undergoing the
subordinate grades. On this station, where disease is so prevalent among
our seamen, he was unremitting in his attention to the health of the
ships’ crews, and the success of his efforts was felt by the whole fleet.
During this period, also, he found a short interval for gratifying those
literary tastes which he had cultivated at college; and his account of the
important naval engagement of the 12th of April, 1782, which he sent to
Lord Stair, was so distinct and so animated, that it soon found its way
into print. This victory, indeed, which Lord Rodney obtained over Count de
Grasse off Guadeloupe, was of itself well worthy of admiration; for it not
only saved Jamaica, ruined the allied fleet of our enemies in that
quarter, and restored the supremacy of the British flag, but was the first
great trial of the experiment of breaking the line which Nelson afterwards
so successfully adopted. Soon after his return from the West India
station, which he left in 1783, Dr. Blane published in London a work
entitled, "Observations on the Diseases of Seamen," in one volume 8vo. It
contained the results of his own careful experience, and the conclusions
he had drawn from the medical returns of the surgeons of the fleet, and
abounded with so much sound and practical wisdom upon that important
subject, that it soon became a standard work, and was repeatedly reprinted
with additional improvements. On his return, it was found that he was
precluded from half-pay, on account of his appointment having been made
without his having passed the intermediate steps or service. But a still
more honourable requital awaited his labours; for, in consequence of a
joint application from all the officers on the West India station to the
Admiralty, Dr. Blane was rewarded by a pension from the crown, which was
afterwards doubled at the suggestion of the Lords of the Admiralty. Even
this, too, was not the full amount of benefit which he owed to the esteem
of his fellow-officers; for one of these, a midshipman of Rodney’s
fleet—but who was no less a person than the Duke of Clarence, afterwards
William IV.—obtained for him the appointment of physician extraordinary to
the Prince of Wales, in 1786; he was also, chiefly through the popular
influence of Lord Rodney, elected physician to St. Thomas’s Hospital.
About the same time, also, he was appointed one of the commissioners of
sick and wounded sailors. As he was now on shore, and in prosperous
circumstances, he sought a permanent and comfortable home by marriage;
and, on the 11th July, 1780, was united to Elizabeth, only daughter of
Abraham Gardner, merchant. By this lady, who shared with him the honours
and comforts of a long life, and whose death preceded his own by only two
years, he was the father of six sons and three daughters. Having about the
time of his marriage been elected a fellow of the Royal Society, he was
appointed, in 1788, to deliver the Croonian lecture of that year, a duty
which he performed with signal ability, having chosen "Muscular Motion"
for his subject, and illustrated it with great extent of information, as
well as much profound and original thinking. The essay was published in
1791, and afterwards republished in his "Select Dissertations," in 1822
and 1834. In 1790, an essay of his on the "Nardus or Spikenard of the
Ancients," was also published in the 80th volume of the "Transactions of
the Royal Society."
More important, however,
than all these appointments that were successively conferred upon Dr.
Blane, was that of being placed at the head of the Navy Medical Board,
which occurred in 1796. It was here that he had full scope and exercise
for his talents, philanthropy, and nautical experience as a physician. In
proportion as the empire of Britain was extended, the number and length of
voyages were increased, so that the draught upon our island population for
the royal and merchant service was every year becoming greater. But a
still more serious danger than any that arose from storm or battle, and
more wasteful in its silent effects, was that which originated in scurvy,
the ocean-pestilence, from which there had hitherto been no protection,
except at the expense of a long delay by recruiting on a friendly shore.
The causes of this disease were the cold and unhealthy atmosphere on
ship-board, owing to defective ship-building, the sand used for ballast,
the unwholesome miasma of the bilge-water, and the imperfect means of
washing and ventilating the vessel. But these were trivial compared with
the diet of our sailors, which, on long voyages, consisted merely of
salted meat and biscuit. The defective nourishment and excessive stimulus
of this kind of food made the scurvy still prevalent in our fleets,
notwithstanding the improvements by which the other causes were
counteracted; and the point and limit seemed to have been already
attained, beyond which the British flag could be carried no farther. "The
cure seems impossible by any remedy, or by any management that can be
employed," says the historian of Anson’s voyage despairingly, when he
describes the condition of the commodore’s crew on his arrival at Juan
Fernandez, where, after a loss of four-fifths of his sailors, he had, out
of the two hundred survivors, only eight who were capable of duty. It was
to root out, or at least to diminish this disease, and bring it under
proper management,that Dr. Blane now addressed himself; and in this humane
and patriotic purpose he was ably seconded by Earl Spencer, at that time
First Lord of the Admiralty. The Doctor well knew that the only
antiscorbutics available for the prevention or cure of sea-scurvy are
those vegetables in which acid predominates; and that of all fruits, the
genus citrus is most effective. Here, then, was the remedy; and
since the fruit could not be carried fresh during a long voyage, the
preserved juice might be used as a substitute. Such was the cure he
suggested, and through the influence of Earl Spencer, it was immediately
introduced throughout the whole British navy. Several gallons of lemon
juice, having a tenth part of spirit of wine, to preserve it, was supplied
to each ship; and, in a fortnight after leaving the port, the use of it
began, each sailor being allowed one ounce of it, with an ounce and a half
of sugar, to mix with his grog or wine. The immense advantages of an
innovation apparently so very simple—and therefore so very difficult to be
discovered—were quickly apparent. In the statistics of our navy we find,
that during nine years of consecutive warfare from 1778 to 1795, the
number of men voted for the service by parliament was 745,000, of whom
189,730 were sent sick on shore, or to the hospitals. But during the nine
following years of consecutive warfare, that is to say, from 1796, when
the use of lime juice was introduced into the navy, till 1806, during
which period 1,083,076 men were voted for sea-service, of these, the sick
amounted to no more than 123,949. The amount of disease had thus
diminished by one-half, because scurvy had almost wholly disappeared; and
our fleets, instead of being utterly drained of their seamen, as would
have been the case under the former ratio, were enabled for twenty years
to go onward in a career of victory unchecked, and repair their losses as
fast as they occurred. And the merchant service, too, from which these
victories derive their value, has been equally benefited by the remedy of
Dr. Blane, so that its vessels may traverse every sea in safety, and
return after the longest voyages with a healthy and happy crew; while a
spectacle such as had been seen more than once—like that of the Oriflamma,
for instance, where the whole crew had died, and the deck was piled with
the corpses, while not a hand was left to guide her course as she slowly
drifted before the wind—would be reckoned as impossible as a realization
of the tale of the "Ancient Mariner."
The famine which prevailed
over the whole of Britain during the years 1799 and 1800, was too severe
to be easily forgotten by the present generation; and, with the view of
directing attention to its alleviation, as well as preventing its
recurrence, Dr. Blane published in 1800 an "Inquiry into the Causes and
Remedies of the Late and Present Scarcity and High Price of Provisions;
with Observations on the Distresses of Agriculture and Commerce which have
prevailed for the last three years." As he had now attained a high medical
reputation, and enjoyed an extensive private practice in addition to his
public duties, he resigned the office of physician to St. Thomas’s
Hospital, after having held it twenty years. The fruits of his
observations during that period he gave to the world in a dissertation "On
the Comparative Prevalence and Mortality of Different Diseases in London,"
which was first published in the "Transactions of the Medico-Chirurgical
Society," and afterwards embodied in his "Select Dissertations." The
unhappy Walcheren expedition was one of the last public services on which
Blane was employed. That island of fogs, swamps, and pestilential vapours
had loomed so alluringly in the eyes of our statesmen, that nothing short
of its possession would satisfy them, and one of the largest armaments
that had ever left a British port, conveying 40,000 soldiers, was sent to
achieve its conquest. It was soon won and occupied; but our troops found,
on entering into possession, that a deadlier enemy than any that France
could furnish was arrayed against them to dispute their footing; so that,
independently of the fearful amount of mortality, ten thousand brave
soldiers were soon upon the sick list. As for the disease, too, which
produced such havoc, although it was sometimes called fever, and sometimes
ague, neither its nature, causes, nor cure, could be satisfactorily
ascertained. All this, however, was necessary to be detected, if our hold
was to be continued upon Walcheren; and the chief medical officers of the
army were ordered to repair in person to the island, and there hold an
inquest upon the malady, with a view to its removal. But no medical
Curtius could be found to venture into such a gulf: the surgeon-general of
the army declared that the case was not surgical, and ought therefore to
be superintended by the physician-general; while the latter as stoutly
argued, that the duty indisputably belonged not to him, but to the
inspector-general of army hospitals. In this way, an office reckoned
tantamount to a death-warrant, from the danger of infection which it
involved, was bandied to and fro, while the unfortunate patients were
daily sickening and dying by the hundred. One man, however, fully
competent for the task, and whose services on such an occasion were
completely gratuitous, departed upon the perilous mission. This was Dr.
Blane, who, as belonging to a different department, had no such
obligations as his army brethren, but who, nevertheless, undertook the
obnoxious duty in 1809, while the disease was most prevalent. It is,
perhaps, unnecessary to add, that the British soon after abandoned their
possession of Walcheren.
Another public service on
which Dr. Blane was employed in the following year (1810), was to visit
Northfleet, and report on the expediency of establishing a dock-yard and
naval arsenal there. This terminated his public official labours, which
were so highly valued, that in 1812 he was raised to the rank of baronet,
and appointed in the same year physician in ordinary to the Prince Regent.
In 1819, he reappeared as an author, by the publication of "Elements of
Medical Logic," the most useful of his writings, and one so highly prized,
that, in the course of a few years, it went through several editions. In
1821, having now for two years been past the "three score and ten" that
constitute the common boundary of human life, he suffered under the
effects of old age in the form of prurigo senilis, for which he was
obliged to take such copious doses of opium, that he became a confirmed
opium eater; but this habit, so fatal in most instances, seems in him to
have been counteracted by the disease which it alleviated, for he
continued to the last in full possession and use of his intellectual
faculties. In 1822, he published "Select Dissertations on Several Subjects
of Medical Science," most of which had previously appeared in the form of
separate papers in the most important of our medical periodicals. In 1826,
he was elected a member of the Institute of France. Although a long period
of peace had now occurred, his zeal for the welfare of the navy still
continued. This he had first manifested on his being placed at the head of
the Navy Medical Board, when he caused regular returns or journals of the
state of health and disease to be kept by every surgeon in the service,
and forwarded to the Navy Board, from which returns he drew up those
dissertations that were read before the Medico-Chirurgical Society, and
published in its "Transactions." But anxious still more effectually to
promote emulation and reward merit in the medical department of the
British naval service, he founded in 1829, with the sanction of the Lords
of the Admiralty, a prize medal for the best journal kept by the surgeons
of his Majesty’s navy. This medal is awarded every second year, the
commissioners selecting four of the best journals for competition. On the
accession of William IV. to the throne in 1830, the sovereign was not
forgetful of his old shipmate, and Sir Gilbert was appointed first
physician to the king. Fully rewarded with wealth and honours, and laden
with years, Sir Gilbert Blane could now retire gracefully from the scene
of public life, and leave his place to be filled by younger men; and this
he did in a manner that was consistent with his previous career. The whole
island was filled with consternation at the coming of the cholera, and the
havoc which it wrought wherever it appeared, upon which he published a
pamphlet in 1831, entitled, "Warning to the British Public against the
Alarming Approach of the Indian Cholera." After this he retreated, at the
age of eighty-two, into peaceful retirement, where he solaced his leisure
hours in revising and preparing for publication the second edition of his
"Select Dissertations," which issued from the press before he died. His
death occurred on the 26th of June, 1834, in the eighty-fifth
year of his age.
|
