Contemporary copy: last illness of Charles II, and postmortem examination

MISSING SINCE 1983. Contemporary copy of his account of the last illness of Charles II, and of the postmortem examination. 1685: in Latin. Clinical notes of cases at St. Thomas's Hospital, London: in English, by a later hand. Catalogus medicamentorum in usum pauperum in Nosocomio Divi Thomae. Medical receipts, dated 1678-1694. The receipts following the copy of Scarburgh's Account, and the 46 ll. of prescriptions 1678-1694 beginning at the other end of the volume, are by the same hand, though a different one from that of the Account. The 'Catalogus', clinical notes, and the following prescriptions for specific diseases (9 ll.) are by a later hand, and case No. 127 has a reference to 'Mr. Guy's Hospital', which was not opened until 1726. The 'Dr. H.' whose name is found very frequently in the clinical notes is Abraham Hall, M.D. [1700-1751], who was appointed physician to the hospital in 1733, and resigned in 1749.

1685-c.1730

1 volume 7 ll. + 7 ll. + 4 bl. ll. + 10 ll. + 24 ll. + 9 ll. + 16 bl. ll. + 46 ll. 4to. 23 × 171/2 cm. Original calf binding, rebacked.

Purchased at Sotheby's 27/5/1924, Lot 341.

The papers are available subject to the usual conditions of access to Archives and Manuscripts material.

Database description transcribed from S.A.J. Moorat, Catalogue of Western Manuscripts on Medicine and Science in the Wellcome Historical Medical Library (London: Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, 1962-1973).

Pasted on the second leaf from the end is the armorial book-plate of 'John Whitfield Surgeon'. No record of him has been traced, but he must have been a relative of the three generations of Whitfields, who were Apothecaries to St. Thomas's Hospital from 1754.